561 28 48MB
English Pages [392] Year 1969
THE NOVELS OF
7
i f(
A STUDY
IN
THEME
AND STRUCTURE BY THEODORE ZIOLKOWSKI For anyone concerned with Hesse or even the modern novel in general, Ziolkowski's book will remain a landmark, notable for insights
its
new
and perspectives and stimulating even
where one disagrees./G.
German Quarterly
W.
Field in
The
V
•-
U //>/
/
AA
U
^0\
f'V UY-'
U(aCl )
The Novels
of
Hermann Hesse
THE NOVELS OF
HERMANN A
HESSE
Study in
Theme and
Structure
THEODORE ZIOLKOWSKI
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
•
PRINCETON
•
NJ. 1965
Copyright All Rights
©
1965 by Princeton University Press
Reserved
L.C. Card No. 65-10844
First Princeton
Paperback Printing, 1967
Second Princeton Paperback Printing, 1968 Third Princeton Paperback Printing, 1969
Publication of this book has been aided by
the Ford Foundation Program to support publication,
through university presses, of works in the humanities and social sciences.
This book that
it
is
sold subject to the condition
shall not,
by way
of trade,
be
lent,
resold, hired out, or otherwise disposed of
without the publisher's consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in it is
which
published.
Printed in the United States of America
by Princeton University
Press, Princeton,
New
Jersey
^
For Hermann
J.
Weigand
'Der junge Schiiler erlaubt sich,
dem
Alteren Bruder seine
Aufwartung zu machen." {Das Glasperlenspiel )
—
Preface
THIS BOOK has grown considerably scope since
its
conception.
in purpose
and
intended to
I originally
attempt no more than a structural and technical analysis
on Hesse
of Hesse's major novels. In a chapter
(in his
Kritische Essays zur europdischen Literatur) Ernst Robert
Curtius remarked that "thematic and technical analysis this rarely practiced art
—
is
method
the only adequate
the interpretation of an author."
seemed
It
to
me
for
that the
vast library of Hesse scholarship revealed a conspicuous deficiency in studies of the technical aspects of his works
of "Hesse's Craftsmanship" (the first).
individual
ness. Several
I
contemplated
at
themes came up constantly and had to be
anew
discussed I
title
became apparent, however, that my interpretations suffered from a certain repetitive-
gradually
It
in the context of each novel
treated.
I
So
decided to deal with these main themes separately as an
introduction to the structural analyses.
At
same
the
time, I began to see
more and more clearly Demian
a general pattern of development in the novels from to
The Glass Bead Game: Hesse's attempt
his vision of the ideal,
to formulate
which grew from the vague image
of a spiritual kingdom to the very specific conception of an aesthetic realm. This
autonomous kingdom of
Castalia in the last novel,
a
new
stress
existential this
art,
commitment
—and
Finally
—from
title
to the world. I
have tried to
at this point I
began
form the book might have
flatly
structurally, with
to
an-
—
I
worry about shat-
wanted very much
work
denied: his close
many
—
chapter to chapter in Part Two.
to point out an aspect of Hesse's
overlooked or
called
ultimately rejected in favor of
development "to Castalia and beyond"
other rejected
tering any
is
ties,
that
is
generally
thematically and
of the major writers of the twen-
a
PREFACE
Vlll
My
tieth century.
attempt to "locate" Hesse in modern
literature necessitated,
a somewhat unorthodox
in turn,
treatment of his frequently mentioned "romanticism" discussion that I
I
hope
be persuasive.
will
my
Several of
critical evaluations
—notably Narziss —depart of
and Goldmund and The Glass Bead Game ceptibly
—
purposely postponed to an epilogue for reasons
from the general tenor of Hesse
per-
criticism. Since
they are based in every case on structural analyses,
hope that they
be taken as evidence of more than
will
merely personal predilection.
book
to say that this
meant much effort to
to
me
ful
It
probably superfluous
is
a labor of love. Hesse's works have
is
many
for
years,
and
I
have made no
temper the missionary zeal noted by several people
who were kind enough same
I
some of
time,
than others.
the criterion
to read
my
manuscript.
