Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha : An Indian TaleHermann HESSE (1877 - 1962),Translator: Gunther Olesch, Anke Dreher, Amy Coulter, Stefan Langer and Semyon ChaichenetsSiddhartha is one of the great philosophical novels. Profoundly insightful, it is also a beautifully written story that begins as Siddhartha, son of an Indian Brahman, leaves his family and begins a lifelong journey towards Enlightenment. On the way he faces the entire range of human experience and emotion: he lives with ascetics, meets Gotama the Buddha, learns the art of love from Kamala the courtesan, and is transformed by the simple philosophy of the ferryman Vasudeva whose wisdom comes not from learned teachings but from observing the River. Herman Hesse (1877-1962) was a German-Swiss novelist, poet, and painter. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1946.

The final novel of Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literature.Set in the twenty-third century, The Glass Bead Game is the story of Joseph Knecht, who has been raised in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow and flourish. Since childhood, Knecht has been consumed with mastering the Glass Bead Game, which requires a synthesis of aesthetics and philosophy, which he achieves in adulthood, becoming a Magister Ludi (Master of the Game).

Harry Haller is a sad and lonely figure, a reclusive intellectual for whom life holds no joy. He struggles to reconcile the wild primeval wolf and the rational man within himself without surrendering to the bourgeois values he despises. His life changes dramatically when he meets a woman who is his opposite, the carefree and elusive Hermine. The tale of the Steppenwolf culminates in the surreal Magic Theater—for mad men only.Steppenwolf is Hesse’s best-known and most autobiographical work. With its blend of Eastern mysticism and Western culture, it is one of literature’s most poetic evocations of the soul’s journey to liberation. Originally published in English in 1929, the novel’s wisdom continues to speak to our souls and marks it as a classic of modern literature.

Roman d'initiation et de formation, Demian est l'un des chefs-d'œuvre de ce genre littéraire.Comment l'homme peut-il échapper au monde des miroirs et parvenir à être lui-même ? Demian (au nom proche du daïmon grec, la voix intérieure) enseigne au jeune Emile Sinclair à ne pas suivre l'exemple de ses parents, à se révolter pour se trouver, à traverser le chaos pour mériter l'accomplissement de sa destinée propre. Au bout de ce chemin où le divin et le démoniaque se mêlent, la crainte d'être un exilé, un séparé, un étranger est annihilée.Il n'est pas d'autre mesure à l'humain que la liberté.

Narcissus and Goldmund tells the story of two medieval men whose characters are diametrically opposite: Narcissus, an ascetic monk firm in his religious commitment, and Goldmund, a romantic youth hungry for knowledge and worldly experience. First published in 1930, Hesse's novel remains a moving and pointed exploration of the conflict between the life of the spirit and the life of the flesh. It is a theme that transcends all time.

In Hermann Hesse's Beneath the Wheel or The Prodigy, Hans Giebenrath lives among the dull and respectable townsfolk of a sleepy Black Forest village. When he is discovered to be an exceptionally gifted student, the entire community presses him onto a path of serious scholarship. Hans dutifully follows the regimen of tireless study and endless examinations, his success rewarded only with more crushing assignments. When Hans befriends a rebellious young poet, he begins to imagine other possibilities outside the narrowly circumscribed world of the academy. Finally sent home after a nervous breakdown, Hans is revived by nature and romance, and vows never to return to the gray conformity of the academic system.

"It was destiny that gave me that fabulous adventure. I participated in that unique journey, whose miraculous incidents shone like meteors. Today I want to try the short and concise description of that incredible odyssey." Novelist and poet, Hermann Hesse (1877-1962), based his work on the search for individual spirituality and felt throughout his life a great attraction to Buddhism and India. In 1946 he received the Nobel Prize for literature.

Emil Sinclair es un niño que ha vivido toda su vida en lo que el llama el Scheinwelt (mundo de ensueño o mundo de la luz), pero una mentira lo lleva a ampliar sus visiones del mundo y a conocer un personaje enigmático de nombre Max Demian que lo llevará por los senderos del auto-razonamiento destruyendo paradigmas materialistas que antes le rodeaban.

Peter Camenzind, a young man from a Swiss mountain village, leaves his home and eagerly takes to the road in search of new experience. Traveling through Italy and France, Camenzind is increasingly disillusioned by the suffering he discovers around him; after failed romances and a tragic friendship, his idealism fades into crushing hopelessness. He finds peace again only when he cares for Boppi, an invalid who renews Camenzind's love for humanity and inspires him once again to find joy in the smallest details of every life.

