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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.

(#52’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained)

[[#53]] “Erda” – Mother Nature - invokes her objective knowledge of all that was, is, and shall be, that all things that are, end

(#53 based on #2, and therefore on #1; with some changes its inversion is basis for #54; #53’s chords are the basis for #138; through #1 it is related to #57b, basis for #83a and #146; #53's last three notes generate #71, #77, #88, #92, #95, and possibly #152)

[[#54]] Erda's prophecy of the fore-ordained “Twilight of the Gods”

It is fore-ordained by the laws of evolution and history that Alberich’s son Hagen (metaphor for our modern, secular, scientific world-view) will ultimately supplant the mytho-poetic, religious phase of human history, bringing about a figurative twilight of the gods

(#54 approximately based on inversion of #53; related through #53 to #1 and #2, #57b, #71, #77, #88, #92, #95, and perhaps #152)

[[#55]] Donner's cry: “Heda! Heda, hedo!”

Donner sweeps the gods’ heavens clear, in order to purify the air of the taint of Wotan’s corrupt machinations and self-deceit in establishing the gods’ self-delusional refuge from truth, Valhalla

(#55 basis of #61, and possibly basis of #84 and #85)

[[#56]] “Rainbow Bridge” over the Rhine to Valhalla

The Rainbow Bridge is the evolutionary bridge of transition from nature to human culture