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Introduction by Roger Scruton
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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

Donations Welcome

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.

[54F-EOC: p. 40-41]

[P. 40] “Existence out of self is the world; existence in self is God. To think is to be God. [P. 41] (…) The act of thought … is the freedom of the immortal gods from all external limitations and necessities of life.” [54F-EOC: p. 40-41]

 

[55F-EOC: p. 43]

“ … the reason is the most indispensable being – the profoundest and most essential necessity. In the reason first lies the self-consciousness of existence, self-conscious existence; in the reason is first revealed the end, the meaning of existence.” [55F-EOC: p. 43]

 

[56F-EOC: p. 44-45]

[P. 44] “… ‘when I believe that the human nature alone has suffered for me, Christ is a poor saviour to [P. 45] me: in that case, he needs a saviour himself.’ And thus, out of the need for salvation is postulated something transcending human nature, a being different from man. But no sooner is this being postulated than there arises the yearning of man after himself, after his own nature, and man is immediately re-established.” [56F-EOC: p. 44-45]

 

[57F-EOC: p. 45]

“A god … who expresses only the nature of the understanding does not satisfy religion, is not the god of religion.” [57F-EOC: p. 45]

 

[58F-EOC: p. 46]

“The Christian thinks only of himself. (…) The understanding is universal, pantheistic, the love of the universe: but the grand characteristic of religion, and of the Christian religion especially, is that it is exclusively anthropotheistic, the exclusive love of man for himself, the exclusive self-affirmation … of subjective human nature; for it is true that the understanding also affirms the nature of man, but it is his objective nature, which has reference to the object for the sake of the object, and the manifestation of which is science.” [58F-EOC: p. 46]

 

[59F-EOC: p. 48]

“The law holds man in bondage; love makes him free.” [59F-EOC: p. 48]

 

[60F-EOC: p. 48]

“Love … idealizes matter and materialises spirit. Love is the true unity of God and man, of spirit and nature.” [60F-EOC: p. 48]

 

[61F-EOC: p. 48]

“Love is materialism; immaterial love is a chimaera.” [61F-EOC: p. 48]