Satoshi Akima <[log in to unmask]> has pole position in his McLaren,
but now in the race I will try to overtake him with my Ferrari:

>In fact it was when he came to write the scene for Wotan's Rage in Die
>Walkuere that he can to feel that the whole meaning of the Ring cycle was
>Schopenhauerian.  He even dedicated the text of the work to Schopenhauer,
>and sent a copy of the work to him.
>
>Thus Wotan says in Act II of Die Walkuere:
>
> The curse from which I fled still has not left me:
> I must forsake what I love,
> Murder whom I love,
> Deceive and betray he who in me trusts.
> Away then all the lordly splendour,
> Divine pride and shameful vaunting!
> Let it all to pieces crumble, all that I have built.
> My work I give up. Only one thing do I now will:
> The end ... The end!

Mr. Akima has posted much interesting on this subject, and I chosed to
quote these lines above from him as I think these are the most convincing
arguments for his standpoint on the influence of Schopenhauer in Wagner.

I liked Mr. Akimas post, and I think I might understand his idea about the
Ring, but I just don't agree with him that "the whole meaning of the Ring
cycle was Schopenhauerian".

First of all:  the Schopenhauerian influence is big in Wagners Ringcycle,
but Wagners original ideas from the revolutions of 1848 has nothing to
do with Schopenhauer (notice that Wagner didn't know Schopenhauer at this
time).  Wagner had already skissed the full draft to the Ring when he begun
reading Schopenhauer, and the original ideas to the Ring were communist,
with the burning down of Walhalla as the burning down of Paris, the
capitalist capitol, with which the revolution should start.  Many elements
from this time survived the many revisions of the Ring.  The quotation from
Wotan above is a part of Wagners next influence (Schopenhauer), but the
whole "Siegfried" and much of "Goetterdaemmerung" is there to tell the
story about Siegfried, which was Wagners ideal, "free", man in the new
society he wanted to found.  I mean that the actual existance of Siegfried
is a sign of Wagenrs revolutionary socialist thoughts.  If Wagner had begun
creating the Ring with Schopenhauer in mind, he might have chosen a
completely different story.  I also want to quote one of those famous
letters Wagner wrote to Roeckl 25/1 1854 (my translation from swedish,
apologizes):

   "...he [wotan] is exactly US alike:  the sum of the intelligentia of
   our time.  Siegfrieds is the man of the future!"

But I wanted to stress that the outer circumstances in Wagners life must
be considerd when you study the birth of the Ring:  1848, the revolutionary
and socialist thoughts, which for Wagner meant that a new society should be
created, with what he - the ego - meant a society that would fit his art
better (think of Lohengrin!).  But the revolution of 1848 didn't bring that
time the new society, and the revolutionists became dissillusioned, and it
was in this dissolution Wagner discovered Schopenhauer, and it is likely
that that contributed to give Wagner influence from him.

This influence caused Wagner to LOOK AT HIS RING WITH NEW EYES, from a
new perspective, and NOT TO (significantlly) CHANGE THE CONTENT of the
ring after his new ideas.  I here refer to the letter to Roeckel of 23/8
1856 where he writes:  "Something sprung to me, different from my original
ideas" etc.  It was at that time Wagner finished the end of "Die Walkuere",
which Mr.  Akima quoted above.  Wagner did never change the original ideas
of the ring, but he made adjustments here and there, as he had
Schopenhauers ideas in his mind, about the reject of the grab for power
and the will to live.

One change that Wagner actually did, was the end of the cycle, Brunnhildas
Immolation, whcih he mentions in a letter to Roeckl (sorry I cant find my
source this time).  This adjusted ending Wagenr wrote in May 1856 BUT he
excluded it when he composed the music in 1872, and wrote that ending
that is the final version of the Ring.  Here Wagner mixes his original
ideas with the Schopenhauer influence.  Wagner goes one step longer than
Schopenhauer and claims that LOVE can be the healing for human, not the
rejection of will to live.  However it is important to stress that this is
not an ideal love - agape or etos - but the real love (eros), that between
man and woman.

Wagner is of course once again talking about his new community.

Wagner was caught in a typical problem of his time as he was a communist
but also a nationalist, and the reject of will wasn't for him possible to
unity with his support of his countrys powerexpansion 1864-1871.  Take
notice that Wagner erased the Schopenhauerending shortly after the
proclamation of the German Empire in 1871....

I apologize to the messy arguing, but I am lacking time.  I hope Mr.
Akima find anything intersting in my response, and others as well.  But
to conclude, I can let others "selig auf seinem Fasson sein" if they want
to wiew the Ringcycle as Schopenhauerian, just not forget that it is not
a genuinely schopenhauerian work; ythere are many other influences, and
Schopenhauers is big, but not shadowing the others.  To wiew the Ring as
solely Schopenhauerian is not more successful or more right than G.B Shaws
interpretation.

Mats Norrman
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