Is there a reason today to occupy oneself with Hermann Hesse's "Der Steppenwolf?" Perhaps there wouldn't be if there didn't exist the chance to respond, with the help of Der Steppenwolf, to a certain mentality that had already made headway in 1927 (the year of Der Steppenwolf's publication) and brought about devastating consequences in the following decades.
German Original.
Let's start with the plot: Harry Haller - that is the protagonist in the "Steppenwolf" - is disenchanted with himself, his age, and his contemporaries. His disillusionment has made him lonely and so he calls himself a "steppenwolf." Then a new girlfriend, Hermine, converts him from a cynical scholar to a confessed hedonist by introducing him to her circle of friends. To the music played by her friend Pablo, he learns to dance and to love Hermine's girlfriend Maria. In the ecstasy of opium - the so-called"Magical Theatre" - he finally begins to look at the mendacity of his life.
The story is told, somewhat irritatingly, by different narrators. The nephew of the aunt who has let a room to the Steppenwolf reports his opinion of Haller in an "Editor's Preface"; the hero describes in his "Notes" his state and that of the nation's; and an unknown author discourses in a "Tractat" on the Steppenwolf.
The alliteration of the names Hermann Hesse and Harry Haller may hint at an autobiographical connection, a "Seelenverwandschaft" - a"spiritual kinship" - between hero and author, but there needn't be one.[1] Definitely Hesse is a producer and Haller a product of his age, and that makes them useful for our purpose: the attempt to classify Haller as a certain type of historical mentality.
Haller complains about the uncertainty of a generation that is the victim of a paradym shift. His old-fashioned ideals break away as it does with all steppenwolves. He sees himself as "Säufer über bankrotten Idealen," as "drunk on bankrupt ideals," and these ideals offer no comfortable security. He also considers this vast "Zeitkrankheit" or "disease of the times" to be the focus of his writings. In them are the customary allusions to the spirit of the times. There is a critique on capitalism with his reference to the "ausgesogene Erde"- "drained-dry earth" - and its implications of corporate entitlement. Cultural despair is displayed in his probable assimilation of a thesis of Arnold Gehlen's that postulates that man potentially represents a mere industrial accident (of history), a "miscarriage" of nature. Cultural despair may also be shown in Hermine's assessment that the devil is identical with the "mind." Hermine has obviously read "Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele" - "The Mind as Antagonist of the Soul" - a principal work of the philosopher Ludwig Klages. Klages polarizes body and soul on the one hand and the mind, specifically the intellect, on the other. When born, body and soul are one, but an acosmic power,the intellect, begins to push itself between soul and body. Imaginative, unconscious thinking is replaced by analytically dissecting thinking, acting consciously replaces acting by instinct, andthe unity of body and soul is destroyed: Life dies.
Haller 's anti-bourgeois and anti-democratic notions are revealed in his scoffing at the middle-classes' struggle for ataraxie, the "tempered middle." He faults their alleged irresponsible behavior, their "babble." He accuses them of pursuing the "majority position" in a cowardly democracy rather than the usual means of "power." The actual behaviour of the middle-classes, which he is very much aware of, is ambivalent to these accusations and, in essence, contradictshis analysis. They engage in war-mongering and they maintain clear positions against "jews and communists", against alleged and - concerning the communists - real enemies within and without. As is revealed in the dialogue with the professor, doubts about the middle-classes' asserted aspirations for harmony and consensus appear justified to him. Insights about his own readiness for violence, gained later in the magic theatre, enlighten Haller on this point.
Typically, there are resentful complaints about the real or alleged loss of influence of the educated citizenship, who were brought up in "loneliness and freedom" (Schelsky) through the newly humanistic and highly time-consuming study of Latin and ancient Greek, and who therefore were unable to fulfill the requirements of a modern age: "Money and power will always belong to the little and the shallow." From Haller 's point of view, education is no longer being accomplished. Therefore, the social picture is out of focus, has to be fixed, has to be "ennobled" again against the superficiality of the Bolsheviks and Americans. This hodgepodge of ideas isgarnished with a sauce consisting of sporadically interwoven traces of "wisdom from the east" and medieval mysticism. For instance, Haller's speech about the divine trace of the divine spark recalls Master Eckhart 's scintilla animae which, at the very heart of the human soul, reunifies the individuum with an ubiquious god at the moment of "unio mystica.." ...
