Wagner and the Dionysian Experience of Rapture
        - Wagner and Deconstructionism -

   Zarathustras Mitternachtlied

   O Mensch! Gib acht!
   Was spricht die tiefe Mitternacht?
   Ich schlief!
   Aus tiefem Traum bin ich erwacht!
   Die Welt ist tief!
   Und tiefer als der Tag gedacht!
   O Mensch! O Mensch!
   Tief, tief, tief ist ihr Weh!
   Lust, tiefer noch als Herzeleid!
   Weh spricht: vergeh!
   Doch alle Lust will Ewigkeit!
   will tiefe, tiefe Ewigkeit!<<

   Zarathustra's Midnight Song

   O man, take care!
   what does the deep midnight declare?
   "I was asleep-
   From a deep dream I woke and swear:
   The world is deep,
   Deeper than day had been aware.
   Deep is its woe;
   Joy - deeper yet than agony:
   Woe implores: Perish!
   But all joy wants eternity-
   Wants deep, wants deep eternity."

These are the words from Nietzsche's "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" (translation
modified from Walter Kaufmann) that Gustav Mahler chose to set in his 3rd
Symphony.

Achim Breiling replies to me:

>>I can think of so many operas, movies, novels which fail to have the
>>profundity and depth that the Ring conveys.
>
>Of course!  But I also can think of quite many works that are as profound
>or even more so than the Ring.  The Ring is not a special case concerning
>profundity.

In my experience the most profound works are not necessarily the easiest to
understand.  Nietzsche's Zarathustra is a good case in point.  It is a work
far more deeply influenced by Wagner than is commonly admitted.  Of course
Nietzsche is a greater master of the German language than Wagner ever was
but just as in Wagner the rhapsodic language conceals the extraordinary
complexity of the philosophical weight that the metaphoric language is
forced to carry.  The above passage contains the essence of Nietzsche's
critique of Schopenhauer's (and thus Wagner's) metaphysics of suffering:
That is his philosophy that 'meaningless suffering' is the most fundamental
experience in human existence.  In Schopenhauer-Wagner suffering is
something totally meaningless which demands resignation from the Blind
Will, the source of all suffering.  That, and the consequent Resignation
to Death is the final goal that Wotan must fulfil, and is granted by
Bruennhilde in the Ring.  The above quote passage from Zarathurstra shows
how Nietzsche's whole philosophy is a fundamental attempt overcome this
pessimism.

>Thus you want to tell me that Wagner is a philosopher on a related level
>than Hegel and that he wrote the Ring to tell his view of the world and
>thus uses such a terrible language I and most educated people just do not
>understand and can just react with laughter?

Firstly in my opinion nobody as a philosopher can be the equal of Hegel.
If I had said that I would be guilty indeed of blindly uncritical Wagner
worship.  I have said that Wagner's aesthetics are heavily influenced by
Hegel.  There is a difference.  Having said that it is Schopenhauer's
transcendental Idealist metaphysics of music which so deeply impressed
Wagner that it is not possible to fully appreciate it without understanding
it.  However Wagner had previously been a Hegelian and his influence I
believe remained strong, even where he began to accept Schopenhauer's
claim that Hegel was a 'charlatan'.

>In my post I was just commenting on the quality of Wagner's language, not
>the philosophy behind it (which I maybe really do not understand.)

The form of the literary style and its content cannot be separated, as
so many of the words and metaphors he used have profoundly philosophical
connotations.  As I say I welcome criticism of Wagner but this business of
laughing because he writes in a very difficult style still strikes me as
being simply too facile.  Like Mats I also love to read the original texts
of the late works in German.  It's not an easy read but that doesn't stop
me from finding it deeply satisfying - even revelatory.

>I have the impression that Wagner's musical dramas can be and have been
>used and interpreted in many ways beyond its musical content.  For me
>Wagner remains as a truly important composer and that is what counts for
>me.

Yes it is precisely here the problem with trying to dissociate Wagner
from the philosophical foundations of his aesthetics becomes impossible.
In this instance just listening to the music means to listen from an aloof
contemplative distance.  Yet it is precisely the ideological possibility of
maintaining such a 'distance' that Wagner's whole philosophical aesthetic
rejects.  That aesthetic is fundamentally that which can be found in
Nietzsche as the aesthetics of Rapture.  Rapture is what DESTROYS the
distance between the contemplator and the work.  It is the 'DESTRUCTION'
of the subject-object divide, which I would argue is the basis of the
philosophy of art in all German philosophy after Hegel.  This is the
fundamental Dionysian experience which Nietzsche articulated so well in
"The Birth of Tragedy", written at a time he very much under both Wagner
and Schopenhauer's spell:

   Either under the influence of the narcotic draught, of which the
   songs of all primitive men and peoples speak, or with potent coming
   of spring that penetrates all nature with joy, these Dionysian emotions
   awake, and as they grow in intensity everything subjective vanishes
   into complete self-obliviousness.

This state of Rapture is state of transport beyond the subjectivity of the
self, which according to Schopenhauer is consigned in that moment to
oblivion.  It is a moment like the moment Isolde dies in state of the
Rapture of unbearable suffering, to melt away into the ecstasy (hoechste
Lust) of oblivion (unbewusst) and the vast realms of the world's breath
(Welt-Atem):

   In dem wogenden Schwall,
   in dem toenenden Schall,
   in des Welt-Atems
   wehendem All -
   ertrinken -
   versinken -
   unbewusst -
   hoechste Lust!

   ...into the surging swell
   into the resounding sound
   into the breath of the world
   wafting through all -
   to drown -
   to sink -
   oblivious -
   supreme bliss!

Here music and the philosophy of Rapture are totally inseparable.  There
are any two ways of reacting to this.  The first is childish giggling, the
other is Rapture.

Rapture and the destruction of the subject-object division that allows the
contemplator to remain distant, cold and aloof, has subsequently come to be
discuss in differnet terms in the 20th century.  The 'destruction' of this
'ontological' division has come to be replaced by a more moderate term:
'Deconstruction.' This brings us into the depth of the most philosophically
influential movements in literary circles in recent memory: That of
Derrida and the issue of Deconstructionism.

Satoshi Akima
Sydney, Australia
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