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Hegel, Feuerbach, and Wagner's Ring

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

George G. Windell
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Extract

A few months ago the musical world observed the centennial of the first complete performance of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, which took place in the then barely completed Bayreuth Festspielhaus, August 13–17, 1876. Few works of art have had so long a gestation period; more than a quarter century separates Wagner's original sketches, which date from the fall of 1848, and the realization of the tetrology on the stage. The dramatic structure of the enormous music-drama became definitive by February 1853, when Wagner allowed to be printed privately the texts of the four operas. The music for Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and the first two acts of Siegfried was complete by the end of July 1857. There followed, however, an interval of almost twelve years before Wagner again took up work on the Ring in March 1869. He composed the music for the final act of Siegfried and for all of Gütterdämmerung between then and November 1874.

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Articles
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Central European History , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , March 1976 , pp. 27 - 57
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Copyright © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association 1976

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References

1. Newman, Ernest, The Life of Richard Wagner, 4 vols. (New York, 1933–1946), 2: 28–30, 363–74. 395–95, 512–13; 4: 282–83.Google Scholar

2. Mann, Thomas, “Richard Wagner und der ‘Ring des Nibelungen,’“ in Gesammelte Werke in zwölf Bänden (Frankfurt am Main, 1960), 9: 510.Google Scholar

3. Adorno, T. W., Versuch über Wagner (Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, 1952), pp. 169, 171.Google Scholar

4. It has been said that no modern figure has stimulated a literature so large as that on Wagner except Napoleon. The two indispensable recent studies of the composer are Newman, Life, and Adorno, both cited above. Newman, by profession a music critic, not a historian, accomplished a task of historical research which the professional historian can view only with unqualified admiration. Because of his work we know with a high degree of accuracy what happened in Wagner's life, if not always why. Adorno is the first to have attempted a true synthesis of Wagner's life, politics, literary and musical achievements. Also useful is Gutman, Robert W., Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind and His Music (New York, 1968).Google Scholar The work is based largely on Newman, and attempts, with indifferent success, to explain Wagner's life and work in terms of psychoanalytic criteria. Other works, new and old, relevant to this study are: Barzun, Jacques, Darwin, Marx, Wagner, 2d rev. ed. (Garden City, N.Y., 1958);Google ScholarBoucher, Maurice, Les Idées politiques de Richard Wagner: Exemple de Nationalisme mythique (Paris, 1948);Google ScholarChamberlain, Houston Stewart, Richard Wagner, 4th ed. (Munich, 1907);Google ScholarDinger, Hugo, Richard Wagners geistige Entwicklung: Versuch einer Darstellung der Weltanschauung Richard Wagners, mit Rücksichtnahme auf deren Verhältnis zu den philosophischen Richtungen der Junghegelianer und Arthur Schopenhauer (Leipzig, 1892);Google ScholarDrews, Arthur, Der Ideengehalt von Richard Wagners dramatischen Dichtungen in Zusammenhang mit seinem Leben und seiner Weltanschauung, nebst einem Anhang: Nietzsche und Wagner, (Leipzig, 1931);Google ScholarEllis, William Ash ton, Life of Richard Wagner, 6 vols. (London, 1900–1908);Google ScholarFries, Othmar, Richard Wagner und die deutsche Romantik: Versuch einer Einordnung (Zurich, 1952);Google ScholarGlasenapp, Carl Friedrich, Das Leben Richard Wagners, 6 vols. (3d ed., Leipzig, 1896);Google ScholarLichtenberger, Henri, Richard Wagner, Poète et Penseur (2d ed., Paris, 1898);Google ScholarLoos, Paul A., Richard Wagner: Vollendung und Tragik der deutschen Romantik (Munich, 1952);Google ScholarLouis, Rudolf, Die Weltanschauung Richard Wagners (Leipzig, 1898);Google ScholarLove, Frederick C., Young Nietzsche and the Wagnerian Experience, University of North Carolina Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures, no. 39 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1963);Google ScholarStein, Jack M., Richard Wagner and the Synthesis of the Arts (Detroit, 1960);Google ScholarMann, Thomas, “Leiden und Grösse Richard Wagners,” Gesammelte Werke, 9: 363–426;Google ScholarMayer, Hans, “Richard Wagners geistige Entwicklung,” in Hans Mayer, Studien zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte, Neue Beiträge zur Literaturwissenschaft, ed. Krauss, Werner and Mayer, Hans, vol. 2 (2d ed., Berlin, 1955) pp. 171–212;Google ScholarSchorske, Carl E., “The Quest for the Grail: Wagner and Morris,” in The Critical Spirit: Essays in Honor of Herbert Marcuse, ed. Wolff, Kurt H. and Moore, Barrington Jr., (Boston, 1967) pp. 216–32;Google Scholarvon Westernhagen, Curt, Wagner (Zurich, 1968).Google Scholar

