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

Salvages' V; 1944, 30), as one of his diary entries of approximately January 1921
illustrates:
das Ziel ware die Entwicklung zum iiberpersonlichen Ich, zum Heiligen, der
auf die Welt und Zeit nicht mehr personlich reagiert, sondern in dessen
Seelenzustand das Chaos der Welt zu Sinn und Musik wird, in dessen Atem
Gott ein und aus geht' (Tagebuch 1920/1921', SW 11, 633)
In this respect, the dual character of Pablo and Mozart represents a
paradigmatic synthesis of Hesse's perspective on time, being also, as we have sought
to demonstrate, the point of convergence of all the themes analysed in this thesis. The
transformation of Mozart into Pablo represents the 'unexpected moment' of
revelation for Harry, and an instance of metamorphosis. Their joint identity affirms
the interdependence of eternal, classical music and ephemeral tunes and also
suggests that the laughter of the Immortals is the prolongation of the earthly quips of
those individuals who, like Pablo, have been able to go beyond their principium
individuationis and laugh at themselves without losing sight of their ideals. Most
importantly, their pairing indicates that the eternity of Mozart and the temporality of
Pablo's life are not mutually exclusive but linked dimensions, connected through the
channel of sporadic moments of understanding. Hesse underlines that earthly life
contains the germ of the timeless and that, as T. S. Eliot expresses it in the final line of
the second section of 'Burnt Norton': 'Only through time time is conquered' (1944, 6).
A final point, which was only briefly mentioned at the end of Chapter 6 and
might attract further attention from scholars, is that all aspects of temporality
discussed in this thesis have ethical implications and overtones. Morality is one of
the attributes of the music Hesse calls 'klassisch' which, to his mind, is of exemplary,
everlasting significance. 'Selflessness' is a quality which, according to Hesse, most
virtuosi lack. Memory, in H. H.'s account in Die Morgenlandfahrt, should have
prevented Europe from consigning the atrocities of the First World War to oblivion,
thereby avoiding an even more catastrophic conflict twenty years later. As opposed
to the aesthetic implications of Romantic irony, the scope of Hesse's 'Humor' and
self-irony is, in fact, essentially ethical.
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