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

[D]ie Legende [1st] jene Literaturform, die, ohne die Kontinuitat der
biographischen Entwicklung zu unterbrechen, im Schlufiteil der Erzahlung die
Beschreibung von iiberwirklichen, wunderbaren, auf Treu und Glauben
angenommenen Ereignissen moglich macht. (167)
Julia Mortiz, in her study on the musical qualities of Hesse's prose, aligns the
emergence of paradoxes with the musicality of Hesse's texts and magical thinking
(see 1.4 in this thesis). 26 In her analysis of Siddhartha, she underlines how paradoxes
appear as a structural element of the text, as in the case of the conflicting relation
between 'learning' and 'knowledge'.27 Siddhartha remains sceptical about the
possibility of learning from others, although he has turned to several mentors for
guidance (see Moritz, 224). 28 A similar antithesis is discernible in Siddhartha's mixed
feelings towards the 'Kindermenschen', whom he envies and despises for their
ordinariness, and is modulated through Hesse's subtle playing with the different
connotations of 'kindlich', which moves between 'childlike' (Gotama, Vasudeva) and
'childish' (Kindermenschen, Kamala). 29 The 'Kindermenschen' who, mutatis
mutandis, appear as 'Burger' in Der Steppenwolf, cling on to their principium
individuationis, while Siddhartha, like Knecht and other protagonists in Hesse's
novels, is portrayed in his journey to annihilation.30 This contrast leads to another
26 See Moritz, especially section 2.3, 'Paradoxe Poetologie: musikalische Poetik', 119-41.
27 '[KJnowledge may indeed exist, but learning is impossible' (Boulby, 136). This paradox is inflected
differently throughout the novel, refracted in the impossibility of'finding' when 'searching', 'Suchen heifit: ein
Ziel haben. Finden aber heifit: frei sein, offen stehen, kein Ziel haben' (Sid, SW 3, 463) as well as in the
mutually exclusive relation between 'Werden und Sein' (Moritz, 312), someone can indeed 'be' but not
'become' enlightened. Govinda ('Werden'), like Siddhartha, strives to reach Gotama's and Vasudeva's ('Sein')
state of grace. Significantly, Siddhartha, who Govinda finds in a blissful state at the end of the novel, embodies
this paradox: he has 'searched' and 'found', he 'is' and 'has become'. As Magris observes, paradox is the
foundation of any mysticism (see 1977, XXX), and Saint Augustine's teachings and reflections, as noted in the
Introduction to this thesis, are often couched in paradoxical aphorisms. As an example which resonates with the
incompatibility of'finding' and 'searching' in Siddhartha, see the opening lines of Book I of the Confessiones,
where Saint Augustine states that '[i]n seeking him [the Lord] they find him' (3).
28 In Siddhartha's own words: 'ich [kam] schon als junger Mann [...] dazu [...], den Lehren und Lehrern zu
mifitrauen und ihnen den Rttcken zu wenden. [...] Dennoch habe ich seither viele Lehrer gehabt' (Sid, SW 3,
464).
29 'Er [Siddhartha] sah die Menschen auf eine kindliche oder tierhafte Art dahinleben, welche er zugleich liebte
und auch verachtete' (Sid, SW 3, 419); the adjective 'kindisch' occurs once only in the novel (see Sid, SW 3,
459).
30 The principium individuationis which, as highlighted by Ziolkowski, 'Hesse has consciously borrowed from
Schopenhauer by way of Nietzsche and Jung' (1965, 56), characterizes the evolution of human beings, from their
childhood, when their personality is not yet fully developed, to adulthood, that is to that stage when they are
individuals. This, as underlined by Ziolkowski, is for Hesse a 'mixed blessing' (1965, 65). On the one hand, this
process of individuation marks a progress towards the evolution of a single person as well as of a society; on the
other, it drives an individual (as well as a society) out of an early state of harmony and innocence symbolised,
for Hesse, by childhood (see also note 35 on the process of 'Menschwerdung').
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