Hesse used romanticism as a tool for the development of a unique approach, leading to a sharp analysis of the self, the meaning of personal identity and the conditions of self-consciousness, which he explores in contemporary terms….

Hesse's postwar novels are concerned with the inner world turned inside out, yielding not only dreams, memories, or hallucinations per se but also the world underlying perception, which is dissolved and recomposed in the self's inner landscape. (p. 44)

The perennial split between the individual and the world beyond him is portrayed, not in dramatic action, but in symbolic or allegorical self-representation…. Hesse renders his conflicts as symbolic "self-portraits." In his novels, representative characters mirror their divided selves in drawings, statues, and fictional biographies. (p. 45)

Hesse's various interpretations of the artist's relationship with his experience turn primarily on the opposition of sense and intellect, which is associated with that of dark and...