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

Beja underlines that, for both Bergson and Proust, moments of sudden recollection
and, more generally, memory are means of catching glimpses of eternity:
Although both [Bergson and Proust] believe that time cannot stop, they also
feel that during certain experiences it can be transcended largely through
memory, which enables us to live in pure time. And living in this state is, in
effect, the same as living outside of time (58).
Hesse too draws on this juxtaposition. Despite being doomed to fade away, beauty is
a tangible manifestation of the eternal. 12 The butterfly, the splendour of which
withers in the short space of its lifecycle, is for Hesse the quintessential image of the
human soul and 'Sinnbild zugleich der Kurzlebigkeit wie der ewigen Fortdauer'
('Uber Schmetterlinge' in KF, 288). 13 Emil Sinclair catches glimpses of eternity from a
cursory look cast at his friend Demian:
Es war, als sei auch etwas von einem Frauengesicht darin, und namentlich
schien dies Gesicht mir, fur einen Augenblick, nicht mannlich oder kindlich,
nicht alt oder jung, sondern irgendwie tausendjahrig, irgendwie zeitlos, von
anderen Zeitlaufen gestempelt, als wir sie leben. Tiere konnten so aussehen,
oder Baume, oder Sterne. (Dem, SW 3, 273)
In Der Steppenwolf, the character of Goethe cites Goethe's equation between the
instant and eternity almost word for word: 'die Ewigkeit ist blofi ein Augenblick7
(SW 4, 97). Temporal finiteness and infinity are brought close to each other on a
linguistic level too: "Die goldne Spur war aufgeblitzt, ich war ans Ewige erinnert, an
Mozart, an die Sterne7 (SW 4, 37; my emphasis).
In what follows, we will analyse Hesse's idea of time and eternity through the
images on which he, perhaps both consciously and unconsciously, draws to conjure
up timelessness. The first section situates the problem of eternity and the nature of
time within Hesse's conceptual framework (5.1). The coalescence of past, present,
and future in Hesse's idea of simultaneity is the theme of section 5.2, which is
followed by a discussion (5.3) on circularity, its symbols and implications (e.g.
12 In this idea of beauty as both ephemeral and eternal is couched one of Hesse's key binary oppositions, the
complementary relation between immanence and transcendence (see section 2 in Chapter 1), also inflected as the
contrast between time and eternity (see next section, 5.1).
13 Hesse's idea of the butterfly as a symbol of immortality may also be influenced by his experience as a
collector. He knew that the beauty of a butterfly can be preserved if opportunely embalmed: 'Bei den Faltern und
manchen KSfern ist der Unterschied viel geringer, sie lassen sich in ihrer Farbenpracht auch im Tode sehr viel
besser erhalten als irgendwelche andere Tiere' (Schmetterlinge, 18).
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