ALTHOUGH WE KNOW that Hoffmann read widely and was influenced by diverse aesthetic theories (not all of which are compatible with one another), the fact that there are few detailed references in his diaries and correspondence to the works of his contemporaries makes it difficult to identify which of them had any profound influence on his work. It is particularly hard to ascertain how familiar he was with contemporary theoretical discussions and to what extent he accepted or rejected the ideas of his contemporaries. Nonetheless, we can identify a number of key themes that were of particular interest to him and constantly recur in various guises in his individual works, not least the nature of the Ideal and the role of the artist in society. The themes of art and the artist are bound up with a range of other issues, including the relationship of art to love and death, and the concept of Romantic irony.

In German Classicist aesthetics that focus extensively on the imitation of ancient models of harmony while striving to re-create the conditions of a Golden Age of the past, a work of art functions essentially as a means to an end. In other words, it is a means of bringing about the aesthetic education of human beings. By contrast, Romantic aesthetics look to a point in the future when all oppositions — between imagination and reality, mind and matter, and the realm of metaphysics and the material world of reality — will have been transcended.