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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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(#81A: dropping his arm in a gesture of helplessness and allowing his head to sink on his breast)

 

Wotan: (#81A) In my own fetters I find myself caught: I, least free of all things living!”

 

Bruennhilde: Never have I seen you so. What is it that gnaws at your heart?

 

(From this point onwards, Wotan’s expression and gestures grow in intensity, culminating in the most terrible outburst)

 

Wotan: (#51; [[ #82 ]] O righteous disgrace! (#51; [[ #82 ]] O shameful sorrow! (#58b or #79) Gods’ direst need [“Goetternoth”]! (#58b or #79) Gods’ direst distress [“Goetternoth”]!(#40) Infinite fury! (#40) Grief never-ending! (#37) The saddest am I of all living things!”

 

Bruennhilde: (startled, throwing down shield, spear and helmet and sinking down at Wotan’s feet in anxious solicitude) Father! Father! Tell me what ails you! How you startle your child and fill her with fear! Confide in me; I’m true to you: (#40 or #64b?) see, Bruennhilde begs you!

 

(#40; #64: Lovingly and anxiously she lays her head and hands on his knees and lap)

 

Wotan: (gazing at length into her eyes, after which he strokes her hair in a gesture of spontaneous tenderness. As if emerging from deep thought, he finally begins in whispered tones) If I let it be spoken aloud, shall I not loosen my will’s restraining hold?

 

Bruennhilde: (very quietly: #25 Voc; #20a Orch) To Wotan’s will you speak when you tell me what you will: ([#15 Hint &/or #59a Hint in chord changes as heard in the finale of Twilight of the Gods when Bruennhilde tells the Wanderer Wotan he can now rest: “Rest now! Rest now! You God!”]) who am I if not your will? (#64?)

 

Wotan: (very quietly) What in words I reveal to no one, let it stay unspoken forever: with myself I commune when I speak with you.”

 

[[#83ab]] “Need of the Gods” for a mortal hero freed from their rule (from religious faith) who can redeem them from their fate, the twilight of the gods

The Valhallan gods need a hero who can preserve religious feeling, its heart, which is man’s metaphysical longing for transcendent value, when religion as a system of beliefs, its head, can no longer be sustained in the face of man’s (Alberich’s and Wotan’s) advancement in knowledge (accumulation of a hoard of knowledge of the world (the earth, i.e., Erda)