Alleged Landulph II, Klingsor, Hitler links
Laon
down a sidetrack. This is a side issue that arose from my looking
into the castration issue. But it's turned out to be complex enough
to need its own thread.
Anyway, if you ask a search engine to see what it can find containing
the words "Klingsor" and "castration", you'll get some quite odd
results. You'll find sensible things like the Montsalvat Home Page,
but you'll also turn up some very odd sites that concern themselves
with Hitler, Nazis and the occult, and, from time to time, Wagner.
They tend to repeat this set of claims:
* Wagner's Klingsor, like Wolfram's Chlingsor, is based on a
historical personage, Landulph II of Capua;
* Landulph II was an evil tyrant;
* He raped a noblewoman and was in revenge castrated by her kinsmen;
* Landulph II went to lands under Moorish control, where he learned
and practiced black magic;
* Hitler was obsessed with Wagner's _Parsifal_, and in particular the
character Klingsor; Hitler actually identified with Klingsor, and with
Klingsor's historical model Landulph II.
Here are some samples from a range of these sites, showing how these
basic claims continue to acquire new details and embellishments:
"Klingsor was in fact Landulf II of Capua, the traitorous confidant of
the Holy Roman Emperor who betrayed Christianity to the Moslem
invaders of Italy and Spain."
"In history, no figure was more feared than the black magician
Landulph II of Capua. He, too, was obsessed with the power of the
Spear of Destiny."
"Landulph II, a ninth century tyrant who was known to his
contemporaries as the world's most powerful black magician. It is an
indisputable fact that both Hitler and Landulph chose the swastika to
be their heraldic symbol."
"... the Arabian astrological magic performed by Klingsor's real life
counterpart, Landulf II. It was to Sicily-then a Moslem
stronghold-that Landulf fled after his traitorous links to Islam were
disclosed. And it was in a dark tower in the mountains of the
southwest corner of that island that his evil soul festered with
additional bitterness over his castration by the relatives of a
noblewoman he had raped. There he practiced sadistic satanism of a
nature that foreshadowed the horrors of Nazi concentration camps."
[That last author goes on to dwell, in a rather nasty way, about rape,
disembowelments, sticking stakes up people and so on. But he adds an
interesting placename where this is supposed to have happened: Kalot
Enbolot. I'll come back to that placename later.]
[End of samples.]
Now these sites are full of all kinds of nonsense. But sometimes
there's a kernel of information behind wild embellishments. And if
there really was a link between Klingsor, or Chlingsor, and this
apparently very colourful Landulph II character, that would obviously
be a very interesting and entertaining thing. So I set out to see
what I could find out about it.
First, Landulph II of Capua, also known as the Longobard prince
Landolfo II di Capua e di Benevento, born about 910, died after 961,
seems to have been an undistinguished member of a line of minor
princes in southern Italy. I went through a couple of dozen shelves
of books held in the University of Sydney on Italian history, then
medieval Italian history, then early medieval Italian history, then
early medieval southern Italian history, etc, checking their indices
for references to Landolfo or Landulph II of Capua.
I found only two historical works that even mentioned the man:
* Barbara Kreutz's _Before the Normans: Southern Italy in the Ninth
and Tenth Centuries_, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia,
1991;
* Chris Wickham's _Early Medieval Italy: Central Power and Local
Society, 400 - 1000_, MacMillan, London, 1981.
Both referred to him in passing, as part of a dynasty that led to
Landolfo II's more interesting son, Pandolfo I, called Testa Di Ferra,
or "Ironhead".
Neither alluded to any alleged Landolfo saga of rape, castration,
black magic, torture and treachery. But if such material existed, few
historians would be able to resist adding colour to their books by
mentioning the stories before pointing out that they are only legends.
But in the case of the determinedly obscure Landolfo II, there's no
evidence of the existence even of legends.
In short, if Landolfo was "the most feared man in history", history
seems to have missed that fact. Perhaps it repressed the memory.
The Encyclopedia Italiana says [this is a paraphrase, not a
translation] that Landolfo was born around 910, ruled with his father
Landolfo I while his father was alive, and then in association with
his brother Atenolfo III, who was based at Benevento while Landolfo
was in Capua. He banished his brother and then ruled in both Capua
and Benevento. He reigned until 961, when he formed a partnership
with his son, Pandolfo, known as Testa di Ferro, who played a most
important part in 10th century Italian history. Landolfo II is
responsible for the construction of the one of the most significant
examples of Longobard architecture, at Garigliano.
Hmmm. So there's some mild intra-familial backstabbing there, which
is hardly unusual in minor medieval rulers (practically good manners,
in fact), and not enough to make Landolfo II especially sinister. For
example, he only banished his brother, leaving him alive; the monster
of the legend would surely have hung his brother up by hooks attached
to his eyeballs, while English tenors sung madrigals at him until he
died.
And in looking for an interesting detail about Landolfo's reign, the
Italiana had to fall back on the erection of a stylish Longobard tower
at Garigliano. That's slightly less dramatic than the alleged
Landulph II career of rape, castration, black magic, and letting the
Muslims into Italy. Let alone the embellishments involving swastikas,
the spear of Longinus, etc. Surely those things are more noteworthy,
if they existed, than public works?
So I'd conclude that the historical Landolfo II of Capua and Benevento
was neither worse than nor more important than most other minor
Italian princes of his day. There may be a reputable history
somewhere that refers to (let alone confirms) his alleged colourful
exploits, but after searching high and low to find any reference to
the man at all, and then finding those few references very bland
indeed, I'm inclined to doubt it.
If I ever find a genuine source for Landolfo's alleged atrocities I'll
post it (and if anyone knows of a source I'd be fascinated to hear
about it), but in the meantime I'd say that this alleged chain between
Landulph II, Wagner's Klingsor and Hitler is missing one of its links.
This is another long post. So the other links in that chain will have
to wait.
Cheers!
Laon
Laon
looked to see if there was anything to the alleged identification of
Wagner's Klingsor, via Wolfram's Chlingsor, with Landolfo II.
The Sydney University library has a couple of shelves of _Parzifal_
editions, commentaries and criticism. Given that Chlingsor is only a
minor character in Wolfram, not the imposing figure that Wagner makes
of him, few works paid him much attention. But again, there was an
eloquent silence from all of these resources: not one commentary on
Wolfram's _Parzifal_ suggested any link between Chlingsor and a 10th
century Italian prince.
However one book did suggest a sort of historical, or
quasi-historical, antecedent for the figure of Chlingsor: _The
Parzifal of Wolfram von Eschenbach Translated into English Verse with
Introduction, Notes, and Connecting Summaries_, Edwin H Zeydel, in
collaboration with Bayard Quincy Morgan, University of North Carolina
Studies in the Germanic Languages and Literatures, Chapel Hill, 1951.
In his notes (pages 364-365) to Book 13, in which Chlingsor is
introduced Zeydel notes that:
* The name Chlingsor doesn't occur in Chretian, whose equivalent
figure has none of Chlingsor's details and is referred to only as a
wise astrologer - the prose narrative has a magician called Eliaures
(perhaps Cliaures?);
* So Wolfram possibly invented the name Chlingsor, which might be
connected with the Old French Chlencheor, and might mean "one who
locks" - that is, the deity of death;
* Wolfram says that Chlingsor is supposedly a nephew of Vergil (yes,
the Roman poet Vergil);
* The story about Chlingsor's love affair (but missing the detail
about castration), closely echoes a medieval story about Vergil.
Therefore if there is a historical person who can be said to be an
antecedent for Wolfram's Chlingsor, that personage is - rather
surprisingly - the poet Vergil.
The reason for that oddity is Vergil's Fourth Eclogue, a specimen of a
genre in classical poetry in which the poet predicts a coming age of
peace and prosperity. However early Christians chose to read this
poem as a prediction of the birth of Jesus, a sign that their god had
given the pagan poet an intimation that the arrival of the Christ was
imminent. (It is principally for this reason that in the _Divina
Commedia_ Vergil is chosen to accompany Dante through the Inferno and
the lower reaches of Purgatorio.)
Over time, the idea that Vergil had been given a vision of the coming
advent of Christianity evolved into the notion that Vergil must have
had prophetic powers, and then that if he had prophetic powers he must
have had other powers as well, so doubt sinister ones. So the image
of the Augustan poet of empire slowly devolved into the image of a
Medieval sorcerer, from where it was easy for Wolfram to recruit him
as Chlingsor's uncle, and attribute to Chlingsor some of the Medieval
stories about Vergil.
A source on the remarkable vissitudes of Vergil's image during the
middle ages is: _Vergil in the Middle Ages_, Domenico Comparetti,
translated E F M Bendecke, Princetown University Press, Princetown,
2002. (A reprint of an 1896 translation of this 1872 Italian work.)
So the link between Chlingsor/Klingsor and Landulph II is also
missing. To take a different metaphor, that kicks away two of the
legs of the stool. Third leg coming up.
But before going on to that third leg, Hitler's alleged identification
with Wagner's Klingsor, I'll suggest a theory as to how the
allegations about Landolfo II may has arisen.
The story of Chlingsor, as Wolfram gives it, does closely resemble the
apocryphal stories about Landolfo II.
First, there's time and place. Wolfram says that Chlingsor's land is
"Terr' de Labuor", which is an old name for the province as opposed to
the city of Naples, and that Chlingsor mostly lived in a place Wolfram
calls "Caps", which - since it is said to be near Naples - is
obviously Capua, Landolfo's realm. So Chlingsor is placed in the
historical Landolfo's territory, and you could stretch a point and
argue that the time could be somewhere near the time Landolfo lived.
Then there's the Chlingsor story. Wolfram says that Chlingsor seduced
or raped Iblis, wife of King Ibert of Sicily. ("Iblis" is an Arabian
name, which is an appropriate choice since Sicily was ruled by the
Moors in the 10th century. But it's hardly an ideal name to give a
queen; I believe it means "Hell". Medieval Christian writers
generally had to make do with very limited scraps of information about
the Moors, much of it wildly inaccurate.) Be that as it may, King
Ibert found Chlingsor in Iblis' arms, drew a knife, and "made him
smooth below". After that Chlingsor travelled to Perdida, where
"sorcery was first devised", to learn magic arts. He uses these black
arts to bully another king, Irot, of "Rosche de Sabines", to give him
the mountain where he set up his castle. And in the castle he sets
about kidnapping people and doing them harm.
So I think what has happened is not that Wolfram based his figure of
Chlingsor on Landolfo II; instead, the people responsible for the
Landulf II story took Wolfram's Chlingsor story and grafted it onto
the historical Landolfo.
There are many reasons why this seems to be the case, in particular
the lack of historical evidence for Landulph II's ill-fame. There is
also internal evidence. One small but interesting detail is that
placename mentioned above as the site of Landolfo's "sadistic satanic"
disembowellings and other tortures: "Kalot Enbolot". Kalot Enbolot is
in Sicily, since the story specifies that Sicily is where Landolfo II
is supposed to have learned his black arts, and practiced them in his
appallingly cruel fashion.
But you won't find that placename, supposedly a historical placename
in Sicily, on any map, including Medieval maps of Sicily. But you
will find that placename in Wolfram's _Parzifal_. In Book 13 of
_Parzifal_ he says that the place where King Ibert caught Chlingsor in
bed with Iblis was "Kalot Embolot". It's reasonable for someone
reading Wolfram to think that Kalot Embolot must be in Sicily, since
that's where Chlingsor was bedding the queen of Sicily, and that's
where the King of Sicily found them together.
Unfortunately, Wolfram had only the vaguest idea of geography, and he
had distorted the name of an actual place, Kalata-Belota, which is not
in Sicily but near Sciacca in southern Italy. Since the supposedly
historical story about Landulph II uses the same distorted placename
as Wolfram, and makes the same mistake about its locality as Wolfram,
that does not suggest that Wolfram based his story on a historical
source about Landolfo. After all, the local chronicle that would have
t be the original historical source would be unlikely to get that
placename wrong. And the chances of Wolfram (who didn't have access
to much scholarly material, and obviously knew little of Italy)
happening to make the identical mistake hundreds of years later seem
remote, to say the least. So instead, that coincidence of mistaken
placenames suggests that Wolfram's Chlingsor story was used as the
source of a piece of fake history about Landolfo.
Anyway, the third leg of the stool was the claim that Hitler had been
fascinated by Wagner's character Klingsor, especially because of the
alleged links with Landulph II. That leg gets a kicking too, but it
can wait for another post.
Cheers!
Laon
Laon
I said:
"'Iblis' is an Arabian name, which is an appropriate choice since
Sicily was ruled by the Moors in the 10th century. But it's hardly an
ideal name to give a queen; I believe it means "Hell". Medieval
Christian writers generally had to make do with very limited scraps of
information about the Moors, much of it wildly inaccurate.)"
But in this case a contemporary writer made use of a scrap of
misremembered information, and forgot to look it up before posting; he
should have known better. "Iblis" isn't the name of Hell but of an
approximate equivalent of the Christian or Jewish Devil: still not an
appropriate name for a queen, perhaps.
I also said:
> Wolfram had distorted the name of an actual place, Kalata-Belota, which is not
> in Sicily but near Sciacca in southern Italy.
My source there was Edwin Zeydel and Bayard Morgan, in their note 12
to Book 13 of their edition of _Parzifal_, cited in the previous post.
Plus I looked for Kalata-Belota, which Zeydel and Morgan gave as the
correct placename, in a modern and historical map of Sicily and failed
to find it there; and then I took their word for its location in
southern Italy.
But they were wrong, and so was I for following them without looking
further. Sciacca isn't in southern Italy, it's in Sicily; and there
seems to be a place in Sicily called Cotta Belota, which would
obviously be the original of the actual place that Wolfram mentioned.
That drives a significant hole straight through the middle of one of
my arguments. But I've found out more on the source and origin of the
story, and I think I can re-group and re-form it, to some extent. But
I need one to find more piece of info, first. In the meantime, here's
the errata.
Cheers!
Laon
Derrick Everett
> * So Wolfram possibly invented the name Chlingsor, which might be
> connected with the Old French Chlencheor, and might mean "one who locks"
> - that is, the deity of death;
It is not clear which if any of the names in "Parzival" were invented by
Wolfram. Several of the names that he gives to characters who were
nameless in Chrétien's "Perceval or the Story of the Grail" suggest that
they were derived from another Old French romance, since lost. For
example: Anfortas from "infirmitas" meaning "sickness" (a meaning retained
by Wagner); Condwiramurs from "conduire amours" meaning "to guide love";
Repanse de Schoye from "Repense de Joie" meaning (?) "joyful thoughts".
<snipped (like Clinschor)>
>
> Then there's the Chlingsor story. Wolfram says that Chlingsor seduced
> or raped Iblis, wife of King Ibert of Sicily. ("Iblis" is an Arabian
> name, which is an appropriate choice since Sicily was ruled by the Moors
> in the 10th century. But it's hardly an ideal name to give a queen; I
> believe it means "Hell". Medieval Christian writers generally had to
> make do with very limited scraps of information about the Moors, much of
> it wildly inaccurate.) Be that as it may, King Ibert found Chlingsor in
> Iblis' arms, drew a knife, and "made him smooth below". After that
> Chlingsor travelled to Perdida, where "sorcery was first devised", to
> learn magic arts. He uses these black arts to bully another king, Irot,
> of "Rosche de Sabines", to give him the mountain where he set up his
> castle. And in the castle he sets about kidnapping people and doing
> them harm.
In Chrétien the castle is called "Roche de Sanguin", Blood Rock. Wolfram
writes that the Castle of Maidens is by the river Sabins. The later
"Queste de Saint Graal" locates the castle by the river Saverne, modern
Severn, medieval latin Sabrina. Not far from Wales, in fact, which is
where Perceval/Parzival grew up.
--
Derrick Everett (deverett at c2i.net)
==== Writing from 59°54'N 10°36'E ====
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/index.htm
Laon
fascinated by Wagner's Klingsor, an alleged fascination that seems to
have completely escaped the notice of any of the various Nazi
eyewitnesses who knew Hitler.
The chief villain in the case, as no doubt a lot of people have
guessed, is Trevor Ravenscroft, with his entertaining hoax _The Spear
of Destiny_, published by the aptly named Neville Spearman, London,
1972. I've searched in many formats, and have not turned up a single
reference to Hitler's alleged fascination with Klingsor pre-dating the
publication of Ravenscroft's book, ie before 1972.
But there's more to the construction of this myth than Ravenscroft on
his own. First, Ravenscroft was probably inspired by an earlier hoax
in which Hitler supposedly read occult ideas into Wagner's _Parsifal_:
Hermann Rauschning's and Emery Reves' 1939 book _Hitler Speaks_.
Rauschning/Reves has Hitler identifying not with Klingsor but with the
supposedly racially pure Grail Knights. That idea is more
conventional than Ravenscroft but still odd, because in Wagner's
_Parsifal_ there's no suggestion that the Grail Knights are any
particular race, while Montsalvat's location suggests that most of
them would be more or less Spanish: and I'm not entirely convinced
that Hitler believed that the Spaniards were the Master Race.
Something like Rauschning/Reves's ideas crop up again in Gutman's rave
about _Parsifal_, though Gutman doesn't acknowledge his obvious
inspiration from Rauschning/Reves.
Second, Ravenscroft's other and more important inspiration was Dr
Walter Johannes Stein, who really did exist (initially, on reading
Ravenscroft's claims about Stein, I assumed he was fictional), and
really did say some, though not most, of the things that Ravenscroft
attributed to him. Fortunately Stein wrote books, and there are
non-Ravenscroft sources about his life, which indicate that Stein was
a pleasant man who, um, sincerely believed in psychic phenomena,
including his own visions. Stein was an innocent party in
Ravenscroft's hoax, a sincere eccentric where Ravenscroft was
obviously a rascal.
I'm not condemning Ravenscroft very hard, though, since I tend to
think that a really good hoax is a great piece of mischief and in a
way a work of art. And while Ravenscroft loses points by making no
effort at all to come up with a credible tale - not that that stopped
a lot of people from believing it - he more than makes up those points
with a certain grandeur of imagination. His book _The Spear of
Destiny_ is an entertaining read in the same way as von Däniken, or
the Wagner books by Weiner and Köhler, for that matter.
The basic claim of _The Spear of Destiny_ is that Ravenscroft met
Walter Stein in London in 1945, and Stein told him an extraordinary
tale, though swearing Ravenscroft to secrecy. Ravenscroft sat on the
story for 27 years, then decided to publish it.
The story (remember that Ravenscroft is supposedly telling us what
Stein said to him) starts when Stein buys a copy of _Parzifal_ in an
unusually sinister second-hand bookshop. He finds that the previous
owner had annotated it, and realises to his horror that previous owner
was a mystical adept, interested in using the Grail's secrets for
power, and an incredibly evil man. He looks up and sees Hitler
staring at him. Gasp! For those annotations were Hitler's.
In 1910 Stein attends a performance of Wagner's _Parsifal_ with Hitler
in Vienna, at which Hitler expresses strong sympathy for the character
of Klingsor. Stein later visits the so-called Spear of Longinus, the
very spear from _Parsifal_ Act II, that Klingsor stole from Amfortas,
at the Imperial Museum at Hofburg, also with Hitler.
Stein says the spear makes him think of the ancient Grail Knight's
motto, "durch Mitleid wissend", which is odd since that motto is
neither ancient nor applied to the Grail Knights. More dramatically,
he looks at Hitler and sees him in a trance, his stance and facial
expression changing as if possessed, with ghastly light shining from
him and ectoplasm writhing around him like a bunch of kids in
bedsheets, and generally appearing to be possessed by the forces of
evil, which Stein, being a visionary, is able to see.
Stein discovers that Hitler is after the Spear since, like another
well-known Wagnerian artefact, it delivers world rulership to however
owns it. Supposedly its previous owners includes figures like
Charlemagne, Otho the Great and Frederick Barbarossa, also one
Landulph II of Capua. Moreover, Stein discovers that Hitler believes
himself to be, or actually is, a reincarnation of the incredibly evil
Landulph II of Capua, a former owner of the Spear, some of whose
career is described, disguised under the name Chlingsor in Wolfram's
_Parzifal_ or Klingsor in Wagners _Parsifal_, which is a crucial part
of Hitler's inspiration.
Landulph, as noted, is supposed to have raped a nobleman's wife, got
castrated, fled to Sicily, and began engaging in satanic rituals
involving lots of torture, which were not only intended to give him
power in Landulph's own time (which Ravenscroft, following the real Dr
Stein, wrongly thinks was the 9th century), but also to reach forward
1,100 years in time to have another go, through his reincarnation
Hitler, in the 20th century. Landulph (says Ravenscroft) also found
time to betray Italy to the Muslims, in an incident that seems, oddly,
to have left no traces on history.
After making these discoveries, Stein is then psychically attacked by
German occultists trying to recruit him to Hitler's Occult Order, so
he escapes to Britain, where he meets Churchill, who enlists him to
head a secret society of psychic warriors. Stein's job is to
coordinate the psychic resistance to Nazi occultism, and also to help
in the recovery of the Spear. Stein duly helps the Americans to
recover the Spear, which they manage on 30 April 1945, and on the very
day the Spear is recovered Hitler commits suicide.
The unsung hero Stein meets Ravenscroft later in 1945, and, though he
had been sworn to secrecy by Churchill himself, he tells Ravenscroft
the whole exciting story anyway. Stein dies in 1957. Ravenscroft
waits another 14 or so years after Stein's death, then decides to
write it up. The end.
_The Spear of Destiny_ is, as you can see, an extremely silly book,
but it was a best seller in its day, going through many editions. And
some of its key ideas developed a half-life, retaining influence on
the popular imagination independently of the book, which is out of
print in Australia at least. Many of the more dramatic elements of
the story were stripped of Ravenscroft's creaky structure and built
into the foundations of other works by "alternative researchers" like
Leigh and Baigent (_The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail_) and others who
at least went to the trouble of giving their scenarios more surface
credibility. These books, though better constructed, are likewise
hoaxes in my opinion.
For example, though there is nothing unusual about the so-called spear
of Longinus (it's one of at least half-a-dozen "authentic" holy spears
that pierced Jesus in the side) or its history, the idea that this
artefact has uncanny power and significance has flown free of its
apparent source in Ravenscroft and is now accepted as a given by all
books of this kind, as well as in many movies, novels and TV shows.
(If there is really a pre-Ravenscroft source for the idea that this
spear has special powers, it would still be the case that the idea was
popularised by Ravenscroft. But my gut feeling is that Ravenscroft
borrowed the idea of spear's world-ruling powers from Wagner's, and
Alberich's, Ring.)
Another idea that has had a strong cultural influence, way beyond the
circle of people who have read, or still remember, Ravenscroft's book,
is the idea that _Parsifal_ is in some way a proto-Nazi work. The
popular idea, certainly a film and TV cliché, is that _Parsifal_ had
special significance for the Nazis, practically being the official
anthem-cum-ritual of Nazism, as opposed to its actual historical
position as a work banned by the Nazis, being for them an
ideologically unsound, pacifist, excessively compassionate, possibly
homo-erotic, embarrassment.
Ravenscroft wasn't alone in spreading the myth that Wagner's
_Parsifal_ was of immense significance to Hitler, and the Nazis
generally. This myth also hung, and hangs, from one authentic but
over-interpreted remark of Hitler's, plus the rant attributed to
Hitler in Rauschning, plus Gutman's re-working of Rauschning.
But the immense popularity of Ravenscroft's book in the 1970s, and its
huge influence on other writers, TV and movie producers, including
Spielberg, on comic books and other media including the Internet,
appears to be a principle reason why this idea has become a cultural
cliché over the last 30 years. Ravenscroft may be fantastical
nonsense, but he really was one of the major contributors to the
development of the Wagner/Nazis myth. (There's a bit more to be said
in justification of this claim, but I'll shove that discussion into
the next post, or the one after, as a sort of footnote.)
A story as obviously silly as Ravenscroft's may not need much in the
way of refutation, but it happens that even the apparently mundane
details, such as Stein's acquaintance with Hitler, or Hitler's alleged
obsession with Klingsor, or _Parsifal_, can be refuted.
Fortunately Ravenscroft isn't the only source on the ideas and life of
Dr Walter Johannes Stein. At the time Ravenscroft published _The
Spear of Destiny_ it's quite likely that he thought the book he was
partly plagiarising and partly distorting, Stein's _The Ninth Century:
World History in the Light of the Holy Grail_, would remain unknown to
English readers. It was published in Germany in 1931, in a very small
edition with no re-prints when Ravenscroft's book was published. And
although an English translation had been made in the 1950s, that
typescript translation was never published in Ravenscroft's lifetime.
Nor, probably, was Ravenscroft expecting that someone who knew the
real Dr Walter Johannes Stein would write a biography, which naturally
would fail to corroborate any of Ravenscroft's claims, and in some
places reveals how Ravenscroft distorted the truth to create his hoax.
That biography is: _W. J. Stein: A Biography_, Johannes Tautz,
translated John M Wood assisted by Marguerite A Wood, Temple Lodge
Press, London, 1990. But I'll come back to the Stein material in the
next post.
One thing Ravenscroft ought to have expected, though, was that
eventually his book would be translated into German, and that a German
journalist would have a look at some of his claims.
As a result of the Stein material plus some good German journalism we
can shoot down the whole of Ravenscroft's framing device, in which Dr
Stein tells Ravenscroft that he had known Hitler, and found Hitler to
be especially interested in Wagner _Parsifal_ and Wolfram's
_Parzifal_.
First, John Matthews, who wrote the introduction to the 1991 reprint
of _The Ninth Century: World History in the Light of the Holy Grail_,
tells us that Stein said that he first heard Hitler's voice in 1932,
at a public meeting. But he never met Hitler personally or in
private. Thus Ravenscroft's entire framing device, involving Stein's
meetings with Hitler in the 1910s and 1920, his attendances with
Hitler at Wagner's _Parsifal_, their visits to the Holy Spear at the
Hof Museum, etc: all that collapses.
The German journalist Christolph Lindenberg (Der Spie) responded to
the belated German edition of Ravenscroft's book by doing some
digging. He found there was no such second hand bookshop as the one
where Stein was supposed to have bought the copy of _Parzifal_
annotated by Hitler. Ravenscroft's description of the shop is
plagiarised from the novel _Zanoni_, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, a
Wagnerian figure, being the author of _Rienzi_. Moreover, the name
that Ravenscroft gave for the bookshop's proprietor, name, Pretsche,
was a common name given to German villains by English pulp writers;
however no-one by the name of Pretsche ran a second-hand bookshop in
Vienna anywhere near the relevant periods of time.
And Ravenscroft has Hitler and Stein attending a performance of
_Parsifal_ in Vienna in 1910, with Hitler declaring passionate
attachment to the character of Klingsor. The problem is, _Parsifal_
was not performed in Vienna in 1910; the first performance in Vienna
was in 1914, by which time Hitler was elsewhere.
Lindenberg points out a number of other substantial holes in
Ravenscroft's claim that Stein knew Hitler and observed that Hitler
was obsessed by Klingsor. This is entirely consistent, of course,
with Stein's own report that though he once heard Hitler speak, he
never met Hitler in his life.
The Tautz biography shoots down the rest. For example instead of
Stein's headlong escape to England, in 1931, to escape arrest and
conscription into the team of Nazi occultists, as decribed by
Ravenscroft, we have Stein travelling calmly to England to give a tour
of lectures, and to carry out research into his theory that Lohengrin
was an Englishman from Peterborough.
The question has sometimes come up as to which one was the liar:
Ravenscroft or Stein? Did Stein tell Ravenscroft a vast fable that
Ravenscroft naively believed, or did Ravenscroft himself make up the
fable, and then attribute it to naive and innocent Stein?
All the evidence suggests that when Stein writes, or where he is
quoted by people other than Ravenscroft, he is an honest man, a man
with some very strange ideas, certainly, but not a liar. And Stein's
independently witnessed personal claims are modest (he never met
Hitler; he met Churchill only once, etc), and all the grandiose
personal claims attributed to Stein are those attributed to him by
Ravenscroft.
Though neither Stein nor Ravenscroft are reliable on matters of fact,
it is clearly Ravenscroft who is the deliberate liar, a concoctor of
stories for profit and no doubt fun.
Johannes Tautz's biography of Stein mentions, however, that Stein did
once meet Winston Churchill, in about 1939. Tautz says that Stein
took the opportunity to buttonhole Churchill and lecture him "about
the occult background of National Socialism; which caused the rigorous
opponents of Chamberlain's appeasement policy to remark that nothing
of that should reach the public." (Tautz, op cit, page 217.)
The Tautz biography is favourable to Stein some way beyond the call of
naivety. For example, after Stein has used his temporary influence
with Leopold II of Belgium to introduce the regent to a crooked South
African gold miner and financier, causing Leopold considerable
embarrassment, Tautz is forced to admit that the king refused to see
Stein any more. But Tautz accepts at face value the king's
diplomatically worded rejection note, that Stein had advised him on
economic matters and this was not the kind of advice he now needed.
