"One scarely dares to breathe when one reads Hoffmann"

This entry in Robert Schumann's personal diary is emblematic of the profound impression caused by the stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann. Schumann, son of a librarian in Zwickau, was a voracious reader since his early childhood and he would naturally resonate with an author so close in interests and sensitivity. Some years before the composition of Fantasiestucke and Kreisleriana, he writes again: "In the evening read from that damned Hoffmann", "Read Hoffman, ceaselessly. New worlds" , was E.T.A. Hoffmann? And why did he fascinate at this point the hypersensitive spirit of Schumann?