I Saw The World End (New S&F Featured Past Post)
A.C. Douglas
Derrick Everett
> http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2010/06/featured-past-
post-99-administrative-note.html
"Mark well my new poem - it contains the world's beginning and its end".
(Richard Wagner to Franz Liszt, 11 February 1853)
So what is it that ends at the end of 'Götterdämmerung'? And what begins?
--
Derrick Everett
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A.C. Douglas
> "Mark well my new poem - it contains the world's beginning and its end".
>
> (Richard Wagner to Franz Liszt, 11 February 1853)
>
> So what is it that ends at the end of 'Götterdämmerung'? And what begins?
I take it you're putting the question in earnest and not as a challenge to my,
"All genuine works of art, and most particularly those works of art which are
the products of authentic genius, are totally self-contained entities, and
require nothing extrinsic to themselves to be understood, all that's required
for such understanding being contained within the artworks themselves," and so
I'll answer in earnest even though I'm a bit taken aback that such a question
would come from your well-informed self.
The answer is: the world ends at the end of _Götterdämmerung_ — that is, the
world that existed subsequent to the last measure of the prelude to _Das
Rheingold_, but with the promise that it will begin again, and begin again
with the _Rheintöchter_ just as at the rise of curtain on Scene 1 of
_Das Rheingold_, a gift purchased by Brünnhilde's return of Alberich's
ring to the Rhine. This is made eloquently and unambiguously clear to us not
by the text (which is silent on the matter), but by the music alone, just as
Wagner intended.
This promised same new beginning should never be understood in the sense of
one of the infinite number of same new beginnings postulated by Nietzsche's
Eternal Recurrence, but a same new beginning in the sense of a fresh start
with fresh possibilities that, although it begins the same as at rise of
curtain on Scene 1 of _Das Rheingold_, will this time, with any luck, not
develop in a way similar thereafter.
Derrick Everett
> "Derrick Everett" <sparafu...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> "Mark well my new poem - it contains the world's beginning and its
>> end".
>>
>> (Richard Wagner to Franz Liszt, 11 February 1853)
>>
>> So what is it that ends at the end of 'Götterdämmerung'? And what
>> begins?
>
> I take it you're putting the question in earnest and not as a challenge
> to my, "All genuine works of art, and most particularly those works of
> art which are the products of authentic genius, are totally
> self-contained entities, and require nothing extrinsic to themselves to
> be understood, all that's required for such understanding being
> contained within the artworks themselves," and so I'll answer in earnest
> even though I'm a bit taken aback that such a question would come from
> your well-informed self.
It was not intended as a challenge and I think we already agreed to
disagree about the "self-contained entities" issue. I was thinking of
your remarks concerning the intervention of Erda and how that
intervention, in your view, makes the tetralogy about something bigger
than the social and political organization of mankind. You have a good
point there.
It is worth noting, incidentally, that Erda did not appear in Wagner's
first sketch of the story. That sketch -- the 'Mythos' -- at that time
was mostly back-story to his projected Siegfried opera, which was to be
first 'Siegfrieds Tod' and later 'Götterdämmerung'). In the 'Mythos', it
is not Erda but the *Norns* who intervene to advise Wotan to yield the
ring. Which might be why Wagner decided to keep the Norns scene in the
final opera of his multiple-part even after he had decided to write
'Young Siegfried'. But of course, given that you do not accept the need
to consider anything outside the work itself, not even its development
history, as an aid to understanding the art-work, I do not expect that
you pay much attention either to the 'Mythos' or to 'Siegfrieds Tod'.
Whether it is Erda or the Norns who urge Wotan to give up the ring, there
is no suggestion that by doing so he will save the gods. A dark day
dawns for the gods regardless. "All that is, ends", he is told, and
however much the gods talk about themselves as immortal (this is very
deliberate irony), like human rulers, their rule had a beginning and it
will have an end. But is the end of their rule also the end of the world?
>
> The answer is: the world ends at the end of _Götterdämmerung_ — that is,
> the world that existed subsequent to the last measure of the prelude to
> _Das Rheingold_, but with the promise that it will begin again, and
> begin again with the _Rheintöchter_ just as at the rise of curtain on
> Scene 1 of _Das Rheingold_, a gift purchased by Brünnhilde's return of
> Alberich's ring to the Rhine. This is made eloquently and unambiguously
> clear to us not by the text (which is silent on the matter), but by the
> music alone, just as Wagner intended.
