Date of Submission
Fall 2015
Academic Programs and Concentrations
Foreign Languages, Cultures, and Literature; Philosophy
Project Advisor 1
Daniel Berthold
Project Advisor 2
Franz Kempf
Abstract/Artist's Statement
In this project, I argue that Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha can be read as an attempted reconciliation the antithetical worldviews of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche. The first two chapters show that the figures of Gotama and Siddhartha represent Schopenhauerian and Nietzschean worldviews, respectively. The third chapter analyzes the smile as a symbol used to reconcile Siddhartha and Gotama. In the fourth and final chapter, I investigate Hesse’s development of symbol of the smile in relation to his engagement with Chinese philosophy, specifically Taoism, a tradition of thought based on the ultimate reconciliation of apparent opposites.
Open Access Agreement
Open Access
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Schluter, Benjamin Dillon, "Siddhartha's Smile: Schopenhauer, Hesse, Nietzsche" (2015). Senior Projects Fall 2015. 42.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_f2015/42
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