[In the following essay, Hughes strives to illuminate Siddhartha in light of motifs important in the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic.]

Hermann Hesse's indebtedness to oriental literatures and philosophies has been noted frequently. However, the ancient Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh has been neglected in the investigation of his Eastern sources, although Hesse knew and appreciated this work and recommended it in 1929 for inclusion in his ideal library of world literature.¹ Reference to certain motifs of Gilgamesh illuminates Hesse's development of his heroes in Siddhartha and Der Steppenwolf and explains the striking parallels, which have gone undetected in Hesse criticism,² in the motifs which these two novels use in embodying their common theme of the humanization or spiritual growth of a man towards a higher stage of personal individuation and self-realization.

As far as I can see, the only comment on the relation of Gilgamesh to Hesse's Steppenwolf-theme has come from Thomas Mann. In reporting the myths and legends which comprise the literary education of the young Joseph, Mann mentions one story which particularly struck the pupil's fancy: “… die des Waldmenschen Engidu und wie die Dirne aus Uruk, der Stadt, ihn zur Gesittung bekehrte, … wie die Dirne den Steppenwolf zustutzte, nachdem sie ihn durch ein Liebesleben von sechs Tagen und sieben Nächten für die Verfeinerung empfänglich gemacht.”³ In a postcard to Hesse, Mann called this allusion to Der Steppenwolf a “Huldigung” and “Fingerzeig von meinem Werke hinüber zu Ihrem.”⁴ But it seems to me that Mann's reference is not only one of those playful declarations of mutual esteem which he and Hesse were fond of exchanging in their works;⁵ it is quite probably also a genuine insight into the background of some of the motifs which Hesse uses in his novel. Mann was at this time just as well versed in the culture and literature of the ancient Near East as Hesse was, and it would be surprising if they had not studied much of the same material. This may well be the reason why, as Mann wrote, “ganz unversehens floβ das Wort mir aus der Feder, zum Zeichen, daβ diese Ihre Prägung in den charakterisierenden Sprachschatz eingegangen.”⁶ The “Steppenwolf” whom Mann mentions here is the familiar Enkidu from the Gilgamesh epic, the wild man created by the goddess Aruru in the hope that Gilgamesh might find in him a companion equal to his strength and passion and leave the citizens and virgins of Uruk in peace. The process of humanization and civilization which Enkidu undergoes and which Joseph found so delightful is, as Mann noticed, the same evolution to which Hesse subjects his hero Harry Haller.

The epic characterizes Enkidu, before his conversion to civilized society, as a “natural” man, a companion of the animals of the woods and fields: “His body was covered with matted hair like Samuqan's, the god of cattle. He was innocent of mankind; he knew nothing of the cultivated land.”⁷ We learn that he ate grass with the gazelle and jostled with the wild beasts at the water-holes. He identifies himself with the beasts and thwarts the hunter's attempts to capture them. The hunter is therefore advised to take one of the temple-girls with him to the watering-place and let her seduce Enkidu, for then the animals will shun him. The trick works: the woman bares her breasts to attract Enkidu and teaches him her art while lying with him for six days and seven nights. When Enkidu tries to return to the wilderness, the animals flee from him. “You are wise,” the woman tells him, “and now you have become like a god.”⁸ This knowledge of good and evil that accompanies knowledge of the flesh so divorces Enkidu from his former state of innocence that he has no choice but to remain with the woman. His new status requires changes in his personal habits: if he is to be a man and live in a community of men, he must adopt the social amenities of his peers. His temptress provides instruction in the new customs: she leads him to the shepherds, she clothes him and teaches him to eat the bread and drink the wine of men. Enkidu shaves his body, grooms his hair and anoints himself with oil. Emblematic of his conversion from the bestial state and his assumption of human dignity is the occupation which he now pursues: he too becomes a shepherd and exercises human superiority over the animals with whom he had previously roamed the fields as an equal. He is now ready to be led by the woman into the city, to be “civilized,” and the epic comments that “Enkidu had become a man.”⁹ His humanization, which was initiated by the experience of sexual intercourse and the accompanying “knowledge,” is now complete in its external circumstances as well.

