ABSTRACT
In his novel Narcissus and Goldmund, first published in 1930, Herman Hesse portrays two modes of life. The soulful, artistically compelled Goldmund embodies the spirit of the nomad, the wanderer, the adventurer. His life is marked by intensity – in joy and in sorrow, in love and in hate – and by almost nonstop epiphany as he encounters remarkable people and creates beautiful art works. He leads a life of endless risk, danger, and promise, calling to mind Henry Fielding’s challenge to Fate: “Tomorrow, do thy worst, for today I have lived.” In contrast, Narcissus dwells in a cloister – literally, a cloistered world. He teaches and governs within that world. He contemplates being and time. He finds depth in study and in what is given daily through its ordinary hours. Intensity and epiphany, risk and danger, are not hallmarks of his days. But his vocation has its own creative dimensions and it yields him satisfactions that Goldmund could never imagine. Hesse’s achievement is to render convincingly the values in each mode of life. He does so, in part, by artfully making it easy for the reader to come to love both figures, their many imperfections notwithstanding.
