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3 The Maulbronn Affair
- Wilfrid Laurier University Press
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I believe if I were a Pietist and not a human being, I could change every quality and inclination within me into its opposite, and harmonize with you. But I cannot and will not live thus any longer. —hermann hesse, in a letter to his parents, 14 September 18921 I n the summer of 1891, a young Hermann Hesse passed the state Landexamen , gaining himself entry into Maulbronn, one of four elite Protestant church schools in Württemberg. Out of seventy-nine students , Hesse finished twenty-eighth and was precocious and talented enough to render the essay portion of the exam in free verse, a feat that Hesse would have the rebellious romantic Hermann Heilner repeat in Beneath the Wheel, the fictionalized account of Hesse’s brief stint at Maulbronn. By enrolling their son in the Latin school in Göppingen and later the monastery school at Maulbronn, Hesse’s parents set in motion the wheels that would establish for him a career and position within the religious -social complex of Swabian Pietism. Tradition, family desires, social and economic realities, and Hesse’s intellectual gifts made Maulbronn the natural choice. Yet after a relatively content six months in the school that was once home to Johannes Kepler, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Hesse’s grandfather Hermann Gundert, the young man realized that he wanted to be a poet, not a preacher, and that he had serious reservations about the theology and worldview of the Pietist milieu in which he had been raised. To follow the path set out for him by family and religious tradition was tantamount to spiritual suicide, and Hesse felt he may as well commit the real act, a threat made at least twice in the course of a bitter and protracted battle with family and school authorities. Hesse had come “under the wheel” of a social institution and family expectations that threatened to do him in, and he reacted with all the vitriolic and polemical flair that his considerable literary and intellectual gifts afforded him. During this period 23 3 The Maulbronn Affair of adolescent crisis the relationship between Hesse and his family deteriorated to such an extent that Hesse, though living under the same roof, took to communicating with his father through letters to avoid the pain and difficulty of personal encounter. Six of Hesse’s eight short months in Maulbronn seem to have been relatively peaceful; the young lad even seemed happy and excited with his new home. A reply from Hesse’s Baltic grandfather is indicative of the good feelings surrounding Hesse’s successful handling of the pressurefilled state exams and arrival at the seminary. “Your letter from Maulbronn arrived in my hand today and filled my heart with joy.… That you’ve had such a good reception in Maulbronn; that you are pleased with this beautiful and revered [institution], and that you’ve already made acquaintance with Ovid and Homer is for both of us a great joy.”2 Just three weeks before his flight, Hesse would write a very upbeat letter home: I am happy, cheerful, content! There is an atmosphere in the seminary that really appeals to me. Best of all there is a close and open relationship between pupil and teacher, but also a good relationship among the pupils themselves.… And then there is the magnificent monastery! To stand in one of the solemn cloisters and debate with others matters of language, religion, art, etc. has a quite special attraction.… I’ll describe to you a few of my comrades; you are likely interested to know something about the people I’m keeping company with.3 And then, on March 7, Johannes Hesse received a telegram stating that his son had been missing since the early afternoon; by ten o’clock, the boy had still not returned. Sometime in the early morning young Hermann Hesse, with the help of a hunter whom he happened upon, made his way back to Maulbronn after spending a cold, lonely night sleeping in a nearby haystack. From here, things went from bad to worse. Hesse returned to Maulbronn following spring break, but his behaviour was intractable, and in short order he was asked to leave for good. Hesse’s parents sent him first to Bad Boll, a Pietist retreat and healing centre founded and run by the Blumhardts; then to Stetten, an institution for mentally handicapped children and adolescents; and then, at Hesse’s request, to the home of Pastor Pfister in Basel, who...