In the following excerpt, Stelzig considers the Jungian context of Hesse's Demian .

. . . Hesse's novel emerged in a burst of confession. Written between September and October 1917, in the last stage of Hesse's treatment by Dr. Lang, it was not published until after the war. It appeared in spring 1919 under the name of the narrator, Emil Sinclair, and became for several years one of the most popular and influential books among German youth. Hesse's choice of a pseudonym (which he was forced to abandon in 1920 when his authorship was guessed by the critics) reflects his belief that through the crisis of the war he had emerged as a different writer, and it was also his way of resisting "the stupid role" of "the beloved writer of entertaining literature" that no longer suited him and that might put off a new generation "with the well-known name of an old uncle...