Parsifal
kevemaher
in its entirety. It is far from traditional, yet it brought together
all my feelings about this complex and confusing work.
I was raised a good Irish Catholic boy in Brooklyn, NY; an altarboy. I
have since strayed. The first act of Parsifal has numerous and
deliberate references to Christianity's myths, particularly the
Catholic ones. The recalling of these and the associations with
beliefs that I no longer find true have kept me at a distance from
completely embracing this one work of Wagner's.
Because of this performance, I'm beginning to understand what this
work means to me. As a Christian, I was told that I am redeemed. Yet I
continually do things that are so not that. What have I done to
deserve redemption? Somebody else saved me despite me, it seems.
At some point in my life and in the future of the human race, it will
be possible to be redeemed. Through ourselves. Through compassion.
Wagner's Parsifal is to me a parable about the future, not the past.
Each of us individually can be redeemed; redeemed by ourselves.
Perhaps in the far future the entire race of mankind will be
redeemed.
This opera has such a wondrous, magical sense of hope.
Derrick Everett
In 'Parsifal' three individuals are redeemed and one community is reborn.
Most obviously, Kundry is redeemed through the compassion of Parsifal.
Her redemption is release(*) from what was -- until the Good Friday when
she meets Parsifal again -- an unending cycle of rebirth, in which she
has been trapped -- as Gurnemanz speculates in Act I -- as a result of
sins she committed in earlier lives. In the Good Friday meadow her
burden of sin is lifted and she enters into Nirvana, while remaining
alive. She then enters the Grail Temple, as the first woman to be
admitted there, and dies there never to be reborn.
Less obviously, Parsifal is changed by his compassion for Kundry; the
last load is lifted from his head and he is then able to progress to "der
Rettung letzter Pfad". As his first act, the newly enlightened Parsifal
baptizes Kundry, who weeps, and her tears transform the meadow so that
Parsifal now sees it as if through different eyes. The transformation of
Parsifal as a result of his compassion for Kundry can be interpreted as
"redemption to the redeemer". She is not -- for all her good works --
redeemed by her own actions although it could be argued that she is
redeemed by faith; however I should caution against a narrowly Christian
interpretation of what happens at her baptism.
Parsifal and Kundry then proceed to the Grail Temple, where Amfortas is
healed and made whole by the Spear that once wounded him. The burden of
kingship is lifted from him as Parsifal takes on the role of priestly
king and leader. Then Parsifal reunites Grail and Spear, something that
has been seen (by J.L.Weston and others) as the restoration of balance in
a community that had been dominated by masculine values to the exclusion
of the feminine. So Parsifal puts right what Titurel had gotten wrong
and the community is able to start over again, on the basis of new values
and under his leadership.
In arriving at the above conclusions I did not rely upon the internal
evidence of 'Parsifal' alone (as some here would prefer) but I was guided
primarily by Wagner's prose draft for 'Die Sieger' (The Victors), in
which Shakyamuni is able to achieve total enlightenment only after he has
recognized the need to admit women (and specifically Prakriti, the
Chandala maiden), to his religious community. The names are different
but, in the final scene of 'Die Sieger' and the Good Friday scene of the
later opera, the internal action is basically the same.
As I have described elsewhere, the entire first act of 'Parsifal' and
parts of its second act are built upon stories about key events in the
life of Shakyamuni, also known as the Buddha. So the religious
references in this opera are not only to the myths of Christianity.
(*) The German word used by Wagner is "Erlösung" which, although it is
often translated as "redemption", does not carry the meaning of "buying
back" that is carried by the English word. A more literal translation of
"Erlösung" would be "release" or "liberation".
--
Derrick Everett
====== Writing from 59°54'N 10°37'E =======
http://www.monsalvat.no/index.htm
http://www.monsalvat.no/wagnerfaq.htm
kjbk Wallin
profound, understanding of 'Parsifal,' and I've been reading his (or
your) contributions to this newsgroup with great interest for a few
months now. However, I'm not sure I quite follow the distinction made
in the previous post between the German word 'Erlösung' and the
customary English translation 'redemption':
> (*) The German word used by Wagner is "Erlösung" which, although it is
> often translated as "redemption", does not carry the meaning of "buying
> back" that is carried by the English word. A more literal translation of
> "Erlösung" would be "release" or "liberation".
Perhaps you are thinking specifically of the noun here; but the verb
'erlösen' certainly does carry the connotation of 'buying,' if not
also 'buying back.' Duden gives as its second definition of the term:
(veraltend) (als Geldbetrag) bei einem Verkauf einnehmen; erzielen: er
hat 2 Mark pro Stück erlöst.
This meaning is still present in the noun 'Erlös' (though not
'Erlösung'):
Erlös, der; -es, -e: beim Verkauf einer Sache od. für eine
Dienstleistung eingenommener Geldbetrag: der E. der Sammlung, aus der
Tombola; sie lebte vom E. ihrer Bilder.
Now, this is clearly not the primary meaning of the verb as it is used
today, or was used in the 19th century ('veraltend' means
obsolescent). But it seems to me that the connotation of exactly the
same type of material transaction as is suggested by 'redeem' or
'redemption' is indeed operative in Wagner. There are perhaps many
levels on which the concept of redemption can be understood in
'Parsifal.' At a very straightforward, literal level, however,
redemption is brought about by the return of the spear--in a sense the
payment of a debt, in a very concrete way. The situation in the
'Ring,' of course, is quite similar: return the ring to the Rhine --
"von des Fluches Last / erlös't wär' Gott und Welt!" Holländer and
Tannhäuser are perhaps two further instances, though here the payment
is rendered in the form of a (sacrificial) deed, rather than as the
delivery of any material object. (And a sacrifice, of course, was how
Christ 'redeemed' humanity, by paying for their sins).
I'm wondering if one could not even suggest that talk of 'Erlösung' is
relatively absent in Tristan for the reason that this work is arguably
the least Christian of all of Wagner's operas. This is speculative,
and perhaps simply wrong; but does Tristan ever say that he is hoping
for 'Erlösung'? At one point in the 3rd Act he laments: "Kein Heil nun
kann, / kein süßer Tod / je mich befrei'n / von der Sehnsucht Noth."
It seems to me that the sort of liberation here asked for from the
inevitable suffering of human desire is indeed better described by
terms like 'Heil' or 'Befreiung' than 'Erlösung.' Or a little later,
as Tristan hallucinates about Isolde's coming in that supremely
beautiful passage: "sie lächelt mir Trost / und süße Ruh'; / sie führt
mir letzte / Labung zu." The whole Christian soteriology of guilt,
punishment and grace is not present here in the same way as it is in
Parsifal, and for that reason -- one could perhaps argue -- Wagner
instinctively avoided the term 'Erlösung'.
Well, my apologies if this makes no sense whatsoever. I realize when
writing this that my thoughts on the subject are far from clear, and
that I may very well be taking this too far (also, the metaphor of the
wound is strongly present in both Tristan and Parsifal, and it clearly
wouldn't do to say that the latter work is Christian, the former not,
or that their thought-content is entirely different). Mainly, I just
wanted to raise the issue of the connotation of the verb 'erlösen,'
which I do feel is best translated by 'redeem,' and not by either
'liberate' or 'release'. I'm wondering if the etymology of the two
terms might be similar, and if they both acquired the (now primary)
meaning of 'salvation' through their usage in a Christian context.
At any rate, I found both of the previous two postings quite
interesting, so thank you for your comments.
Derrick Everett
> Gott und Welt!" ...
Thank you for a most interesting post! You make a good point about the
"buying back" meaning carried by the noun "Erlös"; which my trusty
Langenscheidt defines as follows:
"Er-lös [] m (-es; -e []) proceeds pl.; net profit (s pl.)"
Unlike Duden, no mention of debt here in what is only a short definition
with what I assume is the most usual modern usage. And for "Erlösen":
"Erlö-sen v/t. (h) release, free, rescue; eccl. save, redeem"
The noun "Erlösung" is closely related to "Erlösen" and so indirectly to
"Erlös" -- what you get back when you redeem something, such as a gift
voucher -- can also be related to "Erlösung", in the same way as in
English we find "redeem" and "redemption". Yet I still feel that the
"buying back" meaning if present is weaker in "Erlösung" than it is in
"redemption".
In the example from the 'Ring', I do not see that "buying back" is the
intended meaning: "from the burden of the curse both god and world would
be redeemed"; that is: released, freed or rescued. In a similar way,
Kundry seeks "Erlösung" that will release her from a curse (not to be
confused with the power that Klingsor holds over her, which is enabled by
her curse; that power is destroyed when Parsifal destroys the illusion of
Klingsor's power).
It should be fairly obvious to anyone who has read the 'Parsifal'
libretto right through that the commonest word (as noun and verb) there
is "Heil"/"heil". It has both an everyday meaning of health or wellness
and a religious meaning of salvation (hence "Heiland", saviour, and
"Heiligtum", sanctuary). It can also be related to "Heilung", meaning
cure or healing. Parsifal brings not only "Erlösung" but also "Heil" and
(to Amfortas) "Heilung".
kevemaher
words "redemption" and "redeemer". Deeper thought about Wagner's
Parsifal has uncovered for me that there are many different types of
"redemption" or "healing" that are going on in this opera, as Derrick
has so wisely pointed out. Possibly a failure in language, but
definitely a strength of this opera that all these can be described
with just a few words.
I do agree that one possible meaning for the English word for
"redemption" is to "buy back" or "turn in for cash" (as in redemption
stamps or credit card vouchers). In the context of Parsifal, with its
rich reference to Christian myths, there can be little doubt what the
word "redemption" refers to.
I was initially drawn to Parsifal because of the ethereal,
otherworldlinessness of the music. At that time, I understood little
of the words and nothing of the story. Acquaintances were astonished
at first. "So now you've taken up Christianity again, eh" is what I
mostly heard. As I began to understand a little more and to see
performances (all on DVD), I was confused and troubled by the apparent
religious nature of the stage play. Just recently have I begun to see
(one of the) real meaning(s). A human can save; can save oneself and
can save others. A god is not necessary.
For me, this is the most relevant meaning of Wagner's Parsifal
story.
Derrick Everett
<snip>
Stepping aside from the issue of the religious language used in
'Parsifal', I found your comments about 'Tristan' interesting.
When we refer to (and even perhaps when we read) the letters that Richard
Wagner addressed to Mathilde Wesendonk, sometimes we might forget (or
even not realise), who was writing to whom. Richard once told Mathilde
that she listened to him "as Brünnhilde listened to Wotan", presumably as
in the second act of 'Die Walküre', where Wotan says:
"mit mir nur rath' ich,
red' ich zu dir."
Wagner left Zürich abruptly. As far as we know, unlike Tiger Woods he
managed not to to hit a fire hydrant -- but otherwise the events were
probably similar. Minna did not want him in the house and Otto was no
doubt relieved to see him go. On his arrival in Venice, Wagner started
writing letters to Mathilde. When he sent those letters to her, they
were returned to him unopened. He kept writing to her but really he was
writing to himself. Those letters are collectively known as the 'Venice
Diary' and I find them revealing about many aspects of the three works
that had been dominating Wagner's mind during his last years in Zürich.
Although he was "officially", at that time, writing 'Siegfried', the
three works that were competing for his attention were 'Tristan und
Isolde' (which won the competition for his focus), 'Parsifal' (then still
called 'Parzival'), and 'Die Sieger'. Not, it should be noted, 'Die
Meistersinger', which was on a mental back-burner until after the
"Tristanrausch" had subsided. In the Venice Diary the three works --
what I call the "Schopenhauer triptych" -- are discussed alternately. In
one of those letters Wagner makes the much-quoted remark that Amfortas
would be his third-act Tristan but only more so. Therefore many people
identify the wound of Tristan with the wound of Amfortas, and that
identification was *probably* also made by Wagner even if he never stated
it.
But there is another character in 'Parsifal' who has a wound that will
not heal. In act 2 Kundry says:
"Die Welt erlöse, ist dies dein Amt;
schuf dich zum Gott die Stunde,
fütr sie lass' mich ewig dann verdammt,
nie heile mir die Wunde!"
That word again, "erlösen": "Redeem the world, if it is your task..."
But first Kundry wants (as Parsifal's first task), redemption for herself
and healing for her wound. We can draw parallels between Kundry and
Tristan, indeed we could choose to see them as the central characters of
the respective works in which they appear. Wagner only commented on the
difference between Kundry and Isolde, however: he said that Kundry had
experienced Isolde's transformation (her so-called "Liebestod") many
times. This means, I think, that when Isolde dies at the end of the
opera, she will be reborn, just as Kundry has been reborn many times.
Here we hit one of the common themes that unites the "Schopenhauer
triptych". We would more clearly see those themes and understand their
importance for Wagner if he had completed 'Die Sieger'. This theme is
reincarnation (or rebirth if you prefer that term). It is highly likely
that Wagner (like his Gurnemanz) believed in some kind of reincarnation.
It is certain that he was very interested in the subject, at least in the
late 1850's when these three works (and Mathilde) were dominating his
thoughts. His ideas about reincarnation came initially from reading
Schopenhauer, who did not give Wagner much useful guidance on the subject
because it is a relatively undeveloped doctrine in his philosophy.