5. Westernhagen, Wagner, p. 373; Gutman, pp. 353–54.

6. Westernhagen, Wagner, pp. 190–92; Gutman, p. 159; Wagner, Richard, Mein Leben, ed. Gregor-Dellin, Martin, 2 vols. (Munich, 1969), 2: 521.Google Scholar This critical edition is much to be preferred over the somewhat carelessly edited version which has long been standard 2 vols., (Munich, 1911), although the differences are fewer and less consequential than one might have expected. The authorized anonymous translation, My Life, 2 vols. (London, 1911), is undependable.Google Scholar

7. Wagner, , Mein Leben, 2: 523.Google Scholar

8. See Brazill, William J., The Young Hegelians (New Haven and London, 1970), pp. 111–14;Google ScholarKamenka, Eugene, The Philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach (New York, 1970), pp. 15–16;Google Scholar and Arvon, Henri, Ludwig Feuerbach, ou la Transformation du Sacré (Paris, 1957).Google Scholar

9. Wagner, Richard, Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen in zehn Bänden, ed. Golther, Wolfgang (Berlin, 1913), 10: Anmerkungen, p. 44.Google ScholarRawidowicz, Simon, Ludwig Feuerbachs Philosophie: Ursprung und Schicksal (2d ed., Berlin, 1964), p. 392, suggests that Wagner's title, Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft, was intended as a deliberate reference to Feuerbach's Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft, published in Zurich in 1843.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. Wagner, , Mein Leben, 1: 442.Google Scholar

11. Feuerbach, Ludwig, Das Wesen des Christenthums, in Sämtliche Werke, ed. Bohn, Wilhelm and Jodl, Friedrich (2d ed., Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1960), 16: 24.Google Scholar See also Wagner, to Heine, Ferdinand, Zurich, Nov. 19, 1849, Burk, John N., ed., Letters of Richard Wagner: The Burrell Collection (New York, 1950), pp. 270–72.Google Scholar

12. Glasenapp, 2: 348.

13. Chamberlain, p.189. Chamberlain, however, seems earlier to have regarded Feuerbach as considerably more important to Wagner's thought. In a letter dated March 26, 1899, addressed to him, Cosima Wagner sharply criticized a lecture he had given in Vienna entitled “Richard Wagner's Philosophy.” She chided him for having drawn false conclusions, as, “for example, when you decide from a letter that possibly shows Feuerbachian terminology that Feuerbach up to the year 1854 dominated the mind [of Richard Wagner], which is not the case.” Pretzsch, Paul, ed., Cosima Wagner und Houston Stewart Chamberlain im Briefwechsel, 1888–1908 (Leipzig, 1934), pp. 559–60.Google Scholar

14. Lichtenberger, p. 185.

15. Gesammelte Schriften, 3: 3–5; Rawidowicz, p. 404.

16. Dinger, pp. xiii, 22; Louis, pp. 64–78.

17. Louis, p. 69.

18. Dinger, p. 22.

19. Rawidowicz, pp. 388–410; Drews, pp. 82–140; Newman, , Life, 2: 431, n. 8;Google Scholar Gutman, pp. 140, 143, 158: Adorno, passim.

20. Wagner, , Mein Leben, 1: 443–44;Google ScholarNewman, , Life, 3: 517–18; 4: 179, 188–89, 259, 259, n. 16.Google Scholar

21. Newman, , Life, 2: 23–24, 28, 30–31;Google ScholarWagner, , Mein Leben, 1: 442.Google Scholar

22. For a detailed account of the changes during the evolution of the Ring, see Strobel, Otto, Richard Wagner, Skizzen und Entwürfe zur Ring-Dichtung, mit der Dichtung, Der Junge Siegfried (Munich, 1930), pp. 25–69;Google ScholarNewman, Ernest, The Wagner Operas (New York, 1949), pp. 393–450, and his Life, 2: 23–24, 28, 241, 325–62. Newman's accounts are based on Strobel.Google Scholar

23. Wagner, , Mein Leben, 1: 420, 442.Google Scholar In the 1911 edition of Mem Leben the name appears initially as “Menzdorff,” later as “Metzdorf.”

