Frammenti di un discorso della seduzione in "Die Elixiere des Teufels" di E.T.A. Hoffmann

This paper deals with the rhetoric and imagery of temptation in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s narrative, which involves a process of duplicating male figures on an unconscious level and female ones in literary, artistic, pictorial or sculptural works. Retracing the literary and artistic
sources underlying the author’s ‘writing of double’, the essay investigates the role of religious figures in the construction of the discourse of seduction in the narrative machine of the German Romantic writer. All of these by focussing in particular on the author’s first novel, namely "Die Elixiere des Teufels. Nachgelassene Papiere des Bruders Medardus eines Kapuziners. Herausgegeben von dem Verfasser der Phantasiestücke in Callots Manier" ("The Devil’s Elixirs. Posthumous Papers of the Capuchin Friar Medardus. Edited by the Author of the Fantasy Pieces in Callot’s Manner", 1815).