Although there have been many varying interpretations of the philosophical and historical significance of Gilgamesh, the concensus now is that the Enkidu episode is an ancient allegory of the humanization of man.¹⁰ Such was also the view, which Hesse was likely to have known, of one of the most popular and least exclusively scholarly translations and commentaries among the many which were published in Germany during the first two decades of this century: Hugo Gressmann imputes to the epic the intention of humanizing its main figures¹¹ and speaks of the transformation of the Naturwesen into the Kulturmensch.¹² He also mentions the fact that Enkidu is raised to a higher level through his experience of sexual and moral knowledge.¹³

I do not wish to suggest, however, that Hesse was directly “influenced” by any specific scholarly study or by Gilgamesh itself or that he went to that epic in order to appropriate various motifs for his own work. In fact, the tablets on which the most specific details of Enkidu's humanization are recorded were not published until 1917,¹⁴ and it is not probable that Hesse knew them. Nor, on the other hand, is it necessary, for, as Peter Jensen's monumental study Das Gilgamesch-Epos in der Weltliteratur¹⁵ has shown, such motifs are extremely common in oriental and near eastern literatures and are actually universal (although they all seem to derive ultimately from Gilgamesh). It is no doubt impossible to say just what Hesse's sources may have been; and yet it is equally impossible, in view of his wide reading in eastern literature and his specific appreciation of Gilgamesh, to deny that he was aware of the import and use of such motifs. Rather, it is my intent here to illuminate Siddhartha and Der Steppenwolf in the light of motifs important in the Enkidu episode of the Babylonian work. To summarize, the motifs with which we shall be concerned are: 1) characterization of the hero as a beast or denizen of the wilderness; 2) his temptation by a courtesan at a watering-place, specifically through his attraction to her breasts; 3) his instruction in and experience of sexual intercourse and the attendant moral “knowledge” which occasions his divorce from the wilderness; 4) advice and instruction in the civilised ways of clothing and eating; 5) advice and instruction in matters of personal grooming, such as shaving and coiffure.

The humanization of Siddhartha and of Harry Haller is cast in the mold of these motifs. When Siddhartha leaves the Samanas and decides not to join the disciples of the Buddha, he is described as emerging from the wilderness. Hesse frequently remarks that Siddhartha has spent the previous part of his life in the woods. The boundary which he must cross in order to leave the woods is symbolized by the river, and Hesse specifically indicates that the hut of the ferryman Vasudeva, in which Siddhartha spends the night before crossing, is still within the woods (iii, 653). On the other side, beyond the wilderness, the first person whom he meets is a young woman who asks him if it is true “daß die Samanas nachts allein im Walde schliefen und keine Frauen bei sich haben dürften” (iii, 654). This encounter takes place by a brook (watering-place); the girl attempts to seduce Siddhartha, and it is particularly her breasts which almost make him terminate his celibacy. He recalls the dream he had had the night before of a woman from whose dress burst a full bosom, at which he lay and drank (iii, 652), and he bends down and kisses the tip of the girl's breast (iii, 654). The temptress does not succeed, however, and when Siddhartha comes to the city he is still innocent. Again Hesse reminds us of where his hero has been: “Lange hatte er in den Wäldern gelebt …” (iii, 655), and this circumstance is recalled several times in the first conversation with Kamala, who specifically makes the connection with the innocence of the beasts: “ein dummer Samana aus dem Walde, der von den Schakalen kommt und noch gar nicht weiß, was Frauen sind.” (iii, 658)

