The Glass Bead Game

The Glasperlenspiel as an attempt to describe the life of Magister Ludi Josef Knecht and the writings he left behind is the last and at the same time most extensive novel by Hermann Hesse , first published in two volumes in 1943.

Hermann Hesse (1925)

content

The actual plot is preceded by a chapter that is written in the form of a historical treatise and depicts the development of the world designed by Hesse ( Das Glasperlenspiel. An attempt at a generally understandable introduction to its history ). After the plot ( description of the life of Magister Ludi Josef Knecht ) there follow smaller literary works, the authorship of which Hesse ascribes to the main character Josef Knecht: some poems ( the poems of the pupil and student ) and the three résumés , which are supposed to project Knecht's life back into different historical epochs ( The rainmaker , the confessor and Indian curriculum vitae ). As in the main part, Hesse varies his old theme of master and disciple , mainly in such a way that the disciple, who is at times unfaithful, repentantly returns to his master in order to succeed him.

The book is dedicated to "Den Morgenlandfahrern", which is also mentioned in the "historical" introduction, alluding to his 1932 story Die Morgenlandfahrt . The introduction as a motto is preceded by a Latin quotation (along with a translation) from the fictional scholastic Albertus Secundus, who is later named as one of the spiritual ancestors of the glass bead game. The “pious and conscientious historian”, it says in the quote, is actually forced to present unreal and improbable facts, “which precisely because pious and conscientious people treat them as being things, the being and the possibility of being born be taken one step closer. "

The actual "glass bead game" and its world

Hermann Hesse's last great work takes place in a future world in which he settles the life of his hero Magister Ludi Josef Knecht. The name affix Magister Ludi , a play on words, refers to the essential characteristics of this world , since the Latin word ludus includes both 'school' (a magister ludi is historically a schoolmaster) and 'game' (the title would then mean 'master of the game') means. In the world designed by Hesse, the (male, celibate) scholars form a tightly organized order that lives in the "educational province" of Castalia - the healed, isolated world of a spiritual elite that unfolds in universality and harmony and is an end in itself may experience. The order sees its tasks in the education system (which in turn serves it for its own reproduction) and in the perfection of the sciences and arts and in particular the synthesis of both areas, the glass bead game.

It is an attempt at an artful, aesthetically pleasing union of all sciences, an attempt at a universal language, an overarching connection of all subject areas into a larger whole. The exact rules of this game are only hinted at and are meant to be so complicated that they are not easy to illustrate. The game has already taken on a quasi-spiritual character; The aim seems to be to create deep connections between apparently unrelated subject areas and to show theoretical similarities between the arts and sciences. For example, a Bach concert is linked to a mathematical formula . The audience success for a "good game" is achieved through both musical class and mathematical elegance.

The glass bead game got its name from the game pieces originally used, perhaps similar to those of an abacus or the game of go . (Originally Hesse wanted to use cards as toys for his game; it was only later that he decided on “glass beads”). At the time of the novel, however, these have become superfluous and the game was only played with abstract spoken formulas. The concept of the glass bead game seems to be similar to Leibniz's ideas of a universal scientific formal language ( universal language ), which is referred to in the “historical” introduction.

The strict educational civilization in which the glass bead game is located is portrayed there as a new cultural bloom after the previous "columnist epoch" that was more interested in superficial, educated, middle-class entertainment. In her own culture, however, there is a state of culture in which nothing new, exciting or adventurous is discovered or created, but only "played" with what is already there - colloquially, "Glass Bead Game" was therefore an expression of vain and uncreative handling of cultural things that was self-serving Clichés . The emergence of such a cultural state was the concern of many intellectuals in the first half of the 20th century. Thomas Mann designed it in his Doctor Faustus , who in his own judgment shows parallels to the glass bead game .

In addition, the order, which is only devoted to the consideration of the given, isolates itself from the outside world by no longer dealing with practical, especially political, questions.

The plot

It is these contradictions that are decisive for the life of the hero, Josef Knecht. As a boy he was called away from the local Latin school to an elite school in the religious province of Castalia. Significantly changed by the acquaintance with the music master, one of the superiors of the order, he subordinates himself completely to the rules of the order, more and more he adopts the skills that distinguish it - science, music, meditation and finally the glass bead game - which is always increasing higher in the hierarchy until he finally holds one of the highest offices, that of the master glass bead master ( magister ludi ).

From the beginning, however, he is also shaped by the insights into the outside world. Even when he was still at school, one of his main driving forces was his hot discussions with classmate Plinio Designori, who strives for a life outside the order and sharply attacks the worldly life. An essential step on the career ladder is still Knecht's mission to a Catholic monastery. This is also a piece of the outside world that he gets to know, especially since a priest instructs him in the science of history, which as a profoundly “secular” subject that has no place in the Castalian canon.

