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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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Mime: (#5?) Though you skillfully scouted and spied out much, I need no scouts or spies here. (#112; #36 or #101?) Alone and apart I wish to be (#37 or #101?) and let loiterers go on their way.

Wanderer: (again advancing a little: [[ #113 vari ]] Many’s the man who thought himself wise but what he needed [“Noth”] he did not know. (#113) I let him ask me what might avail him: my words he found worth while.

 

Mime: (increasingly anxious, as he watches the Wanderer approach: [[ #112 ]]; #36 or #101?) Many men garner idle knowledge: I know just as much as I need; (the Wanderer has advanced as far as the hearth: #41/#5) my wits suffice, I want no more: I’ll show you on your way, you sage!”

 

[[#113]] The Second “Wanderer Motif” (ascending):

Wotan wanders over the earth (Erda) seeking two kinds of knowledge: (1) objective knowledge, which instills existential fear; and (2) subjective knowledge, aesthetic intuition, through which Wotan can redeem himself from fear, i.e., from the heart’s “Noth” – the legend of the Wandering Jew who seeks, but can never find, redemption.

(#113’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained; however, Dunning suggests a possible basis for #113 in #20b, the second segment of the Valhalla Motif #20)

[See #112 for #113’s dramatic context]

 

[[#114ab]] Wotan stakes his head (Mime) in a contest of knowledge with Wotan’s heart

Mime fails the contest of knowledge, and must lose his (Wotan’s) head to Wotan’s heart, Siegfried, because Mime is too “wise,” too conscious of his egoistic motives, to find the sole path to redemption, feeling (love).

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

"Wanderer: (#21: sitting down at the hearth) (#112) I sit by the hearth here and stake my head as pledge in a wager of wits: (#21; [[ #114 ]] my head is yours to treat as you choose, if you fail to ask what you need to know and I don’t redeem it with my lore.

 

(#41; #87 Hint?: Mime, who has been staring open-mouthed at the Wanderer, now starts violently)