Although 'Tristan und Isolde' does not mention reincarnation, Tristan
does speak of a desire to enter "the wide realm of the world's night".
In accordance with Schopenhauer's philosophy, this desire like all
desires leads to suffering.
The doctrine that desire leads to suffering is a central tenet of a
religion that also speaks of a kind of reincarnation: Buddhism.
Schopenhauer led Wagner into the study of Buddhism, to the extent that it
was possible in Europe at that time. It was in one of the most
substantial texts about Buddhism -- Burnouf's study of Indian (and mainly
Mahayana) Buddhism -- that Wagner found the legend upon which 'Die
Sieger' would have been based. In 1868 Wagner sent a copy of this book
to his patron King Ludwig and noted in his diary (The Brown Book) that he
was re-thinking 'Die Sieger'. He also wrote the following there:
"Truth (Wahrheit) = Nirwâna = Night (Nacht)
Music (Musik) = Bramâ = Twilight (Dämmerung)
Poetry (Dichtkunst) = Sansâra = Day (Tag)" (*)
I find this note interesting in relation to the "Schopenhauer triptych".
In 'Tristan', Wagner had opposed Night and Day. In 1868 while re-
thinking 'Die Sieger' he makes both an identification of Night with
Nirvana (or Nirwâna) and of Day with Samsara (or Sansâra). The latter is
the cycle of birth and rebirth.
Also in the Brown Book, Wagner wrote in his first Prose Draft (1865) for
'Parzival', as it was then called, that Kundry "is living an unending
life of constantly alternating rebirths as the result of an ancient
curse". It is from that curse that she seeks redemption. A life of
constantly alternating rebirths is Samsara. It is also the day from
which Tristan seeks to escape into the realm of the world's night, which
Wagner in 1868 identified with Nirvana. Note, incidentally, that before
Wagner wrote any of the music to 'Tristan', the so-called Tristan chord
had already appeared in a piano piece by Hans von Bülow. The name of the
piece was 'Nirwana'.
Some people find in 'Parsifal', as you put it, "the whole Christian
soteriology of guilt, punishment and grace". Those commentators who have
tried to explain what happens in the opera on that basis have always
failed, leading at least one of them (Lucy Beckett) to conclude that the
work is inconsistent and broken, as a result (she thinks) of the tension
between Christian and non-Christian elements. If we approach the opera
on terms of Buddhist soteriology, however, then it can be found to make
sense, if we look beneath the religious symbolism and language that tends
to hide more than it reveals.
Wagner does not show us the redemptive act that lifts the curse from
Kundry. He shows her receiving baptism from the newly anointed
Parsifal. Baptism is, as all Christians know, an outward and visible
sign of an inward and spiritual grace. In the Good Friday scene it is an
outward sign of something that is happening within and/or between the two
principal characters. There must be a redemptive act (which Parsifal
calls, "mein erstes Amt") that cannot be identified in terms of Christian
soteriology. It can be explained, I have found, in terms of Buddhist
soteriology, and specifically in terms of the Mahayana doctrines that
Wagner had read about in Burnouf's book and in other books and articles.
There are basically two ways to escape from Samsara into Nirvana. One of
them is to acquire sufficient karmic merit by ones own works. The other
is to receive a gift of sufficient karmic merit from a Bodhisattva (a
kind of sainthood specific to Mahayana doctrine). Only advanced
Bodhisattvas can do this. Parsifal's first action upon reached a
particular stage upon the Bodhisattva path is to redeem Kundry by
transferring to her some of the karmic merit that he has gained in
countless earlier lifes, when he had those names that he has forgotten,
and by doing so he lifts her curse, releasing her from her "unending life
of constantly alternating rebirths". In other words, allowing her to
escape from day (Samsara) into the wide realm of the world's night
(Nirvana). Kundry is helped to achieve the redemption that Tristan longs
for.
(*) Facsimile reproduced on page 177 in 'Das Braune Buch', ed.
J.Bergfeld, Atlantis Verlag, Zürich 1975.
kjbk Wallin
than I can comment on right now, I'm afraid. Let me just get back
briefly to the term 'Erlösung,' and its meaning.
I believe we're in agreement on all matters of importance here. I
didn't mean to suggest that 'buying back' is in any way the primary or
intended meaning of 'erlösen' in the Ring. The primary meaning is
surely always 'liberate,' 'release,' or 'redeem.' The same goes for
Parsifal. Consider, for instance, "des Heiland's Klage" ('the lament
of the savior') during that tremendous moment in Act II: "erlöse,
rette mich / aus schuldbefleckten Händen!" ('Redeem me, save me from
hands soiled by sin!' [Derrick's transl.]) -- it surely wouldn't make
sense to suggest that he is here calling out to Parsifal to ‘buy him
back.’ My only point would be that this connotation always
reverberates somewhere in the background.
It is interesting to note, by the way, that we have rather similar
connotations to the word 'Schuld,' which, in this type of context,
usually translates as 'guilt,' or ‘sin’ (though for the latter term we
have ‘Sünde’ as the more direct German equivalent). But ‘Schuld’ also
means 'debt,' in a very concrete monetary sense. And as with
‘Erlösung,’ I suspect that this meaning was etymologically the earlier
one.
I guess this connotation is lost in the English word ‘guilt.’ The
etymology given by the OED is worth quoting, however:
“No equivalent forms are known in the other Teut. langs. The
connection commonly assumed with the OTeut. root *geld-, gald-, guld-,
to pay, YIELD, is inadmissible phonologically, and its apparent
plausibility with regard to sense disappears on examination. From the
fact that OE. gylt renders L. debitum in the Lord's Prayer and in
Matt. xviii. 27, and that is gylti{ygh} renders debet in Matt. xxiii.
18, it has been inferred that the n. had a primary sense ‘debt’, of
which there seems to be no real evidence, though OE. scyld, G. schuld,
have developed the sense of ‘guilt’ from that of ‘debt’.”
But then again, we should probably be wary of making too much of
either etymology or connotations. In the quote above, for instance,
'hands stained by sin' is obviously a better translation than 'hands
stained by debt.' I notice that you (Derrick Everett) has translated
‘Schuld’ alternately as ‘sin’ and ‘guilt’ – and that is surely
appropriate.
As for the centrality of the concept of ‘Heil’ to Parisfal, I can only
agree with you. The noun ‘Heiland’ (saviour) also comes from ‘heilen,’
to heal (Duden: “mhd., ahd. heilant, subst. 1.ÿPart. von mhd., ahd.
heilen (heilen), LÜ von kirchenlat. salvator, LÜ von griech. Soter“).
So the ‘redeemer’ is also the ‘healer’ – which Christ himself very
much was, of course, and which Wagner wanted his son to become (though
with more modest ambitions, needless to say).
One last point on the connotations of ‘erlösen:’ one meaning of
‘lösen’ is again ‘to buy.’ Duden: ‘käuflich erwerben: eine Karte l.;
Fahrscheine [am Automaten, im Zug]’. And this meaning is not obsolete.
But still, you may very well be correct in saying ‘that the
“buying back” meaning if present is weaker in “Erlösung” than it is
in
"redemption."’
With regard to the appropriateness of a Christian vis-à-vis a Buddhist
interpretation of Parsifal, this is obviously a very difficult
question, and I don’t think I can make any meaningful contribution to
this right now. Perhaps you are right in what you say; you have
obviously read widely and thought deeply about it (I also have a lot
of respect for Lucy Beckett, however). Your elucidation of the
Buddhist background is definitely helpful. Perhaps I might ask,
though, with regard to a comment you made about Kundry’s baptism in
your first post above:
“She is not -- for all her good works --
redeemed by her own actions although it could be argued that she is
redeemed by faith; however I should caution against a narrowly
Christian
interpretation of what happens at her baptism.”
I myself have trouble making sense of Parsifal’s words here: “Die
Taufe nimm und glaub' an den Erlöser!” (‘Receive baptism and believe
in the Redeemer!’). It is hard to take this as referring to anyone
else but Christ. And I’m wondering if you’re not compelled to downplay
this somewhat when pursuing a Buddhist reading of the work?
Finally, you mentioned Wagner’s ‘Venice Diary.’ Wagner the writer is
in many ways a tragic chapter, I feel. Especially in his later years,
his style became ever more contorted and impenetrable; partly, I
think, because he must have emulated other models that were similarly
prone to equate elaborateness with elegance. The expression ‘nicht
unleicht’ (in “Modern,” for instance) would be a case in point – ‘not
uneasy.’ Which is to say ‘not difficult,’ which is to say ‘easy.’ That
double negation is laughably cumbersome – the word ‘unleicht’ isn’t
even listed in Duden and is probably used only a few times each
century. I just can’t quite fathom what illusion it was that could
induce Wagner to commit such a risible solecism. However, the tragedy
was not that Wagner couldn’t write; the tragedy was that he *could*
write. That ‘Venice Diary’ – in its German edition including all of
Wagner’s letter to Mathilde Wesendonk – is such a marvelously
beautiful piece of literature. Reading only a single page of it is
enough to make you suddenly realize how laughably inadequate all these
popular portraits of Wagner as some sort of half-crazed buffoon truly
are. He was right in conjuring up the image of Wotan speaking to
Brünnhilde; and to be allowed to listen in on that monologue – it is
pure inwardness, almost intolerably powerful. Or consider his night-
time experience with the singing gondoliers, which left a mark on
‘Beethoven,’ and also (or am I incorrect in this?) on the shepherd’s
song in Tristan. That image has been written with fire onto my heart
(to borrow an expression from Hesse). I suspect it worked a powerful
spell on Nietzsche and Mann as well. It is my firm belief that those
who think they can dismiss Wagner as a second-rate writer have no idea
what they’re talking about. This man was a stupendous genius, almost
regardless of what he turned his mind to. The tragedy, then, is that
all too frequently, he was somehow seduced into adopting a style of
writing that smothered this inwardness, this intimacy. Many of his
late essays are highly interesting as well; but rarely are they as
uncannily moving emotionally as his ‘Venice Diary’ is – his open
letter to Heinrich von Stein (from 31 January 1883), with the
recollection of his visit to the world exhibit in Paris, being a
remarkable exception.
Derrick Everett
I was a bit hasty in pressing the send button. That last paragraph
should read:
There are basically two ways to escape from Samsara into Nirvana. One
of them is to acquire sufficient karmic merit by ones own works. The
other is to receive a gift of sufficient karmic merit from a Bodhisattva
(a kind of sainthood specific to Mahayana doctrine). Only advanced
Bodhisattvas can do this. Parsifal's first action upon reaching a
particular stage upon the Bodhisattva path is to redeem Kundry by
transferring to her some of the karmic merit that he has gained in
countless earlier lives, when he had those names that he has forgotten,
and by doing so he lifts her curse, releasing her from her "unending
life of constantly alternating rebirths". In other words, allowing her
to escape from day (Samsara) into the wide realm of the world's night
(Nirvana). Kundry is helped to achieve the redemption that Tristan
longs for.
--
Derrick Everett
> Many interesting points have been raised in the last two posts; more
> than I can comment on right now, I'm afraid. Let me just get back
> briefly to the term 'Erlösung,' and its meaning.
>
> I believe we're in agreement on all matters of importance here. I didn't
> mean to suggest that 'buying back' is in any way the primary or intended
> meaning of 'erlösen' in the Ring. The primary meaning is surely always
> 'liberate,' 'release,' or 'redeem.' The same goes for Parsifal.
> Consider, for instance, "des Heiland's Klage" ('the lament of the
> savior') during that tremendous moment in Act II: "erlöse, rette mich /
> aus schuldbefleckten Händen!" ('Redeem me, save me from hands soiled by
> sin!' [Derrick's transl.]) -- it surely wouldn't make sense to suggest
> that he is here calling out to Parsifal to ‘buy him back.’ My only point
> would be that this connotation always reverberates somewhere in the
> background.
I agree that we are basically in agreement. The redemption that is
desired by Amfortas or Kundry has nothing to do with "getting something
back" or with "recovering something that was lost". Amfortas wants an
end to his pain (that is, a cure or remedy), and for the burden of
kingship to be lifted from his shoulders. Kundry wants out of her
unending cycle of deathlike sleep and being reborn "in ever new shapes,
to bring to men the suffering of seduction", which is equated to lifting
a curse. Therefore in this opera the word "Erlösung", usually translated
as redemption, is used to mean the lifting of a curse or a burden, and/or
release from a situation or responsibility. The verb "erlösen" is used
by Wagner consistently with the above, to mean variously: to release, to
liberate, to rescue; from the curse, burden, situation or responsibility
that the sufferer no longer can endure.
In one of the passages in 'Religion and Art' that Wm. Ashton Ellis
mangled beyond all recognition in his attempt at translation, Wagner
wrote:
"That which, as simplest and most touching of religious symbols, unites
us in the common practice of our faith and which, revealed anew in the
tragic teachings of great spirits, uplifts us to the heights of
compassion, is the knowledge, given in manifold forms, of the need for
redemption." (my translation)
In referring to the "great spirits" and their teachings, Wagner is
hinting at his beliefs (1) that the teachings of the greatest saints and
sages (including Jesus and the Buddha) have been lost, obscured by
traditions that arose in the first centuries after their deaths, so that
they have to be "revealed anew"; and (2) that the core of their teachings
was essentially the same and included the ethics of compassion.
