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

Nichts war, nichts wird sein; alles 1st, alles hat Wesen und Gegenwart'.33 (SW
4, 443)
Within the framework of Hesse's dialectics, the memory of the self appears as both a
blessing and a curse in that it paves the way to the experience of 'simultaneity', but at
the same time it also restrains any individual development:
Das Identitatsbewufitsein ist eine zauberhafte Sache, frohlich zu sehen, und
doch unheimlich. Man hat es, und man kann doch ohne es leben und tut es oft
genug, wenn nicht meistens. Es ist herrlich, derm es vernichtet die Zeit; und ist
schlimm, denn es leugnet den Fortschritt. ('Taedium vitae', SW 7, 216)
This excerpt also shows that, contrary to Bergson who, in Matter and Memory (1896),
postulated that elimination of memory would entail the abolition of time and lead to
the reconciliation between the inner reality of the self and the material world, Hesse
identifies memory as the means to nullify the action of time. 34
Dreams and epiphanies, both relying on memory (see Chapter 4, sections 1
and 6), offer a final instance of the link between this human faculty and simultaneity.
Excerpts from Die Morgenlandfahrt and Siddhartha, which are among the novels of
Hesse where the discourse on time is of paramount importance, will illustrate this
point. 35 H. H. in Die Morgenlandfahrt hints at the production of dreams as a process
leading to a dimension where time and space can be manipulated at will:
Das Gliick der Traume [...] bestand aus der Freiheit, alles Erdenkliche
gleichzeitig zu erleben, Aufien und Innen spielend zu vertauschen, Zeit und
Raum wie Kulissen zu verschieben. (SW 4, 547)
Vasudeva and Siddhartha seem to be at one with each other on certain occasions,
simultaneously enlightened by the same intuition:
Und es geschah zuweilen, dafi beide beim Anhoren des Flusses an dieselben
Dinge dachten, an ein Gesprach von vorgestern, an einen ihrer Reisenden,
33 'And so it is with Siddhartha's own life, for he himself has always been the same in spite of the changing
aspects of his temporal experience' (Shaw, 217).
34 To end the dualism between perceiver and perceived that has so plagued philosophy, we must turn to
memory, which "is just the intersection of mind and matter"; if we could somehow "eliminate all memory, we
should pass thereby from perception to matter, from the subject to the object'" (Bergson 1896, pp. xii, 77). As an
immediate consequence of the elimination of memory, present would be the only temporal dimension known to
man.
35 The narrator of Die Morgenlandfahrt finds it arduous to relate a journey which is not just spatial, but temporal
too: 'Schwierig wird das Erza'hlen ferner dadurch, daB wir ja nicht nur durch Ra"ume wanderten, sondern ganz
ebenso durch Zeiten' (SW 4, 546).
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