24. Ibid., p. 420.

25. Ibid., p. 442.

26. Letter quoted by Chamberlain, p. 188.

27. von Westernhagen, Curt, Richard Wagners Dresdener Bibliothek, 1842–1849: Neue Dokumente zur Geschichte seines Schaffens (Wiesbaden, 1966).Google Scholar In 1846 Wagner put up the library as collateral for a loan of five hundred Thaler from Heinrich Brockhaus, a partner in the well-known publishing firm F. A. Brockhaus. Two of Wagner's sisters were married to brothers of Heinrich Brockhaus. Heinrich acquired the library when Wagner fled Saxony and declined to return it except upon repayment of the loan with accumulated interest. This Wagner for a long time could or would not make. In 1873 the matter was amicably settled, since the composer had long since lost interest in the collection. It survived the destruction of the company's Leipzig headquarters during the Second World War. See Westernhagen, pp. 75–82, and an undated draft in Wagner's handwriting for a letter of Minna Wagner to Heinrich Brockhaus, Burrell Collection, Appendix A, no. 185, pp. 484–85.

28. Westernhagen, Dresdener Bibliothek, pp. 12–16, 52, 84–113. On p. 52 Westernhagen states flatly that this fact conclusively refutes the contention of those who have detected the influence of Feuerbach on Wagner's sketch for his never completed drama, Jesus von Nazareth, written early in 1849. Westernhagen presumably refers to Henri Lichtenberger, pp. 182–84, and Simon Rawidowicz. The latter, p. 399, n. 1, described Jesus von Nazareth as “possibly the first Wagnerian work influenced by Feuerbach.”

29. Westernhagen, Dresdener Bibliothek, pp. 84–113; Kamenka, pp. 178–79. Wigand, a political radical, published several of Wagner's essays, including the important Art Work of the Future. See Wagner, , Mein Leben, 1: 438, 455Google Scholar, and Newman, , Life, 2: 121–22.Google Scholar

30. Feuerbach, Wesen des Christenthums, Sämtliche Werke, 16: 17.

31. Siegfrieds Tod, Act III, scene 4, Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 228.

32. Götterdämmerung, complete vocal score… by Klindworth, Karl (New York, 1904), Act III, scene 3, pp. 329–31;Google Scholar Newman, Life, 2: 28.

33. Wagner to Theodor Uhlig, Albisbrunn, Nov. 12, 1851, Richard Wagners Briefe an Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, Ferdinand Heine in Richard Wagners Briefe in Originalausgaben, erste Folge (Leipzig, 1912), 4: 119–20;Google ScholarWagner, to Liszt, Franz, Albisbrunn, Nov. 20, 1851, Briefwechsel zwischen Wagner und Liszt, 3d ed. in Wagners Briefe, zweite Folge, 9: 138–39;Google Scholar Newman, Wagner Operas, pp. 436–37.

34. Feuerbach, , Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft, Sämtliche Werke, 2 (1959): 296.Google Scholar

35. Das Rheingold, complete vocal score…by Klindworth, Karl (New York, 1904), scene l, pp. 1–51.Google Scholar

36. Wagner to Uhlig, Nov. 3, 1851, Wagners Briefe, 4: 117; Wagner to Uhlig, Albisbrunn, Nov. 12, 1851, ibid., pp. 118–20; Wagner to Liszt, Nov. 20, 1851, ibid., 9: 136–40; Wagner, , Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde, Gesammelte Schriften, 4: 341–44.Google Scholar

37. One other significant addition to the plot, the theme of the young Siegfried's inability to experience fear, Wagner took, possibly unconsciously, from an old folktale. See Wagner, to Uhlig, May 10, 1851, Wagners Briefe, 4: 91;Google Scholar Newman, Wagner Operas, p. 428.