At
the
his novels, as novels, are less success-
have tried to judge them according to
I
upon which Hesse repeatedly
insisted: their
craft as fiction.
my
Because
theme and
impossible to in a
tions,
it is
the
determined by problems of
many books and
I
If
it
would have been
articles that
helped
the speciaUst notes, here and
have neglected to mention other interpreta-
not because
(though
restrictive
because
list
more general way.
there, that I
ment
is
have restricted myself, in the notes,
most relevant secondary works;
to the
me
approach
structure, I
was
I
I
regard
my own
hope they are
as exclusive
and
valid!), but rather
reluctant to interrupt the
main
line of argu-
in order to suggest perfectly plausible, but structural-
ly irrelevant alternatives. In connection with
otherwise
reader
I
who
do well
am
an advocate of
The
wishes to go further into Hesse research would
to consult
gratefully:
Hesse and
critical perspectivism.
two works that
Joseph Mileck's
critical
I
have used often and
bibhography,
Hermann
I
PREFACE
IX
Hesse and His
(Chapel
Critics
1957) and
N.C.,
Hill,
Helmut Waibler's Hermann Hesse: Eine Bibliographie (Bern und Munchen, 1962). Since I wrote with the general reader in mind the number of Hesse enthusiasts in America has been growing
— —
slowly but with gratifying steadiness for several years
have suppUed a certain amount of background information regarding Hesse, some of the sources he used, and some of the traditions within which he operated. All quotations
have been given in English, and in every case the translations are
my
own. There
is
no standard
translation of
Hesse's works; the available ones are sometimes misleading at
crucial points;
and most of the
shorter pieces to which translated at
all.
(I
I refer
essays,
What my own
in grace and
hope
felicity, I
to
a certain consistency of tone.
translations
in
lack
offset
The
notes cite volume and
six- volume edition
1957 when the
may
by precision and
have
published in 1952
by Suhrkamp (GD=Gesammelte Dichtungen)
was added
and
have indicated a few important ex-
ceptions in the notes.)
page of the standard
letters,
constantly have never been
first
edition
volume 7
;
was reprinted
as
Gesammelte Schriften (=GS).
Much
of the
groundwork
for the
book was accompUshed
during a Fulbright Research Grant to I
am
also grateful to the
for a grant that to
made
it
Germany
in
1958-59.
American Philosophical Society possible for me, that
same
year,
spend time in the Hesse archives of the Schiller-Nation-
almuseum
in
Marbach.
I
should hke to express
to the staff of the Schiller-Nationalmuseum,
helpful
my
thanks
who were most
and cooperative; and to Erich Weiss, who assem-
bled the Westdeutsches Hermann-Hesse-Archiv that constitutes the core of the collection in
My
now
Marbach.
colleagues Inge Halpert and George
Nordmeyer
PREFACE
X were good enough to read completed
it
and
at that stage. I
to give
am
me
the.
manuscript when
especially indebted to Victor
and Ralph Freedman for edgeable suggestions;
it
—though perhaps not
their generous, frank,
was
largely
due to
fully in their sense
to write a separate epilogue
I first
the encouragement necessary
Lange
and knowl-
their
—
comments
^that I
decided
on Hesse "between romanticism
and existentialism."
Long
before the
book was
finished, Princeton University
Press indicated a gratifying interest in
my
thank Miss R. Miriam Brokaw for her
efforts
and Mrs. Gail M. Filion for her
topic. I
sensitive
on
want to
my
and
behalf
sensible
job of editing.
Two
chapters have already appeared separately: chap-
ter 3 in
Monatshefte fur deutschen Unterricht, 53 (1961),
and chapter 9 in Modern Language Quarterly, 19 (1958). They are reprinted here in substantially revised and expanded form with the permission of the editors. Harcourt, Brace
&
World,
Inc.,
has allowed
me
to quote
two pas-
sages from T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets" that appeared in
The Complete Poems and
Plays,
1909-1950 (New York,
1952).