Die drei Geschichten aus dem Leben des Landstreichers Knulp, einem Nachfahren von Eichendorffs Taugenichts, zählen zu den reizvollsten Stücken der frühen Prosa Hermann Hesses. In der Folge seiner Werke gehören sie zum großen Zyklus seiner Gerbersau-Erzählungen, der uns das Leben in einer schwäbischen Kleinstadt um die Jahrhundertwende am Beispiel zahlreicher charakteristischer und größtenteils authentischer Einzelschicksale überliefert.

With Gertrude, Herman Hesse continues his lifelong exploration of the irreconcilable elements of human existence. In this fictional memoir, the renowned composer Kuhn recounts his tangled relationships with two artists--his friend Heinrich Muoth, a brooding, self-destructive opera singer, and the gentle, self-assured Gertrude Imthor. Kuhn is drawn to Gertrude upon their first meeting, but Gertrude falls in love with Heinrich, to whom she is introduced when Kuhn auditions them for the leads in his new opera. Hopelessly ill-matched, Gertrude and Heinrich have a disastrous marriage that leaves them both ruined. Yet this tragic affair also becomes the inspiration for Kuhn's opera, the most important success of his artistic life.

Rosshalde is the classic story of a man torn between obligations to his family and his longing for a spiritual fulfillment that can only be found outside the confines of conventional society.Johann Veraguth, a wealthy, successful artist, is estranged from his wife and stifled by the unhappy union. Veraguth's love for his young son and his fear of drifting rootlessly keep him bound within the walls of his opulent estate, Rosshalde, while a friend tries to persuade him to seek fulfillment in the East.

To read Hermann Hesse's fairy tales is to enter a fabulous world of dreams and visions, philosophy and passion. This landmark collection contains twenty-two of Hesse's finest stories in this genre, most translated into English here for the first time. Full of visionaries and seekers, princesses and wandering poets, his fairy tales speak to the place in our psyche that inspires us with deep spiritual longing; that compels us to leave home, and inevitably to return; and that harbors the greatest joys and most devastating wounds of our heart. Containing all the themes common in Hesse's great novels Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and Demian—and mirroring events in his own life, these exquisite short pieces exhibit the same mystical and romantic impulses that contribute to the haunting brilliance of his major works. Several stories, including "The Poet," "The Fairy Tale About the Wicker Chair," and "The Painter," examine the dilemma of the artist, torn between the drive for perfection and the temptations of pleasure and social success. Other tales reflect changes and struggles within society: in "Faldum," a city is irrevocably transformed when each resident is granted his or her fondest wish; in "Strange News from Another Planet," "If the War Continues," and "The European," nightmarish landscapes convey Hesse's devastating critiques of nationalism, barbarism, and war. Illuminating and inspiring, The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse will challenge and enchant readers of all ages. A distinguished and historic publication, this fine translation by Jack Zipes captures their subtlety and elegance for decades nto come.

Literary Studies, German Literature, Philosophy, German Studies

On May 2, 1919, Hesse wrote to Romain Rolland: "I have had to bear a very heavy burden in my personal life in recent years. Now I am about to go to Ticino once again, to live for a while as a hermit in nature and in my work." In 1920, after settling in the Ticino mountain village of Montagnola, he published Wandering, a love letter to this magic-garden world that can be read as a meditation on his attempt to begin a new life. His pure prose, his heartfelt lyricism, and his love for the old earth, for its blessings that renew themselves, all sing in this serene book. The first German edition of Wandering included facsimiles of fourteen watercolor landscapes. Hesse's painting had blossomed in the southern countryside and he even toyed with the idea "that I might still succeed in escaping literature entirely and making a living at the more appealing trade of painter." Unfortunately, his original pictures for Wandering have disappeared; this edition reproduces in black-and-white the full-color reproductions of the 1920 edition.

“The war is nobody’s fault. It occurs by itself, like thunder and lightning. All of us who must fight wars are not the perpetrators. We are only their victims.”" Strange News from Another Star " is a short fairy tale written by Hermann Hesse in April 1915, one year after the start of the 1st World War. In the fairy tale, two stars are juxtaposed.On one star, life is valued, beauty is appreciated, reason is respected, humane traditions are cultivated, love and happiness are experienced and peace prevails.On the other star, jealousy, hatred and despair are cultivated, wars are waged incessantly, battlefield murder is officially condoned, the countryside is left strewn with unattended cadavers and fear prevails.The latter is clearly our world as Hesse saw it, rendered mythical, and the former is an idealized world that ours could be.Unlike his earlier works, the story does not lend itself to rational interpretation. It is essentially a fairy tale dealing with the subconscious, magic and the dream world.The fairy tale represents an intermediate stage between Hesse's initial ambiguous stance to the war, as an internationalist who tolerated war and a pacifist who looked forward to a German victory, and his later active anti-war campaign.The story, which was titled “Merkwürdige Nachricht von einem anderen Stern” in German, was one of several that brought Hesse into conflict with supporters of the war, his country and its government.This print edition contains new translations of Strange News from Another Star , Faldum , Iris , Fine Dream Sequence , A Difficult Path , The Poet and Augustus