Not only does Siddhartha's departure from the woods and the beasts parallel Enkidu's; his “civilization” also follows that model. Siddhartha realizes that he must humanize his appearance if he is to be accepted by Kamala (iii, 655), and even if, by having himself shaven and his hair groomed before presenting himself again, he anticipates some of the civilizing services which the temple-girl performed for Enkidu, he does so because of Kamala's inspiration (iii, 657), and enough remains for Kamala to teach him personally. Like Enkidu, he must be clothed and fed: he gives up his ragged loin-cloth for a new garment which Kamala gives him (iii, 661), and, since he now deigns to eat begged food, the first meal he enjoys in civilization also comes from Kamala's hand (iii, 662). In fact, all the humanization that Siddhartha undergoes he owes to the courtesan: “Was wärest du, wenn Kamala dir nicht hülfe?” (iii, 662) As Siddhartha becomes more and more accustomed to his new life among men, his humanization becomes completed. In the house of the merchant Kamaswami, such amenities as clothing, food and a daily bath are taken for granted (iii, 665), and finally even the most persistent remembrance of Siddhartha's former state is erased when he learns to eat meat and drink wine (iii, 673).

However, these sundry appurtenances of culture are not what Siddhartha originally wanted to learn from Kamala, and they are not the most profound lesson she has to teach him. They are merely the external concomitants of that new experience which, as in Enkidu's case, is most emblematic of his humanization: sexual love. Siddhartha's first request of Kamala was that she become his “Freundin und Lehrerin” in the art of love (iii, 657), and of the dozens of verbs of teaching and learning that appear on these pages, most refer to the sexual instruction that Siddhartha receives. This is the one lesson so important that it comes to comprise the “Wert und Sinn” of his life (iii, 666). His divorce from the woods, his humanization, is complete, and he is ready to plunge himself, in the next chapter, into the world of “Sansara.”

Harry Haller too owes the process of his humanization to a courtesan. Although he has not just emerged from the wilderness, the impression he makes on Hermine as he enters the “Schwarzer Adler” (“watering-place,” mutatis mutandis) is that he has just made a long journey and has the muddy shoes to prove it (iv, 274). Later, Hermine mentions that at that moment Harry was “so ein Stück Bestie” (iv, 303). He might just as well have spent years in the woods with the beasts, for he has become so unused to social intercourse (iv, 278) that, by his own metaphor, he is the Steppenwolf par excellence. Among the first things that Hermine does for Harry is to teach him to eat and drink: “Sie bestellte ein belegtes Brot und befahl mir, es zu essen. Sie schenkte mir ein und hieß mich einen Schluck trinken, aber nicht zu rasch.” (iv, 274) This is the same bread and wine that the temple-girl fed to Enkidu, and Hesse makes so much of Hermine's prandial instructions (iv, 277, 279, 280, 288) that there can be little doubt that he is calling more attention to eating than could be justified by the realistic level of the fiction alone. Hermine also provides counsel in the other amenities, such as clothing (iv, 275); when she refers to his hair, she implies that it too lacks the civilizing influence of a woman (iv, 277); and before Harry goes to meet Hermine for the second time, Hesse specifically mentions shaving and dressing (“mit besonderer Sorgfalt”) among his preparations (iv, 295). This second meeting takes place in a restaurant, where Hermine can really reveal herself as Harry's mistress in the art of eating and where she can treat him to a discourse on the consumption of a duck's leg and feed him a piece from her own fork (iv, 301).

Indeed, verbs of teaching and learning occur on these and the following pages even more frequently than in the parallel scenes in Siddhartha.¹⁶ All this instruction has as its aim Harry's humanization. The encounter with Hermine has shaken him into a renewed view of his human possibilities: “Ich konnte vielleicht wieder leben, ich konnte vielleicht wieder ein Mensch werden.” (iv, 290) The process succeeds, and Harry comes into closer contact with people like his landlady, who had always been in his environment, but from whom he had shied away. Soon Hermine can tantalize him with the prospect of graduation from her school: “Aber wie du dich verändert hast! … jetzt bist du schon beinahe wieder ein Mensch.” (iv, 296)