As Wagner himself wrote, the ending of the drama -- and in that ending
"the meaning of the entire four-part drama" -- was left by him to music
alone. In his Complete Works Wagner published, however, several closing
texts (omitting some minor variants that are found in his unpublished
notes), that he had at various times intended to use at the end of the
work. I regard the last of those texts (the so-called Schopenhauer
ending) as a useful guide to understanding the ending as it stands. The
published poem ends with a speech (for Brünnhilde) that Wagner, in a
footnote, explains that he had decided to omit. It is probable that he
was persuaded to do so by Cosima, who found the ending to be contentious.
In those texts (which are not part of the final work), we can see how
Wagner's own understanding of the 'Ring' changed between the so-called
Feuerbach ending of 1852 (the one that concludes with, "all you need is
love") and the Schopenhauer ending of about 1863 (the one that concludes
with, "I saw the world end"). At least in its early drafts, the 'Ring'
was -- to a large extent if not entirely -- a socialist-anarchist
allegory, inspired both by Wagner's contacts with radicals such as
Bakunin (its political origin) and by his reading of philosophy (Hegel
and Feuerbach).
From Hegel, of whom Wagner had read little but might have heard more, I
believe that Wagner took only one idea. But it was a big idea. It is
the idea that history is *cyclic*. According to Hegel, each cycle of
history is broken by a hero who, as it were, takes history to the next
level. Although Wagner's hero -- or heroine, to be more accurate -- is
not much like Hegel's heros (for example Julius Caesar or Napoleon), I
hold that the fundamental idea underpinning the ending of
'Götterdämmerung' is that of a cycle of history coming to an end. That
end has been brought about by Brünnhilde, who declares (in the discarded
text of the Feuerbach ending):
Though the race of gods
passed away like a breath;
though I leave behind me
a world without rulers,
I now leave to that world
my most sacred hoard of wisdom.
Not wealth, not gold,
nor godly pomp;
not house, nor court,
nor lordly splendour;
not troubled treaties'
treacherous bonds,
not smooth-tongued custom's
stern decree;
blessed in joy and sorrow
let there be love alone.
In the Schopenhauer ending this "socialist-anarchist" speech was replaced
by one in which Brünnhilde declares that she is leaving the world of
illusion, apparently to enter into some kind of nirvana ("von
Wiedergeburt erlös't"). Yet there remains this idea of a world without
ruler, since both the earthly rules and the self-declared immortal gods
have been destroyed.
>
> This promised same new beginning should never be understood in the sense
> of one of the infinite number of same new beginnings postulated by
> Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence, but a same new beginning in the sense of
> a fresh start with fresh possibilities that, although it begins the same
> as at rise of curtain on Scene 1 of _Das Rheingold_, will this time,
> with any luck, not develop in a way similar thereafter.
The new beginning is indeed a fresh start. In his revolutionary years,
during which he wrote the libretto of 'Siegfrieds Tod', Wagner was hoping
for a global revolution that would bring about "a world without rulers".
At that time his thinking was dominated by social and political issues,
and therefore in its first form his Siegfried opera took place entirely
in the recognizably human world of the Gibichungs. It then developed
into the "four-act drama" in which Erda was introduced, although she
never entirely replaced the Norns even though they had become redundant.
Wagner's own view of the work then changed, while he was writing the
music of 'Die Walküre' and reading Schopenhauer, with the result that he
became dissatisfied with the Feuerbach ending, replacing it with (in
various drafts) the Schopenhauer ending.
Despite what some commentators (such as Lorenz) have claimed, Wagner did
not conceive of the entire four-act drama in one moment of inspiration.
It did not spring from his brow fully-formed like Athena from Zeus. It
is not unique among Wagner's works in its long evolution. However, it
seems to me that the meaning of the work for its creator changed
significantly between the 'Mythos' (when it was to be a single "Siegfried
opera"), through the Hegelian-Feuerbachian revolutionary drama of the
early 1850's, to the 'Ring' as we know it, with the libretto that was
finalized around 1863, by which time Wagner had written more than half of
the music.
In my view it is too simple to call the 'Ring' a socialist allegory, and
misleading to present it as influenced by Schopenhauer, although there
are elements in it that are arguably socialist and arguably
Schopenhauerian, although the work is only Schopenhaurian because of what
Wagner took out of it after reading Schopenhauer.
It is obvious to me, if not to you, that the 'Ring' in its final form
contains within it a political allegory (although it is perhaps not as
socialistic as G.B. Shaw claimed), one that was more obvious in
'Siegfrieds Tod'. Its allegorical kernel is grounded in ideas that
Wagner absorbed from reading Hegel and Feuerbach, and during his long
walks with Bakunin in 1848-49.