Una pausa di due settimane nella vita di un intellettuale che aspira alla saggezza lo spinge – attraverso piccoli fatti in apparenza irrilevanti – a dubitare con buone ragioni di sé: e quell’intellettuale è Hesse stesso, che ironizza stupendamente sulla propria persona. Questo conflitto silenzioso, involontariamente comico ma non perciò meno duro, si svolge entro la cornice antiquata di una stazione termale: su tale pretesto, Hesse ha costruito una delle sue più perfette parabole, La cura (1925), che segue di poco a Siddharta (1922) e in certo modo ne è «l’altra parte». Come lì si assisteva a un itinerario verso l’illuminazione, qui si ‘smonta’ un illuminato occidentale troppo sicuro di sé, che viene messo in crisi da piccoli incidenti quotidiani – e da ciò è condotto a rivedere certe sue convinzioni troppo tranquille. Ma il punto di arrivo è lo stesso: in quella «psicologia dell’occhio cosmico» che è il grande dono di Hesse e davanti alla quale «non c’è più nulla di piccolo, di sciocco, di brutto, di malvagio, ma tutto è santo e venerabile».

“Üzgün olduğumuzda ve hayata katlanamadığımızda bir ağaç şöyle konuşabilir bizimle: Sus! Bak bana! Yaşamak kolay değil, yaşamak zor değil. Bunlar çocuksu düşünceler. Bırak konuşsun içindeki Tanrı, o zaman susacaklar. Yolun seni anandan ve yurdundan uzaklaştırdığı için endişelisin. Ama attığın her adım, her yeni gün seni anana yaklaştırır. Orası ya da şurası değildir yurdun. Yurt ya içindedir ya da hiçbir yerde.Yollara düşme özlemiyle kederlenir yüreğim, akşamları rüzgârda uğuldayan ağaçları duyduğumda. Sessizce, uzun uzun dinlerseniz, bu özlemin esası da anlamı da çıkar ortaya. Sanıldığı gibi acıdan kaçıp gitme arzusu değildir bu. Yurda, ananın belleğine, hayatın yeni kıssalarına duyulan özlemdir. Eve götürür insanı. Her yol eve götürür, her adım doğumdur, her adım ölümdür, her mezar anadır.Böyle uğuldar ağaç, çocuksu düşüncelerimizden ürktüğümüz akşam vakitlerinde. [...] Ağaçları dinlemeyi öğrenen, ağaç olmayı arzulamaz artık. Kendisi dışında başka bir şey olmayı arzulamaz. Yurt budur. Mutluluk budur.”

This volume, the first edition in English of Hermann Hesse's poetry, begins to correct an unexplainable oversight. For if the author of Narcissus and Goldmund and The Journey to the East had never written a single novel, his poems alone would have established him as a distinctly eloquent voice.James Wright, himself increasingly recognized as one of the finest poets writing today, has selected and translated thirty-one poems from Die Gedichte (Collected Poems). The results make it plain that the burden of Hesse's songs, and his songfulness, is genuinely congenial to Wright."Poetry is what is lost in translation." Here is one collaboration that transcends that maxim.

Friedrich Klein, der ehrbare Beamte, treusorgende Ehegatte und Familienvater, durchbricht plötzlich, belastet mit einem imaginären Verbrechen, dem vierfachen Mord an Frau und Kindern, mit falschem Paß, einem Revolver und unterschlagenem Geld in der Tasche, seine hausbackene Respektabilität. Die Figur des Beamten Klein mit dem beziehungsreichen Decknamen Wagner ist eine erste Inkarnation von Hesses Steppenwolf.

La felicità è amore, nient'altro.Felice è chi sa amare.Amore è ogni moto della nostra anima in cui essa senta se stessa e percepisca la propria vita.Felice è dunque chi è capace di amare molto.Ma amare e desiderare non è la stessa cosa.L'amore è desiderio fattosi saggio;l'amore non vuole avere;vuole soltanto amare.

=New Stories of Love

This never-before-seen collection of poems offers the lyrical insights and spiritual wisdom of the Nobel Prize-winning author of Siddhartha, Steppenwolf, and The Glass Bead Game—who inspired millions as he forged cultural bridges between the East and West. Vowing at an early age “to be a poet or nothing at all,” Hermann Hesse rebelled against formal education, focusing on a rigorous program of independent study that included literature, philosophy, art, and history. One result of these efforts was a series of novels that became counterculture bibles that remain widely influential today. Another was a body of evocative spiritual poetry. Published for the first time in English, these vivid, probing short works reflect deeply on the challenges of life and provide a spiritual solace that transcends specific denominational hymns, prayers, and rituals. The Seasons of the Soul offers valuable guidance in poetic form for those longing for a more meaningful life, seeking a sense of homecoming in nature, in each stage of life, and in a renewed relationship with the divine. Extensive quotations from his prose introduce each theme addressed in the love, imagination, nature, the divine, and the passage of time. A foreword by Andrew Harvey reintroduces us to a figure about whom some may have believed everything had already been said. Thoughtful commentary throughout from translator Ludwig Max Fischer helps readers understand the poems within the context of Hesse’s life.

