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

Mozart and Pablo, who share some features of the 'joker 7 and the 'fool', are
also the two characters, along with Goethe and his 'Greisenhumor' (SW 4, 94) most
associated with humour. It is, however, the tractate that, laying emphasis on three
crucial points, provides a theoretical premise of 'Humor 7 . Firstly, humour is a
product of the imagination (cine imaginary aber souverane Welt7 (SW 4, 57).
Secondly, paradox seems to be its essence:
In der Welt zu leben, als sei es nicht die Welt, das Gesetz zu achten und doch
iiber ihm zu stehen, zu besitzen, 'als besafie man nicht, zu verzichten7, als sei
es kein Verzicht alle diese beliebten und oft formulierten Forderungen einer
hohen Lebensweisheit ist einzig der Humor zu verwirklichen fahig. (SW 4, 58)
Thirdly, 'Der Humor bleibt stets irgendwie biirgerlich7 (SW 4, 57) and is not an aim
in itself but more of an intermediate state for those individuals of exceptional gifts
who, nonetheless, are not ready for 'den Sprung ins Weltall 7 (SW 4, 58):
It would be wrong to imagine that 'Humor7 is the actual goal which Hesse has
in mind for Harry. The tractate tells him that humour is the key not to wisdom
but to 'Lebensweisheit7 . 57 (Hollis, 98)
This is what the reader knows about 'Humor7 before Pablo shows Harry into his
'kleines Theater7 (SW 4,166). Here, Pablo, a 'mortal7, explains to Haller the aims of
the 'Magisches Theater 7, which is a 'Schule des Humors'(167), where Harry will have
to learn to laugh and where he will be taught not just pedestrian 'Humor7, the modus
vivendi prefigured by the tractate, but 'hohe[r] Humor 7 (ibid.), which hints at the
humour of the Immortals. 58 It is therefore interesting to note that Pablo, who is a
living person in the fiction of the novel, and whose sense of humour must therefore
be the earthly surrogate the 'Tractat7 expounds on, instructs Haller in the art of
57 '[H]umor', Boulby maintains, 'confessedly the key to an imaginary reconciliation, will prove an inadequate
panacea' (205; original emphasis).
58 It this context, it is worth noting that, conceptually, 'hohefr] Humor' appears as the way out of the impasse in
which the narrator of Tagebuch 1900' in Hermann Lauscher (1901) finds himself. In that work, the narrating
voice, who observes that the philosopher, the aesthete ('Schonheitsucher'), and the saint ('Christ') reject
compromises as well as 'Humor', wonders whether a certain kind of humour exists which does not automatically
entail the relinquishment of one's ideals: '1st es der Philosoph, der Schonheitsucher oder der Christ, zu dessen
Ideal die immer gleiche »Welt« in peinlicherem Kontraste steht? Alle drei jedenfalls leiden, und alle drei
verschmShen die Kompromisse, also das »von Fall zu Fall«, und den Humor. Oder gibt es wirklich einen Humor,
vom gemeinen Witz abgesehen, dessen letzter Grund nicht eine Schwachheit, ein Schwindeln und Zuriicktreten
vor der schmerzlichen Konsequenz des Idealisten ist?' (SW 1,310).
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