Of course this was speculation on Wagner's part but it was based on his
extensive reading (in the 1870's) about early Christianity and about the
history of Buddhism. Reading between the lines of 'Religion and Art' and
the essays that followed it, has led me to conclusion that items (1) and
(2) were central to Wagner's thinking about religion in the years when he
was writing the libretto and music of 'Parsifal', a work that he
described as "truly Christian".
>
> It is interesting to note, by the way, that we have rather similar
> connotations to the word 'Schuld,' which, in this type of context,
> usually translates as 'guilt,' or ‘sin’ (though for the latter term we
> have ‘Sünde’ as the more direct German equivalent). But ‘Schuld’ also
> means 'debt,' in a very concrete monetary sense. And as with ‘Erlösung,’
> I suspect that this meaning was etymologically the earlier one.
>
> I guess this connotation is lost in the English word ‘guilt.’ The
> etymology given by the OED is worth quoting, however:
>
> “No equivalent forms are known in the other Teut. langs. The connection
> commonly assumed with the OTeut. root *geld-, gald-, guld-, to pay,
> YIELD, is inadmissible phonologically, and its apparent plausibility
> with regard to sense disappears on examination. From the fact that OE.
> gylt renders L. debitum in the Lord's Prayer and in Matt. xviii. 27, and
> that is gylti{ygh} renders debet in Matt. xxiii. 18, it has been
> inferred that the n. had a primary sense ‘debt’, of which there seems to
> be no real evidence, though OE. scyld, G. schuld, have developed the
> sense of ‘guilt’ from that of ‘debt’.”
>
> But then again, we should probably be wary of making too much of either
> etymology or connotations. In the quote above, for instance, 'hands
> stained by sin' is obviously a better translation than 'hands stained by
> debt.' I notice that you (Derrick Everett) has translated ‘Schuld’
> alternately as ‘sin’ and ‘guilt’ – and that is surely appropriate.
I agree with you about "Schuld". The earlier meaning is preserved in for
example modern Icelandic, where "skuld" means simply "debt". Wagner is
using the word in its religious sense of sin, guilt or trespass.
Another word that Wagner uses in 'Parsifal' also had changed from an
originally non-religious usage into a religious usage. The word is an
adjective "fromm": "Titurel, der fromme Held". The MHG word "vrum" meant
brave. It was only under the influence of Luther that its later form
"fromm" acquired a connotation of piety. Here it does not much matter
whether we translate the line as "the brave hero" or "the pious hero",
since it is clear that Titurel was both brave and pious.
<snip>
>
> With regard to the appropriateness of a Christian vis-à-vis a Buddhist
> interpretation of Parsifal, this is obviously a very difficult question,
> and I don’t think I can make any meaningful contribution to this right
> now. Perhaps you are right in what you say; you have obviously read
> widely and thought deeply about it (I also have a lot of respect for
> Lucy Beckett, however). Your elucidation of the Buddhist background is
> definitely helpful. Perhaps I might ask, though, with regard to a
> comment you made about Kundry’s baptism in your first post above:
>
> “She is not -- for all her good works -- redeemed by her own actions
> although it could be argued that she is redeemed by faith; however I
> should caution against a narrowly Christian
> interpretation of what happens at her baptism.”
>
> I myself have trouble making sense of Parsifal’s words here: “Die Taufe
> nimm und glaub' an den Erlöser!” (‘Receive baptism and believe in the
> Redeemer!’). It is hard to take this as referring to anyone else but
> Christ.
That is what Wagner intends his audience to think. Recall that Athenian
drama, which was closely related to Greek religion, worked because the
contemporary audience knew the myths and other background, so that they
understood the references in the framework of their religious beliefs.
Wagner was well aware of this (indeed he had written about it in his pre-
Ring essays), also when writing 'Parsifal'. When he retells the story of
the Buddha's enlightenment, at the end of Act 2, instead of the Buddha
touching the earth (to bear witness to his purity), Parsifal (who unlike
the Buddha was not ready for total enlightenment when he encountered
Klingsor), makes the sign of the cross. The effect of the gesture is the
same: the lord of illusion is destroyed, or at least no longer has any
power over the one who seeks enlightenment. Wagner uses words and
symbols that he expected to resonate with the religious beliefs of his
(mainly Christian) audience, knowing that direct references to unknown
religions would have no effect. Therefore even when using a Buddhist
legend, Wagner inserted a Christian symbol (in this case, following St.
John of Damascus).
The whole business of a redeemer (specifically here "... an den Erlöser"
but less specific when Kundry asked, "bist du Erlöser ...") is confusing,
indeed. We know that Parsifal brings redemption, and that this is the
mission that he had forgotten until experiencing the shock of Kundry's
kiss. In the aftermath of which, she begins to think that Parsifal could
be the redeemer for whom she has been waiting, even that he could be the
same Redeemer whose eyes had once met hers. She is partly wrong and
partly right, as the third act reveals.
> And I’m wondering if you’re not compelled to downplay this
> somewhat when pursuing a Buddhist reading of the work?
>
I was not pursuing a Buddhist reading but following where the evidence
led. That evidence is found not only within the libretto and prose
drafts of 'Parsifal' but also in what Wagner wrote, both about that work
and about his unfinished drama 'Die Sieger'. It was quite revelatory, I
found, to approach the first act of 'Parsifal' with a Buddhist mindset
rather than a Christian one, because then the relationship between the
inner action of Wagner's drama and the life of the Buddha becomes not
just apparent but obvious. This relationship between two stories led me
to the conclusion that the thought that struck Wagner on a spring morning
in 1857, and which led him to write the (since lost) prose sketch for
'Parzival', was that both Parzival and the Buddha had sheltered
childhoods from which they emerged into a world about which they knew
nothing. That is plausible because between writing ths prose sketch for
'Die Sieger' on 16 May 1856 and the spring morning in 1857, Wagner had
been studying the life of the Buddha. Then Mathilde Wesendonk sent him a
copy of Wolfram's 'Parzival', which he said he had not looked at for many
years, and which he discovered anew. If my guess about Wagner's
inspiration is true, then from its very beginning his 'Parsifal' was
formed around the idea of a central character who is not the Buddha but
whose story develops in a way that parallels that of the Buddha.
When Wagner was asked whether Parsifal was a Christ figure, he laughed
scornfully and said: "Christ?! A tenor?!"
M
> Note,
> incidentally, that before Wagner wrote any of the music to 'Tristan',
> the so-called Tristan chord had already appeared in a piano piece by
B�low's 'Nirwana', Op.20, is orchestral -- a symphonic poem.
M.
kjbk Wallin
(I was aware of it, but only from having read it on your web site). To
give Duden’s brief etymology: “mhd. vrum, vrom = nützlich, brauchbar,
auch: tüchtig, tapfer, rechtschaffen.” No doubt Wagner was aware of
this older meaning and meant it to resonate together with the now
customary meaning of ‘pious.’ Unlike the still valid dual meaning of
‘Schuld,’ however, I’m fairly certain that almost nobody today knows
of this older significance of ‘fromm.’ Instead, Duden gives as one
alternative meaning today “scheinheilig: -es (Frömmigkeit
vortäuschendes) Getue.” – which is to say ‘hypocritical.’ That is to
say, ‘fromm’ has acquired a distinctly pejorative flavor when used in
certain (secular) contexts (I guess this might be said of ‘pious’
too). Needless to say, understanding ‘Parsifal’ demands (and entails)
that this sort of modern-day negative accruements be left to the side.
May I ask: have you (or anyone else) read the work by Burnouf to which
you refer, “Introduction à l'histoire du buddhisme indien” /
“Einführung in die Geschichte des Buddhismus” / “Legends of Indian
Buddhism”? I suspect you probably have. I understand Gfrörer’s
“Geschichte des Urchristenthums” is similarly of great importance. I
haven’t read either, but suspect that it would be well worth the
effort. The German scholar Wolf-Daniel Hartwich, who sadly died when
quite young, produced some very interesting work on Parsifal based on
his study of this latter study.
By saying that you were ‘pursuing’ a Buddhist interpretation of
Parsifal, I didn’t mean to imply that you were blinding yourself to
other aspects of the opera in order to fit it into some procrustean
bed of your own preconceived notions. Clearly, much of the evidence do
lead in that direction, and you’re doing a great job in sorting that
out. Perhaps I can formulate one or two further questions/concerns
with regard to this.
One difficulty I have is the following. When Parsifal undergoes his
momentous transformation (if that inexact term be accepted) after
Kundry’s kiss, he hears, as I mentioned in my previous post, the
lament of the savior: ‘redeem me, save me from hands stained by sin.’
The uncanny penetration of that call, together with the fact that it
issues from the figure of Christ, immediately establishes it as the
ultimate goal of the entire drama (or so it seems to me). He first
thinks of Amfortas, of course. But then he immediately corrects
himself: “Nein! Nicht die Wunde ist es.” (‘No! It’s not the wound.’)
Instead, he locates the pain within his own heart – and here a certain
bifurcation of meaning seems to me to take place (though this is
probably only at a superficial level): on the one hand, the painful
wound is “Das Sehnen, das furchtbare Sehnen […] [die] Qual der
Liebe!” (‘The yearning, the fearful yearning […] Love's suffering!’) –
which points to the ascetic strain many see in the work. But on the
other hand, the pain seems to be the sudden realization of a
tremendous guilt, inextricably tied to the lamentations of Christ:
“nur hier, im Herzen, will die Qual nicht weichen. Des Heilands Klage
da vernehm' ich, die Klage - ach! Die Klage um das entweihte
Heiligtum. ‘Erlöse, rette mich aus schuldbefleckten Händen!’ (’only
here, in the heart, is the suffering not subdued. I hear the Saviour's
lament, the lament - oh! The lament from the desecrated sanctuary’).
And the words that follow are of crucial importance:
So – rief die Gottesklage
furchtbar laut mir in de Seele.
Und ich? Der Thor, der Feige!
Zu wilden Knabenthaten floh' ich hin!
(Er stürzt verzweiflungsvoll auf die Knie.)
Erlöser! Heiland! Herr der Huld!
Wie büß' ich Sünder solche Schuld?
(‘So the terrible divine lament / echoed in my soul. / And I - the
fool, the coward, / to wild boyish deeds wandered off! / (in full
despair he falls to his knees) / Redeemer! Saviour! Lord of grace! /
How can I, a sinner, atone for my guilt?’ [Derrick’s transl.])
This, then, would be the moment when he fully realizes why, during the
ceremony in Act I, he suddenly “made a violent movement towards his
own heart, clutching his chest convulsively for a long time.” Amortas’
agonies were merely the surface cause for this; what really called out
in pain within his own breast was the ‘Gottesklage,’ the lament of
Christ. And it was the failure to heed or fully understand this call
that loaded “solche Schuld” (‘such guilt’) on his own head.
Consequently, when Parsifal cries out in Act III:
Zu ihm, deß' tiefe Klagen
ich thörig staunend einst vernahm,
dem nun ich Heil zu bringen
mich auserlesen wähnen darf.
(‘To him, whose deep laments / I once heard in foolish wonder, / to
bring him salvation / I presume to think myself ordained.’)
Does it really make sense to think that it is Amfortas he is thinking
about? One the one hand, I believe the prose draft strongly intimates
this (as does a letter from Wagner to King Ludwig from 7 Sept, 1865).
But on the other, how can Amfortas’ laments (which, I think, are never
described as ‘tief’) be compared in importance to Christ’s pains? At
least there is a rather difficult ambiguity here. And a little later,
of course, Amfortas is cured (“Sei heil, entsündigt und gesühnt!”)
rather as a preliminary to the final ceremony, in which the supreme
miracle of salvation is finally achieved; and that is “Erlösung dem
Erlöser!,” which, in line with the argument above, I feel compelled to
apply to the figure of Christ. It is his pained call – the
‘Gottesklage’ – that has finally been answered.
A related question here is this: Christ laments that he is in the
hands of sinners. Yet the central image we have of Christ suffering is
of course his passion on the cross, which is also invoked in the
opera. Can we, or must we, conflate the two? Luther always insisted
that we must realize that it is *we* who are crucifying Christ; when
contemplating the pain of the nails being driven through his hands, we
must feel as if we are holding the hammer (“Und ich, ich bin's, der
all' dies Elend schuf!” / ‘And I, I am the one who caused all this
misery!’). I would perhaps venture the guess that the only way we can
‘redeem’ him from this pain is, exactly, through that realization,
which is affected through either compassion or faith (‘Glaube’), if a
distinction can at all be made between them.
I don’t think any of this, whatever its pertinence, would invalidate
your argument, however. I’m merely attempting to formulate some of my
own thoughts in response to your own very compelling reading.
kjbk Wallin
like your concept or ‘resonance,’ which you’ve elaborated on earlier
in this newsgroup. The presence of Christian symbols in a drama such
as Parsifal doesn’t necessarily imply this drama is also Christian, in
any narrow sense of the word. Wagner used imagery he knew his audience
was familiar with, but still modeled it to fit his own vision.
