Hesse’s works are undeniably shaped by his engagement with literatures of multiple nationalities, and these influences sometimes directly and at other times unwittingly permeate the digital spaces he occupies. Recontextualizing Hesse as a world author thus requires first considering Hesse as a reader of world literature. His clearest definition of world literature comes from his personalized literary canon, Eine Bibliothek der Weltliteratur (A Library of World Literature, 1927), which provides an outline of world literature with Hesse’s own commentary and analyses. Hesse’s goal in compiling this outline was not to consecrate a delimited canon, but rather to offer a list of works that appealed to his own interests, values, and passions. He addresses this by first establishing the purpose of reading world literature:
Of all the paths that lead to [intellectual and emotional perfection], one of the most important is the study of world literature, the gradual familiarization with the tremendous treasure of thoughts, experiences, symbols, fantasies and ideals that the past has left for us in the works of authors and thinkers of many peoples.… It should not matter to us to have read or known as much as possible, but rather that we undertake a free and personal selection of masterpieces, to which we devote ourselves completely in moments of leisure, to get an idea of the vastness and abundance of that which was thought of and aspired to by humans, and to come into a vivifying and resonant relationship with totality itself, with the life and pulse of humanity.
1Hesse, “Library of World Literature,” 420. For original, see SW 14:396.For Hesse, reading foreign texts does not therefore serve to build cultural capital, rendering one cosmopolitan and sophisticated. Pursuing knowledge of other nations through literary engagement, in his terms, is instead an act of self-fulfillment, a crucial step on the path towards individuation.
Aesthetic and spiritual values were thus Hesse’s essential quantifiers of a world literature canon. And the subjective and individualized nature of these qualities elucidates his assertion that everyone should find their own library of world literature. This is unsurprising, of course, as individuation and self-discovery are prevailing themes in his works. Even his non-fiction political writings reverberate with these ideals. In Zarathustras Wiederkehr (Zarathustra’s Return, 1919), for instance, he proclaims that Germany’s cultural ailments following the First World War would be remedied not by governmental policies, but by its youth’s commitment to individuality, seeking a path to their own god through self-exploration. Considering his resolute celebration of individualism, it is thus appropriate that Hesse’s world literature is comprised of texts with which he himself identifies. What follows will reveal that self-discovery and individuation are often the same themes that attract those who have placed Hesse in their own library.