My
my wife Yetta, who has always my fiercest critic and patient typist. Her enthusiasm helped me through those dreadful moments when one's best final
thanks go to
been
ideas
seem suddenly
to be hopelessly trivial
worth putting on paper. She joins
me
and scarcely
in the
sincere
friendship and admiration expressed in the dedication.
Theodore Ziolkowski Hastings-on-Hudson,
June 1964
New York
Contents Preface
p
Ir
PART
I.
vii
THE THEMES
1.
Years of Crisis
2.
Totality: Magical Thinking
3.
Timelessness:
4.
The
5.
Perspectives of Reality:
6.
The
PART 7.
Triadic
3
The
15
34
Chiliastic Vision
Rhythm
of Humanization
52
Humor
61
70
Language
Crisis of
THE STRUCTURES
//.
The Gospel
Demian
of
87
Pendulation The Organization of the Plot and Alienation The Nietzschean Goal Irony of Style and the Religious Impulse The Symbols The Technique of Prefiguration The Internalization of Reality The Archetype of Frau Eva • The Figure of Demian •
•
•
•
•
•
•
8.
Siddhartha:
The Landscape
146
of the Soul
Hesse and the East The Elements of the Plot The River as Symbol The Structural Principle The Beatific Smile The Epiphany •
•
•
•
•
9.
The Sieppenwolf: A Sonata in Prose First Movement Form The Musical Analogy •
178 •
The Second Movement: The Finale: Mdrchen Theme with Variations The Super-novel
Double Perception Counterpoint The
•
•
•
•
10.
Narziss and Goldmund:
A Medieval Allegory
The Indomitable Picaro'The Threat of Death The Mediation
The Medieval Background
•
•
of Art
229
.
CONTENTS
XU 1 1
The Symbolic Autobiography
of Journey
253
to the East
The Bundesroman Symbolic Autobiography The Dilemma of the Narrator The Apotheosis The Ideal of Service of Art •
•
•
•
1
2.
The Glass Bead Game Beyond Castalia The Shifting Exercise in SymboHc Logic Focus Three Castalias The Untenable Ideal The Symbols of Pater Jacobus Burckhardt Resolution The Three Powers The Existen:
An
283
•
•
•
•
•
•
tial
PART 13.
•
Act
III.
EPILOGUE
Between Romanticism and Existentialism
341
Index of Works by Hesse
363
General Index
365
PART "Just
I,
THE THEMES
imagine some
professor,
a
hundred years from now, preaching to his students: Klingsor, born in 1877, and his contemporary Louis, called
The Glutton; innovafrom the
ters of painting, liberation
naturalism of color; on closer scrutiny this pair of artists
falls
into
three clearly distinguishable periods! I'd rather die
under the wheels of
a locomotive today." "It would be better if the professors would fall under the wheels."
"They don't make such big motives.
You know how
technology
loco-
petty our
is."
(Hesse, Klingsor' s Last
Summer)
Years of Crisis the novel INthe1919 name of Emil siastic
response that
Demian appeared in Germany under Sinclair. The immediate and enthuthe work eUcited from the younger
generation; the excited speculations regarding that
were aroused among
author
its
and admirers such
critics
as
Thomas Mann; the intensification of public curiosity when the publishers returned the coveted Fontane Prize for
first
novels, announcing that the author
novice just breaking into print; and later, the
the
finally, several
astonishing disclosure that
author
of
this
was not a months
Hermann Hesse was
angry-young-man's
—
book
of
all
these facts belong to Hesse's biography and to hterary history in general, but they tend to obscure the heart of
the affair. It
was no
prompted Hesse
desire for literary sensationalism that
to adopt a
no longer the same writer
pseudonym; he was
that the
in fact
pubUc knew so
but a totally different man, entitled to a
well,
new name and
a
fresh reputation.
Like the hero of
Max
Frisch's novel Stiller,
to Switzerland with a different
"I'm not into
Stiller,"
name and
who
returns
defiantly protests
Hesse was rebelling against the
identity
which he had, not unwillingly, allowed himself
thrust for over ten years
the success of Peter
to
be
by an admiring public. Ever since
Camenzind (1904) Hesse had enjoyed
the reputation of a gifted, entertaining writer. His fiction
and poetry were of
sufiBciently high merit to
claim of contemporaries such as
win the ac-
Thomas Mann,
Stefan
— YEARS OF CRISIS
4 Zweig, Rilke, and
many
others; at the
same time he was
one of the most commercially successful authors of the enterprising S. Fischer pubUshing house. His works were
tinged with the bittersweet melancholy that
key of
products
of
a
talented
sobering realization that
his cherished ideals of the past lin,
a frequent
is
—
World War I the writer who suffered from the his own poetry would not match
literature in the years preceding
Novalis
—and who
—Goethe, Morike, Holder-
exploited this sense of epigonalism
poems such as "In the Fog," "Melanand "Resignation." The titles of his various colIn this of stories and poems from these years
in poignantly elegiac
choly," lections
World (1907), Neighbors (1908), On the Road (1911), By-ways (1912) hint at the "other-directedness" and
—
eschewal of serious problematics in most of these pleasant fictions.
of course, that the later Hesse
It is true,
to a certain extent in these early works.
seeking of this sort
is
is
prefigured
However, source-
an a posteriori pastime of readers
looking back from the vantage point of later works.
I
frankly doubt whether Hesse, had his production ended
with the outbreak of World as
more than a
War
I,
would be remembered
talented exponent of pleasing tales after
the fashion of acknowledged models such
Novalis,
as
E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Gottfried Keller or neo-romantic
poems
in the
manner of Morike and Eichendorff. In
the
years before 1914 he certainly wrote nothing like Rilke's
New Poems
and Malte Laurids Brigge or Thomas Mann's
Buddenbrooks, Tonio Kroger, and Death
works that assured regardless of
in
—
Venice
their authors a place in the first
what might come
later.
Some
critics
ascribed prophetic significance to the last major this period, the it
rank
have
work of
novel Rosshalde (1914), suggesting that
foreshadows the inner turmoil in Hesse's
own
life
as well
YEARS OF CRISIS
5
as the outbreak of the war.
To
these well-meaning devotees
one can only reply that there
is
not the least anticipation
The Steppenwolf painted on the wall. The inner turmoil
of external events in the sense that the conflict of
World War
II
Veraguth remains on a private
in the life of the painter level that reflects, to
own
be sure, Hesse's
confused marital
situation, but affords not the slightest hint of the almost
archetypal self-seeking so characteristic of the later works.
As
a matter of fact, to the extent that Hesse can be identi-
fied
own
with his hero, his
very eve of the war
who wished
is
attitude
toward
his
work on
the
mirrored in the thoughts of Veraguth,
be no more than "a perfect
his paintings to
piece of craftsmanship": no deep problems, no profound
comments on
society
and the world, no penetrating analyses
of the individual psyche
—
soHd, respectable artistic
^just
workmanship. This
is
not to
belittle
Hesse's early works. Conscientious
craftsmanship has never been a quality to be disparaged,
and Peter Camenzind
is
still
an experience,
like
Thomas
Wolfe's novels, that readers of a certain age and tem-
perament should not miss. Yet there
a distinct and un-
is
deniable difference in temper and quality between these
works and those of the major period.
We
must agree
with Hesse, a shrewd and uncompromising judge of himself,
when he
characterizes his pre-war works as those of
a talented popular author (Unterhaltungsschriftsteller or,
worse
yet. Literal)
.
"I
was considered a nice poet and
lived
at peace with the world."^ In 1921, while writing the
preface to a selected edition of his works, he
became aware
time of the highly derivative nature of his early
for the
first
books.
"From my childhood on
I
had loved and read those
splendid masters of narrative, and out of this love there
had 1
arisen an imitation of
which
"Kurzgefasster Lebenslauf ';
GD,
I
was
iv,
initially totally
475.
un-
YEARS OF CRISIS
O conscious and of which
became only unclearly
later
I
aware."^ Because of this realization and because a wall of
new
him
experiences cut
from the products of
off
his
youth, Hesse refused at that time to go through with the edition.
