Hermann Hesse (born the July 2nd 1877 with Calw, Germany; died the August 9th 1962 with Montagnola, Suisse) is a Romancier, Poète, painter and German essay writer then Suisse. It obtained the price Goethe and the Nobel Prize of literature in 1946.

Its life

Childhood and youth

Hermann Hesse is resulting from a family of Christian missionaries. His/her parents were both engaged for the “Protestant Mission of Basle” in India, where his/her mother, Marie Gundert, had been born in 1842. His/her father, Johannes Hesse, born in 1847 in the family of a doctor, was of origin Germano-Baltic. In the small town of Calw, in Black Forest, the family held starting from 1873 a publisher missionary under the direction of the maternal grandfather of Hesse, Hermann Gundert. It had five brothers and sisters, of which two died prematurely.

The world in which Hermann Hesse lived his first years was completely impregnated spirit of the Piétisme souabe. In 1881, the family settled with Basle for five years, but returned then in Calw. After having completed its Latin studies successfully with Göppingen, Hesse joined in 1891 the seminar evangelic of Maulbronn. There in March 1892 its rebellious character appeared: Hess escaped from the seminar and was caught up with only the following day, in full nature.

Consequently started, on bottom of violent one conflicts with his parents, a Odyssée through various establishments and schools. Hermann Hesse was in a depressive phase of his bipolar disorder, and it expressed in a letter of the March 20th the 1892 of thoughts suicidal (“I would like to leave like the sunset”). In May 1892, in the establishment of Bad Bowl directed by the theologist and spiritual adviser Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt, it made an suicide attempt. Following that, Hermann was placed in the private hospital of Stetten im Remstal, and later in an establishment for children in Basle.

End 1892 it entered to the college of Bad Cannstatt, with Stuttgart. In 1893, it there obtained its probatory diploma of first year, but stopped its studies.

It began a training from Libraire to Esslingen amndt Neckar, which it gave up after three days, then at the beginning of the summer 1894 mechanic's apprentice for 14 month became, in the factory of Perrot clock in Calw. The monotonous work of welding and filing reinforced as a Hermann Hesse the desire to turn again to a spiritual activity. In October 1895, it felt ready to start a new training of bookseller, with Tübingen, and to devote themselves to it seriously. Later, he reported these adventures of his childhood in his novel the Rut (“Unterm Rad”).

Birth of a writer

Hess worked starting from the October 17th 1895 in the Heckenhauer bookstore in Tübingen. The essence of the bottom treated Théologie, of Philologie and Droit. The task of the Hesse apprentice consisted to collate, pack, classify and file the books. After its 12 hours day's work, it continued to enrich its culture as a recluse, and the books still compensated for its absence of social contacts during long non-working Sundays. Hess lute of the theological writings, then the work of Goethe, and later Lessing, Schiller and of the texts of the Greek Mythology. In 1896, its poem Madonna was published in a review Viennese.

In 1898, Hesse became assistant bookseller and had a sizeable income, ensuring to him a financial independence with respect to his/her parents. At that time, it read especially works of romantic German, and particularly of Clemens Brentano, Joseph von Eichendorff and Novalis. In a letter with his parents, it expressed his conviction that “morals in the artists is replaced by esthetics”. Whereas he was always bookseller, Hesse published in the autumn 1898 its first small collection of poems, Romantische Lieder ( romantic Chants ), and at the summer 1899 the collection in prose Eine Stunde hinter Mitternacht ( One hour after midnight ). The two works were commercial failures. In the two years space, only 54 of the 600 specimens of Romantische Lieder were sold. Eine Stunde hinter Mitternacht was also drawn with only 600 specimens and was only sold very slowly. The editor leipzigois Eugen Diederichs was however convinced of the literary value of work, and saw these publications from the beginning like encouragements for the young author, rather than like a profitable company.

