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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Hesse find attractive about the place where he eventually settled after leaving Bern?

2. What was the subject of Hesse's book "Rosshalde"?

3. What represents the psyche in "The Glass Bead Game"?

4. When did Hesse die?

5. What did Hesse do for escape while Ruth's father was dying?

Short Essay Questions

1. Who was Ruth Wenger?

2. What strains was Hesse feeling after he wrote "Siddhartha"?

3. Describe the novel "Siddhartha."

4. Describe Hesse's last years and death.

5. Describe the progress of Hesse's relationship with Ninon Dolbin.

6. How does Freedman say that Hesse's writing and his life paralleled each other?

7. What did the Hesses celebrate at the end of 1945?

8. Describe "The Glass Bead Game."

9. Describe the novel "Rosshalde."

10. Describe the impact of the Great War on Hesse.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What role did rebellion play in Hesse's life and development as a writer? How important was his brother's running away to music school? What fights did he fight by rebelling, and what fights did he avoid by running away? To what was he opposed? To what was he drawn? How did he learn to use fight or flight as strategies for getting what he wanted? How did these strategies change as he matured?

Essay Topic 2

Hesse was an apprentice in a bookshop. What was Hesse's apprenticeship like, and how did he serve his apprenticeship as a writer? Where did he learn his trade, and what was the process of acquiring a trade like for him? Was he encouraged and trained, or did he learn by trial and error on his own? How did he pass his apprenticeship as a writer? When was his apprenticeship finished? What "masterpiece" established him as a writer, no longer an apprentice?

Essay Topic 3

Write a short review of Freedman's biography of Hesse. What were Freedman's methods in writing the biography, and what were the biography's strengths and weaknesses? What did Freedman leave out or skip over? What could have been treated in greater detail?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 720 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample