Hermann Hesse

(click to enlarge)
Hermann Hesse, 1957. (credit: Wide World Photos)

(born July 2, 1877, Calw, Ger. — died Aug. 9, 1962, Montagnola, Switz.) German novelist and poet. He left the seminary because of his inability to adapt to the life there. His first novel was Peter Camenzind (1904); it was followed by Beneath the Wheel (1906), Gertrud (1910), and Rosshalde (1914). An opponent of militarism, he settled permanently in Switzerland at the outbreak of World War I (1914 – 18). His later works deal with the individual's search for spiritual fulfillment, often through mysticism. Demian (1919), influenced by his experience with psychoanalysis, made him famous. Siddhartha (1922), about the early life of Buddha, reflects his interest in Eastern spiritualism. Steppenwolf (1927), which examines the conflict between bourgeois acceptance and spiritual self-realization, was highly influential in its time and brought him cult status among the young of more than one generation. Narcissus and Goldmund (1930) and The Glass Bead Game (1943; also published as Magister Ludi) concern duality and the conflict between the contemplative and the active life. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946. His mysticism and his interest in self-realization kept him popular long after his death.

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The novels of the German author Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) are lyrical and confessional and are primarily concerned with the relationship between the contemplative, God-seeking individual, often an artist, and his fellow humans.

Hermann Hesse was born on June 2, 1877, in Calw, Württemberg. His father worked for the publishing house directed by his maternal grandfather, Hermann Gundert, a scholarly Orientalist. Both his parents, as well as his grandfather, had seen service as missionaries with the Basel Mission in the East Indies. The atmosphere in which Hesse grew up was therefore pious, but the household was nonetheless an educated one and relatively urbane.

In 1893 Hesse won a scholarship to the Protestant Theological Seminary at Maulbronn; but he soon rebelled against the intellectual and clerical discipline there and ran away. This experience of flight was evidently of decisive significance in his imaginative development, and it recurs in one form or another in almost all his major works. After some time at another high school and a short period as a machine-shop apprentice, Hesse found employment in the book trade. He read widely in German and foreign literature and began to write lyric poetry, sketches, and stories. His first published works, Romantische Lieder (1899) and Eine Stunde hinter Mitternacht (1899), are mannered tributes to the neoromantic conventions of the day, pseudoexotic, melancholic, and tinged with irony.

Early Works

The novel Peter Camenzind (1904) made Hesse's name. An attempt to overcome decadence by portraying the cure of a melancholic outsider by means of altruistic activity and a return to nature, Peter Camenzind presents an early, half-formed version of that life pattern found in almost all Hesse's novels. It was followed in 1905 by Unterm Rad (Beneath the Wheel), a contribution to the then fashionable subgenre of "school novels." The book portrays the miseries and sad decline of a sensitive youth crushed by the intellectual demands and unfeeling attitudes encountered in school. In this novel Hesse divides his interest, as so often in his later work, between two characters, Hans Giebenrath who regresses and dies, and Hermann Heilner who breaks out and lives, albeit by eventually finding a compromise with the bourgeois world.

Hesse himself had compromised by marrying and settling down in Gaienhofen on Lake Constance. He lived there until 1912, when he moved to Berne. He published a number of short stories and novellas: Diesseits (1907), Nachbarn (1908), and Umwege (1912) are collections of tales of small-town and country life, after the manner of Gottfried Keller. Knulp, three whimsical sketches of the vagabond existence, dates from this period, as do the full-length novels Gertrude (1910) and Rosshalde (1913). All these works show Hesse as a careful and talented writer, with a keen psychologist's eye and a supple style, but they rather mute the serious conflicts incipiently suggested by his first two novels. Hesse's journey to the Malayan archipelago in 1911 is, however, some indication of his inner restlessness. The interest in Oriental cultures which originated in his childhood now takes deeper root.

During World War I there occurred an extremely sharp break in Hesse's life and work. His third son, Martin, fell seriously ill, his wife began to show the first signs of mental disease, and his family life disintegrated. The war, in which he was directly involved only through his relief work for German prisoners of war, shocked him terribly; he denounced it at its outset and was in his turn denounced by the German press as a pacifist traitor. He never returned to live in Germany and became a Swiss citizen in 1922. In 1916 he underwent a course of Jungian analysis in Lucerne.

"Demian" and "Siddhartha"

The product of all these diverse traumatic experiences was the novel Demian, published pseudonymously in 1919, which won the Fontane Prize for first novels (Hesse returned the prize and later admitted his authorship). Demian reestablished Hesse in the forefront of German letters and perhaps rescued him from a creeping mediocrity in his creative work. It deals with the "awakening" of a youth, Emil Sinclair, under the influence of an older boy of mysterious presence and powers, Demian. Critics have shown that the primary key to the book is the structure of a typical Jungian analysis. But the novel contains gnostic as well as overtly psychoanalytic material and works out mythical and biblical motifs, such as that of the Prodigal Son.

