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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 and Ninon celebrate at the end of 1945?

2. How was "Narcissus and Goldmund" received?

3. How was "Siddhartha" received?

4. What caused people to leave Germany in 1933?

5. What does Freedman say the period of Hesse's renewed writing and painting after separating from his wife is called?

Short Essay Questions

1. How was Hesse supporting himself and his family?

2. Describe the novel "Rosshalde."

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

4. What was Hesse's social position by the mid-to-late 1920s?

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

6. Describe Hesse's travels in 1928-1929.

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

8. Describe Hesse's travels in 1924 and 1925.

9. Describe Hesse's last years and death.

10. Describe the period when Hesse's marriage began to crumble.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

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?

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