heroes to help bring this twilight of the gods to pass. Alberich’s accumulating a hoard of treasure, laboriously dug from the bowels of the earth (Erda), was Wagner’s initial metaphor for man’s accumulation of a hoard of worldly knowledge, which is identical with the hoard of knowledge Wotan - Light-Alberich - gathers as he visits Erda in quest of knowledge, or wanders over the earth - Erda - in quest of knowledge. It’s this hoard of knowledge Wotan imparted to Brünnhilde, Siegfried’s true source of unconscious artistic inspiration, which Siegfried betrayed to consciousness by giving her, his muse (and her secrets), away to Gunther (his audience), and interpreting for his audience of Gibichungs the hidden meaning of the Woodbird’s song. This is the sense in which, as Brünnhilde said in the end, Siegfried succumbed to the same Ring Curse (of consciousness) which doomed Wotan.
Three critical keys to this allegorical reading are the following: Wagner said, (1) first, that as a music-dramatist he had unique access to the unconscious [665W - {12/8/58} Letter to Mathilde Wesendonck, RMLMW, p. 78]; (2) second, that for the authentic artist his artwork may remain as much a mystery to him as to his audience [641W - {8/23/56} Letter to August Röckel, SLRW, p. 357]; and (3) third, that nonetheless, through his musical motifs Wagner granted his audience a clairvoyant insight into the innermost secret of his unconscious artistic inspiration [547W - {50-1/51} Opera and Drama, PW Vol. II, p. 346]. This is precisely what Wagner dramatized in (1) Siegfried’s having sole access to his muse Brünnhilde, (2) in Siegfried being unconscious of who he is and of the true source of his inspiration [he tells Fafner “I don’t yet know who I am"], thanks to Brünnhilde who tells Siegfried “What you don’t know I know for you … “; and (3) in Siegfried’s betraying the secret of his unconscious artistic inspiration to his audience and to himself by translating the Woodbird’s tune (Wagner’s musical motifs) into words for the Gibichungs, respectively. Since Siegfried’s lover Brünnhilde is Wotan’s repository for the unspoken secret contained in his confession, Brünnhilde knows for Siegfried what he doesn’t know about his prehistory, his true identity, the ultimate source of his inspiration, and his fate. Siegfried’s betrayal of Wotan’s secret, which Brünnhilde had formerly kept for him, Wagner dramatized in Siegfried revealing that hidden knowledge of his true source of artistic inspiration to his audience, the Gibichungs, by interpreting the Woodbird’s song in words. Since Brünnhilde told Siegfried that what Wotan thought (his confession), she felt, and what she felt was her love for Siegfried, by giving his muse Brünnhilde and her secrets to his audience (Gunther and the Gibichungs), thus revealing the esoteric conceptual meaning or hidden programme of the Woodbird’s song (interpreting the ultimate meaning of the Ring’s musical motifs and their most far-reaching cross references with the drama in words), Siegfried translated what Brünnhilde felt back into what Wotan thought. Siegfried’s (Wagner’s self-confessed) transgression was in making music think. But this is implicit in Wagner’s dramatization, and powerfully highlighted subliminally by Wagner’s musical motifs, not spelled out literally and concretely as in a conventional drama.
Perhaps Scruton’s severest critique of my allegorical interpretation of Wagner’s Ring, besides his incorrect assumption that it applies only to an earlier vision of Siegfried which Wagner outgrew, is his contention that my allegorical reading is so abstract and far removed from what audiences experience of the Ring in the theater that it has no bearing on their aesthetic response. I’ve reproduced below his detailed argument because it’s the core of his critique of my allegorical Ring interpretation, and raises serious issues that deserve an equally detailed response:
