HERMANN HESSE AND THE DIALECTICS OF TIME Salvatore C. P. ...
HERMANN HESSE AND THE DIALECTICS OF TIME Salvatore C. P. ... HERMANN HESSE AND THE DIALECTICS OF TIME Salvatore C. P. ...
A third aspect of Hesse's clash with the reality of everyday life and society is his rejection of an all too rigid and conventional idea of personality (see his views on mental insanity and schizophrenia below). In this respect, his attitude is steeped in the scientific and cultural debate at the turn of the 20 th century, when the idea of personality, or identity, as a fixed, immutable and determined whole, wa s challenged, for instance, by new research in the field of psychoanalysis and psychiatry. 27 Questions around the perception of the self are a common denominator in the literary work of the time (see, for example, Pirandello's Uno, Nessuno e Centomila [One, No one and One Hundred Thousand]) as well as in the fine arts and their techniques (see the complex and fragmented perspective of Cubism). 28 The protagonists of Hesse's novels, too, are confronted with this problem: they have to come to grips with their numerous selves and their multifaceted, and therefore elusive, personalities (see especially Klingsors letzter Sommer, Siddhartha, and Der Steppenwolf). Govinda, scrutinising an old Siddhartha, sees a multitude of faces and images emanating from his friend's face: eine lange Reihe, einen stromenden Flufi von Gesichtern, von Hunderten, von Tausenden, welche alle kamen und vergingen, [...] und keine starb doch, jede verwandelte sich nur, wurde stets neu geboren, bekam stets ein neues Gesicht, ohne dafi doch zwischen einem und dem andern Gesicht Zeit gelegen ware.29 (SW 3, 470-71) Hesse felt uncomfortable when other people expected him to conform to what they had identified as his personality, namely the image of him they had built up and layered in their memory. As transliterated into the fiction of 'Kurzgefasster Lebenslauf, he resisted his friends' criticism about his budding interest in painting at the age of forty, as they felt it was absorbing him completely: 'sie mochten gerne, dafi man bleibt, was man war, dafi man sein Gesicht nicht andert. Aber mein Gesicht ausgespannten Teppich meiner jugendlichsten Gliickstraume wie eine lind bewegte Musik, oder wie eine duftende Erinnerung, oder wie der Geist einer verklarten, tiefgrundigen Jugendzeit' (ESM, SW 1, 188). 27 In 1908, Eugen Bleuler coined the term 'Schizophrenia'. As Boulby notes, '[b]y 1916, certainly, and possibly very much earlier, Hesse was well acquainted with the works of Freud, Jung, Bleuler, and Stekel' (Boulby, 85). 28 The first phase of Cubism developed at the end of the first decade of the 20th century, while Pirandello commenced writing Uno, nessuno e centomila in 1909, although it was only to appear between 1925 and 1926. 29 Klingsor looks into a mirror which reflects a kaleidoscope of images of himself; these fade into each other, dissolve and reappear in a constant cycle. See section 6.4 ('the mirror'). 123
weigert sich, es will sich haufig andern, es ist ihm Bediirfnis' (SW 12, 57). In Der Steppenwolf, Hesse explicitly refers to the term schizophrenia to explain his characters' discovery of their fragmented selves: 'die scheinbare Einheit der Person in diese vielen Figuren auseinanderzuspalten gilt fur verriickt, die Wissenschaft hat dafur den Narnen Schizophrenic erfunden' (SW 4,180). Among other artists of his time, Hesse challenges the idea of schizophrenia as a mental disorder and regards it as an artistic power, which he sets against a more restricted vision of the personality: 'so wie die Verriicktheit, in einem hohern Sinn, der Anfang aller Weisheit ist, so ist Schizophrenic der Anfang aller Kunst, aller Phantasie' (SW 4,181-82).30 The concept of identity has also been under scrutiny, and for centuries, with regard to time and the concept of change. As Bynum perceptively points out: change has been seen in the Western tradition as both horror and glory. If there is real replacement, we can after all both lose and transcend the self. And in writers of the Western mainstream, there has been a tendency to fear these two - loss and transcendence - as the same thing (29). Despite its overall resistance to change, the Western tradition has constantly explored the boundaries of identity and, in the literary field, concepts such as 'metamorphosis' and 'hybridity' have served precisely this purpose. In defining them, Bynum draws a neat distinction though: In an obvious sense, the contrast is that metamorphosis is process and hybrid is not [...] Metamorphosis goes from an entity that is one thing to an entity that is another. It is essentially narrative [...] In contrast, hybrid is spatial and visual, not temporal. It is inherently two. (30) The problem of change and the self is raised in a document of the early twentieth century, where the opposition between permanence and transience comes to the fore. In 1911, during the composition of Ariadne aufNaxos, Richard Strauss received a letter from poet, dramatist and, in this case, librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal in which he expressed his mixed feelings on the issue of 'loyalty': Es handelt sich um ein simples und ungeheureres Lebensproblem: das der Treue. An dem Verlorenen festhalten, ewig beharren, bis an den Tod - oder 30 Further references to 'schizophrenia' in Hesse are included in 6.5 (note 54) within the discussion on the dual character of Mozart / Pablo as an instance of the 'fool'. 124
- Page 79 and 80: Furthermore, the erotic element of
- Page 81 and 82: Hesse's penchant for 'klassische' (
- Page 83 and 84: the aesthetic qualities of a piece
- Page 85 and 86: creation is, for Hesse, the princip
- Page 87 and 88: 'Hesse had nothing against virtuosi
- Page 89 and 90: undramatisch' (letter of 1898 to He
- Page 91 and 92: As far as the formal plane is conce
- Page 93 and 94: called 'absurd'. 53 The most conspi
- Page 95 and 96: existence and the dismissal of any
- Page 97 and 98: in that the former's opera paves th
- Page 99 and 100: 'Bine Arbeitsnacht' (1928), he poin
- Page 101 and 102: debate on jazz but also by the Nazi
- Page 103 and 104: catchy tunes threaten to drain art
- Page 105 and 106: individuationis—accepting his lim
- Page 107 and 108: Singen oder Summen oder auch nur da
- Page 109 and 110: die Erden und Sterne harmonisch im
- Page 111 and 112: in the euphoria of the 'Maskenball'
- Page 113 and 114: Chapter 4 Memory, metamorphosis, an
- Page 115 and 116: Hesse's approach to memory and the
- Page 117 and 118: Hesse's main characters who, almost
- Page 119 and 120: ich sah mich wahrend der ganzen Vor
- Page 121 and 122: with music, which would eventually
- Page 123 and 124: correlative' of childhood in Hesse.
