Hermann Hesse’s Futuristic Idealism: The Glass Bead Game and its Predecessors

The book explores the role of the future as theme and idea in Hesse’s prose works, mainly the novels, from approximately 1918 on. Especial attention is accorded The Glass Bead Game, in which the future becomes a central component of Hesse’s idealism, with a set of meanings ranging from the conventional to the highly visionary. The Castalian Order depicted here is not only a repository of cultural treasures from the past but also the vital image of a future based on a new orientation and new priorities for mankind.