Critics have long sought to elucidate the multilayered texts of E. T. A. Hoffmann by applying to them a particular set of theories and ideas that Hoffmann himself subsumed under the heading of the -Serapiontic Principle.- This principle, which Hoffmann expounded in his collection of tales Die Serapionsbruder, involves a complex intersection of the artist's faculties of imagination and perception. However, Hoffmann's mode of presenting his theory presents an unusual problem: rather than the usual form of an essay or treatise, he adopts a fictional framework, complete with a set of...