Hesse and Jung: Two Newly Recovered Letters

Everyone agrees that a vast amount of work will need to be done before it will be possible to talk responsibly about the relations of psychoanalysis to the creative process. One—surely not the only—aspect of this effort will be the gathering of data bearing on the connections and influences of artists' lives and works. A model study along these lines has recently been issued in an abridged version by the University of Chicago Press: Dr. Jean Lejay's La Jeunesse d' André Gide (The Youth of André Gide). The following lines are offered in the hope that an earnest researcher will be inspired to emulate Dr. Lejay's example in gathering together the threads on the art and times of Hesse. The documents published below were made available by Dr. Emanuel Maier, now a resident of Lincoln, Massachusetts.

The two letters here printed for the first time were solicited and received by Dr. Maier in the course of gathering materials a dozen years ago for a proposed doctoral thesis on Hesse's work at New York University. Being convinced that Hesse's works needed to be understood in the light of Jung's symbolism, Dr. Maier first wrote to Jung on January 16, 1951. Though, regrettably, Dr. Maier is not able to supply a copy of his letter, we do have a copy of Jung's reply, which is given in full below. Jung begins on an intimate note: he knew both Hesse and Hesse's former psychiatrist, Dr. J. B. Lang, personally.1 It was Lang, Jung avows, who conveyed Jung's ideas and influence to Hesse. Thanks to Lang, “a very curious, though extremely learned man,” particularly interested in Gnostic speculation, adds Jung, Hesse received a “considerable