Hermann Karl Hesse He was a writer dedicated to poetry, novels and stories, as well as a painter. He was born on July 2, 1877 in Calw, southwest of present-day Germany, which was then known as the German Empire. Hesse descended from a family of Christian missionaries of the Lutheran current.
His father was Johannes Hesse, born in Paide, Estonia, in 1847; and his mother was Marie Gundert, born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1842. From that marriage six children were born, two of whom died at an early age. Since 1873 the Hesse family owned a publishing house dedicated to religious texts and that served to support the evangelical missions of that time..
This publishing house was directed by Hermann Gundert, Hesse's maternal grandfather and in honor of which it owes its name. Hesse lived her first 3 years in Calw and then her family moved to Basel, Switzerland, in 1881. They settled in Swiss lands for 5 years, to return to their hometown..
Back in his country he formally studied Latin in Göppingen, a nearby town in the same federal state of Wurtemberg, to which Calw is circumscribed. The inclination to the gospel on the part of his family marked the life of the German writer very early, and not necessarily because he felt identified with this religious tendency.
Just after finishing her Latin studies in Göppingen with excellent marks, in 1891 Hesse joined the Maulbronn Evangelical Seminary, under the influence of her parents and at just 14 years of age. It was as a result of entering this institute that the differences between Hesse and her family began to flourish..
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A few months after his 15th birthday, in March 1892, Hesse decided to escape from the seminary in Maulbronn, showing his first unshakable signs of rebellion against the system..
The young man felt like a prisoner between those normalist Lutheran walls. Hesse considered this institute a prison of the senses, a place to castrate the intellect of men, but above all, a place where he was prevented from living one of his passions: poetry..
"I'll be a poet or nothing," he wrote in his autobiography. As a man of letters, he later managed to capture what he experienced during his short seclusion in the evangelical seminary. In his work Under the wheels clearly describes his experience of being subjected to the educational rudiments of the Protestant teachers of the time.
As a result of the Maulbronn escape, a considerable number of violent confrontations arose between Hesse and his family, who considered that what the young man was going through was the typical rebellious stage of a teenager.
During those tense moments, Hesse went through various institutions without being able to feel comfortable in any. This situation plunged him into a terrible depression that brought him to the brink of suicidal thoughts..
In 1892 he wrote a letter where his possible suicide appeared poetically: "I would like to leave like the sun at sunset." In May 1892 he tried to commit suicide and was confined in an asylum located in Stetten im Remstal.
After his short stay in the asylum, Hesse was taken back to Basel, Switzerland, and placed in an institute for minors. Before the end of 1892, he was taken to a school in Bad Cannstatt, in Stuttgart, the capital of Württemberg..
In Bad Cannstatt, in 1893, he managed to earn his first-year diploma but his disagreement persisted; so even with excellent grades, he dropped out. His family stopped the pressures and began to accept, reluctantly, the freedoms of the soul of the young writer.
After retiring from his studies, he set himself the goal of becoming financially independent in order to truly free himself from the yoke of his parents..
He obtained a job opportunity as a bookseller's apprentice - the most fleeting of his work experiences - in Esslingen am Neckar, a town in the capital of Württemberg. He left the office after three days.
He later returned to his homeland, to work for 1 year and 2 months as a mechanic in the watch factory. Perrot. Although he earned well, at the factory Perrot he understood that hard manual work was not his thing, that there was a void he needed to fill.
At the age of 18, in 1895, he returned to the bookseller trade. This time his work took him to the south of the capital of Württemberg, specifically to the Heckenhauer bookstore, in the town of Tübingen. He worked by ordering the books: he grouped them according to the type of material and then filed them.
During the first two years of work at the bookstore, he devoted himself to studying philology, theology and law. Those were the main themes of the books of that place, the ones that forged its literary character and its temper. Even having finished his work, he stayed up late devouring books, a passion that would never leave him.
In that place his poetry flowed enormously, to the point that, at the age of 19, a magazine in Vienna published his poem Madonna. It was 1896 back then.
Two years later he came to occupy the position of assistant bookseller, which allowed him to have a fair salary, being able, at 21, to obtain his desired economic freedom.
Hesse loved reading Greek mythology. He also read the poets Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller. These writers greatly marked his poetic and novel work.
In 1898, the same year as his promotion to assistant bookseller, he formally published his first poetic work: Romantic songs (Romantische lieder). A year later he published An hour after midnight (Eine Stunde hinter Mitternacht), both pieces by the hand of the editor Eugen Diederichs.
Although from a commercial point of view these works were a failure, Diederichs did not doubt the great talent of Hesse. The publisher regarded Hesse's work as pieces of great literary value and the beginning of a great career in letters..
In 1899 Hesse worked in a Basel bookstore. There, with the help of his parents, he rubbed shoulders with wealthy families and intellectuals of the time, achieving ties that allowed him to grow in various areas of his life..
Being in motion was something common in his work; he was not a man to stand still. His inspiration and growth went hand in hand with staying active between roads and cities, a characteristic that accompanied him until the end of his days, as well as his migraines and vision problems..
It was the visual problems that he possessed that prevented him from being enlisted in the German army around 1900. A year later he managed to make one of his most desired goals a reality: to know Italy.
His trip to the country of Da Vinci to meet the ancient arts marked his literary life. He returned to Basel that same year to work in the bookstore Wattenwyl. There his imagination was on a constant boil.
The bookstores were his seas of happiness, there he was a fish among the letters. During his work stay at Wattenwyl, Hesse did not stop reading or publishing short stories and poems, while preparing his debut in the novel genre: Peter camenzind.
The publisher Samuel Fischer, upon learning of the creation of Hesse's recent novel, did not hesitate to contact him and offer his services. In 1904 Hesse fulfilled one of his dreams and reinforced another: to publish Peter camenzind, his first novel, and to be able to live off his passion for writing.
Peter camenzind marked a before and after in the life of the new writer. Completing his first novel with only 27 years was something really commendable, coupled with the fact of the spiritual and psychological depth of the content of the work. Hesse was emerging as one of the greats of German letters.
If Hesse excelled at something, apart from letters and painting, it was not wasting time. The same year that his life was revolutionized by the publication of his book, he decided to get married. The future lady of Hesse was Maria Bernoulli; the economic tranquility of the novel allowed him to marry.
Bernoulli was 9 years older than the writer; however, that was not an impediment. Hesse was delighted with his character and intelligence. Maria worked as a photographer and had a talent for music. It should be noted that she was the first Swiss woman to do independent photography.
From the Hesse-Bernoulli marriage three children were born, the only children that both would have for the rest of their days. Coexistence during that union, and the rest of the unions in Hesse's life, was not easy for any of them. Hesse's need to flee from walls and companies persisted.
In this new stage of being a family man, the German writer became more internalized in himself and, as he later explained to his friends in various letters, he began to understand that his life was an eternal search inward that would prevent him from living with someone from the commonly accepted way.
The newly married couple went to live in the town of Gaienhofen, on the calm shores of Lake Constance; there they laid the foundations of their family. Inspiration flowed for moments and Hesse managed to write Under the wheels in 1906, and then in 1910, Gertrud, plus a series of poems and stories.
Gertrud it was a break for Hesse. Contrary to the rest of his works, which seemed to come from an endless river of inspiration, this novel took a long time to finish. Feelings of frustration invaded him and made him get away from everything in 1911 and travel to Ceylon and Indonesia with his friend Hans Sturzenegger..
Unfortunately none of these trips gave him what he was looking for, inspiration. However, the landscapes and the knowledge acquired later permeated his works.. Indian Notebooks (Aus indien), written in 1913, is a clear example of it.
Returning home after a long absence, he and his entire family moved to Bern; However, due to the persistence of coexistence problems, Hesse and Bernoulli were unable to fix their situation. Hesse knew how to narrate all this in a masterful way in his work Rosshalde.
When the First World War arrived, in 1914, there was havoc throughout the world. Germany was at great risk. Hesse, responding to his patriotic sense, appeared before the authorities to enlist in the army; just as it happened in 1900, his application was denied due to his visual impairment.
The writer did not resign himself to not being able to help his homeland in the face of such a threat, so he requested any way to help be presented to him. Paying attention to his requests, and thanks to the reach he had had for his work, he was allowed to be in charge of the "Library of German prisoners of war".
From his new position, at the end of 1914 and in the middle of the war, he wrote the article "Friends, let's leave our disputes" in the New Zurich Newspaper, a Swiss newspaper. It was a call to peace, to rediscover calm; However, he was not seen that way by a large part of the population, who accused him of being a traitor..
Hesse suffered from multiple threats and discredit; however, part of his intellectual friends came to his defense. They were very hard moments for him.
Not being enough the war that was lived and the attacks that it suffered by part of the nationalists, the life of Hesse was convulsed from other near aspects. His son Martin became seriously ill, his father died and his wife suffered from severe attacks of schizophrenia. Hesse collapsed.
In 1916 he was leaving the position of helping prisoners of war and began to be treated psychotherapeutically to overcome his crisis. His trader was Dr. Joseph Bernhard Lang, a disciple of the renowned psychoanalyst Carl Jung, with whom Hesse subsequently became close friends..
After 28 sessions of psychotherapy, Hesse was discharged in November 1917; from that moment he took a lot of interest in psychoanalysis. During the end of her treatment, in just two months, Hesse wrote her novel Demian. This work was then presented in 1919 under the pseudonym Emil Sinclair.
With the war over and back home, Hesse was unable to rebuild her home. His family was fractured and his wife devastated, so they chose to separate. However, not everything was on good terms, as Barble Reetz tells in his biography entitled The women of Hermann Hesse.
