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

eternal recurrence). Section 5.4 focuses on the intersection of time and space in
Hesse's poetics and aesthetics, while the close of the chapter deals with one of the
main attributes of eternity in Hesse, lightness, and one of its symbols, the bird (5.5).
5.1 Between time and timelessness
As noted in Chapter 4 (section 5), the occurrence of epiphanies in Hesse goes hand in
hand with the dilatation of the narration and the contraction of narrated time. To be
sure, various techniques are available to writers to manipulate the temporal
dimension of a story: the account of certain portions of the narration and the
omission of others, in order to achieve or maintain dramatic tension; the inversion of
'past' and 'future' of a storyline by anticipating the end of the story at the beginning
or by means of flashbacks; the transposition of historical references as in Das
Glasperlenspiel, where Hesse's time (the Nazi period) is situated in the past, and a
vision of the future occupies the present of the novel. 14 Manipulating any of the three
factors (order, duration, frequency) which, according to Genette, shape the temporal
horizon of a narrative, writers assemble their stories in the way that seems more
cogent to them. Authors also rely on their readers to fill the gaps in the narration and
reconstruct the linear continuum of the narrated time. 15 As suggested by Bakhtin, it is
possible to identify the 'chronotopes' of a narrative which he defines as 'the
organizing centers for the fundamental narrative events of the novel' (Bakhtin, 22).
The chornotopes are 'the place[s] where the knots of narrative are tied and united'
(ibid.). 16 Furthermore, the narrator and the characters of a story are infused with its
author's appreciation and conception of time, which also sets the tone of what
14 'Hesse felt compelled to summon up all his energies to confront the deplorable present with a Utopian
'kingdom of the spirit and the soul as existent and unconquerably visible', at the same time relegating this
present (in the introduction) to a triumphantly surmounted past' (Boulby, 263).
'Die Erza'hlliteratur bescha'ftigte sich schon zu alien Zeiten mit nichts anderem als mit dem Herausgreifen
irgendeines Geschehens aus dem Strom der Zeit und mit dessen Verankerung im Raum eines Kunstwerks'
(Karalaschwili, 221).
16 Bakhtin develops his concept of'chronotope' taking his cue from Einstein's theory of relativity: 'We will give
the name chronotope (literally, "time space") to the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships
that are artistically expressed in literature' (15; original emphasis).
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