and dismay (specifically, from Alberich’s threat to overthrow the gods), must of course be understood to include all the illicit means (i.e., means which Wotan can’t openly acknowledge) Wotan employs to secure Valhalla from Alberich’s threat, and therefore it embraces his Waelsung heroes.
Because it is so terribly important to our understanding of the rest of the Ring’s plot, we need to fully grasp the allegorical significance of Wotan’s restless wandering over the earth (“Erde,” or “Erda”), and into the earth (in search of Erda herself), which besets Wotan after the finale of The Rhinegold. Wotan I noted is in quest of two distinct kinds of knowledge, objective knowledge of the world, which he fears, and aesthetic intuition of the world, a subjective way of feeling rather than thinking the world, in which he can find refuge from the terrible truths the first kind of knowledge forces him to confront. I have already cited Wagner’s remark that world history is the account of how man, having risen to consciousness, became aware of his “power,” and, having made nature (Erda) an object of knowledge, sets out to force nature to satisfy his needs. But here, in our following extract, Wagner describes this second kind of knowledge, or aesthetic intuition, which is antithetical to the first kind, the loveless kind which Alberich would impose on the world, thereby making all the living renounce love as he has. Wagner also describes our quest for loving (aesthetic) knowledge of earth (Erda) as the task of world history:
“I have succeeded in viewing natural and historical phenomena with love and with total impartiality as regards their true essence, and I have noticed nothing amiss except for – lovelessness. – But even this lovelessness I was able to explain as an aberration … which must inevitably lead us away from our state of natural unawareness towards a knowledge of the uniquely beautiful necessity of love; to acquire this knowledge by active striving is the task of world history; but the stage on which this knowledge will one day act out its role is none other than the earth and nature herself [Erda], which is the seed-bed of all that will lead us to this blissful knowledge.” [597W-{4/13/53}Letter to Franz Liszt: SLRW, p. 284]
In spite of the fact that Wagner also said in a prior citation that world history consists of man’s acquisition of that knowledge of nature as an object of inquiry through which man can satisfy his ever more complex needs, he is not in contradiction with himself in the passage above. If Wotan, Light-Alberich, represents collective, historical man, and his wandering the world in quest of a loving way to grasp nature (Erda) represents our second kind of knowledge, aesthetic intuition, in which we seek redemption from the first kind, then Dark-Alberich’s amassing of his hoard of treasure (a figure for knowledge and the power it engenders) represents the first kind of knowledge, exemplifying Wagner’s reading of history as man’s quest to master nature to satisfy his need. It must be clearly understood then that Alberich (Dark-Alberich) and Wotan (Light-Alberich) are identical, differing only in that their distinct agendas represent the two primary agendas of historical man. In other words, man is in contradiction with himself from the beginning, but Wagner is not contradicting himself in pointing this out. And this contradiction at the heart of human nature has developed into the modern war between science and religion (which includes, according to Wagner, inspired art, in spite of its alleged freedom from religion’s claim to truth).
Wotan’s desperate quest to seek redemption from the very hoard of knowledge of the truth which Wotan himself inevitably amasses throughout his historical experience of the world, is represented by #57, which stands for his grand idea of how the gods can redeem themselves from the objective
