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Table of Contents

Title Page
Dedication Page
General Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations for key references
Guide to abbreviations used in text
Allen Dunning's numbered Guide to the Ring's Musical Motifs
Detailed Table of Contents

The Ring

Introduction


References
Appendix I
Appendix I I

Key Colour Coding

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I would be grateful for donations of any size, small or large, to help defray the cost (1) of maintaining this website, (2) and to finance my past and present research which produced my book posted here, Volume One of "The Wound That Will Never Heal," and my forthcoming revision of Volume One (to be submitted for publication), and completion of Volume Two on Wagner's six other canonic operas and music-dramas. I sacrificed at least seven years of paid employment and incurred debts to complete this project, and am currently unemployed, so I thank you in advance for any financial help you can provide. Your friend, Paul Heise.

[[#21]] Wotan's “Spear” of Divine Authority and Law (the Social Contract)

Wotan’s Spear, inscribed with the Social Contract, represents the prudence of egoism: this is an agreement whereby man’s egoistic motives, represented by the Giants, give authority to actual leaders and laws, or to products of the imagination like gods, to restrain each individual’s ego, to force each man to do good, for the sake of security and quiet for the majority, the common good.

(#21 basis for #28, #32b; #60, #62, #81AB, #96AB, #137, #164, and perhaps #115; #21's inversion basis for #47 and #82; one of three motifs comprising #83)

[See #20 for the dramatic context of the inception of #21’s Embryonic form. The fully Definitive version of #21 is first heard after Donner has tried to intervene by force to stop the Giants from taking Freia, who is the payment Wotan agreed to make to the Giants for building Valhalla, a contract engraved on his Spear. Wotan forcefully stops him, invoking the authority of his Spear:]

 "Wotan: (to Donner: [[ #21 ]] Stop, you firebrand! Nothing by force! My spearshaft safeguards contracts: Spare your hammer's haft!"

[[#22]] “Love's Longing” for Fidelity

(#22 basis for #64a; #74, #99, and perhaps #106 and #156b?)

Fricka: What is still sacred and precious to hard hearts such as yours when you menfolk lust after power? (#19)

 

Wotan: (#19?) Was such lust unknown to Fricka when she begged me for the building?

 

"Fricka: [[ #22 ]] Heedful of my husband's fidelity, I'm bound in my sadness to brood on ways of binding him fast whenever he feels drawn away: [[ #23 ]] A glorious dwelling, domestic bliss were meant to entice you to tarry and rest. But, in having it built, you thought of bulwark and berm alone: it is meant to enhance your dominion and power; yet only to whip up greater unrest has the towering stronghold been built.

 

Wotan: (#23) If your aim, as my wife, was to hold me fast in the fortress, you must grant that I, as a god, while confined to the stronghold, might win (#20a modulation?) for myself the world outside. (#20b) All who live love renewal and change: (#20d) that pleasure I cannot forego!”