(Tautz, op cit, page 219.)
So reading between Tautz's lines, we can see the earnest Walter Stein,
middle European and slightly mad, addressing the bluff Churchill about
psychic powers, secret societies and black magicians, and ancient
long-dead magicians affecting the course of modern history, and so on,
and Churchill's practiced way of dealing with nutters: "Very
interesting of course, and immensely significant; but do say no more
about it, there's a good chap."
From that one meeting, Stein's passionate lecture and Churchill's
obvious fob-off, we can see the origin of Ravenscroft's entire
narrative structure about Stein's work for Churchill as a psychic
adviser and occult warrior.
In short, the entire structure of Ravenscroft's story concerning
Hitler's interest in Wagner's _Parsifal_, and for that matter in the
spear of Longinus (no evidence outside of Ravenscroft suggests that
Hitler gave this artefact a second's thought) is false and collapses
at a touch.
There's one last leg to this story, and that's the work by poor Walter
Stein that Ravenscroft both distorted and plagiarised for his
best-selling pot-boiler. The next post, therefore, will concern the
extraordinary way in which Stein "proved" the connection between
Klingsor and Landolfo II, and will also reveal the shocking truth
about the actual case against Landolfo II. Stein's belief that
Lohengrin was an Englishman will also be briefly explained. As well
as the strange case of Stein's missing 100 years.
Cheers!
Laon
Derrick Everett
> The third leg of the stool, then, is the claim that Hitler had been
> fascinated by Wagner's Klingsor, an alleged fascination that seems to
> have completely escaped the notice of any of the various Nazi
> eyewitnesses who knew Hitler.
>
> The chief villain in the case, as no doubt a lot of people have guessed,
> is Trevor Ravenscroft, with his entertaining hoax _The Spear of
> Destiny_, published by the aptly named Neville Spearman, London, 1972.
> I've searched in many formats, and have not turned up a single reference
> to Hitler's alleged fascination with Klingsor pre-dating the publication
> of Ravenscroft's book, ie before 1972.
>
> But there's more to the construction of this myth than Ravenscroft on
> his own. First, Ravenscroft was probably inspired by an earlier hoax in
> which Hitler supposedly read occult ideas into Wagner's _Parsifal_:
> Hermann Rauschning's and Emery Reves' 1939 book _Hitler Speaks_.
>
> Rauschning/Reves has Hitler identifying not with Klingsor but with the
> supposedly racially pure Grail Knights. That idea is more conventional
> than Ravenscroft but still odd, because in Wagner's _Parsifal_ there's
> no suggestion that the Grail Knights are any particular race, while
> Montsalvat's location suggests that most of them would be more or less
> Spanish: and I'm not entirely convinced that Hitler believed that the
> Spaniards were the Master Race. Something like Rauschning/Reves's ideas
> crop up again in Gutman's rave about _Parsifal_, though Gutman doesn't
> acknowledge his obvious inspiration from Rauschning/Reves.
It is unlikely that Gutman invented the idea that the compassion of which
"Parsifal" speaks is limited to members of a racial group, to which the
Grail knights are supposed to belong, given that this idea had been
attributed to Hitler by Rauschning. The latter was clearly a key input to
Gutman's fantastic interpretation of "Parsifal", in which he described
this drama as "the Gospel of National Socialism". Whatever Gutman had in
his pipe, it wasn't tobacco.
> Second, Ravenscroft's other and more important inspiration was Dr Walter
> Johannes Stein, who really did exist (initially, on reading
> Ravenscroft's claims about Stein, I assumed he was fictional), and
> really did say some, though not most, of the things that Ravenscroft
> attributed to him. Fortunately Stein wrote books, and there are
> non-Ravenscroft sources about his life, which indicate that Stein was a
> pleasant man who, um, sincerely believed in psychic phenomena, including
> his own visions. Stein was an innocent party in Ravenscroft's hoax, a
> sincere eccentric where Ravenscroft was obviously a rascal.
>
> I'm not condemning Ravenscroft very hard, though, since I tend to think
> that a really good hoax is a great piece of mischief and in a way a work
> of art. And while Ravenscroft loses points by making no effort at all
> to come up with a credible tale - not that that stopped a lot of people
> from believing it - he more than makes up those points with a certain
> grandeur of imagination. His book _The Spear of Destiny_ is an
> entertaining read in the same way as von Däniken, or the Wagner books by
> Weiner and Köhler, for that matter.
As I understand it Ravenscroft called his book a novel, although this did
not prevent friends of the late Dr. Walter Stein from being upset at the
liberties which Ravenscroft had taken with Stein's life story. In this
respect Ravenscroft was more honest than Joachim Köhler, who would have us
believe that his Hitler novel is history, even to the extent to providing
fake references to make "Wagner's Hitler" look (to the naive reader) like
the work of a historian rather than that of a novelist.
Laon
the three legs being:
* Landulph II of Capua was an extraordinarily evil man;
* Wagner's character Klingsor was based on Landulph II; and
* Hitler was fascinated by _Parsifal_ (also _Parzifal_) and identified
with Klingsor.
Each of these things turns out to be false; so this metaphorical stool
now looks about as legless as a frisbee. But since the story took me
a little further than I expected, there's one last leg, this being:
* That Ravenscroft's outrageous story was based on the life and work
of Dr Walter Johannes Stein.
I've already shown that Stein's own writing, plus biographical work by
people who knew him, demolish Ravenscroft's account of Stein's
meetings with Hitler, and his adventures during WWII. There are only
a few things to add, by way of tidying up various loose ends. (I've
enjoyed finding all this out; I hope at least some others have found
the journey interesting.)
In no obvious order, the remaining issues are:
1. The origin of the connection between Klingsor and Landulph II
People sympathetic to Stein (Rudolph Steiner people, mostly) describe
him as having "unusual" research methods. "Unusual" is an
understatement; a lot of his "research" involved astral travel,
psychic projection, and great leaps of (il-)logic guided by his "inner
voice".
It does turn out that Stein's _The Ninth Century: World History in the
Light of the Holy Grail_ is the original source of Ravenscroft's claim
that Klingsor is Landulph. Here's the relevant passage, showing
Stein's idiosyncratic "fact-finding" style:
"When I once asked Dr Steiner whether Klingsor was a real person or
merely a figure in the legend, he told me that Klingsor was an actual
personality; he could not tell me with certainty whether he could be
proved to be so from documentary evidence. From spiritual
investigation, however, it can be established that Klingsor was Count
of Capua."
"Spiritual investigation." So the alleged link, traced back to its
origin, turns out to be based on Stein's channeling, astral travel, or
whatever.
2. Did Landulph II ever have the spear of Longinus?
Stein never linked the spear of Longinus to Landulph II. That detail
was invented by Ravenscroft, who falsely attributed it to Stein
because he needed to tie together three things:
* His (Ravenscroft's) story that Hitler was obsessed with _Parsifal_
and Klingsor, claiming Stein as witness;
* Stein's identification of Klingsor with Landulph; and
* the nonsense about the spear of Longinus.
What Stein did say, which is obviously what Ravenscroft chose to twist
for his purposes, was that the spear was once in the possession of
Rudulpho II of Burgundy. (Stein, op cit, page 324.) After all,
Rudolpho/Landulpho, Capua/Burgundy, what's the difference?
3. Is there any evidence that Landulpho II was a bad man?
Stein thought so, and at least this time he tracked down a real source
instead of relying on astral travelling, etc. But what you make of
Stein's evidence is a matter for your own prejudices.
Stein cites a contemporary chronicler called Erchempertus. The
passage is too long to quote, but essentially Erchempertus wants very
much to blacken Landulph's name. However, underneath the abusive
tone, there are few specific charges. Erchempertus said:
* Landolfo II was a loveless man who enjoyed division and emnity;
* He was sly, greedy, ambitious, vain, and knew nothing beyond the
desires of his flesh;
* He liked to split up alliances;
* He heaped troubles on someone called Guaiferius;
* He liked "half-men" and was effeminate;
* He wanted to make Capua a great city, and wanted the Archbishopric
of Benevento;
* He wanted to marry the Emperor Louis II's daughter Winigis, but was
not given permission to marry.
Which is mostly name-calling rather than a charge-sheet, once you boil
it down: if that's the best Erchempertus could do, then it's clear
there wasn't much to go on. Clearly Landulph was after the main
chance and ambitious, but that's hardly a startling fact in a Medieval
prince. The only specific allegation is the hint of homosexuality,
which is obviously shocking enough for Stein, also for Ravenscroft,
who was actually something of a bigot under all his sensationalism.
The more dramatic case that Ravenscroft presents against Landulph II,
the rape, the castration, the black magic, the horrific tortures, the
treachery involving admitting the Moors: not even Landulph's worst
critic mentioned any of that. It is Ravenscroft's invention, from
whole cloth. (My speculation that all the inventor of this myth had
done was to transpose the Klingsor story back onto Landulph, then add
gory details, was correct. Spelling of placenames, and many other
factors, now make that clear.)
By the way, it seems that the Moors were indeed admitted into Sicily
by treachery. However Stein does not attribute the treachery to
Landulph; that's Ravenscroft egging the pudding. Instead Stein says
the party in question was one Euphemius, who invited the Arabians into
Sicily in 827, and Pando, who invited them to Apulia in 839-840.
And these ninth-century dates remind me...
4. What do you mean, "Stein's missing 100 years"?
Stein sometimes gets dynasties and dates wrong, or, um, differently
from other historians who are not gifted with psychic research powers.
Perhaps most embarrassing is Stein's apparent belief, even included in
the title of his book, "The Ninth Century", that Landolfo II is a
ninth century prince, and contemporaneous with events taking place in
827 and 840.
Unfortunately, at least according to the _Encyclopedia Italiana_ and
other mere historians, Landolfo was actually a 10th century prince,
born about 910, died about or after 961.
But what's a century or so, when you're a _psychic_ historian?
5. Was Lohengrin a cricketer?
Interestingly, in that context, the Tautz biography says that Stein
partly came to England to conduct research on his theory that
Lohengrin was an Englishman. This was going to be the topic of his
next book, _The Tenth Century_, which was unfortunately never written.
Unfortunate because Stein identified Lohengrin as a resident of
Peterborough, one Turketal, who eventually became the Abbot of
Crowland Abbey.
Stein's "research method" for coming to this conclusion, according to
Tautz? "Listening to [his] inner voice." (Tautz, op cit, page 166.)
It's a shame this book was never written. I'd have enjoyed it.
6 What about that bloody spear then?
Stein mentions that the lance had had a series of illustrious owners,
in legend: he lists Adam, Herod, Longinus, Constantine, Count Samson,
Rudolph II of Burgundy, Charlemagne, Conrad I, and Henry I. But he
doesn't suggest that it is supposed to have any specific power. He
also notes that the so-called spear of Longinus is only one of several
Holy Lances, and that the idea of the lance is more important than any
material object.
Ravenscroft added two important things to Stein's account of the
spear:
* first, he included the names listed by Stein as having owned _other_
lances as having been owners of the spear of Longinus, plus he added
names of his own for which no source exists, to make his lance seem
more significant in history than it was;
* second, he invented the idea of the spear as a source of power (not
that much of an invention; it seems that he borrowed that from Wagner
and the Ring).
That's pretty much the end of the story, except for some thoughts on
how Ravenscroft's hoax impacted on the pop culture perception of
Wagner, which follow from one of Dereck's comments. I hope someone
enjoyed parts of this exploration at least a bit as much as I did.
down.
Cheers!
Laon
Laon
> As I understand it Ravenscroft called his book a novel, although this did
> not prevent friends of the late Dr. Walter Stein from being upset at the
> liberties which Ravenscroft had taken with Stein's life story. In this
> respect Ravenscroft was more honest than Joachim Köhler, who would have us
> believe that his Hitler novel is history, even to the extent to providing
> fake references to make "Wagner's Hitler" look (to the naive reader) like
> the work of a historian rather than that of a novelist.
Sadly not true of Ravenscroft or his publishers. I see, on Amazon,
that the book is still in print in the US at least, and that it's
still being presented as non-fiction. The back cover blurb says:
"This book ... tells the story of the chain of men who possessed the
spear, from Herod the Great to Adolph Hitler ... for the first time
the Satanic occult development and faculties of Adolph Hitler are
described in authentic and documented detail ... " etc.
Ravenscroft always claimed the book was non-fiction and presented it
as such. The book provides pseudo-academic apparatus just like
Köhler, including a bibliography and index, etc: hence the "authentic
and documented detail".
I suspect that the "novel" claim may have been made by others,
defending the book for its imaginative vigour and its readability.
Which is fair enough: and anyone who was taken in by it deserved
anything they -- I mean, may be interested in buying a bridge I happen
to own.
I have a suspicion, on thinking about this since I've been doing this
exploring, that Ravenscroft's book, though self-evidently silly, did
actually play a significant role in the creation of the popular image
of Wagner, and especially _Parsifal_, in the late 20th century.
Rauschning's book is the first foundation-stone of this post-war
Wagner myth. It was seized upon by Peter Viereck in his
_Meta-Politics_, by Leo Stein in his _The Racial Thinking of Richard
Wagner_, and by Robert Gutman, though Gutman tries to disguise his
indebtedness. Thereafter Rauschning's influence is more indirect,
coming mainly through Gutman. Rose won't cite Rauschning, for
example, though the low-church end of the anti-Wagner tent will:
Köhler, for example, as will AL Waite, in his very low-brow _The
Psychopathic God_.
Because the Wagnerian rant that Rauschning put into Hitler's mouth
focused only on _Parsifal_, Rauschning's influence led a couple of
generations to think that _Parsifal_ must have been of special
significance to the Nazis.
Rauschning is now seldom referred to or quoted, since it was exposed
as a joint hoax involving Rauschning and the journalist Emery Reves;
but it was at one time considered to be an authentic intimate picture
of Hitler, and since that portrait contained all sorts of wonderfully
colourful stuff, especially occult visions, supernatural forces and
the like, it was much more popular and had much more effect on popular
culture, than the comparatively dry (but authentic) material in
sources like the "Table-Talk".
Gutman's _Richard Wagner: The Man, his Mind and his Music_ seems to
confirm the idea that _Parsifal_ was in some sense a key work for the
Nazis. Accordingly, his interpretation of _Parsifal_ has almost
nothing to do with the actual opera written by Richard Wagner. But
the imaginary work whose plot and meaning Gutman discusses in his
Wagner book was not simply invented by Gutman from thin air. Gutman's
_Parsifal_ may have little to do with Wagner's _Parsifal_, but it is
an obvious embellishment of Rauschning's _Parsifal_. Though Gutman's
book was written before the definitive demolition of Rauschning,
Rauschning was already considered to be a suspect source by the time
Gutman first published, which was 1969. That's presumably why Gutman
fails to acknowledge his debt.
Gutman's book was widely distributed in the 1970s, being sold as part
of a package with the best-selling Solti _Ring_ recording. However it
did not achieve its influence on the popular perception of _Parsifal_
all by itself.
Instead the process seems to have been that _The Spear of Destiny_, a
far bigger seller than either Solti's _Ring_ recording or the Gutman
book, created a market for the idea that "there's something Nazi about
_Parsifal_" and disseminated that idea (or meme, if I wanted to be
trendy) across a wide range of popular sources: newspaper and magazine
articles, other cash-in books in similar vein, TV shows and movies.
There was even a rock band that took its name from Ravenscroft's book,
in the 1980s; I've got one of their albums, and they were crap.
My own experience confirms the immense low-cultural impact of
Ravenscroft's book. There weren't many adolescent bedrooms, when I
were but a nipper, that didn't have a copy of _The Spear of Destiny_
in the mess somewhere, while I was the only evangelist for the Solti
_Ring_ in my circle, and certainly the only kid I knew who'd read
Gutman. I read a lot of complete crap back then (still do), so
there's nothing virtuous about my failing to read _The Spear of
Destiny_ at the time. I never read any Ravenscroft until I looked up
the Landulph II trail, which is why I didn't immediately recognise his
centrality in all this. I thought he must be in there somewhere, but
I didn't realise that he made up virtually the whole thing.
Anyway, the role of the Gutman book, distributed in slightly more
high-brow circles at about the same time, was to confirm the idea that
"there must be something in that part of it, anyway". Ravenscroft
popularised the idea, while Gutman gave it an apparent basis of
academic respectability. (Though in fact Gutman's material on
_Parsifal_ is little better, academically, than Ravenscroft.)
Thus my view is that neither book would have been so successful in
creating a popular image and idea, on their own. But the two
together, one best-selling but not academically respectable, the other
shifting fewer copies but adding a veneer of authority, made a deep
and lasting impact on the popular perception of how the Nazis received
Wagner's _Parsifal_. Has this popular culture idea affected
supposedly _academic_ books about Wagner? I'd say so.
Interesting process, the formation of ideas and images.
Cheers!
Laon
Kimberley Cornish
"The Spear of Destiny" is certainly a rattling good yarn, but nothing
more than that and its chief function has been, sadly, to obscure the
historical waters. The connection of Hitler to Parzifal and the
Crusades, is approachable via a different route and that over what is
from an academic point of view, virgin ground.
Every musically literate person knows of the Liszt elopement with
Princess Wittgenstein. She was married to the nephew of Prince Ludwig
Adolf Wittgenstein whom Tolstoy, in "War and Peace" named as the
saviour of St Petersberg from Napoleon and whom the German military
theoretician Clausewitz intimated was the man responsible (to the
extent that any individual was) for bringing down Napoleon. Napoleon
himself named Wittgenstein as the most brilliant of Russian generals,
even above Kutuzov. Wittgenstein and his Cossacks had cut up the
fleeing Grande Armee in the Beresina campaign. He later led the last
cavalry charge in European military history at the Battle of the
Nations near Leipzig, Wagner's home town. Earlier, he had fought in
Austria near Linz, where the Russians had burnt the bridges over the
Danube. That is, the man whom Clausewitz thought had defeated Napoleon
(forget about Wellington and Nelson!) and who was named Ludwig Adolf
Wittgenstein had fought battles near where Adolf Hitler went to school
with the young billionaire heir Ludwig Wittgenstein, the future
Cambridge philosopher.
Now Princess Wittgenstein (married to Ludwig Adolf's nephew and of
Jewish descent) was responsible for sequestrating the young Cosima
Liszt (the future Mrs Wagner) from her mother, Marie d'Agoult and
delivering her into the hands of cruel governesses. Cosima hated her
and Wagner did also. Liszt, however, intended to marry her. Now Liszt
wrote at least one piece with a crusader theme. His First Ballade,
inspired by Chopin, was composed during his Weimar period and carries
the subtitle: "The Song of the Crusader". If we ask ourselves why
Liszt might have chosen such a title, we need look no further than
Princess Wittgenstein. This is because the Wittgensteins had been
crusaders! Readers should visit the website
http://www.sayn.de/burg_geschichte_en.htm
to see a picture of the Wittgenstein castle, dating to 1139 or
earlier. On their return from the Crusades in Palestine, they had
fought in Poland with the Teutonic Knights. The Wittgensteins that is,
had helped Germanise Poland and are quite certainly the closest (and
perhaps the only!) Crusader family known to Liszt, Wagner and Hitler.
The Wittgenstein coat of arms is written in Cyrillic in reflection of
their Russian service. Liszt, I think, wrote his First Ballade – the
Crusader piece - in honour of his paramour, Princess Wittgenstein. Now
it is interesting that other nineteenth century German writers had
commemorated the Wittgensteins as crusaders. Ludwig Uhland, the
Germanic philologist, famous for the song "Der Gute Kamerad" wrote
another poem, "Graf Eberhard's Weissdorn", about Count Eberhard
Wittgenstein, the twelfth century first of the line.
GRAF EBERHARDS WEISSDORN
Graf Eberhard im Bart
Vom Württemberger Land,
Er kam auf frommer Fahrt
Zu Palästinas Strand.
Daselbst er einmal ritt
Durch einen frischen Wald;
Ein grünes Reis er schnitt
Von einem Weißdorn bald.
Er steckt es mit Bedacht
Auf seinen Eisenhut;
Er trug es in der Schlacht
Und über Meeres Flut.
Und als er war daheim,
Er's in die Erde steckt,
Wo bald manch neuen Keim
Der milde Frühling weckt.
Der Graf, getreu und gut,
Besucht es jedes Jahr,
Erfreute dran den Mut,
Wie es gewachsen war.
Der Herr war alt und laß,
Das Reislein war ein Baum,
Darunter oftmals saß
Der Greis in tiefem Traum.
Die Wölbung, hoch und breit,
Mit sanftem Rauschen mahnt
lhn an die alte Zeit
Und an das ferne Land.
Ludwig Wittgenstein was sent it by his homosexual lover Paul Engelmann
in the 1920s and Ludwig himself must have perceived some sort of
connection to the Crusader Wittgensteins. Remember it was sent from
one highly intelligent homosexual; Paul Engelmann, to another, Ludwig
Wittgenstein. The "white thorn" was an almost dead twig, (a Jewish
Wittgenstein) TAKEN BY THE FIRST OF THE LINE OF SAYN-WITTGENSTEINS
FROM PALESTINE to Germany, where it grows and flourishes in flower.
Engelmann was using Uhland's poem as an allegory of the rise of the
Jewish Wittgensteins, as imports from Palestine to Germany. And the
flower with pricks, the "Weissdorn" or hawthorn, is also
allegorically - who else but Ludwig Wittgenstein (Hitler's
school-fellow) in his guise as Engelmann's homosexual lover?
The situation we now need to consider is this: Wagner hated the
Wittgensteins. His greatest enemy in German music was the virtuoso
violinist Joseph Joachim, one of the Vienna Jewish Wittgensteins (of
whom the young Ludwig, at school with Adolf Hitler) was heir. He
decides to compose music with a Crusader theme, just as did Uhland and
looks to Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzival".
Here is my suggestion to readers for this post: Identify a
Wittgenstein in Eschenbach's barbarous cacophony of names in the
medieval poem and you have put beyond doubt Ludwig Wittgenstein's role
both in forming both Adolf Hitler's hatred of Jews and his infatuation
with Richard Wagner. This is, I believe, is the key to the Holocaust.
Sincerely,
Kimberley Cornish.
(References in this post may be found either in my book "The Jew of
Linz" or in Paul Engelmann's Letters to Wittgenstein.)
Derrick Everett
>
> Now Princess Wittgenstein (married to Ludwig Adolf's nephew and of
> Jewish descent) was responsible for sequestrating the young Cosima
> Liszt (the future Mrs Wagner) from her mother, Marie d'Agoult and
> delivering her into the hands of cruel governesses. Cosima hated her and
> Wagner did also.
That is an exaggeration. The Wagner-Liszt correspondence shows that
Princess Wittgenstein and Wagner were on friendly terms. Although the
relationships both to Princess MW and to Liszt cooled, I do not see that
Wagner's attitude can be described as "hatred". Cosima's feelings towards
her would only have mattered to Wagner after Cosima had moved in with him.
Furthermore, it is beyond doubt that Wagner's attitude to people was not
determined by whether they were of "Jewish descent" or not. Although it is
clear that if an individual was hostile towards him, he would sometimes
assume that they had some Jewish connection and that the hostility was the
result of "Judaism in Music" (and therefore his own fault).
Derrick Everett
> Although the relationships both to Princess MW and to Liszt cooled,
As the astute reader will have realised, I meant Princess CW, i.e.
Carolyne (Sayn-)Wittgenstein and not her daughter Marie.
Kimberley Cornish
> On Mon, 07 Oct 2002 06:02:17 +0200, Kimberley Cornish wrote:
> >
> > Now Princess Wittgenstein (married to Ludwig Adolf's nephew and of
> > Jewish descent) was responsible for sequestrating the young Cosima
> > Liszt (the future Mrs Wagner) from her mother, Marie d'Agoult and
> > delivering her into the hands of cruel governesses. Cosima hated her and
> > Wagner did also.
>
> That is an exaggeration. The Wagner-Liszt correspondence shows that
> Princess Wittgenstein and Wagner were on friendly terms. Although the
> relationships both to Princess MW and to Liszt cooled, I do not see that
> Wagner's attitude can be described as "hatred". Cosima's feelings towards
> her would only have mattered to Wagner after Cosima had moved in with him.
>
> Furthermore, it is beyond doubt that Wagner's attitude to people was not
> determined by whether they were of "Jewish descent" or not. Although it is
> clear that if an individual was hostile towards him, he would sometimes
> assume that they had some Jewish connection and that the hostility was the
> result of "Judaism in Music" (and therefore his own fault).
Dear Group,
Why is it an exaggeration? First, on the Wittgensteins in general;
Wagner certainly said that of all German musicians Joseph Joachim was
most repugnant to him and Joachim was a Wittgenstein. The particular
reference to Joachim that I have in mind is "I am nevertheless glad
that of the German musicians two Jews are the most repugnant to me:
Hiller and Joachim. What was done to the latter, for example, that he
should change from a rapturous enthusiast into a spiteful opponent?"
(See p. 101 of "The Jew of Linz", where I provide further biographical
material on Joachim/Wittgenstein.) The passage describing Wagner's
feelings, by the way, is also quoted in Katz' book "The Darker Side of
Genius: Richard Wagner's Anti-Semitism", p.94. David Conway of UCL has
informed me that the original of this quote is not Wagner's "Mein
Leben", as I have wrongly asserted in another web posting, but
Cosima's 'Diaries' (Nov. 7th 1872), but the point is that its source
is Wagner.
Now here is what Wagner wrote of Princess Wittgenstein in "Mein
Leben", commenting on the close of Liszt's Dante Symphony:
"I was all the more startled to hear this lovely conception suddenly
interrupted by a pompous plagal cadence which, I was told, was
supposed to represent Domenico. 'No, no!" I exclaimed loudly. 'Not
that! Out with it! No majestic Lord God! Let's stick with a fine soft
shimmer.' 'You are right', Liszt replied, 'I thought so too; the
Princess convinced me otherwise, but it shall be as you recommend.'
That was all well and good. But I was all the more dismayed to learn
later not only that this close for the Dante Symphony had been
retained, but also that the delicate ending I had liked so much in the
Faust Symphony had been altered by the introduction of choruses in a
manner calculated to produce a more ostentatious effect. This
expressed everything I felt about Liszt and his lady friend, the
Princess Karoline von Wittgenstein!"
Certainly this does not support the claim that "Princess Wittgenstein
and Wagner were on friendly terms"! Wagner could hardly be said to
have liked Princess Wittgenstein if he thought she crippled Liszt's
musical genius. There are other derogatory references to Princess
Wittgenstein in Wagner's writing. Liszt, of course, was Wagner's
father-in-law, so one must expect civility in his references to him,
but about Princess Wittgenstein - Liszt's paramour - the matter is
quite different. That Cosima hated her is clear from the passages from
Newman that I quoted in "The Jew of Linz". (One could hardly think
otherwise, givven that Princess Wittgenstein had taken the seven year
old Cosima away from her mother!) Unless you want to argue that Wagner
and Cosima were lying, I rather think that what I asserted is
indisputable.
Certainly Wagner felt differently about Joachim originally. When
Wagner read him the text of "The Ring of the Nibelungen", Joachim
offered his services as leader of the violins at its first performance
and Wagner asked permission to address Joachim as "Du". This is a far
cry from Wagner's later feelings. Likewise, whatever Wagner's early
feelings towards Princess Wittgenstein might have been, once ensconced
with Cosima he echoed what his wife felt and she beyond any shadow of
doubt hated Princess Wittgenstein with a passion. That is, Wagner and
Cosima hated Wittgensteins; the Wittgensteins - minus the Jewish
strain - had seven hundred years before fought in the Crusades in
Palestine and with the Teutonic Knights in Poland. Wagner wrote operas
about Crusaders and Grail Knights. Nobody has yet bothered tracing up
the possibility of links here. Rather a scandal, I think.
Sincerely,
Kimberley Cornish.
Derrick Everett
> Derrick Everett <iyb9x...@sneakemail.com> wrote in message
> news:<pan.2002.10.07.05...@sneakemail.com>...
>> On Mon, 07 Oct 2002 06:02:17 +0200, Kimberley Cornish wrote:
>> >
>> > Now Princess Wittgenstein (married to Ludwig Adolf's nephew and of
>> > Jewish descent) was responsible for sequestrating the young Cosima
>> > Liszt (the future Mrs Wagner) from her mother, Marie d'Agoult and
>> > delivering her into the hands of cruel governesses. Cosima hated her
>> > and Wagner did also.
>>
>> That is an exaggeration. The Wagner-Liszt correspondence shows that
>> Princess Wittgenstein and Wagner were on friendly terms. Although the
>> relationships both to Princess MW and to Liszt cooled, I do not see
>> that Wagner's attitude can be described as "hatred". Cosima's feelings
>> towards her would only have mattered to Wagner after Cosima had moved
>> in with him.
>>
>> Furthermore, it is beyond doubt that Wagner's attitude to people was
>> not determined by whether they were of "Jewish descent" or not.
