Meister Floh is E.T.A. Hoffman's last work, only available for nearly a century in abbreviated form. It is the censored portions that especially illustrate the problematic nature of certain aspects of penal law that have persisted to this day. Contemporary legal historians and literary scholars both question whether these passages were integral parts of the whole or dispensable set pieces yet each discipline also proposes questions of its own.

Autorentext

Thomas Vormbaum*, FernUniversität Hagen; *Michael Niehaus**, Universität Dortmund.