SOURCE: "The Early 'Novellen'," in Ludwig Tieck, The German Romanticist: A Critical Study, Princeton University Press, 1935, pp. 284-300.

In the following excerpt, Zeydel discusses the themes and critical reception of Tieck's early novellas.

The classification of Tieck's "novellen" for purposes of individual discussion presents problems arising not only from their number and bulk but also from the multiplicity of topics. Two attempts have been made to class them according to subject matter. The first was by J. L. Hoffmann in 1856 [in L. T., eine literarische skizze]; he discussed three types, fantastic, social and historical—an utterly inadequate classification. The second more important attempt was made in 1884 by Jakob Minor in an enlightening article [in T. als Novellendichter]. He found that apart from Der junge Tischlermeister and Vittoria Accorombona, which defied systematization, there were eight categories, namely "novellen" dealing with questions of the day, those dealing with great writers...