Apart from the removing the Feuerbach ending, there is nothing in the
'Ring' that stems from Schopenhauer; I hold that all commentators who
try to analyse the 'Ring' (as Wagner, admittedly, tried to do himself) in
terms of Schopenhauer's analysis, are fooling themselves. It is not a
Schopenhauerian work, except perhaps for the final pages of
'Götterdämmerung', which the composer left to music alone. Which is
appropriate given Schopenhauer's doctrine that only music can reveal to
us the world as it really is.
Derrick Everett
Sorry about the typos.
> It is worth noting, incidentally, that Erda did not appear in Wagner's
> first sketch of the story. That sketch -- the 'Mythos' -- at that time
> was mostly back-story to his projected Siegfried opera, which was to be
> first 'Siegfrieds Tod' and later 'Götterdämmerung'). In the 'Mythos',
> it is not Erda but the *Norns* who intervene to advise Wotan to yield
> the ring. Which might be why Wagner decided to keep the Norns scene in
> the final opera of his multiple-part even after he had decided to write
> 'Young Siegfried'.
That should have read:
It is worth noting, incidentally, that Erda did not appear in Wagner's
first sketch of the story. That sketch -- the 'Mythos' -- at that time
was mostly back-story to his projected Siegfried opera, which was to
become first 'Siegfrieds Tod' and later 'Götterdämmerung'. In the
'Mythos', it is not Erda but the *Norns* who intervene to advise Wotan to
yield the ring. Which might be why Wagner decided to keep the Norns
scene in the final opera of his multiple-part drama even after he had
decided to write 'Young Siegfried'.
And this:
> Yet there remains this idea of a world without ruler, since both the
> earthly rules and the self-declared immortal gods have been destroyed.
should be:
Yet there remains this idea of a world without rulers, since both the
earthly rulers and the self-declared immortal gods have been destroyed.
A.C. Douglas
> I was thinking of your remarks concerning the intervention of Erda and how
> that intervention, in your view, makes the tetralogy about something bigger
> than the social and political organization of mankind.
>
> [snip]
>
> Whether it is Erda or the Norns who urge Wotan to give up the ring, there is
> no suggestion that by doing so he will save the gods. A dark day dawns for
> the gods regardless. "All that is, ends", he is told, and however much the
> gods talk about themselves as immortal (this is very deliberate irony), like
> human rulers, their rule had a beginning and it will have an end. But is the
> end of their rule also the end of the world?
>
> [snip]
>
> I hold that the fundamental idea underpinning the ending of
> 'Götterdämmerung' is that of a cycle of history coming to an end. That end
> has been brought about by Brünnhilde....
>
> [snip]
>
> It is obvious to me, if not to you, that the 'Ring' in its final form
> contains within it a political allegory (although it is perhaps not as
> socialistic as G.B. Shaw claimed), one that was more obvious in 'Siegfrieds
> Tod'. Its allegorical kernel is grounded in ideas that Wagner absorbed from
> reading Hegel and Feuerbach, and during his long walks with Bakunin in
> 1848-49.
While your tracing of Wagner's thought and influences during the long
gestation period of the _Ring_ (all of which is known to me, but your
references to and discussion of which have here been elided by me) is
certainly interesting, it's, for me, all quite beside the point, and, worse,
thoroughly misleading. There's but a single authority for determining what's
going on in the drama of the _Ring_ and why, and that single authority is the
score (music, text, and stage directions) of the finished work. You, of
course, knew I would insist on that, and our disagreement concerning that
matter will, I'm afraid, result in our often arguing at cross-purposes, but
I'll proceed, that notwithstanding.
Let me first dispose of the minor side-matter of whether the _Ring_ "contains
within it a political allegory."
As I wrote in my linked S&F article that began this exchange, I'll allow that
if one wants to see the _Ring_ as political allegory (or as containing a
political allegory), then one can certainly make a reasonably convincing case
for it by the expedient of citing sources extrinsic to the drama as made
manifest in the score. But, then, in like manner, one could also make a
reasonably convincing case for the _Ring_ being about the universal internal
psychic struggle and conflict among and between the human Id, Ego, and
Superego. Or, if one's so inclined, one could take the Jungian approach by way
of symbols instead, as did Donington. So, if you insist on making the case
that the _Ring_ is a political allegory, or contains a political allegory,
you're perfectly free to do so as long as you can explain away convincingly ON
THE EVIDENCE OF THE SCORE ALONE those key elements of the drama that give
substantive lie to such a reading, Erda's appearance to the gods in _Das
Rheingold_, for instance, and the _Rheingold_ prelude for another, as I've
already pointed out in my S&F piece. You've not made a convincing case for
such a reading as your argument, like Cooke's, depends heavily on referencing
sources extrinsic to the drama as made manifest in the score.
