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| German Literature | Hermann Hesse
A German-Swiss
novelist and poet, Hesse won the Nobel Prize in Literature
in 1946. His irrational and mystical ideas anticipated European
vanguard. He was born in Calw, a small German town, son of
a missionary. Joining a seminary, he intended to follow in
his father's footsteps, but later gave up is theological studies
to work firstly as a mechanic and later as a bookseller. This
stage of rebelliousness against formal educations was reflected
in his novel Beneath the Wheel (1906). His work as
a bookseller allowed him to work as a free lance journalist,
a job that provided him with the inspiration for his first
novel Peter Camenzind (1904).
The
First World War forced pacifist Hesse to move to Montagnola,
Switzerland.The hopelessness brought about by the war, added
to a series of personal misfortunes led him in search of universal
spirituality, which also formed the main theme of his following
writings.
Demian
(1919) was strongly influenced by the work of Swiss
psychiatrist Carl Jung, and awoke the interest of European
intellectuals. Since then, his novels began taking on a more
symbolic turn, influenced by psychoanalysis. En Journey
to the East (1932) explores the mystic qualities of the
human experience in Jungian terms; Siddhartha (1922),
where his interest for Oriental mysticism is portrayed, is
based on the life of young Buddha; and in his master piece,
The Steppe Wolf (1927), the double nature of the
artist-hero symbolizes the separation between individuality
and conventions, just as it does in his later novel Narziss
and Goldmund (1930).
