Hermann Hesse
1) His Biography and Main works:
On July 2, 1877, Hermann Hesse was born in the little south German hamlet of Calw. Calw, on the outskirts of the Black Forest, would become the colorful location for much of Hesse’s work. Hesse was the son of Johannes Hesse, who served as a Lutheran Pietist missionary in India. After being forced to return to Europe after a brief time in India, Johannes worked in a religious publishing firm in Calw, which he also helped to establish. Hermann’s maternal grandfather, Hermann Gundert, spent much of his life in India as a missionary, amassing a vast library of literature on Eastern philosophy and becoming a master of Indian languages.
Hesse was heavily influenced by religious influences as a kid, both Protestantism’s limited ideas and the broader sweep of Eastern religions and philosophies. Both points of view remained with him throughout his life; they were an inseparable part of his thinking. Foreign visitors, ranging from Buddhists to Americans, frequently paid him a visit at his home in Calw. His grandfather’s extensive library was at his disposal. Hesse later remarked that all of his writing was religious in character, but not in the traditional sense, but in a broader, global sense.
Hesse was destined to be a theological student from an early age. While young Hesse showed academic promise as a student, he despised school, particularly the rigidity and suffocation of creativity that characterized the German educational system at the time. His grades were never particularly good, and he despised his professors. He once remarked that he only had one favorite teacher. His poems, particularly the vehement critique in Unterm Rad, represent his reaction to the repressive climate (Beneath the Wheel). Hesse had made up his mind to be a poet by the age of thirteen. He fled the Maulbronn Seminary, the setting of Mariabronn in Narcissus and Goldmund, due to extreme stress. He became so despondent that he considered suicide and purchased a pistol.
Hesse was treated to a number of therapies for his rebelliousness, which worried his parents. These included everything from a dysfunctional children’s school to an exorcism attempt. Hesse started as an apprentice at Perrot’s tower clock factory in Calw in 1894. Needless to say, he was dissatisfied with this. Although Hesse was still a rebel, he made some headway in 1895 when he became an apprentice in the book trade at Heckenhauer’s bookstore in Tubingen. He worked in a similar capacity at Basel a few years later, from where he journeyed through Switzerland and into Italy. After a few lesser works, Hesse broke into the literary spotlight in 1904 with the publication of Peter Camenzind, a popular novel written in the German Romantic genre. Hesse married Maria Bernoulli in the same year, and the couple moved to Gaienhofen, where he worked as a freelance writer and contributed to a number of periodicals.
Unterm Rad (Below the Wheel), Hesse’s second successful novel, was published in 1906, followed by Gertrud in 1910 and Rosshalde in 1914. The plight of the volatile artist and his wife is vividly depicted in the latter picture. Meanwhile, Hesse had become friends with the pacifist
Romain Rolland and had written numerous pieces criticizing the German people’s rising nationalism. Many of these writings have been translated into English and are included in the book If the War Continues… Three stories about the life of a colorful vagrant are included in Knulp, which was published in 1915.
In 1916, Hermann Hesse’s life was turned upside down when his father died, and his son Martin and wife became ill, forcing him to seek refuge in a Lucerne sanatorium. His condemnation by his native Germany for his pacifistic views probably compounded his already serious problems. Hesse met with J. B. Lang, a follower of Carl Gustav Jung, for more than seventy sessions in 1916–17. These were supposed to be more amicable chats than rigorous psychoanalytic attempts.
The outcome was favorable to Hesse and crucial to his future publications. Without acknowledging the Jungian impact, the works after this era, beginning with Demian, cannot be fully comprehended. Marchen (reprinted in English as Strange News from Another Star) and Klingsor’s Last Summer, a compilation of three outstanding stories that originally contained Siddhartha, followed Demian. At the same time, Hesse was appointed coeditor of the daily Vivos Voco and made the decision to relocate to Montagnola on his own. In 1920, he published Blick ins Chaos, which T. S. Eliot mentioned in The Wasteland.
In 1923, Hesse divorced his wife and became a Swiss citizen. The next year, he married Ruth Wegner. Between 1924 and 1927, Hesse published some of his best autobiographical works, including Kurgast (1924) and Die Nurnberger Reise (1927), as well as his second divorce, which is discussed in Der Steppenwolf (1927). After the publication of Narcissus and Goldmund in 1930, Hesse married Ninon Dolbin, who remained his companion until his death. Hesse published Die Morgenlandfahrt in 1932. (The Journey to the East).
The Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi), published in 1943, was the only other important novel to be published. In 1946, Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. During World War II, Hesse was forced to endure the horrors of World War I. Because of his anti-nationalistic ideas, he was once again shunned by the Germans. Following the war, however, his books regained popularity in Germany, where they have stayed until recently. Hermann Hesse died at Montagnola of a brain hemorrhage on August 9, 1962, after collecting numerous literary honors.
2) Main Themes:
Multiple Identities:
Harry Haller’s strange and sad condition is described in Steppenwolf. He is split between two selves: a man-half who yearns for the respectability and luxuries of bourgeois life, and a wolf-half who scorns such irrational impulses. Throughout the work, Hesse returns to this dichotomy, but he also condemns it as unduly basic and exaggerated. The idea that Harry is made up of these two selves is valuable in theory, but, like all theoretical creations, it fails to convey the complexity and depth of reality, according to the “Treatise on the Steppenwolf.” “Harry consists
of a hundred or a thousand selves, not of two,” the Treatise says. Furthermore, this is not only true in Harry’s circumstance, but it is a universal condition.
