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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.

languishing, (#45) lord of the Ring, as slave of the Ring (#51?) till the circlet I hold in my hand once again! – And so in highest need [“hoechster Noth”] the Nibelung blesses his Ring. Keep it now (laughing) and guard it well: (grimly) you’ll not escape from my curse! (He disappears quickly into the crevice. #5: The thick mists in the foreground slowly clear. #7)

 

Loge: Did you hear his fond farewell?

 

Wotan: (#20a?: Lost in contemplation of the Ring on his finger) Don’t begrudge him his bilious pleasure!”

[[#51]] Alberich curse’s his Ring to punish Wotan and the gods for committing the religious sin of world-renunciation

“The Curse Motif” – The sole purpose of Alberich’s curse on his Ring is to punish those who co-opted its power to perpetuate their great sin of world-renunciation, Wotan’s sin against Erda’s (Nature’s) objective knowledge of all that was, is, and will be

(#51 inversion of #19a; related through #19 to #20a, #46, #50, #68, and #159)

[see #50 for #51’s dramatic context]

[[#52]] Alberich's curse of consciousness as foreknowledge of the end

Alberich’s curse on the Ring, the curse of consciousness and foreknowledge, imparts existential fear of the end to the Ring’s new owners, those religio-artistic folk who deny truth and consign it to oblivion in favor of consoling illusions

(#52’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained)

[See #50 for #52’s dramatic context]

[[#53]] “Erda” – Mother Nature - invokes her objective knowledge of all that was, is, and shall be, that all things that are, end

(#53 based on #2, and therefore on #1; with some changes its inversion is basis for #54; #53’s chords are basis for #138; through #1 it is related to #57b, basis for #83a