>> Although it is clear that if an individual was hostile towards him, he
>> would sometimes assume that they had some Jewish connection and that
>> the hostility was the result of "Judaism in Music" (and therefore his
>> own fault).
>
> Dear Group,
>
> Why is it an exaggeration?
Dear Mr. Cornish, you wrote, "Cosima hated her and Wagner did also". At
least the latter part of that sentence is an exaggeration. Instead of
addressing my comment you have responded with a different line of argument
about the violinish Joachim. But if had you read what I wrote, which you
obviously have not done, you might have observed that I did not mention
Joachim.
> First, on the Wittgensteins in general; Wagner certainly said that of
> all German musicians Joseph Joachim was most repugnant to him and
> Joachim was a Wittgenstein. The particular reference to Joachim that I
> have in mind is "I am nevertheless glad that of the German musicians
> two Jews are the most repugnant to me: Hiller and Joachim. What was done
> to the latter, for example, that he should change from a rapturous
> enthusiast into a spiteful opponent?" (See p. 101 of "The Jew of Linz",
> where I provide further biographical material on Joachim/Wittgenstein.)
You might like to take into consideration that it was Joachim who turned
against Wagner and not the latter who turned against the former. Wagner
was puzzled by this change of attitude.
> The passage describing Wagner's feelings, by the way, is also quoted in
> Katz' book "The Darker Side of Genius: Richard Wagner's Anti-Semitism",
> p.94. David Conway of UCL has informed me that the original of this
> quote is not Wagner's "Mein Leben", as I have wrongly asserted in
> another web posting, but Cosima's 'Diaries' (Nov. 7th 1872), but the
> point is that its source is Wagner.
I note your impressive knowledge of secondary and tertiary sources. The
original is subtly (and perhaps inconveniently) different from your
quotation:
"Ich freue mich doch, dass er von den deutschen Musikern mir zwei Juden am
widerwärtigsten sind: Hiller und Joachim. Was hat man z.B. letzerem
getan, dass er vom überschwenglichen Enthusiasten zum tückischsten Gegner
wird."
(I am glad that, of the German musicians whom I find repugnant, two are
Jews: Hiller and Joachim. What, for example, have I done to the latter to
turn him from the most extravagant of enthusiasts into the most malicious
of enemies?)
> Now here is what Wagner wrote of Princess Wittgenstein in "Mein Leben",
> commenting on the close of Liszt's Dante Symphony:
>
> "I was all the more startled to hear this lovely conception suddenly
> interrupted by a pompous plagal cadence which, I was told, was supposed
> to represent Domenico. 'No, no!" I exclaimed loudly. 'Not that! Out with
> it! No majestic Lord God! Let's stick with a fine soft shimmer.' 'You
> are right', Liszt replied, 'I thought so too; the Princess convinced me
> otherwise, but it shall be as you recommend.' That was all well and
> good. But I was all the more dismayed to learn later not only that this
> close for the Dante Symphony had been retained, but also that the
> delicate ending I had liked so much in the Faust Symphony had been
> altered by the introduction of choruses in a manner calculated to
> produce a more ostentatious effect. This expressed everything I felt
> about Liszt and his lady friend, the Princess Karoline von
> Wittgenstein!"
>
> Certainly this does not support the claim that "Princess Wittgenstein
> and Wagner were on friendly terms"!
"Allow me, dear sir, to add another voice to the chorus of admiration
which sings 'Gloria' to the author of the double poem of 'Tannhäuser.,, If
others have more right than I to speak of you of the sublime artistic
expression which you have given to such deep emotions, I yet venture to
tell you how souls lost in the crowd who chant to themselves your
'Sangerkrieg' are penetrated by your harmonies, which contain all the fine
and delicate shades of idea, sentiment and passion. We had hoped to see
you for a moment at Weimar and I clung to that hope all the more as I
wanted to express to you my thanks for the kindness you showed me during
my stay in Dresden..." (Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein to Richard Wagner, 25
February 1849, Wagner-Liszt Correspondence no.15, trans. F.Hueffer)
"Highly esteemed madam, Your kind letter [apparently lost] has, as you may
imagine, made a great impression. I see, to my genuine joy, that I may
count you among the small number of the friends who by the weight of their
sympathy richly compensate me for the absence of popular acclamation. That
you have remained faithful to me is more important to me than perhaps you
know yourself. Accept my cordial thanks for the friendship you have
preserved for me..." (Richard Wagner to Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, 8
October 1850, Wagner-Liszt Correspondence no.48, trans. F.Hueffer)
"Just returned home, my eyes still moistened by the tears brought to them
by the moving scenes of 'Lohengrin', to whom should my thought turn at
this moment but to you, sir, with the desire that you could have witnessed
the effect produced by your beautiful work, better understood as it is
every day by executants and spectators?... Permit me to thank you for all
the rare pleasures we owe to you by the contemplation of your beautiful
works and except the expression of my distinguished esteem." (Carolyne
Sayn-Wittgenstein to Richard Wagner, 4 January 1852, Wagner- Liszt
Correspondence no.71, trans. F.Hueffer)
"And now a thousand sincere thanks for your generous, unshakeably loyal
friendship! Never think of me as ungrateful but only as unhappy; never as
despairing but only as resigned! And give Marie my very best wishes! My
dear friend, if you were able to send her to Zurich in advance, as a
pledge of your own intending visit, you would be doing us a tremendous
service..." (Richard Wagner to Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, 12 April 1858,
translated by Stewart Spencer from the previously unpublished autograph in
the Bavarian State Library)
The above extracts from the surviving correspondence give no support to
your assertion that Wagner hated Princess Carolyne. Rather they support
the view that "Princess Wittgenstein and Wagner were on friendly terms". I
should not go so far as to suggest, however, that you should allow the
facts to get in the way of your opinions. Where would "Wagner
scholarship" be, indeed, if such eminent authors as yourself allowed your
assessment any biographical detail to be influenced by such irrelevancies
as documentary evidence?
> Likewise, whatever Wagner's early feelings towards Princess Wittgenstein
> might have been, once ensconced with Cosima he echoed what his wife felt
> and she beyond any shadow of doubt hated Princess Wittgenstein with a
> passion.
Therefore you should take into account, when reading "Mein Leben", that it
was dictated to Cosima. You might also have overlooked the fact that it
was Cosima who wrote "Cosimas Tagebücher". Anything positive that Wagner
might have dared to say in her presence concerning Carolyne Sayn-
Wittgenstein would not have been recorded by Cosima; everything negative
about the Princess was recorded by Cosima, who was never an impartial
witness and especially not in this context.
Therefore your allegation that Wagner "hated" the Princess is, I must
repeat, an exaggeration. His relationship with Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein
cooled in 1859, around the time that Liszt dedicated his "Dante Symphony"
to Wagner, when Liszt was giving Wagner less attention and Wagner (who was
both demanding of attention from his friends and already more than a
little paranoid) suspected that Carolyne was influencing Liszt away from
Wagner.
> That is, Wagner and Cosima hated Wittgensteins; the Wittgensteins -
> minus the Jewish strain - had seven hundred years before fought in the
> Crusades in Palestine and with the Teutonic Knights in Poland. Wagner
> wrote operas about Crusaders and Grail Knights. Nobody has yet bothered
> tracing up the possibility of links here. Rather a scandal, I think.
Thank you for your perceptive observation that "Wagner wrote operas about
Crusaders and Grail Knights". While I am not entirely sure about the
former I shall certainly give appropriate attention to the latter and to
the possibilities of linkage.
Mike Scott Rohan
from k_co...@msn.com.au (Kimberley Cornish) contains these words:
That is, Wagner and
> Cosima hated Wittgensteins; the Wittgensteins - minus the Jewish
> strain - had seven hundred years before fought in the Crusades in
> Palestine and with the Teutonic Knights in Poland. Wagner wrote operas
> about Crusaders and Grail Knights. Nobody has yet bothered tracing up
> the possibility of links here. Rather a scandal, I think.
The idea is interesting, but Wagner never at any time wrote any opera
about crusaders. The Grail Knights are something very different
indeed, wholly legendary and individual, anonymous righters of
wrongs, not concerned with liberating the Holy Land or whatever,
therefore not at all comparable. It's a difference Wagner, with his
feeling for German history, would have been more aware of than most,
and it's one that matters. If you are going to try making a
connection like that, your grounds have to be absolutely solid. This
one doesn't seem to be, I'm afraid.
--
mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk
Laon
outspokenly antisemitic. Regardless of her what her ancestry may have
been (at this time I have no idea on this), she certainly wasn't
presenting herself to the world as Jewish.
In 1881 Liszt re-published his essay _The Gypsies in Music_. Between
the article leaving Liszt's hands and reaching the printer's, Carolyne
von Sayn-Wittgenstein did an "editing" job for him, which considerably
added to the article's length, and changed its tone.
Sayn-Wittgenstein's "editing" consisted of adding pages of Hegelian
gibberish, plus a great deal of this sort of thing:
"The presence of the Jews in the midst of the European nation is a
cause of many evils and a serious danger...
"The Jew continues to monopolise money, and he frees or strangles the
threat of the state with the loosening or strengthening of his purse
strings. ... They are found behind all social commotion, as they are
at the bottom of all epidemics of immorality. they sell
surreptitiously the crowbars and the projectiles that destroy the
foundation of faith and morals...
"The day will come in which all nations amongst which the Jews are
living will have to raise the question of their wholesale expulsion, a
question which will be one of life or death, good health or chronic
disease, peaceful existence or perpetual social fever."
The source is the 1881 version of _The Gypsies in Music_, published as
if by Franz Liszt, but substantially re-written by Carolyne von
Sayn-Wittgenstein.
It is generally agreed among Liszt biographers who mention this essay,
for example Walker's three-volume bio, also Ronald Taylor's biography,
that the intense antisemitism of the essay in its 1881 form is
Carolyne's work. (An ambiguity I haven't been able to resolve is
whether there is antisemitism in the 1851 version of the essay, which
would appear to have been written by Liszt on his own. Some secondary
sources lead me to think so, but I've never been able to get hold of a
copy of the thing itself to find out for sure.)
It's probable that Wagner guessed that the vehement antisemitism of
the 1881 edition was written by Sayn-Wittgenstein and that Liszt was
too much of a gentleman to disown her work - the source here is a
remark of Wagner's to Cosima ("your father goes to his ruin out of
pure chivalry"), which is actually capable of a couple of
interpretations. Still, it's reasonable to assume that Wagner would
have been in a position to make an intelligent guess about the actual
authorship of these passages, and thus at Liszt's resulting
embarrassment.
If so, what is Wagner likely to have thought of Sayn-Wittgenstein, in
her role as antisemite more intemperate than himself? (For example
Wagner called on German Jews to assimilate; Sayn-Wittgenstein called
on Germans to expel the Jews.)
My guess is that Wagner would have been uninpressed by
Sayn-Wittgenstein's work, but somewhat amused by the incident, at
Liszt's expense. I don't know of any evidence that Wagner thought of
Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein as Jewish, though.
Cheers!
Laon
PS: I also can't think of any crusaders or Teutonic knights in a
Wagner opera, unless I've missed one in _Die Feen_ or somewhere. But
even if Wagner's Grail Knights, also Lohengrin, are a century or so
before the First Crusade, the Grail Knights probably did fight the
Moors in Spain, though they're not shown doing so. But you could call
them spiritual ancestors, maybe.
But I don't follow what the significance would be, if a Wittgenstein
had fought in the Crusades?
Derrick Everett
> A complicating factor is that Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein was
> outspokenly antisemitic. Regardless of her what her ancestry may have
> been (at this time I have no idea on this), she certainly wasn't
> presenting herself to the world as Jewish.
How inconvenient for Mr. Cornish, who considers Carolyne to be Jewish
(and therefore of course hated by Wagner). I'd suggest that there is not
very much Jewish about an author who devoted many years to her book about
the Catholic Church (in 25 volumes).
>
> PS: I also can't think of any crusaders or Teutonic knights in a Wagner
> opera, unless I've missed one in _Die Feen_ or somewhere. But even if
> Wagner's Grail Knights, also Lohengrin, are a century or so before the
> First Crusade, the Grail Knights probably did fight the Moors in Spain,
> though they're not shown doing so. But you could call them spiritual
> ancestors, maybe.
The nearest he got to writing about a crusader, as far as I can see, was
the draft for "Friedrich Barbarossa", WWV 76. I don't think it mentions
the crusades, however.
Derrick Everett
> "Just returned home, my eyes still moistened by the tears brought to
> them by the moving scenes of 'Lohengrin', to whom should my thought turn
> at this moment but to you, sir, with the desire that you could have
> witnessed the effect produced by your beautiful work, better understood
> as it is every day by executants and spectators?... Permit me to thank
> you for all the rare pleasures we owe to you by the contemplation of
> your beautiful works and except the expression of my distinguished
> esteem."
My typing was erratic at 1 a.m. last night. That should have read:
"and accept the expression of my distinguished esteem."
> Where would "Wagner scholarship" be, indeed, if such eminent authors as
> yourself allowed your assessment any biographical detail to be
> influenced by such irrelevancies as documentary evidence?
That should have read, "your assessment of any biographical detail..."
Please excuse these mistakes.
Kimberley Cornish
> Dear Mr. Cornish, you wrote, "Cosima hated her and Wagner did also". At
> least the latter part of that sentence is an exaggeration. Instead of
> addressing my comment you have responded with a different line of argument
> about the violinish Joachim. But if had you read what I wrote, which you
> obviously have not done, you might have observed that I did not mention
> Joachim.
>
>
You will all be relieved to know that in fact I did read what Derrick
wrote, so I am glad to have cleared THAT up. Now let me address
Derrick in particular:
My point about Joachim (who was a cousin of Ludwig Wittgenstein's
grandmother and an adopted Wittgenstein) was to establish Wagner and
Cosima's hatred of Wittgensteins in general. I think, from what you
wrote that you would agree Wagner's own words demonstrate that he
found Joachim (a Wittgenstein) "repugnant". Whether or not I have "an
impressive knowledge of secondary and tertiary sources", this point
stands. Cosima also wrote about Joachim, commenting on Watt's portrait
of him with the word "vile" and rejected Joachim's daughters on
grounds of their Jewish origin.
Now on the particular case of Princess Wittgenstein, I documented that
Wagner described her as altering Liszt's Dante and Faust Symphonies in
"a manner designed to produce a more ostentatious effect" and that
this "expressed everything I felt about Liszt and his lady friend, the
Princess Karoline von
Wittgenstein!" My comment was that "this does not support the claim
that "Princess Wittgenstein and Wagner were on friendly terms"! Your
riposte is to quote from two letters in which Princesss Wittgenstein
writes gushingly to Wagner and two formal letters from Wagner to
Princess Wittgenstein. The letters from Princess Wittgenstein are an
irrelevance, since I asserted nothing whatever about Princess
Wittgenstein's feelings towards Wagner and the letters from Wagner to
Princess Wittgenstein are hardly to be expected to be insulting. The
woman, after all, had been amongst the richest in Europe and was the
lover of his father-in-law to boot. The comment in Wagner's
autobiography, however, clearly demonstrates Wagner's negative
feelings. You object to my use of the word "hate". Might we agree,
then, if I may put what I am trying to establish like this, that the
Wagners hated her in the case of Cosima and felt negatively towards
her in the case of Richard? You go on to say:
>
> The above extracts from the surviving correspondence give no support to
> your assertion that Wagner hated Princess Carolyne. Rather they support
> the view that "Princess Wittgenstein and Wagner were on friendly terms". I
> should not go so far as to suggest, however, that you should allow the
> facts to get in the way of your opinions. Where would "Wagner
> scholarship" be, indeed, if such eminent authors as yourself allowed your
> assessment any biographical detail to be influenced by such irrelevancies
> as documentary evidence?
>
I would modestly decline your kind description of me as "an eminent
author". "Best-selling", perhaps. As you know, other adjectives have
been used of me on this website. Let me say, however, that there is an
issue here that snide ad hominem nonsense such as this prevents us
from getting to grips with. It comes out in the following:
>
> > That is, Wagner and Cosima hated Wittgensteins; the Wittgensteins -
> > minus the Jewish strain - had seven hundred years before fought in the
> > Crusades in Palestine and with the Teutonic Knights in Poland. Wagner
> > wrote operas about Crusaders and Grail Knights. Nobody has yet bothered
> > tracing up the possibility of links here. Rather a scandal, I think.
>
> Thank you for your perceptive observation that "Wagner wrote operas about
> Crusaders and Grail Knights". While I am not entirely sure about the
> former I shall certainly give appropriate attention to the latter and to
> the possibilities of linkage.
My suggestion was only this: The Wittgensteins had been Crusaders and
heads of the order of Teutonic Knights. Count Johann von
Sayn-Wittgenstein, for example, represented Brandenburg in the
negotiations that ended the Thirty Years War. There are multiple
Wittgenstein castles, some with a thousand-year history, still
standing in Germany and there is a county named after them. A
Johanetta Wittgenstein was the grandmother of one of the British
Hanoverian kings. When I looked up the order of succession to the
British throne in 1998, the current ranking Wittgenstein was only 60
or so removed. The Wittgensteins are a seriously prominent European
noble family. I suggested that there just might be a reference to an
actual Wittgenstein crusader in von Eschenbach's Parzival if only we
could work through his barbarous naming conventions. Liszt wrote his
Ballade on a crusader theme while involved with Princess Wittgenstein.
Uhland wrote of a Wittgenstein crusader. And Wagner ON THE BASIS OF
VON ESCHENBACH'S PARZIVAL wrote an opera. We know on the authority of
F. R. Leavis the literary critic, that Ludwig Wittgenstein, the
philosopher, presented himself as a Sayn-Wittgenstein at Cambridge.
And Ludwig was Adolf Hitler's schoolfellow. I am not trying to prove
anything here. All I am doing is bringing to people's attention the
fact that there is something worth investigating that might well turn
out to be of absolutely crucial importance in understanding Hitler's
obsession with Wagner and with Jews. It all connects, I believe, to
the young Jewish billionaire heir Ludwig Wittgenstein. Nothing I have
said on this website is in any way unreasonable. If we can avoid
personalities and do some work together, it is possible something
seriously important might emerge.
Sincerely,
Kimberley Cornish.
Kimberley Cornish
> The idea is interesting, but Wagner never at any time wrote any opera
> about crusaders. The Grail Knights are something very different
> indeed, wholly legendary and individual, anonymous righters of
> wrongs, not concerned with liberating the Holy Land or whatever,
> therefore not at all comparable. It's a difference Wagner, with his
> feeling for German history, would have been more aware of than most,
> and it's one that matters. If you are going to try making a
> connection like that, your grounds have to be absolutely solid. This
> one doesn't seem to be, I'm afraid.
It IS absolutely rock-solid that the Wittgensteins had been knights;
both in the Holy Land and in the ethnic cleansing of Pomerania. A
Wittgenstein had headed the very order of Teutonic Knights. Whether
the Grail knights were represented as categorically or only
operatically different from actual knights doesn't seem to me to
matter very much. The Wittgensteins, with whom Wagner had
acquaintance, were a knightly family and what is more, had been
castle-owning knights at the time when von Eschenbach wrote
"Parzival", when Wagner was acquainted with them and even today. (Even
mad King Ludwig, the Wagner patron, was a Wittgenstein descendant.)
Parzival is filled with references to Muslims and adventures in Muslim
lands. Some writers on the Grail have even identified the Grail castle
as Takht-i-Suleiman in Iran, where the pre-Muslim Persian king
Chosroes is reputed to have stored it following the sack of Jerusalem.
Von Eschenbach's Parzival is full of secret genealogies and is
intimately connected to the Crusades. To the extent that Wagner used
von Eschenbach as his source, his opera is also intimately connected
to the Crusades, regardless of what my dissenting correspondents on
this website might say.
Hitler, in "Mein Kampf", outlining the process by which Jews
infiltrate and corrupt the Aryan races, specifically mentions how the
higher nobility degenerates completely via "Court Jews". Now the
Jewish Wittgensteins (of whom Adolf's school-fellow Ludwig was one)
had been court Jews in the Wittgenstein court and you can't get much
higher in the nobility than that. There aren't THAT many court Jew
families to consider when trying to work out which one Hitler was
referring to: Hirschs, Warburgs, Rothschilds, a few others and of
course, Wittgensteins. Hitler complained that Brahms had been
"lionized in the salons". The salon in Vienna at which he had been
most lionized was the Palais Wittgenstein, owned by Ludwig's steel
magnate father. These connections are not contrived; they have been
staring Holocaust researchers in the face for seventy years and the
penny doesn't appear to have dropped even yet.
Sincerely,
Kimberley Cornish.
Derrick Everett
>> The idea is interesting, but Wagner never at any time wrote any opera
>> about crusaders. The Grail Knights are something very different indeed,
>> wholly legendary and individual, anonymous righters of wrongs, not
>> concerned with liberating the Holy Land or whatever, therefore not at
>> all comparable. It's a difference Wagner, with his feeling for German
>> history, would have been more aware of than most, and it's one that
>> matters. If you are going to try making a connection like that, your
>> grounds have to be absolutely solid. This one doesn't seem to be, I'm
>> afraid.
>
> It IS absolutely rock-solid that the Wittgensteins had been knights;
> both in the Holy Land and in the ethnic cleansing of Pomerania. A
> Wittgenstein had headed the very order of Teutonic Knights. Whether the
> Grail knights were represented as categorically or only operatically
> different from actual knights doesn't seem to me to matter very much.
You are consistent in that when you have stated proporision A and someone
points out that proposition A is false, you then start shouting that
proposition B is "rock-solid". Wagner did not, despite your assertions,
write an opera about crusaders. The fact that ancestors of the
Wittgensteins had been knights, whether of the Teutonic or any other
order, is irrelevant. The fact that the Grail knights are in some ways
unlike the Christian orders of religious knights does not matter to you
because you could not give a damn about this or any other fact.
Derrick Everett
> Now on the particular case of Princess Wittgenstein, I documented that
> Wagner described her as altering Liszt's Dante and Faust Symphonies in
> "a manner designed to produce a more ostentatious effect" and that this
> "expressed everything I felt about Liszt and his lady friend, the
> Princess Karoline von
> Wittgenstein!" My comment was that "this does not support the claim that
> "Princess Wittgenstein and Wagner were on friendly terms"! Your riposte
> is to quote from two letters in which Princesss Wittgenstein writes
> gushingly to Wagner and two formal letters from Wagner to Princess
> Wittgenstein. The letters from Princess Wittgenstein are an irrelevance,
> since I asserted nothing whatever about Princess Wittgenstein's feelings
> towards Wagner and the letters from Wagner to Princess Wittgenstein are
> hardly to be expected to be insulting. The woman, after all, had been
> amongst the richest in Europe and was the lover of his father-in-law to
> boot.
If you had even the slightest understanding of the historical and
biographical facts you would know that the woman to whom Wagner's letters
quoted were addressed was *not* "the lover of his father-in-law".
That's where you are wrong.
Kimberley Cornish
Dear group,
Can we agree that Wagner wrote an opera involving knights? Surely THAT
is a fact! Can we agree that in European history, the paradigm cases
of knights are represented by the knightly orders - Templars,
Hospitallers, Teutonic, Knights of St John and so on? Even the
mythical knights of Arthurian legend were members of the Round Table.
Now, Derrick writes "The fact that the Grail knights are in some ways
unlike the Christian orders of religious knights does not matter to
you because you could not give a damn about this or any other fact."
Let me wholeheartedly agree that "in some ways" the Grail Knights are
unlike the Christian orders of religious knights. Have I ever said
anything in denial of this proposition? In some ways they are also
very LIKE the Christian orders of religious knights. They are, aren't
they? - or does Derrrick want to claim they bear no points of
resemblance in respect of their knighthood at all? The further
statement that I don't give a damn about this or any other fact isn't
something I should have to reply to. Where I have made a claim on this
board, I have made it in the belief it is true and I have been
prepared to defend it further should anyone wish to question it. This
particular dispute seems to be over whether use of the term "knight"
in Wagner's opera is univocal with its use in describing the
historical chivalric orders that originated in the Crusades. Why did
Wagner describe the order in his opera as "knights"? That Wagner did
not write an opera about Crusaders in Parzival is only arguably true,
even if he did not describe them as such. His source in Wolfram von
Eschenbach undoubtedly does describe some of the knights involved as
Crusaders. The "Introduction" to my copy of von Eschenbach's Parzival
(transl. Mustard & Passage, Random House, 1961) even discusses the
suggestion that von Eschenbach's original for Parzival was Richard the
Lion-Hearted. No doubt about the crusades there!
Sincerely,
Kimberley Cornish.
P.S. Describing what I say as "shouting" isn't conducive to arriving
at the truth. May I make yet another plea that participants avoid
personalities? I try to avoid abuse myself.
Mike Scott Rohan
from k_co...@msn.com.au (Kimberley Cornish) contains these words:
{snip}
> Von Eschenbach's Parzival is full of secret genealogies and is
> intimately connected to the Crusades. To the extent that Wagner used
> von Eschenbach as his source, his opera is also intimately connected
> to the Crusades, regardless of what my dissenting correspondents on
> this website might say.
Unfortunately, even if every connection you try to make could be
credited, they still couldn't possibly establish that Wagner wrote
one single opera about "crusaders". He simply did not. The Grail
Knights are not crusaders. They do not go on crusades, real or
fictional; they are not answering any call to crusade, their objects
are not those of crusaders, they have not sworn any crusaders' oaths.
Your insistence is a not uncommon pitfall in scholarship, that of
starting with what seems like a bright idea and bolstering it up with
masses of detail, often recherche and esoteric -- while, however,
being too much in love with the core idea to subject it to any proper scrutiny.
That "Wagner wrote operas about crusaders and things" might look
acceptable on the surface -- oh yes, Lohengrin and Parsifal, they
were a bit like crusaders, weren't they? It looks temptingly like a
revelation. But for your assertion to be true, they would have to be
very explicitly and exactly crusaders. And the closer you look at
them, the less like crusaders they appear.
> Hitler, in "Mein Kampf", outlining the process by which Jews
> infiltrate and corrupt the Aryan races, specifically mentions how the
> higher nobility degenerates completely via "Court Jews". Now the
> Jewish Wittgensteins (of whom Adolf's school-fellow Ludwig was one)
> had been court Jews in the Wittgenstein court and you can't get much
> higher in the nobility than that. There aren't THAT many court Jew
> families to consider when trying to work out which one Hitler was
> referring to: Hirschs, Warburgs, Rothschilds, a few others and of
> course, Wittgensteins. Hitler complained that Brahms had been
> "lionized in the salons". The salon in Vienna at which he had been
> most lionized was the Palais Wittgenstein, owned by Ludwig's steel
> magnate father.
What has this to do with anything Wagnerian? Hitler's opinions have
little to do with Wagner's, whom he had probably never even read;
there is certainly no sign of mutual influence or common ideas in
their writings. They were both antisemitic bigots, certainly, but of
wholly different kinds and with different concerns and obsessions.
Identifying the two is a common enough mistake, which originated,
like so much other rubbish, with the Nazis, and whose perpetuation
would have pleased them.
These connections are not contrived; they have been
> staring Holocaust researchers in the face for seventy years and the
> penny doesn't appear to have dropped even yet.
Leaving aside the mixed metaphor, has it occurred to you that there
may be a very good reason for this?
--
mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk
Derrick Everett
> Derrick Everett <iyb9x...@sneakemail.com> wrote in message
> news:<pan.2002.10.09.06....@sneakemail.com>...
>> On Wed, 09 Oct 2002 01:28:16 +0200, Kimberley Cornish wrote:
>>
>>
>> >> The idea is interesting, but Wagner never at any time wrote any
>> >> opera about crusaders. The Grail Knights are something very
>> >> different indeed, wholly legendary and individual, anonymous
>> >> righters of wrongs, not concerned with liberating the Holy Land or
>> >> whatever, therefore not at all comparable. It's a difference Wagner,
>> >> with his feeling for German history, would have been more aware of
>> >> than most, and it's one that matters. If you are going to try making
>> >> a connection like that, your grounds have to be absolutely solid.
>> >> This one doesn't seem to be, I'm afraid.
>> >
>> > It IS absolutely rock-solid that the Wittgensteins had been knights;
>> > both in the Holy Land and in the ethnic cleansing of Pomerania. A
>> > Wittgenstein had headed the very order of Teutonic Knights. Whether
>> > the Grail knights were represented as categorically or only
>> > operatically different from actual knights doesn't seem to me to
>> > matter very much.
>>
>> You are consistent in that when you have stated proporision A and
Oops ... "proposition".
>> someone points out that proposition A is false, you then start shouting
>> that proposition B is "rock-solid". Wagner did not, despite your
>> assertions, write an opera about crusaders. The fact that ancestors of
>> the Wittgensteins had been knights, whether of the Teutonic or any
>> other order, is irrelevant. The fact that the Grail knights are in
>> some ways unlike the Christian orders of religious knights does not
>> matter to you because you could not give a damn about this or any other
>> fact.
