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

consideration. 55 Clearly, any aspect of Hesse's biography which throws light on his
work should be attentively scrutinised.
This chapter sought to prepare the ground for the discussion in the following
chapters. Indeed, Chapter 2 deals with the sonata form, which typically articulates
the dynamic opposition of two themes; Chapter 3 explores the contrast between
intellectualism and naivety, as expressed in Hesse's opinion on virtuosi and light
music. Chapter 4 considers Hesse's frequent juxtaposition of forgetfulness and
memory, and Chapter 5 his contrasting of the eternal and the transient. Chapter 6
examines a further opposition, that of the real and the ideal, which characterizes
Hesse's humour.
55 To be sure, Mozart as a character in Der Steppenwolf, an immortal who laughs at Haller's still too bourgeois
concerns, appears more as the quintessential image of Hesse's idea of the composer's music than a depiction of
Mozart as a man. Ironically, Mozart was not so much concerned about 'immortality'; rather, Mozart was grieved
by bourgeois apprehensions himself, especially in his last years, as showed by Elias: ' Aber er [Mozart] war kein
Mensch, den die Vorahnung der Resonanz, die sein Werk bei zukunftigen Generationen finden wiirde, fur die
Resonanzlosigkeit zu trosten vermochte, die er in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens besonders in seiner
Wahlheimat, in Wien, zu spiiren bekam' (10).
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