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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.

 

[[#144]] Siegfried, aflame with Loge’s fire of artistic creation, longs to plunge into his surrogate Rhine, the floodtide of Bruennhilde’s music

(#144 is kin to the family of motifs Cooke called Motions of Nature, including #11 and #38)

[[#145ab ]] “Love’s Resolution” - Having learned the meaning of Wotan’s fear and forgotten it through loving union with his muse Bruennhilde, Siegfried's unconscious inspiration has temporarily redeemed him and Wagner's audiencee from Alberich's curse of consciousness

(Dunning believes #145 is in the Love Motif Family which includes #25, #39, #40ab, #64b, #80b, #133, and #140. However, I speculate that #145a may in fact be a variant form of the Motif of Siegfried’s Contempt for Mime, #104. If this is accurate, it would presumably illustrate the concept (which remains valid with or without motival support in this instance) that thanks to Bruennhilde’s loving protection Siegfried has now entirely suppressed all those aspects of his own character as the reincarnation of Wotan which Wotan loathed in himself, and which are incarnate in Mime)

 

Twilight of the Gods

 

 

(#@: C or D?)The Norns spin their rope of fate, Erda’s knowledge of all that was, is, and will be, and that all things that are, end

((#@: C or D?) is based on the diminished inversion of #3, the Rhine Motion Motif, and is often heard as a compound motif comprising #3 diminished inversion, and #19 (Alberich’s Ring)

[[#146]] “World-Ash Tree” (The Tree of Life and Knowledge)

Wagner’s idiosyncratic variation on the Biblical Trees of Life and of Knowledge. Wotan’s primal act, the