With infinite talents, Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman is one of the greatest characters in romance today. With a degree in law and a strong artistic streak, here is the story of this great multifaceted personality.
Who was Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman
Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (Königsberg, January 24, 1776 – Berlin, June 25, 1822), was an exponent of Romanticism.
He was born into a family consisting of his father Christoph-Ludwig, a Lutheran pastor and lawyer, his mother Luise Albertine and his brothers. The story between the parents does not last long and in fact, at his birth, he comes taken in foster care by the mother’s family composed by the grandmother and uncles.
Since 1781 he has been attending a Lutheran school which offers him the basis for classical studies and where he approaches the world of music. It also starts at devote yourself to art and to the writing of poems and novels without being followed by a teacher who can give him the basics.
In the meantime, the time to start university and, under the advice of his uncle, he orientates himself to the study of law. In these years a series of correspondences began with brilliant minds very well known to us today such as Voltaire, Rousseau and Goethe.
The beginning of the career of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffman
Once you get the law degree he began to work as a helper in his great-uncle’s notarial business before being invited by his maternal uncle to work for a few years as an auditor. In the meantime, he chooses to pursue his own passion for art and music, often frequenting the world of artists. The great enthusiasm that comes from this love is alternated with more difficult personal events.
In fact, he breaks his engagement by creating great scandal within the family and among his friends and colleagues. Although this situation has also quite serious implications at the work level, meets a new woman he falls madly in love with and marries in a short time. The two, forced to live in the small village of Plock, do not live the imagined idyllic life. Ernst writes in his diary to try great boredom and sadness and that for this reason, he feels the need to get closer to the world of art.
Thanks to the move to Warsaw manages to return to serenity finding an environment as stimulating as the one loved in Berlin. Here he makes new friends and fits in literary group “Nordstern” where he gets to know the works of contemporary artists. He writes poetry, continues to paint and studies music, but life in Warsaw also seems to bother him. He hates city life and civil servants like that he quits, leaves his family and Poland to leave for Berlin in 1807.
Successes of Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann
Once he arrives in the German city, however, he realizes that he has not made a wise decision as he is unable to support himself economically. He can’t get back a post in the judiciary and he is forced to live on loans from friends. He is able to recover when he receives the proposal to become musical director of the Bamberg Theater.
In these years it begins to officially devote himself to the world of art because, in an extremely natural way, music allows him to find his identity as a writer and in the meantime painting becomes the perfect pastime. The work in the theater allows him to play different roles by proposing works by artists he prefers such as Shakespeare, Calderon and many others. The social life in Bamberg is perfect and finally manages to produce grandiose works in its fields of interest.