However, I still feel there’s a difference between how you and Wagner
speak about this. It is true that Wagner articulated a theory of
‘resonance,’ of sorts, in his ‘Religion und Kunst.’ And I often do
have a feeling that Wagner would indeed subscribe to your perhaps more
rational formulation of this, and of the Christian background to
Parsifal. One thinks, for instance, of his ironic signing of a letter
to Nietzsche with ‘Oberkirchenrat,’ clearly suggesting he wasn’t
taking this background quite as seriously as Nietzsche later thought
he was. It also seems that most scholars are of the opinion that
Wagner was never, even in his late years, anything like a devout
Christian, or even, in fact, a believing Christian at all. But there
are many passages in his late writings where he refers to Christ with
a sort of devotion – whether it be honest or not – that would probably
be foreign to most non-Christian people. A great number of quotes
could be adduced for this. In ‘Beethoven’, he says of the 6th
symphony:
“die Welt gewinnt ihre Kindesunschuld wieder. ‘Mit mir seid heute im
Paradiese’ – wer hörte sich dieses Erlöserwort nicht zugerufen, wenn
er der ‘Pastoral-Symphonie’ lauschte?“
(approximate translation: ‘the world regains its childish innocence.
‘Be with me today in paradise’ – who didn’t hear this word of the
Savior being called out out when listening to the pastoral symphony?’)
Or in a similar image from ‘Religion und Kunst’:
“Über alle Denkbarkeit des Begriffes hinaus, offenbart uns aber der
tondichterische Seher das Unaussprechbare: wir ahnen, ja wir fühlen
und sehen es, daß auch diese unentrinnbar dünkende Welt des Willens
nur ein Zustand ist, vergehend vor dem Einen: ‘Ich weiß, daß mein
Erlöser lebt!’”
(so again, when hearing a symphony by Beethoven [I think it is], it is
as if we hear the words ‚I know that my redeemer liveth’)
My point here is that this is rather strongly Christian language.
With regard specifically to Parsifal, Wagner often stressed the
centrality of the image, or vision, of the crucified Christ. Again,
from ‘Religion und Kunst’:
“Hiermit war dann auch die Gestalt des Göttlichen in
anthropomorphistischer Weise von selbst gegeben: es war der zu
qualvollem Leiden am Kreuze ausgespannte Leib des höchsten Inbegriffes
aller mitleidvollen Liebe selbst. Ein unwiderstehlich zu wiederum
höchstem Mitleiden, zur Anbetung des Leidens und zur Nachahmung durch
Brechung alles selbstsüchtigen Willens hinreißendes – Symbol? – nein:
Bild, wirkliches Abbild.”
(He is talking about the symbol – nay the image – of the body of the
highest conception of all compassionate love itself [ie, Christ] being
painfully stretched out on the cross.)
And one last quote from ‘Wollen wir hoffen?’ (‘Dare we hope?’):
“Hiergegen ist unsere Welt aber religionslos. Wie sollte ein Höchstes
in uns leben, wenn wir das Große nicht mehr zu ehren, ja nur zu
erkennen fähig sind? Vielmehr, sollten wir es erkennen, so sind wir
durch unsere barbarische Civilisation angeleitet es zu hassen und zu
verfolgen, etwa weil es dem allgemeinen Fortschritte entgegen stehe.
Was nun gar soll diese Welt aber mit dem Höchsten zu schaffen haben?
Wie kann ihr Anbetung der Leiden des Erlösers zugemuthet werden?”
(approx transl.: ‘Our world is void of religion. But how could ever a
highest live in us, when we are no longer capable of honoring, yes
even of recognizing, that which is great? More, how could we recognize
it when our barbaric civilization leads us to hate and persecute it,
because it stands in the way of general progress? What can this world
have to do with that which is the Highest? How can it be presumed upon
to worship that sufferings of the savior?’)
It just seems to me that Wagner here sounds a little more like a
Christian than most commentators are now prone to think. In
particular, it seems that the vision of the crucified Christ took on
for Wagner – though perhaps this was rather foreign to the initial
conception of the work – a relatively central importance for
‘Parsifal’.
Well, again, this does not invalidate anything of what you’ve said.
And compassion is of course central to Buddhism. Perhaps more
concretely: is there any specific counterpart in Buddhism to the
importance of the vision of the crucified savior? Or of the savior who
chooses to be crucified out of compassion with those who are still too
benighted to realize what they do when they crucify him?
Derrick Everett
> Derrick Everett wrote:
>> Note,
>> incidentally, that before Wagner wrote any of the music to 'Tristan',
>> the so-called Tristan chord had already appeared in a piano piece by
>> Hans von Bülow. The name of the piece was 'Nirwana'.
>
> Bülow's 'Nirwana', Op.20, is orchestral -- a symphonic poem.
>
> M.
You are correct.
Derrick Everett
>
> May I ask: have you (or anyone else) read the work by Burnouf to which
> you refer, “Introduction à l'histoire du buddhisme indien” /
> “Einführung in die Geschichte des Buddhismus” / “Legends of Indian
> Buddhism”? I suspect you probably have. I understand Gfrörer’s
> “Geschichte des Urchristenthums” is similarly of great importance. I
> haven’t read either, but suspect that it would be well worth the effort.
> The German scholar Wolf-Daniel Hartwich, who sadly died when quite
> young, produced some very interesting work on Parsifal based on his
> study of this latter study.
It would be interesting to read about the relationship between 'Parsifal'
and Gfrörer's study of early Christianity, which Wagner read with great
interest. I haven't read either of them although the secondary
literature has a lot to say about 'Introduction à l'histoire du buddhisme
indien', a book that was far ahead of its time in its detailed -- but
very incomplete -- investigation of early Buddhism (based on Sanskrit
religious (Mahayana) texts that had been sent from Nepal to several
scholars in Europe, of whom only Burnouf accepted the challenge of
studying them). On the other hand, I do have copies of the books about
Buddhism by Spence Hardy (which Wagner may have read although only in
English, which he did not read very fluently, and a valuable companion to
Burnouf because it describes the so-called Hinayana tradition and the
Pali canon), and the one by Hermann Oldenburg (which Wagner read after he
had written 'Parsifal'), as well as Ernest Renan's 'Life of Jesus', which
was highly regarded both by Richard and Cosima. Copies of all of these
books can be seen today in the bookcases of the salon in Haus Wahnfried.
>
> By saying that you were ‘pursuing’ a Buddhist interpretation of
> Parsifal, I didn’t mean to imply that you were blinding yourself to
> other aspects of the opera in order to fit it into some procrustean bed
> of your own preconceived notions. Clearly, much of the evidence do lead
> in that direction, and you’re doing a great job in sorting that out.
> Perhaps I can formulate one or two further questions/concerns with
> regard to this.
>
> One difficulty I have is the following. When Parsifal undergoes his
> momentous transformation (if that inexact term be accepted) after
> Kundry’s kiss, he hears, as I mentioned in my previous post, the lament
> of the savior: ‘redeem me, save me from hands stained by sin.’ The
> uncanny penetration of that call, together with the fact that it issues
> from the figure of Christ,
Or at least: Parsifal might think that it is Christ who is calling. Why
he should think it is not clear to me, since there was no crucifix in the
Grail Temple and Christ has not been mentioned except as "das Heiland".
> immediately establishes it as the ultimate goal of the entire drama (or
so it seems to me). He first thinks of Amfortas, of course. But then he
> immediately corrects himself: “Nein! Nicht die Wunde ist es.” (‘No!
> It’s not the wound.’) Instead, he locates the pain within his own heart
> – and here a certain bifurcation of meaning seems to me to take place
> (though this is probably only at a superficial level): on the one hand,
> the painful wound is “Das Sehnen, das furchtbare Sehnen […] [die] Qual
> der Liebe!” (‘The yearning, the fearful yearning […] Love's
> suffering!’) – which points to the ascetic strain many see in the work.
"Kundry lebt ein unermessliches Leben unter stets wechselnden
Widergeburten, in Folge einer uralten Verwünschung, ... in neuen
Gestalten das Leiden der Liebesverführing über die Männer zu bringen:
Erlösung, Auflösung, gänzliches Erlöschen ist ihr nur verheissen, wenn
einst ein reinster, blühendster Mann ihrer machtvollsten Verführung
widerstehen wurde." (1e. Prose Draft, 29 Aug. 1865)
"Dem Schrecken und der Verwunderung des schönen Weibes antwortet er mit
hinstarrender Entrücktheit: ihn fesselt nur der räthselhafte Vorgang,
dessen Zeuge er in der Gralsberg war; gänzlich in Anfortas' Seele
versetzt, fühlt er dessen ungeheure Leiden, seinen furchtbaren
Selbstvorwurf; die unsäglichen Qualen des Liebessehnens, die unheiligen
Schauer des sündigen Verlangens ... er hört die göttlichen Klagen über
den Fall des Auserwählten; er vernimmt den Ruf des Heilands nach
Befreiung des Heiligthumes aus der Pflege befleckter Hände ..." (ibid)
The lines you quote from Act III, like much else in this scene are deeply
ambiguous. The "Gottesklage" in Act II is not so, I think, although it
is not easy to explain. Wagner wrote in the Venice Diary (which is where
I trust him most), that according to his "own" explanation (as if it had
not occurred to anyone else), the Grail is the cup from which Christ had
drunk at the Last Supper. Wagner's 'Parsifal' is, whatever else it might
be in addition, a Grail quest; although it is the recovery of the lost
spear (as Wagner only realized after writing his first Prose Draft in
1865), that connects the three acts of the opera into a single narrative
(the outer action).
The guilt of Parsifal, as expressed in the latter part of Act II and as
quoted above in Act III, would be easier to understand if Wagner had
retained the Question, a dramatic device that is used in many of the
Grail romances. As Wagner put it, he dispensed with the Question, so
that his quester's mission is not (as it was the mission of those who
sought the Grail in the romances) to find the Grail Castle (Gralsberg) a
second time so that he could ask the redeeming Question but rather to
find the Grail so that it can be reunited with the Spear, which has
fallen into the quester's hand. But the "Gottesklage" does not ask him
to bring back the Spear, rather it is a plea for release from captivity
(Befreiung des Heiligthumes).
The "Gottesklage" implies that Christ is present in the Grail, which by
order of Amfortas is locked away in its shrine. Does this imply that not
only the Grail but also the Christ is being kept from (operating in) the
world by Amfortas and his knights? At the end of the opera, Parsifal
commands the shrine to be opened and the Grail to be revealed. He then
says that it will never be closed again. Does this mean that Parsifal
liberates (redeems) Christ, releasing the Saviour into the world again?
That has been one interpretation of the closing lines, "redemption to the
Redeemer". It is very difficult to reconcile such ideas with Christian
theology, and this difficulty is an obstacle to any attempt to interpret
the work as conventionally Christian. If the mission of Parsifal is to
liberate not just the Grail (as a source of healing and redemptive power,
perhaps) but Christ himself from hands stained with sin, is there a
message here about Christianity? Is Wagner saying through his libretto
that the true Christ needs to be released from false Christianity, which
needs to be replaced by "true Christianity"? When Parsifal establishes
the community again on a new basis, is he -- like St. Paul -- offering in
the cup the blood of a new covenant, or is he -- like a Protestant
reformer -- taking Christ out of the hands of the old Church?
I do not have the answers to these questions. There is something in
these lines about the redemption not only of Amfortas and the community
but also of the supernatural power that is under their control and in
some way connected with Christ.
>
> A related question here is this: Christ laments that he is in the hands
> of sinners. Yet the central image we have of Christ suffering is of
> course his passion on the cross, which is also invoked in the opera. Can
> we, or must we, conflate the two? Luther always insisted that we must
> realize that it is *we* who are crucifying Christ; when contemplating
> the pain of the nails being driven through his hands, we must feel as if
> we are holding the hammer (“Und ich, ich bin's, der all' dies Elend
> schuf!” / ‘And I, I am the one who caused all this misery!’). I would
> perhaps venture the guess that the only way we can ‘redeem’ him from
> this pain is, exactly, through that realization, which is affected
> through either compassion or faith (‘Glaube’), if a distinction can at
> all be made between them.
>
> I don’t think any of this, whatever its pertinence, would invalidate
> your argument, however. I’m merely attempting to formulate some of my
> own thoughts in response to your own very compelling reading.
It is interesting and I think useful to consider how Parsifal can have
"caused all this misery". He was not around when Amfortas foolishly
wielded the Spear as a weapon (rather than protecting is as a relic),
getting himself wounded and giving Klingsor the advantage. When Parsifal
strays into the domain of the Grail, the community is already in decline:
the knights no longer dare to venture out into the world for fear of
Klingsor's snares and even the young sentries who are watching (for the
pure fool?) have fallen asleep at their posts. When he is taken into the
Grail Temple, Parsifal sees the misery that is already there. How can he
have caused it? The most obvious explanation is that the misery (Elend)
for which he takes responsibility is that caused by the death of Titurel,
who might still be alive had the errant Parsifal returned to the domain
of the Grail earlier. Even then, it seems hard to blame him: first
because the domain is deliberately hidden deep in a forest, accessible
only by paths that no sinner can find; and secondly because Kundry has
cursed him to wander:
"Denn Pfad' und Wege,
die dich mir entführen,
so verwünsch' ich sie dir;
Irre! Irre! "
It is tempting to accept the argument (as advanced by Lucy Beckett, for
example) that some of these pieces that do not seem quite to fit (whether
to a Procrustean bed or any other frame), are surviving remnants of
'Parzival' (together with other Grail romances), which Wagner did not
manage to integrate with the elements that he took from other source
literature or invented out of whole cloth. In this view, the work is
thoroughly inconsistent, does not have any central message, does not
reach a conclusive ending in which all is resolved, and it can be
regarded as an amusing but harmless entertainment.
