Poems (Hesse collection)

Poems

First English edition
Author Hermann Hesse
Original title Die Gedichte
Translator James Wright
Country Germany
Language German
Subject Poetry
Published 1953 (Suhrkamp Verlag)
Published in English
 1970
Media type Print

Poems is a collection of 31 poems written by the German author Hermann Hesse between 1899 and 1921. They were selected and translated to English by James Wright in 1970 from Die Gedichte, which was published in German in 1953. This collection was first published in 1971.

Contents

Each translated poem in this volume appears alongside the original German text. The poems, and the year they were written, are:

Background

Hermann Hesse is best known for his novels, but he was also a poet. In the seven volume German edition of his works, there are some 480 pages of poems. Hesse's novels themselves contain many passages of literal verse.

The common thread that runs through the poems in this collection is homesickness. On the selection of these poems, James Wright wrote in the Translator's Note: "All I wish to do is to offer a selection of Hesse's poems which deal with the single theme of homesickness." Many of Hesse's novels touched on this subject, including Steppenwolf (1927):

Towards the end of the novel, Hermine says to Harry: "… Ah, Harry, we have to stumble through so much dirt and humbug before we reach home. And we have no one to guide us. Our only guide is our homesickness."

In these poems Hesse has touched this theme with a "traditionally endearing delicacy."

References

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