Goethe is generally recognized as Germany’s greatest writer and the leading figure during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century period of literary and cultural achievement - often referred to as the Goethezeit or Age of Goethe - which established German neoclassicism and reaffirmed Germany’s long humanist tradition. Hesse sought to continue this tradition, especially its humanist ethical aspects, but during an age that was preoccupied, first with an imperialist war and then with fascist barbarism. This made Hesse’s position within Germany’s literary tradition considerably more difficult; it also meant that Hesse had to invoke Goethe’s legacy on many occasions to provide support for his own literary and cultural ambitions. While Goethe was a significant factor in Hesse’s work, two important caveats have to preface any serious debate on this topic: (1) A careful distinction has to be observed between any clearly documented influence of Goethe on Hesse and other cases where themes and styles are found to be common to the works of both authors, referred to here as “correspondences”; (2) Since Goethe is the most important and influential author in the German language, his ideas may have influenced Hesse via a number of different authors and often in a manner which is no longer directly traceable.

A simple statistical survey of Hesse’s references to persons and key figures would indicate that Goethe is by far the most prominent historical figure in Hesse’s oeuvre, more important than Nietzsche, the muchadmired Mozart, or even Novalis. And while such positivist facts may be open to misinterpretation, Hesse repeatedly affirms his great admiration for and indebtedness to Goethe and to the literature and thought of the period from 1740 to 1850. Hesse felt that the upheavals of the twentieth century had caused us to discard the period of Goethe as merely a historic past and to question the intellectual values of a time when “der deutsche Geist zum letzten Male sich einen klassischen Ausdruck geschaffen hat” (the German mind last came to a classical expression).

The title of my essay seeks to take these cautionary remarks into consideration; it indicates a certain subjectivity on Hesse’s part, implying that his Goethe may not correspond to the received image developed by generations of Goethe scholars. While explicit references to Goethe are rare in Hesse’s narrative work, his essays frequently allude to Goethe, often discussing his personality or his work in considerable detail.