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Hoffmann’s Signature Doodles

by Polly Dickson (Author)
15 Pages
Open Access
Journal: literatur für leser:innen Volume 45 Issue 1-2 Publication Year 2022 pp. 77 - 91

Summary

As scholars familiar with his manuscripts and drawings will know, E.T.A. Hoffmann had the idiosyncratic and rather charming habit of signing off some of his informal letters not with a signature in the conventional sense, but with a spontaneous self-portrait: a doodle. The aim of this article is to examine such forms by framing them within the context of a broader question about Hoffmann’s doodles and drawings. Specifically, it places his ‘signature doodles’ at the centre of a graphic conversation between the contingencies of the medium and an impulse towards meaningful form. It is in that sense that they open up a space for new reflections on the author’s relationship to writing and drawing, registering a vision of the author not as an authorizing or authoritative entity, held above and separate from the work, but rather as a peculiar entanglement of self and work, whose identity is defined and confirmed from within the act of composition.

Details

Pages
15
DOI
10.3726/lfl.2022.01.06
Open Access
CC-BY
Keywords
E. T. A. Hoffmann doodles signature accident inkblot
Product Safety
Peter Lang Group AG

Biographical notes

Polly Dickson (Author)

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Title: Hoffmann’s Signature Doodles