38. See Young, Jean I., ed. and trans., The Prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson: Tales from Norse Mythology (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966), pp. 86–92,Google Scholar and “Völuspá, the Prophecy of the Seeress,” stanzas 45–65, in Hollander, Lee M., ed. and trans., The Poetic Edda, (2d rev. ed., Austin, Texas, 1962), pp. 9–13. In Völusá the gods are reborn after RagnarökGoogle Scholar

Völuspá, stanza 63, The Poetic Edda, p. 12. Wagner's original ending for Siegfried's Death may reflect this idyllic picture.

39. See Newman, Wagner Operas, pp. 19–20, 43, 49, 83, n. 1, 94–95.

40. “Deutscher Kunst und deutsche Politik,” Gesammelte Schriften, 8: 45.Google Scholar Cf. Wagner to August Röckel, Zurich, Feb. 5, 1855: “Schopenhauer's philosophy…completely demolishes the Fichte-Schelling-Hegel nonsense and charlatanism.” Wagner an August Röckel in Wagners Briefe, zweite Folge, 11: 51, and Wagner to Liszt, Zurich, Dec. 16 (?), 1854: “What charlatans are all the Hegels beside him [Schopenhauer]!” Ibid., 9: 42.

41. This is almost certainly the reason he found the adulation of the young Nietzsche so flattering; an authentic university professor had sought him out and asked his advice.

42. Westernhagen, Dresdener Bibliothek, pp. 51, 93.

43. Wagner, , Mein Leben, 1: 29.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., pp. 29–30.

45. Ibid., p. 62.

46. Ibid., pp. 62, 442.

47. Ibid., pp. 181–82, 220–21; Newman, , Life, 1: 271–72.Google Scholar

48. Pecht, Friedrich, Aus meiner Zeit, 1: 294, quoted by Glasenapp, 2: 349.Google Scholar

49. Probably by Lehrs.

50. Mein Leben, 1: 442.

51. Ibid., pp. 398–402; Newman, , Life, 2: 50–51;Google ScholarCarr, E. H., Michael Bakunin (2d ed., New York, 1961), pp. 135–37, 153–55, 195–96.Google Scholar

52. Newman, , Life, 2: 50–51;Google Scholar Westernhagen, Dresdener Bibliothek, p. 53. The conjecture of Robert Craft in “Parsifal, the Worship of Wagnerism,” New York Review of Books, Oct. 31, 1974, p. 12, n. 4, that “it is unlikely that the composer had not read Marx…” is supported by no documentary evidence. Wagner ignores Marx in his own writing, and is more likely to have read Proudhon, to whom he refers frequently. See Mayer, , “Wagners geistige Entwicklung,” Studien zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte. pp. 186, 198.Google Scholar

53. Weber, Rolf, Die Revolution in Sachsen, 1848/49: Entwicklung und Analyse ihrer Triebkräfte ([East] Berlin, 1970), p. 261;Google Scholar Carr, pp. 204–8.

54. P. 84. The French Wagnerian scholar Edouard Rod also noted in 1885 that “Wagner's aesthetic, very self-conscious and very deliberate, is the logical result of the German aesthetic, notably of that of Lessing, of Herder,…of Goethe and Schiller, and, above all, of Hegel in the chapter of his Aesthetics where he treats ‘the relationship of the means of musical expression with the subject dealt with.’ “ Revue Contemporaine, July 25, 1885, quoted by Léon Guichard, La Musique an Temps du Wagnerisme (Paris, 1963), pp. 63–64.Google Scholar

55. Adorno, p. 166.

56. Cf. “There was a German Wagner criticism only once: with Nietzsche. The rest is nonsense.” Thomas Mann to André Gide, Munich, 01 21, 1922. Mann, Erika, ed., Thomas Mann Briefe, 1889–1936 (Frankfurt am Main, 1961), p. 195.Google Scholar

57. Der Fall Wagner in Schlechta, Karl, ed., Friedrich Nietzsche: Werke in drei Bänden (Munich, 1954–1956), 2: 924.Google Scholar See also Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft, where Nietzsche wrote: “Until the middle of his life Richard Wagner let himself be led astray by Hegel.” Ibid., p. 105, and Nietzsche to Georg Brandes, Nice, Feb. 19, 1888: “…all Wagnerians are followers of Schopenhauer. This was different when I was young. Then it was the last Hegelians who held on to Wagner, and ‘Wagner and Hegel’ was still the watchword of the fifties.” Ibid., 3: 1279.