Even if I cannot explain everything, however, it appears to me that the
opera is in general internally consistent and that it successfully
integrates elements that Wagner took from a wider range of literary
sources (and, incidentally, hardly anything from Wolfram except the
wounded king and the loathly maiden) than he had used in any other
dramatic work. The surface of Christian imagery has been made over a
structure that he adapted from Buddhist legends and literature deriving
from such legends, rather than medieval romance; and therefore I do not
find the work to be torn apart by the tension between "Christian" and
"pagan" elements as Beckett does.
Derrick Everett
> Perhaps I can pose one further question to Derrick here. I very much
> like your concept or ‘resonance,’ which you’ve elaborated on earlier in
> this newsgroup. The presence of Christian symbols in a drama such as
> Parsifal doesn’t necessarily imply this drama is also Christian, in any
> narrow sense of the word. Wagner used imagery he knew his audience was
> familiar with, but still modeled it to fit his own vision. However, I
> still feel there’s a difference between how you and Wagner speak about
> this. It is true that Wagner articulated a theory of ‘resonance,’ of
> sorts, in his ‘Religion und Kunst.’ And I often do have a feeling that
> Wagner would indeed subscribe to your perhaps more rational formulation
> of this, and of the Christian background to Parsifal. One thinks, for
> instance, of his ironic signing of a letter to Nietzsche with
> ‘Oberkirchenrat,’ clearly suggesting he wasn’t taking this background
> quite as seriously as Nietzsche later thought he was. It also seems that
> most scholars are of the opinion that Wagner was never, even in his late
> years, anything like a devout Christian, or even, in fact, a believing
> Christian at all. But there are many passages in his late writings where
> he refers to Christ with a sort of devotion – whether it be honest or
> not – that would probably be foreign to most non-Christian people.
In my view it is important to distinguish between Wagner's attitude to
Christianity (as it exists rather than any hypothetical new covenant),
and his attitude to Christ (as the embodiment of free-willed suffering
for mankind). The former was always predominantly negative and the
latter was entirely positive. Like many 19th century intellectuals
Wagner was thoroughly anti-clerical and spoke scornfully about -- and
even sometimes to -- priests and parsons.
><snip>
>
> It just seems to me that Wagner here sounds a little more like a
> Christian than most commentators are now prone to think. In particular,
> it seems that the vision of the crucified Christ took on for Wagner –
> though perhaps this was rather foreign to the initial conception of the
> work – a relatively central importance for ‘Parsifal’.
>
> Well, again, this does not invalidate anything of what you’ve said. And
> compassion is of course central to Buddhism. Perhaps more concretely:
> is there any specific counterpart in Buddhism to the importance of the
> vision of the crucified savior? Or of the savior who chooses to be
> crucified out of compassion with those who are still too benighted to
> realize what they do when they crucify him?
No, I do not think that there is, although there are tales about the
Buddha in which he offers to sacrifice himself so that somebody can reach
enlightenment.
I think that Wagner was Christian only in the sense that he respected
Jesus as a man and held him to be exemplary as Christ. On the other
hand, his relationship with Christianity was a difficult one, as this
incident -- recorded by Cosima -- reveals:
"Am Morgen, wie ich zur Kirche ging, entließ mich R. mit den Worten:
»Grüße deinen Heiland von mir, obgleich er vom Anbeginn bis zum Dekan
viel Konfusion angestiftet hat.«"
[Cosima Wagner: Die Tagebücher: volume I, page 809)]
"In the morning, as I was leaving for church, Richard parted from me with
these words: 'Give my greetings to the Saviour, even if from the very
beginning up to the dean he has caused a lot of confusion'."
[Cosima Wagner's Diaries: entry for 3rd April (Good Friday) 1874]
M
> Den Sun, 20 Dec 2009 11:50:13 +0000, skrev M:
>
>> Derrick Everett wrote:
>>> Note,
>>> incidentally, that before Wagner wrote any of the music to
>>> 'Tristan', the so-called Tristan chord had already appeared in a
>>
>> B�low's 'Nirwana', Op.20, is orchestral -- a symphonic poem.
>>
>> M.
>
> You are correct.
I didn't ask.
M.
kjbk Wallin
Gfrörer, Bernouf, Hardy, Oldenburg, and Renan.
I believe the distinction between Wagner's view of organized
Christianity and his view of Christ himself is a sound one. The quote
you provide from Cosima's Diaries is a telling one -- and many more
like it could be produced. Like the following, from 21 July 1871:
"R. stimmt mir bei, als ich ihm sage, daß ich keine Spur von Sympathie
für die Oktroyierung des Christentums habe (Karl der Große und die
Sachsen) und daß ich das ganze entdeckte Amerika darum gebe, daß die
armen Urbewohner nicht wären verbrannt und verfolgt worden. Er erzählt
von Radbod dem Friesenfürst, der, bereits mit einem Bein im
Taufbecken, zurücksprang, als er erfuhr, daß er seinen heidnischen
Vater nicht im Himmel treffen würde (Siegmund!); er habe deshalb seine
Ortrud aus Radbods Geschlecht stammen lassen, eine schlecht bekehrte
Heidin. Die römische Eroberung der Länder viel humaner, sie haben
keine Religion aufoktroyiert."
(approx. transl.: 'R. agrees with me when I tell him that I have not a
trace of sympathy for the imposition* of Christianity (Charles the
Great and the Saxonians), and that I would give/relinquish all of the
discovered America, if the original inhabitants hadn't had to be
burned and persecuted.')
* Can't think of an appropriate English term for 'Oktroyierung' -- but
basically, it here refers to conversion by force -- the imposition/
forcing of a religion on a people that is not particularly eager to be
converted. Cosima's point with the reference to America (if my
translation of that made no sense) is that the conversion of that
continent to Christianity (I take it she's talking about South and
Central America) was not worth the price it cost -- the burning and
persecution of countless innocent lives.
I find it useful to think of Wagner's approach to Christ as somewhat
akin to his approach to Siegfried, in that it involves the search for
a historical figure that has both been preserved and disfigured by a
long tradition. There is the Christ of the Gospels, and there's the
Christ of historical Christianity, and neither one of them can be
trusted as a true reflection of whom this man Jesus really was. The
pursuit of the 'pure' Christ involves a laborious exercise in
imaginative vision and careful historical reconstruction. Wagner well
knew, of course, that he had no particular calling for the second part
of this, but I'm sure he was an intelligent reader of Renan and
Gfrörer, who had indeed devoted their efforts to historical
scholarship. I put 'pure' in quotation marks because it is crucial to
realize -- and this should really go without saying -- that the purity
involved is one of vision, or understanding, alone, and not one of
biology. In 'Herodom and Christentum,' Wagner referred to the inquiry
into what type of blood, quite concretely, might have run through
Jesus' veins as 'frevelnd,' meaning 'sacrilegious' or 'sinful.' The
question does how an answer, of course; but to believe that this
answer is also a clue to what Jesus really meant, or what his
appearance was all about, is one of the most pernicious falsehoods
that can enter the human mind. It's just as mistaken as Klingsor's
self-castration, an act that is also referred to as 'frevelnd' ("an
sich legt er die Frevlerhand"). To what extent the opera 'Parsifal'
can also be understood as a part of this quest for Christ in his
pristine, unadulterated glory is a different question.
I would add, however, that I do think that especially the aging Wagner
often refers to Christ in a way that is not quite commensurate with
your view "that he respected Jesus as a man and held him to be
exemplary as Christ." Or 'commensurate' is perhaps not the right word;
and as I said, I think the bottom line of what you say is correct.
It's only that in some of his published writings -- and I quoted some
of it in my previous post -- he speaks of Christ in a manner that
seems to betoken more than just 'respect.' If Jesus was no more than a
great human being and an exemplary Christ (not that that is little,
however), would it really be necessary to 'worship' him, 'believe' in
him. In this regard, there does seem to me to be some vestiges of a
more dogmatic supernaturalism left in Wagner's words, if not also his
beliefs. But as I also intimated in an earlier post, I seldom feel
that Wagner is quite himself, as it were, in his last essays. Like he
is still searching for something he hasn't quite found yet. There are
some verses by William Blake I somehow feel are appropriate to Wagner,
reflecting as they do the heroic effort to wrest divinity away from an
empty concept of God the creator, and back to the 'purely human':
God appears, and God is light,
To those poor souls who dwell in night;
But does a human form display
To those who dwell in realms of day.
Well, I also find it rather difficult to formulate this with any
degree of cogency. But I've certainly read the previous posts with
great interest.
kjbk Wallin
A PS here about Cosima:
Cosima’s comment about the “die Oktroyierung des Christentums” would
no doubt surprise many people today, as she is generally believed to
have been quite bigoted and nasty. I'm not myself in the habit of
referring to her as the 'Meisterin,' and she clearly had her faults.
But nor can I quite accept the contemptuous tone in which she is
frequently spoken of, which sometimes has a touch of misogyny to it.
However, that is the accepted view today, and not much can be done
against it. I once heard Nike Wagner speak, and she didn’t really
sound like she had much sympathy for her great grandmother either. For
a fascinating corrective, one would be well advised to cast an eye on
Albert Schweitzer's 'Recollections of Cosima Wagner' from 1961 (they
are only a few pages, I believe). Schweitzer remembers a meeting he
had with Cosima in Strassburg, at the time when he was working on his
book about Bach:
“Cosima Wagner had heard something about the book I was preparing, and
she showed some interest in my ideas that some of the music of the
cantor of St. Thomas was descriptive. She asked me during our
prominade to explain my views, and I noticed that she knew the work of
Bach thoroughly. To demonstrate my ideas to her, I played for her on
the beautiful organs of the Temple Neuf some of the most significant
of the chorale preludes.”
A little later, they moved on to the subject of Christianity:
"She had always thought that the great problem was how to reconcile
the justice of God with His love, since, she said, love cancels
justice, and as an attribute of God admits of no other. Therefore, she
concluded, we may represent God only as a God of love, Who desires and
achieves the salvation of all His creatures. In the course of this
interview, which took place one beautiful, sunny afternoon, while we
were walking beside the Ill from the St. Thomas bridge to the
University, I realized what a delicate and vital soul there was in
this woman, at first approach so distant.”
But yes, I know about all the other stuff she wrote down in her
diaries. Still, unlike her modern biographers, Schweitzer had actually
met Cosima. At any rate, it’s an important document, I think.
Derrick Everett
> I once heard Nike Wagner speak, and she didn’t really sound like she
> had much sympathy for her great grandmother either.
Nike hates most of her family, it appears, and has little good to say
about the rest of them.
Thank you for the extracts from Albert Schweizer's "Recollections".
Derrick Everett
> I find it useful to think of Wagner's approach to Christ as somewhat
> akin to his approach to Siegfried, in that it involves the search for a
> historical figure that has both been preserved and disfigured by a long
> tradition.
I think you are right about this.
I'd like to add a short comment about Wagner and history. When Wagner
writes about history (and historical individuals) he is often inaccurate,
sometimes wildly so. I think that the reason for this is that he did not
care about historical details. He was only interested in the broad
strokes and in the patterns that reappear in history and that are often
captured in myth.
Wagner viewed history (at least after he had tried to read Hegel's
'Philosophy of History') as cyclical: the same patterns repeat and the
same archetypes appear again and again. Therefore although he sometimes
(for example, in his later essays) declared the uniqueness of Jesus
Christ, Wagner might also have believed that there was an archetype of
redeemer, whose members would belong to the "race of saints" that he
wrote about in 'Herodom and Christendom'.
I find it interesting that, in the fragment quoted below, Wagner implied
that Jesus and Buddha were for him equivalent or at least interchangeable
in this context:
"Unter Gott sucht sich der Mensch genau genommen das Wesen vorzustellen,
welches den Leiden des Daseins (der Welt) nicht unterworfen ist, somit
über der Welt steht - dieß ist nun Jesus (Buddha), der die Welt
überwindet. - Der Welten-Schöpfer ist nie wahrhaft geläufig gewesen und
geglaubt worden."
[Sämtliche Schriften und Dichtungen: volume 12, page 336]
"By God, speaking strictly, man seeks to figure to himself a being not
subject to the sorrows of existence (of the world), and consequently
above the world - now this is Jesus (Buddha), who overcomes the world. -
The world-Creator has never been truly currently believed in."
[Translation by Wm. Ashton Ellis: Prose Works, vol.8, page 392]
kjbk Wallin
>
> "Unter Gott sucht sich der Mensch genau genommen das Wesen vorzustellen,
> welches den Leiden des Daseins (der Welt) nicht unterworfen ist, somit
> über der Welt steht - dieß ist nun Jesus (Buddha), der die Welt
> überwindet. - Der Welten-Schöpfer ist nie wahrhaft geläufig gewesen und
> geglaubt worden."
