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

Introduction
[Z]um Spielen fehlte mir dies, namentlich brachte das Zahlen der Takte michfast zur Verzweiflung
('Abschied' 1908; SW 7,195)
The end of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, in broad terms the time
when Hesse's work is situated, encompasses an exceptionally complex and
multifaceted period of human history defined by two crucial historical events, the
world wars, as well as by advancements in virtually every field of knowledge, from
science to philosophy. 1 The crucial impact of Einstein's theory of relativity along with
the findings in quantum physics, the influence exerted by thinkers such as Nietzsche
and Bergson, the advent of psychoanalysis, and the major role played by ideologies
(e.g. Marxism) contributed to shaping the destiny of the world and Europe in
particular. 2 One of the consequences of this period of upheaval and rapid
transformation in the West was a challenge to traditional beliefs and faiths which
was counterbalanced by a renewed spiritual impetus. Existentialism, which appeared
at this stage, proclaimed the need to face the 'absurdity' of life without faith or other
surrogates.3
Characteristic of this epoch is also a pronounced attention to the idea of time.
Henri Bergson's elaboration on the concept of 'duration', as expressed in Time and
free will (Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience) of 1889, and Einstein's theory
of relativity, developed between 1907 and 1915, with its crucial challenge to the
notion of simultaneity, deeply affected any speculation on time from the early 20th
1 The discourse of memory as a trauma (see Chapter 4) originates in the ordeals individuals and groups lived
through during the wars.
2 In music, dodecaphony challenges traditional tonality, the potentialities of which seemed to be exhausted in the
early decades of the twentieth century.
3 As captured by Ziolkowski in Modes of faith (2007): '[T]he crisis that shook Europe in the decades before and
after World War![...] differed appreciably from earlier ones inasmuch as the prevailing religious faith was
threatened not by a single new one monotheism in antiquity, the Reformation in the late Middle Ages, the
Enlightenment in early modern centuries but by a congeries of possibilities: Marxism, modern science,
Nietzschean ideas, and critical theology among others' (XI). Ziolkowski also singles out five main responses to
the challenges of the early twentieth century to canonical religion: 'art for art's sake, the flight to India,
socialism, myth, and Utopian vision' (XI).
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