Starting from the autumn 1899, Hesse worked in a bookstore of occasion to Basle. His/her parents having close contacts with the families bâloises érudites, a spiritual and artistic kingdom of most stimulative opened with him. At the same time, the solitary walker that was Hesse found in Basle the occasion of retirements in his interior world thanks to the many possibilities of voyages and walks, which served its personal search artistic, by developing in him the aptitude to transcribe a sensory observation literarily, aptitude unceasingly confronted with a new adventure. In 1900, Hesse was released from the military service because of its weak sight. Its difficulties of vision lasted all its life, just as its neuralgia and its headaches.

In 1901, Hesse could carry out one of its great dreams while travelling for the first time in Italy. The same year, Hesse entered in a new employer, the Wattenwyl bookseller, in Basle. At the same time, the occasions to publish poems and small literary texts in reviews multiplied. From now on, the wages of these publications contributed to its incomes. Very quickly, the editor Samuel Fischer was interested in Hesse, and the novel Peter Camenzind , pre-published in 1903 and officially published in 1904 in Fischer, marked the rupture: Hess could now live of its writing.

Between the lake of Constancy and India

The literary dedication made it possible Hesse to marry in 1904 Maria Bernoulli, to settle with it with Gaienhofen at the edge of the lake of Constancy, and to found a family there cash three wire, Bruno, Heiner and Martin. It wrote there its second novel the Rut , appeared in 1906. Thereafter, it wrote especially news and poems. Its following novel, Gertrude (1910), indeed depicted the crisis of creativity of Hesse. It completed this work painfully, and regarded it later as missed. The dissensions also multiplied in its household, and to take distance, Hesse was in 1911 with Hans Sturzenegger to make a long voyage to Ceylon and in Indonesia. It did not find there the inspiration spiritual and religious hoped, however this voyage strongly impregnated its later works, to begin with Indian Carnets (1913). After the return of Hesse, the family moved in 1912 with Bern, but this displacement did not solve the problems of the couple, as Hesse in 1914 depicted it in its novel Roßhalde .

The First World War

To the declaration of the First World War in 1914, Hesse was presented in the form of a volunteer to the embassy of Germany, because there could not support to remain inactive, while other young writers died in the face. He nevertheless was declared inapt for the combat and affected in Bern with the assistance with the prisoners of war, near the embassy of Germany. In its new function, Hesse was consequently occupied gathering and dispatching books for the German prisoners of war. At that time, he was coeditor of the Deutsche Interniertenzeitung ( Journal of the German internees , 1916-1917), editor of the Sonntagsbote für die deutschen Kriegsgefangenen ( Sunday Courrier of the German prisoners of war , 1916-1919), and person in charge of the “Bookstore of the German prisoners of war”. November 3rd, 1914, it published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung the article “O Freunde, nicht sharp Töne” (“My brothers, cease our complaints! ”, first towards Ode with the joy ), in which it invited the German intellectuals not to fall into the nationalist polemics. It resulted from them what Hesse described later as great turning of its life: for the first time, it was found in the middle of a violent political quarrel, the German press attacked it, it accepted threatening letters and of old friends disunited themselves of him. It was supported by his friend Theodor Heuss, but also by the French writer Romain Roland, to which Hesse returned visit in August 1915. These conflicts with the German public were not alleviated yet, that Hesse undergoes a succession of blows dealt by fate which still plunged it in a major existential crisis: the death of his/her father the March 8th 1916, the serious disease of his/her Martin son and the crisis of schizophrenia of its wife. He had to stop his work of assistance to the prisoners and to begin a psychotherapeutic treatment. The intense work of Psychoanalysis which followed, during which Hesse became acquainted with Carl Gustav Jung, led finally to a new culminating point of its creativity: in September - October 1917, Hesse wrote in three working weeks frantic its novel Demian . The book was published after the war, in 1919, under the pseudonym of Emil Sinclair.