>
> [Sämtliche Schriften und Dichtungen: volume 12, page 336]
>
> "By God, speaking strictly, man seeks to figure to himself a being not
> subject to the sorrows of existence (of the world), and consequently
> above the world - now this is Jesus (Buddha), who overcomes the world. -
> The world-Creator has never been truly currently believed in."
> [Translation by Wm. Ashton Ellis: Prose Works, vol.8, page 392]
>
Fascinating quote. I understand it's from some of Wagner's later
fragments, included in Vol. 12 of the German edition of his Gesammelte
Schriften und Dichtungen. Is it considered to be a part of the Brown
Book? At any rate, I have the feeling Wagner is somehow more honest
here (though he's also brainstorming a lot, which is why one should be
careful to quote these jottings as any definite statements) than in
many of the more tidily organized tracts he intended for publication.
Interesting too, that he seems to be more free in speaking about
Buddha and Indian religion in these texts; I believe he does that much
less often in his published writings. I don't think 'Religion und
Kunst,' say, contains any such direct identification of Christ and
Buddha. It definitely underscores the points you've been making.
I'm in general very reluctant to grumble about how 'one must read
Wagner in German to understand him,' but Ellis' translation really are
atrocious at times. In the quote above, G o t t and S c h ö p f e r
should be g e s p e r r t (italicized or underlined), though that is
of course difficult to do here. But "figure to himself" instead of
simply "imagine"? "Leiden des Daseins" I would prefer as "sufferings
[rather than sorrows] of existence." The last phrase makes little
sense to me in English: 'never truly *currently*[?] believed in'? I
would suggest: 'The World-C r e a t o r [as opposed to Weltüberwinder]
has never truly been known/familiar and believed in.' Ok, that's
awkward too -- it certainly isn't easy translating Wagner. But when
something is 'geläufig,' it means it is familiar with us. Wagner's
point here (like Blake, I believe), is that unlike Christ or Buddha,
who appears to us in human form, the creator god has always been
hidden from all of our inquiries, an empty abstraction.
Lastly, I also agree with you with what you say about Wagner's lack of
interest in historical details. That is perhaps fine to a degree,
when, as you say, he instead focuses on the broader outlines, or the
meaning of events, say. Even so, it's definitely a weakness, and wild
inaccuracies must surely have a negative influence on the general
argument. I believe he claims somewhere (can't find it now) that 90%
of Germany's population was wiped out during the Thirty Years' War.
The usual estimate, I think, is 33%. I assume he didn't make that
figure up, but found it somewhere -- still, I very much doubt that it
was an accepted figure even then, and it goes without saying that it
must have had an impact on how he viewed that cataclysm (zerging' in
Staub indeed...). It's rather tragic if he really believed that. Does
anyone have an idea of where he might have got that figure from?
Ok, I just found it in Wagner. It's in 'Was ist deutsch?':
"Ein Volk, welches nummerisch auf den zehnten Theil seines früheren
Bestandes herabgebracht war, konnte, seiner Bedeutung nach, nur noch
in der Erinnerung Einzelner bestehen."
A little earlier he had said:
"Der Ausgang des dreißigjährigen Krieges vernichtete das deutsche
Volk: daß ein deutsches Volk wieder erstehen konnte, verdankt es aber
doch einzig eben diesem Ausgange. Das Volk war vernichtet, aber der
deutsche Geist hatte bestanden."
Again, anyone know what sort of history, what authors etc, he might be
building on here? Well, Wagner's view of the Thirty Years' War is a
rather different topic, which I probably should not try to delve into
just now. I know there are some contributors here that know a lot more
about this than I do, however, so maybe I'll try to bring it up later
some day. For it *is* quite important, I think, and not only for die
Meistersinger.
Derrick Everett
>> "Unter Gott sucht sich der Mensch genau genommen das Wesen
>> vorzustellen, welches den Leiden des Daseins (der Welt) nicht
>> unterworfen ist, somit über der Welt steht - dieß ist nun Jesus
>> (Buddha), der die Welt überwindet. - Der Welten-Schöpfer ist nie
>> wahrhaft geläufig gewesen und geglaubt worden."
>>
>> [Sämtliche Schriften und Dichtungen: volume 12, page 336]
>>
>> "By God, speaking strictly, man seeks to figure to himself a being not
>> subject to the sorrows of existence (of the world), and consequently
>> above the world - now this is Jesus (Buddha), who overcomes the world.
>> - The world-Creator has never been truly currently believed in."
>> [Translation by Wm. Ashton Ellis: Prose Works, vol.8, page 392]
>>
>>
> Fascinating quote. I understand it's from some of Wagner's later
> fragments, included in Vol. 12 of the German edition of his Gesammelte
> Schriften und Dichtungen. Is it considered to be a part of the Brown
> Book?
The fragment quoted above is not in the Brown Book.
"Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen" (GSD) is basically Wagner's own
selection from his writings and it runs to 10 volumes, which I have near
at hand in a fine copy of the 3rd edition. After Wagner's death, Hans
von Wolzungen and Richard Sternberg found and edited many other writings
by Wagner that he had either forgotten, lost or perhaps deliberately
omitted from GSD. These writings include the text of early dramatic
works such as 'Die Hohe Braut' and 'Jesus of Nazareth'. With the
"public" or sanitized edition of Wagner's autobiography, there was enough
material for 6 additional volumes, so that the complete edition that was
published as "Sämtliche Schriften und Dichtungen" (SSD) has 16 volumes.
Amazon.com are currently offering a new paperback edition of SSD at about
20 dollars a volume, if it is of interest. The publisher is identified
as BiblioBazaar. In German, of course.
> At any rate, I have the feeling Wagner is somehow more honest here
> (though he's also brainstorming a lot, which is why one should be
> careful to quote these jottings as any definite statements) than in many
> of the more tidily organized tracts he intended for publication.
> Interesting too, that he seems to be more free in speaking about Buddha
> and Indian religion in these texts; I believe he does that much less
> often in his published writings. I don't think 'Religion und Kunst,'
> say, contains any such direct identification of Christ and Buddha. It
> definitely underscores the points you've been making.
>
> I'm in general very reluctant to grumble about how 'one must read Wagner
> in German to understand him,' but Ellis' translation really are
> atrocious at times. In the quote above, G o t t and S c h ö p f e r
> should be g e s p e r r t (italicized or underlined), though that is of
> course difficult to do here. But "figure to himself" instead of simply
> "imagine"? "Leiden des Daseins" I would prefer as "sufferings [rather
> than sorrows] of existence." The last phrase makes little sense to me in
> English: 'never truly *currently*[?] believed in'? I would suggest: 'The
> World-C r e a t o r [as opposed to Weltüberwinder] has never truly been
> known/familiar and believed in.' Ok, that's awkward too -- it certainly
> isn't easy translating Wagner. But when something is 'geläufig,' it
> means it is familiar with us. Wagner's point here (like Blake, I
> believe), is that unlike Christ or Buddha, who appears to us in human
> form, the creator god has always been hidden from all of our inquiries,
> an empty abstraction.
I apologize for being lazy and giving the Ellis translation. He *does*
italicize the words God in the first sentence and Creator in the last,
and I am pleased to hear that I am not alone in failing to see where he
gets "currently". I think your translation is much closer to the
original sense.
>
> Lastly, I also agree with you with what you say about Wagner's lack of
> interest in historical details. That is perhaps fine to a degree, when,
> as you say, he instead focuses on the broader outlines, or the meaning
> of events, say. Even so, it's definitely a weakness, and wild
> inaccuracies must surely have a negative influence on the general
> argument. I believe he claims somewhere (can't find it now) that 90% of
> Germany's population was wiped out during the Thirty Years' War. The
> usual estimate, I think, is 33%. I assume he didn't make that figure up,
> but found it somewhere -- still, I very much doubt that it was an
> accepted figure even then, and it goes without saying that it must have
> had an impact on how he viewed that cataclysm (zerging' in Staub
> indeed...). It's rather tragic if he really believed that. Does anyone
> have an idea of where he might have got that figure from?
>
> Ok, I just found it in Wagner. It's in 'Was ist deutsch?':
>
> "Ein Volk, welches nummerisch auf den zehnten Theil seines früheren
> Bestandes herabgebracht war, konnte, seiner Bedeutung nach, nur noch in
> der Erinnerung Einzelner bestehen."
>
> A little earlier he had said:
>
> "Der Ausgang des dreißigjährigen Krieges vernichtete das deutsche Volk:
> daß ein deutsches Volk wieder erstehen konnte, verdankt es aber doch
> einzig eben diesem Ausgange. Das Volk war vernichtet, aber der deutsche
> Geist hatte bestanden."
I think that modern estimates of the population decrease in the German
states are between 20% and 30%. Some regions, such as Brandenburg and
Württemberg, were more severely affected by the Thirty Years' War,
perhaps losing as much as 70% of their pre-war populations through
warfare, famine and disease. So Wagner might have read something like
"70%died here and 75% there", then failed to remember the exact details
when he wrote 'Was ist Deutsch?'
>
> Again, anyone know what sort of history, what authors etc, he might be
> building on here? Well, Wagner's view of the Thirty Years' War is a
> rather different topic, which I probably should not try to delve into
> just now. I know there are some contributors here that know a lot more
> about this than I do, however, so maybe I'll try to bring it up later
> some day. For it *is* quite important, I think, and not only for die
> Meistersinger.
Contrary to those who claim that Wagner invented the Nazi belief in the
Germans as a "pure" race: Wagner makes it clear in this essay that after
the miscegenation of the Thirty Years' War, together with the destruction
of the population of some regions by famine and disease, in his view the
modern Germans were a mongrel race.
In his Wahnfried library Wagner had many books about German history, not
to mention "Stadt- und Welt-Chronik" in general, including Gustav
Freytag's 'Aus dem Jahrhundert des großen Krieges' (Leipzig 1873), which
is the most likely source for Wagner's knowledge of the Thirty Years War.
Richard Partridge
the following:
> Den Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:42:21 -0800, skrev kjbk Wallin:
>
>
>>> "Unter Gott sucht sich der Mensch genau genommen das Wesen
>>> vorzustellen, welches den Leiden des Daseins (der Welt) nicht
>>> unterworfen ist, somit �ber der Welt steht - die� ist nun Jesus
>>> (Buddha), der die Welt �berwindet. - Der Welten-Sch�pfer ist nie
>>> wahrhaft gel�ufig gewesen und geglaubt worden."
>>>
>>> [S�mtliche Schriften und Dichtungen: volume 12, page 336]
>>>
>>> "By God, speaking strictly, man seeks to figure to himself a being not
>>> subject to the sorrows of existence (of the world), and consequently
>>> above the world - now this is Jesus (Buddha), who overcomes the world.
>>> - The world-Creator has never been truly currently believed in."
>>> [Translation by Wm. Ashton Ellis: Prose Works, vol.8, page 392]
>>>
>>>
>> Fascinating quote. I understand it's from some of Wagner's later
>> fragments, included in Vol. 12 of the German edition of his Gesammelte
>> Schriften und Dichtungen. Is it considered to be a part of the Brown
>> Book?
>
> The fragment quoted above is not in the Brown Book.
>
> "Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen" (GSD) is basically Wagner's own
> selection from his writings and it runs to 10 volumes, which I have near
> at hand in a fine copy of the 3rd edition. After Wagner's death, Hans
> von Wolzungen and Richard Sternberg found and edited many other writings
> by Wagner that he had either forgotten, lost or perhaps deliberately
> omitted from GSD. These writings include the text of early dramatic
> works such as 'Die Hohe Braut' and 'Jesus of Nazareth'. With the
> "public" or sanitized edition of Wagner's autobiography, there was enough
> material for 6 additional volumes, so that the complete edition that was
> published as "S�mtliche Schriften und Dichtungen" (SSD) has 16 volumes.
>
> Amazon.com are currently offering a new paperback edition of SSD at about
> 20 dollars a volume, if it is of interest. The publisher is identified
> as BiblioBazaar. In German, of course.
>
>> At any rate, I have the feeling Wagner is somehow more honest here
>> (though he's also brainstorming a lot, which is why one should be
>> careful to quote these jottings as any definite statements) than in many
>> of the more tidily organized tracts he intended for publication.
>> Interesting too, that he seems to be more free in speaking about Buddha
>> and Indian religion in these texts; I believe he does that much less
>> often in his published writings. I don't think 'Religion und Kunst,'
>> say, contains any such direct identification of Christ and Buddha. It
>> definitely underscores the points you've been making.
>>
>> I'm in general very reluctant to grumble about how 'one must read Wagner
>> in German to understand him,' but Ellis' translation really are
>> atrocious at times. In the quote above, G o t t and S c h � p f e r
>> should be g e s p e r r t (italicized or underlined), though that is of
>> course difficult to do here. But "figure to himself" instead of simply
>> "imagine"? "Leiden des Daseins" I would prefer as "sufferings [rather
>> than sorrows] of existence." The last phrase makes little sense to me in
>> English: 'never truly *currently*[?] believed in'? I would suggest: 'The
>> World-C r e a t o r [as opposed to Welt�berwinder] has never truly been
>> known/familiar and believed in.' Ok, that's awkward too -- it certainly
>> isn't easy translating Wagner. But when something is 'gel�ufig,' it
>> means it is familiar with us. Wagner's point here (like Blake, I
>> believe), is that unlike Christ or Buddha, who appears to us in human
>> form, the creator god has always been hidden from all of our inquiries,
>> an empty abstraction.
