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Steppenwolf (Herman Hesse, 1926). (poem)

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From: Contemporary Review
Date: 19950701
Author:Mallinson, J.D.

(Hermann Hesse, 1926)

Hesse left his cold rooms on the Schanzengraben, to attend masked balls at Hotel Baur au Lac; his forced merriment was itself a charade, to veil ingrained despair.

The seductive embrace of girls dissembling love in the riot of Carnival nights, escaping into the dawn, was the cruellest charade; at these rituals of youth, he felt betrayed by age.

In Zurich of the twenties he was a creature living on the fringes of society, a loner, an outsider, who belied his status as sage, romantic writer; working his life into art.

J. D. Mallinson

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