>
> Dear group,
>
> Can we agree that Wagner wrote an opera involving knights? Surely THAT
> is a fact! Can we agree that in European history, the paradigm cases of
> knights are represented by the knightly orders - Templars, Hospitallers,
> Teutonic, Knights of St John and so on? Even the mythical knights of
> Arthurian legend were members of the Round Table.
If you were to look up the definition of the English word "knight" in a
decent dictionary, I think you would find that it has several meanings.
The most basic of these meanings involves horses. A knight was a citizen
who had sufficient means to perform military service, when called upon by
the state, with a horse. In other words, cavalrymen. In ancient Rome
these citizens were a well-defined class, the "equites".
In the middle ages the knight was an individual of noble birth (i.e. a
member of the land-owning gentry class) who had served as page and then
squire before being attaining the military rank of knight. In medieval
romances the knight often appeared as a "knight errant", a knight who
wandered in search of chivalrous adventures. Notable examples of such
wandering knights in the romances include Gawain and Perceval, who became
"members of the Round Table" when the Grail myth was absorbed into the
Arthurian cycle.
> Now, Derrick writes
> "The fact that the Grail knights are in some ways unlike the Christian
> orders of religious knights does not matter to you because you could not
> give a damn about this or any other fact." Let me wholeheartedly agree
> that "in some ways" the Grail Knights are unlike the Christian orders of
> religious knights.
Good. We're making progress.
> Have I ever said anything in denial of this proposition? In some ways
> they are also very LIKE the Christian orders of religious knights. They
> are, aren't they? - or does Derrrick want to claim they bear no points
> of resemblance in respect of their knighthood at all?
If I meant that I would have said so. Let's review the most important
"Christian orders of religious knights", some of which you mentioned
above:
(1) Knights Hospitaller. In the year 1070 some pious citizens of Amalfi
founded a hostel in Jerusalem for the use of poor pilgrims. This was, of
course, years before the First Crusade. The running of the hostel was
taken over by Benedictine monks and their operation was dedicated to St.
John the Almsgiver. When the crusaders approached Jerusalem the monks
were expelled by the Moslem governor. This was a mistake on his part
because their local knowledge was of considerable benefit to the
besiegers. After the capture of Jerusalem the crusaders rewarded the
monks. They received endowments of land back in Europe to support their
operations from revenues. The monks were allowed to establish their own
order, no longer under the control of the Benedictines but still
ultimately under the control of the Pope (not of the King of Jerusalem).
They now became the Order of St. John the Evangelist and established a
military wing, knights whose mission it was to protect pilgrims and to
keep the pilgrim roads open. These knights were also monks, bound by
religious vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. They wore a white
cross on tunics over their armour. (For further information about the
origins of the Order see the chronicles of William of Tyre, vol. 18).
After the fall of Outremer the Hospitallers became based in Cyprus, then
Rhodes and finally Malta, when they became known as the Knights of St.
John.
(2) Knights Templar. In 1118 a knight from Champagne persuaded the King
of Jerusalem to allow him to establish a monastic Order of knights with
the al-Aqsa mosque in the area of the former Temple as their base of
operation. They became known as the Knights Templar. Like the
Hospitallers they began under the Benedictine rule but were soon allowed
independence. Only the highly-born members of the Order were called
knights. Their squires were known as sergeants. As with the Hospitallers
there was a non-military wing of the Order. Knights wore a red cross on a
white tunic, sergeants a red cross on a black tunic. Together with the
Hospitallers the Knights Templar provided the Kingdom of Jerusalem with a
regular army, although its members were under the authority of the Pope,
not of the King. (For further information about the origins of the Order
see the chronicles of William of Tyre, vol. 12; if your latin is a bit
rusty, "The Templars" by Piers Paul Read is one of the few scholarly and
readable accounts in English). In 1307, after the fall of Acre, this by
now extremely rich order was suppressed by Philip IV of France with great
cruelty, on the excuse of charges of heresy, and the wealth of the order
enriched the French crown.
(3) Teutonic Knights. Tradition has it that a Hospital of St. Mary was
founded for German pilgrims at Jerusalem in 1127. The German-speaking
states were relatively slow in sending crusaders to defend the holy places
and when German armies did arrive they were not particularly successful.
At the time of the Third Crusade some merchants of Lübeck and Bremen
established a hostel at Acre on the model of the Hospitallers, for German
pilgrims. The German monks were recognised as a military order in 1198
and it was soon receiving endowments in Germany. Their order was called
"the Teutonic Knights of St Mary's Hospital". Like the Knights Templar
there were three classes: knights, who wore a white cloak with a black
cross, sergeants, who wore a grey cloak with a T-shaped cross, and
priests. The Teutonic Order soon shifted their focus from Outremer to
Prussia where they killed heathen in great numbers and established an
"ordensstaat", a state ruled by a Master of the Teutonic Order. The Order
gradually extended its influence along more than 200 kilometres of the
Baltic coastline. Attempts to expand eastwards were stopped by the Kievan
prince Alexander Nevsky on Lake Peipus in 1240. The fortress of
Starkenberg, headquarters in Outremer, was lost in 1271 and with the fall
of Acre in 1291 the Teutonic Knights lost its first and last establishment
in Outremer. The "Johanniterorden" is a modern survival from the Teutonic
Order.
(4) Iberian Orders. In the 12th century both the Hospitallers and
Templars established houses on the Iberian peninsular. Then in 1164 a
community of Cistercians, who had taken over Calatrava when it was
abandoned by the Templars, were recognised by the Pope as a religious-
military order, the Knights of Calatrava. Over their black armour these
knights wore a white, later a grey, tunic. Other Iberian orders founded
at about the same time included the Knights of Caceres, later the Order of
St. James of the Sword, who defended the pilgrim routes to Santiago; their
knights wore a white habit with a red cross/dagger on the shoulder; and
the Knights of San Julian de Pereiro, who became the Order of Alcantara;
they wore a plain white habit. These and other knightly orders, including
the Templars, were prominent in driving the Moors out of the peninsular.
> The further statement that I don't give a damn about this or any other
> fact isn't something I should have to reply to. Where I have made a
> claim on this board, I have made it in the belief it is true and I have
> been prepared to defend it further should anyone wish to question it.
> This particular dispute seems to be over whether use of the term
> "knight" in Wagner's opera is univocal with its use in describing the
> historical chivalric orders that originated in the Crusades. Why did
> Wagner describe the order in his opera as "knights"? That Wagner did not
> write an opera about Crusaders in Parzival is only arguably true, even
> if he did not describe them as such.
Wagner not write an opera or drama about crusaders, nor did he write one
in which appear any identifiable Templars, Hospitallers or Teutonic
Knights (unless any of the Minnesingers were such). Nor did he write an
opera or drama in which an identifiable Iberian order appears. It is the
case, however, that Wagner's "Parsifal" features a military-religious
order and it is located in Spain, almost within sight of Moorish
territory. Wagner's stage directions, which do mention the Templars,
suggest that he was torn between specificity and vagueness about location:
"... auf dem Gebiete und in der Berg der Gralshüter 'Monsalvat'; Gegend im
Character der nordlichen Gebirge des gothischen Spaniens. Sodann:
Klingsors Zauberschloss, am Südabhange derselben Gebirge, dem arabischen
Spanien zugewandt anzunehmen. -- Die Tracht der Gralsritter und Knappen
ähnlich der des Templerordens: weisse Waffenröcke und Mantel; statt des
rothen Kreuzes jedoch eine schwebende Taube auf Wappen und Mäntel
gesticht." [GSD X, p.324]
(... in the domain and in the castle of the guardians of the Grail at
'Monsalvat'; countryside resembling the northern mountains of Gothic
Spain. Afterwards: in Klingsor's Magic Castle, on the southern slopes of
the same mountains, facing Moorish Spain. -- The costume of the Grail
knights and squires resembles that of the Templar Order: white tunic and
cloak; instead of the red cross, however, a dove flying upwards is sewn on
scutcheon and cloak.)
This description suggests to the reader (who might be a stage director)
the period in which Wolfram von Eschenbach (the most famous of the
Minnesingers) lived and worked. There are subtleties here, however. The
domain of the Grail is located at 'Monsalvat', a name taken from Wolfram,
which Wagner locates in northern Spain, the country from which Wolfram
claimed to have heard of the mysterious Grail. It is located in the
northern mountains of that country, where at the time of Wolfram the
Cathars had strongholds such as Montsegur (for a detailed account of the
events there see Zoe Oldenburg's book "Massacre at Montsegur"; for an
overview of the Cathars see for example chapter 7 in Malcolm Lambert's
"Medieval Heresy").
There are a few passages in Wolfram's "Parzival" which can be seen as
inspired by Cathar doctrines although in general Wolfram, understandably
in a time of violent suppression of heresy, was at pains to emphasise his
orthodoxy. Full members of the Cathar sect, the "Perfect", had to abstain
not only from sins of the flesh (later from all physical contact with the
opposite sex) but from eating the products resulting from the sins of the
flesh: meat, eggs and dairy produce. It might not be coincidental that
the Grail community abstain from meat even when the divine food which has
sustained them (the bread and wine produced by the Grail) is denied them
by the command of Amfortas.
The vegetarian subtext was a detail introduced late in the long gestation
of Wagner's "Parsifal". The prohibition on harming animals, however, was
necessarily a part of the original scenario, since the incident of the
swan is a key element both in the symbolism and in the plot of the first
act. The treatment of animals was an important (perhaps the most
important) element in Schopenhauer's condemnation of Judaic elements in
Christianity, a view of the Judeo-Christian tradition that influenced
Wagner's own views on that tradition. Schopenhauer (and his disciple
Wagner) rejected Genesis (the First Book of Moses) chapter 9, especially
verses 2-4. See "Parerga and Paralipomena", vol. 2, chapter 15, section
177 "On Christianity". This specific objection to the tradition was echoed
by Wagner (Prose Works, vol. 6, page 199) and was clearly a significant
factor in his rejection of Christian dogmas. Unless you understand this
you will not be able to understand Wagner's attitude to religion in
general and the Judeo-Christian tradition in particular.
You implied that the Grail knights were crusaders. Yet Wagner takes the
trouble to state that there is no cross on their tunics; instead of a
cross they carry the emblem of a dove, a symbol (in the Christian
tradition) of the Holy Spirit. It is also one that has been associated
with the Cathars, although the evidence for this association does not seem
to be strong. They do not wear the cross. If you review my summary of
the medieval knightly orders above, you will see that the knights and
other fighting brothers of the majority of the orders wore the sign of the
cross. All crusader knights did so and joining a crusade was described as
"taking the cross". The cross only appears once in "Parsifal": when the
fool who has just taken the first step towards enlightenment makes the
sign of the cross and with it destroys the power of Klingsor. He could
just as well have touched the earth (Buddhists will understand my meaning
here).
By stating that the knights did not wear the cross Wagner tells us that
they were not crusaders and he leaves open the question of whether they
are Christian. If they are Christian then they are heretical (as the
Templars were accused of being). Like Wagner and Schopenhauer they reject
Genesis chapter 9 and perhaps other parts, or even all, of the Old
Testament. Their daily (?) ceremony is an inversion of the Christian
eucharist; the Grail turns divine blood into bread and wine. It is
possible that at least some of them, like Wagner, rejected central
Christian dogmas, or considered them irrelevant. This is not a mainstream
Christian community. If they have holy books, they might be the "Rig
Veda" and the "Upanishads", rather than the Old and New Testaments. In
fact the ceremony of the Grail is only like the Mass at a surface level;
at a deeper level it can be related to the soma ceremony of the "Rig
Veda", while the religious ceremony with which the drama ends contains
references to the rituals of Tibetan Buddhism (Vajrayana). When Wagner
wrote (in his "Religion and Art") about art taking over the symbols of
religion, he meant religion in general, not one specific religion.
> His source in Wolfram von Eschenbach undoubtedly does describe some of
> the knights involved as Crusaders.
Wagner's sources are not Wagner's dramas. Wolfram von Eschenbach's
"Parzival" was only one of Wagner's medieval sources from western
literature. When he conceived his "Parsifal", according to "Mein Leben",
he had not looked at Wolfram's poem for twelve years. Yet we know what he
had been reading in 1856-7: Schopenhauer and accounts of the life of the
Buddha.
There are other western, medieval sources, of comparable importance to
Wolfram's "Parzival", which contributed either (in a few cases) to the
original conception and early development of Wagner's "Parsifal" scenario
or (in many cases) to filling out of detail later in the development of
the text. The more important ones are not Grail romances. Although the
overall structure (in the broadest terms) of Wagner's drama was one he
found in "Parzival" it is common to all of the Grail romances. There were
also important sources of inspiration that had nothing to do with western
literature and contributing sources that much earlier than or much later
than the medieval period.
> The "Introduction" to my copy of von Eschenbach's Parzival (transl.
> Mustard & Passage, Random House, 1961) even discusses the suggestion
> that von Eschenbach's original for Parzival was Richard the
> Lion-Hearted. No doubt about the crusades there!
An introduction to Wolfram's "Parzival" has no direct relevance to
Wagner's drama. To understand Wagner's attitude to Wolfram I suggest that
you read his letter to Mathilde Wesendonk of 30 May 1859 and Cosima's
diary entry for 17 June 1881.
> P.S. Describing what I say as "shouting" isn't conducive to arriving at
> the truth. May I make yet another plea that participants avoid
> personalities? I try to avoid abuse myself.
Then I suggest that you avoid the excessive use of capital letters and
exclamation marks, which I (and others here) read as "shouting". You
might also find that your ideas are taken more seriously if you refrain
from banging the table whenever you are unsure of your ground, which I
think you should be more often than you are at present.
Just because you believe something to be true does not mean that it is
true. Belief and truth are not necessarily coincident. You assert that
there are "arguably" crusaders in Wagner's drama. I should be at least
mildly interested in hearing about why you believe this, especially since
it is not true: Wagner made it clear in his introductory directions that
the knights of "Parsifal" were not crusaders. Your repeated claims about
believing this or that do not prove that what you believe is true, only
that you believe it to be true. I suggest that you consider and present
the evidence for what you believe rather than asking us to accept your
belief as sufficient. In the final analysis I don't give a damn about
what you believe but I do give a damn about the truth. To find the truth
one has to go a little deeper than the surface layer and sometimes one has
to question what appears to be obvious and beyond question.
Derrick Everett
> Wagner not write an opera or drama about crusaders, nor did he write one
> in which appear any identifiable Templars, Hospitallers or Teutonic
> Knights (unless any of the Minnesingers were such).
Tannhäuser does appear in the cloak of a Teutonic Knight in the Manessa
Codex, i.e. the "Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift", early 14th
century. Biographical details about Tannhäuser are rather uncertain but
it cannot be ruled out that he might have taken part in a crusade, in
which case it was most likely the expedition of Emperor Friedrich II in
1228. So if a crusader (or ex-crusader) appears in any of Wagner's operas
then Tannhäuser looks the most likely candidate.
Laon
First, I think you can underestimate the importance of Wolfram's
_Parzifal_ as source for Wagner's _Parsifal_. It's true that, as with
the relationship between Gottfried von Strassberg's _Tristan_ and
Wagner's _Tristan_, Wagner took only what he needed; it's also true
that Wagner disparaged Wolfram to Matthilde von Wesendonck.
But you can never determine what Wagner thinks from just one quote: he
also said, "Thus _Parzifal_ and _Tristan_ were shaped anew by Germans;
and whilst the originals have become curiosities, of no importance
save to the history of literature, in their German counterparts we
recognise works of imperishable worth." (_What is German_) Which
indicates a more respectful attitude to these works of imperishable
worth. I read it that when writing to Matthilde he had to justify his
practical gutting of these works to take what he needed for his
purposes. That done, he could again appreciate them at what seems to
me to be their true value.
So I don't think it's wrong to say that Wagner based his _Parsifal_ on
Wolfram; it's just that he didn't take over any more of Wolfram that
he needed for plot purposes, and he completely reshaped key
characters, and imported ideas and meaning from countless other
sources. In sum, showing that something is in Wolfram is not in
itself evidence that it influenced Wagner; what it does is open up the
possibility.
Second, it's true that Wolfram does anachronistically include Templar
knights at the Grail. It's also the case that Wagner doesn't. But an
argument about relevance of knights of a later period than treated in
Wagner's _Parsifal_ can be considered, having acknowledged this
weakness. I don't know what the argument is, yet, and it should be
considered on its merits.
A related point is that while Mustard and Passage do note similarities
between the lineage and "back story" of Wolfram's character Parzifal
and Richard I, they also acknowledge that Richard I himself doesn't
much resemble Wolfram's Parzifal. The lineage argument is real, but
can't be taken too far.
Third, I think it's likely that Wolfram would have wanted to flatter
families likely to be in his audience, by including their ancestors on
the scene in his tales. However I can't find any bearing on the
Wittgensteins in that, because I've looked through _Parzifal_,
searching for any name that (allowing for Wolfram's, or his
transcriber's, extraordinary spelling of proper names) could be a form
of Wittgensten. Taking into account possible B for W or other
utations, stein becoming staen or steen or sten or whatever, and so
on; but even then I couldn't find any references to the Wittgenstens
in Wolfram's _Parzifal_. The Mustard and Passage edition provides a
pretty complete list of proper names at the end, which is helpful
though I also went through the text itself.
Cheers!
Laon
Kimberley Cornish
> credited, they still couldn't possibly establish that Wagner wrote
> one single opera about "crusaders". He simply did not. The Grail
> Knights are not crusaders. They do not go on crusades, real or
> fictional; they are not answering any call to crusade, their objects
> are not those of crusaders, they have not sworn any crusaders' oaths.
> Your insistence is a not uncommon pitfall in scholarship, that of
> starting with what seems like a bright idea and bolstering it up with
> masses of detail, often recherche and esoteric -- while, however,
> being too much in love with the core idea to subject it to any proper scrutiny.
>
> That "Wagner wrote operas about crusaders and things" might look
> acceptable on the surface -- oh yes, Lohengrin and Parsifal, they
> were a bit like crusaders, weren't they? It looks temptingly like a
> revelation. But for your assertion to be true, they would have to be
> very explicitly and exactly crusaders. And the closer you look at
> them, the less like crusaders they appear.
I had not realised until this series of objections was raised, the
extent to which this issue is taken here as a pons asinorum for
understanding Wagner. The topic of the post is "The Crusader
Wittgensteins, Liszt, Wagner and the Holocaust". Had I never used the
word "Crusader", but used the word "knight" instead, every issue I
wanted to raise would still have gone through. Let me grant that
Wagner's knights have nothing whatever to do with the Crusades, even
given arguable academic identifications of Parzival as Richard Coeur
de Lion. Then the facts I raised about the Wittgensteins, their place
in a knightly order and their personal links to Liszt and Wagner and
(in their Jewish branch) to Hitler, remain.
>
> > Hitler, in "Mein Kampf", outlining the process by which Jews
> > infiltrate and corrupt the Aryan races, specifically mentions how the
> > higher nobility degenerates completely via "Court Jews". Now the
> > Jewish Wittgensteins (of whom Adolf's school-fellow Ludwig was one)
> > had been court Jews in the Wittgenstein court and you can't get much
> > higher in the nobility than that. There aren't THAT many court Jew
> > families to consider when trying to work out which one Hitler was
> > referring to: Hirschs, Warburgs, Rothschilds, a few others and of
> > course, Wittgensteins. Hitler complained that Brahms had been
> > "lionized in the salons". The salon in Vienna at which he had been
> > most lionized was the Palais Wittgenstein, owned by Ludwig's steel
> > magnate father.
>
>
> What has this to do with anything Wagnerian? Hitler's opinions have
> little to do with Wagner's, whom he had probably never even read;
> there is certainly no sign of mutual influence or common ideas in
> their writings. They were both antisemitic bigots, certainly, but of
> wholly different kinds and with different concerns and obsessions.
> Identifying the two is a common enough mistake, which originated,
> like so much other rubbish, with the Nazis, and whose perpetuation
> would have pleased them.
The charter in Derrick Everitt's FAQ guidelines for postings on this
site cover "Wagner's contemporaries their influence on Wagner and
vice-versa". Brahms, Joachim and the Wittgensteins are certainly
covered by that. He also states "In this newsgroup we discuss Richard
Wagner, his life, works and influence." I shall endeavour to argue for
a common philosophy of human consciousness in Schopenhauer, Wagner,
Hitler and Wittgenstein, but am endeavouring to get through the
preliminaries. That Hitler used Wagner's operatic ideas in staging
mass rallies was claimed by Ernst Hanfstaengl. Gustav le Bon, in "The
Crowd" outlined the idea of a common mind in collectivities. Wagner's
account of musical composition involved and efflux of Schopenhauer's
"Universal Will" into the mind of the musician, somewhat akin to what
Beethoven spoke of as the "raptus". There is material to be examined
on this that supports my claim that Hitler directly applied
Schopenhaurean/Wagnerian - and Wittgensteinian - ideas to manipulate
crowds. I simply ask your indulgence on this. The issues are not
simple and they take time to present properly.
>
> These connections are not contrived; they have been
> > staring Holocaust researchers in the face for seventy years and the
> > penny doesn't appear to have dropped even yet.
>
> Leaving aside the mixed metaphor, has it occurred to you that there
> may be a very good reason for this?
Any number of reasons have occurred to me. Perhaps you might like to
let us know to whom, apart from me, the idea of a Hitler/Wittgenstein
connection has occurred in the past and the reasons why it was
rejected? Having turned up a contemporary photograph of the adolescent
Hitler and Wittgenstein centimetres apart and had both Random House
and Ullstein place it on the hardcover edition of my book, I can
assure you there was not even an inkling of my discovery in previous
literature. My account of the role of Wagner's ideas in Hitler's
ascent is yet to come.
Sincerely,
Kimberley Cornish.
Derrick Everett
> I had not realised until this series of objections was raised, the
> extent to which this issue is taken here as a pons asinorum for
> understanding Wagner. The topic of the post is "The Crusader
> Wittgensteins, Liszt, Wagner and the Holocaust". Had I never used the
> word "Crusader", but used the word "knight" instead, every issue I
> wanted to raise would still have gone through. Let me grant that
> Wagner's knights have nothing whatever to do with the Crusades, even
> given arguable academic identifications of Parzival as Richard Coeur
> de Lion.
In the context of this newsgroup, I suggest that the "pons asinorum"
is the first volume of "The World as Will and Representation", the
book that changed Wagner's life. Once you have crossed that bridge
many aspects of Wagner's life and work from 1854 onwards are easier to
comprehend.
The point which you seem to have missed is that it is not the word
"crusader" in the title of your postings that some of us find
provocative.
Kimberley Cornish
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just look up the names index to
Parzival under "W" to find "Wittgenstein"! Good to see that Laon is
following his usual thorough research checking, but on this one he's
been preceded by me, long ago and matters ain't so simple. Let us
consider some of the issues that emerge:
1. Von Eschenbach loved playing with words and the names he uses are
abominations. Mustard and Passage (hereafter M&P) page xvi, tell us
that the Margravine of Heitstein in Book VIII (404,1-2) must be
Elizabeth von Vohburg, sister of King Ludwig I of Wittelsbach (that
is, an ancestor of Wagner's Mad King Ludwig) who died in 1204. We have
then, at least one datable German aristocrat in the book. Herzeloyde
is equated by M&P to Matilda, widow of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V.
There are other examples.
2. It follows a fortiori that some of the characters in Parzival have
genetic links to nineteenth century German aristocracy and therefore
MUST link linearly to Wittgensteins. (I add as a gentle dig for other
contributors that some of them of them were quite clearly Crusaders,
but that fact is irrelevant to my argument.) We don't know how the
lineal descents run, but it must be possible to find out. (In many
cases, documented European aristocratic genealogies run back for well
over a thousand years.)
3. It is highly unlikely that the names of these proto-Wittgensteins
would be recognisable. It has taken a century and a half of research
work to tease out the few definite German aristocratic families in
Parzival that we know about. (Sorry about there being no index, but
that's how it is.)
4. If Parzival can be identified with Richard the Lion-Hearted or with
his father Henry II of England (M&P p.xxv) then the whole chain of
genealogies in Parzival can be studied to see who in the story
corresponds to whom in reality in the twelfth century. This in fact
was the suggestion I was to make on this board before the
side-tracking over the Crusader issue. Serious genealogical study over
a seven-hundred year period is not something I can do alone.
5. It is likely that through Cosima or Franz Liszt, Wagner had insider
access to family traditions within the Wittgenstein family about who
was related to whom within nineteenth century German aristocracy. (The
link, of course, is Princess Wittgenstein.) I am not saying these were
secret traditions; only that aristocrats are particularly interested
in genealogies and that they often know by long family tradition what
the rest of us have to work out by tedious labour with the Almanac de
Gotha or Debrett's.
6. The characters in Wagner's opera therefore, might just be seen as
prefiguring QUA ANCESTORS individual humans within his circle of
aristocratic acquaintances, with Princess Wittgenstein – whom we know
his wife Cosima hated (no doubts about that one Derrick) – as a prime
suspect. Kundry perhaps?
7. The two pre-war German writers about Hitler to have emerged with
any credibility so far as their predictions were concerned, were
Konrad Heiden and (wait for it) Hermann Rauschning. Rauschning has
been pilloried as having made up his conversations with Hitler and he
has no credibility whatever within academic circles, but I have
independent grounds for thinking he is reliable, which I shall try to
document later in this series of posts. For now, I simply ask readers
to take my assurance on faith.
8. Rauschning stated that Hitler's account of Parzival was that the
Grail represented purity of blood.
9. The Wittgensteins had become Jew-ridden, if I may use that hateful
expression in context, certainly through the billionaire Austrian
industrialist family that produced Hitler's school-fellow, but also,
if Dietrich Fischer-Deskau is correct about Princess Wittgenstein's
Jewish ancestry, through the very object of Cosima's great hate.
10. Hitler's interpretation of Wagner's opera (as reported by
Rauschning) about the Grail knights being guardians of purity of blood
might just manage to be interpreted as a reference to the thousand
year tradition of Wittgenstein knights being corrupted by Jews.
11. Hitler was at school with a Jewish Wittgenstein who was a
billionaire heir, who stuttered, wore a truss, spoke the very poshest
of posh High German and who was having sex with the son of a
schoolmaster. No wonder Hitler made Wagner's music his religion.
Sincerely,
Kimberley Cornish.
Mike Scott Rohan
from k_co...@msn.com.au (Kimberley Cornish) contains these words:
> I had not realised until this series of objections was raised, the
> extent to which this issue is taken here as a pons asinorum for
> understanding Wagner. The topic of the post is "The Crusader
> Wittgensteins, Liszt, Wagner and the Holocaust". Had I never used the
> word "Crusader", but used the word "knight" instead, every issue I
> wanted to raise would still have gone through. Let me grant that
> Wagner's knights have nothing whatever to do with the Crusades, even
> given arguable academic identifications of Parzival as Richard Coeur
> de Lion. Then the facts I raised about the Wittgensteins, their place
> in a knightly order and their personal links to Liszt and Wagner and
> (in their Jewish branch) to Hitler, remain.
The point is that the crusader connection determines *your* purported
Wagnerian connection. If mere knights are involved, it becomes more
than tenuous. The casualness of your original remark, too, reflects
on the precision of your thinking as a whole.
> The charter in Derrick Everitt's FAQ guidelines for postings on this
> site cover "Wagner's contemporaries their influence on Wagner and
> vice-versa". Brahms, Joachim and the Wittgensteins are certainly
> covered by that. He also states "In this newsgroup we discuss Richard
> Wagner, his life, works and influence." I shall endeavour to argue for
> a common philosophy of human consciousness in Schopenhauer, Wagner,
> Hitler and Wittgenstein, but am endeavouring to get through the
> preliminaries. That Hitler used Wagner's operatic ideas in staging
> mass rallies was claimed by Ernst Hanfstaengl.
Hardly a sound authority -- "Putzi", a hero-worshipper who regarded
Hitler's oratorical ability as a semi-supernatural gift, and, being a
wealthy social and intellectual snob, tried desperately to dress this
thoroughly disreputable figure in whatever ragged cultural authority
he could find.
Gustav le Bon, in "The
> Crowd" outlined the idea of a common mind in collectivities. Wagner's
> account of musical composition involved and efflux of Schopenhauer's
> "Universal Will" into the mind of the musician, somewhat akin to what
> Beethoven spoke of as the "raptus". There is material to be examined
> on this that supports my claim that Hitler directly applied
> Schopenhaurean/Wagnerian - and Wittgensteinian - ideas to manipulate
> crowds. I simply ask your indulgence on this. The issues are not
> simple and they take time to present properly.
That in itself says a great deal.
> >
> > These connections are not contrived; they have been
> > > staring Holocaust researchers in the face for seventy years and the
> > > penny doesn't appear to have dropped even yet.
> >
> > Leaving aside the mixed metaphor, has it occurred to you that there
> > may be a very good reason for this?
