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

in that the former's opera paves the way to atonality, and the structure and the
ending of Hesse's novel are probably his most original and modern. 67
On the other hand, the poetic aims of the two works constitute their main
point of divergence: the underlying poetics of Tristan und Isolde are steeped in
Romanticism and, in this sense, are virtually the antithesis of the Existentialist
orientations that can be traced in Hesse's novel. 68 Wagner's opera is the
quintessential expression of one of the tenets of Romanticism, according to which
'man is [...] expected to transcend his physical being and advance to the higher plane
of total spirituality, reintegrating himself in the divine consciousness, or absolute'
(Cardinal, 35). In the finale of the opera, Tristan languishes and eventually dissolves
in the 'night' of death:
Soil ich schliirfen,
untertauchen?
Suss in Dtiften
mich verhauchen?
In dem wogenden Schwall,
in dem tonenden Schall,
in des Weltatems
wehendem All, -
ertrinken,
versinken, -
unbewusst, -
hochste Lust! 69
With Harry Haller, on the other hand, it is at the break of dawn that he faces up to
the lures and difficulties of a sudden awakening:
Oh, ich begriff alles, begriff Pablo, begriff Mozart. [...] Einmal wiirde ich das
Figurenspiel besser spielen. Einmal wiirde ich das Lachen lernen. Pablo
wartete auf mich. Mozart wartete auf mich. (SW 4, 203)
67 'The strictly devised, musically conditioned form of the novel itself [...] leads away [...] from synthesis and
magic realism as attained in Siddhartha, toward the intensest possible expression in novel form of the
irresolvable counterpoint of the self (Boubly, 163).
68 Despite the distance between Existentialism and Romanticism, the former shares an aspect of Wagner's music
writing. The composer, who advanced the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk and wrote the librettos for his operas,
symbolically fulfils the Romantic longing for a reconciliation of words and music; Existentialism, in turn, is a
philosophical current which frequently merges with literature.
*9 (Wagner 1973,44).
90