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

Haller, who experiences his adolescent shyness and inability to break the ice with
Rosa as a poignant failure, is faced with the opportunity to re-enact the event in
order to change its course, thereby consigning that experience to the repository of the
past:
Aber diesmal war es mir gegeben, sie anders zu empfangen als jenesmal. [...]
Und statt wieder den Hut zu ziehen und feierlich mit gezogenem Hut zu
stehen, bis sie voriiber ware, tat ich diesmal trotz Angst und Beklemmung,
was mein Blut mich tun hiefi, und rief: «Rosa! Gott sei Dank, dafi du
gekommen bist, du schones schones Madchen. Ich habe dich so lieb». 23 (SW 4,
187)
4.5 Metamorphosis
Images of metamorphosis emerge throughout Hesse's literary production, and the
following discussion seeks to illustrate the extent to which the idea of
metamorphosis itself plays an important role in his poetics. Before analysing three
instances of metamorphosis (Tiktors Verwandlungen', Der Steppenwolf, and
butterflies in Hesse's imagery), I will identify the biographical background behind
Hesse's interest in metamorphosis, his philosophical assumptions, and his literary
models within the Western literary tradition.
Hesse, as a child, experienced reality as limited and unsatisfactory (see
previous section). As the narrator of 'Kindheit des Zauberers' for his part points out:
'Wirklichkeit war niemals genug, Zauber tat not' (SW 9, 457). 24 Hesse consequently
attempted to expand the range of possibilities offered by everyday life by
transforming and reshaping objects in his mind's eye, as this passage from Hermann
Lauscher suggests:
Dennoch hangte sich meine Phantasie gerne an weniger kommode
Gegenstande und schuf Pferde aus Schemeln, Hauser aus Tischen, Vogel aus
Tuchlappen und ungeheuerliche Hohlen aus Wand, Ofenschirm und
Bettdecke. (HL, SW 1, 230)
23 "'[RJememory" cannot be the literal repetition that traps us in the past but a "retranslation" that allows a
movement forward and the recognition of the past as past' (King, 32).
24 This idea is echoed in 'Kurzgefasster Lebenslauf: 'Ohne Magie war diese Welt nicht zu ertragen' (SW 12
62).
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