The Novels of Hermann Hesse: A Study In Theme and Structure

Theodore Ziolkowski

An excellent study of the themes and structure of Hesse's mature novels from "Demian" to "The Glass Bead Game", inductively exploring the process of their creation and the development of Hesse's vision, and attempting to place Hesse's work in the larger context as marking the transition from romanticism (as a typological category, not a strictly historical movement) to existentialism (likewise). Along the way, Hesse's texts are also discussed in the wider context of other European modernist writers during the interwar period (Thomas Mann, Hermann Broch, Andre Gide, Joyce, Proust, Kafka, and others). Goethe, Novalis, Nietzsche and other important influences on Hesse's stylistic and thematic choices are discussed extensively.

Literature

1967

Princeton University Press

English