The Discreet Charm of Otherness: The Fantastic in the Works of E.T.A. Hoffman and Amongst the Ruins of the Habsburg Empire

In this dissertation, I seek to study the fantastic as literary mode in the comparative fashion, through works from two epochs which, I will argue, saw a particularly intensive work of adaptation and codification of the mode in close connection to historical and social circumstances. In order to do that, I will start by providing a new definition of the Fantastic, one which is closely connected to those proposed until now but which departs from them in an attempt to account for the epistemological and onthological implications of the mode. The definition will be based on the dichotomy between Reality, as that which is thought of in a social milieu as being possible, and the Other, as that which breaks down that Reality. I will then begin the comparative section by studying the works of E.T.A. Hoffmann, first in order to expand the reach of my definition by entering a theoretical dialogue with him and then in order to apply a more complete theoretical model to the study of Der Sandmann. Afterwards, I will study the works of a set of writers whom I will call the 1918 Fantastics, that is, a set of Jewish writers who lived through the end of the Habsburg Empire and used the Fantastic mode. I will divide them in Traditionals, represented by Perutz’s Der Marques de Bolibar, and radicals, represented by Schulz’s “Spring”. Through them, I will study how the fantastic mode was changed in order to fit a set of concerns very different to those that occupied Hoffmann, mostly focused on the identitarian problems of Jewishness. I will end by making a final and systematic comparison between the works of both periods.&nbsp