Historical Figure
Hermann Hesse
1877–1962
German writer (1877–1962)
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Biography
Hermann Karl Hesse was a German-Swiss poet and novelist, and winner of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature. His interest in Eastern religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions, combined with his involvement with Jungian analysis, helped to shape his literary work. His best-known novels include Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, Narcissus and Goldmund, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge, and spirituality.
In Their Own Words (5)
In the beginning was the myth. God, in his search for self-expression, invested the souls of Hindus, Greeks, and Germans with poetic shapes and continues to invest each child's soul with poetry every day.
Variant translation: In the beginning was the myth. Just as the great god composed and struggled for expression in the souls of the Indians, the Greeks and Germanic peoples, so too it continues to compose daily in the soul of every child. , 1904
I found some consolation or narcotic. Sometimes it was a woman, sometimes a good friend — yes, you too once helped me that way — at other times it was music or applause in the theater. But now these things no longer give me pleasure and that is why I drink. I could never sing without first having a couple of drinks, but now I can also not think, talk, live and feel tolerably well without first having a couple of drinks.
p. 225 , 1910
I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself.
p. 134 , 1919
A thousand such possibilities await him. His fate brings them on, leaving him no choice; for those outside of the bourgeoisie live in the atmosphere of these magic possibilities. A mere nothing suffices — and the lightning strikes.
pp. 51-52 , 1927
Passion is always a mystery and unaccountable, and unfortunately there is no doubt that life does not spare its purest children and often it is just the most deserving people who cannot help loving those that destroy them.
p. 217 , 1910
Timeline
The story of Hermann Hesse, told in moments.
Ran away from the Maulbronn seminary. Attempted suicide. His parents sent him to an asylum, then to a pastor, then gave up. He worked in a clock tower factory and a bookshop instead.
Siddhartha published. A novel about spiritual seeking set in ancient India. It sold slowly at first. Then the American counterculture found it in the 1960s and it sold millions.
Steppenwolf released. Harry Haller, a middle-aged intellectual, encounters his animal self. The novel terrified respectable readers. Decades later, a San Francisco band took the title for their name.
Won the Nobel Prize in Literature. The Glass Bead Game, his final novel, was cited. He'd been living in Switzerland since 1912, painting watercolors and answering thousands of letters from troubled readers.
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