Study Guide to Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse
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Study Guide to Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse

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Study Guide to Narcissus and Goldmund by Hermann Hesse

Intelligent Education

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A comprehensive study guide offering in-depth explanation, essay, and test prep for Hermann Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund, a literary success upon its first publication in the 1930s.

As a novel of the Great Depression, Narcissus and Goldmund explores themes of brotherhood in spite of disparity. Moreover, Hesse's prevalent themes of conflict between spirit and flesh continue to ring true for readers throughout history. This Bright Notes Study Guide explores the context and history of Hermann Hesse's classic work, helping students to thoroughly explore the reasons it has stood the literary test of time. Each Bright Notes Study Guide contains:

- Introductions to the Author and the Work

- Character Summaries

- Plot Guides

- Section and Chapter Overviews

- Test Essay and Study Q&As

The Bright Notes Study Guide series offers an in-depth tour of more than 275 classic works of literature, exploring characters, critical commentary, historical background, plots, and themes. This set of study guides encourages readers to dig deeper in their understanding by including essay questions and answers as well as topics for further research.

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Year
2020
ISBN
9781645422136
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HERMANN HESSE
INTRODUCTION
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Like many German writers, Hermann Hesse came from a family which had for many generations been associated with the Protestant clergy. The father, Johannes Hesse, was a protestant clergyman who belonged to the pietistic tradition, a liberal branch of German Protestantism which stressed a concern for the individualā€™s relationship to God above strict formal dogma. Hermann was later to acknowledge the importance of the religious atmosphere of his childhood, as, for example, in a letter dated 1950 in which he spoke of Christianity as it was lived, rather than preached, in his home. Johannes Hesse spent the years 1869 to 1873 as a missionary in India. There he acquired an interest in Oriental philosophy and theology which he was to retain for the rest of his life. Forced to return to Europe on account of poor health, he settled in Calw, a town in Southwestern Germany, where he was active as an author of works on religious subjects. Hermannā€™s mother, Marie, came from a similar background; she had been in India as the wife of a missionary. She was living in Calw after the death of her first husband when she met Johannes Hesse.
Hermann, the second of six children, was born in Calw on July 2nd 1877. Four years later the family moved to Basel, Switzerland, and acquired Swiss citizenship. The father continued his religious work in Basel where he became the editor of a missionary magazine. In 1886 the family returned to Calw where Hesse was to remain until leaving home to attend a boarding school in 1890. Hermannā€™s early childhood years were for the most part pleasant and they were certainly intellectually stimulating. Literature, philosophy, and the arts were discussed and respected in his home. Guests, many of whom came from foreign lands, were often entertained there. Hermann felt an especial affinity to his mother whose loving care provided him with a feeling of security and well-being. His father, on the other hand, in spite of his tolerance in regard to many theological matters, believed in strict discipline and followed rigid theories of education which allowed no room for freedom of expression on his sonā€™s part. Many of the difficulties of these early years are reflected in Hesseā€™s works, as, for example, in ā€œA Childā€™s Heart.ā€ As a boy, Hermann was not an outstanding pupil and did not enjoy school; he once remarked that he had had only one teacher whom he admired.
SEARCH FOR A CAREER
As was common in Germany at that time, Hermann was sent to a boarding school to prepare for the difficult examination which all students had to pass in order to be admitted to advanced schools and the university. He entered the school in Goppingen in 1890 to undertake this preparation. At this school, for the only time in his life, he was an exceptionally good student. After successfully passing the examination, he followed the wishes of his father and enrolled in the famous school at Maulbronn with the intention of becoming a Protestant minister. The atmosphere of the school soon proved too oppressive and Hermann ran away. He returned, but once more was unable to adjust and soon left the school permanently. The months which followed were exceedingly traumatic for the disturbed youth. Help was sought from various persons and institutions, but Hermannā€™s emotional problems could not be alleviated. Once he even went so far as to attempt suicide. His final exposure to formal education was at a preparatory school in Bad Cannstatt in 1893 and 1894. Hesse was not at all happy there and his experiences formed the basis for the descriptions of some of Sinclairā€™s unhappy school experiences in Demian.
