Hermann Hesse



Biography


"The hatred of the official Germany, culminating under Hitler, was compensated for by the following I won among the young generation that thought in international and pacifist terms, by the friendship of Romain Rolland, which lasted until his death, as well as by the sympathy of men who thought like me even in countries as remote as India and Japan. In Germany I have been acknowledged again since the fall of Hitler, but my works, partly suppressed by the Nazis and partly destroyed by the war, have not yet been republished there." Nobel Prize speech, 1946.

Hesse and Steppenwolf's Critical Reception

In Germany:


In America:

Images from Steppenwolf:


araucaria houseplant


araucaria in the wild

Goethe

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) with a star on his breast

Goethe in Italy
Goethe's Trip to Italy, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, 1787, Oil on Canvas, Städelschen Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main

Realism and Hesse

Question: Why does the novel emphasize realism so much? How do you define the novel?

cf. Ian Watts, The Rise of the English Novel (Los Angeles and Berkeley: U of California P, 1957), chapter 1

- Realism (from the French school of Realisme, 1856) is opposed to idealism and the belief in universals.
 - Modern realism = a rejection of universals and an emphasis on the development of the self, individuation

- Philosophical realism: study of the particulars of experiences by the individual investigator, who is ideally divorced from traditional beliefs/past assumptions; focus on semantics (the problematic relation between words and reality)

- Unlike previous literature, "realistic" literature is not based on ancient or Classical myth (cf. Spenser, Milton, Shakespeare)

- The novel, then, documents "new" experiences of the modern individual.

“These symbolic projections of Haller’s inner world, the imaginative expression of higher reality, contain the true meaning of the work, as Hesse argued in letters to readers who saw in the book no more than a paean to prostitutes and jazz musicians. All too often, however, critics have overlooked the realistic basis, thus ignoring the technique of double perception and missing precisely the ambiguous quality of ‘reality’ that Hesse was so intent upon rendering. Only the interaction of the two levels of reality produces the characteristic tension of the novel, and the source of Haller’s schizophrenic depression becomes understandable only when we see him enmeshed in the turmoil of everyday reality. For that reason Hesse comes closer to literary realism in many passages of this novel than anywhere else in his works” (Theodore Ziolkowski, The Novels of Hermann Hesse, 1965, p. 200; my emphasis)



Suicide: What role does suicide play in the novel? Why does Haller lead a "suicidal existence" (19)? Why does he want to kill himself? Consult also p. 48-9, 64, 68-71, 83-5, 91




Discussion


TASK FOR GROUP DISCUSSION: Reread through text and find 2 specific passages that illuminate, perhaps, one of the following characteristics:

1) The ‘60’s effect: antiauthoritarianism,  anti-bourgeoisie,  anti-militarism

2) Novel characteristic #1: Realism / New, undocumented experience

3) Novel characteristic #2: Individuality/subordination of plot to autobiographical memoir

4) The Paradox of Hesse scholarship: Appeal to mass reading audiences / disdain from literary critics

THEN: Formulate an answer to this question: How does this generic characteristic point to specific themes/motifs/messages in Steppenwolf?
Groups of Symbols / Motifs in Steppenwolf

Hermine: “[an animal, a cat, a dog, or a bird, or one of those beautiful great beasts in the zoo, a puma or a giraffe] are as they are, like stones or flowers or stars in the sky. Don’t you agree?” (114).

Man-made

Natural

  • Doorways

  • Electric light

  • Narcotics

  • Literature, Music

  • Alchemy / Magic

  • Birds

  • Stars

  • Flowers

  • Trees

  • Water

Group discussion


In a letter on 14 May 1931, Hesse wrote: “One must be able to replace the idols of the age with a faith. This I have always done; in Der Steppenwolf this involves Mozart and the Immortals and the Magic Theater” (qtd. in Fickert 6).


Discuss this quote in relation to the last part of the novel in groups. In particular, consider the following more concrete questions:


1. What is the Magic Theater? What is its purpose? What do Harry's experiences there mean?


2. Who are the Immortals?


3. Who or what does Mozart symbolize? What role does he play in Harry’s journey?




Works Cited


Fickert, Kurt. "The Significance of Epiphany in Der Steppenwolf." International Fiction Review. Jan 2002: 1-10.


So-called Names


Hermine = female version of Hermann

Harry Haller = same initials and number of syllables as the author's name, Hermann Hesse
→ What does this say about the experimental self?

-   Hesse was a patient of Carl Jung, a contemporary of Freud's who believed in archetypes and a shared consciousness. At the end of the novel, Haller experiences the multiple selves available in such a shared consciousness.

- In Eastern mysticism, nirvana is achieved through a loss of the self. Buddhists believe that obsession with the self ties us to the earthly plane, keeping us in multiple lives until we get it right.

→ What's Harry Haller's problem?

- He believes in false dichotomies, such as nature vs. man, Haller vs. Steppenwolf, reality vs. fantasy.

- Technique of the novel = other characters = distorted mirror for the protagonist’s struggles with the self (i.e., in Jane Eyre, Bertha Mason could be said to be a distorted mirror for the protagonist's repressed emotions; Mason commits the violent acts and expresses the anger that Jane feels).

- Here, characters literally represent facets of Haller's repressed selves.












  
Margritte (Belgian, 1898-1967)





Salvador Dali (Spanish, 1904-1989)