Satoshi Akima <[log in to unmask]>  writes:

>...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....

Yes, and among them are the distant, cold, and aloof view of a modern
philosopher of music Nelson Goodman who defines a work of music "as a
class of performanceas complying with notation."

Wagner was outstandingly handy with notation, so much so that he stood
out for his inventiveness in it.  As for his aptitude in the pursuit of
speculative philosophy the most that can be said for him, at least as far
as I'm concerned, is that he was aware of the backdrop of theory of his
times.  He was also aware of the spirit that imbued the literaaature of
the Sturm und Drang and the attendant mode of Romanticism.  But as a writer
or theorist Wagner was second-rate, though well enough known in these
fields in his own time.

Wagner's music is splendid as music --and forget the rest, if only to leave
the man with a soaring reputation in the one field that was truly his.
There's a "deeper meaning" to the text of the Ring only in the way that
there's a deeper meaning to the fiction of Tolkien.

Denis Fodor