Hermann Hesse: The Search for Oneself

Gesammelte Werke (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1987), vol. IX. From now on I shall refer to the Gesammelte Werke as G. W.Google Scholar

For the question of the self in contemporary philosophy, see, for example, Ricoeur, P., Soi-mme comme un autre (Paris, Seuil, 1990) and Schrag, C. O., The Self after Postmodernity (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997).Google Scholar

Bruner refers to his work Actual Mind, Possible Worlds (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986).Google Scholar

“Life as Narrative,” Discourse of investiture as “Doctor Honoris Causa” by the Universidad Autônoma, in Madrid, 1986, p. 25.Google Scholar

For the question of the relations between life-telling and life-making, between discourse and action, see, for example, Ricoeur, P., Du texte ¨¤ l’action (Paris: Seuil, 1986), especially the articles “La Fonction herm¨¦neutique de la distanciation,” “Expliquer et comprendre” and “Le mod¨¨le du texte: l’action sens¨¦e consid¨¦r¨¦e comme un texte.”Google Scholar

Brunner, J., “Life as Narrative,” p. 27.Google Scholar

Como se hace una novela, “Comentario,” in Obras Completas (Madrid: Esc¨¦licer, 1966), vol. VIII, p. 724.Google Scholar

“Y asf cuando les cuento cnmo se hace una novela, o sea, cômo estoy haciendo la novela de mi vida, mi historia, les Ilevo a que se vayan haciendo su propia novela, la novela que es la vida de cada uno de ellos. Y desgraciados si no tienen novela. Si tu vida, lector, no es una novela, una ficci6n divina, un ensuefio de eternidad, entonces deja estas paginas, no me sigas leyendo.” Ibid., p. 726. “So, when I tell them [the readers] how to make a novel, that is to say, how I am making the novel of my life, my story, I urge them to make their own novel, the novel of which their own life consists. Because they are pitiable if they do not have a novel. Reader, if your life does not consist of a novel, of a divine fiction, of a dream of eternity, then, leave these pages aside, do not continue reading.” The metaphor of dream is also recurrent in Unamuno when he refers to life. However he plays with the ambiguity of the word “sumo” in Spanish ¡ª meaning sleep as well as dream ¡ª to differentiate two facets of the metaphor. On the one hand, the individual’s life can pass like in sleep, without him becoming aware of the crucial problems of human life, including the problem of death and consequently the meaning of life. On the other hand, dream and creative invention can be the fundamental root of life as well as of fiction. See Cecilia, M-A., Antropologia Filos6fica de Miguel de Unamuno (Sevilla: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Sevilla, 1983), chapter III. 4., pp. 71ff.Google Scholar

Ricoeur, P., Temps et R¨¦cit (Paris: Seuil, 1983, 1984, 1984; Volumes I, II, and III). For the question of time and of narrative, see also Du texte ¨¤ l’action (Paris: Seuil, 1986),Section II; Etudes ph¨¦nom¨¦nologiques (Bruxelles, Eds. Ousia, 1990), n¡ã 11 (1990), entitled “Paul Ricoeur: Temporalit¨¦ et narrativit¨¦,” and n¡ã 2 (1985), article “Action et Narrativit¨¦ chez Paul Ricoeur et Hannah Arendt,” by Stevens, B.Google Scholar

Ricoeur, P., Temps et R¨¦cit, vol. III, p. 200.Google Scholar

Bruner, “Life as Narrative,” p. 29.Google Scholar

Ibid., p. 30.Google Scholar

Ibid., p. 29.Google Scholar

Ibid., p. 47.Google Scholar

Compiled with a selection of articles, made by Siegfriel Unseld, entitled Obstinacy. Original title: Eigensinn. Autobiographische Schiften (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag K. G., 1972). Spanish Edition: Obstinacidn Escritos autobiogrkficos (Madrid: Alianza Ed., 1995), pp. 138–155. I shall always indicate the German edition, but, concerning quotations, I shall refer to pages of the Spanish edition which I shall mention for every work, translating into English when necessary.Google Scholar