- Page 125 and 126: equally pressing desire to release
- Page 127 and 128: mit Entsetzen erinnerte ich mich an
- Page 129: Hesse ascribes his fascination with
- Page 133 and 134: exceptions (see the myth of Pygmali
- Page 135 and 136: internalized and replaced by transf
- Page 137 and 138: to India ('Erinnerung an Mwamba').
- Page 139 and 140: there are occasions when we experie
- Page 141 and 142: Beschreibung einiger Augenblicke ku
- Page 143 and 144: In the first place, time is no long
- Page 145 and 146: Beja underlines that, for both Berg
- Page 147 and 148: Karalaschwili refers to as the 'Zei
- Page 149 and 150: (unity, memory, and music) merge in
- Page 151 and 152: of Hesse's personal creed as well a
- Page 153 and 154: Nichts war, nichts wird sein; alles
- Page 155 and 156: The complex symbol of the river in
- Page 157 and 158: as revealed by the opening line of
- Page 159 and 160: While Mann's image of endless repet
- Page 161 and 162: Glasperlenspiel). Clearly, 'authori
- Page 163 and 164: spread very rapidly to the human sc
- Page 165 and 166: poetic world: the metaphor of the s
- Page 167 and 168: Verwandlungen, Goethe and Mozart-Pa
- Page 169 and 170: und die Worte waren kleine schwarme
- Page 171 and 172: After dealing with the rather probl
- Page 173 and 174: greater foe than emotion' (Bergson,
- Page 175 and 176: of experience may be arbitrary and
- Page 177 and 178: identified by Ziolkoski (see Chapte
- Page 179 and 180: Rad (1905-1906) is a noticeable exc
weigert sich, es will sich haufig andern, es ist ihm Bediirfnis' (SW 12, 57). In Der<br />
Steppenwolf, Hesse explicitly refers to the term schizophrenia to explain his<br />
characters' discovery of their fragmented selves: 'die scheinbare Einheit der Person in<br />
diese vielen Figuren auseinanderzuspalten gilt fur verriickt, die Wissenschaft hat<br />
dafur den Narnen Schizophrenic erfunden' (SW 4,180). Among other artists of his<br />
time, Hesse challenges the idea of schizophrenia as a mental disorder and regards it<br />
as an artistic power, which he sets against a more restricted vision of the personality:<br />
'so wie die Verriicktheit, in einem hohern Sinn, der Anfang aller Weisheit ist, so ist<br />
Schizophrenic der Anfang aller Kunst, aller Phantasie' (SW 4,181-82).30<br />
The concept of identity has also been under scrutiny, and for centuries, with<br />
regard to time and the concept of change. As Bynum perceptively points out:<br />
change has been seen in the Western tradition as both horror and glory. If<br />
there is real replacement, we can after all both lose and transcend the self. And<br />
in writers of the Western mainstream, there has been a tendency to fear these<br />
two - loss and transcendence - as the same thing (29).<br />
Despite its overall resistance to change, the Western tradition has constantly explored<br />
the boundaries of identity and, in the literary field, concepts such as 'metamorphosis'<br />
and 'hybridity' have served precisely this purpose. In defining them, Bynum draws a<br />
neat distinction though:<br />
In an obvious sense, the contrast is that metamorphosis is process and hybrid<br />
is not [...] Metamorphosis goes from an entity that is one thing to an entity<br />
that is another. It is essentially narrative [...] In contrast, hybrid is spatial and<br />
visual, not temporal. It is inherently two. (30)<br />
The problem of change and the self is raised in a document of the early twentieth<br />
century, where the opposition between permanence and transience comes to the fore.<br />
In 1911, during the composition of Ariadne aufNaxos, Richard Strauss received a letter<br />
from poet, dramatist and, in this case, librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal in which he<br />
expressed his mixed feelings on the issue of 'loyalty':<br />
Es handelt sich um ein simples und ungeheureres Lebensproblem: das der<br />
Treue. An dem Verlorenen festhalten, ewig beharren, bis an den Tod - oder<br />
30 Further references to 'schizophrenia' in Hesse are included in 6.5 (note 54) within the discussion on the dual<br />
character of Mozart / Pablo as an instance of the 'fool'.<br />
124