At times
in his
life,
(1947), the writer
wrote Hesse in the essay Mysteries
feels a
compelling urge to brush past
the facile and accepted generalizations about
and to
life
look the world in the face. The unmasking of reality can be precipitated
misfortune
by any sudden
—but when
it
jolt in
our
lives
—
severe enough "to render questionable
is
comfort, crisis
all
^war, illness,
happens, the shock of perception all
order,
all
was a
security, all faith, all knowledge."^ It
of this sort that transformed Hesse from simply
another best-selling writer of the decade 1904-1914 into the exciting, probing author of Demian,
whose
unquestioned reality had suddenly revealed
itself as
hitherto
a peril-
ous, seething turmoil. Like Rilke's Malte Laurids Brigge,
Hesse found himself to be a "beginner in
his
own
detected in his works from the
Much
circum-
"new note"* time of Demian on.
stances." In his letters he speaks of a
to be
of the literature and art of the twentieth century
predicated on the assumption that traditional standards
is
of value have collapsed.
Hofmannsthal, others
this
To some writers,
revelation
became aware of
came
quite
the inner disintegration of nine-
teenth-century standards only after the the process externally, rendering
Yet
it
those
Hugo von early; many
such as
seems safe to say that
it
modem
who happened merely by an
war had completed
symbolically visible. writers, in contrast to
accident of birth to be
—Stephen Spender
living in the twentieth century 2
VII,
8
speaks of
"Vorrede eines Dichters zu seinen ausgewahlten Werken"; GS, 251.
"Geheimnisse"; GS, vn, 789.
*
GS,
vii,
514.
I
YEARS OF CRISIS
7
"modems" and "contemporaries" by
this
—
distinguish themselves
awareness that the former order has dissolved into
chaos and by their attempts to come to terms with the
new
face of reality. In Hesse's case the crisis was precipi-
tated
by a
that,
hammerlike, reduced his former way of
series of
blows during the years 1914-1917
comfortable reality of a successful
the
life,
belletriste, to
a sham-
bles.
In his "Conjectural Biography" (1925)'^ Hesse wrote
World War brought about the second major life. (The first had been his decision, at the age of thirteen, to become a writer.) As a result of the war he came into conflict with the world with which he had previously lived in harmony. "Through this exthat the First
turning point in his
perience
I
crossed, for the
initiation into life." Until
time, over the threshold of
first
1914 Hesse had not been strongly
committed to any cause. As a founder and editor of the periodical
Mdrz he had taken
this sort of criticism, directed
potshots at Wilhelm
more
the Kaiser himself than his government or policies,
of the accepted Uterary sports of the day. Hesse
no sense
but
was one
was
in
politically engage.
The outbreak had been
II,
against the person of
of the
war
altered that.
living in Switzerland since
sidered himself a
German (and
Swiss citizen until 1923).
Although Hesse
1912, he
did not, in fact,
He had assumed
still
con-
become a that there
existed a sense of understanding and solidarity between
himself and his readers, but the violent public reaction to his pacifistic essays in
1914 and 1915 showed how mis-
taken that assumption was. Subscriptions were canceled,
book
dealers refused to handle his works, he
was branded
« "KuTzgefasster Lebenslauf; GD, rv, 469-489. Translated by Denver Lindley in Modern Writing no. 2 (New York, 1954),
pp. 55-72.
YEARS OF CRISIS
8
by the German press, poison-pen
as a traitor
began
letters
flowing across the border, and even old *'friends" in Ger-
many
terminated their relations with the "viper that they
had nurtured
at their breast."
Previously uncommitted,
own private world of make-believe Hesse now began to look around and,
a happy wanderer in his
and sweet for the
elegies,
first
examine the world of
time, seriously to
reality.
