%0 Journal Article
%A Polly Dickson
%D 2024
%C Berlin, Germany
%I Peter Lang Verlag
%J literatur für leser:innen
%@ 0343-1657
%N 1-2
%V 45
%T Hoffmann’s Signature Doodles
%R 10.3726/lfl.2022.01.06
%U https://www.peterlang.com/document/1466057
%X 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.
%K E. T. A. Hoffmann, doodles, signature, accident, inkblot