Among the anecdotes that are told, one stands out in which Hesse requested custody of her children from Maria, but was not able to give them due attention, which was considered a selfish act.
The truth is that, when the marriage dissolved, Hesse went to Switzerland and rented a small castle; this is how the facade of the building, called La Casa Camuzzi, looked like. There not only did his inspiration reappear, but he also began to paint. In 1922 his renowned novel was being born Siddhartha.
In 1924 Hesse opted for Swiss nationality and married Ruth Wenger, a young woman who was shocked by the writer's work..
Their marriage was a total failure. Hesse practically abandoned him and paid him no heed, leading to Ruth in the arms of a married man and the dissolution of the marriage..
Not only did Ruth get comfort from abandonment; In 1926 Hesse was already visiting Ninon Dolbin, a married woman who was obsessed with him and who did not stop until she fulfilled her dream: to be Mrs. Hesse.
After the formal break with Ruth, Hesse became depressed and published Steppe wolf. According to critics, it was his way of showing that misunderstood "inner self", which sought solitude and that we all have. In 1931 Dolbin's dream came true, and she became the writer's wife.
The day after Hesse and Dolbin were married, the writer went on a solitary trip to Baden to treat some rheumatism, as he used to do with his other wives. Meanwhile, two days later Dolbin went alone to celebrate her honeymoon in Milan. Barble Reetz recounts all this in detail in The women of Hermann Hesse.
In 1931, Hesse began to shape his last masterpiece, which he titled The Bead Set (Glasperlenspiel). In 1932, Hesse decided to first publish The trip to the East (Morgenlandfahrt).
Those were troubled times, Hitler ascended to power in a Germany urgent and resentful of the scorn suffered in the Treaty of Versailles. Peace-loving Hesse did not want to suffer the mistreatment of 1914 again.
Hesse, sensing what would happen, radioed in Switzerland and from there openly expressed his support for the Jews. In the mid-1930s, no German newspaper published Hesse's articles to avoid reprisals..
Despite putting his life at risk, the poet and writer did not shake his hand to write against the atrocities committed by the Nazis.
During the following years of her life, Hesse focused her energies on shaping her dream: Bead set. In this work Hesse proposes his idea of an eclectic society. He created a community that takes the best of all cultures to recreate a musician-mathematical game that brings out the best in human beings.
Hesse's innovative idea, calling for peace in such troubled times, earned him a nomination for the Nobel Prize for Literature, an award he subsequently won in 1946 as Germany and the world recovered from one of the bloodiest chapters in human history. Then Hesse wrote other poems and stories; never gave up the letters.
Death called him while he slept, on August 9, 1962, in the town of Monrtagnola, Switzerland. The specialists diagnosed that the cause was a stroke.
- It should not be our goal to become another person, but to recognize others, honor others for the simple fact of being who they are.
- The life of every man is a path towards himself, the attempt of a path, the outline of a path.
- I make my way tired and dusty, and stopped and doubtful the youth remains behind me, which lowers its beautiful head and refuses to accompany me.
I have blown my candle out.
Through the open window the night enters,
sweetly embraces me and allows me to be
as friend or brother.
We are both equally nostalgic;
we cast apprehensive dreams
and we talk quietly about the old days
in the paternal home.
It staggers in the empty bottle and in the glass
the brightness of the candle;
it's cold in the room.
Outside the rain falls on the grass.
You lie down again to rest briefly
overwhelmed by cold and sadness.
Dawn and sunset come again,
they always come back:
you, never.
To the primitive world
they don't drive trails;
our soul is not consoled
with armies of stars,
not with river, forest and sea.
Not a tree one finds,
neither river nor animal
that penetrates the heart;
you won't find a consolation
but among your fellow men.
- Romantische lieder (1898).
- Hermann Lauscher (1901).
- Neue Gedichte (1902).
- Unterwegs (1911).
- Gedichte des Malers (1920).
- Neue Gedichte (1937).
- Peter camenzind (1904).
- Under the wheels (1906).
- Gertrud (1910).
- Rosshalde (1914).
- Demian (1919).
- Siddhartha (1922).
- Steppe wolf (1927).
- Journey to the Orient (1932).
- the game of the abalors (1943).
- Eine Stunde hinter Mitternacht (1899).
- Diesseits (1907).
- Nachbarn (1908).
- Am Weg (1915).
- Zarathustras Wiederkehr (1919).
- Weg nach Innen (1931).
- Fabulierbuch (1935).
- Der Pfirsichbaum (1945).
- Die Traumfährte (1945).
- Hermann Lauscher (1900).
- Aus Indien (1913).
- Wanderung (1920).
- Nürnberger Reise (1927).
- Betrachtungen (1928).
- Gedankenblätter (1937).
- Krieg und Frieden (1946) (essays).
- Engadiner Erlebnisse (1953).
- Beschwörungen (1955).
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