From this point onward in Hesse's work discrimination between the psychoanalytic and the religious elements in his symbolic motifs and patterns is extremely difficult. Siddhartha (1922) is a hagiographic legend, but it is also a very personal confession which reworks the psychological material of earlier novels in a fresh garb; and the mystical conclusion of Siddhartha proves on examination to be as much Christian as Buddhist or Hindu.

Between 1916 and 1925 Hesse composed several of his most distinguished novellas, notably Iris (1918), Klein and Wagner (1920), Klingsors letzter Sommer (1920; Klingsor's Last Summer), and Piktors Verwandlungen (1925; Pictor's Transformations ). In 1919 he had taken up residence in Montagnola near Lugano, entirely alone and impoverished, resolved to live now only for his literary work. Iris is a beautifully wrought allegory on the search for selfhood, Klein und Wagnera study of sexual conflict, loss of identity, and rediscovery of self, Klingsor's Last Summera series of passionately colored sketches of the life of a declining artist, and Pictor's Transformations an exotic fairy tale designed to impart a vision of the ultimate androgynous unity and of eternal change and flow.

Meaning of "Steppenwolf"

This insight into a divine reality and unity which may be glimpsed for a moment when the usual order of the mind is momentarily shaken or dissolved, in some trauma (such as Klein's suicide) or in sexual or artistic experience, is the positive vision which Hesse seeks increasingly to convey. Thus Der Steppenwolf (1927) should not be mistaken, as it often is, for a pessimistic and desperate work; on the contrary, this account of a psychopathic outcast, close to suicide, who finds remission and self-insight through friendship with a prostitute, dancing, and drugs is a re-assertion of the omnipresence of the higher reality for those sensitive to it. The "golden thread" of this reality is often discernible, especially in the music of Mozart or, indeed, the life and art of any of the "Immortals" - Goethe, Leonardo, Rembrandt, among others. Steppenwolf is formally the most consummate of all Hesse's books, an extremely intricate experimental novel. It reflects something of its author's experiences in the 1920s, after the failure of his second marriage.

In 1930 Hesse published Narziss und Goldmund, a long picaresque work in a medieval setting, which is his most overt treatment of the relentless struggle between the mind and the senses. By no means his best novel, Narziss und Goldmund has been one of his most popular; sometimes trite, it has, however, an undercurrent of pain, failure, and bitterness which is often overlooked.

In 1932 appeared Die Morgenlandfahrt (The Journey to the East), an ironic allegory on the subject of the inner pilgrimage, full of secret allusion and whimsical onomastic games; extremely elusive, The Journey to the East subsumes with anecdotal brevity the spiritual experience of several decades.

"The Glass Bead Game"

Das Glasperlenspiel (1943; The Glass Bead Game), Hesse's longest and perhaps his most famous novel, took 11 years to write. It is concerned with a futuristic society in which a scholars' utopia, Castalia, exists as a separate province with the task of preserving the austere ideals of the Spirit and the unsullied service of Truth, as well as training teachers to work in the schools of the outside world. The protagonist, Joseph Knecht, is followed through his years of training until he is eventually elected Master of the Glass Bead Game, a game "with all the contents and all the values of our culture, " which is Castalia's supreme cult. Through the game an element of art, and of numinous experience, infiltrates a sphere which has become too much the province of the intellect.

The Glass Bead Game depicts Knecht's gradual insight into the decadence which has overtaken Castalia and his apostasy as he resolves to leave for the outside world and to become a simple teacher. The ambivalence of this delicately written and elaborate novel lies in the question whether Knecht's act is a true breakthrough to ethical action or the expression of an unrepentant individualism, or both. Ethical and esthetical, saintly and artistic elements blend and separate deceptively again and again in this novel as throughout Hesse's work.

Hermann Hesse's poetry has been published in several collections, for example, Gesammelte Gedichte (1942), and has been widely anthologized. There is also the remarkable collection of "Steppenwolf" poems, Krisis (1928). In his verse he is generally more derivative and less searching than in his prose works. Having married for the third time in 1931, he continued to live in Montagnola, devoting a good deal of his time to a voluminous correspondence, particularly with young people interested in his work and philosophy of life. Hesse was awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in literature. He died in August 1962.

