Work on ROSSHALDE kept Hesse busy during a critical period in his life, and it is convenient to locate this short but multi-layered text at an intersection between the realist and symbolist phases of his career. It has been described as the culmination of his first creative phase, as his “most realistic novel,” yet it is riddled with ambiguities and told in an ironic manner that anticipates the less direct, more consciously encrypted style of the author’s later novels Demian, Der Steppenwolf, and Das Glasperlenspiel. The title itself is marked by an ironic distance from the human sphere, the term Roßhalde denoting a hillside where horses are kept, a place where they may disport themselves, but also an area in which they are restrained from free movement. It is an appropriate choice, directing attention away from individual people to a natural, shared environment. The designation of this text as a “novel” may also be questioned. It was originally published as an “Erzählung” and as such was serialized in a magazine. Despite running to eighteen chapters and having several centers of interest, it does in some respects straddle the generic divide between the novel and the long short story or Novelle. Like a tragedy in the Grecian manner — another comparison occasionally made — it observes the unities of time, place and action if not entirely, then surely more closely than most novels do.

The focus is on six characters, a husband and wife, two sons, a friend of long standing, and a manservant, all of whom are caught up in what at times seems like a hothouse experiment, interdependent on each other, emotionally and on other levels, who seek but rarely attain their individual freedom of self-expression and happiness.

There are good reasons for regarding Hesse’s fourth novel as autobiographical, as most of his critics do. Writing as recently as 2002, Klaus Walther allocates just two paragraphs to it, concentrating entirely on parallels with Hesse’s private circumstances: “Roßhalde reflects in many ways his life situation.” Not only does the artist at its center resemble the author, but the book possesses a prophetic quality, “eine merkwürdige Voraussage,” in that Hesse’s own son Martin was affected by a similar illness to Pierre’s just a few months after its completion.

The prevailing autobiographical approach to the novel is undoubtedly encouraged by the initial focus on an artist figure who has several commonalities with the author.