allegory which dramatizes his Feuerbach-inspired critique of Christianity and its world-renunciation. The Valhallan gods’ conditional immortality, Wotan’s debate with Fricka over free will, Wotan’s need for a savior-hero who will take on the burden of the gods’ guilt in order to redeem the gods by restoring lost innocence, Wotan’s nihilistic longing for the end of the world to eradicate the sin of existence itself, these are all Wagner’s idiosyncratic versions of Christian issues which he has painted in pagan colors. It is clear that in many respects the Ring of the Nibelung is loosely based on the model of the Christian Bible: clearly the Bible’s division into an Old and New Testaments is paralleled by the Ring’s division into one half dominated by Wotan (God the Father), and a second half dominated by the artist-hero Siegfried (the Savior). For all these reasons there is another curious parallel which may be meaningful, the fact that Siegfried is born, under adverse circumstances, particularly in the “East,” and brought up by a foster-father whom some evidence suggests might be Wagner’s concept of an archetypal Jew. Wagner brings these issues to the fore in his following remark (cited previously):
[P. 232] “ … the Jews … could fling away all share in this world-rulership of their Jehova, for they had won a share in a development of the Christian religion well fitted to deliver it itself into their hands in time, with all its increment of culture, sovereignty and civilisation. The departure-point of all this strange exploit lay ready in the historical fact – that Jesus of Nazareth was born in a corner of their little [P. 233] land, Judaea [or, for our current purposes, in the east near Fafner’s lair Envy-cave, “Neidhoehle”].” [1031W-{6-8/80}Religion and Art: PW Vol. VI, p. 232-233]
We are reminded that both Siegfried and Jesus were born in the East, and that Wagner was upset throughout his life at the assumption that Jesus was a Jew [See 950W], motivated by the same impulse that led him to emulate Schopenhauer in seeking to divorce the New Testament and its loving Christ from the Old Testament with its wrathful and jealous God. But it is no accident that not only is Wotan “Light-Alberich,” but that Alberich’s Ring Motif #19 (this motif belongs to Alberich because he alone had the ruthless force of will to wholly renounce love in order to forge the ring of power) is transformed into the first segment of the Valhalla Motif, #20a. In other words, if we posit the Nibelungs as Wagner’s representation of the archetypal Jew, not only is Wotan (Jehovah) a Jew, but furthermore, and more importantly, Siegfried (the savior Jesus) is one also, by virtue of being Wotan’s grandson. Furthermore, Wotan’s appearance as the Wanderer in the following scene is clearly a reference to the legend of the Wandering Jew, as Wagner himself admitted in comparing Wotan with the Flying Dutchman [See 957W], whom Wagner in turn compared with the Wandering Jew. So a purely racial interpretation of the Ring of the Nibelung, suggesting that it is a testimonial to Wagner’s anti-Semitism, will not get us far, since even the most sympathetic characters in the work can arguably be called Jews. It is far more fruitful to grasp Wotan’s and Siegfried’s Nibelung roots as representing Wagner’s fear that egoistic motives are behind all human endeavor and longing, even behind man’s religious longing to transcend the real world and to break man’s subjection to his selfish animal impulses. Nonetheless, Wagner’s choice of the “East” as Siegfried’s birthplace does not seem a random choice.