Camuzzi Put

When Hesse could take again its civil life, its couple was divided. A low register Psychose had been declared meanwhile at his wife, and even after its cure, Hesse could not consider any common future with Maria. The house of Bern was resold, and Hesse moved in mid-April in the Tessin, where he first of all lived a country small house at the entry of Minusio close to Locarno. Then he lived from April 25th to May 11th with Sorengo. May 11th, it settled in the village of Montagnola like tenant of four small parts in a building resembling a castle, it “Casa Camuzzi”. There, it did not take again only its activity of writing, but also started to paint, which appears clearly in 1920 in its great following account, the last summer of Klingsor . In 1922 appeared the Indian novel Siddhartha . In this one its love of the Indian culture and Eastern wisdoms is expressed to which it had been familiarized already in the house of his parents. Hess married in 1924 Ruth Wenger, girl of the Swiss writer LISA Wenger and aunt of Meret Oppenheim (after the marriage with Hesse, it had like wire the actor Ezard Haußmann). Hess obtained this year Swiss nationality.

Principal works which followed, Curiste in 1925 and the Voyage to Nuremberg in 1927, are tinted autobiographical accounts of irony, in which announces already the most famous novel of Hesse, the Wolf of the steppes (1927). For its fiftieth birthday, which he celebrated this year, also its first biography, published by his/her friend Hugo Ball appeared. Shortly after the success of its novel, the life of the recluse wolf of the Hesse steppes took a new turn by its relation with Ninon Dolbin, originating in Czernowitz in Bukovine, and which became later his third wife. The result of this conversion to the life of couple was the novel Narcisse and Goldmund (1930). Hess left in 1931 the apartment of Casa Camuzzi and settled with his/her Ninon partner in a larger house (the Casa Hesse , sometimes also called Casa Rossa ) in the heights of Montagnola, which had been built according to its wishes and setting at its disposal by his/her friend Hans C. Bodmer. This house is currently a private property and cannot be visited.

Play of the glass shots

In 1931 it began the draft of its last philosopher's stone, entitled the Play of the glass shots . It published in 1932 a preparatory account, the Voyage in the East . Hess observed with much concern the takeover of the Nazis in Germany. In 1933, Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann stopped all two at Hesse in their voyages towards the exile. Hess tested with its manner of countering the evolution of Germany: it published already since decades of the reports of reading in the German press, from now on it was expressed there more strongly for the authors (Jewish or not) pursued by the Nazis. Starting from the medium of the Years 1930, no newspaper German published articles of Hesse. The spiritual refuge of Hesse against the political quarrels and later against the terrible news of the Second world war was work on its novel the Play of the shots glass , printed in 1943 in Switzerland. It is mainly for this late work that in 1946 was decreed to him the Nobel Prize of literature.

After the Second world war, the creativity of Hesse declined: he still wrote news and poems, but more any novel. He was in addition requested by an inexhaustible flood of letters, which was the price of its glory renewed near a new generation of German readers, who sought assistance and council near the “wise old man” of Montagnola. Hermann Hesse died on August 9th, 1962 and was buried with the cemetery of Sant' Abbondio close to Montagnola, where Hugo Ball also rests.

Importance of work

The first works of Hesse remain in the tradition of the 19th century: its lyricism owes all with the Romantisme, and it is the same of the language and the style of Peter Camenzind , a book which its author presented like an initiatory novel in the line of the Henri the green of Gottfried Keller. On the bottom, Hesse was opposed to increasing industrialization and with the urbanization, it by what it joined a tendency of the German youth movements. Hess gave up later this neo-romantic tradition of the form and the bottom. On the other hand, the antithetic structure of Peter Camenzind , with contrast between city and countryside and the opposition masculine-female, is still present later in the chiefs of work of Hesse (for example in Demian and the Wolf of the steppes ).

The knowledge of the Archétype S described by the psychologist Carl Gustav Jung had a determining influence on the work of Hesse, visible starting from the novel Demian : the way of an young graduate towards oneself became one as of its topics of predilection. The tradition of the initiatory novels also continues with Demian , but in this work (as in the Wolf of the steppes ), the history does not proceed any more on one real level, but in a “spiritual landscape” interior.