58. Recent useful works on Hegel include: Avineri, Schlomo, Hegel's Theory of the Modern State (London, 1972);CrossRefGoogle ScholarFindlay, J. N., Hegel: A Re-Examination (London, 1958);Google ScholarSoil, Ivan, An Introduction to Hegel's Metaphysics (Chicago and London, 1969);Google ScholarPlant, Raymond, Hegel (Bloomington, Ind., 1973);Google Scholar and Kaufmann, Walter A., Hegel, A Reinterpretation (Garden City, N.Y., 1966).Google Scholar

59. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Die Phänomenologie des Geistes (6th ed., ed. Hoffmeister, Johannes), in Sämtliche Werke: Neue kritische Ausgabe (Hamburg, 1952), 5: 10.Google Scholar Anyone must pale at the prospect of attempting to render even short passages from Hegel in English. In the translations used here the author has sought to remain as close as possible to the structure of the original as well as to convey the meaning, since so much of Wagner's prose of the period reflects that structure.

60. Die Vemunft in der Geschichte [Introduction to Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte] (5th ed., ed. Hoffmeister, Johannes), in Sämtliche Werke, 18a, Teilband 1: 50–110.Google Scholar

61. Ibid., p.50.

62. Ibid., pp. 63–78.

63. Ibid., pp. 78–79.

64. Ibid., pp. 85, 87.

65. Ibid., p. 88.

66. Ibid., pp. 99–100.

67. Ibid., p. 97.

68. Ibid., p. 105. Cf. “The Ring agrees in one specific theme with the Hegelian philosophy of history. That is the cunning of reason.” Adorno, p. 166.

69. See Gutman, pp. 130, 135; Westernhagen, Wagner, p. 132, and Newman, , Life, 2:11.Google Scholar The address was published in a special supplement of the Dresdener Anzeiger on June 16, the following day, under the title “Wie verhalten sich republikanische Bestrebungen dem Königtum gegenüber?” It appears in Wagner, , Gesammelte Schriften, 1: 108–17.Google Scholar

70. “Wie verhalten sich … ?” Gesammelte Schriften, 1: 116.

71. Ibid., 2: 115–55. See also, Newman, , Life, 2: 18.Google Scholar

72. It is always possible that one finds what he is looking for because he is looking, not because it is there. It is nonetheless difficult to imagine anyone having written the following passage without having been familiar with the introduction to Hegel's Vorlesungen: “In Charlemagne the oft cited primeval myth reached its most real actualization in a harmonically interconnected splendid set of historical relationships. From then on the growth of its essentially ideal substance would increase exactly to the degree to which its embodiment as reality dissolved and evaporated, up to the point that after complete alienation of the real, pure idea enters into history, [but] finally withdraws from it in order, in accord with external circumstances, to become again completely absorbed in the saga.” Die Wibelungen, Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 142.

73. It was generally held, even then, that the term was a corruption of the name of the town Waiblingen, the Hohenstaufen family seat in Württemberg.

