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

eal self is transferred onto pairs of characters (e.g. Sinclair and Demian, Siddhartha
and Vasudeva, Haller and Mozart, H. H. and Leo):
Einerseits ist er eine reale und empirische Personlichkeit, mit all ihren
Schwachen, Gewohnheiten und Neigungen, andererseits aber eine
Potentialitat und ideale Moglichkeit, deren Verwirklichung das letzte Ziel aller
Menschwerdung ist. Diese beiden Pole des menschlichen Wesens werden in
der Romanstruktur gewohnlich in zwei Gestalten realisiert. 52 (Karalaschwili,
61-62)
These comparisons are certainly illuminating; however, read in this way, with a
strong emphasis on its autobiographical nature, Hesse's fiction might come across
more as a mere record of his sessions of psychoanalysis than as literature. Such
emphasis would both encourage a hasty search for personal references in his novels
and attract the criticism of those who tend to see the autobiographical matrix of his
prose as a diminuition of its literary merits. Current criticism maintains a cautious
sometimes too cautious attitude to pre-empt any accusation of reductivism.
Cornils's position is typical of this approach:
[O]ne must be clear about the term ['Seelenbiographien']. His texts are not
externalized carbon copies of his own psyche. Rather, Hesse explored his
innermost thoughts and feelings as a starting point for constructing characters
that serve as case studies both for the narrator and for the reader [...]
Unfortunately, distinguished scholars continue to read Hesse's work rather
sweepingly as 'self-therapy' and transposed 'life history' to the detriment of a
better understanding of the texts themselves. (2009, 8)
Vahlbusch criticizes Stolte's Trinzip der polarischen Spaltung' and firmly opposes
those who, like Stolte, are too prone to consider Unterm Rad as a 'therapeutic
encoding of Hesse's alleged psychological and artistic development' (18) and regard
Giebenrath and Heilner as 'merely allegories of the authorial self (ibid.). 53 Gommen,
52 Stolte, who would certainly include Hans Giebenrath and Hermann Heilner among those characters with
antithetical characteristics (see note 47), seems to echo Karalaschwili's opinion:'was im [Hesses] eigenen
Inneren als spannungsvoller Widerspruch, als Polaritat eines und desselben Charakters empfunden wird, zerlegt
sich im gestalteten Werk in zwei polarisch einander zugleich widersprechende und erganzende Personen' (44).
In Stolte's view, however, there is less emphasis on the juxtaposition of the ideal and real self than on the
complementary nature of certain characters.
53 Despite his categorical statement on the 'secret identity' of Hermann Heilner in Unterm Rad (see note 47),
Stolte, does not take, as Vahlbusch infers, the autobiographical element at face value: 'Nicht, daB es sich um eine
bloBe Autobiographic handelte: im Ablauf der Geschichte, in der Konzeption der Charaktere sind manche
Umstellungen, manche dichterische Lizenzen zu beobachten, die den Sinn haben, Subjektives in diejenige
Objektivitat zu versetzen, die notwendig ist, um den schopferischen Impuls auszulOsen' (43-44).
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