Compilation of the German author's passionately anti-war writings which date from before World War I

- Demian -Emil Sinclair es un niño que ha vivido toda su vida en lo que el llama el Scheinwelt (mundo de ensueño o mundo de la luz), pero una mentira lo lleva a ampliar sus visiones del mundo y a conocer un personaje enigmático de nombre Max Demian que lo llevará por los senderos del auto-razonamiento destruyendo paradigmas materialistas que antes le rodeaban.- El lobo estepario -Ser solitario e incomunicado, extraño y extrañado, Harry Haller, protagonista de esta emblemática novela, ha acabado convirtiéndose en un arquetipo literario en el que se reconocen quienes padecen los devastadores efectos deshumanizadores de una sociedad insolidaria y atomizada.

Selected and with an Introduction by Theodore Ziolkowski.In the spring of 1922, several months after completing Siddhartha, Hermann Hesse wrote a fairy tale that was also a love story, inspired by the woman who was to become his second wife. That story, Pictor's Metamorphoses, is presented here along with a half century of Hesse's other short writings. Inspired by the Arabian Nights and the tales of the Brothers Grimm, these nineteen stories display the full range of Hesse's lifetime fascination with fantasy--as dream, fairy tale, folktale, satire, and allegory.

Três livros indispensáveis da obra de Hermann Hesse, um dos autores mais importantes do século XX. Esta coletânea de luxo - com os livros em novo formato, capa dura e pintura trilateral - ainda conta com um livreto escrito pelo escritor e tradutor Marcelo Backes. Prêmio Nobel de Literatura em 1946 e ícone da literatura alemã, Hermann Hesse é, sem dúvida, um dos mais renomados escritores do mundo. Filho de missionários, Hesse optou por não seguir o caminho dos pais e acabou se tornando muito popular entre a juventude ocidental. Demian é o primeiro grande livro de Hesse no caminho que o conduz a O lobo da estepe, considerado pela crítica sua obra-prima, e do qual Sidarta constitui a etapa intermediária.Essa coletânea, incluindo as três obras clássicas do autor, é acompanhada por um livreto com o texto inédito Hermann Hesse e a bíblia dos incompreendidos, de Marcelo Backes. Abordando a importância do autor – inclusive para grandes questões atuais – Backes nos dá um panorama da vida e obra de Hermann Hesse e de suas influências no ambiente literário onde nasceu.

Oameni precum Knulp "nu sunt, ce-i drept, folositori; în schimb, sunt mult mai puţin dăunători decât majoritatea celor folositori. Atunci când un astfel de Knulp, înzestrat cu suflet şi talent, nu-şi află locul în lume, lumea e şi ea la fel de vinovată ca însuşi Knulp". Hermann Hesse "De neuitat rămâne impresia de-a dreptul electrizantă pe care demian-ul acelui misterios Sinclair a provocat-o din clipa apariţiei sale; o povestire ce atingea cu înspăimântătoare claritate nervul timpului, primită cu încântare şi recunoştinţă de o întreagă generaţie ce-şi regăsea în ea cele mai adânci simţăminte." Thomas Mann

Als Hesse diese Erzählung schrieb, lagen die Begebenheiten, an die er sich hier erinnert, fast dreißig Jahre zurück. Die topographische ebenso wie die psychologische Präzision des Geschilderten, die sich über Jahrzehnte hinweg unauslöschlich in allen Einzelheiten bewahrt hat, verrät, wie einschneidend dieses Erlebnis gewesen sein muß, das sich am 11. November 1889 zugetragen hat.

Scritto quando Hesse aveva circa trent'anni (1907-1908), questo breve romanzo narra la storia di due giovani, Hans Calwer ed Erwin Mühletal, giunti davanti alla soglia decisiva di un distacco dai valori dell'infanzia, alla ricerca di una nuova identità, divisi tra la nostalgia dell'eden perduto e il desiderio di un nuovo paradiso. Intimamente autobiografico, come quasi tutti i lavori di Hesse, questo libro offre, accanto ai pregi letterari consueti di uno dei massimi narratori del Novecento, la misura di una modernità che non si attenua con il passare degli anni. Infatti, rivolgendosi ancora una volta all'infelicità dei giovani del suo tempo e di oggi, Hesse si fa interprete della solitudine della incomunicabilità cui la società moderna condanna le anime più sensibili.