Author: L. J. RatherPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
"In The Ring of the Nibelung Richard Wagner presented his understanding of the cause of the crisis of the industrialist-capitalist age. With penetrating insight, L. J. Rather explores the mythic, conceptual significance of Wagner's themes in that great music-drama and shows how it is 'the supreme artistic expression of a nightmare that began increasingly to haunt the conscience of Europe early in the nineteenth century--the dream of a day of judgment lying in wait for a race that had lost touch with the source of truly human life in its frenzied quest for gold and power without end, a quest for a false Grail in which the ruthless, self-seeking male principle had been given a free rein, and the communal, nourishing female principle, though becoming increasingly restive, was sharply held in check and confined at home.' New features of Rather's broadly based work include an account of Wagner's psychosocial analysis of the Oedipus myth in relation to the structure and meaning of the Ring, and his call for a better balance between male and female principles and for the unconscious to be raised to the level of the conscious. Rather also provides a demonstration of the unity of Wagner's social theory and his theory of the music-drama, as well as an account of some generally overlooked relationships between Jewish ethnocentrism and the rising tide of theories of Nordic supremacy in nineteenth-century Europe and America. Throughout, Rather draws extensively from the writings of Wagner and Schopenhauer. He also bases his study on such writers as Heine, Marx, Disraeli, Kant, Freud, and Mann and includes a chapter dealing with George Bernard Shaw's lifetime involvement with the theme of the Ring. Indeed, the breadth of Rather's impressive study makes it one in which a wide variety of readers--historians, philosophers, those interested in Wagner and opera, students and scholars of modern literature and culture--will find much merit." --Jacket.