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

2.3 Theme and variations
As expressed in a letter of July 1962, Hesse feels that certain melodies of Beethoven
are characterized by 'cine gewisse Banalitat' (Musik, 217); nevertheless, he finds that
these shortcomings are compensated by the composer's ability to treat and alter a
given theme: 'Die diversen Variationen-Folgen gehoren fur mich zum Schonsten in
Beethovens Werk, die auf Diabelli sind mir wohl die liebsten' (ibid). In Hesse's
opinion, Beethoven's use and development of the theme and variations form are
among the composer's major achievements.
'[The] variation form [derives] from the practice of improvising
embellishments in successive strophes of songs and dances during the 16 th century
[and consists of] a self-contained theme [which] is repeated and change[d] in some
way with each successive statement' (The Oxford Companion to Music). Based on
this definition, three aspects, at least, of Hesse's works bear similarities to this
musical form. A first point relates to the protagonists of his novels who, with only a
few exceptions, share similar cravings and longings and are, to a large degree, very
much alike. 29 Klingsor, Siddhartha, Harry Haller and, to a lesser degree, Kuhn are all
driven by similar quests for truth and the meaning of life. They are torn between
identical opposing tendencies: innocence and guilt, direct experience of life and the
flawless perfection of thought, the surge of the sensual and the call for spirituality. In
Ziolkowski's words, 'the characteristic hero of Hesse's novels from Demian to The
Glass Bead Game [is] the tormented self-seeker' (1965, 350).30 For all their differences,
Hesse's protagonists appear to develop along a similar pattern and feel as though
29 Despite pronounced similarities linking all of Hesse's protagonists, we can identify a slight shift in focus in
Unterm Rad( 1905/1906), whose young protagonist struggles to find his place in a world ruled by adults, and
Rofihalde (1914), which hinges on the marital crisis of an artist and his being torn between his feelings and needs
as a person and the call for the ideal realm of art.
30 As pointed out in Chapter 1, section 2, the protagonists in most of Hesse's novels are contrasted with a co-
protagonist: Demian, Sinclair's spiritual brother, Govinda and Siddhartha, NarziB and Goldmund, H.H. and Leo
in Die Morgenlandfahrt. We also noted with Stolte (44) that the unity of the psychological profile of Hesse's
hero seems as split and infused in the two opposite, complementary protagonists. There are other occurrences
when protagonists are juxtaposed and counterpointed by not just one but two other characters: Muoth and
Gertrud, who, more than any other characters, affect Kuhn's life; Hermine and Pablo who, for different reasons,
are Haller's opposites and, to some extent, his spiritual guides.
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