BEYOND NARCISSISM: THE MULTI‐LAYERED NARCISSUS REFERENCE IN HERMANN HESSE'S NARZISS UND GOLDMUND*

Abstract

AbstractFreud's theory of narcissism, developed in the 1910s and 1920s, can be seen as a radical break with the Narcissus tradition in that the myth of Narcissus is turned into a theory about man's psychosexual constitution. This prompts the question of whether, or to what extent, Freud's theory influenced subsequent literary treatments of the theme. This article examines in particular the Narcissus reference in Hermann Hesse's novel Narziß und Goldmund (1930). Hesse had an intimate, but not uncritical, relationship with psychoanalysis, and his novel provides an interesting illustration of how the Narcissus reference was used in the direct aftermath of Freud's conceptualisation. In this article, I argue that while the narrative frame of the Narcissus myth is broken up in the novel, it remains poetically productive. Narcissism is incorporated into the intertextual nexus, but without replacing Narcissus. Three distinct layers of the Narcissus reference are identified in the novel, an Ovidian, a Freudian, and a neo‐Platonic, which interrelate in ways that prompt reflection on the relation between individuality and intersubjectivity, and between life and art.