1,685 words
English original here
Translated by Lawrence
Ele era um homenzinho pequenino, com uma cabeça grande demais para seu corpo — um homenzinho adoentado. Ele sofria dos nervos. Ele tinha problemas de pele. Para ele, era uma agonia ter que usar qualquer coisa próximo à pele que fosse mais áspera do que a seda. E ele tinha ilusões de grandeza. (more…)
2,275 words
Part 8 of 8
Gelassenheit
We can say that the plot of the Ring is simply this: Western man, in the person of Wotan, finally awakens to the destructiveness of his thumotic nature, and wills his own end. (See my review of Duchesne’s Uniqueness of Western Civilization for a discussion of how Western man is preeminently thumotic man.) (more…)
3,645 words
Part 7 of 8
Siegfried
If Wotan is the main character of the Ring, Siegfried is its hero. However, in dealing with the character of Siegfried we do not depart from our discussion of Wotan at all. This is because Siegfried, like many of the other characters in the Ring, is a kind of hypostatization of an aspect of Wotan himself. (more…)
2,707 words
Part 6 of 8
Das Rheingold
When the events of Das Rheingold begin, the Wotan-Loge relationship is already well-established, and the primeval crimes described earlier are long past. However, the opera begins with yet another crime against nature: Alberich’s theft of the Rhinegold. (more…)
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Part 5 of 8
The story of the Ring involves four ages, similar to those taught in Tradition.
The Age of Titans is the period represented by figures somehow more primordial than the gods: Erda, the Norns, and possibly the Rhine daughters. Events in this age are not depicted in the Ring; they are merely referred to (primarily in Götterdämmerung).
2,783 words
Part 4 of 8
Wotan and the Faustian West
As noted in the Introduction to this essay, at the time of the Ring’s conception Wagner was an anarchist revolutionary. Major influences on his thinking included Bakunin, Feuerbach, Hegel, and possibly Marx (though of these only Bakunin was an anarchist). (more…)
3,473 words
Part 3 of 8
Wagner’s Use of Sources for the Ring
As a brief summary of how Wagner makes use of the major sources discussed in section three above, I don’t think one could do any better than this paragraph from an article by Elizabeth Magee:
Looking back, we can see how the Eddas supplied most of Das Rheingold, (more…)
3,462 words
Part 2 of 8
The Story of Der Ring des Nibelungen
For the uninitiated, I will now tell the story of the Ring, confining myself to essentials. Even the initiated would do well to read this summary, just to re-familiarize themselves with the story, as the account of Wagner’s use of the source material to follow will presuppose that one is well-acquainted with the events of all four operas. (more…)
5,716 words
Part 1 of 8
1. Introduction
Richard Wagner is the man principally responsible for keeping the Germanic mythological tradition alive in the modern world. Countless individuals have been exposed to that tradition through Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, and it is safe to say that at any given moment somewhere in the world some portion of the Ring is being played or performed. (more…)
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In 1878 Nietzsche sent a copy of his book Human, All Too Human to Richard Wagner. At the same time Wagner sent Nietzsche a copy of the verse for his opera Parsifal. Nietzsche was later to write that when received this text, “I felt as if I heard an ominous sound – as if two swords had crossed.”[1] (more…)
2,373 words
Part 2 of 3
III.
Given the concept of “tendency,” it is easy to see an intimate relation between the work of Wagner and of Nietzsche. (more…)
