| Hermann Hesse and Bertolt Brecht are two German authors who were interested in Chinese philosophy and literature. My dissertation addresses the question how they understood the old Chinese texts and transformed their understanding into new works.;Text and literary traditions are actively altered according to the various historical background, within which they are received. As readers and writers at the same time Hesse and Brecht concretized the meaning of the old Chinese texts from such a different cultural and historical context for their contemporary audience to deepen the understanding of the social problems. The socio-political condition in Europe is the background for their China-reception. But based on individually different preconceptions of human societies and the world they actualized the old Chinese thinking in different ways. This study devotes detailed interpretation to the Chinese elements in Hesse Der Steppenwolf, Das Glasperlenspiel, Brecht's Der gute Mensch von Sezuan, and Der Kaukasische Kreidekreis from thematical and structural points of view. They selected and organized the elements into consistent whole, excluding some and foregrounding others, according to their pre-knowledge and reconstructing strategy. This study of their sophisticated response to the Chinese works shows that the parallels should not be taken at face value and the deviations even reversals from the original might have resulted from creative reception. |
