A restless young officer, a book of forbidden lore, and a beautiful being of the elements cast a spell of longing and dread in this bewitching flight of dark enchantment.
One of Hoffmann's late fantastical tales, The Elementary Spirit (Der Elementargeist) tells of a soldier drawn by an occult manuscript into the arms of an alluring elemental being, with his very soul at stake. Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (1776 – 1822), the German Romantic jurist, composer, and critic, drew on old alchemical and Rosicrucian lore to conjure one of his most seductive and unsettling visions.
