Essay Database

Published in 1922, Siddhartha is the most famous and influential novel by Nobel prize-winning German author Hermann Hesse. Though set in India, the concerns of Siddhartha are universal, expressing Hesse's general interest in the conflict between mind, body, and spirit. While people have contemplated this conflict since the beginning of existence, it took on a special importance for Hesse. Psychoanalysis had burst onto the European intellectual scene in the first decades of the 20th century, and …

…qualities that made the book attractive to 60's counterculture, though, also tend to get the book labeled as adolescent literature. Interestingly, the novel's use of Indian religious and philosophical ideas has stirred some controversy as high schools and universities debate its value as an aid in teaching Eastern religions. As Hesse's use of these concepts is liberal and often Westernized, Siddhartha is now read primarily as a brilliantly written examination of the pursuit for self-understanding.