Treacherous Bonds and Laughing Fire: Politics and Religion in Wagner's RingMark Berry explores the political and religious ideas expounded in Wagner's Ring through close attention to the text and drama, the multifarious intellectual influences upon the composer during the work's lengthy gestation and composition, and the wealth of Wagner source material. Many of his writings are explicitly political in their concerns, for Wagner was emphatically not a revolutionary solely for the sake of art. Yet it would be misleading to see even the most 'political' tracts as somehow divorced from the aesthetic realm; Wagner's radical challenge to liberal-democratic politics makes no such distinction. This book considers Wagner's treatment of various worlds: nature, politics, economics, and metaphysics, in order to explain just how radical that challenge is. Classical interpretations have tended to opt either for an 'optimistic' view of the Ring, centred upon the influence of Young Hegelian thought - in particular the philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach - and Wagner's concomitant revolutionary politics, or for the 'pessimistic' option, removing the disillusioned Wagner-in-Swiss-exile from the political sphere and stressing the undoubtedly important role of Arthur Schopenhauer. Such an 'either-or' approach seriously misrepresents not only Wagner's compositional method but also his intellectual method. It also sidelines inconvenient aspects of the dramas that fail to 'fit' whichever interpretation is selected. Wagner's tendency is not progressively to recant previous 'errors' in his oeuvre. Radical ideas are not completely replaced by a Schopenhauerian world-view, however loudly the composer might come to trumpet his apparent 'conversion'. Nor is Wagner's truly an Hegelian method, although Hegelian dialectic plays an important role. In fact, Wagner is in many ways not really a systematic thinker at all (which is not to portray him as self-consciously unsystematic in a Nietzschean, let alone 'post-modernist' fashion). |
Contents
1 | |
1 The intellectual and biographical background | 17 |
2 Musical drama | 43 |
3 The natural world and its despoliation | 57 |
4 Property capital and production | 79 |
5 Law government and the state | 111 |
6 The strength and weakness of religion | 145 |
Other editions - View all
Treacherous Bonds and Laughing Fire: Politics and Religion in Wagner's Ring Mark Berry Limited preview - 2017 |
Treacherous Bonds and Laughing Fire: Politics and Religion in Wagner's Ring Mark Berry Limited preview - 2006 |
Treacherous Bonds and Laughing Fire: Politics and Religion in Wagner's Ring Mark Berry No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
æsthetic Alberich artistic Bakunin Bauer Bayreuth become Beethoven Berlin Boulez bourgeois Brünnhilde Brünnhilde's Cambridge claim consciousness contrast crucial Dahlhaus Das Liebesverbot Das Rheingold death deed dialectic Die Walküre divine Engels eternal existence Fafner Feuerbach Feuerbachian Fourier Freia Fricka G.F.W. Hegel German Gibichungs gods gold Götterdämmerung Hagen Hegel Heine hero Herwegh Hess human Ibid idea immortality labour Letter Loge Loge's London Ludwig Feuerbach Marcuse Marx Mime motif Example myth Nature never Nibelheim Nibelungs opera Philosophie der Geschichte political Proudhon realise recognise redemption rejection religion remains renunciation representation revolution revolutionary Rheingold Rhine Rhinegold Rhinemaidens Richard Wagner Ring ring's Röckel Romantic Ruge Sämtliche Werke Schiller Schopenhauer Schopenhauer's Schopenhauerian search of Wagner Siegfried Siegfried's Sieglinde Siegmund social society spear Stepelevich Stirner T.W. Adorno Tannhäuser Tarnhelm tonality tragedy transformation Valhalla Volsung Wagner's music Walküre Wapnewski whilst words Wotan writes Young Hegelians