Siegfried, to his own devices. Wotan sings the new motif #127 as he adds that he’ll let Siegfried stand or fall himself, since he’s his own master, and adds, enigmatically, that only heroes [i.e., such heroes] can help Wotan. #127 is in the same family as #105, which conveys the notion of all that Mime claims Siegfried owes him, and #111, the motival embodiment of Siegfried’s assertion of his emancipation and autonomy from Mime. #127 then represents a further evolution of Siegfried’s assertion of his independence, a quest which ultimately is futile. The first part of Wotan’s answer is a paraphrase, almost a quotation from Feuerbach about the quest of the individual man to assert his independent will in the face of the overwhelming heritage of nature and nurture (culture) which produced him:
“ … I stand on the shoulders of my ancestors, but even on their shoulders I stand on my own feet; true, I was begotten and conceived without my knowledge or will; but I did not come into the world without a drive, unconscious to be sure at the time, toward independence and freedom, toward emancipation from my dependence on the womb. (…) At present I have father and mother in myself alone [think here of Mime’s false assertion that he was both Siegfried’s father and mother], no other being, not even a God, will help me unless I help myself; I stand and fall by my own resources.” [216F-LER: p. 99] [See also 251F]
The point Feuerbach seems to be making, and perhaps Wagner also, is that though each individual human is entirely a product of both nature and nurture, and in that sense is unfree, nonetheless each individual brings into conjunction a specific set of factors unique to himself, and as he grows conscious of himself strives to assert that unique identity. Perhaps it is this uniqueness, bespeaking the endless variety of the natural world (which embraces human culture), which is the closest we can come in reality to any sort of transcendence:
“ … individuality is the principle of generation and creation; only very individual conditions of the earth, geological upheavals such as have not taken place since, produced organic beings … .” [256F-LER: p. 173]
“ … to love a man is to recognize his individuality. (…) But what is the principle or source of these infinite varieties and individualities that the senses disclose to us? It is nature, whose very essence is diversity and individuality, because it is not, like God, a spiritual, that is, abstract, metaphysical being.” [344F-LER: p. 330]
Wotan has acknowledged to Alberich that he loves Siegfried, and that he expresses this love by granting Siegfried his independence, that only in this way can Siegfried actually fulfill Wotan’s wishes. In Opera and Drama Wagner wrote a meditation on the proper relation of age to youth, which as it develops identifies the aged teacher with the poet-dramatist, and the youth with music. This provides a key insight not only into the meaning behind Wotan’s remarks to Alberich about Siegfried’s independence, but also provides enlightenment on our allegorical reading of Siegfried as Wagner’s metaphor for himself, the music-dramatist. Here’s what Wagner says about the relation of age to youth:
“Already-experienced age [Wotan] is able to take … the deeds of youth [Siegfried], by which the latter unconsciously evinces its instinctive thrust, and to survey them in their full conjunction: it [Wotan] thus can vindicate these deeds more completely than their youthful agent [Siegfried], since