The concept of numerous identities is most completely explored in the novel’s final chapter, the Magic Theater. The theatre, according to Pablo, is a space where the dissolution of the personality can be performed. Behind one of the weird doors, a man who looks eerily like Pablo informs Harry that the individual is made up of countless selves that can be rearranged in various ways, much like chess pieces. Hesse articulates a highly personal notion of the multidimensional nature of the soul, drawing on Eastern ideas of reincarnation and transmigration of the soul into endless bodies, as well as Carl Jung’s psychoanalytic theories.
The Existence of a World Beyond Time:
Hermine emphasizes “eternity” in her most passionate and revealing conversation with Harry, the day before the Fancy Dress Ball. “At the back of time,” Eternity exists. It is the domain of all that matters, including works of genius by artists such as Mozart, the strength and potency inherent in all authentic feelings and acts, and pure saints and suffering martyrs.
Hermine’s speech is the most succinct expression of Hesse’s concept of a realm beyond time. Other characters in Steppenwolf speak about it in more or less simple language; Goethe, for example, speaks of man’s error of wasting too much time. Indeed, Harry’s meetings with past geniuses suggest that they are still alive in some dimension outside of time. When Harry is functioning properly, the thought of presence beyond time appears as a frequent sensation. When Harry is caught up in the collective dancing fervor at the ball, for example, he claims to have “lost all sense of time.”
Hesse develops the idea of a world beyond in parallel with his other key themes in Steppenwolf. One way to enter the world of immortality is through the laughter of the “immortals.” Similarly, an insufficient awareness of timelessness may be linked to a failure to acknowledge the existence of numerous selves within an individual.
When Harry peers into the Magic Theater’s colossal mirror, he sees dozens of Harrys of all sizes, inclinations, and temperaments. One Harry even darts away rashly in front of Harry’s bemused gaze. Because it is so connected with the novel’s other major ideas, the existence of a space beyond time serves as the novel’s spirit. Laughter may be a means of confronting life, but eternity is the key to understanding why. In the grand scheme of things, Hesse suggests that our efforts to promote virtue and genius matter.
The Complex Nature of Laughter:
In Steppenwolf, Hesse tells the story of a troubled, despondent man’s struggle to overcome his inner demons so that he might once again live life. The narrative provides a simple remedy to this issue: laughter. Every wise authority in the story—the “Treatise on the Steppenwolf,” Goethe, Hermine, Pablo, and Mozart—advises Harry that the best way to live is to laugh. At all
of the novel’s most emotional, breakthrough moments, laughter tinkles coldly and brilliantly, and the story concludes with Harry’s determination to learn how to laugh.
The concept of laughter in Hesse’s work is complicated. It is neither an escape from life into pleasure and enjoyment, nor is it a rosy-colored recasting of life’s darker aspects. Rather, the laughter of the enlightened pierces through life’s major tragedies while simultaneously exceeding and transcending them. Though Harry is correct in his assessment that human existence is full of tragedies, the proper response to this understanding is not to wreck one’s life by obsessing over ultimate failure. Instead, one must battle while simultaneously laughing at the world’s chaos.
3) His Importance Today:
Outside of Germany, Hesse’s works have long been popular, particularly in southern Europe and Latin America. Only Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka have received more attention than Hesse among German writers of the twentieth century. However, until the 1960s, Hesse was completely unknown in the United States. Only a few of his writings had been translated into English, and some of the translations were terrible.
Prior to the Nobel Prize in 1946, there were very few critical essays or mentions in literary publications. His name was discussed more regularly for a short period after that, and some worthwhile critical literature surfaced. Hesse, on the other hand, was largely unknown on college campuses, with only a few exceptions. Hesse himself doubted that he would ever achieve widespread acclaim in the English-speaking world, especially in the United States.
Hesse, on the other hand, has become a cult hero among many college students. Some of the more progressive high schools’ curricula include Siddhartha and Demian in particular. Siddhartha is, ironically, one of the most vehement critics of formal education that one might read, which is one of the aspects that appeals to today’s readers.
Several things have contributed to Hesse’s popularity. His initial popularity in the United States was owing to the youth culture’s identification with his alienated heroes. Steppenwolf was the name of a rock band and a California discotheque, and it became a sort of bible for the counter-culture in the 1960s. In addition, a record album called “Abraxas” was released, named after the Gnostic deity who is central to Demian.
When Harry Haller blames pre-World War II German society for establishing a dehumanizing military industrial complex and destroying nature, youths frequently hear themselves echoed. They identified again when Haller used drugs to create a state of heightened awareness, not recognizing how little this component has to do with the novel’s core. Hesse became a spokeswoman against chauvinistic nationalism for the 1960s generation, many of whom had witnessed their country’s engagement in what they saw as an indefensible, immoral war (Vietnam).
Each of Hesse’s works was, in a sense, a spiritual autobiography, according to him. Inspiration has been given and guidelines established, ranging from Nietzsche’s view of Demian, which
questions the “herd instinct” and “mass morality,” to the concept of individual sacrifice for the sake of helping another person achieve a higher level of existence, as depicted in the futuristic Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi).
Hesse has received both tremendous praise and harsh criticism. It remains to be seen whether he is a saint or whether his writings are merely another passing fad. He is rarely discussed objectively because he deals with extremely genuine concerns. Much of the intrinsic worth of his writings has been disregarded and not investigated deeply enough by both the “establishment” and individuals who desire to identify with Charles Reich’s concept of “Consciousness III” due to personal viewpoint conflicts. But his work holds a lot of merit relevant especially in our times and we should hold it high in our regard.