Now, about this business of cyclic history...
That idea where the _Ring_ is concerned (an idea, BTW, that antedates anything
by Hegel that Wagner could have read by at least a century in the person of
Vico) is certainly sustainable on the evidence of the score, but I'm not quite
sure just how it should be applied within the context of the drama. To
declare, as you have, that the end of the cycle of history in the _Ring_ is
brought about by Brünnhilde is just too pat and without support in the score.
What about Brünnhilde is of such cosmic or heroic significance that she could
accomplish such a thing? Nothing in the score that I can determine. At that
stage of her career in the _Ring_ she's a mere mortal, and, in the larger
scheme of things, a fairly helpless one to boot. Her personal sacrifice at the
close of _Götterdämmerung_ is hardly sufficient as provoking cause for the
ending of so cosmic a cycle.
So what in the _Ring_ is of such cosmic significance that it would be capable
of bringing to an end so cosmic a cycle? Fate — that ineluctable fate set in
motion by Wotan, the world's highest moral authority, as a consequence of his
multifarious duplicitous machinations, both on- and offstage, prior to
_Walküre_, Act II, Scene 2, that's what. All that happens thereafter is a
direct result of that and that alone, and from that point forward the drama
concerns itself with the actions and fortunes of those who find themselves
trapped and controlled by that fate whether conscious of the fact or not,
Wotan himself very much included.
Derrick Everett
One of the reasons, I believe, that Wagner's canonical operas or dramas
maintain their fascination for many people is their multi-layered
complexity and their rich symbolic content. This makes the 'Ring', for
example, an easy target for those like Donington (Wagner's Ring and its
Symbols), or Jean Boden (Ring of Power), who have chosen to interpret the
tetralogy in psychological terms (respectively Jungian and Freudian). As
you must know, Deryck Cooke began writing his (regrettably unfinished) 'I
Saw the World End' as a refutation of Donington (and to some extent also,
of G.B. Shaw).
Another reason for Wagner's mature works remaining the subject of many
discussions such as the one we are having in this thread is Wagner's
ambiguity. Wagner admitted to the realization that his works would be
more fascinating if he concealed his meanings. Just as in his last stage
work the Holy Grail is hidden in a deep forest impenetrable to sinners,
some of his operas are impenetrable to those who do not have the key to
the operatic parade.
Wagnerian opera's potential for fanciful interpretation was demonstrated
most effectively by Jean-Jacques Nattiez in a witty book entitled,
'Wagner Androgyne'. Nattiez made a convincing case for a new
interpretation of the 'Ring' as an allegory of the history of western
music. It works rather well, at least for 'Das Rheingold' -- in
particular for the prelude and the first scene -- and even for parts of
'Götterdämmerung' (in discussion of which Nattiez observes, perceptively,
that some of Gutrune's music is a parody of French opera-comique). Of
course Nattiez knew damned well that the 'Ring' is *not* an allegory of
the history of western music, and he knew that by arguing as he did he
was turning Wagner on his head. In 'Das Rheingold' Wagner uses the
evolution of music from its most basic elements (unison, octave, harmonic
series), through primitive forms (pentatonic, then more complete scales),
through wordless song and finally to song with words, as an allegory of
biological evolution. Not the converse. Wagner was portraying in music,
better than anyone had done before him, the beginning of a world.
It is precisely because of Wagner's ambiguities (and in at least two of
his later works their elliptical and obscure text), that we are forced to
go to *external* material, such as Wagner's letters and his own notes, to
find clues that will help us choose between the many possible alternative
explanations of each work. Beyond the obvious -- such as the evolution
business and even that, Nattiez showed us, could be misinterpreted -- the
music alone does not easily yield up its meaning, and the words of the
libretto are more likely to obscure and mislead than they are to inform
the listener.
> Now, about this business of cyclic history...
>
> That idea where the _Ring_ is concerned (an idea, BTW, that antedates
> anything by Hegel that Wagner could have read by at least a century in
> the person of Vico) is certainly sustainable on the evidence of the
> score,
At least we agree on something!
> but I'm not quite sure just how it should be applied within the
> context of the drama. To declare, as you have, that the end of the cycle
> of history in the _Ring_ is brought about by Brünnhilde is just too pat
> and without support in the score. What about Brünnhilde is of such
> cosmic or heroic significance that she could accomplish such a thing?
In the revolutionary phase of the 'Ring' -- to which I think the 1852
libretto belongs and to which I am certain that the earlier drafts do --
she is a revolutionary firebrand, anarchistic, leaping from the
barricades of Dresden to destroy Church and State. Although we do not
often see them in modern stagings, Wagner in his stage instructions (do
you remember the stage instructions?) asks for idols of the gods to be
visible in the Gibichung Hall. Those idols are destroyed, with the Hall
itself, in the final conflagration. Can there be any doubt that this
symbolizes the destruction of both spiritual and temporal authority?
