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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

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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.

[[#80ab]] Fricka's indictment of Wotan’s own adulterous affairs

Fricka indicts Wotan for his infidelity, his affairs with Erda and with the Waelsung twins’ mortal mother. Fricka is ignorant of the fact that it is only by virtue of the Valkyrie-muses’ – and thus also Bruennhilde’s – services, and only because of the Waelsungs’ breach of divine law, that the gods can hope to be redeemed from Alberich’s threat to overthrow them

(#80a based on #69; #80b based on #25; thus #80b is in the family of love motifs which includes also #39, #40, #64b, #133, #140, and possibly #145)

[[#81AB]] Wotan’s inability to create or imagine a hero freed from what Wotan loathes in his own nature

Commonly known as “Wotan’s Frustration Motif”

(#81 based on #21; related to #28, #32b, #60, #62, #96AB, #137, #164, and perhaps #115; through #21’s inversion related to #47 and #82)

[[#82]] Wotan's repression of his unbearable hoard of knowledge – that his hope for redemption is futile - into his unconscious mind, Bruennhilde

Commonly known as “Wotan’s Revolt Motif” – Wotan represses intolerable knowledge of his true identity and corrupt history into his unconscious mind by confessing it to Bruennhilde, his “Will”

(#82 is an inversion of the Definitive #21, based mostly therefore on #47; through #21 related to #28, #32b, #60, #62, #81AB, #96AB, #137, #164, and perhaps #115)

[[#83ab]] “Need of the Gods” for a mortal hero freed from their rule (from religious faith) who can redeem them from their fate, the twilight of the gods

The Valhallan gods need a hero who can preserve religious feeling, its heart, which is man’s metaphysical longing for transcendent value, when religion as a system of beliefs, its head, can no longer be sustained in the face of man’s (Alberich’s and Wotan’s) advancement in knowledge (accumulation of a hoard of knowledge of the world, the earth, i.e., Erda)