While doing mechanical work in a Calw clock factory in 1894 and 1895, the young Hesse decided that he wanted to become a writer. He soon found employment i a bookstore in Tubingen and began to see meaning, or at least potential meaning, in life. In 1899 he published his first books, a collection of poetry and one of short prose pieces. In that same year he moved to Basel where he continued to work in the book trade and to expand his horizons, by reading books of many different kinds, and by traveling in Switzerland and Italy. Two years later he wrote a book which attracted the attention of some important German critics and which accordingly established Hesseā€™s reputation as an author: The Posthumous Papers and Poems of Hermann Lauscher.
IMPORTANT EARLY WRITINGS
Other books followed, including, in 1904, the novel Peter Camenzind. This book was immediately successful and the royalties from it and from other writings gave Hesse a degree of financial independence. He was accordingly able to leave the book trade and devote himself entirely to his writing. The novel is about a poor but talented Swiss boy who grows up in harmony with nature, but decides to go out into the world where he eventually attains a measure of material success in society. He ultimately comes to realize that he has not found self-fulfillment in love, intellectual pursuits, art, music, or material goods. Following the death of his close friend Boppi, a cripple, he finally retires to lead an isolated life free of the demands of society. Already in the first of Hesseā€™s novels we see very clearly the theme that will pervade all of the later ones: the difficult search on the part of an individual for identity and fulfillment.
Hesse soon became a respected member of the German literary elite and contributed stories, poems, reviews, and essays to many of the leading periodicals of that time. He also continued to write novels and the next one, Beneath the Wheel (1906), was to a great extent autobiographical. It relates the unsuccessful attempt of the hero, Hans Giebenrath, to cope with the stifling atmosphere of the educational system. The two sides of Hesseā€™s own nature are shown in Hans and in Hermann Heilner, who rebelled against the system and ran away. Hans, like Hesse, experienced many disappointments and eventually found himself unable to cope with the demands of his father and of the school. In two very important respects, however, the novel does not follow Hesseā€™s biography; Hansā€™ mother dies when he is very young, depriving him of a source of warmth and love, and Hans himself, in a state of depression, drowns while still a young man. One of many German literary works of the early twentieth century which attacked the educational system, Beneath the Wheel was very popular.
Hesseā€™s next two novels, Gertrude (1910) and Rosshalde (1914), deal with the problems of the artist. The former is one of the least autobiographical of Hesseā€™s works. The hero, Kuhn, is a musician who enjoyed a happy childhood. He injures his leg in an accident and becomes introverted. He falls in love with Gertrude, but lacks the self-assurance to reveal his feelings to her and try to win her love. She marries another man, but the marriage is not successful and her husband commits suicide. Kuhn becomes a great composer, although he remains a lonely and unhappy person. He has limited contact with Gertrude in his later years, although she continues to be a source of inspiration for his great works of art.
YEARS OF CRISIS
In Hesse married Maria Bernoulli, a Swiss woman nine years his elder. The couple led an isolated life in Gaienhofen. Sons were born in 1905 and 1909. Hesse was a successful and highly productive writer, but his marriage became progressively less happy. In 1911 he made a journey to the Orient in the company of the painter Hans Sturzenegger. Hesse was particularly interested in India, the country in which both of his parents had lived and which his father and grandfather had studied extensively. The trip, however, did not enable Hesse to find the peace and fulfillment which he so desperately sought. Some of his impressions are recorded in From India (1913). His personal conflicts are reflected rather directly in the novel Rosshalde, the story of the painter (1904) Johann Veraguth, who lives a lonely and unhappy life at his estate, Rosshalde, with his wife and a younger son, Pierre. An older son, Albert, is away at school and returns only during vacation periods. Life acquires meaning for Veraguth through his work as an artist and his love for Pierre. He tolerates his marriage only for the sake of Pierre. What remains of his happiness is shattered when Pierre dies of meningitis. The end of the novel remains open. Veraguth, turning his back on bourgeois society, leaves Rosshalde and his wife to travel. His future is uncertain.