>
> I apologize for being lazy and giving the Ellis translation. He *does*
> italicize the words God in the first sentence and Creator in the last,
> and I am pleased to hear that I am not alone in failing to see where he
> gets "currently". I think your translation is much closer to the
> original sense.
>
>>
>> Lastly, I also agree with you with what you say about Wagner's lack of
>> interest in historical details. That is perhaps fine to a degree, when,
>> as you say, he instead focuses on the broader outlines, or the meaning
>> of events, say. Even so, it's definitely a weakness, and wild
>> inaccuracies must surely have a negative influence on the general
>> argument. I believe he claims somewhere (can't find it now) that 90% of
>> Germany's population was wiped out during the Thirty Years' War. The
>> usual estimate, I think, is 33%. I assume he didn't make that figure up,
>> but found it somewhere -- still, I very much doubt that it was an
>> accepted figure even then, and it goes without saying that it must have
>> had an impact on how he viewed that cataclysm (zerging' in Staub
>> indeed...). It's rather tragic if he really believed that. Does anyone
>> have an idea of where he might have got that figure from?
>>
>> Ok, I just found it in Wagner. It's in 'Was ist deutsch?':
>>
>> "Ein Volk, welches nummerisch auf den zehnten Theil seines fr�heren
>> Bestandes herabgebracht war, konnte, seiner Bedeutung nach, nur noch in
>> der Erinnerung Einzelner bestehen."
>>
>> A little earlier he had said:
>>
>> "Der Ausgang des drei�igj�hrigen Krieges vernichtete das deutsche Volk:
>> da� ein deutsches Volk wieder erstehen konnte, verdankt es aber doch
>> einzig eben diesem Ausgange. Das Volk war vernichtet, aber der deutsche
>> Geist hatte bestanden."
>
> I think that modern estimates of the population decrease in the German
> states are between 20% and 30%. Some regions, such as Brandenburg and
> W�rttemberg, were more severely affected by the Thirty Years' War,
> perhaps losing as much as 70% of their pre-war populations through
> warfare, famine and disease. So Wagner might have read something like
> "70%died here and 75% there", then failed to remember the exact details
> when he wrote 'Was ist Deutsch?'
>
>>
>> Again, anyone know what sort of history, what authors etc, he might be
>> building on here? Well, Wagner's view of the Thirty Years' War is a
>> rather different topic, which I probably should not try to delve into
>> just now. I know there are some contributors here that know a lot more
>> about this than I do, however, so maybe I'll try to bring it up later
>> some day. For it *is* quite important, I think, and not only for die
>> Meistersinger.
>
> Contrary to those who claim that Wagner invented the Nazi belief in the
> Germans as a "pure" race: Wagner makes it clear in this essay that after
> the miscegenation of the Thirty Years' War, together with the destruction
> of the population of some regions by famine and disease, in his view the
> modern Germans were a mongrel race.
>
> In his Wahnfried library Wagner had many books about German history, not
> to mention "Stadt- und Welt-Chronik" in general, including Gustav
> Freytag's 'Aus dem Jahrhundert des gro�en Krieges' (Leipzig 1873), which
> is the most likely source for Wagner's knowledge of the Thirty Years War.
>
This dialog should serve as a model for all of our posts. It is most
interesting even for people like me who know relatively little about
"Parsifal," not to mention the more esoteric topics touched upon. We can't
all aspire to the erudition in evidence here, but we certainly could try to
write with the courtesy, mutual respect and civility of these posts.
Dick Partridge
kjbk Wallin
Freytag; didn't know he wrote (or tried to write) history as well --
he's primarily known as a novelist. For 'Wagnerians,' he's perhaps
best know for writing a negative review of Das Judenthum in der Musik
for Die Grenzboten. Wagner no doubt knew about that, and I wonder if
he wouldn't be a bit reluctant to consult him as his main authority on
any matter of history after that... Be that as it may, it's definitely
interesting.
And interesting to see that there's some kind of reprint being issued
of Wagner's complete works. I have an old edition of Sämtliche
Schriften und Dichtungen myself, though I'm not sure at the moment
which edition it is. Fascinating -- I bought it used just a few months
ago, but it appears that it has never been read. I have a feeling this
is somehow representative for the spread of Wagner's writings; I don't
think he could ever pride himself on any extensive readership...
As for Dick Partridge's kind comment, I've been amazed ever since I
started reading this newsgroup at how high the quality of discussion
often is. I guess there is the occasional snide remark, but I think
one can live with that. Ok, I suppose there are also, to put it
bluntly, a bunch of freaks who appear here with regular intervals to
go on some eccentric rant that has nothing to do with Wagner -- but
there's nothing one can do about that, I guess.
kjbk Wallin
Bodhisattva archetype?,” where I came across a remark from Derrick
that I think is highly pertinent to any discussion of either Parsifal
or any of the other Wagner operas:
“Too many commentators on Wagner's works, I feel, give weight to his
reinterpretations and too little to his original conception and the
final concept as embodied in the art-work, in which the
reinterpretations were not embodied.”
One can of course insist that the only thing that has any validity is
the finished work, and that both the original prose drafts and the
later comments he made—I presume you’re primarily thinking of the many
remarks preserved in Cosima’s diaries—are irrelevant, strictly
speaking. While I would agree that the finished libretto has a
different degree of authority than Wagner’s comments (I believe it was
Northrop Frye who said that Dante writing *about* the Divine Comedy
was merely another Dante scholar, and could claim no higher authority
than any of his followers in that trade), I would also think that most
people would be rather reluctant to disregard the guidance Wagner has
offered in his prose writings.
But: I think it’s true that there is often in fact a certain
discrepancy between the comments made before and after. There’s the
prose draft, the finished product, and then the comments from
afterwards, and it seems they all reflect on Wagner’s constantly
evolving understanding of his own artistic creations. Whether it is
correct that commentators are prone to give more weight to his later
interpretations than to the original conception I don’t know; but the
tension between them is certainly very interesting.
It is one of the most fascinating things about Wagner’s art that all
of his mature operas are somehow connected. We see the same symbols
and themes reappearing in work after work, as if he were searching for
the one perfect expression of it – the wound in Tristan and Parsifal,
the return of the staff in Parsifal and Tannhäuser*, the singing
contest in Tannhäuser and Meistersinger, etc. I have the feeling
Wagner didn’t quite know what he had created, and that his later
comments are efforts to come to grips with that, just like it is for
us.
Perhaps the problematic importance of the original draft can be
illustrated by the following example. In Act II of Parsifal, Kundry
relates to the ‘holy fool’ (ok, just kidding, Treadwell’s mistake in
calling him that is pretty bad) how his mother had raised him after
the death of Gamuret:
Nur Weinen war sie [Herzeleide], Schmerz-Gebahren
um deines Vaters Lieb' und Tod;
vor gleicher Noth dich zu bewahren,
galt ihr als höchster Pflicht Gebot:
What does “gleicher Noth” refer to here? Does she want to preserve
Parsifal from the fate of Gamuret (death), or from the fate of herself
(grief brought on by death)? The prose draft makes it clear, I think,
it’s the first option she is concerned about**, which is also
suggested by the lines immediately following:
den Waffen fern, der Männer Kampf und Wüthen,
wollte sie still dich bergen und behüten.
Still, there’s a powerful ambiguity here, I feel. She obviously
doesn’t want her son to become a warrior, like his father. But on an
arguably even deeper plane, it’s as if she’s trying to shield Parsifal
from the very knowledge that there is such a thing as death. It is
absolutely uncanny how penetratingly powerful the music and the drama
is at this point. It just gets to layers of your being that you didn’t
even know existed, and which you’re almost afraid to touch. Perhaps
his purity is connected with this; it isn’t just innocence in the
sense of lacking in experience. But it’s something that points to a
state of being where death has no existence, or at least not the fear
of death, which perhaps amounts to the same thing. Also the fact that
Gamuret whispered the name Parsifal in the moment he took leave of his
own life; and that Herzeleide would never reveal that name to her son,
except on that one(?) occasion in sleep. If she just wanted to prevent
Parsifal from becoming a knight, why not lie and say he was a
carpenter, to put it somewhat flippantly? It’s like the very existence
of the father must be held from the boy’s knowledge.
I can’t really formulate all of this with sufficient precision; but
perhaps that can be forgiven, considering the staggering profundity of
that drama. And this would perhaps count as an instance where we see
the finished drama plumb depths that aren't more than vaguely hinted
at in the original prose draft.
In conclusion, I may note that there’s a new essay by Mark Berry ‘on
the transcendentalism of Parsifal’ in the most recent issue of The
Wagner Journal. I leafed through it, but haven’t read it in any detail
yet.
* Btw, could one not argue that there is a certain structural
similarity between the role played by the Evening Star in Tannhäuser
and the (tip of the) spear in Parsifal? Wolfram’s words are used of
himself, but perhaps apply even better to Heinrich:
da scheinest du, o lieblichster der Sterne,
dein sanftes Licht entsendest du der Ferne;
die nächt'ge Dämm'rung theilt dein lieber Strahl,
und freundlich zeigst den Weg du aus dem Thal.
That utter darkness, and the one solitary light that could possibly
show the way out of it reminds me of Parsifal’s quest after he has
retrieved the spear, but still can’t find his way back to Monsalvat. I
have no technical knowledge of music, so I’m perhaps making a fool of
myself here, but isn’t there some kind of similarity between the music
setting in just before ‘da scheinest du’ and what we hear in Act II of
Parsifal just before:
Es starrt der Blick dumpf auf das Heilsgefäß:
Or in Act III, when Parsifal sinks down on his knees and then looks up
in a passionate prayer to the tip of the lance: “Parsifal erhebt jetzt
in brünstigem Gebete seinen Blick andachtvoll zu der Lanzenspitze
auf.”
Well, whatever the similarities in music and plot, it seems to me like
one more instance of Wagner retelling the same myth in slightly
different form on different occasions.
** „diese [Schmerzeleide, who was to become Herzeleide] hat ihn in
größter Zurückgezogenheit in der Weise erzogen, daß er nie etwas von
Waffen und Ritterschaft erfahren solle. »Warum das«? Da Parzival
keinen Grund weiß, ergänzt mit hastigem Hineinwurf Kundry, welche, in
ihrer Ecke gelagert, von Anfang an den Blick starr auf Parzival
geheftet hat. »Sein Vater ward noch vor des Sohnes Geburt erschlagen:
die Mutter wollte den Sohn vor gleichem, gewaltsamen Tode bewahren. –
Die Thörin!« Sie lacht.“
Derrick Everett
> I was just reading and old thread from December 2001 on “Parsifal as
> Bodhisattva archetype?,” where I came across a remark from Derrick that
> I think is highly pertinent to any discussion of either Parsifal or any
> of the other Wagner operas:
>
> “Too many commentators on Wagner's works, I feel, give weight to his
> reinterpretations and too little to his original conception and the
> final concept as embodied in the art-work, in which the
> reinterpretations were not embodied.”
>
> One can of course insist that the only thing that has any validity is
> the finished work,
And some do. But is validity the issue?
> and that both the original prose drafts and the later
> comments he made—I presume you’re primarily thinking of the many remarks
> preserved in Cosima’s diaries—
Mainly in the diaries but also sometimes in his own letters.
> are irrelevant, strictly speaking. While I
> would agree that the finished libretto has a different degree of
> authority than Wagner’s comments (I believe it was Northrop Frye who
> said that Dante writing *about* the Divine Comedy was merely another
> Dante scholar, and could claim no higher authority than any of his
> followers in that trade), I would also think that most people would be
> rather reluctant to disregard the guidance Wagner has offered in his
> prose writings.
>
> But: I think it’s true that there is often in fact a certain discrepancy
> between the comments made before and after. There’s the prose draft, the
> finished product, and then the comments from afterwards, and it seems
> they all reflect on Wagner’s constantly evolving understanding of his
> own artistic creations. Whether it is correct that commentators are
> prone to give more weight to his later interpretations than to the
> original conception I don’t know; but the tension between them is
> certainly very interesting.
"You can't get to know works of art or of nature when they have been
finished; you must get a grasp of them while they are coming into being
in order to gain any degree of understanding of them". (Goethe to Zelter)
The tendency of commentators to give weight to, for example, the
reinterpretation of the 'Ring' in relation to Schopenhauer's concepts is
to be deplored. Not as much, I suggest, as we should deplore the failure
of many commentators (with obvious exceptions) to interpret 'Tristan' and
'Parsifal' in terms of those concepts.
I have previously argued for the thesis that we can better understand
those of Wagner's operas that developed over many years -- and in
particular his 'Parsifal' -- if we study the development of Wagner's text
through successive stages, paying attention to the connections that he
made to ideas that were preoccupying him in each of those stages.