Further Reading

There are three studies of Hesse in English: Ernst Rose, Faith from the Abyss (1965); Theodore J. Ziolkowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse (1965); and Mark Boulby, Hermann Hesse: His Mind and Art (1967). Rose gives a short introduction to the author, Boulby a detailed analysis of eight novels and several novellas, and Ziolkowski a study of Demian and later novels, also placing Hesse in the contemporary literary scene. For bibliographical material see Joseph Mileck, Hermann Hesse and His Critics (1958). Ralph Freedman, The Lyrical Novel (1963), illuminates the analogies between Hesse, André Gide, and Virginia Woolf.

Hesse, Hermann (Calw, Swabia, 1877-1962, Montagnola, Tessin), spent his early childhood (1881-6) in Basel and up to the age of 14 possessed Swiss citizenship, which he resumed in 1923. His father, who had been a missionary in India, moved to Calw to collaborate with his father-in-law, the Orientalist Dr Gundert, in the Calwer Verlagsverein. Hesse was influenced throughout his life by the Pietist tradition of his parents and the family's scholarly oriental background. As his parents wished him to study theology, he acquired Württemberg citizenship to obtain admission to Maulbronn seminary, which he left in 1892 after a stay of only six months. After a brief spell in a book shop in Eßlingen he became an apprentice mechanic in Calw, but in 1895 entered a publishing firm in Tübingen. From 1899 to 1904 he worked in the book trade in Basel before deciding to devote himself entirely to writing. From 1907 to 1911, as co-editor with L. Thoma, he was responsible for the literary section of the periodical März.

In 1899 Hesse published his first volume of poetry under the title Romantische Lieder, and it is the Romantic style which characterizes his early work. In the same year appeared Eine Stunde hinter Mitternacht, nine vignettes, which found favour with Rilke. Two years later appeared Hinterlassene Schriften und Gedichte von Hermann Lauscher. Herausgegeben von Hermann Hesse (revised 1907 as Hermann Lauscher and containing Tagebuch 1900). In 1904 Hesse published two monographs, Boccaccio and Franz von Assisi. Peter Camenzind (also 1904), a novel whose artist hero seeks to become a writer, brought him much-needed success. His novel Unterm Rad (1906) reflects the recurring theme of the inner conflicts of boyhood. The novel Gertrud (Künstlerroman, 1910) treats the tribulations of a physically handicapped composer. Knulp. Drei Geschichten aus dem Leben Knulps (1915), begun in these years, marks the culmination of Hesse's Romantic phase.

During the early years of his marriage to Maria Bernoulli, Hesse enjoyed family life in the secluded village of Gaienhofen on Lake Constance as well as the friendship of many artists and writers in the district, notably L. Finckh. From 1901 he travelled extensively in Italy, and his interest in art was stimulated by the art historian H. Wölfflin. The culmination of his travels and lecture tours was his journey to India in 1911 with the painter H. Sturzenegger. Aus Indien. Aufzeichnungen einer indischen Reise (1913) was a preliminary to the more substantial post-war writings. In 1912 Hesse moved to Berne, where he remained until 1919, when he decided to leave his family. Roßhalde (1914 in book form) reflects the disintegration of his marriage to Maria, who suffered from a progressive mental illness.

During the 1914-18 War Hesse worked for the Deutsche Gefangenenfürsorge Bern. He devoted himself to editorial and library work, establishing the Bücherei für deutsche Kriegsgefangene. From the outset of the war Hesse adopted firm pacifist views which he expressed in O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!, an article published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. After the war this appeal for the preservation of humanity and its cultural heritage was followed by a plea for spiritual regeneration in Zarathustras Wiederkehr. Ein Wort an die deutsche Jugend (1919).

Personal problems and the stress of war intensified Hesse's study of psycho-analysis and he himself underwent prolonged treatment by a disciple of C. G. Jung. The collection of essays Blick ins Chaos (1920) reflects this phase, during which he used the pseudonym Emil Sinclair (after Isaak von Sinclair, a friend of Hölderlin), notably for his novel Demian. Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend (1919). His psycho-analytical preoccupations are evident in a number of his fairy stories contained in Märchen (1919, e.g. Eine Traumfolge, Iris), and in Piktors Verwandlungen (1925, published with Hesse's own illustrations in 1954), as well as in the strongly autobiographical work Klingsors letzter Sommer (1920), which was published together with Kinderseele and Klein und Wagner. In Siddhartha. Eine indische Dichtung (1922) Hesse gives poetic expression to Indian philosophy. His novel Der Steppenwolf (1927) met with considerable public response, which was renewed in the early 1970s. The novel Narziß und Goldmund (1930) is his last principal work of the 1920s. Because of his preoccupation with man's dual nature Hesse's fiction tends to concentrate on two contrasting characters who are irresistibly drawn together, and yet feel impelled to express their individuality to the full.

