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Edgar Allan Poe and E. T. A. Hoffmann: the double in "William Wilson" and The Devil's Elixirs.(Critical Essay)

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From: International Fiction Review
Date: 20020101
Author:Labriola, Patrick

In response to accusations that the horror in his stories was derived from German literary sources, Edgar Allan Poe claimed in the Preface for the Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840 that "if in many of my productions terror has been the thesis, I maintain that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul." (1) There are several indications, though, that Poe could have gained access to German literature and to E. T. A. Hoffmann's writings through Gillies's translation of The Devil's Elixirs, through Carlyle's publication of the German Romance, through Sir Walter Scott's ...

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