> Any number of reasons have occurred to me. Perhaps you might like to
> let us know to whom, apart from me, the idea of a Hitler/Wittgenstein
> connection has occurred in the past and the reasons why it was
> rejected? Having turned up a contemporary photograph of the adolescent
> Hitler and Wittgenstein centimetres apart and had both Random House
> and Ullstein place it on the hardcover edition of my book, I can
> assure you there was not even an inkling of my discovery in previous
> literature.
I meant, not because others have sought it and rejected it, but
because experts in these fields do not seem to have considered it
worth seeking. And Hitler was photographed "centimetres apart" from a
great many people, since he moved in public circles. Advancing this
as evidence of any philosophical or ideological influence does make a
striking book jacket, admittedly.
>My account of the role of Wagner's ideas in Hitler's
> ascent is yet to come.
It stands to be a very slim volume indeed.
--
mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk
Monte
> Here is my suggestion to readers for this post: Identify a
> Wittgenstein in Eschenbach's barbarous cacophony of names in the
> medieval poem and you have put beyond doubt Ludwig Wittgenstein's role
> both in forming both Adolf Hitler's hatred of Jews and his infatuation
> with Richard Wagner. This is, I believe, is the key to the Holocaust.
>
I have read this entire thread with a dropped jaw. This is "_the_ key
to the Holocaust?" Six million Jews would not have died if little
Adolf hadn't rubbed shoulders with a Wittgenstein; or if said
Wittengenstein hadn't been form a "crusader" family. And somehow
Wagner's relationship to the Wittgenstien boy's ancestors is a factor.
"THE key to the Holocaust"...
Does anyone really believe there is one singular 'key' to this horror?
I'm rendered speechless.
Monte
Derrick Everett
> 2. It follows a fortiori that some of the characters in Parzival have
> genetic links to nineteenth century German aristocracy and therefore
> MUST link linearly to Wittgensteins. (I add as a gentle dig for other
> contributors that some of them of them were quite clearly Crusaders, but
> that fact is irrelevant to my argument.) We don't know how the lineal
> descents run, but it must be possible to find out. (In many cases,
> documented European aristocratic genealogies run back for well over a
> thousand years.)
With all respect for your research, the characters in a work of fiction do
not have "genetic links" to anyone.
> 4. If Parzival can be identified with Richard the Lion-Hearted or with
> his father Henry II of England (M&P p.xxv) then the whole chain of
> genealogies in Parzival can be studied to see who in the story
> corresponds to whom in reality in the twelfth century. This in fact was
> the suggestion I was to make on this board before the side-tracking over
> the Crusader issue. Serious genealogical study over a seven-hundred year
> period is not something I can do alone.
Given sufficient imagination I have not doubt one could identify any
character with anyone. If one identifies Wolfram's character with
Parzival with Richard I or Henry II, does that mean that the same
identification applies for the Perceval of the "Didot Perceval" or in the
"Modena Perceval" (two versions of the same prose tale), or to the
Perceval of Chrétien's poem "The Story of the Grail" and its
Continuations? Of is the hero of those stories, who closely resembles the
hero of "Parzival", to be identified with some other historical person or
persons?
> 6. The characters in Wagner's opera therefore, might just be seen as
> prefiguring QUA ANCESTORS individual humans within his circle of
> aristocratic acquaintances, with Princess Wittgenstein – whom we know
> his wife Cosima hated (no doubts about that one Derrick) – as a prime
> suspect. Kundry perhaps?
Cosima did not have particularly friendly feelings towards her father's
mistress, the woman who had displaced her mother. So completely that
Franz Liszt left nothing at all to Countess Marie d'Agoult (aka. Daniel
Stern) in his will. Those feelings were not necessarily shared by the
man she married in 1870. I doubt that Kundry prefigures anyone.
> 7. The two pre-war German writers about Hitler to have emerged with any
> credibility so far as their predictions were concerned, were Konrad
> Heiden and (wait for it) Hermann Rauschning. Rauschning has been
> pilloried as having made up his conversations with Hitler and he has no
> credibility whatever within academic circles, but I have independent
> grounds for thinking he is reliable, which I shall try to document later
> in this series of posts. For now, I simply ask readers to take my
> assurance on faith.
>
> 8. Rauschning stated that Hitler's account of Parzival was that the
> Grail represented purity of blood.
Enter our old friend Hermann Rauschning. Your faith in Rauschning is
touching. Of course he was a Nazi, so I suppose that you put almost as
much faith in what he has to say about Hitler as you do in Hitler, whom I
take it you regard as the ultimate authority, not least on Wagner? Or do
I perhaps misread your reference to "Hitler's account of Parzival"?
> 11. Hitler was at school with a Jewish Wittgenstein who was a
> billionaire heir, who stuttered, wore a truss, spoke the very poshest of
> posh High German and who was having sex with the son of a schoolmaster.
> No wonder Hitler made Wagner's music his religion.
I see that you take Hitler at his word. No doubt you believe all Nazi
propaganda. As far as Ludwig Wittgenstein is concerned, it could not
matter less to me whether he spent his schooldays having sex with sheep.
Laon
First, it is true that _Parzifal_ contains anachronistic references to
the Plantagenet family of Anjou. And it is also true that some
Plantagenets, especially Richard I of England, went on crusade. (It's
also true that Wolfram has the Grail guarded by Templars, who did not
exist at the time in whch _Parzifal_ is set._)
However it doesn't follow from these things that:
* Wolfram's _Parzifal_ contains a lot of coded references to the
crusades; nor
* That Wagner had any interest in that aspect of the Wolfram poem.
The matter in Wolfram's _Parzifal_ that may be relevant to the
Plantagenets is the parallel of the situation in books 1 and II,
concerned with Gahmuret's adventures and the birth of Parzifal, with
the circumstances of the birth of Henry II of England.
In the introduction to their edition of _Parzifal_, Helen Mustard and
Charles Passage say:
"In 1129 Matilda, granddaughter of William the Conquerer of England,
married Count Geoffrey Plantagenet of Anjou, who became the father of
Henry II of England and the grandfather of Richard the Lion-Heart and
King John."
They go on to suggest parallels between:
* Herzeloyde and this Matilda and Herzeloyde;
* Herzeloyde's late husband King Castis and Matilda's late husband the
Holy Roman Emporer Henry V;
* Herzeloyde's inheritance of "Waleis" and "Norgals", and Matilda's
inheritance of Normandy and England;
* The brothers Ehelin and Orilus who deprive Parzifal of his lands,
and Matilda's cousins, Stephen and Theobald, Counts of Blos, who
deprive Matilda's son Henry of his lands;
* and so on.
They add that these geneological resemblances would seem to make Henry
II of England the equivalent of Parzifal, but that Henry II doesn't
resemble Parzifal at all. However, "some scholars do tend to find
resemblances between Parzifal and Henry's son, Richard the
Lion-Hearted, whose reign from 1189 to 1199 overlaps the inception of
Wolfram's poem." (_Parzifal_, translated with an introduction by
Helen M Mustard and Charles E Passage, Vintage Books, Random House,
New York, 1961, pp xxvi - xxviii.)
(I got this point about Richard I completely arse-about-face in my
previous post on this, for which my apologies.)
These references to the Plantagenets raise one obvious question:
Wolfram was the guest of the Landgrave Hermann at the Wartburg, right
where Wagner shows him in _Tannhäuser_. So why was Wolfram interested
in flattering the far-away Plantagents of Anjou and England? They
weren't his patrons, and what's more, they supported the Guelph party
in Germany while Wolfram seems to have been a pro-Haufenstaufen
Ghibelline, which means he ought to have been against them.
It's a mystery; Mustard and Passage can suggest nothing, except the
theory that Wolfram heard the story of the Plantagenet family
in-fighting, and decided to use it because it was good material. I'll
see if there's been more thought or research on this since 1961, where
Mustard and Passage were writing.
Still, the subject of these speculative but interesting echoes between
_Parzifal_ and contemporary history (contemporary for Wolfram, that
is), seems to be about family politics concerning the acquisition of
lands and titles, not crusading. Just because Richard I went on the
Third Crusade, it does not follow that any reference to him is a
reference to his crusading. (The alleged resemblance might turn on
something to do with crusading; I simply mean that it's too early to
jump to that conclusion.) However, I'll consult the same works on
_Parzifal_ that I checked in order to find no link between Klingsor
and poor maligned Landolfo II of Capua, to see if I can identify what
these "some scholars" were getting at, in terms of resemblances
between Richard I and Parzifal. (Personally it's not a resemblance
that strikes me as in any way obvious.)
As well, a suggestion that all this is relevant to Wagner would need
to establish that:
1. Wagner was aware of the Plantagenet references, the source for
which seems to be Jessie Weston's appendix to her 1894 translation,
published 11 years after Wagner's death; and
2. Wagner cared about this material at all if he was aware of it; and
3. Wagner decided to in some way obliquely use the material in his
opera _Parsifal_.
My own view is that there's a slight chance for the first of those
three conditions, a vanishingly small chance of the second, and no
chance at all of the third. But counter-evidence will be received
with interest, and I hope courtesy.
Some thoughts on Wittgensteins and Wolfram, a Wittgenstein and a
Crusade, and Wittgensteins and Wagner will be held over for another
post.
Cheers!
Laon
Kimberley Cornish
Monte may take comfort from the fact that speechlessness sometimes
passes. I take the liberty of pasting here some material of mine that
appears on another website. It demonstrates that the young Ludwig
Wittgenstein was the target of Adolf Hitler's very first recorded
anti-Semitic abuse. I excuse the bad form of dual posting by the
overriding importance of alerting people to the strength of the
argument:
THE ARGUMENT FOR A HITLER/WITTGENSTEIN CONNECTION:
The first sixteen names on the list below were provided to me by the
current (1999) Principal Herr Herwig Arnold of the Fadingerstrasse
Bundesrealgymnasium in Linz, the re-titled name of the Realschule that
Hitler and Wittgenstein both attended. It turns out that the names and
religious affiliations of the students have survived. Here then, is a
list of ALL students at the Linz Realschule in 1903/4 who were Jewish.
(I follow Australian DD/MM/YY convention in dates of birth rather than
the American MM/DD/YY):
1. Friedmann Paul DOB: 18.08.1886
2. Groag Wilhelm DOB: 07.01.1892
3. Grün Oskar DOB: 08.09.1892
4. Klein Oswald DOB: 23.03.1889
5. Ludwig Robert DOB: 18.06.1886
6. May Heinrich DOB: 15.05.1890
7. Peschek Oskar DOB: 07.11.1890
8. Pisinger Fritz DOB: 08.08.1892
9. Piskaty Erwin DOB: 13.06.1890
10. Pisker Johann DOB: 07.09.1887
11. Rosenblum Emil DOB: 28.03.1891
12. Rübinstein Ernst DOB: 31.01.1890
13. Taussig Bruno DOB: 24.04.1890
14. Taussig Erwin DOB: 04.12.1890
15. Taussig Victor DOB: 09.03.1887
16. Vogelsänger Gustav DOB: 03.01.1892
17. Wittgenstein Ludwig DOB: 26.04.1889
Alone of the 17 students in this list, Wittgenstein was enrolled as a
Roman Catholic. To the schoolboys, however, he appeared Jewish and was
indisputably "of Jewish descent". Later, at Cambridge, he claimed to
be "the greatest of Jewish thinkers" (which in my opinion he was) and
that his
thought was "100 percent Hebraic". (See the book "Culture and Value",
released under Wittgenstein's name). He also "confessed" to his
Cambridge colleagues such as G.E. Moore and Fania Pascal that he was a
Jew.
Apart from Wittgenstein, all the others listed were registered as Jews
and therefore knew they were Jews. Now here is the very earliest
record of
Hitler making an anti-Semitic remark: It was reported by Franz
Keplinger. Keplinger, interestingly was not in Hitler's class, but in
Wittgenstein's. (This datum is also in the Bundesrealgymnasium class
lists.) He knew and visited Hitler later in Munich. Keplinger
recounted to Dr Franz Jetzinger: "Once Adolf shouted at another boy,
'Du Saujud!'. The boy concerned was staggered; he knew nothing of his
Jewish ancestry at the time and only discovered it years later ... "
(Jetzinger, Franz. "Hitlers Jugend", Vienna 1956, translated as
"Hitler's Youth", by Lawrence Wilson, Greenwood Press, Connecticut,
p.71.)
The rider adding that the boy knew nothing of his Jewish ancestry
gives the quote the ring of truth and enables us to deduce who the boy
was. The only POSSIBLE candidate on the list as the target of Hitler's
abuse is Ludwig Wittgenstein. The others knew they were Jews, if not
from their parents enrolling them as Jews and consequent different
treatment in religious education classes, then via their circumcised
state amidst the uncircumcised Austrian schoolboys in the changing
room.
Ray Monk reports on p.5. of his Wittgenstein biography that one of
Wittgenstein's aunts did not know the Vienna Wittgenstein family was
Jewish and had to be informed its members were "pur sang". It was
clearly not common knowledge within the family, but suppressed as a
sort of skeleton in the family closet. That is, the boy at the school
whom Hitler abused in his very first recorded anti-Semitic remark was
the young Ludwig Wittgenstein, the stuttering, truss-wearing,
homosexual son of the richest man in the Austro-Hungarian empire.
The ONLY way in which the deductive power of this conclusion can be
avoided is if the school contained OTHER students of detectably Jewish
descent. (Quite apart from the statistical considerations adduced in
my book for doubting there could have been other students of
detectable "Jewish descent" at the school, Brigitte Hamann's book
"Hitler's Vienna" points out that there were no more than 1,102 Jews
in all of Upper Austria, that the number of Jews in Linz was roughly
constant over the decade 1900-10 at about 5-600, and the Linz
Realschule Jews at about 15. There was no intermarriage in Linz and
precious little in all provincial Austria.) Brigitte Hamann also
points out that given the tiny size of the school, Hitler and
Wittgenstein must have passed each other many times on the stairs .
This argument, I think, establishes that whatever my critics might
say, the case I presented will not go away. Even without the "Mein
Kampf" quote about there being a Jewish boy at the school whom Hitler
and the other boys distrusted -- or the strikingly unusual "Sie" as
opposed to "Du" locution in both Hitler and Wittgenstein -- and the
photograph of the two of them together on the cover of my book, the
case remains compellingly strong. It would admit to being established
purely deductively should genealogical research on the non-Jewish
students show that no others were of detectably Jewish descent."
MacGuinness' Wittgenstein biography, by the way, specifically mentions
the "Saujud" abuse, but without saying that it was Hitler who
delivered it.
Now let us imaginatively put ourselves into the position of an
Austrian country lad attending the Realschule in 1903/4. In a school
of 300 or so students there is the heir to a billionaire fortune; the
very greatest in all the Austro-Hungarian empire. The father of this
boy is condemned by Karl Kraus in newspapers with an empire-wide
circulation of engaging in dubious stock-market deals. The boy wears a
truss, stutters and speaks not the vernacular but the poshest of posh
high German. He has met Brahms, Mahler, Klimt, Labor and Joachim
personally. Joachim, originally Jewish and his blood-relative, is the
acknowledged leader of the German anti-Wagnerians; in fact leader of
the "Music-Jews". In addition, this boy is having homosexual sex with
the son of a schoolmaster.
Wittgenstein's homosexuality WAS evident at the Realschule. He stayed
in Linz with the family of a schoolmaster, whose surname was Strigl.
Brian McGuinness, the author of a biography of Wittgenstein
("Wittgenstein: a Life", Duckworth, London 1988) writes (p.51) "With
the son of the family, Pepi - Herr Pepi as Ludwig at first called him
- he had a particularly close though characteristically stormy
relationship." Pepi is referred to as "P" in Wittgenstein's own
writings. Quoting further from Wittgenstein's words on his time at the
Realschule, McGuinness continues (p.52) "Halfway reconciliation and
further break with P. Seeming innocence I learn the facts of life.
Religiosity, G's influence on me. talk about confession with my
colleagues. Reconciliation with P. and tenderness." The word
"tenderness" was the one Wittgenstein used in later adult life to
describe homosexual sex. Since as an adult he is describing his
relationship with Pepi as involving "tenderness", it is reasonably
clear that Pepi was his first, or near first, homosexual experience.
The other schoolboys, if they knew Wittgenstein was having sex with
the son of a teacher at the school, would react, I imagine, as most
adolescent boys would. It is no wonder that Wittgenstein had a very
hard time at school, as we know he did in any case from Monk's and
McGuinness' biographies and Wittgenstein's own words.
We now come face to face with the fact that this otherwise
unremarkable provincial school produced the world's greatest ever
philosopher of language and its greatest ever oratorical user of
language. Both acknowledged a youthful infatuation with Schopenhauer
and with Wagner. One of them - Hitler - claimed to have discovered the
"meaning of History" at the Realschule. The other produced a
philosophy denying the possibility of what he called a "private
language". Wagner acccounted for the process of musical inspiration in
terms of an efflux transcending the individual mind. If I am
permitted, I hope to tie all these together in future posts.
Sincerely,
Kimberley Cornish.
Laon
The second set of points concern Wittgensteins, again.
First, as mentioned, though Wolfram's _Parzifal_ does seem to make
references to contemporary events and families, he doesn't seem to
refer to any Wittgensteins. There's no name remotely similar to
"Wittgenstein" in _Parzifal_. If Wittgensteins are there they're
heavily "encoded". And the danger of decoding secret codes is that
people who want to find them in any text always can; therefore they
tend to have little credibility without real supporting evidence.
Second, I've found a Catholic Encyclopedia reference to a Count
Wittgenstein, based in Westphalia, joining a Crusade against heathens
in Prussia, in 1337. This 14th century crusade is recognised by the
Catholic Church as a crusade, so it counts, although it isn't one of
the eight big crusades between 1095 and 1270. But while this crusade
involves a Wittgenstein, it's over a hundred years after Wolfram's
time. Kimberley, when you say the Wittgensteins were Crusaders, I
assume you don't mean this one because it would obviously be
irrelevant to any of the periods under discussion. But, for clarity's
sake, which crusade(s) do you mean?
Third, on the question of whether Wagner hated Wittgensteins, there
are several references to assorted Wittgensteins in _Mein Leben_, for
example:
"On the following day our happiness was complete when the ladies
[Carolyne von Sayne-Wittgenstein and her daughter Marie] arrived, who
for the next few days formed the centre of our little party. In those
days it was impossible for anyone coming into contact with Princess
Carolyne not to become fascinated by her bright manner and the
charming way she entered into all our little plans.
She was as much interested in the more important things that affected
us as in the accidental details of our life in relation to society,
and she had the magnetic power of extracting the very best out of
those with whom she associated."
_Mein Leben_, Richard Wagner, Constable Books, London, 1994, page 605.
"Not only my own residence but the whole of Zürich seemed full of life
when Princess Caroline and her daughter took up their abode at the
Hotel Bauer for a time. The curious spell of excitement which this
lady immediately threw over every one she succeeded in drawing into
her circle amounted [...] almost to intoxication." [Ibid, page 651.]
Wagner on the same page approvingly notes how Caroline "with Polish
patriarchal friendliness, would help the mistress of the house in
serving".
A later reference is less favourable, to some extent because she said
something disparaging about Goethe, then kept Wagner awake all night
when in the hotel room next to his, by insisting that she be read to
in a loud voice after she had suffered a "nervous attack"; but even
then he departs with concern for her health as well as irritation.
[Ibid, pages 652 - 655.] The evidence of _Mein Leben_ strongly
indicates that Richard Wagner did not hate Carolyne von
Sayn-Wittgenstein.
Nor could Wagner have hated Prince Eugen von Sayn-Wittgenstein, of
whom Wagner said, "Prince Eugen von Sayn-Wittgenstein, a young amateur
painter who had belonged to Liszt's circle of intimate friends,
painted a miniature of me, for which I had to give him several
sittings; it was done under Kietz's guidance, and turned out pretty
well." [Ibid, page 610.]
Similarly, the references to the Princess' daughter Marie Wittgenstein
show only affection and concern for her welfare, with some worry that
she was being over-shadowed by her mother. Asked to write an article
about Liszt's music, he decides to pay Marie the compliment of writing
the article in the form of a letter addressed to her; this was
published in Brendel's musical journal. [Ibid, pages 659 - 660.]
Those are the three Wittgensteins mentioned in _Mein Leben_, and
Wagner didn't seem to hate any of them; quite the contrary. And while
it's true that _Mein Leben_ isn't always a good guide to the facts, it
_is_ always a good guide as to who Wagner wants to settle scores with
and who he wants to treat with relative respect and affection. And
the Wittgensteins seem to have been in that latter, favoured,
category.
One last point. This seems negative enough criticism, but it doesn't
mean that I'm not interested to hear what the thesis linking Wagner,
Crusades, Wittgenstein and the holocaust is.
Cheers!
Laon
Kimberley Cornish
> The message <c3b9b7e5.02100...@posting.google.com>
> from k_co...@msn.com.au (Kimberley Cornish) contains these words:
>
>
> > I had not realised until this series of objections was raised, the
> > extent to which this issue is taken here as a pons asinorum for
> > understanding Wagner. The topic of the post is "The Crusader
> > Wittgensteins, Liszt, Wagner and the Holocaust". Had I never used the
> > word "Crusader", but used the word "knight" instead, every issue I
> > wanted to raise would still have gone through. Let me grant that
> > Wagner's knights have nothing whatever to do with the Crusades, even
> > given arguable academic identifications of Parzival as Richard Coeur
> > de Lion. Then the facts I raised about the Wittgensteins, their place
> > in a knightly order and their personal links to Liszt and Wagner and
> > (in their Jewish branch) to Hitler, remain.
>
> The point is that the crusader connection determines *your* purported
> Wagnerian connection. If mere knights are involved, it becomes more
> than tenuous. The casualness of your original remark, too, reflects
> on the precision of your thinking as a whole.
Let me summarise what I see as the position on this Crusader business,
since it obviously won't go away.
1. I grant that there is nothing of any compelling importance internal
to the opera that allows us to identify the knights as Crusaders.
2. The opera is about a character named "Parzival" (I follow M&P's
spelling)
3. Parzival might turn out to be based on an historical character who
was a crusader. Certainly some respectable authorities have suggested
this, but the matter is not settled.
4. If Wagner's opera is about this historical character and point 3
turns out from future evidence to be true, then Wagner's opera is
about a crusader, QED, regardless of what the internal evidence of the
opera reveals.
5. In the absence of conclusive historical evidence concerning whom
Parzival was, no one has any business accusing me of making an error
in using the word "Crusader" in referring to characters of the opera.
It is an entirely an empirical matter and evidence one way or the
other might yet come in. That is, there is a good deal more to this
issue than mere internal examination of the librettos or the
costuming. Even if Wagner himself had intended his Parsifal not to be
a crusader (and I don't grant this) he might simply have got it wrong.
6. Wagner had close personal intercourse with a family who had
produced a head of the Teutonic Knights and who had been Teutonic
Knights for generations. It is therefore reasonable to look for
anything in his work that might connect to them, either in their
crusades in the Holy Land or in Pomerania.
7. For the matters I am trying to raise on this board, the issue is a
complete irrelevancy. This is not a sign of "casualness", but of
trying to keep to a point in the face of periperal issues that
obviously are of very great importance to the board posters, but that
don't matter in respect of where I want to get to in this series of
posts.
> > >
> > > These connections are not contrived; they have been
> > > > staring Holocaust researchers in the face for seventy years and the
> > > > penny doesn't appear to have dropped even yet.
> > >
> > > Leaving aside the mixed metaphor, has it occurred to you that there
> > > may be a very good reason for this?
>
> > Any number of reasons have occurred to me. Perhaps you might like to
> > let us know to whom, apart from me, the idea of a Hitler/Wittgenstein
> > connection has occurred in the past and the reasons why it was
> > rejected? Having turned up a contemporary photograph of the adolescent
> > Hitler and Wittgenstein centimetres apart and had both Random House
> > and Ullstein place it on the hardcover edition of my book, I can
> > assure you there was not even an inkling of my discovery in previous
> > literature.
>
> I meant, not because others have sought it and rejected it, but
> because experts in these fields do not seem to have considered it
> worth seeking. And Hitler was photographed "centimetres apart" from a
> great many people, since he moved in public circles. Advancing this
> as evidence of any philosophical or ideological influence does make a
> striking book jacket, admittedly.
>
Who, pray, are the experts you refer to who do not seem to have
considered it worth seeking? Professor Moecker noted that Hitler and
Wittgenstein had attended the same school in the mid 80s. My own book
and articles beginning in 1994 made the very first suggestions that
they might have interacted and the presence of Wittgenstein in the
school photograph was entirely my own discovery. Please be specific if
you think others might have anticipated my own investigations. I
rather feel you will find a complete void. References to unnamed
"experts" ought not be used to buttress your very strongly worded
criticisms. Please name these alleged pre-1994 "experts" or else
withdraw the allegation.
Sincerely,
Kimberley Cornish.
REP
news:c3b9b7e5.02101...@posting.google.com...
[...]
> 5. In the absence of conclusive historical evidence concerning whom
> Parzival was, no one has any business accusing me of making an error
> in using the word "Crusader" in referring to characters of the opera.
> It is an entirely an empirical matter and evidence one way or the
> other might yet come in. That is, there is a good deal more to this
> issue than mere internal examination of the librettos or the
> costuming. Even if Wagner himself had intended his Parsifal not to be
> a crusader (and I don't grant this) he might simply have got it wrong.
This is wrong. Parsifal was not a crusader. We learn Parsifal's entire
history during the course of the opera; that he was raised by his mother in
seclusion and then left her to wander in the forests and learn archery until
he wandered into the domain of the Grail. No crusades have taken place by
the end of the opera, and to suggest that crusades take place some time
after the action is completely ludicrous. Logical argument is not
Schroedinger's Cat. You are the apologist and YOU have to PROVE that
Parsifal was a crusader before WE have to ACCEPT that as truth.
REP
Kimberley Cornish
> On Thu, 10 Oct 2002 13:54:15 +0200, Kimberley Cornish wrote:
>
>
> > 2. It follows a fortiori that some of the characters in Parzival have
> > genetic links to nineteenth century German aristocracy and therefore
> > MUST link linearly to Wittgensteins. (I add as a gentle dig for other
> > contributors that some of them of them were quite clearly Crusaders, but
> > that fact is irrelevant to my argument.) We don't know how the lineal
> > descents run, but it must be possible to find out. (In many cases,
> > documented European aristocratic genealogies run back for well over a
> > thousand years.)
>
> With all respect for your research, the characters in a work of fiction do
> not have "genetic links" to anyone.
Wagner's opera is quite certainly a work of art. Whether it is a total
work of fiction is another matter. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is
likewise a work of art, and that Shakespeare's character had genetic
links to other Romans (that an historian might research) is
indisputable, is it not? If Parzival is an historic character - as
Tannhauser is - then likewise Parzival had relatives. Thus if von
Eschenbach's Parzival were Richard the Lion-Hearted (the greatest
English Crusader and the only one known to most English-speaking
people)then we can work out who his modern descendants are.
>
>
> Given sufficient imagination I have not doubt one could identify any
> character with anyone. If one identifies Wolfram's character with
> Parzival with Richard I or Henry II, does that mean that the same
> identification applies for the Perceval of the "Didot Perceval" or in the
> "Modena Perceval" (two versions of the same prose tale), or to the
> Perceval of Chrétien's poem "The Story of the Grail" and its
> Continuations? Of is the hero of those stories, who closely resembles the
> hero of "Parzival", to be identified with some other historical person or
> persons?
>
My conclusions follow only if von Eschenbach was Wagner's prime
source. About Wagner's sources I have no doubt many people here are
more expert than I. My understanding of scholarly opinion, however, is
that von Eschenbach WAS his prime source and so my conclusions ought
to stand. If you have contrary information, please post.
> Enter our old friend Hermann Rauschning. Your faith in Rauschning is
> touching. Of course he was a Nazi, so I suppose that you put almost as
> much faith in what he has to say about Hitler as you do in Hitler, whom I
> take it you regard as the ultimate authority, not least on Wagner? Or do
> I perhaps misread your reference to "Hitler's account of Parzival"?
>
>
> > 11. Hitler was at school with a Jewish Wittgenstein who was a
> > billionaire heir, who stuttered, wore a truss, spoke the very poshest of
> > posh High German and who was having sex with the son of a schoolmaster.
> > No wonder Hitler made Wagner's music his religion.
>
> I see that you take Hitler at his word. No doubt you believe all Nazi
> propaganda.
These comments are both uncalled for and offensive. On Rauschning I
issued a promissory note that I would provide reasons later for taking
at least some of what he says as really originating from Hitler.
Please delay your criticisms of me on this point till then. What I
meant by "Hitler's account of Parzival" is the one Rauschning presents
Hitler as having stated to him. We shall see reasons for not
dismissing it after I have presented my account of the
Schopenhauer/Wittgenstein philosophy of Mind.
You will be pleased to be informed that I don't believe all Nazi
propaganda. But why say that there is no doubt that I do? In the
context of research into Hitler and the Holocaust, it is about as
gross a slur as it is possible to inflict on someone. Nothing I have
said justifies it. Given you saw fit to make it, I am not sure how to
get through to you about its magnitude. It is foolish to "demand" an
apology, but I rather do hope you know what is now required if you are
to count as a gentleman.
