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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 was Hesse's parents' profession?

2. When did Hesse reach the height of his popularity?

3. When were Hesse's parents married?

4. When did Hesse begin to run away from school?

5. What was Hesse's relationship with the works he began to write in Tubingen?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is Freedman's stance with regard to the relationship between Hesse's life and works?

2. What does Freedman say about Hesse's popularity over the years?

3. What was Hesse's health like, and how did it affect his development?

4. How big was Hesse's family?

5. How does Freedman describe Hesse's childhood?

6. Under what circumstances did Hesse ultimately marry his first wife?

7. Where did Hesse's writing come from?

8. Where would Hesse run away from? Where would he run away to?

9. When did Hesse begin to be successful as a writer?

10. What was Hesse's relationship with his family's values as a young man?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Hesse's parents were Pietist missionaries. What was Pietism, and what role did it play in Hesse's development as a person and as a writer? What values did he get from Pietism? What values did he get by rebelling against it? Is Hesse a Pietist writer?

Essay Topic 2

Which of Hesse's books is most important in his life? Why is it the book that had the greatest effect on Hesse as a man and as a writer?

Essay Topic 3

Describe Hesse's experience as a husband. What trajectory can you draw through his three marriages? What did his marriages teach him? What patterns are common in all three marriages? What did Hesse refuse to learn from any of his marriages? If you were speaking for his wives, what would you try to get Hesse to understand about himself as a husband?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 662 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample