Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse was born on July 2, 1877, in Calw, Germany. His parents, Johannes and Marie, were of
varied European ancestry. His father, a Baltic German, came from Estonia; His mother was the daughter
of a Swabian and a French Swiss. His family had been composed of different nationalities; to this was
now added the experience of growing up among two different peoples, in two countries with their
different dialects. Hermann Hesse cultivated a career as a poet before releasing his debut novel, Peter
Camenzind, in 1904. He eventually penned acclaimed books such as Siddhartha, Steppenwolf and The
Glass Bead Game, among other long-form works and novellas. Hesse protested German fighting in WWI
and later earned the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature. He died on August 9, 1962.

www.biography.co Hermann Hesse

Synopsis
Born on July 2, 1877, in Calw, Germany, Hermann Hesse cultivated a career as a poet before releasing
his debut novel, Peter Camenzind, in 1904. He eventually penned acclaimed books such as Siddhartha,
Steppenwolf and The Glass Bead Game, among other long-form works and novellas. Hesse protested
German fighting in WWI and later earned the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature. He died on August 9, 1962.
Background and Education
Hermann Hesse was born on July 2, 1877, in Calw, Germany. His parents, Johannes and Marie, were of
varied European ancestry and had done missionary work in India. Hesse was also expected to pursue a
religious career, and at his parents urging he attended the theological seminary in Maulbronn.
But as Hesse would later remark, he did not possess a demeanor compatible with a rigid, often-
oppressive educational system, having known from pre-adolescence that he loved poetry. After
completing his schooling in 1893, Hesse found work in a book store, an antique store and a clock tower
factory while he focused on publishing his poems and writing prose.
Debut Novel
In 1904, Hesse released his debut novel, Peter Camenzind, which won him great acclaim and allowed
him to pursue his career as a writer. He followed up the next year with another long-form work, Beneath
the Wheel, which tells the story of a young academic who is laid low by the rigors of duty until he finds
his freedom. Hesse’s literary output over the ensuing decades would continue to explore the enduring
conflict of social dictates versus personal bliss.
Protester During WWI
The same year as Peter Camenzind's publication, Hesse married Maria Bernoulli, with whom he would
have three children. Living with his family in more rural surroundings, Hesse developed an interest in
Eastern religion and continued to release novellas and short stories, as well as novels such as 1910’s
Gertrud. Amidst family crises, Hesse also protested German fighting during World War I and as such was
decried in the regional media. In the early 1920s he was granted Swiss citizenship, and his work would
be banned and destroyed in Germany during the regime of Adolf Hitler.
Wins Nobel Prize
In the new decade, Hesse continued publishing novellas while earning acclaim for novels such
as Siddhartha (1922), set in India during the time of the Buddha and reflecting the author’s own travels.
In 1927 he published Steppenwolf, a mystical affair that chronicled the meeting of the despondent Harry
Haller with the liberated Hermine. In 1930, the novel Narcissus and Goldmund followed, a metaphorical
work focusing on the contrasting sensibilities of a teacher and his student.
Hesse took more than a decade to complete his next, last and longest novel, The Glass Bead Game, aka
Magister Ludi, which was published in 1943 and tackled the contours of a utopian society. Hesse was
awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature for his body of work, with his health barring him from
traveling to Stockholm to attend the ceremony. He died on August 9, 1962, in Montagnola, Switzerland.
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/lit
Hermann Hesse was born in the little south German village of Calw on July 2, 1877. Situated on the edge
of the Black Forest, Calw was to become the colorful setting of much of Hesse's writing. Hesse was the
son of Johannes Hesse, who had been a missionary for the Lutheran Pietists to India. Forced to return to
Europe after a short stay in India, Johannes worked in, and helped establish, a religious publishing house
in Calw. Hermann's maternal grandfather, Hermann Gundert, also spent a major portion of his life as a
missionary in India, acquiring a huge library of books about Eastern thought and becoming a master of
Indic languages.
As a child, Hesse was greatly subjected to religious influences, both to the narrower views of
Protestantism and to the wider scope of the Eastern religions and philosophies. Both views never left
him; they became an integral part of his thought. His house in Calw was frequently the scene of
visitations from foreigners, ranging from Buddhists to Americans. At his disposal was his grandfather's
rich library. Hesse himself much later stated that all of his writing was religious in nature, not in the
orthodox sense, but in a larger, universal way.
It was established early that Hesse would become a theological student. While showing intellectual
promise as a student, young Hesse disliked school, especially the rigidity and the stifling of creativity of
the German educational system of his time. His grades were never outstanding, and he disliked his
teachers. He once stated that he had had only one teacher whom he liked. His reaction to this
oppressive atmosphere is also reflected in his writings, especially in the bitter attack in Unterm Rad
(Beneath the Wheel). By the age of thirteen, Hesse had decided that he was going to be a poet. Great
stress caused him to flee the Maulbronn Seminary, the setting of Mariabronn in Narcissus and
Goldmund. He became so despondent that he considered suicide and purchased a pistol.
Causing great concern to his parents, Hesse was subjected to a variety of remedies for his
rebelliousness. These ranged from a school for the disturbed to an attempt at exorcism. In 1894, Hesse
became an apprentice in Perrot's tower clock factory in Calw. Needless to say, this was not satisfactory
to him. Some progress was made in 1895, when he became an apprentice in the book trade in
Heckenhauer's bookstore in Tubingen, although Hesse was still a rebel. A few years later, he served in a
similar capacity in Basel, from where he traveled through Switzerland and to Italy.
After writing a few minor works, Hesse achieved recognized literary success in 1904 with the publication
of Peter Camenzind, a very popular book written in the tradition of the German Romanticists. In the
