In this blog post, we will focus on Hermann Hesse’s life and works to examine the autobiographical elements deeply embedded in his writing and how his major works are interconnected.
Strictly speaking, regardless of the genre to which a work belongs, it is impossible to conceive of a literary work that is not ultimately the author’s own story. Although a novel is defined as a plausible fictional story, it is doubtful whether a purely fictional novel—one that has no connection to the author and unfolds and exists entirely on its own—is truly possible.
In this sense, Hermann Hesse’s works are so inextricably linked to the author that it would be strange to call them pure fiction. In Hesse’s works, no theme ever arises that is not rooted in his own experiences or observations. The melancholic daydreams of his boyhood, fleeting, fragmentary images, and scenes of nature unfolding before his eyes—these things sprout, grow, and ripen into the fruit of his work. In short, few authors have ever written works so deeply imbued with autobiographical elements.
Toward the end of his life, Hesse once said the following:
“When I reflect deeply on what has had a constant influence on me throughout my life, I can divide it into three main categories. One was the Christian yet thoroughly pan-national family tradition in which I was raised; another was the teachings of the great scholars of mainland China; and the last was the historian Jacob Burckhardt, who had an incomparably profound influence on me during my boyhood.”
Hesse’s formal schooling came to an end when he was just 16 years old. It was during his first year of high school in Cannstatt. Prior to that, at the age of 13, he had enrolled in a Latin school to prepare for the seminary entrance exam and, like other ordinary schoolboys, had once devoted himself wholeheartedly to his studies. However, his physical stamina, willpower, and comprehension were exceptionally outstanding, and he grew into a somewhat eccentric boy who would wander through the mountains and fields alone, lost in his dreams.
Nevertheless, he did not neglect his studies; at the age of 14, he passed the Swabian state examination—a notoriously difficult and arduous hurdle—and thus joined the ranks of the so-called “chosen ones.” This effectively promised him a bright and promising future, and it seemed likely that his father’s hope of making him a theologian would be smoothly realized. As a privilege of passing that exam, Hesse was finally admitted to the Malbronn Theological Seminary; upon graduating from there and then from the University of Tübingen, he would automatically become a theologian.
However, the atmosphere at the seminary was far too rigid and dry for this melancholic and dreamy boy. Burdened by a weary body and a tormented soul, the boy eventually fled the seminary one day. His father’s hopes and what had seemed to be a certain future were thus brought to an end.
Afterward, the boy underwent treatment from a psychiatrist and went through a period of turmoil that included a suicide attempt. Just as he seemed to have barely recovered and re-enrolled in high school, he was expelled before even completing a year there, bringing his school life to a complete close.
Hesse’s true odyssey began here. Working as a bookstore clerk, an assistant at a publishing cooperative, and an apprentice at a machine factory—sometimes yearning for warm harmony with neighbors and strangers, and at other times, when things became unbearable, even hatching plans to flee far away to Brazil—his life was, in short, a continuous drift between hope and frustration.
‘Beneath the Wheel’ depicts his life from his time in the upper grades of Latin school through his apprenticeship; the fate of the protagonist, who is swept away and drowns in a river, may well have been the outcome Hesse himself had hoped for.
The wandering young man found stability in an unexpected place: a position as an apprentice clerk at a bookstore in Tübingen. While working diligently, he developed a love for music and life, and by reading books at night, he discovered a passion for literature. He became deeply fascinated by Goethe, studied his works, and began writing his own poetry and prose.
In 1899, he self-published a collection of poems he had written over the years, titled ‘Songs of Romance’, but it did not gain much attention. However, that same year, his prose collection ‘An Hour in the Middle of the Night’ was published by a Leipzig publishing house and received high praise from Rilke; this led a publishing executive in Basel to arrange for Hesse to receive formal literary training.
In 1901, Hesse published ‘The Posthumous Works and Poems of Hermann Rauscher’, which included three prose pieces and nine poems. These works, all brimming with lyrical sentiment and deep melancholy, depicted memories of his boyhood. Amid significant personal changes—including the death of his mother in 1902 and his marriage to Maria Bernoulli in 1904—Hesse also published masterpieces such as ‘Peter Camenzind’, which established his reputation as a writer.
