SOURCE: “Hesse's Use of Gilgamesh-Motifs in the Humanization of Siddhartha and Harry Haller,” in Seminar, Vol. 5, No. 2, Fall, 1969, pp. 129–40.

In the following essay, Hughes strives to illuminate Siddhartha in light of motifs important in the Babylonian Gilgamesh epic.

Hermann Hesse's indebtedness to oriental literatures and philosophies has been noted frequently. However, the ancient Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh has been neglected in the investigation of his Eastern sources, although Hesse knew and appreciated this work and recommended it in 1929 for inclusion in his ideal library of world literature.¹ Reference to certain motifs of Gilgamesh illuminates Hesse's development of his heroes in Siddhartha and Der Steppenwolf and explains the striking parallels, which have gone undetected in Hesse criticism,² in the motifs which these two novels use in embodying their common theme of the humanization or spiritual growth of a man towards a higher stage of personal individuation and self-realization...