same year, he married Maria Bernoulli, and the couple took up a secluded residence at Gaienhofen,
where Hesse became a free lance writer and a contributor to a number of journals.
Hesse's second successful novel, Unterm Rad (Beneath the Wheel), was published in 1906, followed by
Gertrud in 1910 and Rosshalde in 1914. The latter work strongly depicts the plight of the temperamental
artist and his wife. Meanwhile, Hesse had become associated with the pacifist Romain Rolland and had
been writing numerous essays against the growing nationalism of the German people. Many of these
writings have been translated into English and are available in a volume entitled If the War Goes On . . .
The publication of Knulp in 1915 includes three stories about the life of a colorful vagabond.
A turning point in Hesse's life occurred in 1916, when his father's death, coupled with the illnesses of his
son Martin and his wife, forced Hermann to seek refuge in a Lucerne sanatorium. His condemnation by
his native Germany for his pacifistic views probably compounded his already serious problems. In 1916–
17, Hesse had more than seventy sessions with a psychologist, J. B. Lang, who was a disciple of the
famous Carl Gustav Jung. Supposedly these were more friendly conversations than attempts at serious
psychoanalysis. The result was favorable for Hesse and of great importance to his future writings. The
works following this period, beginning with Demian, cannot be fully understood without recognition of
the Jungian influence. Following Demian were Marchen (reprinted in English as Strange News from
Another Star) and Klingsor's Last Summer, a collection of three excellent novellas, originally containing
Siddhartha. At the same time, Hesse became coeditor of the newspaper Vivos Voco and decided to
move, alone, to Montagnola. In 1920, he produced Blick ins Chaos, which was referred to by T. S. Eliot in
The Wasteland.
Hesse divorced his wife and adopted Swiss citizenship in 1923. He then married Ruth Wegner the
following year. The years 1924-27 saw the publication of some of Hesse's best autobiographical pieces,
namely Kurgast (1924) and Die Nurnberger Reise (1927), as well as his second divorce, which is reflected
upon in Der Steppenwolf (1927). Narcissus and Goldmund was published in 1930, and shortly thereafter
Hesse married Ninon Dolbin, who was to remain his companion until his death. In 1932, Hesse published
Die Morgenlandfahrt (The Journey to the East). The only other major novel to be produced was The
Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi), which was published in 1943. Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize in
1946.
During the course of World War II, Hesse was to relive the nightmare of World War I. Once again he
became the subject of German ostracism because of his anti-nationalistic views. Following the war,
however, his writings again became popular in Germany and have remained so until relatively recent
times. After receiving many literary honors, Hermann Hesse died in seclusion of a cerebral hemorrhage
in Montagnola on August 9, 1962.
Hesse's works have long enjoyed popularity outside of Germany, especially in southern Europe and Latin
America. Indeed, of twentieth-century German writers, only Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka have been
written about more than Hesse. However, Hesse remained almost virtually unknown in the United
States until the 1960s. Only a handful of his works had been translated into English, and some of those
had been very poor translations. Very few critical articles or references appeared in literary publications
prior to the Nobel Prize of 1946. For a short time afterwards, his name was mentioned more frequently
and some worthwhile critical material appeared. Largely though, Hesse was known only to a handful of
individuals on college campuses. Hesse himself doubted greatly that he would ever receive popular
recognition in the English-speaking world, particularly the United States.
However, Hesse has been worshiped by many college students who have made him a cult hero.
Siddhartha and Demian, particularly, can be found in the curricula of some of the more progressive high
schools. Ironically, Siddhartha is, among other things, one of the greatest criticisms of formal education
that one could read, which is one aspect that makes it so appealing to today's readers.
The reasons for Hesse's popularity stem from several factors. Initially, his wide-spread acceptance in the
United States was due to the youth culture which identified with his alienated protagonists. Both a rock
group and a California discotheque owed their names to Steppenwolf, which became a virtual Bible for
the 1960s counter-culture. Also, a record album was entitled "Abraxas," after the Gnostic deity who is
an integral part of Demian. Youths frequently heard themselves echoed when Harry Haller condemns
pre-World War II German society for building a dehumanizing military industrial complex and for
destroying nature. When Haller uses drugs to achieve a state of intense awareness, they identified
again, not realizing how little this aspect has to do with the essence of the novel. The 1960s generation,
a great many of whom were witnesses to their country's involvement in what they considered to be an
unjustifiable, immoral war (Vietnam), found a spokesman against chauvinistic nationalism in Hesse.
Hesse himself said that each of his writings was, in a sense, a spiritual autobiography. From the
Nietzschean view of Demian, which questions the "herd instinct" and the "mass morality," to the
concept of individual sacrifice for the sake of helping another person achieve a higher level of existence
as depicted in the futuristic Glass Bead Game (Magister Ludi), inspiration has been given and guidelines
established.
Hesse has been both highly praised and severely condemned. Whether he is a saint or whether his
writings are just another fad certain to be forgotten remains to be seen. Because he deals with very real
issues, he is rarely spoken of objectively. Because of conflicts in personal viewpoints, much of the
intrinsic merit of his works has been neglected and not examined closely enough by both those of the
"establishment" and those who seek to identify with Charles Reich's concept of "Consciousness III."
http://www.nobelprize.org/nob
was born in Calw in the Black Forest on July 2, 1877. My father, a Baltic German, came from Estonia; my
mother was the daughter of a Swabian and a French Swiss. My father's father was a doctor, my mother's
father a missionary and Indologist. My father, too, had been a missionary in India for a short while, and
my mother had spent several years of her youth in India and had done missionary work there.