Sincerely,
Kimberley Cornish.
Derrick Everett
I think it would be fair to summarise the passages respectively quoted
from "Mein Leben" (Wagner's autobiography, dictated to his second wife
Cosima, whom he married in August 1870), from the letters of Carolyne
Sayn-Wittgenstein to Wagner and from Wagner to Carolyne, as indicating
that Wagner's feelings toward Princess Wittgenstein never amounted to
hatred. Nor indeed to anything more than occasional irritation and a
paranoid suspicion, when Liszt was giving Wagner less than the full
attention that the latter habitually expected from his friends, that
Carolyne was somehow to blame.
Further it is hard to believe that the pious Carolyne, who was herself
notoriously anti-Semitic in attitude, and who wrote a 24-volume (or is
it 25 volumes?) book about the state of the Catholic Church as it was
in 1870, was (as Mr. Cornish claims) in any meaningful way "Jewish".
It is certainly not within the bounds of possibility, or credibility
except perhaps by the most gullible reader, that Wagner "hated"
Princess Wittgenstein because she was "Jewish".
You referred to Carolyne's daughter Marie, who must have been about
the same age as Cosima. Marie died in 1929, if memory serves, only a
few years before Cosima. She married Prince
Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, who was at the time the head of the
Imperial Household in Vienna. Cosima's letters to the Prince contain
some of the most vitriolic anti-Semitic remarks that I have read, in
comparison with which even Wagner's breakfast-table anti-Semitic
comments (on which the "Holocaust industry" continues to feast) seem
innocuous. Are we to suppose that the rabidly anti-Semitic Prince
Hohenlohe married Marie Sayn-Wittgenstein in spite of, or even
because, she was "Jewish"? I think we should be told.
Kimberley Cornish
Dear Group,
Look, are we talking here of a fictional character or an actual one?
If Parsifal's entire reality is constituted by what Wagner wrote in
the opera, then I agree there is no evidence of any consequence that
he was a Crusader. PLEASE NOTE THIS.
Now this is ALL, it seems to me, that this avalanche of criticism
amounts to. On the other hand, if Parzival is a real historical
character, then he must have had some properties about which Wagner
had no idea - the size of his feet or the number of teeth he had, for
example. In that case, it is simply false that "we learn Parsifal's
entire history during the course of the opera". I adduced evidence
that some authorites on von Eschenbach's Parzival averred that
Parzival really was an historical character. In that case, what
properties he had are to be found NOT by perusing the opera, but by
serious historical research in the field. I demonstrated that some
authorities think Parzival to be Richard the Lion-Hearted. Now this
might be true or it might be false - I leave matters like that to the
authorities. If it turns out to be true, how can anyone on this board
then seriously dispute that he was a Crusader? Wagner did not pick an
arbitrary name for his hero; he chose "Parsifal", just as Shakespeare
chose "Julius Caesar" as the name of the character in his play of the
same name. Critics can then justifiably discuss whether Shakespeare's
character Julius Caesar is accurately portrayed. That is, Julius
Caesar has properties above and beyond the total of those in the play.
Did Shakespeare's Julius Caesar walk the Appian Way? Well he did, but
not in the play. In the same way, Parzival was a Crusader, but not in
the opera. Did Wagner write an opera about a Crusader? If Parzival is
really Richard the Lion-Hearted, the answer is again quite definitely
"Yes", but this fact isn't in the play.
Posting the demand that I have to demonstrate to readers that Parzival
really was a Crusader is asking me to settle a question that not even
the academic gurus are settled upon. I unwisely stated that Wagner
wrote an opera about Crusaders and knights. Everyone seems to think
this is evidence of ignorance of Wagner. Should it turn out, however,
that Parzival IS Richard the Lion-Hearted, or similar, all the
emphatic denials will simply vanish in the wind, for I will have been
shown to be indisputably correct. The simple truth is that (unless
there are thirteenth century authorities on this board) nobody knows,
and no-one should rush to judge that what I wrote was false.
Unless someone has some genuinely new point to make, or can point to
an error in how I have presented the matter, I would rather like to
now get away from the topic.
Simcerely.
Kimberley Cornish.
Derrick Everett
> Derrick Everett <iyb9x...@sneakemail.com> wrote in message news:<pan.2002.10.10.15....@sneakemail.com>...
> > On Thu, 10 Oct 2002 13:54:15 +0200, Kimberley Cornish wrote:
> >
> >
> > > genetic links to nineteenth century German aristocracy and therefore
> > > MUST link linearly to Wittgensteins. (I add as a gentle dig for other
> > > contributors that some of them of them were quite clearly Crusaders, but
> > > that fact is irrelevant to my argument.) We don't know how the lineal
> > > descents run, but it must be possible to find out. (In many cases,
> > > documented European aristocratic genealogies run back for well over a
> > > thousand years.)
> >
> > With all respect for your research, the characters in a work of fiction do
> > not have "genetic links" to anyone.
>
> Wagner's opera is quite certainly a work of art. Whether it is a total
> work of fiction is another matter.
You appear to regard Wolfram's "Parzival" (written between 1200 and
1210) and Wagner's "Parsifal" (words written between 1857 and 1877,
with music composed between 1877 and 1882) as one and the same work.
I suggest that your thinking about the relationship between these two
works of art is more than a little muddled. Although there are
contemporary references in Wolfram's poem, it is a work of fiction and
the characters in a work of fiction do not have descendants except in
the sense that characters in other works might be based upon them.
They do not have "genetic" descendants.
Wagner's opera is, as you say, a work of art. It is also a work of
fiction in that the characters and incidents which it contains are
entirely fictional (although some of them have indirect precedents in
"legendary" characters who were to some extent historical, all of whom
predate the Crusades by at least one millenium). Literary analysis,
which I have performed but which to the best of my knowledge you have
not performed, reveals that there are a multitude of sources in
literature and myth, of which many scholars regard "Parzival" by
Wolfram von Eschenbach as the most important.
> Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is likewise a work of art, and that
> Shakespeare's character had genetic links to other Romans (that
> an historian might research) is indisputable, is it not?
Shakespeare's play is a work of art that is based on real characters
and real incidents of history. It is not directly comparable with
Wolfram's "Parzival" because the latter is a work of fiction in which
the characters are entirely fictional. Wolfram's contemporary
allusions do not make them any less fictional.
> If Parzival is an historic character - as Tannhauser is - then likewise
> Parzival had relatives. Thus if von Eschenbach's Parzival were Richard
> the Lion-Hearted (the greatest English Crusader and the only one known
> to most English-speaking people)then we can work out who his modern
> descendants are.
Wolfram's character Parzival is entirely fictional. The fact that
Wolfram identifies his family (specifically I think his half-brother
Feirefiz) as being Angevins is an interesting compliment to the royal
family of Anjou. It does not entitle us to identify either Parzival
or Feirefiz, or even their father Gahmuret who served the Sultan of
Baghdad (which is surely an odd career if he had been a "crusader")
with historical individuals such as Henry II or Richard I. Wagner's
character Parsifal, at least in the first act of his opera/drama, is
in my view all of 50% based on Wolfram's account of young Parzival
(and 50% based on the youth of another character who does not appear
in any Grail romance).
I strongly suggest that you sit down and read "Parzival". When you do
so, I think you will find that the career of Parzival does not
resemble that of Richard Lionheart in the slightest. In fact Parzival
is far from a typical Christian knight, especially in his early
career, which was the part that most interested Richard Wagner. It is
an essential and structural point of the poem that Parzival is
contrasted with the chivalrous Gawain (Gauvain) who acts more in
accordance with the conventions of Wolfram's time. Wagner's Parsifal
is even further removed from the semi-historical frame of reference of
Wolfram's poem.
> >
> > Given sufficient imagination I have not doubt one could identify any
> > character with anyone. If one identifies Wolfram's character with
> > Parzival with Richard I or Henry II, does that mean that the same
> > identification applies for the Perceval of the "Didot Perceval" or in the
> > "Modena Perceval" (two versions of the same prose tale), or to the
> > Perceval of Chrétien's poem "The Story of the Grail" and its
> > Continuations? Of is the hero of those stories, who closely resembles the
> > hero of "Parzival", to be identified with some other historical person or
> > persons?
> >
> My conclusions follow only if von Eschenbach was Wagner's prime
> source. About Wagner's sources I have no doubt many people here are
> more expert than I.
I believe that your doubts are well-founded. When presenting your
ideas in a Wagner newsgroup as you are doing, you can expect to
receive input based on a knowledge of Richard Wagner's life and works
that is both deeper and more extensive than that you might encounter
when discussing the same ideas among non-specialists. My knowledge of
Richard Wagner's life and works is drawn not only from secondary
sources but on primary sources, including the scores of his operas,
more than 250 of his prose writings and several thousand of his
letters.
> My understanding of scholarly opinion, however, is that von Eschenbach
> WAS his prime source and so my conclusions ought to stand. If you have
> contrary information, please post.
I have enough contrary information concerning Wagner's use of his
manifold source material to fill a book. In the meantime I think that
you might benefit from reading "Parsifal - the Journey of a Soul" by
Peter Bassett, published, if memory serves, by Wakefield Press. While
Mr. Bassett's treatment of the sources of Wagner's "Parsifal" is far
from complete, and while there are certain important points of
interpretation that he has overlooked, I can recommend this book as a
balanced and readable introduction to "Parsifal".
>
> > Enter our old friend Hermann Rauschning. Your faith in Rauschning is
> > touching. Of course he was a Nazi, so I suppose that you put almost as
> > much faith in what he has to say about Hitler as you do in Hitler, whom I
> > take it you regard as the ultimate authority, not least on Wagner? Or do
> > I perhaps misread your reference to "Hitler's account of Parzival"?
> >
> >
> > > 11. Hitler was at school with a Jewish Wittgenstein who was a
> > > billionaire heir, who stuttered, wore a truss, spoke the very poshest of
> > > posh High German and who was having sex with the son of a schoolmaster.
> > > No wonder Hitler made Wagner's music his religion.
> >
> > I see that you take Hitler at his word. No doubt you believe all Nazi
> > propaganda.
>
> These comments are both uncalled for and offensive. On Rauschning I
> issued a promissory note that I would provide reasons later for taking
> at least some of what he says as really originating from Hitler.
> Please delay your criticisms of me on this point till then. What I
> meant by "Hitler's account of Parzival" is the one Rauschning presents
> Hitler as having stated to him. We shall see reasons for not
> dismissing it after I have presented my account of the
> Schopenhauer/Wittgenstein philosophy of Mind.
I regard with suspicion all arguments based on what Hitler said on any
subject and with even greater suspicion arguments based on what
someone else believes Hitler thought or believed. Further I regard
with extreme suspicion anyone who advances such arguments. Unless
there are clear grounds to believe otherwise then I regard all
statements made by card-carrying Nazis, or indeed by ex- card-carrying
Nazis, as unreliable and I suggest that you do the same.
>
> You will be pleased to be informed that I don't believe all Nazi
> propaganda. But why say that there is no doubt that I do? In the
> context of research into Hitler and the Holocaust, it is about as
> gross a slur as it is possible to inflict on someone. Nothing I have
> said justifies it. Given you saw fit to make it, I am not sure how to
> get through to you about its magnitude. It is foolish to "demand" an
> apology, but I rather do hope you know what is now required if you are
> to count as a gentleman.
I suggest that you suspend judgement about whether I am a gentleman
and while you do so I am willing to suspend judgement on the question
of whether you are a scoundrel. I should also advise you to consider
that there are many Wagnerians, myself included, who regard those who
promote falsehoods about Richard Wagner as the enemies not only of the
late composer but of truth and decency. I hope that you do not intend
to promote such falsehoods, here or elsewhere, regardless of whether
they originated with Adolf Hitler or with any other scoundrel.
It is both unfortunate and unjustified that the "Holocaust industry"
has begun to focus on Richard Wagner as a target, to the extent that
there have been calls for a ban on performances of his works and
demonstrations outside concert halls and opera houses. It would be
highly regrettable if you allowed your ideas about Richard Wagner to
add to these unwelcome trends. If you do so then you cannot expect
Wagnerians to be sympathetic to your activities.
REP
Wittgenstein being the catalyst in Hitler's holocaust? And how is that
supposed to connect to Wagner?
REP
"Kimberley Cornish" <k_co...@msn.com.au> wrote in message
news:c3b9b7e5.02101...@posting.google.com...
Derrick Everett
> I have truly missed the entire point of this thread. Something about
> Wittgenstein being the catalyst in Hitler's holocaust? And how is that
> supposed to connect to Wagner?
>
>
This is puzzling me too. So far, as far as I can see, Mr. Cornish has
begun to present a convoluted argument that apparently rests on his belief
that:
(1) Richard Wagner wrote operas about crusaders. This is not true,
except in the sense that one or more of the historical individuals on
whom one of the characters in "Tannhäuser" is partially based might have
been on a Crusade and maybe even got as far as Cyprus; or maybe not.
(2) Richard Wagner hated Liszt's mistress because she was Jewish. The
only flaws in this proposition are (a) that Richard Wagner was on
friendly terms with Liszt's mistress (and her daughter) and (b) that she
was not Jewish. In fact she was notoriously anti-Semitic, although
perhaps not as rabidly anti-Semitic as her daughter and her son-in-law.
(3) Ludwig Wittgenstein, an individual who was born some years after
Richard Wagner died, wore a truss. I have no reason to dispute this.
I am still waiting to hear what this might have to do with Hitler's
holocaust. It would not surprise me to hear that Wagner is in some way to
blame.
Derrick Everett
Wagner's Parsifal is an entirely fictional character, despite attempts of
commentators to identify him with historical and legendary individuals.
Whilst admitting that such comparisons can be thought-provoking and
sometimes instructive, I consider it meaningless to attempt to identify
this fictional character with any single historical or legendary
individual. In literary and mythical terms the connection of the fictional
Parsifal with those other individuals, whether they were real or
fictional, takes the form of a shared archetype and/or shared
characteristics.
As I have pointed out previously, the use of CAPITAL LETTERS is deprecated
here (and on Usenet in general) because we read it as shouting. You will
not win any arguments by shouting and banging the table, nor by answering
a statement about A by shouting about B. If you will take a little
friendly advice, before posting here you should think about your evidence,
arguments and assumptions. Before replying to a posting you should read
what the poster has written and address it in your reply.
> Now this is ALL, it seems to me, that this avalanche of criticism
> amounts to. On the other hand, if Parzival is a real historical
> character,
Wolfram's primary hero was called Parzival. In Chretien's poem, which was
a major source for Wolfram's poem, he was called Perceval. Wagner's
character, who is to some extent based on Parzival and possibly also in
some details based on Perceval, is called Parsifal. All of these
characters are fictional.
Please note that Wagner's Parsifal is not Wolfram's Parzival, nor is he
Chretien's Perceval. The themes and concerns of Wolfram's poem are not
the themes and concerns of Wagner's drama. Statements made about
Wolfram's Parzival or other characters in "Parzival", even by respected
and eminent experts on medieval romances or the history of the 12th
century, are intrinsically irrelevant to Wagner's drama.
> then he must have had some properties about which Wagner had no idea -
> the size of his feet or the number of teeth he had, for example.
Wagner's Parsifal is a fictional character for whom these properties are
undefined. This is a case of "wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss
man schweigen". Wagner's libretto does not tell us Parsifal's shoe size,
therefore he does not have a shoe size.
> In that case, it is simply false that "we learn Parsifal's entire
> history during the course of the opera".
It is simply true. It is true by definition. Parsifal does not exist
outside of the "opera", any more than Romeo and Juliet exist outside of
Shakespeare's play.
> I adduced evidence that some authorites on von Eschenbach's Parzival
> averred that Parzival really was an historical character.
With respect I suggest that you need to think about the difference
between "evidence" and "statements". You have presented no evidence that
"Parzival really was an historical character". Your statement that
Parzival might be Richard Lionheart tells me only that you have not read
"Parzival". If you have not read the poem, then why are you telling us
what it is about? Isn't that a little presumptious?
> In that case, what properties he had are to be found NOT by perusing the
> opera, but by serious historical research in the field. I demonstrated
> that some authorities think Parzival to be Richard the Lion-Hearted. Now
> this might be true or it might be false - I leave matters like that to
> the authorities.
What authorities are these and why should their opinion about one of
Wolfram's characters carry any weight when we consider a character who
only exists within one of Wagner's dramas?
> If it turns out to be true, how can anyone on this board then seriously
> dispute that he was a Crusader?
I concede that Richard Lionheart was a Crusader. It is clear to anyone
who has read the poem that Wolfram's Parzival is not Richard Lionheart.
The fact that comparisons can be drawn between Wolfram's Parzival and
contemporary persons does not mean that they can be equated. Further it
is clear to anyone who has seen Wagner's drama that Parsifal is not
Parzival, even if there are scenes in which characters and incidents in
Wagner's drama can be derived from characters and incidents in Wolfram's
poem. There is not, however, a one-to-one correspondence either of
characters or incidents.
> Wagner did not pick an arbitrary name for his hero; he chose "Parsifal",
> just as Shakespeare chose "Julius Caesar" as the name of the character
> in his play of the same name.
Wagner chose the name "Parsifal" because he liked the name and because he
like the (actually false) etymology of Görres, who said that it derived
from the Arabic for "pure fool". Wagner also chose to call his hermit
Gurnemanz rather than Trevrezent, and he chose to make Titurel, rather
than Frimutel, the father of his Amfortas. While these were not arbitrary
choices, they were made for aesthetic reasons rather than of necessity.
Shakespeare wrote "Julius Caesar" about a historical person who really was
called "Julius Caesar" (or something similar).
If Wagner had chosen to call his hero "Peredur" would you still have
insisted that he was Parzival?
> Critics can then justifiably discuss
> whether Shakespeare's character Julius Caesar is accurately portrayed.
> That is, Julius Caesar has properties above and beyond the total of
> those in the play. Did Shakespeare's Julius Caesar walk the Appian Way?
> Well he did, but not in the play. In the same way, Parzival was a
> Crusader, but not in the opera. Did Wagner write an opera about a
> Crusader? If Parzival is really Richard the Lion-Hearted, the answer is
> again quite definitely "Yes", but this fact isn't in the play.
Wagner's Parsifal is no more Wolfram's Parzival than his Tannhäuser is the
historical Tannhäuser (which, it might surprise you to learn, he isn't).
Both Wagner's Parsifal and Wagner's Tannhäuser are based on more than one
predecessor. The young Parsifal is in part (I'd say 50%) based on the
young Parzival.
Parsifal is not Parzival, who is not Richard Lionheart. So the answer is
quite definitely "no".
> Posting the demand that I have to demonstrate to readers that Parzival
> really was a Crusader is asking me to settle a question that not even
> the academic gurus are settled upon.
Parsifal is not a crusader, nor is Parzival a crusader.
> I unwisely stated that Wagner wrote an opera about Crusaders and
> knights. Everyone seems to think this is evidence of ignorance of
> Wagner.
We *know* that it is evidence of ignorance of Wagner. Let's get that out
of the way. Have you actually attended a performance of any Wagner opera?
> Should it turn out, however, that Parzival IS Richard the Lion-Hearted,
> or similar, all the emphatic denials will simply vanish in the wind, for
> I will have been shown to be indisputably correct. The simple truth is
> that (unless there are thirteenth century authorities on this board)
> nobody knows, and no-one should rush to judge that what I wrote was
> false.
In the course of my misspent youth (in which I spent too much time reading
philosophy) I read not only Wittgenstein's "Tractatus" and other writings
but also the "Principia" of Russell and Whitehead and related writings
about e.g. Russell's theory of descriptions. From such misguided
recreations I have retained an awareness that statements are not always
true or false. They can also be meaningless or undecided. The simple
truth about the proposition "Parzival is Richard Lionheart" is neither
true or false but it is meaningless. One cannot equate a fictional
character who appears in a fictional plot with a historical person who
participated in real events.
It would appear that what you are trying to sell us, is an entire tree of
mare's nests. If you do not get your facts straight before you make your
theories, then you cannot blame us for laughing at your stupidities.
Charles Lincoln
volatile threats between Mr. Cornish and our own esteemed Derrick Everett in
this group with great interest, intensity, and a slight smirk at certain
points, as with the sheep and the gentleman and the scoundrel exchange....
I expect one party or the other to challenge the other to a duel or a
jousting match or perhaps a more appropriately Wagnerian singing
competition.... but now that Mr. Cornish has focused on the questions of
"fictional or actual," I feel I'm on sufficiently familiar territory to want
to jump in with my own two cents worth....but I advise that I duel only with
fencing foils (epees) and can manage neither pistols nor spears nor
Kalashnikovs...
My own background is in anthropology and comparative mythology. I
consider myself a spiritual heir of Sir James G. Frazer and an actual
disciple of Marshall Sahlins, Jaan Puhvel, and the late Georges Dumezil. I
refer everyone in these groups to an intense review of the works of these
authors for what they have to say about the differences between myth and
history. A good place to start is with Marshall Sahlins' work entitled
Historical Metaphors and Mythic Realities, or his (still very much in print)
"Islands of History".
The immanent presence of Adolph Hitler on this newsgroup is the
perfect example of the merger of myth and history. There was a politician
in Germany who achieved the title of Chancellor during a worldwide economic
depression. He was known to the world as Adolph Hitler, although he might
have been born with another name (Schickelgruber for instance) and the image
of frenzied crowds screaming "Heil Schickelgruber" might never have caught
the world's imagination. In any case, either through character or mental
defects or else through simple lack of common sense and education, said
German Chancellor embarked on a series of foreign policy adventures which
ultimately left Germany as the most thoroughly destroyed country since the
soil of Carthage was salted by Rome (another historical metaphor for a
mythic reality....)
Anyone who pretends to understand what is actual and what is mythic
about Hitler is deluding him or herself.
Hitler has become, in many ways, the (European/American) modern
world order's equivalent of "Babylon" in the Book of Revelation---or of
ancient Greece's Troy. Hitler and the Nazi Time is the foundation of
modern Constitutional Thought---the justification for modern policy and
thought. Hitler is the core "constitutional myth" of the 20th century. And
yet he is historical in every sense that Parzifal is not---we have
recordings of his image, his voice, his writings. That makes him historical
except that he is a much more important myth than Parzifal ever was or could
be. Without Hitler, there would be much less to talk about (symbollically)
in the modern world.
Modern students of myth understand that all our arguments regarding
myth or history are shaped by our present philosophies and needs---the
search for the "hidden meanings" of our expression is called
"deconstruction" by some and "hermeneutics" by others.
I have kept expecting Mr. Cornish to take a deconstructionist
approach to his arguments regarding the connections he sees between Parzifal
and Richard Coeur de Lion or anyone else on the English throne. If there
were MOTIVES for Wolfram von Eschenbach to make such a connection, analogous
to the motives behind Vergil's 4th Eclogue, then the analysis is valid and
should proceed. If the proceedings in this thread pretend to be the erudite
equivalent of an inquisitorial court seeking truth, then it is is
illegitimate.
The mythic (i.e. "constitutionally justifying" principles or causes)
elements of history must be identified, but the mythic structure of history
itself is a primary concern. This is where all who are interested in the
relationship of Richard Wagner to Ancient Germanic Myth and History would do
well to familiarize themselves with the writings of Georges Dumezil on
comparative Indo-European "Mythe et Epopee".
Wagner was reshaping ancient stories for his own (19th century)
purposes and in light of his own (19th century) political ideology, just as
almost everyone who contributes to this newsgroup (including from time to
time the undersigned mythographer in his Texan exile) uses Wagner and Hitler
among others as symbols of importance to them for their own 21st century
philosophical and rhetorical ends.
So let the combatants take a step or two back and reflect
deconstructively on their own writings and then try to apply those
principles to the several subjects at hand, because all this shouting back
and forth about "it's historical, it's actual" vs. "NO, it's a myth, it's
literature" is Naive thinking in the hands of Sentimental authors, and
should be shunned.
At present I am teaching Human Evolution to a class of distinctly
unevolved undergraduates, and it is hard to convince even them of the
problems inherent in all kinds of classification in the fossil record: "is
it a man?" "is it an ape?" "did it's arms reach the ground?" "Yes, but
it's feet didn't." This is the kind of dialogue we're seeing here.
Assertion and counter-assertion, both insufficiently reflective and
self-critical.
There is no question the the methods and theory of comparative
mythology are more appropriate than the methods of the courtroom to trying
to sort out the meaning of both Parzifal and Parsifal, and their
relationship to Richard the Crusader, Adolph Hitler, and the actions
(symbollic and real or symbollic and invented) of any of these characters or
their contributions to history. If Cornish is right that Hitler was
inflamed by his fellow-student Wittgenstein----who came to dominate some
Philosophy Departments almost as much as Hitler dominates certain realms of
political discourse and (as noted) this newsgroup which operates under the
name of Wagner, although it could be denominated sometimes a "Wagner and
Hitler" newsgroup----then this may have some modern significance, although
as I believe Mr. Rohan said, in an earlier post, schoolboy rivalries don't
adequately account for history or myth. It's quite relevant in the age of
Harry Potter to study such things---Hitler's Draco Malfoy to Harry's.....I
don't know if I'd want to call him Wittgenstein but whatever....
And the Harry Potter series itself is an interesting case of the
evolution of myth---the stories are fiction, but my how fiction is shaped by
history---100 years ago Frank Baum wrote the Oz books about a land almost
entirely without murder or deep malice---all truly evil things were
transient and subject to defeat by a little girl from Kansas and her dog, in
story after story---but in the Harry Potter World "Lord Voldemort"---a
character based at least in part on consciousness of Hitlerian murderous
evil, cannot be defeated or destroyed readily by even the greatest of
wizards, and has closet followers even in the best families.... But all
that's a story for another post in another newsgroup I guess.
In the meantime, I suggest to the duelers that they reflect on all
this dichotomy between history and myth, actual vs. fictional, documented
vs. literary invention, and try to find the patterns and motives underlying.
The duel has been interesting, but it remains to see whether it can
get more interesting and less personal.....to the combatants at least.....
Charles E. Lincoln, so far from God, so close to President Bush's
homestead......
REP
Parzival == Perceval == Richard == Crusader is just a nitpick and doesn't
have anything to do with Mr/s. Cornish's thesis. The even bigger problem is
that I don't see anywhere where Mr/s. Cornish has even told us what their
thesis is, so it's hard not to take up everything; what is and isn't an
unrelated side-argument and what should and should not be pursued is
apparently only known to our respected Mr/s. Cornish. It doesn't seem like
Mr/s. Cornish has the right to complain about our misrepresentations when
he/she is using leading questions.
REP
"Charles Lincoln" <charles....@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:WVCp9.17369$ue4.1...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
[...]
Derrick Everett
Thank you Charles for injecting some new and valuable ideas into this
thread. In which I have felt it necessary to oppose the view that
Parzival=Parsifal and "Parzival"="Parsifal". In doing so I hope that I
have not given the impression that Wolfram's romance and Wagner's drama
are totally unrelated. It might be appropriate at this point to review
what they have in common and how Wagner changed and extended the story of
a hero.
Wolfram's poem "Parzival" would appear in any canon of western literature.
At least it would have done before the academics decided that the very
idea of a canon was politically incorrect, especially one that consisted
mainly of works by dead, white males. The fact that Wolfram von
Eschenbach is a dead, white male does not undermine the universality of
his "Parzival", a universality that, in my view, is extended in the drama
derived in part from Wolfram by Wagner. For Parsifal represents, in some
fashion, each of us -- and so does Kundry.
Wagner was openly dismissive of Wolfram. He remarked that he had some
sympathy with Frederick the Great, who "on being presented with a volume
of Wolfram told the publisher not to bother him with such stuff!" After
first reading "Parzival" in 1845 Wagner had said to himself, as he later
recollected, that nothing could be done with it although a few things
stuck in his mind: "the Good Friday, the wild appearance of Cundrie".
He can have been in no doubt about the subject of "Parzival": it is the
story of a youth growing into a man. Probably the first "bildungsroman".
The youth who has enjoyed an unusually sheltered upbringing -- in which
his mother kept from him all knowledge of weapons, fighting, chivalry --
goes out into the world dressed as a fool and at first makes a fool of
himself. Wolfram shows us a teenager who is the most unlikely material
out of which to make a knight. He then shows us how the youth, following
his heart and perhaps led by an Unseen Hand upon his bridle, makes a man
of himself. More than a man, a knight who, by an unconventional route,
surpasses those who follow the conventional career first as page, then
squire, then knight and who act conventionally, like Gawain.
