| The aim of this study is to offer an interpretation of the novels of Hermann Hesse in the context of Hesse's Swabian Pietist heritage. Hesse is one of the most widely read German authors in the world, and for two generations several of his works have been a staple of popular religion and spirituality in Europe and North America. Hesse's works have received a great deal of critical and scholarly study, but little has been done to better understand the influence of Pietism (the religion of Hesse's family and native Swabia) on Hesse's thought and literature. Hesse's Pietist upbringing and heritage contributed to his moral and political views, his pacifism and internationalism, the confessional and autobiographical style of his literature, his romantic mysticism, his suspicion of bourgeois culture, his ecumenical outlook, and, in an era scarred by two World Wars, to his hopes for the future. Hesse was no Pietist. In adolescence he rejected both the tradition and his family's expectation that he become a theologian, cleric, and missionary. But Hesse's conversation with his religious heritage continued throughout his entire life and is stamped on his literature; this study retrieves the details of that conversation. |