My childhood in Calw was interrupted by several years of living in Basle (1880-86). My family had been
composed of different nationalities; to this was now added the experience of growing up among two
different peoples, in two countries with their different dialects.

I spent most of my school years in boarding schools in Wuerttemberg and some time in the theological
seminary of the monastery at Maulbronn. I was a good learner, good at Latin though only fair at Greek,
but I was not a very manageable boy, and it was only with difficulty that I fitted into the framework of a
pietist education that aimed at subduing and breaking the individual personality. From the age of twelve
I wanted to be a poet, and since there was no normal or official road, I had a hard time deciding what to
do after leaving school. I left the seminary and grammar school, became an apprentice to a mechanic,
and at the age of nineteen I worked in book and antique shops in Tübingen and Basle. Late in 1899 a tiny
volume of my poems appeared in print, followed by other small publications that remained equally
unnoticed, until in 1904 the novel Peter Camenzind, written in Basle and set in Switzerland, had a quick
success. I gave up selling books, married a woman from Basle, the mother of my sons, and moved to the
country. At that time a rural life, far from the cities and civilization, was my aim. Since then I have always
lived in the country, first, until 1912, in Gaienhofen on Lake Constance, later near Bern, and finally in
Montagnola near Lugano, where I am still living.

Soon after I settled in Switzerland in 1912, the First World War broke out, and each year brought me
more and more into conflict with German nationalism; ever since my first shy protests against mass
suggestion and violence I have been exposed to continuous attacks and floods of abusive letters from
Germany. The hatred of the official Germany, culminating under Hitler, was compensated for by the
following I won among the young generation that thought in international and pacifist terms, by the
friendship of Romain Rolland, which lasted until his death, as well as by the sympathy of men who
thought like me even in countries as remote as India and Japan. In Germany I have been acknowledged
again since the fall of Hitler, but my works, partly suppressed by the Nazis and partly destroyed by the
war; have not yet been republished there.

In 1923, I resigned German and acquired Swiss citizenship. After the dissolution of my first marriage I
lived alone for many years, then I married again. Faithful friends have put a house in Montagnola at my
disposal.

Until 1914 I loved to travel; I often went to Italy and once spent a few months in India. Since then I have
almost entirely abandoned travelling, and I have not been outside of Switzerland for over ten years.
I survived the years of the Hitler regime and the Second World War through the eleven years of work
that I spent on the Glasperlenspiel (1943) [Magister Ludi], a novel in two volumes. Since the completion
of that long book, an eye disease and increasing sicknesses of old age have prevented me from engaging
in larger projects.

