Steppenwolf (novel)

Steppenwolf (orig. German Der Steppenwolf) is the tenth novel by German-Swiss author Hermann Hesse. Originally published in Germany in 1927, it was first translated into English in 1929. Combining autobiographical and psychoanalytic elements, the novel was named after the lonesome wolf of the steppes. The story in large part reflects a profound crisis in Hesse's spiritual world during the 1920s while memorably portraying the protagonist's split between his humanity and his wolf-like aggression and homelessness. Hesse would later assert that the book was largely misunderstood.

Background and publication history

In 1924 Hermann Hesse married singer Ruth Wenger. After several weeks, however, he left Basel, only returning near the end of the year. Upon his return he rented a separate apartment, adding to his isolation. After a short trip to Germany with Wenger, Hesse stopped seeing her almost completely. The resulting feeling of isolation and inability to make lasting contact with the outside world led to increasing despair and thoughts of suicide.

Steppenwolf

Steppenwolf may refer to:

See also

Novel

A novel is a long narrative, normally in prose, which describes fictional characters and events, usually in the form of a sequential story.

The genre has also been described as possessing "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years". This view sees the novel's origins in Classical Greece and Rome, medieval, early modern romance, and the tradition of the novella. The latter, an Italian word used to describe short stories, supplied the present generic English term in the 18th century. Ian Watt, however, in The Rise of the Novel (1957) suggests that the novel first came into being in the early 18th century,

Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote, is frequently cited as the first significant European novelist of the modern era; the first part of Don Quixote was published in 1605.

The romance is a closely related long prose narrative. Walter Scott defined it as "a fictitious narrative in prose or verse; the interest of which turns upon marvellous and uncommon incidents", whereas in the novel "the events are accommodated to the ordinary train of human events and the modern state of society". However, many romances, including the historical romances of Scott,Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, are also frequently called novels, and Scott describes romance as a "kindred term". Romance, as defined here, should not be confused with the genre fiction love romance or romance novel. Other European languages do not distinguish between romance and novel: "a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo."

Hermann Hesse

Hermann Karl Hesse (German: [ˈhɛɐ̯man ˈhɛsə]; 2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His best-known works include Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and The Glass Bead Game, each of which explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Life and work

Family background

Hermann Karl Hesse was born on 2 July 1877 in the Black Forest town of Calw in Württemberg, German Empire. His parents served in India at a mission under the auspices of the Basel Mission, a Protestant Christian missionary society. Hesse's mother, Marie Gundert, was born at such a mission in India in 1842. In describing her own childhood, she said, "A happy child I was not..." As was usual among missionaries at the time, she was left behind in Europe at the age of four when her parents returned to India.

Hesse's father, Johannes Hesse, the son of a doctor, was born in 1847 in the Estonian town of Paide (Weissenstein). Johannes Hesse belonged to the German minority in the Russian-ruled Baltic region: thus his son Hermann was at birth both a citizen of the German Empire and the Russian Empire. Hermann had five siblings, but two of them died in infancy. In 1873, the Hesse family moved to Calw, where Johannes worked for the Calwer Verlagsverein, a publishing house specializing in theological texts and schoolbooks. Marie's father, Hermann Gundert, managed the publishing house at the time, and Johannes Hesse succeeded him in 1893.

Thug Notes

Thug Notes is an American educational web series that summarizes and analyzes various literary works in a comedic manner. Thug Notes first aired on June 3, 2013, on YouTube, with the pilot episode centered on Crime and Punishment. The host of the series is Sparky Sweets, Ph.D., portrayed by actor and comedian Greg Edwards.

Style

The series is presented by Sparky Sweets, Ph.D., in the character's "original gangster" style.

The following is an example of Sweets' style from his analysis of To Kill a Mockingbird, one of his most popular: "Only a jive-ass fool would bother capping a mockingbird, cause all them bitches do is just drop next-level beats for your enjoyment. So what my girl Harper trying to say is ratting on Boo Radley wouldn't do no good. It would only rid the hood of one more true-blue player."

Explaining the usage of low-brow vocabulary and speech used by Sweets on the series, Edwards stated, "but the truth is, the gift of literature is universal in meaning and should be made accessible to everyone on every plane. So, 'Thug Notes' is my way of trivializing academia's attempt at making literature exclusionary by showing that even high-brow academic concepts can be communicated in a clear and open fashion." The style used by Edwards' character was a result of "frustration with the world of academia".