Stirling Newberry wrote:

>in Wagner's writing he collides head on with this problem - how to
>reconcile these two irreconcilable poles.  alas he, like millions of
>others, would vere towards the idea of patrinomy being determinant of
>identity, and hence create the artificial problem of purifying the blood.
>because, after all, if the blood is impure then destiny cannot be reached.
>his obsession has a personal and autobiographical angle, and its expression
>in art dramas is hard to deny, the entire plot of the ring hinges on the
>question of purification of the taint of blood *and the impossibility of
>doing so*.

There is an additional aspect on this, which as you states it is fully
possible.

The other problem Wagner collideed head with was how he should in most
proper way form his "Gesamtkunstwerk".  At the time for writing the Ring,
he made a stepaside and composed "Tristan und Isolde" and "meistwersinger",
and with those he solved the pure formal writing; he achieved and got
insight in how he should form his "Gesamtkunstwerk" when a matter of the
writing procedure; he finally wrote works where the *music* is the most
overpowering communicative factor of the work.  This stands in sharp
opposition to his earlier ideas about a "Gesamtkunstwerk", for which he had
preeched for many years in many articles, the *texts* greater importance
for understanding of an opera.  What he created ca1857-1865 was in fact
the very opposite to tyhe ideas he had written in polemic scripts for long:
He realized that he had solved the musical problems to continue, but how to
save his position as theorist? he had made many statements which needed to
be explained anew and incorporated in his new estetics of heart.  And how
to solve this?

Mats