Over the years of his activity as Magister Ludi, Knecht has to recognize that due to the global political situation, the existence of Castalia also stands on feet of clay, that its Castalian isolation is not sustainable in the medium term and that the province has to open up to worldly life in order to survive.

With this opinion he is quite alone in the leadership group of the friars, whom he warns. Not understood there and called to order, he leaves the world of scholars to devote himself to the service of a young man, the raw and naughty nature boy Tito Designori, the son of his old adversary Plinio. When Knecht wants to swim with his new student in a mountain lake, he dies in the ice-cold water.

In the final scene of the novel, Tito "offers his pious soul to the sun and the gods in a dance". The life and death of his as yet unknown master, as the ending suggests, have changed his striving for a long time; how this will be expressed remains open.

Book editions

According to his own statements, Hesse began work on his magnum opus at the end of 1930 . He completed this on April 29, 1942, but in February 1943 he revised another chapter. There are four versions of the introduction alone: ​​the last was preprinted in the Neue Rundschau in December 1934 , the previous three were published for the first time in 1977. The first edition appeared in Zurich on November 18, 1943 after Peter Suhrkamp had received a definitive printing ban for S. Fischer Verlag from the German Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in the summer of 1942 . The planned book title was still in the spring of 1943 when the contract was signed with the Swiss publisher Der Glasperlenspielmeister . After Hesse was awarded the Nobel Prize , Suhrkamp was allowed to publish the work under license in Germany in December 1946, but in contrast to the Zurich edition, it was set in Fraktur . In 1951 Suhrkamp Verlag published a first one-volume edition as part of Hesse's collected works, set in a Garamond . The first paperback edition appeared in 1972.

• The Glass Bead Game. Attempt to describe the life of Magister Ludi Josef Knecht and the writings left by Knecht . Published by Hermann Hesse. 2 volumes. Fretz & Wasmuth, Zurich 1943.
• The Glass Bead Game. [...]. Suhrkamp, ​​Berlin 1951.
• The Glass Bead Game. [...]. Heiner Hesse, Küsnacht 1971.
• The Glass Bead Game. [...]. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1972 (= Suhrkamp Taschenbuch. Volume 79), ISBN 3-518-36579-7 .
• The Glass Bead Game.[…]. Construction-Verlag, Berlin / Weimar 1987, ISBN 3-351-00433-8 (two-volume paperback edition)
• The Glass Bead Game: An attempt at a generally understandable introduction to its history, description of the life of Magister Ludi Josef Knecht, Josef Knecht's writings. (= Suhrkamp Taschenbuch. Volume 2572). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-518-39072-4 .
• The Glass Bead Game. [...]. (= Hermann Hesse: Complete Works. Volume 5). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2001, ISBN 3-518-41105-5 .

literature

• Maurice Blanchot : The Game of Games. In: Maurice Blanchot: The song of the sirens . Hanser, Munich 1962, DNB 450489426 . (again: Ullstein, Frankfurt 1982, ISBN 3-548-35139-5 ; again: Fischer TB, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-596-27402-8 , pp. 238-251)
• Elke-Maria Clauss (Ed.): Explanations and documents on Hermann Hesse: "Das Glasperlenspiel". (= Reclams Universal Library . 16056). Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-15-016056-5 .
• Jens Göken: Hermann Hesse's Glasperlenspiel - A Platonic Legacy in the 20th Century. edition immanente, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-942754-18-7 .
• Maria-Felicitas Herforth: Hermann Hesse: The glass bead game . (= King's explanations and materials . 316). corr. Edition. C. Bange Verlag , Hollfeld 2003, ISBN 3-8044-1700-0 .
• Dirk Jürgens: The crisis of bourgeois subjectivity in the novel of the thirties and forties. Shown using the example of Hermann Hesse's "Glass Bead Game" . Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-631-52092-1 .
• Volker Michels (ed.): Materials for Hermann Hesse's "Das Glasperlenspiel".
  • Volume 1: Texts by Hesse. (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch. 80). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1973, ISBN 3-518-36580-0 .
  • Volume 2: Texts about the glass bead game. (= Suhrkamp-Taschenbuch. 108). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1974, ISBN 3-518-06608-0 .
• Volker Michels (Ed.): On the nature and origin of the "glass bead game". The four versions of the introduction to the “Glass Bead Game” . (= Suhrkamp pocket books. 382). Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1977, ISBN 3-518-06882-2 .

Web links

• Ivor Joseph Dvorecky: Hermann Hesse's "Glass Bead Game". signaturen-magazin.de