Hesse's stories reappeared in the 1930s with new titles (notably Weg nach Innen, 1931), and during this period he wrote only a number of tales. The story Morgenlandfahrt (1932) appeared at a time when he was preparing his Utopian novel of the year 2400, which represents the quintessence of his vision and outlook, Das Glasperlenspiel. Versuch einer Lebensbeschreibung des Magister Ludi Josef Knecht samt Knechts hinterlassenen Schriften. Herausgegeben von Hermann Hesse, published in 1943, the year in which Hesse's name was put on the black list of authors in Germany.

From 1919 Hesse lived in Montagnola. His third, and lasting, marriage to Ninon Dolbin took place in 1931. His publications following the 1939-45 War include reminders that his individualism was neither excessive nor aloof. They express a humanitarian attitude which repeats his identification with Goethe's Weltbürgertum, his respect for Christian piety, and his faith in the spirituality of all mankind, for which he coined the term Weltglaube. His pacifism was based on these convictions and is reflected in the periodical Vivos Voco, which he edited from 1919 to 1921, in Dank an Goethe (1946, written in 1932 to oblige his friend Romain Rolland), in Der Europäer (1946, five essays written between 1918 and 1945), and in Krieg und Frieden. Betrachtungen zu Krieg und Politik seit dem Jahr 1914 (1946), in which his Brief nach Deutschland forms the epilogue. In 1961 Hesse resumed this open letter form in his Brief an Peter Weiss (see Weiss, P.). Hesse received many honours, both Swiss and German, culminating in the award of the Nobel Prize in 1946. In the same year he accepted the Goethe-Preis, because Frankfurt, with which it is associated, represented to him a humane tradition with which he could identify himself despite the bitter memory of political denunciations to which he had been subjected in Germany since 1914. In 1950 Hesse, who had visited Raabe in 1909 in Brunswick, was awarded the Wilhelm-Raabe-Preis. In 1955 he was admitted to the Friedensklasse des Ordens Pour le mérite. Fiction written from 1944 to 1950 appeared as Späte Prosa (1951), and was followed by Frühe Prosa (written between 1899 and 1907) in 1960, the year in which he published Letzte Gedichte. An extensive selection of Briefe appeared in 1959 Gesammelte Dichtungen (6 vols., 1952) appeared in an enlarged edition (7 vols.) as Gesammelte Werke in 1957. A select Werkausgabe in zwölf Bänden, edited by V. Michels, was published in 1970; Die Gedichte (2 vols.) in 1977, Schriften zur Literatur (2 vols.) in 1972, Politik des Gewissens. Politische Schriften 1914-1962, (2 vols.) in 1977; Gesammelte Briefe (4 vols.), with U. Michels, 1973-86; Die Welt im Buch. Reden und Aufsätze, 1988 ff. Ten poems by Hesse were set to music by Othmar Schoeck.

Famous German novelist (he later acquired Swiss nationality) whose books on mystical themes were quite influential in the spiritual and occult revival among young adults in the 1960s and 1970s. The influence of Oriental philosophy is reflected in his novel Siddhartha, which deals with the relationship between father and son and the quest for self-discovery through a journey to India. His novel Das Glasperlenspiel (1943, translated as Magister Ludi, 1950) resolves world disorder through a religious game played by rulers.

Sources:

Hesse, Herman. Siddhartha. New York: New Directions, 1951

Quotes:

"You are only afraid if you are not in harmony with yourself. People are afraid because they have never owned up to themselves."

"I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value."

"Happiness is a how, not a what: a talent, not an object"

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us."

"You treat world history as a mathematician does mathematics, in which nothing but laws and formulas exist, no reality, no good and evil, no time, no yesterday, no tomorrow, nothing but an eternal, shallow, mathematical present."

"One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time."

See more famous quotes by Hermann Hesse

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Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse in 1927
Born	2 July 1877(1877-07-02) Calw, Württemberg, Germany
Died	9 August 1962 (aged 85) Montagnola, Switzerland
Occupation	Novelist, short story author, essayist, poet
Nationality	German, Swiss
Writing period	1904–1953
Genres	Fiction
Notable work(s)	The Glass Bead Game, Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha
Notable award(s)	Nobel Prize in Literature 1946
Influences Plato, Spinoza, Goethe, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Burckhardt, Indian philosophy, Chinese philosophy, Carl Jung[1]

Hermann Hesse (German pronunciation: [ˈhɛʀman ˈhɛsə]) (July 2, 1877 – August 9, 1962) was a German Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. In 1946 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game (also known as Magister Ludi) each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality.