His father and his maternal grandfather actually spent some time in India and Hermann Hesse was influenced by the Oriental culture, indirectly transmitted by them. See Hesse’s biographical writings. For example, “Four Biographies (1903–1925),” the article of 1914 remembering his own trip to Asia, the “Diary of 1920–21,” etc., all of them compiled in Eigensinn. Google Scholar

Ibid., “Diary of 1920–21,” Spanish edition (from now on, Sp. Ed.), pp. 106–131.Google Scholar

Eigensinn, Sp. Ed., p. 90.Google Scholar

Demian (Die Geshichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend), G. W., vol. V, Chapter 2, “Cain,” Sp. Ed. (Madrid: Alianza Ed., 1995), pp. 37ff.Google Scholar

Eigensinn, Sp. Ed., p. 92.Google Scholar

Unterm Rad, G. W., vol. II. Sp. Ed.: Bajo las ruedas, chapter 4 (Madrid: Alianza Ed., 1995), p. 93.Google Scholar

Demian, chapter 5, Sp. Ed., pp. 119–120.Google Scholar

Eigensinn, Sp. Ed., p. 93.Google Scholar

For this image of the contrast between the falling leaves and the stars, see Siddharta,G. W., vol. V. Chapter VI and X., Sp. Ed. (M¨¦xico: Editores Mexicanos Unidos, S. A., 1982), pp. 83 and 136.Google Scholar

Wanderung, G. W., vol. VI. Sp. Ed.: El caminante (Parets del Vall¨¦s, Barcelona: Ed. Bruguera, 1978), p. 58.Google Scholar

Demian, chapter 6, Sp. Ed., p. 157.Google Scholar

Eigensinn, Sp. Ed., pp. 146ff. Chapter: “The Infancy of the Magician.”Google Scholar

See, for instance, the end of chapter 7 in Demian, Sp. Ed., pp. 190ff.Google Scholar

Ibid., p. 158.Google Scholar

Eigensinn, “Obstinacy” article, Sp. Ed., pp. 95–96.Google Scholar

Narziss und Goldmund, G. W., vol. VIII, Sp. Ed.: Narciso y Goldmundo (Barcelona: Edhasa, 1997).Google Scholar

Ibid., chapter V, p. 77.Google Scholar

Ibid., chapter IV, p. 57.Google Scholar

Ibid., chapter VI, p. 92.Google Scholar

Unamuno, M. de, Del sentimiento trkgico de la vida, chapter VI, in Ensayos, II (Madrid: Ed. Aguilar, 1970): “Y, sin embargo, fe, vida y razon se necesitan mutuamente” (p. 829). “Nevertheless, faith and life, on the one hand, and reason, on the other, need each other.” Also: “Razon y fe son dos enemigos que no pueden sostenerse el uno sin el otro. Lo irracional pide ser racionalizado, y la razon solo puede operar sobre to irracional. Tienen que apoyarse uno en otro y asociarse. Pero asociarse en lucha, ya que la lucha es un modo de asociacion ” (p. 830). “Reason and faith are enemies which cannot hold up one without the help of the other. The irrational dimension demands to be rationalized, but reason can only operate in cooperation with the irrational dimension. Each of them needs to find a basis in the other and to associate with its opposite. But this association is made by means of fighting, given that fighting is a form of association.”Google Scholar

Cf. For a philosophical approach to this problem (the intermediary mixed, the disproportion and incoincidence with oneself, etc.), see the analyses of Paul Ricoeur in Finitude et culpabilit¨¦, I: L ‘Homme faillible (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1968).Google Scholar

Der Steppenwolf, G. W., vol. VII, “Tractat”. Sp. Ed.: El lobo estepario (M¨¦xico: Editores Mexicanos Unidos, 1985), p. III.Google Scholar

Ibid., p. 105.Google Scholar

Egensinn, “Diary 1920–21,” Sp. Ed., p. 127.Google Scholar

Demian, chapter 3, Sp. Ed., p. 79.Google Scholar

Ibid., chapter 6, pp. 153ff.Google Scholar

Siddharta, chapter 1, Sp. Ed., p. 11.Google Scholar

Ibid., chapter II, p. 26.Google Scholar

Ibid., chapter III, pp. 35ff.Google Scholar

Demian, chapter 7, pp. 165ff.Google Scholar

See his autobiographical writings Eigensinn. For instance, “Four Biographies”, Sp. Ed., p. 26.Google Scholar

