More Than A Metaphor

Abstract

More than half a century has passed since the publication in English of The Glass Bead Game. Composed over a period of more than a decade, Das Glasperlenspiel was first published in 1943. The book has been available in English translation (initially under the title Magister Ludi) since 1949. Thomas Mann, Hesse’s countryman, fellow Nobel laureate and friend, has described The Glass Bead Game as Hesse’s ‘great novel of education’ (Mann, 1999, p. x). It is not difficult to see why Mann might have regarded the novel in this light, for questions about teaching, learning, knowledge, and intellectual life are central to the book.