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Title Page
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Guide to abbreviations used in text
Allen Dunning's numbered Guide to the Ring's Musical Motifs
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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.

[[#80ab]] Fricka's indictment of Wotan’s own adulterous affairs

Fricka indicts Wotan for his infidelity, his affairs with Erda and with the Waelsung twins’ mortal mother. Fricka is ignorant of the fact that it is only by virtue of the Valkyrie-muses’ – and thus also Bruennhilde’s – services, and only because of the Waelsungs’ breach of divine law, that the gods can hope to be redeemed from Alberich’s threat to overthrow them.

(#80a based on #69; #80b based on #25; thus #80b is in the family of love motifs which includes also #39, #40, #64b, #133, #140, and possibly #145)

[See #79 for #80’s dramatic context]

[[#81AB]] Wotan’s inability to create or imagine a hero freed from what Wotan loathes in his own nature

Commonly known as “Wotan’s Frustration Motif”

(#81 based on #21; related to #28, #32b, #60, #62, #96AB, #137, #164, and perhaps #115; through #21’s inversion related to #47 and #82)

"Wotan: You learned nothing at all when I tried to teach you things you can never recognize until the deed has dawned on you. Age-old custom is all you can grasp: but my thoughts seek to encompass what’s never yet come to pass. (#57) – Hear one thing alone! A hero is needed [“Noth thut ein Held”] who, lacking godly protection, breaks loose from the law of the gods: (#21?) thus alone is he fit to perform that feat (#19) which, needful [“Noth”] though it is to the gods, the god is forbidden to do. (#28?)

 

Fricka: You seek to deceive me with deep-set meaning! What lofty feat could heroes perform that their gods were prevented from doing, whose grace informs their actions alone?

 

Wotan: You have no heed of their own independence?

 

Fricka: Who breathed it into humankind? (...) Sheltered by you they seem to be strong; spurred on by you, they strive for the light: (#79 Orch) You alone urge them on whom you thus praise to me, the immortal goddess. … and yet you’ll not win this Waelsung yourself: in him I find only you, for through you alone he defies us.

 

Wotan: (#65 Hint [Voc and harmony]) In grievous distress (with emotion) he grew up by himself. (#21?) My shelter never shielded him.