Contents 1 Youth 1.1 Becoming a writer 1.2 Between Lake Constance and India 2 During the First World War 3 Casa Camuzzi 4 The Glass Bead Game 5 Later life 6 Popularity outside the German-speaking countries 7 Selected works 8 Awards 9 Hermann Hesse in popular culture 10 References 11 External links

Youth

Hesse was born in the Black Forest town of Calw in Württemberg, Germany to a Christian missionary family. Both of his parents served with a Basel Mission to India where Hesse's mother Marie Gundert was born in 1842. Hesse's father, Johannes Hesse, the son of a doctor, was born in 1847 in Estonia. The Hesse family had lived in Calw since 1873, where they operated a missionary publishing house under the direction of Hesse's grandfather, Hermann Gundert.

Hesse spent his first years of life surrounded by the spirit of Swabian piety. In 1881, when Hesse was four, the family moved to Basel, Switzerland, staying for six years then returning to Calw. After successful attendance at the Latin School in Göppingen Hesse began to attend the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Maulbronn in 1891. Here in March 1892 Hesse showed his rebellious character and in one instance he fled from the Seminary and was found in a field a day later.

Hesse began a journey through various institutions and schools and experienced intense conflicts with his parents. In May, after an attempt at suicide, he spent time at an institution in Bad Boll under the care of theologian and minister Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt. Later, he was placed in a mental institution in Stetten im Remstal, and then a boys' institution in Basel.

Hesse's birthplace in Calw, 1977

Hesse's birthplace, 2007

At the end of 1892 he attended the Gymnasium in Cannstatt. In 1893 he passed the One Year Examination which concluded his schooling.

After this Hesse began a bookshop apprenticeship in Esslingen am Neckar but after three days he left. Then in the early summer of 1894 he began a 14-month mechanic apprenticeship at a clock tower factory in Calw. The monotony of soldering and filing work made him resolve to turn himself toward more spiritual activities. In October 1895 he was ready to begin wholeheartedly a new apprenticeship with a bookseller in Tübingen. This experience from his youth he returns to later in his novel Beneath the Wheel.

Becoming a writer

On 17 October 1895 Hesse began working in the bookshop Heckenhauer in Tübingen which had a specialized collection in theology, philology, and law. Hesse's assignment there consisted of organizing, packing, and archiving the books. After the end of each twelve hour workday Hesse pursued his own work further and he spent his long, idle Sundays with books rather than friends. Hesse studied theological writings and later Goethe, Lessing, Schiller, and several texts on Greek mythology. In 1896 his poem 'Madonna' appeared in a Viennese periodical.

By 1898 Hesse had a respectable income that enabled financial independence from his parents. During this time he concentrated on the works of the German Romantics, including much of the work from Clemens Brentano, Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, Friedrich Hölderlin and Novalis. In letters to his parents he expressed a belief that "the morality of artists is replaced by aesthetics."

In the autumn Hesse released his first small volume of poetry Romantic Songs and in the summer of 1899, a collection of prose entitled One Hour After Midnight. Both works were a business failure. In two years only 54 of the 600 printed copies of Romantic Songs were sold, and One Hour After Midnight received only one printing and sold sluggishly. Nevertheless, the Leipzig publisher Eugen Diederichs was convinced of the literary quality of the work and from the beginning regarded the publications more as encouragement of a young author than as profitable business.

From the autumn of 1899 Hesse worked in a distinguished antique book shop in Basel. Through family contacts he stayed with the intellectual families of Basel. In this environment with rich stimuli for his pursuits, he further developed spiritually and artistically. At the same time Basel offered the solitary Hesse many opportunities for withdrawal into a private life of artistic self-exploration, journeys and wanderings. In 1900, Hesse was exempted from compulsory military service due to an eye condition. This, along with nerve disorders and persistent headaches, affected him his entire life.

"Modern Book Printing" from the Walk of Ideas in Berlin, Germany - built in 2006 to commemorate Johannes Gutenberg's invention, c. 1445, of movable printing type.

In 1901 Hesse undertook to fulfill a long-held dream and travelled for the first time to Italy. In the same year Hesse changed jobs and began working at the antiquarium Wattenwyl in Basel. Hesse had more opportunities to release poems and small literary texts to journals. These publications now provided honorariums. Shortly the publisher Samuel Fischer became interested in Hesse, and with the novel Peter Camenzind, which appeared first as a pre-publication in 1903 and then as a regular printing by Fischer in 1904, came a breakthrough: from now on, Hesse could make a living as a writer.

Between Lake Constance and India

With the literary fame Hesse married Maria Bernoulli (of the famous family of mathematicians^[2]) in 1904, settled down with her in Gaienhofen on Lake Constance, and began a family, eventually having three sons. In Gaienhofen he wrote his second novel Beneath the Wheel, which was published in 1906. In the following time he composed primarily short stories and poems. His next novel, Gertrude, published in 1910, revealed a production crisis—he had to struggle through writing it, and he later would describe it as "a miscarriage."

