Wagner's Ring Cycle And The Greeks

Daniel H. Foster

Through his reading of primary and secondary classical sources, as well as his theoretical writings, Richard Wagner developed a Hegelian-inspired theory linking the evolution of classical Greek politics and poetry. This book demonstrates how, by turning theory into practice, Wagner used this evolutionary paradigm to shape the music and the libretto of the Ring cycle. Foster describes how each of the Ring’s operas represents a particular phase of Greek poetic and political development: Das Rheingold and Die Walküre create epic national identity in its earlier and later stages respectively: Siegfried expresses lyric personal identity: and Götterdämmerung destructively culminates with a tragi-comedy about civic identity. This study sees the Greeks through the lens of those scholars whose work influenced Wagner most, focusing on epic, lyric, and comedy, as well as Greek tragedy. Most significantly, the book interrogates the ways in which Wagner uses Greek aesthetics to further his own ideological goals.

Bibliographic Details

14 music examples

Contents

• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I. Epic: 1. Introduction: what is epic?
• 2. Retrospective narrative and the epic process
• 3. The orchestral narrator and elementary epic
• 4. Spiritual and factual realities in epic
• Part II. Lyric: 5. Introduction: what is lyric?
• 6. Orpheus and lyric liberation
• 7. First-person opera and lyric identity
• 8. Lyric and the rebirth of tragedy
• Part III. Drama: 9. Introduction: what is drama?
• 10. Opera and tragedy
• 11. Opera and comedy
• 12. Resolution and ambiguity in comedy and tragedy
• Epilogue: Time, the Ring, and performance studies
• Appendices: Wagners primary and secondary sources: Introduction
• Appendix A. Wagners primary sources
• Appendix B. secondary scholarship by authors Wagner knew personally
• Appendix C. Secondary scholarship by authors Wagner knew by reputation or by reading
• Bibliography.