There are no more gods to give commandments -- "thou shalt" or "thou
shalt not" -- and there are no more earthly rulers to bind mankind with
"troubled treaties' treacherous bonds". Both the gods and the rulers are
dead and burned to ash. Is that not of cosmic and heroic significance?
>
> So what in the _Ring_ is of such cosmic significance that it would be
> capable of bringing to an end so cosmic a cycle? Fate — that ineluctable
> fate set in motion by Wotan, the world's highest moral authority, as a
> consequence of his multifarious duplicitous machinations, both on- and
> offstage, prior to _Walküre_, Act II, Scene 2, that's what. All that
> happens thereafter is a direct result of that and that alone, and from
> that point forward the drama concerns itself with the actions and
> fortunes of those who find themselves trapped and controlled by that
> fate whether conscious of the fact or not, Wotan himself very much
> included.
It could be argued that it is fate, perhaps even fate in a Greek sense,
something that cannot be escaped, that brings about the end. It could be
argued, alternatively, that it is the consequence the working of
Alberich's curse. Or it could be argued that we are seeing the
consequences of the original sin committed by Alberich, namely, the theft
of the gold; compounded with Wotan's crime against nature in breaking a
branch from the World Ash-tree to make his spear, an act that resulted in
the death of the tree. But I prefer to see the conclusion of the
tetralogy as the result of Brünnhilde's personal development and her
final self-sacrifice. She is a mortal but she was a goddess. In the end
I think she recovers some or perhaps all of the wisdom that she had given
up for Siegfried on the mountain top ("Des Wissens bar, doch des Wunsches
voll"). Brünnhilde grows in wisdom throughout 'Götterdämmerung', and
learns from the daughters of the deep Rhine, so that finally she is able
to declare, "Alles weiss ich, alles war mir nun frei!"
The ending of 'Götterdämmerung' and with it the ending of a cycle of
history is the result, I contend, not of impersonal and ineluctable fate
but of deliberate *choices* made, in ignorance or wisdom, by Brünnhilde.
In the final scene, after the death of Siegfried and after talking to the
daughters of the deep Rhine, the former valkyrie reaches a level of
wisdom and knowledge in which she is able to perform the redeeming act.
In destroying herself, declaring (in the Schopenhauer ending) that she
leaves the world never to be reborn, her eyes opened by grieving love,
Brünnhilde also destroys the immortal gods and purifies the terrible
ring, which the daughters of the Rhine reclaim from her ashes. What was
taken from the fire returns to the fire, and what was taken from the
water returns to the water. There is a new heaven and a new earth.
Richard Partridge
following:
[snip]
>
> One of the reasons, I believe, that Wagner's canonical operas or dramas
> maintain their fascination for many people is their multi-layered
> complexity and their rich symbolic content.
[snip]
I was thinking the same thing. Over the last couple of weeks* we've seen
several conflicting interpretations advanced by people who know the operas
well and argue persuasively for their various viewpoints. None of those
arguments are ridiculous, and the fact that Wagner's operas are susceptible
of so many different interpretations is a point in their favor, I would say.
Dick Partridge
* And indeed, for much longer than that.
A.C. Douglas
> [Cyclic history] where the _Ring_ is concerned (an idea, BTW, that antedates
> anything by Hegel that Wagner could have read by at least a century in the
> person of Vico) is certainly sustainable on the evidence of the score, but
> I'm not quite sure just how it should be applied within the context of the
> drama.
Oops. The word, "certainly" in my above should have read, "marginally".
Sorry about the delayed correction, but I just noticed the typo.
Mike Scott Rohan
> I was thinking the same thing. Over the last couple of weeks* we've seen
> several conflicting interpretations advanced by people who know the operas
> well and argue persuasively for their various viewpoints. None of those
> arguments are ridiculous, and the fact that Wagner's operas are susceptible
> of so many different interpretations is a point in their favor, I would say.
>
> Dick Partridge
>
> * And indeed, for much longer than that.
Given that he changed his mind so often in their creation, I'd agree.
What changed much less was the music. At the same time, many
apparently divergent readings, when you step back a little, are not so
far apart as all that -- so close, in fact, that the differences may
be more personal than inherent in the work. In effect, we 're seeing
the same rather complex thing through very personal glasses, that make
some facets stand out more than others.
Unless of course we're talking about Eurotrash producers...
Cheers,
Mike