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

called 'absurd'. 53 The most conspicuous difference between the two attitudes,
however, lies in their ultimate outcomes: Romanticism strives towards a
transcendent truth or unity, while Existentialism urges men to find their raison d'etre
and only hope in their earthly existence. 54
Both Romanticism and, to a lesser degree, Existentialism, resonate within
Hesse's work, yet while the writer overtly acknowledges his debt to the former, we
hardly find any mention of Existentialism throughout his works and
correspondence.55
Despite scarce direct interest in Existentialism as such, Hesse was familiar
with the thoughts of Kierkegaard, and his cultural and psychological development
was influenced by Nietzsche and Dostoevsky, cornerstones of Existentialism. 56 In his
chapter 'Hermann Hesse und S0ren Kierkegaard', Karalaschwili draws an analogy
between Hesse's three stages of 'Menschwerdung' and '[d]en drei Grundzustanden
oder -stadien des menschlichen Lebens (dem asthetischen, dem ethischen und dem
religiosen)' (361 ). 57 Karalaschwili also notes that innocence ('Unschuld') is the first
stage of man's development for both Hesse and Kierkegaard (362) and that '[w]ie in
Kierkegaards Lehre fuhren Angst und Verzweiflung auch bei Hesse zum Glauben'
(360-61 ). 58 There are two further aspects, or feelings, that Hesse shares with
Existentialists: the 'contempt for inauthenticity' (Lange 1970,17) and a radical stress
53 The concept of the 'absurd' is a central element in Camus' The myth of Sisyphus (1942). Mayer's 'Imaginares
Gesprach zwischen Albert Camus und Hermann Hesse' (1982) is an indication of the link between the two
writers.
54 'Die Romantik', Weibel points out, 'beginnt mit dem Nein gegen Welt und Menschen und endet mit dem Ja in
Gott und in der Kunst. Das Tragische aber kann nur aus einer urspriinglichen und lebensvollen Bejahung des
Menschlichen entstehen, aus der daraus notwendig folgenden Spannung zu dem heimsuchenden Gottlichen'
(26).
55 Where references to Existentialism appear, they retain slightly negative connotations as in a letter of 1950.
Commenting on Bach's fifth Brandenburg concerto, Hesse states that, in this music, 'Virtuositat' and 'Einkehr',
'Schwermut' and Tapferkeit' merge in such an exquisite way that they reach 'die Grenze einer pessimistischen
Existentialphilosophie' (Musik, 187).
56 'Es ist bekannt', Karalaschwili points out, 'daB Hermann Hesse mit dem Werk des danischen Philosophen und
Theologen S0ren Kierkegaard [...] gut vertraut war' (356). In the chapter 'Absurd creation' of The myth of
Sisyphus, Camus deals with Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov. Hesse's Blick ins Chaos (1920) includes the
essays 'Gedanken iiber Dostojewskijs »Idiot«' and 'Die Briider Karamasoff oder Der Untergang Europas'
(mentioned in Chapter 1, note 10). With regard to Nietzsche's bearing on Hesse, see the discussion on the
concept of'eternal recurrence' in Chapter 5 (section 3).
57 'The concept of growth', as Lange notes, 'is central to all of Hesse's novels. It is a theme common to Hesse
and the German Romantics, many of the Existentialists, and much humanistic psychology' (1970, 78). Lange
also stresses that 'becoming' plays a central role in Nietzsche's Zarathustra (ibid.).
58 It should be noted that, as for Kierkegaard, faith is connected with the feeling of'absurdity' in Hesse:
'Goldmund's art', as Boulby notes, 'is an act of faith par excellence "Credo, quia absurdum est'" (230).
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