Hesse’s Siddhartha (1922): A Soulful Synthesis of Tradition and Modernity

Abstract

Siddartha, the quintessential lyric novel of Hermann Hesse, was commenced on 1919 and published in 1922. Thus, belonging to the post-world-war era, it addresses the wilderness with psycho-philosophical meditation and spiritual radiance. It, like Hesse’s other works, speaks of a journey— ‘wandern’—not in the outside world but in the “way within”. As an ‘ambivalent modernist’ Hesse might stand independent of the established mainstream genre of European Novel: his was a search for the self and here Jungian psychoanalysis, expressionism and a sort of neo-romanticism coalescing with a constant conscious learning of the theosophical writings of the East helped his novels reflect a rare inward directed radical individualism. In a divided age, Hesse’s Siddartha, captures the union of various dualities—sensual and spiritual, emotion and reason, the self and the world, Nirvana and Sansara. Though the name as well as the primary events of the novel evoke the life and philosophies of Goutama Buddha, this work of art via its protagonist’s odyssey ultimately transcends the boundaries to arrive at a far more subtle and novel mystical juncture where the individual consciousness or Atman merges with the all-pervading consciousness or Brahman. In my proposed paper, I wish to explore these intricate nuances of the novel that moves us deeply even after a century.