Die Elixiere des Teufels
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Die Elixire des Teufels (The Devil's Elixir) is a novel by E.T.A. Hoffmann. Published in 1815, the basic idea for the story was adopted from Matthew Gregory Lewis's novel The Monk, which is itself mentioned in the text.
Although Hoffmann himself was not particularly religious, he was nevertheless so strongly impressed by the life and atmosphere on a visit to a monastery of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin, that he determined to write the novel in that religious setting. Characteristically for Hoffmann, he wrote the entire novel in only a few weeks. It can be classified in the subgenre of dark romanticism.
[edit] Plot
The monk, Medardus, cannot resist the Devil's elixir, which has been entrusted to him and which awakens in him sensual desires. On the run, he meets a lunatic monk, his doppelgänger, or double, whose path he crosses multiple times in the course of his cursed and bloody wanderings. At the end, Merdadus discovers by reading the diary of a painter, that everyone whom he has killed or hurt were his half-siblings.
[edit] External links
This article incorporates text translated from the corresponding German Wikipedia article as of March 28, 2008.
