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 [log in to unmask]