Hesse's writing desk, pictured at the Museum Gaienhofen

Gaienhofen was also the place where Hesse's interest in Buddhism was resparked. Following a letter to Kapff in 1895 entitled Nirvana, Hesse ceased alluding to Buddhist references in his work. In 1904, however, Arthur Schopenhauer and his philosophical ideas started receiving attention again, and Hesse discovered theosophy. Schopenhauer and theosophy renewed Hesse's interest in India. Although it was many years before the publication of Hesse's Siddhartha (1922), this masterpiece was to be derived from these new influences.

During this time there also was increased dissonance between him and Maria, and in 1911 Hesse left alone for a long trip to Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Any spiritual or religious inspiration that he was looking for eluded him, but the journey made a strong impression on his literary work. Following Hesse's return the family moved to Bern (1912), but the change of environment could not solve the marriage problems, as he himself confessed in his novel Rosshalde from 1914.

During the First World War

At the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 Hesse registered himself as a volunteer with the Imperial army, saying that he could not sit inactively by a warm fireplace while other young authors were dying on the front. He was found unfit for combat duty, but was assigned to service involving the care of war prisoners. ^[3]

On 3 November 1914, in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Hesse's essay "O Friends, Not These Tones" ("O Freunde, nicht diese Töne")^[4] appeared, in which he appealed to German intellectuals not to fall for patriotism. What followed from this, Hesse later indicated, was a great turning point in his life: For the first time he found himself in the middle of a serious political conflict, attacked by the German press, the recipient of hate mail, and distanced from old friends. He did receive continued support from his friend Theodor Heuss, and the French writer Romain Rolland, whom Hesse visited in August 1915.

This public controversy was not yet resolved when a deeper life crisis befell Hesse with the death of his father on 8 March 1916, the serious sickness of his son Martin, and his wife's schizophrenia. He was forced to leave his military service and begin receiving psychotherapy. This began for Hesse a long preoccupation with psychoanalysis, through which he came to know Carl Jung personally, and was challenged to new creative heights. During a three-week period during September and October 1917, Hesse penned his novel Demian, which would be published following the armistice in 1919 under the pseudonym Emil Sinclair.

Casa Camuzzi

Hermann Hesse in 1925

By the time Hesse returned to civilian life in 1919 his marriage had shattered. His wife had a severe episode of psychosis, but even after her recovery, Hesse saw no possible future with her. Their home in Bern was divided and Hesse resettled alone in the middle of April in Ticino. He occupied a small farm house near Minusio (close to Locarno), living from 25 April to 11 May in Sorengo. On 11 May he moved to the town Montagnola and rented four small rooms in a castle-like building, the 'Casa Camuzzi'.

Here he explored his writing projects further; he began to paint, an activity which is reflected in his next major story Klingsor's Last Summer, published in 1920. In 1922 Hesse's novel Siddhartha appeared, which showed the love for Indian culture and Buddhist philosophy, which had already developed in his earlier life. In 1924 Hesse married the singer Ruth Wenger, the daughter of the Swiss writer Lisa Wenger and aunt of Meret Oppenheim. This marriage never attained any stability, however.

In 1923 Hesse received Swiss citizenship. His next major works, Kurgast (1925) and The Nuremberg Trip (1927), were autobiographical narratives with ironic undertones, and foreshadowed Hesse's following novel, Steppenwolf, which was published in 1927. In the year of his 50th birthday, the first biography of Hesse appeared, written by his friend Hugo Ball. Shortly after his new successful novel, he turned away from the solitude of Steppenwolf and married art historian Ninon Dolbin, née Ausländer. This change to companionship was reflected in the novel Narcissus and Goldmund, appearing in 1930.

In 1931 Hesse left the Casa Camuzzi and moved with Ninon to a large house (Casa Hesse) near Montagnola, which was built according to his wishes.

The Glass Bead Game

Main article: The Glass Bead Game

In 1931 Hesse began planning what would become his last major work, The Glass Bead Game (aka Magister Ludi). In 1932, as a preliminary study, he released the novella, Journey to the East. The Glass Bead Game was printed in 1943 in Switzerland. For this work he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946.

Later life

Hesse observed the rise to power of Nazism in Germany with concern. In 1933 Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann made their travels into exile and in both cases were aided by Hesse. In this way Hesse attempted to work against Hitler's suppression of art and literature that protested Nazi ideology.

Hesse, who had long published pieces in German journals and newspapers, spoke publicly in support of Jewish artists and others pursued by the Nazis.^{[citation needed]} However, when he wrote for the Frankfurter Zeitung, he was accused of supporting the Nazis, whom Hesse did not publicly condemn.^{[citation needed]}

From the end of the 1930s German journals stopped publishing Hesse's work, and it was eventually banned by the Nazis.