In one of the "objectionable" essays (which led to his friendship with the similarly
minded Romain Rolland)
he discerned signs of "a pernicious confusion in think-
own
ing."® Beginning in his
sacrosanct world of the
spirit,
he noted alarming symptoms. German patents were being
German music boycotted
disregarded in Russia,
in France,
and foreign books ceased to be translated or reviewed
Germany. Worst of have stemmed professors,
this tide of
journalists
services to stir
the very individuals
all,
—
—
unreasonable hatred
^were
up the
who
was the supreme trahison des
clercs, the
form of blasphemy against the
writers,
volunteering
eagerly
spirit,
their
For Hesse
floods of calumny.
in
should
this
most degrading
and
it
led to his
"political awakening."^
Despite his rejection by
Hesse his
do
tried to
oflScial
home. Opposed though he was
fervor of the
German war
effort,
am a German," he wrote in my sympathies and wishes
"I
"and he
now
realized that
without commitment. in newspapers
German spokesmen,
his part for the country
and
it
that
« 7
still
a patriot.
same essay of 1914,
belong to Germany." But to
remain
totally
continued, in a series of articles
periodicals, to plead for understanding
German Consulate
in Bern,
at the disposal of
where he had been
nicht diese Tone!"; GS, vii, 44-50. Letter of Nov. 5, 1945; GS, vii, 647.
"O Freunde,
considered
to the nationalistic
and love among men. He put himself the
still
Hesse was
was impossible
He
he
living
YEARS OF CRISIS since 1912,
9
and was engaged for the duration of the war
war interned
in the care of prisoners of
and elsewhere. Impervious and
to the
in Switzerland
network of espionage
surrounded him, Hesse
political intrigue that
visited
internment camps, edited a bi-weekly literary supplement
{Sonntagsbote fur die deutschen Kriegsgejangenen) tributed
to
another
newspaper for
(^Deutsche Internierten-Zeitung)
,
prisoners
and helped
,
con-
of
war
to edit a series
of Mterary pamphlets for soldiers. This frenzy of selfless activity
Hesse's
probably did more than anything else to preserve sanity,
shocks shattered died.
but in this
1916 a succession of personal
enforced composure. First his father
His youngest son, Martin, became seriously
more than a year
time
just at the
derangement made
it
when
his wife's
ill
for
mental
imperative for her to be committed,
for a time, to an institution.
These calamities, coupled with
the effects of the war, brought Hesse so close to a nervous
breakdown
that his physician urged psychiatric treatment.
This period, which he later called "the hellish journey
through myself,"^ was the crucial turning point in Hesse's life
and
career.
During 1916 and 1917,
in the sanitarium
Sonnmatt near
Lucerne, Hesse underwent some seventy-two psychiatric sessions with Joseph B. Lang, a disciple of C. G. Jung.
(Lang became a personal friend and,
in the
next few
years, appeared sporadically in Hesse's writings under the
pseudonyms "Longus" and
"Pistorius.")
which Hesse describes symbolically
in
This treatment,
Demian through
the friendship of Sinclair and Pistorius, led Hesse to a total
reexamination of his
life
and
beliefs. Scrutinizing his
previous ideals, he found them to be hollow. Dismayed at first
by the
disparity
between
his
Romantic notions and the
reaHty of the war, he subsequently realized that the disorder
8GS,
rv.
481.
— YEARS OF CRISIS
10 was not only beyond the
in the
tidy
for himself into his as
much
that he
existence that he
own
soul,
When
he looked
had constructed
he saw that there was
conflict there as in the outside
had formerly been unwilling
limating
just
—
world
conflict
to acknowledge, sub-
instead into the inchoate longing for an elegiac
it
Now
past.
world but in himself.
little
he had no
right to
throw stones
point accusing fingers at the world.
was no
guilt, for his
at others, to
He shared in
isolated case, but rather
a
common
an almost
archetypal model for suffering humanity as a whole.
Psychoanalysis altered Hesse's
him
to understand himself
life
more
and works.
fully
It
enabled
than ever before,
and acknowledge his own had befallen him and the world.
to look deep into his heart guilt in the evil that
And
it
was
reflected
both directly and indirectly in the
books that he wrote from
this
time on.
