Hermann Hesse, a German-Swiss writer, was born in Calw, Germany, on July 2, 1877. He is known as a novelist and poet. From 1895 to 1902, he was a bookseller and antiquarian in Basel. He began to write when he was very young, and published his first novel in 1904. In 1946, Hesse won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Throughout his life, Hesse was honored for his famous works such as Rosshalde (1914), Siddhartha (1922), Steppenwolf (1927), and Das Glasperlenspiel (1945, The Glass Bead Game). He lived in Switzerland from 1911.

He was psychoanalyzed at one point by Carl Jung, and posthumously idolized by Ken Kesey and the merry pranksters, who felt that his Journey to the East epitomized their psychedelic quest to go "FURTHUR".

"Everywhere on earth there are people of our kind. That for a small part of them, I can be a focal point, the nodal point in the net, is the burden and the joy of my life." (private letter, 1955)

Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha is a story of a young man's life and all the changes he experienced. The story began with Siddhartha living among the Brahmin's with his family. Siddhartha could not find peace there, and he ventured off to live with the Samanas in hopes that he could finally find what he was looking for. However, Siddhartha soon learned from an experience with Gotama, the leader of the Samanas, that he had to find peace from within himself. Siddhartha moved again and became a successful businessman. Still not satisfied, Siddhartha finally found peace living by the river he had crossed years before with the ferryman who lived and worked there. The ferryman , who Siddhartha moved in with, taught Siddhartha many things and helped him achieve the state of peace and happiness that he had searched for his whole life.

                                                                   

Annotated Bibliography

Compiled by Pauyl Drinan, Kirsten Larsen, Sarah Shamess, and Lauren Weber

Beat Era of American Literature. "Hermann Hesse: The Beat Generation Writers." 13 October5 1997. Available at http://www.levity.com/corduroy/hesse.html

This talks about his life accomplishments, and novels, from Rosshalde to the Glass Bead Game. It touches on the time periods in which these books were written, as well as gives a short biography on Hesse. This is a good website to find information on Hermann Hesse, but less useful if only searching for information on Siddhartha.

Bradford, Gregory. Critical Study of Hermann Hesse. Independent Studies Vol 6. Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1968.

This book, written by Gregory Bradford was part of a series of books about certain historical authors. The sicth volume was about Hermann Hesse. THe author is an English professor at Brown University and wasd part of the independent study of Hermann Hesse. All of the events surrounding Hesse's book and the possible influences he had in his writing are explained in this source. It also goes deeply into trying to explain some of the impact Hesse's books had on society. It was very good for background information for all of Hesse's books.

Burga, Salom. "Understanding the Siddhartha of Hermann Hesse." 20 December 1997. Available at http://members.aol.com/jawaayu/hesse.html

This title misleads the reader. The essay by Burga was mostly about how the book relates to modern day life. It also explained how time was a major factor in the book. It would be a good source if used for a specific purpose, but as I was doing a character analysis on Siddhartha, it did not help much at all.

Field, Susan. "Siddhartha." Online. Lycos. Available at http://splavic.spjs.cc.fl.us/hooks/ew/ FieldSidd.html (1 March 1998).

This article was not very useful because it was merely a summary of the book. The summary was somewhat helpful, but I wanted it to have more insight form the author. The summary was short, and it was helpful in that it gave a quick summary of the book. Before our discussion it was usedful to read this article and refresh everyone's memory. This article had a nice bibliography at the end which connected to other sources.

Hebble, Paul, Mellis, David, Romashko, Bob Schedler, Travis. "Siddhartha's Journey." 29 October 1995. Online. Lycos. Available at http://www.imsa.edu/~juragaga/Hesse.html.

This essay be Hellmuth concentrated mostly on the symbols in all of Hesse's books, not only Siddhartha. Because of this, it was hard to get anything out of this source without knowing the characters that were referred to. However, if this essay were being used as a reference for a character analysis, or a character comparison, it would be an excellent source.

