Abstract

CORDOVA CARRUITERO, Mario Jhonatan. Deadly disease in Hermann Hesse and literature as symbolic and temporal healing. Desde el Sur [online]. 2019, vol.11, n.2, pp.149-167. ISSN 2076-2674.  http://dx.doi.org/10.21142/DES-1102-2019-149-167.

Between 1915 and 1919, the German writer Hermann Hesse would suffer a profound nervous breakdown. This psychological disorder would unleash in him an existential crisis that would lead to his rethinking of questions concerning the meaning of life. This difficult period in the life of Hermann Hesse led him to seek psychotherapeutic treatment with the psychoanalyst J. B. Lang, a disciple of the renowned psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung, who years later would become Hesse's therapist. The writer's major crisis and the therapies he received formed the basis for his book Demian. In this literary work, the German writer revealed the inner turmoil he had suffered. This article seeks to demonstrate how the psychological disorders suffered by the German writer Hermann Hesse formed the tipping point in the creation of a body of literature that functioned as a kind of symbolic and temporal healing balm. Finally, we will discuss the ways in which such psychological conditions often form the fundamental genesis of artistic creation.

Keywords : Hermann Hesse; psychological disorder; deadly disease; literature; symbolic healing.

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