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Steppenwolf (novel)
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Steppenwolf (novel)
Steppenwolf (originally Der Steppenwolf) is the tenth novel by German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse.
Originally published in Germany in 1927, it was first translated into English in 1929. The novel was titled from the German word for the steppe wolf. The story in large part reflects a profound crisis in Hesse's spiritual world during the 1920s.
Steppenwolf was wildly popular and has remained a perpetual success, but Hesse later said the book was largely misunderstood.
In 1924, Hermann Hesse married singer Ruth Wenger. After several weeks, he left Basel, only returning near the end of the year. Upon his return, he rented a separate apartment, adding to his isolation. After a short trip to Germany with Wenger, Hesse almost completely stopped seeing her. The resulting isolation and inability to make lasting contact with the outside world led to increasing despair and the return of Hesse's suicidal thoughts.
Hesse began writing Steppenwolf in Basel, and finished it in Zürich.[citation needed] In 1926, he published a precursor to the book, a collection of poems titled The Crisis: From Hermann Hesse's Diary. The novel was released in 1927. The first English edition, translated by Basil Creighton, was published in 1929 by Martin Secker in the United Kingdom and by Henry Holt and Company in the United States.
In 1926, Hesse also became acquainted with jazz music, attending Swiss performances of the Revue Nègre featuring Josephine Baker and Sidney Bechet; Steven C. Tracy, professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, writes, "the character of Pablo... was inspired by Bechet's playing".
The book is presented as a manuscript written by its protagonist, a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, his landlady's nephew. The acquaintance adds a short preface and has the manuscript published. The title of this "real" book-within-the-book is Harry Haller's Records (For Madmen Only).
As the story begins, Harry is beset by reflections on his being ill-suited for the world of everyday, regular people, specifically for frivolous bourgeois society. In his aimless wanderings about the city he encounters a person carrying an advertisement for a magic theatre who gives him a small book, Treatise on the Steppenwolf. This treatise, cited in full in the novel's text as Harry reads it, addresses Harry by name and strikes him as describing himself uncannily. It is a discourse on a man who believes himself to be of two natures: one high, man's spiritual nature, the other low and animalistic, a "wolf of the steppes". This man is entangled in an irresolvable struggle, never content with either nature because he cannot see beyond this self-made concept. The pamphlet gives an explanation of the multifaceted and indefinable nature of every man's soul, but Harry is either unable or unwilling to recognize this. It also discusses his suicidal intentions, describing him as one of the "suicides": people who, deep down, knew they would take their own life one day. But to counter that, it hails his potential to be great, to be one of the "Immortals".
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Steppenwolf (novel)
Steppenwolf (originally Der Steppenwolf) is the tenth novel by German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse.
Originally published in Germany in 1927, it was first translated into English in 1929. The novel was titled from the German word for the steppe wolf. The story in large part reflects a profound crisis in Hesse's spiritual world during the 1920s.
Steppenwolf was wildly popular and has remained a perpetual success, but Hesse later said the book was largely misunderstood.
In 1924, Hermann Hesse married singer Ruth Wenger. After several weeks, he left Basel, only returning near the end of the year. Upon his return, he rented a separate apartment, adding to his isolation. After a short trip to Germany with Wenger, Hesse almost completely stopped seeing her. The resulting isolation and inability to make lasting contact with the outside world led to increasing despair and the return of Hesse's suicidal thoughts.
Hesse began writing Steppenwolf in Basel, and finished it in Zürich.[citation needed] In 1926, he published a precursor to the book, a collection of poems titled The Crisis: From Hermann Hesse's Diary. The novel was released in 1927. The first English edition, translated by Basil Creighton, was published in 1929 by Martin Secker in the United Kingdom and by Henry Holt and Company in the United States.
In 1926, Hesse also became acquainted with jazz music, attending Swiss performances of the Revue Nègre featuring Josephine Baker and Sidney Bechet; Steven C. Tracy, professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts, writes, "the character of Pablo... was inspired by Bechet's playing".
The book is presented as a manuscript written by its protagonist, a middle-aged man named Harry Haller, who leaves it to a chance acquaintance, his landlady's nephew. The acquaintance adds a short preface and has the manuscript published. The title of this "real" book-within-the-book is Harry Haller's Records (For Madmen Only).
As the story begins, Harry is beset by reflections on his being ill-suited for the world of everyday, regular people, specifically for frivolous bourgeois society. In his aimless wanderings about the city he encounters a person carrying an advertisement for a magic theatre who gives him a small book, Treatise on the Steppenwolf. This treatise, cited in full in the novel's text as Harry reads it, addresses Harry by name and strikes him as describing himself uncannily. It is a discourse on a man who believes himself to be of two natures: one high, man's spiritual nature, the other low and animalistic, a "wolf of the steppes". This man is entangled in an irresolvable struggle, never content with either nature because he cannot see beyond this self-made concept. The pamphlet gives an explanation of the multifaceted and indefinable nature of every man's soul, but Harry is either unable or unwilling to recognize this. It also discusses his suicidal intentions, describing him as one of the "suicides": people who, deep down, knew they would take their own life one day. But to counter that, it hails his potential to be great, to be one of the "Immortals".
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