The outbreak of World War I in 1914 marked another crisis in Hesseā€™s complicated personal life. Although he had been living in Switzerland for many years, he was German and his reading public expected him to support the German cause. (Switzerland remained neutral during the war.) Hesse did not immediately assume an anti-German stand, but he publicly questioned the excessive patriotism in his native country which was brought out by the war and he was in turn sharply criticized from many sides in Germany. He remained in Switzerland throughout the war and was active in the effort to improve the lot of German prisoners of war and internees.
Hesseā€™s literary productivity continued undiminished during the first years of the war and Knulp, one of the more popular of his earlier works, appeared in 1915. The three stories contained in the collection will be analyzed in detail in this Monarch Note.
The following year, 1916, was to bring severe misfortune: the death of his father, the serious illness of his son Martin, and the mental breakdown of his wife, who had to be sent to an institution. This was in fact the end of Hesseā€™s first marriage, although he did not obtain a formal divorce until 1923. Hesse was naturally despondent and his search for psychiatric help brought him in contact with Dr. Joseph Lang, a disciple of the eminent psychologist Carl Gustav Jung. From Doctor Lang, Hesse not only received advice which helped him overcome his own personal crisis, but he also learned in detail the theories of Jung. Hesse became a devoted student of Jung and the influence of this psychologist was to become one of the most important factors in his later works.
THE MIDDLE YEARS
Demian was written during a short period of time in 1917 under the immediate influence of Doctor Lang and, through him, of Jung. This new novel marks a radical break in Hesseā€™s literary development and the author did not want his readers in any way to be reminded of his earlier works or to associate the new Hesse - the Hesse of Demian - with them. Accordingly he published the novel in 1919 under the pseudonym Emil Sinclair, the name of one of the main characters of the book. The novel was an immediate success. The young postwar generation felt a strong affinity to this strange, powerful work, and it was also well-received by literary critics. The Fontane Prize, a prestigious literary prize awarded for outstanding first novels, was presented to the mysterious Emil Sinclair. The prize was returned by the publisher and in 1920 Hesse revealed that he was actually the author. But he had achieved his goal. To the reading public, Hermann Hesse was now primarily known as the author of Demian, not of Peter Camenzind, Rosshalde, and other early works which Hesse had come to consider to be immature.
The most important theme of Demian is the necessity of first recognizing, and then integrating into oneā€™s personality, the two different aspects of life - the ā€œlightā€ and the ā€œdark,ā€ the spiritual and the sensual, saintliness and sin. The setting, plot, and style of Demian are for the most part dissimilar from those of Hesseā€™s previous works. It is set in Germany during the early years of the present century and describes the outer and inner development of Emil Sinclair from late childhood to maturity. Here, as in Siddhartha, Narcissus and Goldmund, and many of Hesseā€™s works - although not in the stories discussed in this Monarch Note - three distinct stages of development can be seen: the early period of innocence, a middle period which is not without searching, loneliness, and even despair, and the final period in which a synthesis is effected. When Emil Sinclair is first introduced to the ā€œdarkā€ world, he sees no way to reconcile the warm, serene atmosphere of his home with the cold frightening world he now sees. But with the help of Max Demian he gradually becomes more and more able to see the possibility of accepting both aspects of his human nature and he eventually finds he is no longer forced to view them as polar opposites.
The year 1919 was indeed an important one. Hesse wrote several important essays during that year, including Zarathustraā€™s Return in which his debt to Nietzsche is acknowledged, and three of his better short stories, ā€œA Childā€™s Heart,ā€ ā€œKlingsorā€™s Last Summerā€ and ā€œKlein and Wagner,ā€ published together in 1920 under the title Klingsorā€™s Last Summer. These three stories will be analyzed in detail in this Monarch Note. Furthermore, Hesse moved from Bern, where he had been living, to the small Swiss town of Montagnola, which was to be his home in his later years. It was also at about this time that Hesse first took up painting; he later became an accomplished painter and it was to remain his favorite hobby throughout his life. And finally, work on the next important book, Siddhartha, was begun in this year.
