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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.

influence, who can redeem them from Alberich’s curseon his Ring. Bruennhilde still fights for Wotan’s futile hope, after Wotan has renounced it.

(#84 possibly based on #55)

[[#85]] The second motif of Wotan’s anger at Bruennhilde for fighting for an ideal he has renounced

(#85 possibly based on #55)

[[#86]] “Hunding’s Pursuit” of the Waelsung Twins

A motif representing the difficulty of living for love in a loveless world

(#86 based on #7, Alberich’s Futile Wooing [Scrambling] Motif)

[[#87]] “Fate”

Erda’s daughters, the Norns, weave her knowledge of all that was, is, and will be into the rope of natural law, “ur-law,” which represents objective truth, the natural necessity of all things. Alberich affirms Erda’s objective truth, while Wotan (man’s religio-artistic impulse) renounces and therefore sins against it

(#87’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained; but Cooke suggested a possible link with the family of motifs which includes #35, #42, #44, #48, and #154)

[[#88]] Bruennhilde’s annunciation of fated doom to Siegmund

Bruennhilde and her Valkyrie sisters are muses of inspiration and angels of death, who inspire heroes on the battlefield to martyr themselves for the sake of Wotan’s futile quest to redeem the Valhallan gods from the shameful end which Erda foresaw, and which Alberich’s son Hagen will bring about as the instrument of