E. T. A. Hoffmann

Hoffmann moved in the same romanticist circles in Berlin as Chamisso, Fouqué and Tieck, all of whom were present at the dinner where he was revealed as the pseudonymous music critic Johannes Kreisler. Fouqué was particularly close to Hoffmann, and collaborated in some of what was published under Kreisler’s name. Hoffmann wrote music for words by his friends Brentano (among his Berlin circle) and Werner (befriended in Warsaw, though in fact they went further back, Werner’s mother — described as mad — having lived above Hoffmann’s grandmother during Hoffmann’s childhood).