Of course, such instruction only serves to polish the veneer of Harry's humanity. Again, the real lesson, the experience which provides a new human knowledge and dignity, is that of sexual love. And here again the initial medium of seduction is the bosom of the temptress (iv, 328). Through Maria, who is specifically described as Hermine's “gift” (iv, 328 and 332), Harry relearns sexual love as an art and with the intensity of first experience. Although he has been married and has had a mistress, he remarks that Maria seems to be the first real love that he has had (iv, 334). Humanization, as we have seen, is not merely sensual refinement, but also the concomitant advance to a higher level of perception. Accordingly, what Maria teaches Harry is also “neues Verständnis, neue Einsichten, neue Liebe” (iv, 330). This new knowledge is extremely important to Harry; in his first night with Maria he has a vision of the potential richness of the “picture gallery” of his life (iv, 332), an initial fulfilment of the “little theatre” which Hermine had promised him (iv, 316) and an anticipation of the Magic Theatre.

Thus it is clear that both Siddhartha and Harry Haller undergo an introduction to civilization that employs in its fiction the same motifs that the Gilgamesh epic uses to enact the advance from bestial innocence to human knowledge and dignity. No matter what course the lives of Enkidu or of Hesse's protagonists may take from this point on, the similarities in this initial transition are indisputable. To be sure, some of the circumstances which we have mentioned to illustrate the connection between the epic and the novels are universal in human affairs. That the first instrument of seduction is the woman's bosom, for example, would seem to be common to all encounters of this sort. And the connection of the outsider-figure to a wild animal such as the wolf is an obvious one and occurs earlier in Hesse.¹⁷ However, the particular context in which Hesse employs these motifs, that is, his association of the breast and the beast with the other appurtenances of humanization found in the epic seems but to strengthen the evidence of the relation of his novels to the motifs of Gilgamesh.

Of course, the first introduction to sensuality does not occur through either Kamala or Hermine, as it does through the temple-girl in Gilgamesh. Because, in Hesse's much more sophisticated psychology, their concern is essentially the spiritual growth of the men entrusted to them, it would be naïve and inappropriate to attribute to them the more exclusively seductive function of the temple-girl. Hesse therefore uses an intermediary in both cases: the girl by the brook and Maria. Siddhartha attains to a mutual spiritual understanding with Kamala (iii, 671), based on their similar personalities, which would have been impossible with the young girl; and in the elaborately developed mirror-motif of Steppenwolf, Harry and Hermine reflect one another so perfectly (iv, 302 and 316) that Maria is ultimately excluded (iv, 338).¹⁸ And although the hetaera raises Enkidu from a truly natural state, whereas Siddhartha and Harry Haller are already members of a human order before they meet their courtesans, they are humanized nevertheless, advanced to a higher level of their human potential or degree of individuation. As Theodore Ziolkowski notes, the action of these novels takes place mainly on the second level of evolution, for the author's primary concern lies in this stage of the problematic man; the state of innocence is not characterized by those conflicts which particularly interest him.¹⁹ But, as we have seen, Hesse is careful to reduce Harry to the natural state of Enkidu before introducing him to Hermine. And although Siddhartha is still young in the first part of the novel, he has already experienced the psychological torments of the stage of awareness. The second part of the novel, which describes his departure from the woods, therefore opens with a rejuvenation of Siddhartha's senses and spirit: “Schön war die Welt, wenn man sie so betrachtete, so ohne Suchen, so kinderhaft. … Schön und lieblich war es, so durch die Welt zu gehen, so kindlich, so erwacht …” (iii, 650; my italics). Thus the stage of innocence is represented in both novels not only through occasional more or less realistic remembrances of childhood, but also through the symbolic reduction of their complex heroes to the simplicity which they had lost; and the subsequent advance to the complication of the next stage parallels that of Enkidu.²⁰