Siddhartha proved to be an especially difficult book to write. As Hesse remarked, the first two periods of the heroā€™s life, those of innocence and searching, were easy for him to portray. But the final triumphant vision of the old Siddhartha was foreign to Hesseā€™s experience and hence he had great difficulty putting it on paper. Only in 1922 was the completed novel published.
In this highly poetic book set in ancient India Hesse describes the life of Siddhartha. First the hero masters his intellect and will, and then he turns to the world of the senses. He finds neither asceticism nor hedonism totally satisfying. Late in life he finds fulfillment in a mystical vision at, and with the help of, a river, the symbol of perfection, unity, and continuity.
In 1923 Hesse became a Swiss citizen. His personal life, however, remained unsettled. He obtained a divorce from his first wife and soon thereafter (in January, 1924) he married Ruth Wenger. Five years were to lapse before the publication of his next major novel, Steppenwolf (1927). These years were far from totally barren. Hesse continued to publish poems, short stories, essays, and reviews in various journals and newspapers. But a feeling of alienation, which is reflected in the suffering of Harry Haller in Steppenwolf, continued to affect him. His second marriage, like the first, did not prove to be successful; it ended in divorce in 1927. By this time Hesse was one of the most famous writers of his generation and his first full-length biography, by Hugo Ball, appeared in conjunction with his fiftieth birthday in that same year.
Steppenwolf, like Demian, ā€œKlein and Wagner,ā€ and ā€œKlingsorā€™s Last Summer,ā€ has a ā€œrealisticā€ setting in the twentieth century. The hero, Harry Haller, is a middle-aged man who is torn between the world of the bourgeoisie and that of the artist-intellectual. At first he believes that there are but two aspects of his personality, and that he is torn between these irreconcilable poles. He finds a mysterious ā€œtreatiseā€ (reflecting insights of his own unconscious) which points out that his conception of a simple duality within himself was incorrect. There are not two Harry Hallers, the Steppenwolf and the bourgeois citizen, but many very different aspects of a complicated individual. Haller gradually comes to realize and accept this fact on a conscious level during the remainder of the novel, and the closing scene, the so-called ā€œMagic Theater,ā€ symbolically represents the progress which he has made.
In 1930 one of Hesseā€™s most popular novels appeared, Narcissus and Goldmund. Set in the Middle Ages (although not in any specific century), with a plot rich in adventure, the novel examines the duality of spirit and nature, incorporated by the two leading characters, Narcissus and Goldmund, respectively. Most of the story is devoted to Goldmundā€™s wanderings. Originally a seminarian, he is told by his friend and teacher Narcissus that he is not destined for the priesthood. He leaves the seminary and has many adventures. He has brief, but meaningful, affairs with many women; he experiences birth and death, and is himself forced to kill another human being; and great effort he becomes a skilled sculptor and produces a few pieces of extraordinary beauty. Narcissus, on the other hand, becomes a priest and intellectual. Each respects the other, and Narcissus often helps his friend in one way or another. Although Goldmund dies a realistic and un-idealized death, his way of life, which includes both the spirit and the senses, is presented as superior to that of Narcissus, whose philosophy attempts to deny death, and who, as a result, will not be able to face death when it comes, as it inevitably must. In many respects this novel invites comparison with Knulp.
Hesse married again in 1931. His third wife, with whom he was to remain until his death some thirty years later, was Ninon Auslander Dolbin, Hesseā€™s happiness during these years is portrayed symbolically in the highly autobiographical, but equally unrealistic, novel Journey to the East (1932). The hero is named ā€œH.H.,ā€ an obvious allusion to Hermann Hesse, and many other references to the authorā€™s life can be detected in the book. Once again the hero goes through three stages in his development. He naively and confidently joins a secret Order or League and takes part in its ā€œJourney to the East.ā€ He later drops out of the League and experiences intense loneliness and despair. With the help of Andreas Leo, a figure who resembles the old Siddhartha in some respects, he finally comes to understand the League, and hims...

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