"Hermann Hesse Home Page." Online. Webcrawler. Availabe at http://chip.mel.ucsb.edu.hesse/ (2 March 1998).

This was the most excellent website I found. It had everything from recent additions to public lectures, essays, character analysis, book analysis, and articles. All sources were cited efficiently and professionally. Many of the sources were offered in both English and German. Organization was orderly. It was easy to follow, and pleasing to the eye.

Hesse, Hermann. Academic American Encyclopedia. 1991 ed.

This writing talks about Hermann Hesse's life. However, it goes more in depth. It divides the phases of Hesse's life further than what is commonly known. Hesse associates his novels with these phases to make something similar to a written time line.

Hesse, Hermann. Autobiographical Writings. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1922.

In the introduction of this book, Hesse briefly told his life story. But mostly, he tells what he remembers about his trip to India. Since our group read Siddhartha, this was very helpful. Siddhartha takes place in India, and we were curious to know what he saw or felt there that made him write this book about a searching soul.

Hesse, Hermann. Encyclopedia Americana. 1995 ed.

This writing can be broken up into three main subjects about Hermann Hesse. The first gives a general summary of his life. The second talks about his writing before World War One and the third part- his writing after World War One. After the war, his writing changed partially because of the war, and partially because his marriage was breaking up.

Hesse, Hermann. Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse. Ed. Jack Zipes. New York: Bantam Books, 1995.

This book, edited by Jack Zipes, contained short stories, essays, and fairy tales written by Hermann Hesse. Also in the beginning and in the back of the book it gave good background information on Hesse, his books, and his past. The book was good to get an overall view of the topics of which Hesse likes to write.

Karcher, Dennis. "Bhagavad-Gita." Online. Lycos. Available at http://splavc.spjc.cc.fl.us/hooks/ew/KarcherSidd.html. (1 March 1998)

This article is very interesting, and it adds to the content of our group discussion. This paper is a comparison between the Bhagavad-Gita and Siddhartha. The Bhagavad-Gita is the song og God from Hinduism. These two stories are similar to eachother because both of the people in them are searching for enlightenment. The paper was very short; it would have been more useful if it had gone in depth and given more specific examples.

Secundus, Albertus. "Relationship With the World of Indian Thought." Nov, 1997. http://yi.com/home/FruhChristian/hesse.html. (12 February 1998.

The web site dealt with Hermann Hesse and how Indian thought affected his novels. Without this website, our group would have had a worse idea about the inspiration for his writings. This site directly related to our book by comparing parts of Siddhartha to Indain thoughts and beliefs.

Sobel, Jay. "Hermann Hesse: Bachground, Childhood, and Publications." 2 May, 1997. http://www.mcl.ucsb.edu/hesse/life/jennifer.html. (12 February, 1998.)

This web site was a great source of information for a Hermann Hesse biography. It talked about everything from his childhood to him working as an apprentice book dealer, his wedding and about the period of time surrounding his life. It also had a critical study of his books dealing with the time that he wrote thim. This page was very helpful.

World Book, Incorporated. "Hesse, Hermann." 4 January 1997. World Book 1997 Multimedia Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. IBM Corp. 28 February 1998.

This entry helped our group understand where Hesse obtained many of his ideas for Siddhartha. By looking at his background and where he came from, we could see the connections between the author and his book. Throughout most of his books, he shows a love of nature, and Siddhartha was no exception. Reading this entry affirmed this love of nature.

World Book, Incorporated. "Hinduism." 28 February 1998. World Book 1997 Multimedia Encyclopedia. CD-ROM. IBM Corp. 4 January 1997.

This entry helped our group to better understand Siddhartha. our group was confused by many of the Hindu words in the book. This article defined some of these words that we did not know. the article also had interestind pictures of India which helped our group learn about Indian life.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed this page and it helped you to better understand Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. Below is a link back to our group's main page and also one to Barnes and Noble.