In Hoffmann's creative biography, art and life are intertwined in such an incredible combination that sometimes you take it all for a romantic legend.
The inscription on his tombstone reads:
«Councillor of the Court of Justice,
excellent in his office,
as a poet,
as a musician,
as a painter...»
These words contain the deepest drama of his life, which bifurcated and tormented his soul: being a multi-talented artist, obsessed with art, Hoffmann was chained all his life by caring for his daily bread to the hated service of an official.
In his letters to friends and diaries, the running theme is torment from the discord between ideal and reality, from the contradiction between the apparent and the true essence of things, from the deep abyss between the highest heights of art and the wretchedness of the "philistines", with their bourgeois morality, so inert and limited.
While other romantics sought refuge in the deceptive realm of dreams, diametrically opposed to reality, the activities of a lawyer constantly confronted Hoffmann with the concerns of his time, again and again revealing to him the contradictions of real life. During the day in court he tried cases of petty thieves, and at night he turned into the Creator.
A sharp rejection of the inhumane surrounding world and the ruthless poverty of everyday life, from which Hoffmann could not escape, only intensified his passionate longing for the utopian Atlantis - the romantic kingdom of poetry, where the soul of the exhausted poet would find shelter and long-awaited happiness. From such a discord arises a dualistic picture of the world, captured in the work that is the bright peak of the first period of Hoffmann's work as a writer - "The Golden Pot: A Tale from Modern Times."