SOURCE: Jones, Michael T. “Hoffmann and the Problem of Social Reality: A Study of Kater Murr.” Monatshefte: A Journal Devoted to the Study of German Language and Literature 69, no. 1 (spring 1977): 45-57.

In the following essay, Jones demonstrates tensions between artistic representation and the social world in E. T. A. Hoffmann's novel Lebensansichten des Katers Murr.

E. T. A. Hoffmann's Lebensansichten des Katers Murr is known superficially to Germanists as a unique and humorous experiment in novelistic form, containing a double narrative and told from the perspective of a lively and endearing cat. Critics who have dealt with the novel, however, have concerned themselves primarily with the figure of Johannes Kreisler, and condescending commentary on the largely unknown Murr section—usually regarding the parallel structures of the two narratives—has often seemed perfunctory. The cat's autobiography presents a difficult problem indeed to tradition-minded scholars who approach Hoffmann's novel nourished...