Such structural parallels in the novels are not only striking in themselves; they have a profound significance which is revealed when one recalls how central the concern of humanization is in all of Hesse's fiction. Theodore Ziolkowski, utilizing a concept which Hesse developed in his essay “Ein Stückchen Theologie” (vii, 388–402), has demonstrated that one of Hesse's main themes is a “triadic rhythm of humanization” and that this theme is an underlying pattern in all of his major novels.²¹ In his essay, Hesse envisions a three-stage process of Menschwerdung, which begins in the innocence of paradise or childhood and leads into guilt and the knowledge of good and evil, into the obligations of culture, morality, religion, and human ideals. Everyone who passes into this stage perceives that such ideals cannot be realized and inevitably falls into despair. This despair leads either to downfall or to a new condition “jenseits von Moral und Gesetz,” to “einer neuen, höheren Art von Verantwortungslosigkeit” (vii, 389). This last stage is, in Hesse's view, the final desideratum, the ultimate goal of the development, and it is achieved only by few. It is this evolution which Hesse illustrates in the spiritual growth of Siddhartha and Harry Haller. The aged Siddhartha attains to his vision of the mystical unity of all life, and Harry Haller, although not permanently successful, is vouchsafed a glimpse of a similar wisdom in the Magic Theatre at the end of Der Steppenwolf.

Hesse is of course utilizing a traditional structure of thought, and Ziolkowski cites Lessing, Schiller, Hölderlin, and Kleist as predecessors in such a triadic evolution of humanity or of the individual.²² Hesse himself indicates that the process is European and almost Christian (vii, 389) and points not only to the Christian concept of salvation, but also to the Buddhistic, in which man strives through yoga to nirvana, and to that of Lao Tse, in which the end is fulfilment in Tao. Everywhere this pattern can be found: “das uns geläufigste dieser Bilder ist der Weg vom paradiesischen Adam bis zum erlösten Christen.” (vii, 392) However, it is significant that, for his application of this pattern to the development of Siddhartha and Harry Haller, Hesse does not use the exterior furnishings of any of these traditional paths to religious enlightenment. Siddhartha, we remember, found it necessary to leave the Samanas and to renounce all formal religious instruction in order to find his way. Similarly, Hesse makes a considerable variation on traditional teachings. The common religious view is that, since the world is evil, one ought to escape from it, and the religions which Hesse mentions thus accept the principle of monastic sequestration as the ideal way to achieve pious fulfilment. For Hesse, however, one must involve oneself in the “Sansara” of the world in order to attain individuation first, and only thereafter a “higher” sort of innocence. In fact, Hesse actually turns the theology of that “most familiar of these pictures” on its head: the Bible laments man's expulsion from Paradise and his acquisition of carnal and moral knowledge, whereas Siddhartha and Harry Haller must have such knowledge in order to reach a more conscious stage. Let us note that the aim of peaceful satisfaction is the same in both cases; the Bible, however, would have man happy in innocent ignorance, whereas Hesse pushes man through knowledge to a new fulfilment.²³

The particular view which Hesse adopts here in opposition to that of the Bible parallels the view of Gilgamesh. This epic assigns to woman generally and to sexual intercourse specifically a unique role in the process of humanization. In the Biblical story of the expulsion from Paradise, the temptress woman brings misfortune to man. The Biblical writer looks back in nostalgia to the time when men went naked with the animals and lived on the fruits that grew of themselves in the Garden, and he regrets the more advanced stage of culture which necessitates the labour of growing food. The point of view of Gilgamesh is quite different: here the temptress helps Enkidu to escape from Paradise and to enter the civilized life which involves the behests of culture to which Hesse refers in his essay. The woman is clearly regarded as the medium through which man is raised to a higher level,²⁴ a fact to which Gressmann had already referred in indicating that the view of copulation in Gilgamesh contradicts that of the Bible.²⁵ The temple-girl, Kamala, and Hermine all possess the knowledge which the Bible suggests was not originally intended for man. Indeed, they are all professionals, and what they teach their pupils is the art of love. It is this knowledge and artfulness that makes their administrations so instructive and that, when imparted to their students, has the effect of humanizing them too. It is interesting that both the Bible and Gilgamesh use the phrase “the cursed ground”; but whereas in Genesis (3, 17) these words refer to the ground outside of Paradise, where it is necessary to cultivate food (such as bread and wine), in Gilgamesh the “cursed ground” is the “paradise” in which Enkidu has lived before the woman helps him advance to the dignity of human life.²⁶ Thus Adam is required to leave Paradise as a punishment for having acquired knowledge, whereas Enkidu is permitted to leave for having done the same thing. Moreover, the Biblical writer looks upon Noah's inebriation as a disgrace (Gen. 9, 21), while Enkidu's initiation into the drinking of wine wins approval since it leads to gladness and is a step on the road to civilization.²⁷

