The Golden Pot

[2] The novella, which comprises twelve "vigils" (chapters, literally "night watches"), begins with the clumsy student Anselmus running through the Black Gate in Dresden, where he knocks over the basket of wares of an old applemonger, scattering them in all directions.

There he meets Paulmann's sixteen-year-old daughter Veronika, who falls in love with him; she dreams of a future with the "privy councillor" Anselmus.

To compensate for his offences and to be allowed to return to Atlantis, the Salamander must find loving "childlike and poetic" husbands for his three snake daughters.

Veronika, who fears that she will lose Anselmus (and her future as "Mrs Privy Councillor"), turns for help to the old applemonger (in the guise of a friendly old woman), who produces a magic metal mirror for her during the night of the autumn equinox.

Later, as Anselmus gazes into this mirror, its magic powers cause him to think that Serpentina and the story of the Salamander are merely products of his imagination, and he falls in love with Veronika.

A short time later, a witch (the applemonger) appears and attempts to steal the golden pot that was a present from the Earth Elemental Spirit to the Salamander.

The narrator, who previously has told the story from a 3rd-person perspective, inserts himself into the tale and reports to the reader on the difficulty he is having in bringing his account to an end.

From the letter, the reader learns that Anselmus has married Serpentina and now lives happily with her on the country estate of the Salamander in Atlantis.

The title of the anthology references Jacques Callot (1592-1635), who executed brilliantly detailed etchings and drawings in the baroque style.

Letters, diary entries, and essays that Hoffmann wrote as he was working on The Golden Pot indicate that it was written during one of the most unsettled periods of his life.

During his stay in Dresden, where he was working as a music director, he witnessed the death, hunger, and disease that were the result of the bloody battles fought between the troops of Napoleon and those of the Allies (Prussia, Austria, and Russia).

"In this letter of 1813 Hoffmann also sketches out his concept for The Golden Pot in some detail: "I have been exceedingly busy with the continuation of [the Fantasy Pieces], primarily a fairy tale that will take up most of an entire volume.

I intend the entire fairy tale to step into everyday life and there to assume its shapes in a manner that is fairylike and wondrous but at the same time bold.

Passages from other letters written in 1813 suggest that this change was brought about by a process that Hoffmann describes as a continuing opening of his internal self.

He concerns himself more and more with his own past, with the aim of coming to grips with wrongs he feels he has suffered; that is, he is going through what has been called a process of mourning.

[4] The author increasingly writes himself into his story, and the finished work contains a number of autobiographical allusions and references to contemporary events and places in Dresden.

In a number of scenes, the reader cannot help but laugh, or at least smile, at the antics of supernatural beings at large in the everyday world of the proud and proper citizens of Dresden.

The theories of the romantic mythologist and linguist Johann Arnold Kannes, and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature as Introduction to the Study of this Science [Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur als Einleitung in das Studium dieser Wissehschaft] also appear to have had an influence on The Golden Pot.

[4] It has been speculated that The Golden Pot was an influence for Joseph Smith when authoring the origin story for how he created The Book of Mormon.

Also, the reconciliation of opposites and the harmony of nature are central ideals, symbolism and myth play prominent roles, preference is given to boldness and suggestiveness over absolute clarity and decorum, and the poetic is elevated above the prosaic.

Anselmus and the narrator, who steps out of his role to become a character in the story, are able to break free of the world of the middle class and enter Atlantis.