The Glass Bead Game was Hesse's last novel. During the last twenty years of his life Hesse wrote many short stories (chiefly recollections of his childhood) and poems (frequently with nature as their theme). Hesse wrote ironic essays about his alienation from writing (for instance, the mock autobiographies: Life Story Briefly Told and Aus den Briefwechseln eines Dichters) and spent much time pursuing his interest in watercolors.

Hesse also occupied himself with the steady stream of letters he received as a result of the prize and as a new generation of German readers explored his work. In one essay Hesse reflected wryly on his lifelong failure to acquire a talent for idleness and speculated that his average daily correspondence was in excess of 150 pages. He died on 9 August 1962 and was buried in the cemetery at San Abbondio in Montagnola, where Hugo Ball is also buried.

Popularity outside the German-speaking countries

Following the death of Hesse in 1962 his novels saw a revival in popularity due to their association with some of the popular themes of the 1960s counterculture (or "hippie") movement. In particular the quest-for-enlightenment theme of Siddhartha, Journey to the East, and Narcissus and Goldmund resonated with counter-cultural ideals. The "magic theatre" sequences in Steppenwolf were interpreted by some as drug-induced psychedelia. These and other Hesse novels were republished in paperback editions and were widely read by university students and young people in the United States and elsewhere.

Hesse's Siddhartha is one of the most popular Western novels set in India. An authorized translation of Siddhartha was published in the Malayalam language in 1990, the language which surrounded Hesse's grandfather, Hermann Gundert, for most of his life. A Hermann Hesse Society of India has also been formed. It aims to bring out authentic translations of Siddhartha in all Indian languages. It has already prepared the Sanskrit translation of Siddhartha.

One enduring monument to Hesse's lasting popularity in the United States is the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. Referring to "The Magic Theatre for Madmen Only" in Steppenwolf (a kind of spiritual and somewhat nightmarish cabaret attended by some of the characters, including Harry Haller), the Magic Theatre was founded in 1967 to perform works by new playwrights. Founded by the late John Lion, the Magic Theatre has fulfilled that mission for many years, including the world premieres of many plays by Sam Shepard.

Selected works

For a more complete list, see Hermann Hesse (German Wikipedia) and Sämtliche Werke (Complete works, ed. 2001-2007).

• 1904 – Peter Camenzind
• 1906 – Beneath the Wheel (also published under the title The Prodigy)
• 1910 – Gertrude
• 1914 – Rosshalde
• 1915 – Knulp
• 1919 – Demian (published under the pen name Emil Sinclair)
• 1919 – Klein and Wagner
• 1920 – Klingsor's Last Summer
• 1922 – Siddhartha
• 1927 – Steppenwolf
• 1930 – Narcissus and Goldmund
• 1932 – Journey to the East
• 1943 – The Glass Bead Game (also published under the title Magister Ludi)

Awards

Statue in Calw

• 1906 - Bauernfeld-Preis
• 1928 - Mejstrik-Preis der Wiener Schiller-Stiftung
• 1936 - Gottfried-Keller-Preis
• 1946 - Goethepreis der Stadt Frankfurt
• 1946 - Nobel Prize in Literature
• 1947 - Honorary Doctorate from the University of Bern
• 1950 - Wilhelm-Raabe-Preis
• 1954 - Orden Pour le mérite für Wissenschaft und Künste
• 1955 - Peace Prize of the German Book Trade

Hesse received honorary citizenship from his home city of Calw, and additionally, throughout Germany many schools are named after him. In 1964 the Calwer Hermann-Hesse-Preis was founded, which is awarded every two years, alternately to a German-language literary journal or to the translator of Hesse's work to a foreign language. There is also a Hermann-Hesse-Preis that is associated with the city of Karlsruhe.

