would rather perish or be denied all enjoyment than renounce my belief.” [624W-{1/25-26/54} Letter to August Roeckel: SLRW, p. 312]
[625W-{9-10/54} ML: p. 509-510]
[P. 509] {SCHOP} [Wagner, speaking of Arthur Schopenhauer’s book The World as Will and Idea, which he had just read, states that:] “I was alarmed, as will be everyone in my frame of mind, by the moral principles with which he caps the work, for here the annihilation of the will and complete self-abnegation are represented as the only true means of redemption from the constricting bonds of individuality in its dealings with the world. For those seeking in philosophy their justification for political and social agitation on behalf of the so-called ‘free-individual’, there was no sustenance whatever here, where what was demanded was the absolute renunciation of all such methods of satisfying the claims of the human personality. At first, this didn’t sit well with me at all, and I didn’t want to abandon the so-called ‘cheerful’ Greek view of the world which had provided my vantage point for surveying my ‘Art-work of the Future’;. Actually, it was Herwegh who made me reflect further on my own feelings with a well-timed word. This insight into the essential nothingness of the world of appearances, he contended, lies at the root of all tragedy, [P. 510] and every great poet, and even every great man, must necessarily feel it intuitively. I looked at my Nibelung poems and recognized to my amazement that the very things I now found so unpalatable in the theory were already long familiar to me in my own poetic conception. Only now did I understand my own Wotan myself and, greatly shaken, I went on to a closer study of Schopenhauer’s book. I now saw that before all else I had to comprehend the first part of the work, which elucidates and enlarges upon Kant’s doctrine of the ideality of the world, which hitherto had seemed so firmly grounded in time and space. (…) Its gradual effect on me was extraordinary and, at any rate, decisive for the rest of my life. Through it, I was able to judge things which I had previously grasped only intuitively … .” [625W-{9-10/54} ML: p. 509-510]
[626W-{9-10/54} ML: p. 510-511]
[P. 510] {SCHOP} “As usually happened with me whenever I was actively engaged in musicalproduction, my poetic impulses were also stimulated. It was no doubt in part the earnest frame of mind produced by Schopenhauer, now demanding some rapturous expression of its fundamental traits, which gave me the idea for a Tristan and Isolde. (…) [P. 511] {FEUER} I wove into the lastact an episode I later did not use: this was a visit by Parzival, wandering in search of the Grail, to Tristan’s sickbed. I identified Tristan, wasting away but unable to die of his wound, with the Amfortas of the Grail romance. For the moment I was able to force myself not to devote further attention to this conception, in order that my great musical project be not interrupted.” [626W-{9-10/54} ML: p. 510-511]
[627W-{10/7/54}Letter to Franz Liszt: SLRW, p. 319]
[P. 319] {anti-FEUER} {SCHOP} “… let us treat the world only with contempt; for itdeserves no better: but let no hopes be placed in it, that our hearts be not deluded! It is evil, evil, fundamentally evil, only the heart of a friend and a woman’s tears can redeem it from its curse. But nor can we respect it like this, and certainly in nothing that resembles honour, fame – or whatever else these foolish things are called. – It
