Treacherous Bonds and Laughing Fire: Politics and Religion in Wagner's RingMark Berry explores the political and religious ideas expounded in Wagner's 'Ring' through close attention to the text and drama, the multifarious intellectual influences upon the composer during the work's lengthy gestation and composition, and the wealth of Wagner source material. Many of his writings are explicitly political in their concerns, for Wagner was emphatically not a revolutionary solely for the sake of art. Yet it would be misleading to see even the most 'political' tracts as somehow divorced from the aesthetic realm; Wagner's radical challenge to liberal-democratic politics makes no such distinction. This book considers Wagner's treatment of various worlds: nature, politics, economics, and metaphysics, in order to explain just how radical that challenge is.Classical interpretations have tended to opt either for an 'optimistic' view of the 'Ring', centred upon the influence of Young Hegelian thought |
Contents
Problems and opportunities | 1 |
The intellectual and biographical background | 17 |
Musical drama | 43 |
The natural world and its despoliation | 57 |
Property capital and production | 79 |
Law government and the state | 111 |
The strength and weakness of religion | 145 |
Other editions - View all
Treacherous Bonds and Laughing Fire: Politics and Religion in Wagner's Ring Mark Berry Limited preview - 2017 |
Treacherous Bonds and Laughing Fire: Politics and Religion in Wagner's Ring Mark Berry Limited preview - 2017 |
Treacherous Bonds and Laughing Fire: Politics and Religion in Wagner's Ring Mark Berry No preview available - 2016 |
Common terms and phrases
æsthetic Alberich artistic Bakunin Bauer Bayreuth become Beethoven Berlin Boulez bourgeois Brünnhilde Brünnhilde's Cambridge claim consciousness crucial Dahlhaus Das Liebesverbot Das Rheingold death deed dialectic Die Walküre divine Engels eternal existence Fafner Feuerbach Feuerbachian Fourier freedom Freia Fricka G.F.W. Hegel German Gibichungs gods gold Götterdämmerung Hagen Hegel Heine hero Herwegh Hess Ibid idea immortality J.W. von Goethe labour Letter Loge Loge's London Ludwig Feuerbach Marcuse Marx Mime motif Example myth Nattiez Nature never Nibelheim Nibelungs opera Philosophie der Geschichte political Proudhon realise recognise redemption rejection religion remains representation revolution revolutionary Rheingold Rhine Rhinemaidens Richard Wagner ring's Röckel Romantic Ruge Sämtliche Werke Schiller Schopenhauer Schopenhauer's Schopenhauerian search of Wagner Siegfried Siegfried's Sieglinde Siegmund social society spear Stirner T.W. Adorno Tannhäuser Tarnhelm tonality tragedy transformation Valhalla Volsung Wagner's music Walküre Wapnewski whilst words Wotan writes Young Hegelians