74. Die Wibelungen, Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 128–30.

75. Ibid., pp. 119–24.

76. Ibid., pp. 130–55.

77. Ibid., p. 132.

78. Wagner, , Mein Leben, 1: 389–90; Gutman, pp. 120–21.Google Scholar

79. Die Wibelungen, Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 115–55, esp. 119, 144–50.

80. Newman, , Life, 2: 28;Google Scholar text, Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 155–66.

81. Nibelungen-Mythus, Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 158.

82. Die Walküre, complete vocal score … by Klindworth, Karl (New York, 1904), Act II, scene 2, pp. 120–22.Google Scholar

83. Nibelungen-Mythus, Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 165–66.

84. Siegfrieds Tod, Act III, scene 3, Gesammelte Schriften, 2: 227.

85. Ibid.

86. Götterdämmerung, Act III, scene 3, pp. 329–31.

87. Nowhere, however, does Hegel specifically exclude the possibility that a world historical figure might be female. He does distinguish between the natures of men and women in a fashion which clearly regards the male as primary and probably superior. “In relation to externality the former [man] is powerful and active, the latter [woman] passive and subjective.” See Hegel, , Grundlinien der Philosophic des Rechts (4th ed., ed. Hoffmeister, Johannes), in Sämtliche Werke, 12: Par. 166, pp. 154–55.Google Scholar Marx and Engels were interested in women only as proletarians, as exploited members of an exploited class. See, e.g., “Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts,” in Karl Marx: Early Writings, trans, and ed. Bottomore, T. B. (New York, 1963), pp. 151–55.Google ScholarCf. Freud to Bernays, Martha, Vienna, Nov. 15, 1883. “… legislation and custom have to grant to women many rights kept from them, but the position of woman cannot be other than what it is: to be an adored sweetheart in youth, and a beloved wife in maturity.” Letters of Sigmund Freud, ed. Freud, Ernst L. (New York, 1960), p. 76.Google Scholar

88. Senta in the Fliegende Holländer dreams only of saving the tormented captain by proving loyal unto death; Elisabeth saves Tannhäuser from the arms of Venus—by dying at the appropriate moment! In Lohengrin Elsa has a vision of a pure knight who will defend her. Of these early heroines Elsa alone proves unworthy. Wagner's later female characters are of sterner stuff. In Die Walküre Sieglinde drugs her husband and incites Siegmund to seize for himself Wotan's sword. The Irish princess completely dominates the action of Tristan und Isolde. Tristan, like Siegmund, Siegfried, and even Wotan, is basically passive, more victim than hero. In Parsifal, Kundry is far more forceful than Amfortas or Parsifal. The composer's life does not bear out the myth that he was a “male chauvinist.” (Cf. Craft, Robert, New York Review of Books, Oct. 31, 1974, p. 14.)Google Scholar He seemed to be attracted to women who were what today would be called “liberated.” Among the better known were the famous soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, the novelist Judith Gautier, the first woman to be elected to the Académie Goncourt, and, above all, Cosima. The author is currently studying the question of why Wagner's ideas appealed to such an extraordinary number of self-conscious and self-confident women.

89. Wagner to August Röckel, Zurich, Jan. 25, 1854, Wagners Briefe, 11: 36.

90. Das Rheingold, scene 1, pp. 1–51.

91. Die Walküre, Act III, scene 2, pp. 249–53.

92. Ibid., scene 3, pp. 280–94.

93. Siegfried, complete vocal score … by Klindworth, Karl (New York, 1904), Act I, scene 3, pp. 107–35.Google Scholar

94. Ibid., Act II, scene 2, pp. 188–98; scene 3, pp. 207–38.

95. Götterdämmerung, Act I, scene 3, pp. 100–13.

96. Other occasions occur, for example, in Das Rheingold, when Wotan first acquires the ring from Alberich in scene 4, pp. 172–78, again when he gives the ring to the giants instead of returning it to the Rhinemaidens later in the same scene, pp. 189–90, 196, and once again when he denies the Rhinemaidens’ plea for the return of the gold as the gods cross the rainbow bridge into Valhalla, pp. 216–19.

97. Götterdämmerung, Act III, scene l, pp. 251–62.

98. Das Rheingold, scene 2, p. 69.

99. Die Walküre, Act II, scene 2, p. 111.

100. Ibid., pp. 111–12.

101. Ibid., Act II, scene 3, pp. 265–97.

102. Ibid., pp. 273–74. Italics added.

103. Prose Edda, p. 46. See also Turville-Petre, E. O. B., Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia (New York, 1964), pp. 23–31.Google Scholar

