Fantasies of Home: Heimat in E. T. A. Hoffmann's 'Haimatochare'

Dickson, P

Abstract

E. T. A. Hoffmann's Haimatochare, an epistolary fiction set in Hawaii, defamiliarizes the narrative of an erotic colonial fantasy by coaxing the reader into the assumption that its alluring central figure is an Indigenous woman and then revealing her to be an insect. This article studies the dynamics of misapprehension within the text, beginning with Walter Benjamin's misreading of its title as “Heimatochare,” a mistake that has proved strangely persistent in the critical literature. By reading Haimatochare alongside Der Sandmann, the article shows how Haimatochare introduces a web of “Heimat”-related terms that both solicit the misreading and indicate the insect's identity such that the central revelation is already partially intuited and thus takes on an uncanny aspect. Furthermore, in making “Heimat” present across the narrative and then destabilizing it, the text unfolds an experience of “Heimweh,” where home is both fantasy and sickness at once.

Citation

Dickson, P. (2023). Fantasies of Home: Heimat in E. T. A. Hoffmann's 'Haimatochare'. The German Quarterly, 96(1), 6-21. https://doi.org/10.1111/gequ.12318

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 12, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Mar 2, 2023
• Publication Date: 2023
• Deposit Date: Nov 16, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 17, 2023
• Journal: German Quarterly
• Print ISSN: 0016-8831
• Electronic ISSN: 1756-1183
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 96
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 6-21
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/gequ.12318
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1185495