Hermann Hesse in popular culture

• In the summer of 1948, the composer Richard Strauss set three short poems by Hesse to music to become all but one of his valedictory Four Last Songs, his final works before his death in 1949.
• In 1967, the rock band Steppenwolf named themselves after Hesse's novel, partly due to lead singer John Kay having been born and raised in Germany. Along with other bands also inspired by Hesse, like Anyone's Daughter with their 40-minute version of "Piktors Verwandlungen", Steppenwolf played in 2002 on Calw's market square as part of the International Hermann-Hesse-Festival 2002.
• The Volvos singer Heynes Arms wrote a song entitled "I Think I'm Herman Hesse". Like Hesse, Arms had German parentage and was born on 2 July.
• The British progressive rock band Yes was influenced by Hesse, especially on their 1972 album, Close to the Edge.
• The American band Kansas had a song entitled 'Journey to Mariabronn' on their self-titled first album Kansas (1974) which was based on Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund.
• English band Hawkwind recorded the lengthy track 'Steppenwolf' on their 1976 album Astounding Sounds Amazing Music. The song was lyrically and conceptually fairly faithful to the original. ('The Sign read 'To the Magic Theatre' / It is not for everyone / It is but for madmen only / The first performance has begun')
• World Champion Slam Poet Buddy Wakefield titled the first track of his 2006 album Run On Anything "Healing Hermann Hesse."
• Electronic duo Thievery Corporation has a song on their album Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi (1997) titled "The Glass Bead Game".
• A song by English rock band Blur, "Strange News from Another Star," from their self-titled album, takes its name from the title of a Hesse anthology of the same name.
• American performance artist Laurie Anderson mentions Hesse and his grave in her spoken piece "Maria Teresa Teresa Maria" on the live album The Ugly One with the Jewels. In it she mentions the disparity between his gravestone and that of his wife, Nina, apparently misunderstanding the citation "Ausländer", which in fact was Nina's maiden name.
• River Phoenix was named for the river of life in the Hermann Hesse novel Siddhartha.^[5]
• The German composer Bertold Hummel wrote two song cycles after poems by Hermann Hesse [1]. The cycle Headless [2] was his final work before his death in 2002. His Poem for Violoncello and Strings [3] is based on the famous poem Stages by Hermann Hesse.
• The Magic Theatre in San Francisco, which has been continuously performing works by new playwrights since 1967, has a name taken from Hesse's "Magic Theatre for Madmen Only" in 'Steppenwolf.'
• The computer game Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason begins with a quote attributed to Hesse.

References

1. ^ "Hermann Hesse autobiography". Nobelprize.org. http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1946/hesse-autobio.html. Retrieved 2007-07-16. 
2. ^ Gustav Emil Müller, Philosophy of Literature, Ayer Publishing, 1976.
3. ^ "Hermann Hesse Schriftsteller" (in German). Deutsches Historisches Museum. http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/biografien/HesseHermann/. Retrieved 15 January 2008. 
4. ^ See Text of the fourth movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9.
5. ^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE7DF173DF930A25752C1A965958260

External links

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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Hermann Hesse

• Complete bibliography at Nobelprize.org
• Poems in Dedication to Hermann Hesse, with some of his own incorporated throughout - in English and German, webmastered by S. Wolf Britain, Human and Civil Rights Advocate
• Works by Hermann Hesse at Project Gutenberg
• Hermann Hesse Page - in German and English, maintained by Professor Gunther Gottschalk
• Hermann Hesse in the German National Library catalogue (German)
• Hermann Hesse Portal
• Community of the Journeyer to the East - in German and English
• Concise Biography - originally published by the Germanic American Institute, by Paul A. Schons
• Article at 'Books and Writers'
• The painter Hermann Hesse Galerie Ludorff, Duesseldorf, Germany
• Audio recording in English of Siddhartha from Librivox.org.
• Erziehung in Hermann Hesses Glasperlenspiel. Diplomarbeit. Grin Verlag. [4]

v • d • e Works by Hermann Hesse Poems Romantic Songs · One Hour After Midnight · Poems Novels Peter Camenzind · Beneath the Wheel · Gertrude · Rosshalde · Knulp · Demian · Klein and Wagner · Klingsor's Last Summer · Siddhartha · Kurgast · Die Nürnberger Reise · Steppenwolf · Narcissus and Goldmund · Journey to the East · Autobiographical Writings · The Glass Bead Game Essay collections If the War Goes On ... · My Belief: Essays on Life and Art Short Stories The Complete Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse · Stories of Five Decades · Strange News from Another Star

v • d • e Nobel Laureates in Literature Grazia Deledda (1926) · Henri Bergson (1927) · Sigrid Undset (1928) · Thomas Mann (1929) · Sinclair Lewis (1930) · Erik Axel Karlfeldt (1931) · John Galsworthy (1932) · Ivan Bunin (1933) · Luigi Pirandello (1934) · Eugene O'Neill (1936) · Roger Martin du Gard (1937) · Pearl S. Buck (1938) · Frans Eemil Sillanpää (1939) · Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (1944) · Gabriela Mistral (1945) · Hermann Hesse (1946) · André Gide (1947) · T. S. Eliot (1948) · William Faulkner (1949) · Bertrand Russell (1950) Complete roster · 1901–1925 · 1926–1950 · 1951–1975 · 1976–2000 · 2001–present

Persondata
NAME	Hesse, Hermann
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	German novelist, short story writer,, essayist and poet
DATE OF BIRTH	2 July 1877(1877-07-02)
PLACE OF BIRTH	Calw, Württemberg, Germany
DATE OF DEATH	9 August 1962
PLACE OF DEATH	Montagnola, Switzerland

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