The relation of Hesse's novels to Gilgamesh is, then, by no means superficial. In its praise of the values of worldly civilization, in its specific celebration of sexual love and the resulting knowledge as that experience which most sharply distinguishes man from the beast and lends him the unique dignity of humanity, Gilgamesh represents an ancient model of the process of humanization with which Hesse is concerned. His heroes achieve their higher innocence—indeed, their innocence is higher—only because they do not follow the path of traditional religious teaching, but rather the path of the Gilgamesh epic. Hesse's use of the motifs which we have been discussing is therefore anything but an adventitious embellishment of his fiction. Rather, in lending significant shape to the novels, they are the precise tectonic complements to his theme. From the evidence of the striking parallels in the circumstances of Menschwerdung in the tradition of Gilgamesh and in Hesse's novels, as well as of their common view of sexual and the attendant moral knowledge as an instrument of a spiritual advance rather than of a “fall,” we are quite justified in citing Gilgamesh-motifs—even if the evidence does not permit us to see an immediate source in this epic itself—as a major contribution to the fictional embodiment of Hesse's concept of humanization in Siddhartha and Der Steppenwolf.

Notes

1. “Eine Bibliothek der Weltliteratur” in Gesammelte Werke (Frankfurt/M., 1958), vii, 315. All references to Hesse's works are to this edition and are cited subsequently in the text. Hesse's letter to G. Burckhardt in Briefe, erw. Ausg. (Frankfurt/Main, 1964), p. 449, attests that his acquaintance with Gilgamesh goes back to ca. 1915.

2. Although Mark Boulby's recent study makes a passing reference to similarities between Kamala and Hermine: Hermann Hesse: His Mind and Art (Ithaca, 1967), p. 142f.

3. Gesammelte Werke in zwölf Bänden (Frankfurt/M., 1960), iv, 408. Cf. Briefe 1889–1936 (Frankfurt/M., 1962), p. 271.

4. Hermann Hesse-Thomas Mann: Briefwechsel (Frankfurt/M., 1968), p. 46.

5. See the partial compilation by Joachim Müller: “Hermann Hesse und Thomas Mann. Ihr Lebenswerk, ihre Begegnung und ihre Verwandtschaft,” Universitas, xix (1964), 1157–68.

6. Hermann Hesse-Thomas Mann, p. 46.

7. The Epic of Gilgamesh, transl. N. K. Sandars (Baltimore, 1960), p. 61. I quote this translation since it dispenses with philological apparatus within the text. The most recent scholarly translation and annotation in English is that of S. N. Kramer in James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, 2nd rev. and enl. ed., 1955), pp. 72–99.

8. Ibid., p. 63.

9. Ibid., p. 66.

10. Thus ibid., p. 31.

11. Arthur Ungnad and Hugo Gressmann, Das Gilgamesch-Epos (Göttingen, 1911), p. 96f.

12. Ibid., p. 98. Gressmann also refers to Enkidu specifically as a “Steppenwesen,” p. 92.

13. Ibid., p. 98.

14. By Stephen Langdon, Sumerian Liturgical Texts (Philadelphia). Revised by Morris Jastrow and Albert T. Clay, An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic (New Haven, 1920).

15. Vol. i (Strassburg, 1906) and vol. ii (Marburg, 1928).

16. Cf. Theodore Ziolkowski's apt suggestion of “Harry Haller's Apprenticeship” as an appropriate title for this section of the novel: The Novels of Hermann Hesse: A Study in Theme and Structure (Princeton, 1965), p. 207.

