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

concept of irony and its scope. 37 For Kierkegaard, irony entails a 'detachment' but
only in relation to the individual and inasmuch as it allows human beings to restrain
their individuality, which would otherwise be unbridled. Irony is a means of self-
analysis and introspection that yields balance and morality to the life of a person:
Anders als die Romantiker betont Kierkegaard [...] den Lebens-Sinn der Ironie:
wie mit dem Zweifel die Philosophic, so beginne mit der Ironie die »vita
digna«. (Strohschneider-Kohrs, 94)
As noted above, Hesse's 'Galgenhumor' too limits the sphere of the principium
individuationis which, for Hesse, is the last hurdle in the advancement towards the
final stage of 'Menschwerdung', entailing the totality of being. 38 The ideal and all-
embracing unity Hesse and his protagonists strive for lies behind their principium
individuationis, as indirectly suggested by Hesse's diary entry of February 1921 with
regard to his understanding of the beatitude of Nirvana:
Nirwana ist, wie ich es verstehe, das Zuriickkehren des Einzelnen zum
ungeteilten Ganzen, der erlosende Schritt hinter das principium
individuationis zuriick, also, religios ausgedriickt, Riickkehr der Einzelseele
zur All-seele, zu Gott. ('Tagebuch 1920/1921', SW 11, 640-41)
His characters follow different paths to shake off the shackles of their individuality.
Klein extinguishes his personality through his suicide. Among the ascetic Samanas,
Siddhartha attempts to annihilate even his most elementary needs. Klingsor and
Haller experience a temporary suspension of their principium individuationis,
pursuing alcoholic oblivion or the joyful communion with other human beings, as
discovered by Haller in the 'Maskenball': '[i]ch war nicht mehr ich, meine
Personlichkeit war aufgelost im Festrausch wie Salz im Wasser' (SW 4,160). 39 As
37 Although Kierkegaard commented on irony in several works, his thesis 'On the Concept of Irony with
Continual Reference to Socrates' ('Om Begrebet Ironi med stadigt Hensyn til Socrates'), submitted in 1841, is
the work which deals most extensively with the subject. Hesse's ethical approach to irony is also one of the
points of divergence with T. Mann, whose employment of irony was prevalently aesthetic. The consequence of
this divide between the two writers will be discussed in connection with their use of narrative irony in the last
section of this chapter (6.6).
38 Hahn notes that '[t]he problem of a dissolution of individualism was pivotal to Hesse's generation' (Hahn,
397). The 'self, which equates to a prison for Pablo ('Personlichkeit [...] ist das Gefangnis'; Ste, SW 4, 166), is
also, according to Magris, 'the cardinal principle of the bourgeois social order' (Magris 1977, XXIX; my
translation).
39 This point in the novel is also brought out in the context of Hesse's relation to dance as a form of
entertainment in Chapter 3, section 5. It should be noted that, for both Klingsor and Haller, art entails the
sublimation and extinction of the principium individuationis.
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