HERMANN HEESSE

Hermann Hesse was a famous German Swiss novelist and poet. His works earned him a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946. His masterpiece, Siddhartha, is well-known. He died in 1962 but remained popular in Germany and the rest of the world.

 He was born on July 2, 1877 in the Black Forrest town of Calw in Württemberg, Germany. His father came from Estonia. His mother was born in India where her father was a missionary. When he was four, the family moved to Switzerland for six years before returning to Calw. When he was about 10, he attended a Latin school in Goppingen. This is when he had started to grow a rebellious attitude and began attending behavioral institutions. In one case, he fled from his house, and was found the next day in a farm field. At the age of 15, he attempted suicide. After this, his parents immediately enrolled him into a mental asylum in Stettan Remsal. After that he went to a boys’ institution.

As a young boy, he had always aspired to be a poet, but his poems were given little merit. In 1895, after he had finished his schooling, he became a bookshop apprentice. His job was to organize, pack and archive books. He had switched to becoming a mechanic apprentice, only to switch back to becoming a bookshop apprentice. This part of his life inspired him to later write one of his best books, Beneath the Wheel. While he was working in the bookshop, he released his first literary piece, Romantic Songs, a small collection of poems. Only 54 copies of the 600 printed were sold. Later that year, he released One Hour After Midnight, which was a collection of prose. His family contacts allowed him to keep in touch with the intellectual families of Basil, the city where he worked.

Through these connections, he was able to move to Italy, and started a new life there as a novelist. He became famous with his first novel Peter Camenzind. Later he married Maria Bernoulli, who was from a family of famous mathematicians and had 3 kids. He wrote his second novel, Beneath The Wheel, which was published in 1906. In 1911, Hess left for long trips to Sri Lanka and Indonesia, which influenced his later works.

At the beginning of World War I, he volunteered with the German army but was found not fit for combat. He wrote a controversial essay in which he asked Germans not to be taken by patriotism. He was criticized for this. About the same time, his father died, his son became sick, and his wife had schizophrenia. He had to leave the military and was receiving psychotherapy.

In 1922, he published Siddhartha, which showed his love and understanding of Indian culture and Buddhism. In 1923, he gave up German citizenship and became a Swiss. He spent 11 years under Hitler regime working on his novel with two volumes, Glasperlenspiel. He spoke out in support of Jewish artists and others who were persecuted by the Nazis. He also helped his friends Bertolt Brecht and Thomas Mann escape into exile.

He was awarded the Noble Prize for Literature in 1946. On his autobiography for the Nobel Prize Committee, Hermann Hesse admitted that he was influenced by the Plato, Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. They, however, did not influence him as much as Indian and Chinese philosophy. His book, Siddhartha, is probably the most popular Western novel with an Eastern theme. He died in 1962 after which there was a rise in the popularity of his works.