17. Cf. Hugo Ball, Hermann Hesse: Sein Leben und sein Werk (Zürich, 1947), p. 134, who refers to the 1903 story “Der Wolf” as “ein frühestes Auftauchen des Steppenwolf-Motivs.”

18. Cf. Ralph Freedman's similar view: The Lyrical Novel: Studies in Hermann Hesse, André Gide, and Virginia Woolf (Princeton, 1963), pp. 82f. and 85.

19. Ziolkowski, pp. 57f. and 153.

20. It is not surprising that these motifs function importantly again in Narziss und Goldmund, Hesse's next novel (1930). Although Goldmund's career, which takes him from the pious seclusion of Kloster Mariabronn out into the world and eventually back into the monastery, is in its broad scheme parallel to Siddhartha's life, the theme of Narziss und Goldmund is no longer the general one of the growth of a man towards personal individuation (although it includes that element as well), but the more specific one of the development of an artist. One of the theses of the novel's aesthetic theorizing is that a work of art is an ideal synthesis of many individual cases. Goldmund must therefore have experience of many women before he can have his vision of the Urmutter or create his statue of Mary, and the displacement of the one temptress by the many results in a dispersion of the motifs throughout the novel. The task of humanization is assigned to no one woman; it is a gradual process: in none of Goldmund's amorous adventures do all the motifs occur together, yet all are present if the episodes are taken as a whole: (1) hero as beast: v, 86, 88; (2) watering-place; v, 28 f., 31, 87, 89, 98, 161; breasts: v, 51, 80, 87, 90; (3) instruction in love and “knowledge”: v, 80, 106f., 174; divorce from wilderness: v, 79, 89, 97, 120, 156, 164; (4) clothing and eating: v, 104, 109, 161, 199, 249; (5) grooming: v, 156, 195, 246. The location of these motifs in Narziss und Goldmund enables us to distinguish the group of Hesse's three middle novels from his earlier and later works. The motifs are not yet used in Demian, nor are they prominent any longer in Die Morgenlandfahrt or Das Glasperlenspiel. Hesse's occupation with such motifs in his three novels of 1922, 1927, and 1930 corresponds closely with his renewed and deepened interest in the Orient around 1920 and in the following decade. In Narziss und Goldmund, however, these motifs are generally subordinated to others more important to this novel, such as the polarity of “Geist” and “Blut” or of the “masculine” and “feminine” attributes of the philosopher and the artist. This shift of emphasis bears witness to a turn in Hesse's main interest away from the general humanization of his heroes and their attainment of personal individuation, the theme of Siddhartha and of Der Steppenwolf and the central concern of this paper.

21. Ziolkowski, pp. 52–60.

22. Ibid., p. 52f.

23. Cf. Hesse's comment in a very relevant letter from 1930: “Was damals Theologie war, ist für uns Heutige mehr Psychologie, aber die Wahrheiten sind dieselben. … Die Mythen der Bibel, wie alle Mythen der Menschheit, sind für uns wertlos, solang wir sie nicht persönlich und für uns und unsere Zeit zu deuten wagen.” (vii, 488).

24. Cf. Jastrow and Clay, p. 44.

25. Gressmann, p. 98. The discovery that the Gilgamesh epic, although having a number of episodes in common with the Bible, opposes the Bible precisely in its conception of Paradise and the “fall,” occasioned a minor theological controversy in Germany at this time. For an indignant rejection of Babylonian ideas as Biblical canon see Christian Dieckmann, Das Gilgamis-Epos in seiner Bedeutung für Bibel und Babel (Leipzig, 1902); for a more reasoned discussion of these common episodes as well as a contrast of Biblical and Babylonian eschatology see Alexander Heidel, The Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament Parallels (Chicago, 1946; 2nd ed. 1949). Hesse's theological interests, as well as his parents' concern for the confrontation of Christianity with eastern religions, may well have led him into an investigation of these matters.

26. Jastrow and Clay, p. 45. Neither Sandars, p. 65, nor Kramer, p. 77, recalls this Biblical phrase, however.

27. Ibid.