The Humanity of Children from Sandmann to Struwwelpeter: A Tale of Two Hoffmanns

Authors

  • Gail Hart

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5399/uo/konturen.7.0.3526

Abstract

Within the context of an inquiry into the borders between human and animal, this essay considers the question of the humanity--or animality--of children as they are depicted in nineteenth-century German literature and elsewhere. Defining nineteenth-century literary "humanity" as a regulating, domesticating, bourgeoisification, I examine E.T.A. Hoffmann's Der Sandmann and Heinrich Hoffmann's Der Struwwelpeter, and follow the sins of omission (Sandmann) and comission (Struwwelpeter) that seem to authorize the inhuman treatment of children. Nathanael, Coppelius's "little beast," is reduced both to beast and automaton/wooden doll and ultimately destroyed in E.T.A. Hoffmann's adult novella. Twenty-nine years later, the young protagonists of Heinrich Hoffmann's children's book suffer gruesome punishments for their willful transgression of bourgeois norms and domestic law. But the children's rhymes produced in 1845 have a revolutionary flavor that underscores the subject's freedom.

Author Biography

Gail Hart

Gail K. Hart is Professor of German at the University of California, Irvine and recently served as Chair of the Department of European Languages and Studies, Director of the Campuswide Honors Program (2009-2012) and Director of Humanities Core Course (2000-2007). She had also served as Associate Dean of Humanities, Director of the University of California's Education Abroad Programs in Germany, Director of International Education (2000-03), and President of the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Society. Her research concerns 18th and 19th-century German literature and culture with a focus on Schiller’s aesthetics and nineteenth-century prose fiction. She is the author of three books and numerous articles and is currently working on a larger project on the meaning of "freedom" in German culture and history 1785-1871 and a smaller project on non-sports bubble gum trading cards in the US in the 1930s.

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Published

2014-09-16

How to Cite

Hart, G. (2014). The Humanity of Children from Sandmann to Struwwelpeter: A Tale of Two Hoffmanns. Konturen, 6, 131–150. https://doi.org/10.5399/uo/konturen.7.0.3526