Crying "Wolf"? A Review Essay on Recent Wagner Literature

Long before Richard Wagner emerged as a political and theatrical figure around the time of Bismarck’s 1871 German unification, which gave full citizenship to Germany’s Jewish minority, antisemitism was already ubiquitous and entrenched. Martin Luther in his 1543 treatise 'On Jews and their Lies', had urged that rabbis be forbidden to preach, their prayer books destroyed, Jewish synagogues, schools and homes set afire, and that the Jews’ money and property should be confiscated. They should be shown neither kindness nor mercy, nor should they be afforded legal protection. Luther wrote that “these poisonous envenomed worms" should be either permanently expelled or drafted into forced labour. When he wrote, "we are at fault in not slaying them" however, Luther was in effect advocating genocide. Against this iniquitous background, Wagner’s antisemitism is comprehensively set, not only in contemporary literature, but by himself in his twice published treatise 'Das Judenthum in der Musik', alongside other writings and personal correspondence. Nevertheless, prominent Jews numbered amongst Wagner’s closest friends, for example, his favourite conductor, Hermann Levi, who conducted 'ParsifaI', Wagner’s paean to Christianity, and who was invited to be a pallbearer at the master’s funeral. In light of his toxic and verbose animus towards all things Jewish, what sort of intimate conversations could Richard Wagner possibly be expected to have been able to have with Jews in his circle of friends, and what sort of discourse might he have enjoyed with the likes of his great admirer, Adolf Hitler? Would Wagner have approved of the Third Reich and all it connoted?

2013

In his book on aesthetics and Nazi politics, translated in 2004 as The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany, Eric Michaud, Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, wrote that National Socialist attention to the arts was intended "to present the broken [German] Volk with an image of its 'eternal Geist' and to hold up to it a mirror capable of restoring to it the strength to love itself." 1 I came upon this, among other ideas of Michaud, when preparing the conceptual framework for my own book, Inhumanities: Nazi Interpretations of Western Culture, just released by Cambridge University Press. Considering his book last year, I found a number of Michaud's concepts very intriguing, but only made general references to them in my Introduction and Conclusion. The gist of these ideas will be familiar to readers of George Mosse, whom Michaud should have cited more vigorously. However, I found that Michaud put some of the key concepts of the History of Nazi Culture more strongly than I have read elsewhere, and also that they seemed to resonate with much of the material I uncovered in my research. Above all, Michaud insisted that Nazi cultural politics was not just a matter of "propagandizing" the party platform in cultural terms. Instead, he insisted that it was a central component of the National Socialist world view, with an active, not merely reflective, role in the life and actions of the Nazi party and regime. As Michaud put it, we cannot "account for this phenomenon by simply resorting to the term propaganda" and assuming that Nazism was just "making art serve its political ends." 2 To see what Mosse termed "Nazi culture" as mere propaganda is an underestimation of its seminal function in the workings of National Socialism. In Michaud's words, again, through Nazi representations of Cultural History-"the Geist, the internal or spiritual Reich, was phenomenalized. .. Hitler was convinced that German art contained the power that. .. could save the sick Germans. In answer to party militants who [questioned] the need to 'sacrifice so much to art,'.. . he retorted confidently that what had to be achieved was no less than the 'strengthening of the protective moral armor of the nation."' 3 Thus did references to the History of Western Humanities-as constructed according to a fairly longstanding "Germanic" point of view-have an formative function in the Nazi program. Through them, the Volk would, as Michaud wrote, "fabricate its own ideal image. .. that would constitute the model and guide capable of propelling it toward its own salvation. Neither

2016

2019

Nietzsche and Wagner’s relationship has been repeatedly analyzed in recent decades. Several philosophical, social, psychological and artistic aspects of this relation have been explained in detail in articles and books. Th is article attempts to investigate the hidden parts of this relation, relying on the documents left behind by Nietzsche on the one hand and on the other hand the assessments performed on the attitude of Wagner. In the other words, the main objective here is to distinguish unclear infl uences of this complicated relationship, taking into account the notable documents and signs, left behind by Nietzsche. Th eir fundamental views from their thoughts border that is certainly the music to the realms of politics and sociology are concisely investigated. Th e similarities and diff erences are analyzed between their opinions, based on their philosophical requirements. Th e time journey has been supposed as the key parameter during the relationship and it has been tried to...

