Abstract

This article points out the significance of the materiality of written language for the understanding of literature and aspects of poiesis. For this purpose it is necessary to consider the interaction of materiality and mediality from a general point of view. Reading E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novel »Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr« (The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr), this paper explores how literature reacts to technical changes in the production of books and subsequent juridical debates. I read the novel as an intertextual play in reaction to an article by Johann Gottlieb Fichte on literary property (»Beweis der Unrechtmäßigkeit des Büchernachdrucks«). In trying to work through Fichte’s proposals concerning materiality and mediality, Hoffmann generates a new style of writing.