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

evolution of his connections to music. This section thus aims to illustrate the
trajectory of Hesse's musical taste through the major phases of his life without, as
Field (1970) warns, losing sight of the fact that life is a continuum and, of course, that
boundaries between what are recognised as stages in Hesse's life are not watertight
and allow some mutual penetration and diffusion. 2
Our periodization is in accord with what most scholars regard as the three
main segments of Hesse's life and artistic production, the boundaries of which are
marked by events pertaining to both the social (world wars) and private spheres
(Hesse's three marriages). 3 The impact of these events on Hesse's life can hardly be
overstated. The world conflicts led him to question his identity as a German and
brought about a sense of displacement in his life. His efforts as a pacifist caused him
to appear in the public eye as a traitor and alienated a portion of his readers. On the
other hand, his married life reflected in many respects Hesse's conflicting attitude
towards other human beings, an attitude which oscillated between his need for
solitude and his longing for companionship. As Hesse puts it in his notes on the time
he spent in Ascona in 1907: 'Denn nach dem Alleinsein mit Steinen, Gras und
Baumen ist es jedesmal wunderlich erregend, wieder Menschen zu sehen' ('In den
Felsen: Notizen eines »Naturmenschen«'; SW 11, 322).4
From our standpoint, the first crucial juncture in Hesse's life is marked by the
First World War, around the years 1914-1919, a time when his union with Maria
Bernoulli, whom he married in 1904, was deteriorating. A principal reason for this
was her mental instability, which rapidly worsened and had a decisive role in
Hesse's decision to divorce her in 1923. This crisis was partly transliterated in
2 'It is tempting to divide Hesse's life into distinct periods defined by such crises as the First World War and the
advent of Hitler. This is convenient and useful up to a point, provided we do not lose sight of the continued
organic growth of the personality which unifies the work' (Field, Chapter 1, online).
3 We will underline the points in the analysis of particular critics when they diverge from the classification
illustrated in this section. It is tempting to analyse the three main phases of Hesse's life as in accordance with his
triadic process of'Menschwerdung'; however, there is no evidence to substantiate this hypothesis. In fact, it
would be rather problematic to establish whether, despite the spiritual turn in his last two major works, Hesse
nears the ideal realm of the Immortals or rests in bourgeois appeasement in the last part of his life.
4 Although we are discussing Hesse's marital life and the repercussions of the wars on his life as two
independent factors, the difficulties brought about by the world wars certainly put a lot of strain on Hesse's
private life and, vice versa, the tone of his married life must have affected Hesse's response to the unfolding of
events during the war years.
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