2010

Noble morality, master morality, conversely, is rooted in a triumphant Yes said to oneself-it is selfaffirmation, self-glorification of life; it also requires sublime symbols and practices, but only because "its heart is too full". All of beautiful, all of great art belongs here: the essence of both is gratitude." 1 Thus does Friedrich Nietzsche encapsulate the positive aspect of his ethical outlook in The Case of Wagner, his ferocious polemic against the composer of Tristan, Parsifal and the Ring cycle. This polemic is part and parcel of Nietzsche's attack on Christianity and Platonism. Of course, Nietzsche's relation to these two traditions is complex and not at all easy to define. Still, whatever is the case with Nietzsche the deep thinker, Nietzsche the conscious polemicist identifies Christianity and Platonism with asceticism, self-denial founded not in the will to a higher life beyond the immediacy of passion but rather in simple negativity: a resentful turning of life against itself in loathing and self hatred. This self hatred issues in modern liberalism and utilitarianism (with its misguided notions of sympathy and compassion) and in the spirit of modern science, which carries forward the ascetic outlook of Christian-Platonism even as it pretends to attack it. Thus does Nietzsche diagnose the sickness that saps modern civilization of its life and robs it of the joyous affirmation of its will to power. What is more, he finds in the operas of Richard Wagner a dangerous and corrupting expression of this malaise. In the following paper I wish to examine the complex relationship that Nietzsche had to the art of Richard Wagner. For Nietzsche, Wagner came to typify the arch-ascetic: the very embodiment of the world and life denying will expressed in Christianity, Platonism and modernity. 2 Ironically, this is for the exact same features as drew Nietzsche to Wagner in the first place. There is a self-overcoming in Wagner that the young Nietzsche takes for Dionysian and naturalistic self-forgetting but that the older Nietzsche rejects as ascetical. How can Wagner's operas ground such disparate perceptions? Indeed, what actually happens in those operas apart from Nietzsche's polemic against them? Wagner's most passionately erotic opera, Tristan, does seem (at first glance) to bear out something of Nietzsche's critique for it involves an apparent valorization of the death instinct over life ; ironically, this is the Wagnerian music drama most praised by Nietzsche in his pro-Wagner phase and least dammed in his 1 Nietzsche, Friedrich The Case of Wagner trans. W. Kaufmann (Random House, Toronto 1967) p. 191 2 This is, at least, is his general point though he has more immediate objectons as well. Wagner is, according to Nietzsche, incapable of large scale musical form. (Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, p. 170-171) He cannot let go of an intense moment of passion but stretches it to absurdity. (Nietzsche, p. 172) He is incapable of melody and cannot be danced to. (Nietzsche, p. 168) He is as impotent to construct a dramatc crisis as he is to resolve one. (Nietzsche, p. 175) He is an actor who became a musician and had his revenge on music by subordinatng it to text. (Nietzsche, p. 174-1750) One can go on and on. I will not be addressing such objectons in this paper both because they strike me, by and large, as unpersuasive and because I do not think they really refect what Nietzsche is angry about. Nor will I be addressing casual jibes, such as the (textually inaccurate) observaton that Wagner's heroines are never pregnant (unlike Nietzsche's beloved Carmen?). (Nietzsche, p. 176) This later though, is indicatve of a note of ant-feminism that is a persistent undercurrent in Nietzsche's diatribe. That said I will try to concentrate in this essay on what I take to be Nietzsche's philosophical objectons to Wagner.

Journal of Religion & Health, 1995

Fifty years after his death by suicide, Adolf Hitler continues to arouse profound feelings of revulsion and attraction. This paper is an exploration of Hitler's psyche from the perspective of a depth psychology. After examining analyses of Hilter's personality by Richard Rubenstein and Alice Miller, the argument is made that we need C.G. Jung's concept of psychic inflation to understand more fully Hitler's impact upon the world. Hitler is seen as inflated by the compensating energies of the Self in response to his deeply wounded ego, a wound he could not mourn. Consequently, he became identified with the dark and destructive energies of the Self which inflated and then usurped his ego. Hitler's demonic and destructive career resulted from that inflation, which he was not able to neutralize. The paper concludes with reflections on the role of mourning in protecting us from the experience of psychic inflation, especially by the Self in its dark and destructive aspects.

Nietzsche-Studien, 2011

Below, I argue that Nietzsche was only a true Wagnerian for fifteen months rather than for the fourteen years as still widely believed. I claim that definite proof of Wagner-enthusiasm on Nietzsche's part is not traceable before November 1868 and that he expresses his first doubt about Wagner in February 1870, hence one year earlier than Landerer and Schuster (2005) argued. My claim is based on an examination of Nietzsche's reflections on Wagner and German avant-garde music in letters and notes drafted between 1858 and 1870. I particularly focus on neglected sources such as the reports of the Germania Society, Nietzsche's reception of Louis Ehlert's Letters on Music to a Lady, Jahn's Essays on Music, and Oswald Marbach's essay on the Rebirth of Drama in Music, and his journalism for the Deutsche Allgemeine. My conclusion that Nietzsche's unconditional Wagnerism lasted for fifteen months rather than for fourteen years is especially important for the understanding of Wagner's influence on the The Birth of Tragedy. Nietzsche's early doubt concerning Wagner implies that The Birth of Tragedy must be reassessed in view of its diagnosis of modern culture, the cultural powers ascribed to Wagner's music, and the identification of Wagner's music with Dionysus and the Greek, aesthetic view of art, science, and life.

2008

Lecture lecture was delivered on 1 st December by Dr. Gottfried Wagner. The theme, as agreed, was: Cultural History and Politics with the title" From Richard Wagner to Adolf Hitler". In this very well attended event, Dr. Wagner, an anti-Nazi musicologist and historian who is a direct descendent of Richard Wagner, spoke on the connection between the operas composed by Richard Wagner and the political developments in Germany after its unification and more markedly with the rise of the National Socialist regime.

Since the middle of the twentieth century Wagner has commonly been considered a figure of the Right. The British newspaper The Guardian, for example, recently contained a review that stated quite simply that Wagner is seen as "a horrible right-winger" and that the "word 'Wagnerian' tends to summon up images of some leathery old fascist with a season ticket to Bayreuth." 1 This is obviously a crude oversimplification, even by journalistic standards, but it does reflect a widespread view of the politics of Wagner and Wagnerians following their colonization by Nazism. While several important aspects of Wagner's own writings and thought can undoubtedly be called upon to support his reactionary credentials, including his pronounced anti-Semitism, his nationalism, and the deepening cultural pessimism of his later period, the ideological implication and possibilities of Wagner's work are hardly monolithic. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the political lines of Wagner's significance were far less clearly drawn than they may seem from today's vantage.; for example, around 1900 various efforts were made to enlist Wagner in causes that were avowedly Left socialist and/or politically revolutionary, as in the cases of George