See the “Tractact” of Der Steppenwolf for the features of this special creature.Google Scholar

Demian, chapter 3, Sp. Ed., p. 63.Google Scholar

Eigensinn, “Diary 1920–21,” Sp. Ed., p. 123.Google Scholar

Eigensinn, “Alaman Credo” chapter, Sp. Ed., pp. 97ff. See also Wanderung. Google Scholar

Siddharta, chapter IV, “Awaken,” Sp. Ed., pp. 47ff.Google Scholar

Eliot, T. S., “Little Gidding,” part V, The Complete Poems and Plays (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1971).Google Scholar

Siddharta, chapter II, Sp. Ed., p. 24.Google Scholar

Ibid., end of chapter VI, p. 96.Google Scholar

Der Steppenwolf, Sp. Ed., p. 189.Google Scholar

Siddharta, from chapter VIII to the end.Google Scholar

Demian, chapter 5, Sp. Ed., pp. 130ff.Google Scholar

Der Steppenwolf, “Tractact,” Sp. Ed., p. XXIX.Google Scholar

Ibid., p. XXXI.Google Scholar

See Ibid., pp. 100 to the end of the novel.Google Scholar

Ibid., “Tractact,” p. XXXIV.Google Scholar

Ibid., end of chapter XI.Google Scholar

See Eigensinn, “Four Biographies,” Sp. Ed., p. 34.Google Scholar

Siddharta, chapter II, Sp. Ed., p. 23.Google Scholar

Ibid., end of the novel, pp. 167–68.Google Scholar

Eigensinn, “Diary 1920–21,” Sp. Ed., pp. 110ff.Google Scholar

Narziss und Goldmund, chapter X, Sp. Ed., p. 179.Google Scholar

A similar idea is present in Unamuno’s Del sentimiento tragico de la vida, where the consciousness of one’s own finitude is related to love and compassion for oneself and for the others: “Los hombres encendidos en ardiente caridad hacia sus pr¨¦jimos, es porque llegaron al fondo de su propia miseria, de su propia apariencialidad, de su naderia, y volviendo luego sus ojos, asi abiertos, hacia sus semejantes los vieron tambi¨¦n miserables, aparienciales, anonadables, y los compadecieron y los amaron.” Chapter VII, (in Ensayos, II,op. cit., p. 852). Also: “Segtin te adentras en ti mismo y en ti mismo ahondas, vas descubriendo tu propia inanidad, que no eres todo lo que eres, que no eres lo que quisieras ser, que no eres, en fin, mas que nonada. Y al tocar tu propia naderia, al no sentir tu fondo permanente, al no llegar a tu propia infinitud, ni menos a tu propia eternidad, te compadeces de todo coraz6n de ti propio y te enciendes en doloroso amor a ti mismo, matando lo que se llama amor propio y no es sino una especie de delectaci6n sensual de ti mismo, algo como un gozarse a si misma la came de tu alma.” (Ibid., p. 853). “Humans feel a passionate charity for their fellow men when they have arrived at the bottom of their own misery, of their own fiction, of their nothingness; then, turning their eyes, now open, toward their fellow men and considering them as being also fictitious and affected by nothingness, they feel sorry for them and love them.” “As you go into your own self and deep in it, you discover your own nothingness, you realize that you are not all that you would like to be, that you are merely nothing. And touching your nothingness, being unable to feel your permanent bottom, to reach your own infinitude or your eternity, you feel pity for yourself and experience a painful love for yourself, killing what is called amour propre, which is, in fact, only a kind of sensual delectation concerning yourself, something similar to your soul’s chair rejoicing itself.”Google Scholar

Der Steppenwolf, “Tractat,” Sp. Ed., pp. XVIIff.Google Scholar

Ibid., pp. 40–41.Google Scholar

Ibid., p. 157.Google Scholar

Ricour, P., Soi-mme comme un autre. See, for instance, “Cinquitude. L’identit personnelle et l’identit narrative,” and “Siximetude. Le soi et l’identit narrative.”Google Scholar