In this work—which depicts the journey of a lonely man, unable to shake off his melancholy, as he throws himself into life and nature and cultivates an active will to harmonize with them—Hesse sought to fulfill his calling as a poet by attempting to overcome even love and death, and by entrusting his insignificant life to the infinite in the embrace of God. He saw in the final moments of an artist the true meaning of death—transcending the mundane world and the self to enter into eternal light.
In 1906, he published the aforementioned ‘Beneath the Wheel’, and the following year, he released a collection of short stories titled ‘Tales of the World’, which included ‘Boyhood’, introduced here, along with several other short and medium-length stories. As mentioned in the introduction, these works recall the major and minor events of his boyhood, imbuing them with new meaning and color, and explore how those innocent years lead a person toward maturity.
Therefore, the four works included here can be considered autobiographical accounts of Hesse’s boyhood and his brief school life. These works reveal a side of Hesse not as a novelist crafting fiction, but as an autobiographical essayist speaking candidly about himself.
Hesse continued to publish outstanding works that elevated the literary world. While publishing numerous poems, essays, and short stories—including ‘Gertrud’, ‘Losshalde’, ‘Knulp’, and ‘Demian’—Hesse lived through World War I. During this time, his own circumstances and life journey also underwent countless changes.
In particular, ‘Rosshalde’, published in 1914, depicts the breakdown of Hesse’s marriage and illustrates the conflicts he had endured more vividly than any scholarly study. The protagonist’s journey—navigating the disconnect and contradictions between his life as an artist and ordinary family life, ultimately enduring the death of his child and separation from his wife, and seeking a new path in his creative work—may well have been a reflection of Hesse’s own resolve. It is impossible not to view it this way, as the journey undertaken by the protagonist in this work bears such a striking resemblance to Hesse’s own life experiences.
In 1920, Hesse had reached the mature age of 43. After moving the previous year to the shores of Lake Montagnola on the hills of Locarno, Switzerland, he came to realize that there was no other way to live except by devoting himself entirely to literature; he spent his days in intense struggle, neglecting even his family.
That year, Hesse published a collection of essays titled ‘Wandering’. This collection of poetry and watercolors—featuring his own watercolors and poems created in his spare time—expresses his dream of always longing for unfamiliar worlds and nature, even while envying those who have put down roots and settled in one place. This resonates with a desire shared by all human beings, and Hesse brought it to life before our eyes by imbuing it with beautiful patterns and colors.
After ‘Wanderings’, Hesse acquired Swiss citizenship and devoted himself tirelessly to his creative work, publishing ‘Klingsor’s Last Summer’, ‘New Poems’, ‘Siddhartha’, ‘The Sanitarium Guest’, ‘Steppenwolf’, ‘Journey to Nuremberg’, ‘Knowledge and Love’, ‘The Way Within’, ‘Pilgrimage to the East’, ‘The Little World’, and ‘A Collection of Fairy Tales’, among others, and numerous other works continued to be published until the outbreak of World War II. Furthermore, in 1936, he received the Gottfried Keller Prize, Switzerland’s highest literary award, and enjoyed the peak of his career as a writer.
However, this way of life could not escape the drastic changes brought about by the rise of the Nazis. The subsequent outbreak of World War II subjected him to suffering both physically and emotionally. The turmoil of the world engulfed him, robbing him of the joys of seclusion. Throughout this time, he fought against the war, daily life, and his own creative struggles with his pen and his very being.
Despite these hardships, he published ‘The Glass Bead Game’ in 1942, widely regarded as his greatest work; this masterpiece was written over a period of about ten years, from 1931 to 1942.
In 1946, after the war ended, his collection of essays ‘War and Peace’ was published, and in the same year, he received the Goethe Prize and the Nobel Prize in Literature, marking the pinnacle of his life. Even in his later years, his creative drive did not wane, and works such as ‘Prose of Old Age’ and ‘Calling the Devil’ saw the light of day.
Hesse was, as he described himself, an Eastern-style seeker and recluse—an explorer who deconstructed himself through endless inner reflection. With the death of this master—whose life, as an anti-war activist, was marked by persecution, exile, and banishment amid the turmoil of World War I and World War II—one might say that the anguish of a wanderer of his era has come to an end; yet the suffering of the characters he portrayed will never truly cease. For it is a suffering rooted in something far more fundamental.
