Klein and Wagner

Hermann Hesse

1973年1月 · The Early Works of Hermann Hesse 第 33 冊 · Marchen Press

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"Klein und Wagner," published during Hesse's intense period of psychoanalysis with C.G. Jung, represents one of his most daring literary experiments in psychological fiction. Composed in the winter months that followed the Armistice, Klein und Wagner carries forward the self-interrogation begun in Demian and lies midway between that book’s revelation and the later serenity of Siddhartha. The tale opens on an express train rushing toward the Italian lakes, its fugitive passenger already overwhelmed by images that flicker past like postcards and leave him unmoved, an early sign that the world outside has broken all contact with the conscience within . Friedrich Klein, minor official, husband and father, has forged documents and stolen money; the south offers both exile and the mirage of an earlier dream, “fulfilled wishes of youth” in cypress groves and rose-coloured walls that promise relief yet deliver only sharper self-scrutiny . Hesse orchestrates this setting with the same rapid chiaroscuro he used in Klingsor’s letzter Sommer: bright sensory detail is followed at once by vertigo, so that the geographical journey shadows an inward descent. This work is a clash of Nietzsche and Freud. The novella follows Friedrich Klein, a respectable clerk who, in a moment of existential crisis, abandons his family, embezzles money, and flees to Italy—only to discover that his rebellion merely unleashes his shadow-self, symbolically named after the murderer Wagner. This radical narrative of psychological disintegration marked Hesse's decisive break from his earlier, more conventional works, establishing him as a pioneering voice in European modernism's exploration of fragmented identity. Klein’s abandonment of family and career echoes the period’s widespread rejection of bourgeois norms, while his Mediterranean odyssey reflects postwar fascination with Mediterranean escapism as an antidote to northern European austerity. The narrative’s unresolved tension between liberation and self-destruction captures the zeitgeist of a society oscillating between utopianism and nihilism. Hesse’s own financial struggles and marital breakdowns infuse the text with autobiographical urgency, grounding its existential themes in material precarity. Historically, it documents the era’s psychological disarray, bridging expressionist angst and Neue Sachlichkeit’s detached realism. This new edition features a fresh, contemporary translation of Hesse's early work, making his philosophical, existentialist literature accessible to modern readers from the original Fraktur manuscripts. Enhanced by an illuminating Afterword focused on Hesse's personal and intellectual relationship with Carl Jung, a concise biography, a glossary of essential philosophical terms integral to his writings (his version of Jungian Psychological concepts) and a detailed chronology of his life and major works, this robust edition introduces the reader to the brilliance of his literature in context. It not only captures the depth and nuance of Hesse’s thought but also highlights its enduring impact on the debates of the mid-20th century, contemporary culture and Western Philosophy across the 20th and into the 21st century.

關於作者

Herman Hesse (1877-1962) navigated a life shaped by psychological turbulence that fundamentally transformed his literary vision following his pivotal encounter with Carl Jung's analytical psychology. After suffering a severe breakdown in 1916 amid his crumbling first marriage and the ravages of World War I, Hesse underwent intensive psychoanalysis with Jung's student J.B. Lang and later with Jung himself, sessions that would profoundly alter his creative trajectory. This Jungian influence became evident in his subsequent works, particularly "Demian" and "Steppenwolf," where the protagonist's journey toward individuation—Jung's concept of integrating the conscious and unconscious aspects of personality—emerges as a central theme. Hesse's correspondence with Jung continued for decades, their intellectual relationship deepening as Hesse increasingly incorporated Jungian archetypes, dream symbolism, and the notion of the shadow self into his narratives of spiritual seeking. The writer later acknowledged that Jung's therapeutic methods had not only rescued him from psychological collapse but had fundamentally reshaped his understanding of human consciousness, enabling him to transmute his personal suffering into the allegorical quests for wholeness that characterized his most enduring works.RetryClaude can make mistakes. Please double-check responses.