You will find more informations about Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf in our bilingual book:
Stuckel, Eva-Maria; Wegener, Franz:
Interpretationen zu Hermann Hesses "Der Steppenwolf" -
Interpretations on Hermann Hesse's "Steppenwolf"
Gladbeck, KFVR 2000
ISBN 3-931300-05-6
Sorry, out of stock.
Criticism:
„ein interessanter Ansatz“, Nadine Vonow: „Der Steppenwolf und Peter Weiss“, unter: hessesolothurn.ch
„Some critics... open the possibility of another interpretation of the role that the bourgeoisie may play in Steppenwolf based on the meaning attributed to other images in the novel such as the mother image.“, Pantagruelle: „The Steppenwolf's Perception Of The Bourgeoisie and His Escape From It“
Literaturempfehlung, Brent Dean Robbins: „Jacques Lacan“, in: Mythos & Logos - Existential-phenomenological philosophy, literature and perennial philosophy
Literaturempfehlung, Dr. Ingo Cornils: „Hermann Hesse“, University of Leeds - Department of German
Literaturempfehlung, Frances Theresa Nowve, Concord, California: „The Magic Theater
of Hesse's Steppenwolf“
Literaturempfehlung, Timo Reith, Hesse-Portal, unter: meome.de
Literaturempfehlung, Prof. Dr. Hong, Soon, Dept. of German Language & Literature, Mokwon University, Korea
Literaturempfehlung, LTHS & RBHS Engaged Learning Projects, Illinois, USA: „Resources for Hermann Hesse“
Literaturverzeichnis:
Bessmertny, Alexander: Das Atlantisrätsel - Geschichte und Erklärung der Atlantishypothesen, Leipzig 1932
Breuer, Stefan: Anatomie der Konservativen Revolution, Darmstadt 1993
Chasseguet-Smirgel, Janine: Vorwort, in: Zagermann, Peter: Eros und Thanatos - Psychoanalytische Untersuchungen zu einer Objektbeziehungstheorie der Triebe, Darmstadt 1988
Hermann, Albert. Unsere Ahnen und Atlantis - Nordische Seeherrschaft von Skandinavien bis nach Nordafrika, Berlin 1934
Lacan, Jacques: Schriften III, Olten und Freiburg im Breisgau 1980
Michels, Volker (Hrsg.): Materialien zu Hermann Hesses 'Der Steppenwolf', Frankfurt am Main 1972
Mohler, Armin: Die Konservative Revolution in Deutschland 1918-1932 - Ein Handbuch, 4. Auflage, Darmstadt 1994
Nipperdey, Thomas: Deutsche Geschichte 1866-1918, Band 1, Arbeitswelt und Bürgergeist, München 1990
Plessner, Helmuth: Mit anderen Augen - Aspekte einer philosophischen Anthropologie, Stuttgart 1982
Schönau, Walter: Einführung in die psychoanalytische Literaturwissenschaft, Stuttgart 1991
Tempelhofgesellschaft (Hrsg.): Einblicke in die magische Weltsicht und die magischen Prozesse, Wien 1987
Vondung, Klaus: Die Apokalypse in Deutschland, München 1988
Wegener, Franz: Das Atlantidische Weltbild. Nationalsozialismus und Neue Rechte auf der Suche nach der versunkenen Atlantis, Gladbeck 2000
Wieland, Hermann: Atlantis, Edda und Bibel. 200 000 Jahre germanischer Weltkultur und das Geheimnis der Heiligen Schrift, Weißenburg in Bayern 1925
Der Zauberbrunnen - Die Lieder der deutschen Romantik - Ausgewählt von Hermann Hesse Mit Holzschnitten von Ludwig Richter, Frankfurt am Main 1977
URL of this text:
http://www.kfvr.de/steppenwolfeng.html
German original of this text:
http://www.kfvr.de/steppenwolf.html
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