website, wagnerheim.com. The site contains a forum for discussion, and will surely be the place where the many interpretations can contend with each other, and so do what I, in this short article, have no hope of doing, which is to establish the claim of the Ring to be the truth of our condition.
(…)
But what … are the gods? Mere figments, as Wagner’s philosophical mentor, Ludwig Feuerbach, had argued? Or something more deeply implanted in the scheme of things, something that precedes and survives us? Wagner’s answer is not easily explained in words, although it is transparently obvious in music, and Heise’s commentary does the best that mere words can do to make it plain. And it is an answer that makes Wagner supremely relevant to us.”
So what may we conclude from Scruton’s two reviews of my online Ring book’s allegorical interpretation, from 2011, reproduced above? (1) He describes my allegorical reading of Wagner’s Ring as an exploration of man’s religious longing for transcendence and redemption, which in our modern, scientific, skeptical, post-religious age can only be supplied by the “Wonder” of secular art. (2) He acknowledges that it is one of the most important contributions to Wagner scholarship. (3) He suggests that my step-by-step, comprehensive allegorical reading is a contribution to the kind of debate that is needed if Wagner’s Ring is to take its place at the center of modern philosophy and modern life. (4) He argues that my subtle exposition shows how each scene of the Ring illustrates some necessary feature of the allegory. (5) He affirms that many of the Ring’s enigmas are resolved by my allegorical reading in a persuasive way. (6) He observes that many of the Ring’s obscure symbols become bright and transparent in my interpretation. (7) He asserts that much that had puzzled him about the Ring became clear to him only after reading my allegorical interpretation, which he describes as probably the only complete commentary on the Ring. (8) He makes the case that my interpretation will inspire a debate about the Ring’s meaning which can establish the claim of the Ring to be the truth of our condition. (9) He declares that my commentary does the best that mere words can do to explicate Wagner’s quest in his Ring to manifest what is sacred - sans belief in gods - in human life, and that Wagner’s answer to this question is supremely relevant to us.
But as you will see in the excerpts I’ve reproduced below from Scruton’s recently published book, The Ring of Truth (2016), he has since 2011 grown skeptical in some respects that my allegorical reading of Wagner’s Ring can do full justice to it. He now insists not only that Wagner’s Ring can’t be understood as an allegory (without, however, demonstrating in any substantial way that my allegorical reading in particular is an inaccurate reading of it), but also that, even if he must concede that aspects of my allegorical interpretation seem justified (which he does), nonetheless the allegorical meanings I’ve discovered in the Ring are too abstract and far removed from Wagner’s drama (and therefore its music) to become part of what audiences experience aesthetically of the Ring in the theater. His argument is a serious challenge and well worth addressing. What follows is my response.
