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  • Internationale Bibliographie zur Hermann-Hesse-Forschung. 5 Bände
  • Jefford Vahlbusch
Internationale Bibliographie zur Hermann-Hesse-Forschung. 5 Bände. Herausgegeben von Jürgen Below. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter, 2007. 4032 Seiten. €498,00.

Jürgen Below's monumental bibliography of secondary literature on Hermann Hesse is by far the most comprehensive and useful to date. As noted in the introduction (xiii), Below builds on the work of his predecessors, incorporating all secondary titles recorded by Hesse bibliographers Ernst Metelmann (1927), Horst Kliemann and Karl H. Silomon (1947), Helmut Waibler (1962), Otto Bareis (1962, 1964), Martin Pfeifer (1964–1993), Joseph Mileck (1977), and Michael Limberg (1994–2006). But Below was able to more than double the number of known secondary titles, in large part because he extended his research to Hesse archives and collections, public and private, especially in Germany and Switzerland. There he discovered vast fi les of previously uncatalogued material, especially clippings of articles and reviews from long-defunct newspapers and popular magazines. As Hesse editor Volker Michels notes in his "Geleitwort":

"Das Ergebnis von Belows Recherchen [ . . . ] ist ebenso überwältigend wie staunenswert, was die damit verbundene Arbeitsleistung betrifft. Kisten mit unzähligen vergilbten, oft undatierten Ausschnitten aus den unterschiedlichsten [End Page 128] Journalen, nicht selten ohne jede Quellenangabe, galt es zu sichten und zu lokalisieren. Eine mühselige und undankbare Kärrnerarbeit[ . . . ]"

(vii).

In practical terms, Below's pioneering exploration of these collections has significantly increased our chances of offering broadly based and nuanced analyses, especially of Hesse's popular and scholarly reception worldwide, an under-researched topic still quite poorly understood. Prior to the publication of Below's work, for example, most Hesse scholars regularly cited and evaluated only the 7 early reviews of Hesse's 1905 / 06 novel Unterm Rad reprinted in full or part in Adrian Hsia's Hermann Hesse im Spiegel der zeitgenössischen Kritik (Bern und München: Francke, 1975). Below not only lists 44 additional contemporary reviews of the novel (1905–1909), most of them previously unknown in the literature; he also records where he found each reference or title and—for 39 of the 51 total reviews of Unterm Rad—is able to name the library, archive, or collection that currently holds the text. In fact, Below's exemplary practice of sourcing his bibliographical citations is one of the foundations of his work. Every one of the 21,493 citations includes such information and most also list at least one "besitzender Standort": "Etwa 17.000 Nachweise führen zu Herkünften in veröffentlichten Druckschriften und etwa 29.000 zu Bibliotheken und Sammlungen. Dadurch ergeben sich sowohl Einzel-als auch Mehrfachnachweise. Im Durchschnitt ist jeder bibliographische Nachweis doppelt belegt" (xxv).

Other exemplary aspects of this bibliography include its careful organization, its treatment of monographs and dissertations, and its 5 massive indices. Below sensibly structures his bibliography according to thematic categories developed by the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach for its Systematischen Katalog: "Forschung," "Biographie," "Würdigungen," "Beziehungen," "Werk," "Thematische Sachverhalte," "Rezeption." He then divides these into sub-and often sub-subcategories. "Rezeption," for example, includes sections entitled "weltweit," "Afrika," "Amerika," "Asien," "Australien / Neuseeland," "Europa"and then subsections, organized chronologically, for each country in question. A further "Rezeption" section lists 1606 titles relating to events commemorating Hesse's 125th birthday in 2002. A section called "Wirkungsgeschichtliches" documents Hesse's strong presence in media other than the printed word, including radio, TV, fi lm, theater, exhibitions, auctions, and other public events, as well as the Internet.

For nearly every scholarly monograph and collection listed—including dissertations and anthologies of critical essays, and sometimes even other Hochschulschriften such as M.A. theses and university seminar papers posted on the Internet—Below provides helpful annotations. He reproduces their tables of contents, sometimes reprints entire dissertation abstracts, and gives extensive lists of their book reviews. Signifi cant reviews of important works are often partially quoted. These features add up to a discursive history of Hesse scholarship.

The bibliography concludes with 503 pages of electronically-built indices, exhaustive lists of "Verfasser," "Personen," "Orte," "Werktitel," "Stichworte"—the latter taken mostly from the titles of the secondary works. But readers searching for scholarship on a...

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