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Title Page
Dedication Page
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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.

[[#102]] Mime’s inherent inability to re-forge Nothung, due to lack of authentically unconscious inspiration

Mime is unable to re-forge Nothung, or forge any other swords which could meet Siegfried’s demands, because Mime is too wise, too conscious of his own ulterior, egoistic motives. Mime therefore is also incapable of achieving redemption through the restoration of lost innocence. Mime’s inability to forge adequate swords for Siegfried, or re-forge Nothung, is Wagner’s metaphor for Wotan’s need for a hero sufficiently free from Wotan’s egoistic influence, to forge his own identity.

(#102’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained; however, #102’s notes seem to correspond with the first half of #158, the motif to which Gunther and Siegfried sing their oath of blood-brotherhood, though the harmonies are different; the implication would be that Gunther is unheroic, an unworthy blood-brother for Siegfried. Dunning detects #37’s influence.)

[See #101 for #102’s dramatic context]

 

[[#103]] “Siegfried’s Youthful Horncall,” Siegfried’s vital force

This motif expresses Siegfried’s vital force, an innocent will unfettered by Wotan’s intellectual conflicts, self-doubt, or corrupt history, which Wotan has put out of commission, consigned to oblivion, by repressing them into his daughter Bruennhilde during his confession. Because Bruennhilde holds this paralyzing knowledge for Siegfried, Siegfried can freely create redemptive art without suffering from Alberich’s curse of consciousness.

(#103 in the family of diatonic nature arpeggios such as #1, #12, and #56)

“Siegfried: [[ #103 ]]: In wild forest clothing, with a silver horn on a chain, bursts in from the forest with sudden impetuousness, driving a large bear which he has tethered with a length of rope and which he now sets on Mime in boisterous high spirits) (:Still outside) [[ #103 ]] Hoiho! (entering: #103) Hoiho! (#103) Tuck in! Tuck in! (#103) Gobble him up! Gobble him up! The so-called smith.

 

(Laughing. Mime drops the sword in terror and takes refuge behind the forge: wherever he runs, Siegfried continues to drive the bear after him.) (…)

 

Siegfried: (sitting down in order to recover from his laughter) I was seeking a better companion than the one sitting here at home; [[ #103 ]] deep in the forest I wound