HERMANN HESSE AND THE DIALECTICS OF TIME Salvatore C. P. ...

Furthermore, the erotic element of his previous works dies away, doubtless since the
pinnacle of his sexual maturity is behind him. Plinio, Knecht's sensuous counterpart
in Das Glasperlenspiel, is foreign to the spiritual climate of Castalia ('einer »von
draufien«'; SW 5, 81) and vigorously condemns the 'resignierte Unfruchtbarkeit' (SW
5, 84) of lofty Castalian musicology: 'Wir analysieren zum Beispiel, sagt er [Plinio],
die Gesetze und Techniken aller Stilarten und Zeiten der Musik und bringen selber
keine neue Musik hervor' (SW 5, 84). 18
Commentators often underline the 'geistig[e] Sterilitat' (Karalaschwili, 92) of
the 'pedagogical province' of Castalia. 19 Freedman points out: 'if the figure of the
sensualist Goldmund harks back to Hesse's previous work, the figure of Narcissus
dominates the last two important books of the fourth life: Leo and the Magister Ludi,
Joseph Knecht' (1979, 335). Rose goes further and claims:
Castalia's world is strangely emasculated and for long stretches we move in a
rarefied atmosphere. The story deals with intellectual abstractions and esoteric
ritualisms that have lost their meaning, and the style often becomes
unavoidably allegorical. (136-37)
In this last period of his artistic activity, Hesse no longer lingers on 'the
concrete images of the world' (Rose, 128), and his style becomes more 'rarefied'. His
two final novels no longer exploit the vital and expressive possibilities inherent in the
continual clash of the ideal and reality: 'for it is on the level of conflicts with reality
that novelistic action can take place' (Ziolkowski 1965, 58). Indeed, Hesse's prose is
now far from expressing the dialectical opposition of themes of the sonata form, nor
17 'Quitting his hermitage', Mileck notes, 'he [Hesse] remarried, and in a more philosophical spirit allowed the
third and last phase of his life to run its more even course. [...J A corresponding change took place in Hesse's art.
His prose reflects the slower and more orderly tempo of his life. [...] Emotions are subdued, and thought yields
to contemplation' (1961, 174).
18 Plinio previously referred to his fellow seminarians as 'kastrierte Herde' (SW 5, 84).
19 Bishop notes that 'there are virtually no female figures' (216) in Das Glasperlenspiel, a fact that did not pass
unnoticed to readers and that Hesse found difficult to explain, providing only a humorous answer in 'Warum
kommen im »Glasperlenspiel« keine Frauen vor?', where he attributes the lack of female characters to his old
age: 'Der Autor des Glasperlenspiels war [...] ein schon alter Mann. Je alter ein Autor wird, desto mehr hat er das
Bediirfnis, [...] nur von Dingen zu sprechen, die er wirklich kennt. Die Frauen aber sind ein Stuck Leben, das
dem Alternden und Alten, auch wenn er sie friiher reichlich gekannt hat, wieder fernrUckt und geheimnisvoll
wird, worliber etwas Wirkliches zu wissen, er sich nicht anmaBt und traut' ('Zu »Das Glasperlenspiel« (1943)',
SW 12, 232). Boulby also highlights that 'the descriptions of nature in The Glass Bead Game are rare' (309).
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