It
take, however, to interpret Hesse's later
would be a mis-
works one-sidedly
from the psychological standpoint,^ for even during the period of his greatest fascination with psychoanalysis
1916
to
1922
—
Hesse's interest was tempered by a certain
To be sure, he was deeply impressed in 1916 when he read Jung's epoch-making study on The Transskepticism.
formations and Symbols of the Libido (Wandlungen und
Symbole der Libido, 1912), a work
that contributed to
the shaping of symbols in the novel
Demian. That same
year, through Dr. Lang, Hesse met Jung. Later he read selections
from
tion in Zurich,
his
works to Jung's psychoanalytic associa-
and around 1921 Hesse had a few analytic
sessions with the master himself.
impression of him, but
I
"Then too
began to
I
got a nice
realize at that time
8 For a discussion of the complicated problem of Hesse and psychology as well as a critique of the relevant bibliography see Joseph Mileck, Hermann Hesse and His Critics (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1958), pp. 158-166.
YEARS OF CRISIS that, for analysts, a
11
genuine relationship to art
tainable; they lack the organ for attitude characterizes
Demian.) For
this
Sinclair's
it."^°
unat-
is
(Precisely this
criticism of Pistorius in
reason Jung's claim, years
later, that
he directly influenced the writing of Demian^ Siddhartha,
and The Steppenwolf must be taken with a grain of
own acknowledgment,
Hesse, by his
profited
stimulation of Jung and Lang, but he also that his goals lay
salt.^^
from the
makes
clear
it
beyond psychoanalysis. He exploited
his experience of psychoanalysis
within the framework
whenever
of his novels
(e.g.
was relevant
it
Demian),
but,
in conception, his art transcends the scientific goals of
psychology.
As in
early as
the essay
first
1918 Hesse had formulated these views
"Artists
and Psychoanalysis. "^^
jjg
states
that he studied, besides Jung, the writings of Freud,
Stekel,
and other prominent psychologists of
his generation.
These studies did not supply him with anything new, he maintains, but merely provided
him with
the scientific con-
had already
firmation of psychological insights that he
gleaned from such poets and writers as Jean Paul and Nietzsche. ^^ Secondly, Hesse insists that the
new methods
of psychoanalysis can be of value to the artist only analysis
is
"not merely an intellectual
experience." In other words, through his analysis
Hesse was
now
m
affair,
own
if
the
but a real
contact with
a position to apply the theories
Benjamin Nelson, "Hesse and Jung. Two Newly Recovered The Psychoanalytic Review, 50 (1963), 11-16. The letters from Jung and Hesse to Emanuel Maier were written in 1950, 10
Letters,"
in response to a specific inquiry regarding their relationship. 11/6/W., p. 15.
i2"Kunstler und Psychoanalyse"; GS, vii, 137-143. 13 This is, by the way, an attitude not unlike Joyce's, who once remarked: "I don't believe in any science, but my imagination grows when I read Vico as it doesn't when I read Freud or Jung." Quoted by Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (New York, 1959), p. 706.
YEARS OF CRISIS
12 more
with
than
justification
most salon
psychiatrists.
Analysis, he continues, "teaches us to see, to acknowledge, to investigate
had most
and
which we
to take seriously those things
successfully suppressed within ourselves, which
generations had suppressed under constant pressure." Finally,
he emphasizes that the poet cannot stop
beyond which the analyst
at the limits
hesitates to advance.
"What analysis recognized and formulated scientifically had always been known by the poets yes, the poet
—
revealed himself as the representative of a special kind of thinking that actually ran counter to analytical-psychological thought.
He was
interpreter of his dreams.
despite
all his interest
on and
to follow the
The
the dreamer; the analyst
Was any
writer's responsibility leads
new
fictional
was the
for the poet,
left
in the new psychology, but to dream summons of his unconscious?"
into other realms of experience
of the
course
him beyond psychology
—
and expression
the realms
world that Hesse was about to
create.^*
External changes, related in more detail in the story
Klein and Wagner
(
1919) paralleled the inner transforma,
tions.^^
Separated from his wife, his children in the care of
friends,
Hesse
left
Bern
in
1919 and moved
to
Montagnola
near Lugano in lush southern Switzerland. Here he began writing books of a new, disturbing nature, heralded by
Demian, the secret
first
product of his revaluation.
hope that the
that he
feelings of guilt
had conceived
awakened
in
many
was
his
responsibility
own inner self Renewed innocence
in his
hearts.
and
It
could be
—
for the
1* Oscar Seidlin, "Hermann Hesse: The Exorcism of the Demon," Symposium, 4 (1950), 325-348, is the most outspoken opponent of the narrow psychological interpretation of Hesse's works, which Seidlin regards, rather, as existential and mythic. 15 For an analysis see Heinz W. Puppe, "Psychologic und Mystik in Klein und Wagner von Hermann Hesse," PMLA, 78
(1963), 128-135.
