The advent of inspiration is explicitly put in relation with the effect of alcoholic substances in several passages of E.T.A. Hoffmann's work. The artificiality of this condition outlines an ironic counterpoint to the Romantic cult of creative imagination. In Hoffmann, a wide range of imaginary depictions proper of early Romanticism are object of a parodic counterfeiting that ultimately reifies the Romantic categories, thereby revealing their stereotypical character.
