Hermann Hesse's literary works had a profound effect on me growing up. Demian, Steppenwolf, Siddhartha, and Narcissus & Goldmund, were some of the first novels to have a real impact on me in the world of literature. I felt like they were written by someone who felt almost exactly the way I did. Appreciative of nature, art, and beauty, bent on the quest for real meaning and true selfhood, solitary and contemplative, and disillusioned with the ignorance in society.
Well, I've often had the thought that Hesse must have been an INTP and that probably a lot of INTPs have appreciated his work at some time or another?
So I'm asking? Any of you out there in INTPx have a particular affinity to Hermann Hesse's writings? Do you think he was an INTP?
I did a search and some are saying he's an INFP. I'm probably more balanced than the average INTP on the T/F axis. So that might explain the sense of profound identification I have with the attitudes and thoughts of the main protagonists (who are always Hesse or aspects of Hesse). I've also seen him listed as a 4w5 enneagram, and I am often unsure whether or not I'm a 5, a 4, a 5w4, or a 4w5? This also would explain the affinity.
Hesse was actually a quasi-friend and patient of CG Jung's. So perhaps somewhere there's actually more confirmable data on this, but god knows where.
But if any of you have read Hesse? Does it often seem like archetypical INTPism? Like a man coming to terms with having that personality type?
I hate to reduce it all to that, but I want to know if anyone else sees this connection.
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