The hero's progress -- or what Joseph Campbell called "the hero's journey"
-- is common to Wolfram's poem and to Wagner's drama. In the latter the
process is extended. The development from boy to man is compressed to a
single kiss, which is really only the trigger that allows this transition
which had been waiting to happen. Of course the kiss is more than that,
for it gives such a shock to the boy's system that he experiences a moment
of enlightenment, "Welthellsicht", which sets him on a new path. One that
goes beyond the perfect knighthood of Parzival. The kiss is also a form of
communication: the name Kundry suggests "Kunde", information. She asks
him, "was zog dich her, wenn nicht der Kunde Wunsch?". She holds the
information which his mother withheld: "nur Sorgen war sie, ach! und
Bangen; nie sollte Kunde zu dir her gelangen". Kundry does not communicate
in words, however, and she does not herself know what it is that is being
communicated by her kiss. She is only a channel, a catalyst, and her kiss
is a trigger that sends information that cannot be expressed in words.
"There are, indeed, things that cannot be put into words. They make
themselves manifest. They are what is mystical." (Proposition 6.522,
"Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus", Ludwig Wittgenstein)
"As we know, Wagner rejected the motif of the unasked question and
replaced it with a motif that somewhat reverses it while performing the
same function. Communication is assured or re-established not by an
intellectual operation but by an emotional identification. Parsifal does
not understand the riddle of the Grail and remains unable to solve it
until he relives the the catastrophe at its source ..." ("Le Regard
Eloigné", Claude Lévi-Strauss)
The unasked question is the opposite of a riddle, actually: it is an
answer waiting for a question (and therefore it is tempting to accept
Lévi-Strauss' idea that the Grail myth is the inversion of the myth of
Oedipus). Wagner found the idea of the unasked question, a central
element not only of Wolfram's "Parzival" but of all the Grail romances,
unsatisfactory. He got rid of this idea while retaining the overall
structure of "expulsion and return" on which the Grail romances are based:
when the hero (the "quester") first arrives at the Grail castle, he is not
ready, and he fails to ask the healing question. When he returns, older
and wiser, he asks the right question (which varies in different versions
of the tale) and heals the Fisher King, who in Wolfram's poem is called
Anfortas. Wagner replaced the question with the recovery of the spear
(see the entry in his "Brown Book" for 2 September 1865) as a connecting
element. Neither the recovery of the spear nor the attempted seduction
(which in my view is drawn from a medieval religious poem that Wagner
first read at about the same time as he read "Parzival") appear in
Wolfram. In fact, "Parsifal", after the first act, has very little to do
with "Parzival", at least where details are concerned. The act 2 Kundry
is quite unlike Wolfram's Orgeluse (in whom students of Fraser will
recognise Diana of the sacred grove).
Writing to Mathilde Wesendonk about his developing ideas for the drama
"Die Sieger", based on a Buddhist legend he had found in Burnouf's book,
Wagner told her: "the difficulty here was to make the Buddha himself -- a
figure totally liberated [from the world] and above all passion --
suitable for dramatic and, more especially, musical treatment. But I have
now solved the problem by having him reach one last remaining stage in his
development whereby he is seen to acquire a new insight, which -- like
every insight -- is conveyed not by abstract associations of ideas but by
intuitive emotional experience, in other words, by a process of shock and
agitation suffered by his inner self ..."
It is through emotional identification, as Lévi-Strauss expressed it, and
by "intuitive emotional experience" that Parsifal, too, finds a new and
unexpected insight, not his last but his first; things that cannot be put
into words, knowledge that cannot be obtained through the senses. He
looks into himself and beneath the veil that hides the world-as-will. In
the process he discovers that he has a mission, to heal Amfortas and the
Grail community. He sees what the Grail knights cannot see, that Amfortas
is wounded not only physically but spiritually. Perhaps he sees that the
sickness of the community arises from the exclusion of the feminine;
something similar to the final insight of the Buddha Shakyamuni in the
third act of "Die Sieger", that he should admit women to his community.
Parsifal's compassion for Amfortas gives him enough wisdom to escape from
Kundry and to gain the spear from Klingsor. He makes a sign and the power
of the lord of illusion is destroyed, both for Parsifal and for Kundry.
Parsifal wanders (like Wotan) in search of wisdom, symbolised by the
Grail. He bears the spear, not as a weapon but as a religious symbol, one
that might represent compassion (or justice or method). The spear is not
a weapon in Parsifal's hand, just as the vajra was not a weapon in the
hand of the Buddha. It is widely accepted that the spear is a masculine
symbol and the Grail a feminine symbol. "The spear goes with the cup",
wrote Wagner in the "Brown Book", "the two are complementary". The holy
ritual objects belong together in the Grail Temple, as do the masculine
and feminine aspects of a community. When Parsifal has grown in compassion
and wisdom, he is ready to take the final step of enlightenment: he
releases Kundry from her cycle of rebirth, heals Amfortas with the spear,
and reunites the masculine and feminine, the ritual objects that represent
compassion (das Mitleids höchste Kraft) and wisdom (reinsten Wissen's
Macht). Kundry enters the sanctuary, as the first woman to participate in
the Grail ceremony, just as Prakriti was admitted to the community of the
Buddha in "Die Sieger".
Wagner's Parsifal has travelled much further than Wolfram's Parzival. He
has travelled not only the path of the hero's journey, but the path of the
spiritual hero, the path of enlightenment. Nobody can give directions for
that path, which Parsifal calls "der Weg des Heiles"; each wanderer must
find for himself the path of suffering, "der Irrnis und der Leiden Pfade
kam ich". Once at the end of his journey, Wagner's spiritual hero does not
have to ask any questions because he has gained the knowledge that cannot
be communicated in words.
Laon
1864. The references to Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein in Cosima's
_Diaries_ do provide evidence of a more hostile attitude, developing
over time. Still, the evidence suggests a different attitude on
Richard Wagner's part, compared to Cosima's.
So on page 207 of Vol II of the _Diaries_, we find that Richard Wagner
thinks her writing is terrible. (But so do most Liszt biographers, so
that's not evidence of hatred.)
Then on December 12 1881, Cosima jokingly asks Richard how he and
Princess Carolyne would have got on, had they been together. "Not for
four weeks could I have stood it," he says, and drolly adds, "Ox and
donkey fought one day to find out which was wiser; neither wavered nor
gave way!"
The tone is now closer to irritated amusement.
But on January 28, 1882, Richard calls her a "witch". Cosima likes
that, and uses it herself as few pages later. But the context is a
quarrel between Carolyne and "Lulu", in which Wagner was loyally
sticking up for Cosima's daughter.
The "smoking gun" if you were going to claim hatred, and perception of
Carolyne con Sayn-Wittgenstein as of Jewish descent, is the last
reference: Wednesday November 8, 1882:
"In the evening we are visited by Ada Pinelli, whom R. finds very
pleasant. Her memories of Princess Wittg. bring this horrible product
of Jewish Catholicism home to R. and me in a most sinister way."
But the context is the visit of a friend who dislikes the Princess,
and the indulgence in one of the less noble human pleasures, an
evening of character assassination of an absent party. And the most
hostile words, concerning the Princess, that occur in any Wagner
context are by Cosima Wagner, not Richard Wagner. They are evidence
of something close to hatred, on Cosima's part. But on Richard's part
they're evidence that he won't express disagreement, if his wife and a
charming woman guest have a "session" about an absent party who
(according to all the other evidence) he doesn't like very much.
Still, there is evidence of Richard Wagner's growing dislike for
Carolyne over time. The principle cause of the estrangement with her,
other than specific irritations, is her influence on Liszt keeping him
away from the Wagners. However, as Ronald Taylor's Wagner biography
indicates, if Wagner felt that, he wasn't being paranoid but
accurately perceiving reality. Writing of Liszt's last visit to
Bayreuth in Richard Wagner's lifetime, Taylor says, "For so long Liszt
had had to endure the frenzied efforts of Princess Carolyne, first to
estrange his children from their mother, then to force him away from
the man whom he had always known as the greatest composer of the age."
(Richard Wagner: His Life, Art and Thought_, Ronald Taylor, Paul
Elek, London 1979, page 236.)
Conclusions?
(1) Cosima hated the Princess, and at her most hostile thought of her
as a "horrible product of Jewish Catholicism."
(2) Wagner by contrast had initially liked the Princess, but his
attitude soured over time, first because he thought she had bad taste
in art, and a tendency to hysterical performances, later because of
the quarrel between the Prinzess and Cosima's daughter, in which
Wagner properly favoured "Lulu", and finally, the hardest charge,
because she kept his friend and mentor Liszt away from him and Cosima.
(3) Therefore Wagner's attitude to the Princess, even including the
later souring of his view of her, contradicts rather than supports the
claim that he "hated Wittgensteins." On the contrary the evidence,
taking the diaries, the correspondence you cite, and _Mein Leben_ to
get a genuinely complete picture, is that he liked most Wittgensteins
he knew, including Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein for the first half
of their acquaintance. The Princess had to work quite hard over a
long period to earn his eventual dislike, a dislike which seems
justified by and proportional to the Princess' conduct to his family.
On another issue, I've located a von Sayn who was on the Third Crusade
with Richard I, so I suspect that may be the person Kimberley Cornish
wishes to "read into" Wolfram's _Parzifal_. (There was also a von
Sayn at the Fourth Crusade, but the timing is wrong for fitting him
into Wolfram.) I'll comment on all that after looking further.
Cheers!
Laon
Monte
> On Fri, 11 Oct 2002 15:30:43 +0200, REP wrote:
>
> > I have truly missed the entire point of this thread. Something about
> > Wittgenstein being the catalyst in Hitler's holocaust? And how is that
> > supposed to connect to Wagner?
> >
<snip>
> (3) Ludwig Wittgenstein, an individual who was born some years after
> Richard Wagner died, wore a truss. I have no reason to dispute this.
He also stuttered and had sex with the headmaster's son. Apparantly
exposure to such an individual predestins one to genocide.
> I am still waiting to hear what this might have to do with Hitler's
> holocaust. It would not surprise me to hear that Wagner is in some way to
> blame.
I think you can count on it.
Monte
Monte
Here it is in very plain English, folks. Think about the impact of
this ststement and its bearing upon contemporary historiography...X is
about Y REGARDLESS OF WHAT THE INTERNAL EVIDENCE X REVEALS!!! The work
itself is irrelevant. It's what the commentator says the work is
"about" that matters.
Still speechless...maybe I'm missing something...
monte
Derrick Everett
I agree.
Derrick Everett
It amazes me that someone who presumes to write about Ludwig
Wittgenstein is so completely ignorant of logic.
Derrick Everett
> Let me summarise what I see as the position on this Crusader business,
> since it obviously won't go away.
> 1. I grant that there is nothing of any compelling importance internal
> to the opera that allows us to identify the knights as Crusaders. 2. The
> opera is about a character named "Parzival" (I follow M&P's spelling) 3.
> Parzival might turn out to be based on an historical character who was a
> crusader. Certainly some respectable authorities have suggested this,
> but the matter is not settled.
> 4. If Wagner's opera is about this historical character and point 3
> turns out from future evidence to be true, then Wagner's opera is about
> a crusader, QED, regardless of what the internal evidence of the opera
> reveals.
> 5. In the absence of conclusive historical evidence concerning whom
> Parzival was, no one has any business accusing me of making an error in
> using the word "Crusader" in referring to characters of the opera. It is
> an entirely an empirical matter and evidence one way or the other might
> yet come in. That is, there is a good deal more to this issue than mere
> internal examination of the librettos or the costuming. Even if Wagner
> himself had intended his Parsifal not to be a crusader (and I don't
> grant this) he might simply have got it wrong.
As I read what appears to be an even more confused posting than many of
those that you have posted here to date: you are of the opinion, and ask
us to accept for no better reason than that it is your opinion, that
Wagner's "Parsifal" (which is what he chose to call his opera, whatever
might be your preference) means what Kimberley Cornish decides that it
means. Regardless of "what the internal evidence of the opera reveals". If
Wagner did not intend his title character to appear as a crusader "he
might simply have got it wrong". Because Kimberley Cornish knows better.
I'd be grateful if you'd be gracious enough to clarify:
1. Whether the above reading correctly reflects your position.
2. Whether the same applies to the rest of the Wagner canon, in
particular whether the meaning of each Wagnerian opera is what Kimberley
Cornish decides that it means, "regardless of what the internal evidence
of the opera reveals".
3. Whether the same applies to other works of art and literature, i.e.
that they mean what Kimberley Cornish declares that they mean "ex
cathedra" regardless of internal evidence?
acdouglas
> Let me summarise what I see as the position on this Crusader business,
> since it obviously won't go away.
>
> 1. I grant that there is nothing of any compelling importance internal
> to the opera that allows us to identify the knights as Crusaders.
Excellent. As the ONLY things that matter in this business are what can be
gleaned "internal to the opera," the case is closed.
Q.E.D.
> 2. The opera is about a character named "Parzival" (I follow M&P's
> spelling)
No, it is not. It's about a character created by Wagner, to whom he gave the
name Parsifal, not "Parzival".
Q.E.D.
> 3. Parzival might turn out to be based on an historical character who
> was a crusader. Certainly some respectable authorities have suggested
> this, but the matter is not settled.
It makes no bloody difference on whom Wagner's fictional character Parsifal
was based. Parsifal is Wagner's creation wholly, and the character's
attributes, history, whatever, are *exclusively* what Wagner assigned to him
as delineated in the libretto to the eponymous opera.
Q.E.D.
> 4. If Wagner's opera is about this historical character and point 3
> turns out from future evidence to be true, then Wagner's opera is
> about a crusader, QED, regardless of what the internal evidence of the
> opera reveals.
As already pointed out, Wagner's opera is in no way about any historical
character whatsoever, and therefore what you are pleased to call your logic is
perfectly at odds with the facts.
Q.E.D.
I must say I find it nothing less than astonishing that the most knowledgeable
members of this group in matters historical have spilled so much verbiage in
repeatedly making answer to your clearly crackpot notions. As for myself,
I've better uses for my time.
--
ACD
http://acdouglas.com
acdouglas
>[snipped - original post is below]
>It makes no bloody difference on whom Wagner's fictional character Parsifal
>was based.
---------------------------------------------------------
The above should have read: "It makes no bloody difference on whom Wagner's
fictional character Parsifal was OR WAS NOT based."
--
ACD
http://acdouglas.com
------------------- original post -------------------
"acdouglas" <acdo...@acdouglas.com> wrote in message
news:ao9mnv$kle$1...@news.monmouth.com...
Laon
it either boring or refreshing, according to taste. Anyway, here are
two suggestions.
First, I'm not aware of any evidence that Kimberley Cornish admires or
is an apologist for Hitler, or that he is a Holocaust revisionist. I
still haven't read his book, but I've now read a fair selection of his
writing anyway, and I don't see anything in what he says that
justifies such accusations.
And since those accusations are among the most vilely offensive things
that can be said of someone, unless they are true, I don't think they
should be bandied about in debate unless the writer has chapter and
verse to back up those statements or insinuations.
And yes, it was me (Richard in China would prefer me to say "I"; hope
you're still out there, Richard) who referred to Mr Cornish's _The Jew
of Linz_ as a "notorious" book, but I meant that it was wildly known
and highly controversial, not that I thought it was an evil or immoral
book.
I added that I thought the book's thesis was unlikely. And from what
I've seen so far, I think the current thesis being developed is
likewise ... unlikely. But that doesn't mean I'm not interested to
see the thesis, and its supporting evidence.
Second, a thesis that one considers to be insufficiently supported can
still throw up new information, or place information together in a
previously unconsidered and revealing way.
I don't think that an obscure finding about possible contemporary (ie
late 12th century, very early 13th century) references in Wolfram will
tell us much about Wagner's partial use of Wolfram as a source, unless
it can be shown that Wagner was aware of and interested in such
material.
But there's nothing wrong with searching for such references, and nor
are they entirely irrelevant to Wagner. Because any information about
Wagner's source material has the potential to cast an oblique light on
Wagner's use of his many sources, of which Wolfram was one.
Incidental findings can be useful in a wider sense, even if one
doesn't accept the thesis they are used to support.
An obvious example is that while I think it very unlikely that
Wittgenstein had a significant influence on Hitler's mode of thinking
or speaking, I do think that the _Jew of Linz_ book added to the sum
of knowledge by revealing a new fact, or perhaps putting knowns facts
together in an interesting way. The school role produced by Mr
Cornish, and the "Saujud" incident, do suggest to me that the young
Hitler and Wittgenstein were known to each other, and that the
schoolboy Hitler disliked the schoolboy Wittgenstein, and that
Wittgenstein is a leading though perhaps not the only candidate for
the role of the "Jew of Linz" mentioned in _Mein Kampf_.
Unless or until counter-evidence is provided, that seems to me to be a
small but potentially useful new piece of information. One can accept
that addition to knowledge without necessarily accepting all the other
structures built upon that piece.
Therefore the current exploration could be interesting, even if more
for its side-issues than for the central argument, at least from my
point of view. I think the connection to the Holocaust is - well,
let's say I think it's astronomically unlikely to be supportable; in
fact even that doesn't fully express my scepticism. But on the other
hand, looking for contemporary references in Wolfram's _Parzifal_ is
an original line of thought, and who knows what may be turned up?
Even claims shown to be false have the function of forcing us to look
again at the record with a new slant or focus. For example I think
that the claim that Wagner hated Wittgensteins has the merit of being
falsifiable, and when held against the record of all the things that
Wagner said about Wittgensteins it has been falsified. But it's worth
having a look at the question.
So I'd like to see Mr Cornish develop his thesis further, even if only
for the train-spotterish pleasure of arguing against it. Argument
without getting too abusive is a pleasure, or we wouldn't be here.
(My next post, for example, will argue against the presence of
Wittgensteins in _Parzifal_.)
Cheers!
Laon
Laon
references to Wittgenstein ancestors in _Parzifal_ by looking for
resemblances of name.
That was mildly unfair since that search focussing on resemblances of
name responded to this, from Kimberley Cornish's initial post on his
topic:
"Here is my suggestion to readers for this post: Identify a
Wittgenstein in Eschenbach's barbarous cacophony of names in the
medieval poem".
Hence my focus on names, the issue as it was raised. Moreover, I
think it's right to focus first on resemblances of name. We can see,
particularly from placenames but sometimes with names of persons, that
Wolfram's proper names often do give a genuine clue to the actual
place or person referred to.
To take a hypothetical example, if Wolfram had inserted a character
called, say, Richholt de Angevou or some such into his narrative, I'd
find that strong evidence that this character partly referred to
Richard I (not called Lion-Heart in Wolfram's time, I believe). But
an argument based on the suggestion that parts of Richard I's ancestry
correspond to the character Parzifal, and therefore Parzifal is partly
based on Richard I, on the other hand, strikes me as much weaker.
That's because it's easy to find such correspondences if you go
looking for them, and select which bits of the historical family
background you choose to compare to the story in Wolfram's epic.
(I'm sure the people who argue for a Richard I/Parzifal connection
rather glide over the facts that:
* Richard I twice rose against his father in an attempt to overthrow
his rule; but Parzifal never knew his father;
* Richard I's father imprisoned his wife, Eleonor of Acquitaine, in a
castle, but Parzifal's father Gahmuret seems to have been fond, if
neglectful, of Herzeloyde;
* there seems to have been a close bond between Richard I and his
mother, while Parzifal strayed from his mother and never looked back
(at least until it was too late);
* Richard I went on Crusade; but Parzifal ... well, we've been through
that. And so on. In reality there are few resemblances between the
Richard I of history and Wolfram's character Parzifal.)
But at least, in the case of an alleged Richard I/Parzifal connection,
there is the supporting background that Wolfram referred to Anjou and
having a source about Anjou, and a series of rough correspondences
over two generations, which means that identification of Parsifal with
Henry II, or perhaps skipping a generation to Richard I, reaches the
strength of "interesting conjecture, could be true, though it's
unproven". (Even Mustard and Passage used the word "tentatively" in
relation to the first assumption on which they built the others: no
more than that.)
But in the von Sayn case I have so far not found references to
relevant locations, for example Sayn, or perhaps Westphalia, and I
can't think off-hand of an elaborate geneology in _Parzifal_ that
corresponds to that line founded by Eberhard I and Heinrich I, Counts
of Sayn. (Well, not so much "founded", as they too had ancestors, but
perhaps "solidified" by that pair; and not that long ago, in Wolfram's
time.)
However I have found a reference to a von Sayn who was with Richard I
in the third crusade. I mean, I found a reference in a geneology, not
in _Parzifal_. So would it be possible to find some correspondences
between that von Sayn (or another different von Sayn, if preferred)
and a character in _Parzifal_? Personally, I'm sure it could be done.
But only because I'm equally sure that would be possible to construct
such a resemblance between almost anyone who happened to be on the 3rd
Crusade and one of the characters in _Parzifal_. But that very
quickly becomes a game, on the order of those learned discources
discussing the geneological connections between Sherlock Holmes and
Sir John Greystoke, a kind of game I quite enjoy, and where the
arguments often seem to be highly convincing. (Leaving aside one
small detail of chronology, I suspect I could come up with a decent
argument that Ludwig Wittgenstein was Wolfram's source for the
character of Sir Kies.)
So an argument for including a von Sayn into _Parzifal_ would have to
be richly supported by both internal and external evidence, not yet
provided. Still, while I might argue against such a resemblance, if
KC produces it, it wouldn't mean that I thought the work of producing
it wasn't worth doing.
Cheers!
Laon
Derrick Everett
> First, I'm not aware of any evidence that Kimberley Cornish admires or
> is an apologist for Hitler, or that he is a Holocaust revisionist. I
> still haven't read his book, but I've now read a fair selection of his
> writing anyway, and I don't see anything in what he says that justifies
> such accusations.
>
> And since those accusations are among the most vilely offensive things
> that can be said of someone, unless they are true, I don't think they
> should be bandied about in debate unless the writer has chapter and
> verse to back up those statements or insinuations.
To accuse someone living or dead of responsibility for genocide is one of
the most vilely offensive actions that I can imagine. Mr. Cornish is on
the thinnest of ice at present. If he begins making excuses for Hitler or
basing arguments on Hitler as an authority then he can expect a hail of
condemnation.
> I don't think that an obscure finding about possible contemporary (ie
> late 12th century, very early 13th century) references in Wolfram will
> tell us much about Wagner's partial use of Wolfram as a source, unless
> it can be shown that Wagner was aware of and interested in such
> material.
>
> But there's nothing wrong with searching for such references, and nor
> are they entirely irrelevant to Wagner. Because any information about
> Wagner's source material has the potential to cast an oblique light on
> Wagner's use of his many sources, of which Wolfram was one. Incidental
> findings can be useful in a wider sense, even if one doesn't accept the
> thesis they are used to support.
Contemporary references in Wolfram's poem, which was written between 1200
and 1210, do not cast any light, directly or indirectly, on Wagner's drama
in which he made use of certain and identifiable elements of Wolfram's
poem. I for one am getting tired of this highly speculative nonsense.
Laon
Dear Laon,
If possible, please post in the notorious Wittgenstein thread:
I have found myself, at least to some degree at one time or another,
in "opposition" to many on this board, and it tends to be my immediate
impulse to try to empathise with the lone voice crying out against
"the majority." So I immediately tried to see things through
Kimberley Cornish's perspective, despite my confessed lack of
knowledge on many of the subjects involved (the number of which seem
to have expanded exponentially, and now include the Crusades, Richard
I, Wolfram. von. Eschenbach, The Holocaust, etc.). Finally, Cornish's
convoluted reasoning pushed me over the brink and, not unlike Monte, I
stand rather bewildered and dumbfounded that so many electrons have
now been spilled into this cyber-cesspool. That the entire argument is
founded on the most fragiley constructed house of cards ever conceived
should seem self-evident to anyone with even half a brain. I mean, how
contrived can you get?
Unlike Laon and Derrick and Mike, I can't argue point by point -- I
just don't have the strength, and the aforementioned have already
demolished Cornish's "argument" to dust (and let me throw in some high
praise for Charles Lincoln, whose thought-provoking post provided one
of the precious few good reasons for reading through this crapola). I
think I have said enough.
Everyone here knows that it is a rare occasion indeed when I stand in
agreement with Monte and Laon, so savor the moment. And thanks to
Laon, who has generously offered to help me post in the wake of
China's partial ban on Google (partial enough to let me read threads
but not to respond). That doesn't mean I don't disagree with almost
all of Laon's other comments outside of this thread, but for once I'll
just forget about all that. Thank you and good night.
Derrick Everett
Herzeleide containing the following:
> I have found myself, at least to some degree at one time or another, in
> "opposition" to many on this board, and it tends to be my immediate
> impulse to try to empathise with the lone voice crying out against "the
> majority." So I immediately tried to see things through Kimberley
> Cornish's perspective, despite my confessed lack of knowledge on many of
> the subjects involved (the number of which seem to have expanded
> exponentially, and now include the Crusades, Richard I, Wolfram. von.
> Eschenbach, The Holocaust, etc.). Finally, Cornish's convoluted
> reasoning pushed me over the brink and, not unlike Monte, I stand rather
> bewildered and dumbfounded that so many electrons have now been spilled
> into this cyber-cesspool. That the entire argument is founded on the
> most fragiley constructed house of cards ever conceived should seem
> self-evident to anyone with even half a brain. I mean, how contrived can
> you get?
Let me see ...
Having reluctantly conceded that Wagner did not write operas about
crusaders, Mr. Cornish has advanced the following argument (and he may
correct me if any of these points do not reflect his argument):
1. Wagner's "Parsifal" is to all intents and purposes (or at least those
of Mr. Cornish) equivalent to Wolfram von Eschenbach's poem "Parzival".
2. Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzival" contains reference to various
houses of the Frankish nobility, including the royal house of Anjou.
3. During the 12th century members of those houses of the Frankish
nobility participated in crusades in the eastern Mediterranean.
4. During the 14th century members of the Sayn or Wittgenstein
families or both participated in crusades in the Baltic area.
5. Descendents of the Sayn and Wittgenstein families, or at least
individuals related by marriage to those families, were known to Richard
Wagner.
6. Therefore Wagner's "Parsifal" contains references to the crusades
that are really indirect references to some of Wagner's contemporaries.
Whatever others might think of this "linkage", it is my considered opinion
that Mr. Cornish's argument is complete bollocks.
I have not yet decided whether Mr. Cornish is a scoundrel or merely a
crackpot (although perhaps a dangerous one) but I am convinced that he is
up to some kind of mischief.
Monte
Charles, Thank you so much for this enlightening post. I'd like to ask
you two questions vis-a vis Kimberly Cornish's thesis and methods
raised elsewhere in this thread. I think your background in
anthropology and comparative mythology might really help me here.
(1) What do you think of Kimberly's apparent belief that there exists
somewhere a "key to the Holocaust" and that if we all search
diligently enough in the most obscure places we might discover it?
(2) What do you think of Kimberly's theory that if certain
prerequsites are met Wagner's "Parsifal" "is about a crusader, QED,
_regardless of what the internal evidence of the opera reveals_"
(emphasis mine).
I do not intend to put you on the spot with regards to the individual
posters here. I don't think any response of yours will be seen as
placing you 'second' to Derrick or Kimberly in their "duel". I am
simply very interested in what you might have to say. My own views
should be apparent from posts in this thread and elsewhere in the
group, but I'll recap just for fun and hopefully to clarify a little
if needed.
With regards to (1) I maintain that if there is a "key" it is hidden
deep in the dark souls of those who committed the crime. These people
were hateful, murdurous psychopaths. They had sufficient political
skills to sieze power and harness the machinery of the state to
accomplish their goal. Inquery into the roots of their hatred is all
very good, but the notion that a "key" might be found in who they
stood next to in the school photograph or what operas they liked is
nonsense. The notion that wheather or not Parsifal was a crusader is
vital to the discovery of the "key" continues to leave me slack-jawed.
On to (2). Utter and often contemptous disregard for the actual
content of Wagner's works (and for what he said or wrote about the
content) is a bedrock technique among Wagner's harshest critics. If
one is allowed to 'disregard' the content of a work of art, how can
there be any standards at all about anything? Not even Marc Weiner
would make the content of Wagner's "Parsifal" irrelevant. Weiner has
given us the "absence of evidence proves my thesis about this work"
method. Now the work itself doesn't matter at all? Help me out here. I
must have missed something.
Best regards,
Monte
Monte
Nor does this one. I just wanted to piggy-back on Laon a bit to say
that I bear no animosity toward Kimberly. This has all been very
entertaining and I've learned a lot. What it all has to do with the
Holocaust and why Wagner is linked continues to allude me, but give me
time...
Best regards,
Monte
Derrick Everett
> I do not intend to put you on the spot with regards to the individual
> posters here. I don't think any response of yours will be seen as
> placing you 'second' to Derrick or Kimberly in their "duel".
I was not aware that I was participating in a "duel". I was just trying
to do my bit to fight against the irrationality and hatred that seems to
be sweeping the world these days.
> I am simply very interested in what you might have to say. My own views
> should be apparent from posts in this thread and elsewhere in the group,
> but I'll recap just for fun and hopefully to clarify a little if needed.
>
> With regards to (1) I maintain that if there is a "key" it is hidden
> deep in the dark souls of those who committed the crime. These people
> were hateful, murdurous psychopaths. They had sufficient political
> skills to sieze power and harness the machinery of the state to
> accomplish their goal. Inquery into the roots of their hatred is all
> very good, but the notion that a "key" might be found in who they stood
> next to in the school photograph or what operas they liked is nonsense.