104. Prose Edda, p. 46.

105. Das Rheingold, scene 3, p. 136.

106. Ibid., pp. 141–143.

107. George Bernard Shaw, The Perfect Wagnerite (1898), reprinted in Shaw, , Major Critical Essays (London, 1932), pp. 170–74, 179–81.Google Scholar Although Wagner's anticapitalism resembled that of Marx, it was probably derived, insofar as it did not reflect his own experience, from Proudhon and/or Bakunin. (See Mayer, pp. 185–187, 195–99, and n. 52, above.) It is also probable that the notoriously anti-Semitic Wagner intended Alberich and his brother Mime to serve as caricatures of archtypal Jews. (See Adomo, pp. 23–25; Newman, Life, 2: 346–47; Newman, Wagner Operas, p. 543, n. 1; Strobel, Skizzen und Entwürfe, pp. 99, 138.) The association of Jews with the idea of capitalist exploitation was already deeply ingrained by the mid-nineteenth century in the consciousness of Europe. Cf. Marx in 1844: “Let us not seek the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us seek the secret of the religion in the real Jew. What is the profane basis of Judaism: Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly cult of the Jews? Huckstering. What is his worldly god? Money. Very well: then in emancipating itself from huckstering and money, and thus from real and practical Judaism, our age would emancipate itself.” Marx, “On the Jewish Question,” Early Writings, p. 34. Wagner's chief contribution to modern anti-Semitism (and perhaps to Zionism) is found in the support he later gave and the prestige he lent to defining Judaism in racial rather than in religious terms.

108. Das Rheingold, scene 2, p. 87. In Götterdämmerung, Act II, scene 1, p. 132, Hagen addresses him as schlimmer Alb.

109. See, e.g., Das Rheingold, scene 3, p. 142; Siegfried, Act I, scene 2, pp. 57–58, Act II, scene 1, p. 142.

110. Siegfried, Act I, scene 2, pp. 57–58.

111. Ibid., pp. 61–62.

112. For the Ring the best accessible treatments are in the appropriate sections of Gutman, Newman, Life and Wagner Operas, and in Donington, Robert, Wagner's “Ring” and Its Symbols (New York, 1963).Google Scholar

113. Das Rheingold, scene 1, pp. 1–5; Newman, Wagner Operas, pp. 451–52.

114. Das Rheingold, scene 4, pp. 193–94; Siegfried, Act in, scene 1, pp. 242–43; Götterdämmerung, Prologue, pp. 1, 41–42.

115. Das Rheingold, scene 4, p. 194; Newman, Wagner Operas, p. 487.

116. Das Rheingold, scene 4, p. 194. See also, Siegfried, Act III, prelude, pp. 239–40, and Brünhilde's entry in Götterdämmerung, Act III, scene 3, p. 314.

117. Das Rheingold, scene 1, pp. 41–42; Newman, Wagner Operas, p. 455.

118. Das Rheingold, scene 2, p. 55; Newman, Wagner Operas, p. 457.

119. Das Rheingold, scene 1, pp. 53–54.

120. Ibid., scene 2, p. 55.

121. See Windell, George G., “Hitler, National Socialism, and Richard Wagner,” Journal of Central European Affairs, 22 (01 1963): 479–97,Google Scholar and Schüler, Winfried, Der Bayreuther Kreis von seiner Entstehung bis zum Ausgang der Wilhelminischen Ära: Wagnerkult und Kulturreform im Geiste völkischer Weltanschauung, Neue Münstersche Beiträge zur Geschichtsforschung, vol. 12 (Münster, 1971).Google Scholar

122. See, e.g., Sessa, Anne Dzamba, “An Inner Ring of Superior Persons: The Cult of Wagner in Nineteenth-Century England” (Ph.D. diss., University of Delaware, 1973).Google Scholar

123. Perfect Wagnerite, pp. 235–45.

124. In his perceptive essay “The Quest for the Grail: Wagner and Morris,” Critical Spirit, p. 221, Schorske, Carl E. argues that “Because he saw convention as having in Reason its strongest ally, Wagner became the lifelong enemy of Reason.”Google Scholar The operative word here is “lifelong.” Schorske pushes back to an earlier period some of the attitudes Wagner developed later in his life, and thereby attributes to him a consistency he did not display.

125. Hegel, Vernunft in der Geschichte, pp. 99–100.

126. Wagner, Mein Leben, 1: 443.

127. Mayer, Hans, Studien zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte, pp. 202–4, points out that Wagner wrote three separate versions of the final lines of Brunnhilde's immolation scene, one derived from Feuerbach, one from Schopenhauer, and one which he finally used from Bakunin.Google Scholar He regards Wagner's claim (Gesammelte Schriften, 6: 254–56) that his choice of the last was motivated by purely musical reasons as untrue. It is, however, indubitably the shortest of the three versions.

128. Die Walküre, Act III, scene 1, p. 228; Götterdämmerung, Act III, scene 3, p. 340.

129. Feuerbach, , Wesen des Christenthums, Sämtliche Werke, 6: 59.Google Scholar