Of the Western philosophers, I have been influenced most by Plato, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and
Nietzsche as well as the historian Jacob Burckhardt. But they did not influence me as much as Indian
and, later, Chinese philosophy. I have always been on familiar and friendly terms with the fine arts, but
my relationship to music has been more intimate and fruitful. It is found in most of my writings. My
most characteristic books in my view are the poems (collected edition, Zürich, 1942), the stories Knulp
(1915), Demian (1919), Siddhartha (1922), Der Steppenwolf (1927) [Steppenwolf], Narziss und
Goldmund. (1930), Die Morgenlandfahrt (1932) [The Journey to the East], and Das Glasperlenspiel (1943)
[Magister Ludi]. The volume Gedenkblätter (1937, enlarged ed. 1962) [Reminiscences] contains a good
many autobiographical things. My essays on political topics have recently been published in Zürich
under the title Krieg und Frieden (1946) [War and Peace].

I ask you, gentlemen, to be contented with this very sketchy outline; the state of my health does not
permit me to be more comprehensive.

Biographical note on Hermann Hesse

Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) received the Goethe Prize of Frankfurt in 1946 and the Peace Prize of the
German Booksellers in 1955. A complete edition of his works in six volumes appeared in 1952; a seventh
volume (1957) contains essays and miscellaneous writings. Beschwörungen (1955) [Evocations], a
volume of late prose, and his correspondence with Romain Rolland (1954) were published separately.
From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967, Editor Horst Frenz, Elsevier Publishing Company,
Amsterdam, 1969
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book
series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document,
always state the source as shown above.
Hermann HesseGerman writer

http://www.britannica.com/bio

Montagnola, Switzerland
Hermann Hesse, (born July 2, 1877, Calw, Ger.—died Aug. 9, 1962, Montagnola, Switz.), German
novelist, poet, and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, whose main theme deals with man’s
breaking out of the established modes of civilization to find his essential spirit. With his appeal for self-
realization and his celebration of Eastern mysticism, Hesse posthumously became a cult figure to young
people in the English-speaking world.
At the behest of his father, Hesse entered the Maulbronn seminary. Though a model student, he was
unable to adapt, so he was apprenticed in a Calw tower-clock factory and later in a Tübingen bookstore.
His disgust with conventional schooling was expressed in the novel Unterm Rad (1906; Beneath the
Wheel), in which an overly diligent student is driven to self-destruction.
Hesse remained in the bookselling business until 1904, when he became a freelance writer and brought
out his first novel, Peter Camenzind, about a failed and dissipated writer. The inward and outward
search of the artist is further explored in Gertrud (1910) and Rosshalde (1914). A visit to India in these
years was later reflected in Siddhartha (1922), a poetic novel, set in India at the time of the Buddha,
about the search for enlightenment.
During World War I, Hesse lived in neutral Switzerland, wrote denunciations of militarism and
nationalism, and edited a journal for German war prisoners and internees. He became a permanent
resident of Switzerland in 1919 and a citizen in 1923, settling in Montagnola.
A deepening sense of personal crisis led Hesse to psychoanalysis with J.B. Lang, a disciple of Carl Gustav
Jung. The influence of analysis appears in Demian (1919), an examination of the achievement of self-
awareness by a troubled adolescent. This novel had a pervasive effect on a troubled Germany and made
its author famous. Hesse’s later work shows his interest in Jungian concepts of introversion and
extraversion, the collective unconscious, idealism, and symbols. The duality of man’s nature preoccupied
Hesse throughout the rest of his career.
Der Steppenwolf (1927; Steppenwolf ) describes the conflict between bourgeois acceptance and spiritual
self-realization in a middle-aged man. In Narziss und Goldmund (1930; Narcissus and Goldmund), an
intellectual ascetic who is content with established religious faith is contrasted with an artistic sensualist
pursuing his own form of salvation. In his last and longest novel, Das Glasperlenspiel (1943; English titles
The Glass Bead Game and Magister Ludi), Hesse again explores the dualism of the contemplative and
the active life, this time through the figure of a supremely gifted intellectual.
https://www.hermann-hesse.de/en/biography
Throughout his life, Hermann Hesse was a seeker. This is reflected not only in his outstanding literary
works, which in 1946 won him the Nobel Prize, but also in his resume. In his home town of Calw, where
he was born on July 2, 1877, he spent his youth in the bosom of his family - formative years that found
their way into many of his books. Maulbronn, Tübingen and Basel were among the other places Hesse
lived. In 1904, he moved to an old farmhouse in Gaienhofen on Lake Constance to embark on a career as
a freelance writer. In 1911, he made a journey to India, and moved to Switzerland a short time later,
living first in Berne and later in Montagnola (Tessin), where he entered his most prolific period as a
writer, and where he also died in 1962. The task of overcoming personal crises is one of the defining
elements of Hesse's work, though other issues such as religion and politics also feature prominently.