3: Hermann Hesse in Cultural Memory: Intertextual Traces in American, Japanese, and German Literature
Helga Esselborn-Krumbiegel
The H
esse boom of the 1960s and 1970s that amplified his profile is long gone, but Hesse’s presence in cultural memory is omnipresent.
1On the distinction between communicative and cultural memory, see Jan Assmann, “Kollektives Gedächtnis und kulturelle Identität,” in Kultur und Gedächtnis, ed. Jan Assmann and Tonio Hölscher (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1988), 9–19. In order to demonstrate his worldwide relevance and contemporaneity, this chapter uncovers manifest traces of his works in American, Japanese, and German-language literature from the 1960s, the beginning of the Hesse boom, to the present, which attest to the poet’s global impact. This study asks what image of Hesse has been formed in the mirror of literature in these countries with very different cultural milieus, and how this image has changed in the different phases of Hesse’s reception. In my intertextual interpretation, I distinguish between four perspectives: 1. Hesse as an embodiment of the times; 2. Hesse as an author of the educated bourgeoisie; 3. Hesse’s thought patterns as an interpretive matrix; and 4. Hesse’s works as an inspiration for adaptations and sequels.
2The translation of the text in its entirety, including German quotations, was done by James Hargreaves, unless otherwise stated. Intertextual interpretation presupposes that literature, as one of the key symbolic systems of memory culture, does not mimetically reproduce existing collective memorial practices, but rather reflects and decisively helps to shape them.
3See Roy Sommer, “Funktionsgeschichten. Überlegungen zur Verwendung des Funktionsbegriffs in der Literaturwissenschaft und Anregungen zu seiner terminologischen Differenzierung,” Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch 40 (2000): 319–41; Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (Munich: Beck, 1992); Maurice Halbwachs, Das kollektive Gedächtnis (Stuttgart: Enke, 1967). In the tension between continuity and reinterpretation, literary memory develops not least as a realization or updating of tradition: in the appropriation, transformation, or rejection of existing texts.
4See Renate Lachmann, Gedächtnis und Literatur (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1990); Aleida Assmann and Dieter Harth, eds., Mnemosyne: Formen und Funktionen der kulturellen Erinnerung (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1991). In contrast to the traditional history of reception, intertextual interpretation does not start from reactions to works and authors, or from influences, but from textual evidence. On the one hand, it interrogates the function of the text that is alluded to in the text at hand; on the other hand, it questions the intention of an author who uses external texts (such as Hesse’s) for a distinct purpose; and, finally, raises issues about the way the text is processed by readers who must recognize specific signals and integrate them interpretatively into their understanding of the text.
5See Manfred Pfister, “Konzepte der Intertextualität,” in Intertextualität: Formen, Funktionen, anglistische Fallstudie, ed. Ulrich Broich and Manfred Pfister (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1985), 52–58.Such an intertextual approach has not been attempted in Hesse research up to now. In this chapter, therefore, I will first consider text-to-text references
intended by the author in order to base my interpretation on reliable textual foundations.
6See Umberto Eco, “Zwischen Autor und Text,” in Zwischen Autor und Text: Interpretationen und Überinterpretationen; Mit Entwürfen von Richard Rorty, Jonathan Culler, Christine Brooke-Rose und Stefan Collini, ed. Umberto Eco (Munich: dtv, 1996), 75–97. Different forms of referencing and allusions can be distinguished: they range from literal quotations through names and works down to episodes and models of thought.
7See Jörg Helbig, Intertextualität und Markierung (Heidelberg: Winter, 1996). But it is only when they are decoded by the reader that intertextual references become meaningful.
8See Susanne Holthius, Intertextualität: Aspekte einer rezeptionsorientierten Konzeption (Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 1993). In order for readers to be able to perform this task of interpretation, they must possess a certain collective cultural knowledge.
9See Fridjof Rodi, “Anspielungen. Zur Theorie der kulturellen Kommunikationseinheiten,” Poetica 7 (1975): 115–31. This knowledge is in turn part of cultural memory. Authors who utilize a reference text must thus start from a common point to which they can tacitly refer.
Research on intertextuality has up to now been predominantly concerned with the author’s intention, the reader’s interpretive action, and the relevance of the referenced text to the text at hand. In contrast, I would like to explore the “dialogue of texts,” an aspect so far only infrequently researched; namely, what meaning the texts at hand gain from the existing texts—i.e., the works of Hermann Hesse and their interpretive atmosphere.
10See Helbig, Intertextualität und Markierung and Holthius, Intertextualität. In each textual sample, therefore, we must consider the perspective on Hesse’s work that is expressed in the allusion, the function that these allusions gain in their respective textual context, and infer the image of Hermann Hesse that is formed in the global literary tradition on the basis of these traces.
11See Ralph Freedman, “‘Hesse-Welle’ und akademische Skepsis. Ein Stück Rezeptionsgeschichte,” Hermann-Hesse-Jahrbuch 1, ed. Mauro Ponzi (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2004), 133–45.In the 1960s and 1970s, Hesse’s works experienced a renaissance, influential in a manner often presented but rarely critically analyzed; first in the US with its social upheavals caused by student unrest and the burgeoning counterculture, and later in Japan and the German-speaking countries, which had a lasting impact on the writer’s image.
Compared to the American reception from the 1950s onward, the Japanese reception of Hesse began before World War II and developed less vehemently. Japanese writers such as Toshihiko Katayama and Kihachi Ozaki, who saw Hesse as a kindred spirit in his humanistic commitment and his love of nature, had already introduced him to Japanese readers. In scholarly literature, the Hesse renaissance in German-speaking countries is mostly seen as a result of his American success story. However, different emphases must also be reckoned with: for instance, the Hesse wave in Switzerland records fewer extreme swings than in Germany.