For example: in the late 1850's Wagner became interested in the idea (or
ideas) of reincarnation. This interested Wagner not only for its own
sake, and in relation to Schopenhauer's philosophy, but also because it
occurred to him that his leitmotivic technique was ideally suited to
portraying musically reminiscences of -- and effects of -- past lives in
the present. He found in Burnouf's 'Introduction à l'Histoire du
Buddhisme Indien' a story in which the (future) Buddha revealed his
knowledge of the previous lives of a girl called Prakitri, and began (in
May 1856) to develop a scenario for an opera based upon it, which he
called 'Die Sieger'.
He then applied what he had read about reincarnation, retrospectively, to
Lohengrin. In a letter to MW of August 1860 he wrote:
"According to the beautiful Buddhist doctrine, the spotless purity of
Lohengrin is easily explicable in terms of his being the continuation of
Parzifal [sic] - who was the first to strive towards purity. Elsa,
similarly, would reach the level of Lohengrin through being reborn. Thus
my plan for the Victors struck me as being the concluding section of
Lohengrin."
This has little to do with Buddhist doctrine, in fact, and more to do
with Schopenhauer's (rather diffuse) doctrine of reincarnation, in which
the parent lives on in the child. This passage does not tell us anything
about the opera 'Lohengrin', since Wagner was not aware of any doctrine
of reincarnation when the completed that opera; but it does show us how
he could reinterpret a completed work in terms of new concepts. He could
also rework an opera using those concepts; which he did more than once in
the ending of 'Götterdämmerung'.
In an early stage of that opera's development, Brünnhilde threw herself
into the flames with the intention of ascending with Siegfried to
Valhalla (in a similar way to the ascent of Senta and the Dutchman to
Heaven in an earlier opera). With the transition from 'Siegfried's Tod'
to 'Götterdämmerung', the rule of the gods was to end, and Wagner
consigned Valhalla to Loge's flames. So Brünnhilde was "all dressed up
with nowhere to go". In the so-called Schopenhauerian ending, written at
the same time as the synopsis for 'Die Sieger', she declared:
"Since I no more can go
to Valhalla's fortress,
do you know where I'm going?
I depart from the home of desire,
I flee forever the home of delusion;
the open gates
of eternal becoming
I close behind me now:
to the holiest chosen land,
free from desire and delusion,
the goal of the world's migration,
redeemed from reincarnation (Wiedergeburt),
the enlightened woman now goes."
('Götterdämmerung' draft libretto, May 1856)
In this revision of the ending, later discarded, Brünnhilde not only
knows "everything" about what has been going on around her but she knows
"everything" in the sense of becoming enlightened, in the Buddhist sense.
This enables her to go, not to Valhalla, but to "the holiest chosen land"
of Nirvana. That was how the opera was to end in 1856 but it is an open
question whether Wagner's understanding of the ending was the same in
1876.
>
> It is one of the most fascinating things about Wagner’s art that all of
> his mature operas are somehow connected. We see the same symbols and
> themes reappearing in work after work, as if he were searching for the
> one perfect expression of it – the wound in Tristan and Parsifal, the
> return of the staff in Parsifal and Tannhäuser*, the singing contest in
> Tannhäuser and Meistersinger, etc. I have the feeling Wagner didn’t
> quite know what he had created, and that his later comments are efforts
> to come to grips with that, just like it is for us.
The common theme of a singing contest links the two operas because,
initially, 'Die Meistersinger' was conceived by Wagner as a "satyr play"
to provide comic relief after 'Tannhäuser'. The wound is common to
'Tristan' and 'Parsifal' as a symbol of suffering, which is a central
theme of Schopenhauer's metaphysics. Desire leads to suffering, even if
it is the desire to escape from a world of suffering.
In Wolfram's epic poem, Herzeloyde tries to prevent her son Parzival from
becoming a warrior by keeping him from all knowledge of weapons and
fighting, and by keeping him in the company of women and old men, rather
than allowing him to associate with other boys. So he leads a *very*
sheltered existence, deep in the Welsh forests.
I have argued that the initial idea that started Wagner on the
development of his "pure fool" opera was the recognition that Parzival
resembles, in his sheltered youth, the future Buddha Shakyamuni. Like
Parzival's mother, the father of Shakyamuni kept him in a closed
environment (the palace) and forbade anyone to speak to the young prince
of old age, sickness or death. In both cases, the sheltered youth is
kept from knowing about things that he only discovers when he wanders
away from the sheltered environment. I suspect that the important thing
about keeping Parzival from knowledge of his father is that Herzeloyde
does not want him to know that his father was a warrior, or even what a
warrior might be.
Derrick Everett
> The tendency of commentators to give weight to, for example, the
> reinterpretation of the 'Ring' in relation to Schopenhauer's concepts is
> to be deplored. Not as much, I suggest, as we should deplore the
> failure of many commentators (with obvious exceptions) to interpret
> 'Tristan' and 'Parsifal' in terms of those concepts.
Apropos Schopenhauer's influence on the operas:
Wagner had already completed 'Das Rheingold' and he was writing the music
of 'Die Walküre' when his friend George Herwegh introduced Wagner to the
philosophy of Schopenhauer. Therefore in no way could Schopenhauer have
had any influence whatsoever upon those operas. Although Wagner did,
post- Schopenhauer, make changes to the libretto of 'Siegfried', these
were mainly cuts and I cannot see that they were made because of
Schopenhauer; rather, Wagner made them because he realised that
'Siegfried' was too wordy. When it comes to 'Götterdämmerung', Wagner
did make a "Schopenhauer ending", although it seems to me more Buddhistic
than Schopenhauerian, but he already had difficulties with the
"Feuerbachian" ending of the opera before he discovered Schopenhauer.
Despite those who would view 'Die Meistersinger' as the "most
Schopenhauerian" of Wagner's operas, it should be noted that he had
conceived it as a comic opera soon after completing 'Tannhäuser'. The
Schopenhauerian influences, most evident in the 3rd act of 'Die
Meistersinger', appeared late in the development of the opera's text.
In contrast, both 'Tristan' and 'Parsifal' were Schopenhauerian from
their very conception. By Wagner's own admission (to Liszt in December
1854), the inspiration for 'Tristan' had come from reading 'Die Welt als
Wille und Vorstellung'. Schopenhauer was the cause of Wagner's interest
in Burnouf, which led to the conception of 'Die Sieger' in May 1856,
which as previously noted was the month in which Wagner drafted the so-
called "Schopenhauerian ending" to 'Götterdämmerung'. It is not too much
of an oversimplification to say that:
(1) 'Die Sieger' was Wagner's response to Schopenhauer on the subject of
erotic love.
(2) 'Tristan' was Wagner's response to Schopenhauer's metaphysics.
(3) 'Parsifal' was Wagner's response to Schopenhauer's essays on ethics.
Therefore the importance of understanding Schopenhauer and Wagner's
reception of his ideas for developing an understanding of 'Tristan' and
'Parsifal', and to a much less extent of 'Meistersinger', and its near
irrelevance for understanding the 'Ring' (except for the discarded 1856
ending).
kjbk Wallin
all of this extremely well, and I read your words with great interest.
> > One can of course insist that the only thing that has any validity is
> > the finished work,
>
> And some do. But is validity the issue?
Perhaps not. I’m not even sure I know what I meant with ‘validity’
here. I guess an easy hypothetical example would be if Wagner had
written something in the original prose draft that was not only not
included in the finished product, but that also ran directly counter
to it in some way, then it might be instructive to contemplate why he
jettisoned that particular detail, but it couldn’t be used to support
any reading of the opera *as if* this detail had in fact been
included.
In my own experience, though, I find that the quest for a meaning in
Parsifal leads me more and more to a contemplation of the story almost
as if it were independent from the opera. So much of the work is
narration, of course, and the more you familiarize yourself with the
work, the more do you start to ask about the meaning of all those
events that are related, but still left rather vague. Like Gamuret,
and why he should have whispered the name Parsifal at the moment of
his death. Was it the imminence of his own life's end that inspired
him to do that? Had he not thought of a name for his own son before
that? And if name giving can in some way be understood as a way of
bestowing, or recognizing, identity, could it be that it was only in
the moment of his own death that he realized who his son was to to
him, or what he was, or what he could be? It’s like he is suddenly
remembering his son in the moment of his greatest distress, just like
his son is one day to suddenly remember his mother under similarly
extraordinary circumstances. No clear answers, it seems to me, are
provided here; but the more the work grows on me – and I’ve known it
for many years now, but it still sinks deeper and deeper into my soul
– the more do I look for some sort of answer to questions of that
nature, which may seem peripheral at first sight. And it is in the
quest for those answers, I find, that Wagner’s prose drafts and
comments can often be quite helpful, even though in a sense, I think
that he was sometimes just as bewildered as we are.
In writing this, moreover, I realize that I unwittingly translated
that death scene so that it better conformed with my own image of it.
According to the libretto, Gamuret didn’t ‘whisper’ the name Parsifal,
but ‘called’ it, or even ‘screamed’ it (‘rief dem Sohne zu’). But
‘rufen’ here doesn’t really need to be any pained scream of death; so
I think ‘whisper’ may in fact be a legitimate way of rephrasing it.
>
> > and that both the original prose drafts and the later
> > comments he made—I presume you’re primarily thinking of the many remarks
> > preserved in Cosima’s diaries—
>
> Mainly in the diaries but also sometimes in his own letters.
>
Ah, letters too. As I read on in that thread, I began suspecting that
you were primarily referring to the so-called Regenerations-Schriften,
which – as you well know – have been pressed into service to bolster
all sorts of dark fantasies about Parsifal.
At any rate, you make a number of interesting points here that I would
perhaps like to comment on, but I fear I’m too tired at the moment.
Maybe I can come back to it later. I might have gone off in my own
direction again with my ramblings above. I wanted to ask re
Schopenhauer, however, if you’re familiar with an essay called ‘The
Deaf Musician: Schopenhauer Reads Wagner,’ by Karl S. Kuthke? It can
be found here:
http://harvardmagazine.com/1996/09/schopenhauer.html
It isn’t very well know, I believe. Rather entertaining, though – it’s
about the pencil markings Schopenhauer made in the margins of the copy
of the Ring that Wagner had sent him. Seems like the sage of Frankfort
(as it was once called in English) wasn’t all that impressed. They
have the copy in a library at Harvard, and I’ve toyed with the idea of
going there to have a look at it. Presumably, though, Guthke has given
us the most noteworthy comments in his essay.
A final PS. In the Walker biography of Liszt, I came across a
gentleman by the name of Alfred Meissner who apparently dedicated to
the composer his four-volume novel ‘Sansara,’ which he had completed
around 1857-58. Another sign of how the interest for Indian philosophy
was ‘in the air’ at that time...
Derrick Everett
> First, let me thank you again for your comments. It’s clear you know all
> of this extremely well, and I read your words with great interest.
>
>> > One can of course insist that the only thing that has any validity is
>> > the finished work,
>>
>> And some do. But is validity the issue?
>
> Perhaps not. I’m not even sure I know what I meant with ‘validity’ here.
> I guess an easy hypothetical example would be if Wagner had written
> something in the original prose draft that was not only not included in
> the finished product, but that also ran directly counter to it in some
> way, then it might be instructive to contemplate why he jettisoned that
> particular detail, but it couldn’t be used to support any reading of the
> opera *as if* this detail had in fact been included.
Such as:
"Titurel erhebt sich segnend aus dem Sarge." (Parsifal Act III, in 'Das
Braune Buch', page 70)
Fortunately Wagner decided not to keep that idea!
I've always thought that the origin of Parsifal's name was less important
than the fact that, like Siegmund, he receives his name from a woman (and
in neither case is it the hero's mother).
>
>> > and that both the original prose drafts and the later comments he
>> > made—I presume you’re primarily thinking of the many remarks
>> > preserved in Cosima’s diaries—
>>
>> Mainly in the diaries but also sometimes in his own letters.
>>
>>
> Ah, letters too. As I read on in that thread, I began suspecting that
> you were primarily referring to the so-called Regenerations-Schriften,
> which – as you well know – have been pressed into service to bolster all
> sorts of dark fantasies about Parsifal.
>
> At any rate, you make a number of interesting points here that I would
> perhaps like to comment on, but I fear I’m too tired at the moment.
> Maybe I can come back to it later. I might have gone off in my own
> direction again with my ramblings above. I wanted to ask re
> Schopenhauer, however, if you’re familiar with an essay called ‘The Deaf
> Musician: Schopenhauer Reads Wagner,’ by Karl S. Kuthke? It can be found
> here:
>
> http://harvardmagazine.com/1996/09/schopenhauer.html
>
> It isn’t very well know, I believe. Rather entertaining, though – it’s
> about the pencil markings Schopenhauer made in the margins of the copy
> of the Ring that Wagner had sent him. Seems like the sage of Frankfort
> (as it was once called in English) wasn’t all that impressed. They have
> the copy in a library at Harvard, and I’ve toyed with the idea of going
> there to have a look at it. Presumably, though, Guthke has given us the
> most noteworthy comments in his essay.
>
Wagner's friends were tactful enough to conceal from him exactly what
Schopenhauer had said about the 'Ring'. If there was anything
Schopenhauerian about the tetralogy, then it was not apparent to the
philosopher himself.