Another essential aspect of the work of Hesse is the spirituality, which one particularly finds in the novel Siddhartha . He is written on a background of Indian wisdom, Taoïsme and Christian Mysticisme. Thesis principal, which wants that the way of wisdom is individual, is however a typically Western premise, corresponding to no Asian philosophy. It was reproached Hesse for using the literature to communicate its spiritual vision of the world, even if one can object that this critic addresses herself more to philosophy of Hesse than to her literary work.

All the works of Hesse comprise an autobiographical share, particularly visible in the Wolf of the steppes , which is precisely a model of “novel of existential crisis”. This characteristic disappears only in its late works. In the connected novels, the Voyage in the East and the Play of the glass shots , Hesse treated a topic which it had already approached in Peter Camenzind : opposition between working life and contemplative life. Basing itself on the context of its time, Hesse drew in the Play of the glass shots a Utopia for humanity and the heart, while still writing a traditional initiatory novel. The two elements balance in a set of dialectical exchanges.

Critical reception

Literary quality and the importance of the work of Hermann Hesse were already discussed of alive sound, and the debate continues today. Colleagues like Thomas Mann or Hugo Ball held it in high regard, however that on the other hand Kurt Tucholsky said: “I hold Hesse for a writer with the gift of essay writer quite higher than his lyric qualities”. Alfred Döblin spoke even about a “tedious lemonade”. The first works of Hesse in majority were however judged positively by the contemporary literary critics.

The reception of its work in the Germany of both World wars was marked by the press campaigns against the author, because of his standpoint against the war and nationalism. Starting from 1937, the works of Hesse could be sold only précautionneusement. So most of the young generation “discovered” Hesse only after 1945.

More than ten years after Hesse had accepted the Nobel Prize of literature, Karlheinz Deschner wrote in 1957 in its lampoon Kitsch, Konvention und Kunst ( Kitsch, convention and art ): “The fact that Hesse published one crushing quantity of absolutely null worms is a deplorable lack of discipline, a literary cruelty” and did not put forth either a favorable judgment on its prose. Part of German literary criticism adopted this judgment during the decades which followed, and Hesse was described by certain as “manufacturer of declining literature and kitsch”. Thus the made reception with Hesse continued its cyclic movement: hardly it had sunk with deepest in the Années 1960 in Germany, than burst in the United States a “Hesse boom” which reached to Germany. the Wolf of the steppes in particular became a Livre with international success (so much so that a rock group 'roll borrowed its name to him), and Hesse became one of the German authors most translated and read in the world: more than 100 million its books were sold. In the Years 1970, the Suhrkamp editions marketed discs where Hesse recited at the end of its life extracts of its works. Indeed, at the beginning of its career, Hesse was dedicated to the public reading, and it transcribed its particular experiment in this field in a text unusually merry, Autorenabend ( Soirée of author).

Work

Novels

Various news and texts

  • the Art of idleness (1899-1962)

  • the universal Library
  • Berthold , news
  • Short news of my garden
  • Indian Notebooks (1913)
  • marvellous Tales
  • the Conversion of Casanova , new
  • Description of a landscape
  • Praise of old age
  • the Childhood of a magician
  • Layers of album
  • Engagement , news
  • Brothers of the sun , new
  • War and peaces - Considerations political
  • Stories of love , new
  • medieval Stories
  • the Man who wanted to change the world (1903-1948), new
  • the stopped Lesson , new
  • Reading-minute
  • Magie of the book
  • Musique
  • Souvenirs of an European
  • Tessin
  • Voyages in Italy

Poems

Critical bibliography

  • Hermann Hesse - His life, its work of Hugo Ball, Dijon, presses of reality, 2000

See too

Internal bonds

  • Germanic Literature

External bonds

  • the gate of Hermann Hesse
  • HHP - Hermann Hesse (Home) Page, collection of resources and bonds under the direction of Günther Gottschalk
  • Hermann Hesse in Cannstatt
  • Hermann Hesse read again thesis, 2005

Simple: Hermann Hesse Zh-min-nan: Hermann Hesse

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