HERMANN HESSE AND THE DIALECTICS OF TIME Salvatore C. P. ...

Chapter 4 Memory, metamorphosis, and epiphany
Memories 'store' time and, in turn, require time to inscribe themselves in the mind.
Apart from this obvious statement on the interrelation of time and memory, the
Introduction to this thesis hinted at the elusiveness and complexity of every
discourse around the topic of memory. In seeking to distinguish perspectives and
approaches of the individual to memory, King points out:
it seems that different events are remembered in different ways - some almost
immediately represented in narrative, others remaining 'snapshots', others
still remembered only 'in the body' - and that different people remember in
different ways - some visually, some in language, very young children
differently from adults. (28)
While different people remember in different ways, different epochs build
their own theories and use their own images to expound their views on memory.
Plato's idea of the mind as a wax tablet on which memories are 'inscribed' gives way
to a visual and spatial conception in Cicero. 1 In the Middle Ages, memory is closely
tied to the learning process, and great emphasis is laid on the intersection between
memory and ethics, rather than dialectics as in the classical period. The advent of
print in the fifteenth century brings about 'profound changes in the organization of
memory' (Whitehead, 38). Locke's and Hume's speculations and contributions, as
they will be recalled several times throughout this chapter, are fundamental in
allying memory with the concept of identity during the Enlightenment and
Romanticism; in the latter period, the faculty of memory is also intimately bound to
narrative.2 The close of the nineteenth century is characterised by intense speculation
around memory; Nietzsche, and his perception of memory as a 'burden', is the
For much of the history of memory outlined in this introductory section, I am indebted to Anne Whitehead's
Memory (2009).
2 See the prominence of the genre of autobiography, influenced by Rousseau's Confessions (1782-1789), during
the Romantic period. As Abrams observes, Romanticism is also responsible for a shift in perspective in the
reading of literature which, in the speculation of the time, became to be seen as a 'revelation' of the personality
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of its author (see Abrams, pp. 226-62)
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