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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. Who died in 1935?

2. Who was Hesse spending his time with by 1928?

3. Why did Hesse decide not to make any public statements about German politics in the 1930s?

4. What was it about Ninon that made Hesse irritable?

5. What was the result of Hesse's marriage to his second wife?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How was Hesse supporting himself and his family?

3. Describe the novel "Siddhartha."

4. Describe the novel "Rosshalde."

5. How did Hesse react to the end of the war in Europe?

6. Describe Hesse's run-in with the Stuttgart paper that misprinted his poem.

7. What does Freedman say Hesse represented with "Steppenwolf"?

8. Describe the period known as "Hesse's exile."

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

10. Describe "The Glass Bead Game."

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How did Hesse develop as a novelist? What trajectory do his novels trace? What events in his personal life influenced this trajectory? What did he learn as a novelist, and how do his novels reflect an evolution as he acquired various techniques in his writing?

Essay Topic 2

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 3

What did the decision to be a writer mean for Hesse as a young man, and how did the identity of the 'writer' clarify his role and responsibilities? How did he see his job as a "writer"? What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to avoid? Pay particular attention to his relationships with his family and their expectations for his career.

(see the answer keys)

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