— YEARS OF CRISIS
I3
individual as well as humanity as a whole if
—
one acknowledges one's sufferings and
to the
end instead of seeking the
thustra's
enduring
guilt in others.
the welfare of his country
"Don't you believe
it
In "Zara-
every invalid
if
every sufferer
it, if
is
is
selfish of
own problems when
at stake, Zarathustra
uhimately, a fatherland
that,
thrives better
ailments into
is
was
felt that it
the individual to devote himself to his
and
possible only
Return" (1919) he stated the problem bluntly.
Answering the young men who
ier
is
guilt,
remarks: is
health-
not reading his
own
not trying to cure it?"^®
Instead of the melancholy tales of his early period, dealing
with the vague subjective yearnings of dissatisfied
Hesse
now wrote
mythically to the heart of
human
existence. In sharp con-
trast to the "other-directed" titles of his earlier first
fruits
new
of the
Wagner, and Klingsor collective title
period
Siddhartha,
—were republished
in
works, the Klein and
1931 under a
borrowed from Novalis: The Inward Way}"^
These uncomfortable works drove readers,
artists,
problematic, searching novels that pierced
who had been
off
many
of his former
glad to participate vicariously in
the romantic yearnings of his early heroes but were unwilling to incur
any
new protagonists
—
guilt
by association with these radical
the unruly outsiders
who
people Hesse's
books from 1917 on.
Two tive
of the most characteristic essays from the produc-
year of 1919 are "Zarathustra's Return" and "Self-
Reliance."^^ In the latter (published originally under the
pseudonym Emil
Sinclair),
i«
Hesse advances the
idea, so
"Zarathustras Wiederkehr"; GS, vii, 210. actual phraseology in the sixteenth of Novalis's Bliitenstaub fragments is: "Nach Innen geht der geheimnis voile Weg." 18 "Eigensinn"; GS, vii, 194-200. The title means literally something Hke "self-will" or even "obstinacy"; but the definition that emerges in the course of the essay justifies, I believe, the more 17
The
meaningful translation.
YEARS OF CRISIS
14 important to him from
this
time on, that the individual
must have moral courage enough to
own
live
according to his
inner dictates. This self-rehance, however, necessarily
entails a feeling of alienation
Return," which
tra's
there
a special section
is
and
loneliness. In "Zarathus-
patterned after Nietzsche's
is
"On
style,
Loneliness." Loneliness,
Zarathustra says, "is the road by which destiny strives to
man
lead
to himself." In order to
must break the future.
It is
a road that most people never follow to
many men may
the end, for even though
mother, they seek
new
mother
is
my
friends;
and without fame, and without
amenities of society." Yet anyone
own
wretched,
is
wretched without home, without fatherland, with-
out a people,
his
leave father and
and companion-
security in love
ship. "Living without a
living
become a man, one
with the past and venture alone into
all ties
true nature
things, as
must be
who
all
the
wishes to discover
willing to sacrifice all these
Hesse was forced to do, and to
live "self-reli-
antly."
Hesse has referred to
He had
taking.
left his
as a time of daily leave-
this
wife and family, his home, his
fortable existence, his popular reputation, his
of facile ideals
—and
name. For the name of Hermann
his
Hesse was associated with
page of Demian when used
it
as the
discard.
must have a new name for
chose Emil Sinclair, the
name
it
pseudonym
new To be absolutely the new man. He
the old values that his
all
commitments had forced him to consistent he
that appeared
was published
on the
in 1919.
spiritual
created by his years of crisis and revaluation
values and ideals had to emerge. of chaos was to be the
title
Hesse
for several important essays that
he wrote between 1917 and 1920. Out of the
vacuum
com-
whole stock
work
The
new
creation of values out
of the years to come.
I
2