> The notion that wheather or not Parsifal was a crusader is vital to the
> discovery of the "key" continues to leave me slack-jawed.
When discussing biography and related issues I suggest that it is more
useful to think in historical terms and not in terms of mythology. At the
very least one should distinguish between them. Although I find both of
these subjects interesting, I can usually manage to see the difference
between them. It is possible that some participants in this thread have
difficulty in separating myth from history.
Charles is right do draw attention to the mythological dimension of
Nazism. This involves only the myths that the Nazis developed and
promoted (e.g. the heroism of Horst Wessel) but also the passing of Hitler
and his associates into modern myth. Hitler and his henchmen have become
legendary figures. Without wishing to launch into a discussion of the
Nazi tyranny, which is *not* the subject of this newsgroup, I note with
regard to your comments that the Nazis individually and collectively had
many different goals. From what I have read about Adolf Hitler it is my
firm belief (and you may disagree) that his primary goal, and in the final
analysis the only thing that mattered to him, was the destruction of
communism. This is a historical and biographical interpretation of the
real individual who participated in real crimes against humanity. It is
not necessarily how the legendary Adolf Hitler is viewed in various
contemporary mythologies.
Every nation has its national mythology. The Americans have a mythology
in which George Washington chopped down a cherry tree and Abe Lincoln was
born in a log cabin. The Israeli nation has a mythology that now includes
not only Abraham and Moses, but also the siege of Masada and the belief
that the destruction of the Jewish people was the primary goal of the
Nazis. National myths can be a source of strength even if, on closer
examination, the historical facts do not support the mythology.
The test of a myth is not whether it is true or false but whether it is
useful to those who believe in it (or to those who manipulate them by
presenting myth as historical truth). In my view history is a search for
truth, in which facts and their interpretation are all that matter; while
mythology concerns belief, including beliefs that are held passionately
and even in the face of scientific evidence. I find myths and
mythogenesis interesting -- but I try not to make the mistake of accepting
myths as historical fact.
> On to (2). Utter and often contemptous disregard for the actual content
> of Wagner's works (and for what he said or wrote about the content) is a
> bedrock technique among Wagner's harshest critics. If one is allowed to
> 'disregard' the content of a work of art, how can there be any standards
> at all about anything? Not even Marc Weiner would make the content of
> Wagner's "Parsifal" irrelevant. Weiner has given us the "absence of
> evidence proves my thesis about this work" method. Now the work itself
> doesn't matter at all? Help me out here. I must have missed something.
>
>
Where Richard Wagner's life is concerned, I distinguish three phases. In
the first phase, which began even before Wagner died, the mythical Wagner
and his mythical life were created variously by Wagner himself (e.g. in
"Mein Leben"), by Glasenapp, Wolzogen and Chamberlain. It was not until
sixty years after his death, in the second phase, that biographers began
dismantling those myths and by 1976, when the publication of Cosima's
Diaries filled in some gaps and resolved some questions, Wagner's life was
documented in more detail and depth than any other individual who lived in
the 19th or any earlier century. Once there was little new to discover,
the process of mythogenesis began again. During the last three decades
we have seen, and continue to see, the growth and development of Wagner
myths. These myths have little to do with the historical Wagner -- and the
discussion of his works seems to have less and less to do with the works
themselves, and more and more to do with mythical Wagner-drama as it is
imagined by people who have never attended a performance of any of his
works.
I am told that a television documentary recently broadcast in Australia
centered around Gottfried Wagner's reminiscences of his relationships
with other members of his family. The well-worn cliche of how the Nazis
had used Wagner's music in their propaganda was wheeled out. As
illustration the documentary cut to an extract from a Nuremberg rally
accompanied by stirring music. From Bruckner's third symphony.
michael
> (1) What do you think of Kimberly's apparent belief that there exists
> somewhere a "key to the Holocaust" and that if we all search
> diligently enough in the most obscure places we might discover it?
Do you really need to ask such a question? There is no "key" to be
discovered within esoteric "places". Read history, search the human
heart, ponder unchecked emotion, and attempt to understand the idea of
"difference". Soon the mystery unfolds.
michael--Linux RU# 224791
_____________________________________________
The first time I saw that icon I thought MS had made the biggest blunder
of
all time. I thought that no businessman in their right mind would use a
computer with a desktop that looked like a Mattel toy. To me, 'My
Computer'
was right up there with 'My Little Pony'. I assumed they'd feel utterly
insulted by the implications of that icon.
I was wrong.
-- Garry Knight
Charles Lincoln
satisfaction, but first let me say thank you for your (and other
group-members') kind words, for the very civil complete absence of death
threats, and for the invitation to say some more. In regard to your
specific questions, I will protest first that while I've taught Modern U.S.
History at the Community College level, my background in the history and
origins of WWII and the Holocaust is idiosyncratic rather than professional
or expert in any sense.
(2) Since this is, after all and despite the sometimes appearances,
a Wagner newsgroup, I'm going to tackle your second issue first: to wit
Kimberly Conrad's theory that if certain prerequsites are met Wagner's
"Parsifal" "is about a crusader, QED, _regardless of what the internal
evidence of the opera reveals_"
discourage attempts to draw a fine or precise line between "myth and
literary fiction" on the one hand and "history and documentary evidence" on
the other. The overwhelming majority of academics in many disciplines is to
treat the raw material as "text" and try to understand the origins and
motivations of the composition of any particular text rather than to
distinguish fact from fiction. From Gilgamesh to Goering and from the Itza
in Yucatan to the Israelites in Sinai, the structure and purpose of
narrative presentation is much more informative (and to me, interesting)
than questions of classification such as "is this story true or false?"
However, that having been said, structuralist, post-modernist, and
deconstructionist approaches to textual analysis nevertheless do
nevertheless emphasize the importance of text---the definition of what the
limits of constitutes a "text" may sometimes seem rather vague---I myself
have been known to take sides with the "post-processualists" in
anthropological archaeology who submit archaeological sites (not reports and
interpretive monographs, but the actual sites....) to textual analysis, but
Wagner's "Parsifal" is rather unambiguously a text, even if every
performance is to be treated as a unique and different "text" in
post-modernist, structuralist, deconstructionist terms....(I hope it's
obvious that I'm oversimplifying here).
I go back to my main point---why talk of trying to classify Conrad's
theory of "Parsifal" as "true or false"? It is true to Mr. Conrad and the
proper analysis is to ask where he's coming from and why? [unless we adopt,
which I would not based on present evidence, Derrick's very "glove-dropping"
charge that Conrad might be a "scoundrel"; no that there aren't a whole
category of such people out there, perhaps identifiable with the likes of
Eric von Daniken, author of "Chariots of the Gods" who address normally
academic topics from a sensational angle for purely pecuniary gain). I
somehow doubt that the name of Ludwig Wittgenstein has, outside of some (but
not even all) Philosophy departments enough voltage currency to generate
much actual currency for anyone trying to trace the origin of Hitler and the
Holocaust to him.]
Also, in relating my original post to the present, I cannot help but
note that, as enamored as I am of certain structuralist theories, especially
the trifunctionalism of George Dumezil (which works so brilliantly in the
analysis of "naive" texts such as the "original" myths, sagas, and
romances), Wagnerian myth does not conform and cannot be made to do so.
Wagner's myth borrowed a vocubulary of names and places and settings from
Mediaevil and earlier European texts, but the structure of Wagnerian myth
and text is unique and hard to compare, structurally, with anyone else's.
In the deconstruction of Wagner's motives for creating the texts of
Parsifal, the Ring, and the earlier operas as he did, I think that for me
George Bernard Shaw ("The Perfect Wagnerite") and Jacques Barzun ("Darwin,
Marx, and Wagner") have come closest to approximating the reality behind
Wagner's thinking.
As for the uniqueness of Wagner's thinking, I have yet to see anyone
propose a satisfactory explanation, derivation, or genesis of his view of
the sacramental role of females in general and female death by
self-sacrifice in particular from any where else. It is certainly neither
consistent with mythic psychology along Freudian, Frazerian, or Jungian
lines of analysis.
It might be appropriate at this juncture to invite Mr. Conrad back
into the thread that he's ultimately responsible for starting and asking him
to deconstruct his own background and explain in terms of his own theories
and methods of historical/literary "textual" analysis why he thinks that
such a personal, idiosyncratic moment as the documented interaction between
Hitler and Ludwig could possibly have led to anything quite as complex and
multifactorial as the Holocaust?
As I said at the outset, I may indulge in several posts to address
these questions, but that last point is a good place to turn to:
(1) For my first stab at your question on the "key" to the Holocaust
I just want to apologize that some may be offended at my answer, which is
another question, namely: the key question is not "how and why did the
Holocaust happen" but "why did the Holocaust happen in Germany rather than
in the United States of America?"
The reason for this question is to me simplemindedly obvious: during
the 1920s, the United States was much more dominated by political groups
espousing a violent, racist ideology, supported by a much longer tradition
of (a) utopian/millenialist thinking (e.g. everyone from Joseph Smith and
Brigham Young to Amy Semple MacPherson), (b) recently active
genocide/"racial cleansing" of undesirable minorities (e.g. the American
Indians), and (c) a strong intellectual and scientific tradition of (what
only seems to us now as fuzzy, perhaps even quackish) eugenics applied to
public policy issues (e.g. the treatment of the insane and mentally
retarded) than Germany.
The NSDAP in 1923-1924 could not compare in popular support or
political influence with the Ku Klux Klan in America. What the KKK lacked
was a charismatic, politically astude national leader to mask the criminal
leanings and tendency of so many of its upper echelon leaders in statehouses
from Indiana to Texas. Instead, the KKK's national leadership was just as
corrupt and politically lame as its state hierarchies, and none ever gave
particularly memorable speeches or wrote best-selling books. The KKK's
pedigree in American politics was at least traceable back 80 years to the
ante-Bellum "Know-Nothings" of 1840s and '50s fame, and of course, in 1915,
everyone from Woodrow Wilson and William Howard Taft had applauded the first
mega-hit movie "Birth of a Nation" as ranking on par with the Constitution
and Declaration of Independence as an embodiment of the American National
Spirit. Nothing from the studios of Leni Riefenstahl ever came remotely
close to glorifying racism in the profoundly evocative and emotional manners
of D.W. Griffith and Lillian Gish.
Moreover, the United States was rich and spoiled in the 1920s and
therefore (at least logically) more likely to engage in spendthrift
ideological experimentation than the already bankrupted Germany. And even
after the collapse of 1929, the conspiracy theorists in the United States
had a much more prominent anti-Semitic industrial leader than existed in
contemporary Germany to pin the blame on "the International Jew"---I refer,
of course, to the original Henry Ford. Given the historical and cultural
background, in short, the Holocaust should have happened here rather than in
Germany.
But instead, in 1932, the year that a common-born
"lumpenproletariat" upstart and his followers began to take power from a
largely aristocratic government in Germany, an aristocrat of just about as
ancient a pedigree as is possible in a country with barely over 300 years
(as of 1932) of recorded history took over the Presidency from a rather
common born bourgeois of grain-belt origins in the United States. The
reforms which were instituted in the two countries were in some ways
parallel and in some ways not, but the New Deal was, in many ways, a greater
break with the recent American past than the Third Reich was with the recent
German past.
So, in conclusion, the "key" to the Holocaust happening in Germany
rather than America at the time and under the circumstances that it did
probably had as much to do with the personality of the Fuhrer as anything
else, and so, in that sense, any attempt to try to understand Hitler's
personality on an individual basis, such as Conrad's may not be without some
legitimate purpose or intellectual validity.
"Monte" <ring...@snet.net> wrote in message
news:c42e1c14.0210...@posting.google.com...
Charles Lincoln
rational explanation, sorry....just focuses attention on the importance of
accurate textual analysis....before pushing that "send" button.....news:d8pq9.4949$1P1.3...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
Derrick Everett
want to hang on to the point about mythology versus history. I
disagree with you where the fine line between the mythical and the
historical is concerned. There is a line there although whether it is
fine or broad is debateable. The idea that real people cross that
line to become legendary characters is as old as Euhemerus (4th
century BC). It is certainly not the case, however, that mythical
characters are also legendary, although it might be true of certain
exceptional cases (for example in Snorre's account of the origins of
Odin as a mortal king who migrated from the Black Sea to Scandinavia).
As previously stated I believe that there is fine line and it is
important that some of us, at least, keep it in view. When
considering an individual who lived in recent history, such as Wagner
or Hitler, we should be aware that they have already become legendary,
and when considering their historical importance we must distinguish
between what is history and what is legend, or even myth. Historical
assertions are true or false. Mythical assertions are not true or
false, rather they are useful or not useful (to someone), and in order
to be useful they must first be meaningful.
An example of what happens when one mixes history with myth and legend
is an essay that Wagner wrote in his Dresden years, the "Wibelungen".
The essay contains the kind of associative argument that Mr. Cornish
favours. It is therefore ironical that similar arguments should be
applied to Wagner's life and work.
Secondly, your posting introduces words like "structuralism" and
"deconstruction" which suggest lines of inquiry that might be explored
outside the context of the current discussion about crusaders and
Ludwig Wittgenstein's surgical support. There is a body of commentary
and criticism regarding Wagner's dramas that takes a structuralist
approach. In a recent posting in reply to you, I quoted from Claude
Levi-Strauss' structuralist remarks on "Parsifal". While this
approach has yielded valuable insight and artistic inspiration,
notably in conjunction with depth psychology, it has also led to
suspect interpretations of the dramas. In particular the once
controversial Jungian analysis of the "Ring" by Robert Donington (who
believed, among other questionable conclusions, that Fafnir as dragon
was the "bad mother").
As far as I know, Mary Cicora is the only commentator who has written
extensively about Wagner's text using only concepts associated with
deconstruction. I find this surprising, since Wagner's texts are full
of binary oppositions, explicit and implicit. By text of course I
mean "words and music" -- and as you suggest Wagner *in performance*
is more than this -- and the problem as always with the criticism of
these dramas is that it is invalid to deal with words and music
separately -- the whole is more than the sum of the parts. Yet there
are people who attempt to do this and who mislead themselves and
others as a consequence. I hope that, once Wagner scholarship has
gotten itself out of the rut of "Wagner as proto-Nazi", we might see
some interesting studies of the Wagnerian dramas that approach them
holistically with the aid of current techniques of literary analysis.
Mike Scott Rohan
from k_co...@msn.com.au (Kimberley Cornish) contains these words:
{snip}
> Let me summarise what I see as the position on this Crusader business,
> since it obviously won't go away.
> 1. I grant that there is nothing of any compelling importance internal
> to the opera that allows us to identify the knights as Crusaders.
> 2. The opera is about a character named "Parzival" (I follow M&P's
> spelling)
On the contrary, it is about Wagner's character, who although based
upon the legendary character so named, differs from him very
radically according to Wagner's synthesis and reconception of the
legend. Deductions based on one therefore must be shown very
specifically to apply to the other.
> 3. Parzival might turn out to be based on an historical character who
> was a crusader. Certainly some respectable authorities have suggested
> this, but the matter is not settled.
> 4. If Wagner's opera is about this historical character and point 3
> turns out from future evidence to be true, then Wagner's opera is
> about a crusader, QED, regardless of what the internal evidence of the
> opera reveals.
No. A colossal gap in reasoning. Wagner created his own very
distinctive character who is manifestly not a crusader and has no
discernible relation to one. If Wagner had intended to give his
Parsifal any characteristics of a crusader, he would have made them
very obvious. He has none whatsoever, even by the most imaginative
extension. His only reference to his wanderings makes it clear that
he has lived out the years on one quest only, to return to
Montsalvat. Going on a crusade would make this impossible and be a
breach of the enormous trust put in him, the custody of the Spear.
> 5. In the absence of conclusive historical evidence concerning whom
> Parzival was, no one has any business accusing me of making an error
> in using the word "Crusader" in referring to characters of the opera.
> It is an entirely an empirical matter and evidence one way or the
> other might yet come in. That is, there is a good deal more to this
> issue than mere internal examination of the librettos or the
> costuming. Even if Wagner himself had intended his Parsifal not to be
> a crusader (and I don't grant this) he might simply have got it wrong.
Who are you to trumpet about who has any business criticizing your
ideas? You spread them out before this discussion group and we have a
perfect right to discuss them as we see fit, critically or otherwise.
And when you make a mighty assumption rest on such an ill-defined and
unproven point, we have every right to remark on it. Evidence may
indeed come in, although it's hard to imagine where from, at this
stage in scholarship. But you have no business justifying your
present assumptions on the basis of it.
And if Wagner can be assumed to have "got it wrong", then nothing
else about Parsifal can be relied on either, and your whole thesis
collapses. It requires -- among many other highly arguable points --
a sound and deliberate intention of Wagner's. If you can't show that
to a reasonable standard of proof, your hands are empty.
> 6. Wagner had close personal intercourse with a family who had
> produced a head of the Teutonic Knights and who had been Teutonic
> Knights for generations. It is therefore reasonable to look for
> anything in his work that might connect to them, either in their
> crusades in the Holy Land or in Pomerania.
Yes, it is. But when you can't find it, it is very unreasonable to
pretend you have.
> 7. For the matters I am trying to raise on this board, the issue is a
> complete irrelevancy. This is not a sign of "casualness", but of
> trying to keep to a point in the face of periperal issues that
> obviously are of very great importance to the board posters, but that
> don't matter in respect of where I want to get to in this series of
> posts.
>
> > > >
> > > > These connections are not contrived; they have been
> > > > > staring Holocaust researchers in the face for seventy years and the
> > > > > penny doesn't appear to have dropped even yet.
> > > >
> > > > Leaving aside the mixed metaphor, has it occurred to you that there
> > > > may be a very good reason for this?
> >
> > > Any number of reasons have occurred to me. Perhaps you might like to
> > > let us know to whom, apart from me, the idea of a Hitler/Wittgenstein
> > > connection has occurred in the past and the reasons why it was
> > > rejected? Having turned up a contemporary photograph of the adolescent
> > > Hitler and Wittgenstein centimetres apart and had both Random House
> > > and Ullstein place it on the hardcover edition of my book, I can
> > > assure you there was not even an inkling of my discovery in previous
> > > literature.
> >
> > I meant, not because others have sought it and rejected it, but
> > because experts in these fields do not seem to have considered it
> > worth seeking. And Hitler was photographed "centimetres apart" from a
> > great many people, since he moved in public circles. Advancing this
> > as evidence of any philosophical or ideological influence does make a
> > striking book jacket, admittedly.
> >
> Who, pray, are the experts you refer to who do not seem to have
> considered it worth seeking? Professor Moecker noted that Hitler and
> Wittgenstein had attended the same school in the mid 80s. My own book
> and articles beginning in 1994 made the very first suggestions that
> they might have interacted and the presence of Wittgenstein in the
> school photograph was entirely my own discovery. Please be specific if
> you think others might have anticipated my own investigations. I
> rather feel you will find a complete void. References to unnamed
> "experts" ought not be used to buttress your very strongly worded
> criticisms. Please name these alleged pre-1994 "experts" or else
> withdraw the allegation.
You appear to be driving yourself around in circles, by your failure
to read what I am actually saying. I have not introduced any
"experts" into the argument, nor did I claim that any of them or
anyone else specific might or might not have anticipated you*. It was
*you*, yourself!
You, in the fragment still quoted above, introduced these people --
so it's rather amusing to have you demand I name them! I am talking
about all those Holocaust researchers whom *you* asserted had missed
what was staring them in the face for seventy years (although since
the Holocaust only began about seventy years ago, that also could be
considered slapdash). My point, if I must spell it out again, was
that when any such large, eminent and persistent body as Holocaust
researchers miss something that you perceive, there may be two
distinct reasons -- the first, that you are a great deal more
perceptive and exhaustive than all of them; and the second, that they
saw nothing because there was nothing to see, and that you're the one
that's wrong.
Which of these two is the case depends very heavily on the quality of
your evidence, therefore. Because, as you yourself say, there have
been so many such researchers, the balance is weighted very heavily
towards the second reason. The onus is on you to prove your greater
perception, and anything unjustifiable or even weak on your side
pushes the balance down still further. That is why your willingness
to blur and gloss over such a central point as the crusader
connection robs your whole thesis of real substance. And that is why
you are having such a hard time here.
You are demanding we make vast concessions to safeguard the idea you
are so fond of. If we do that, we are debasing what interests us.
Many of us are more or less academic; we could no doubt, if we wish,
publish a hundred fascinating theories and concepts about Wagner on
evidence as tenuous as yours. I have a few pet ones myself; but I can
see the lack of support and possible flaws at crucial points. I
believe, up to a point, but I wouldn't ask anyone else to. Naturally
we are not delighted when you demand that we act as an awestruck
audience of acolytes, and that we don't remark that the King, if not
wholly naked, has a yawning gap in his nether regions.
After all, we wouldn't be doing you any particular service by keeping
silent. Anything we see could be seen, anything we say could be said,
by somebody a lot more critical, perhaps in a public arena. A
nasty-minded reviewer could make a total goat of you over this one,
and I could name a few highly reputable figures who would -- and
will. I know one distinguished Cambridge philosopher who would have
you for breakfast in a number of journals.
All of which is not to say that your idea is wrong. I am not judging
it -- only the proof you have presented, in which there was that one
enormous immediate flaw, which you have not remotely answered. Find
something more substantial, and we will read it with interest, and if
proven, applaud. But till then, the idea remains just that, an idea.
{*Although, interestingly, you produce one yourself; are there any more?}
--
mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk
Robert Laws
> For some reason, it changed all my Cornishes all became "Conrads"....no
> rational explanation, sorry....just focuses attention on the importance of
> accurate textual analysis....before pushing that "send" button.....
working, as I do, in the oil industry, I have to be constantly on my
guard against spell checkers changing "borehole" into "brothel".
Robert
Mike Scott Rohan
from la...@bcs.org.uk (Robert Laws) contains these words:
The spirit of the Rev. Spooner evidently lives on -- he for whom
Spoonerisms were named, such as "Who has not nurtured a half-warmed
fish?" Actually the real Spooner's talent was not for transposing
letters, but ideas. After delivering a very long and scholarly
sermon, he paused on his way out of the pulpit and remarked vaguely
"Oh -- by the way, every time I said Aristotle, I meant St.Paul!" I
wonder if one of his descendants first programmed the Windows spell checker...
Cheers,
Mike
--
mike.sco...@asgard.zetnet.co.uk
From Little, Brown, out now -- Shadow of the Seer, the sixth Winter
of the World novel
Visit my site at www.users.zetnet.co.uk/mike.scott.rohan
Monte
Details details...both words are about drilling, aren't they?
M
Charles Lincoln
wrote in message > >
> > working, as I do, in the oil industry, I have to be constantly on my
> > guard against spell checkers changing "borehole" into "brothel".
> >
> > Details details...both words are about drilling, aren't they?
>
> M
That was my initial thought, but I'm glad someone else said it
first.....This is distinctly off topic for the Wittgensteins, but it reminds
me that I've read somewhere that Wagner never made or acknowledged the
rather obvious (Freudian/Jungian whatever) connection or comparison to be
made between the term "Venusberg" and "Mons Veneris"---sounds disingenuous
to me....but you never know....Carlo Ginzburg (another one of my personal
"heros" of comparative mythology) in "The Night Battles" has an interesting
"sub-essay" on Venus and Frau Holde or Holle and the processions associated
with such fertility cults in Zentraleuropa....
Monte
> "Monte" <ring...@snet.net> wrote in message > la...@bcs.org.uk (Robert Laws)
> wrote in message > >
> > > working, as I do, in the oil industry, I have to be constantly on my
> > > guard against spell checkers changing "borehole" into "brothel".
> > >
> > > Details details...both words are about drilling, aren't they?
> >
> > M
>
> That was my initial thought, but I'm glad someone else said it
> first....
Well, I've always had a knack for saying tasteless things other people
only think about. maybe it was my Texas upbringing...shoot from the
hip and all that. A quarter century in New York and New England hasn't
cured me. Where in Texas are you "exiled" Charles? Must be south
central if you're near Dubyah's spread.
Monte
Charles Lincoln
Neuschwanstein or Bayreuth or even Luckenbach but its a great place to
endure exile if you have to---lots of trees, clean air, and raccoons....far
enough away from the pollution and growth run amok of Austin proper but easy
driving distance (by Texas standards anyhow). Still, I miss being able to
walk everywhere I'd ever want to go and having a wide choice of good
bookstores---instead of Barnes & Nobles critically spaced every five miles
between malls....yes, it's a form of exile. On the other hand, for what
you'd pay for a nice apartment in Boston, Cambridge, or Manhattan these
days, I could BUY W's place or the equivalent out here....What part of Texas
are you from? It turns out there're several Lone Star types on this very
tolerant group....
I still have to write something about Derrick's post on "legend" and "myth"
vs. "history" but my energy level is low....news:c42e1c14.02101...@posting.google.com...
Monte
> are you from? It turns out there're several Lone Star types on this very
> tolerant group....
I grew up in Wichita Falls. Boring place! Spent several years in
Austin pre-boom, when it was still pretty nice.
> I still have to write something about Derrick's post on "legend" and "myth"
> vs. "history" but my energy level is low....
We're all looking forward to that, after you charge the batteries!
best,
monte
Laon
took a whup to its atexan hide and taught it some Wagner, kept wanting
to turn "Parsifal" into "Pratfall". Which because it must have been a
slow day, struck me as kind of funny.
So I decided to let that Spellcheck sucker have its head, and tried it
on the whole damn _Parsifal_ cast. But it didn't know what to make of
Amfortas (I'd have turned Amfortas into former US Supreme Court judge
Abe Fortas, myself, but mebbe that's asking a lot of Spellcheck), nor
Gurnemantz, and the best it could do for Kundry was "Cundare", which I
don't know what it means. It did come up with "Titter" as a suggested
correction for Titurel, and "Clinger" for Klingsor, so I gave it
another chance.
With the "Ring" cast, I tried it on "die Rheinmädchen" and it had no
suggestions to offer. But I broke the compound up, to see what it'd
make of die Rhein Mädchen, and it came through like a trooper with
"die, Rhenic Madmen." (Yeah, I improved it with the comma; I'm only
human.) So I fed my Spellcheck the whole _Ring_ cast, with two rules:
I could pick the best of the alternatives offered, but I couldn't make
any of the suggestions up, no sir, I could not tell a lie. Here's the
cast of the Spellcheck _Ring_ (a couple of times I used Thesaurus,
too; Thesaurus suggestions are indicated with an *).
In order of appearance, and not repeating cast members coming back for
another opera, with Wagner's cast on the left and Spellcheck's cast on
the right:
Das Rheingold: Dads Rhinegold
Die Rhein Mädchen: Die, Rhenic Madmen
Flosshilde: Flotilla*
Welgunde: Welling
Woglinde: Wobbly*
Die Nibelung: Die, Nibbling
Alberich: Alberto
Mime: Spellcheck knows him, so he's just fine as he is, thanks
Die Götter: Die, Gutter
Wotan: Woman
Fricka: Frock
Freia: Freer
Donner: Downer
Froh: Froth
Loge: also known to Spellcheck
Die Reisen: Die Risen
Fasolt: Fast
Fafnir: Fanfare
Erda: Erode
Die Walküre: Die Walker
Die Volsung: Die, Vaulting
Wolfing: oddly, Spellcheck knew this name
Wehwalt: Welfare* (Thesaurus also offered a near-translation: Weeping)
Frohwalt: Frolic* (almost spooky, that)
Friedmund: Friedman (Milton, though shouldst be living at this hour;
oh, it seems you are.)
Siegmund: Siege* (still oddly appropriate)
Sieglinde: Signalled*
Walküren: Walker
Brinhilde: Brindle
Waltraute: Wallet, also Wanton*
Rossweisse: Crosswise
Grimgirde: Grinder*
Schwertleite: Scheming*
Helmwige: Helmsman*
Gerhilde: Germane*
Siegrune: Sightless*
Die Töten: Die, tot.
Sintold der Hegeling: Scintilla der Hegelian
Wittig der Irming: Witting der Irking
Siegfried: Significance*
Wanderer: Wotan's thin disguise as "Wanderer" didn't trouble
Spellcheck for a second
Waldvogel: Wakeful*
Götterdämmerung: Oddly, Spellcheck knows the word "Götterdämmerung"
Die Nornen: Die, Norman
Erste Norn: Erse Norm
Zweite Norn: Sweetie Norm
Dritte Norn: Dirty Norm
Die Gibichung: Die Gibbeting
Gibich: Gibbet
Grimgerde: Grimwade
Frau Grimhilde: Frau Grimace
Gunther: Gunfire*
Gutrune: Gutter*
Hagen: Hag*
It's weird, but some of the names seem poetically appropriate. Or
mebbe I'd best stay away from the bleach-based hair products, podners.
Thank you. That is all.
Cheers!
Laon