Robert Peters <[log in to unmask]> replies to me:

>Mats Norrmann wrote:
>
>>Are you kidding man? Wagner had a great lot of humour, and that he
>>expressed in his works too.
>
>God, I am sorry!  You are right: Wagner is a great humourist.  Just
>listened to the Ring again today.  Tremendous funny beginning: the Maidens
>singing "Weia!  Wega" Goodness: Weia!  Waga!  And then: "Wagalaweia!"
>Fantastic!  Wagalaweia!  Now that's what I really call funny.
>Tremendous...

With Wagner I think it is so that his humour can be cynic, absurd as well
as wonderful....one needs to pick up what is essential and keep a distance
to the rest.  It just requires the ability to sift the wheat from the
chaff, and I don't say that is easy.  We're all like lost sheep...Humor
is a wonderful way to get and express distance to things.

>(And please do not think strange words like these have anything to do with
>Medieval German.  I did my thesis on Medieval German, you know.  It is
>nothing but fantasy, unintentional funny fantasy.  - A longer mail on the
>Ring's language will follow.  - By the way: the Stabreim is nothing but a
>special form of the alliteration, and Wagner uses Stabreime en masse in the
>Ring.  "Walle zur Wiege" - that is a pure Stabreim as "Kind und Kegel" in
>Modern German.)

Yes "Stabreime" is allitteration. Sorry I misread the 'Spellrhyming' for
"Endrhyming".

Mats Norrman
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