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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.

However, both #143 and #150 are associated with the concept of Wotan’s Hoard of knowledge.)

[[#151]] “Hagen” – Representative of our modern, secular, scientific age of skepticism and cynicism

Hagen is the instrument of Alberich’s curse on his Ring, the agent of Alberich’s intent to punish the adherents of the mytho-poetic (religious) phase of human history, who co-opted his Ring power in order to sustain the illusion of man’s transcendent value, and who therefore sinned against the truth, all that was, is, and will be. Just as Alberich discredited religious faith (creating Wotan’s self-doubt), so Hagen’s sole purpose is to discredit religion’s last refuge, the Wagnerian music-drama, by exposing its true source of inspiration to the light of day, so that Hagen can supplant man’s metaphysical longings with the will to power, power only to be obtained through loveless, objective knowledge.

(#151 is from the Family of Gibichung Motifs, which according to Cooke incorporate a characteristic interval drop. This family includes #155, #156, #171, and perhaps distantly #165, but curiously, not Gunther’s Motif #152.)

[[#152]] “Gunther” and the Gibichungs as the music-dramatist Siegfried’s audience for his art

(Cooke describes #152 as one of the family of heroic motifs stemming from the last three notes of Erda’s Motif #53; if this is accurate, #152 would be related to #1, #2, and #57b, and would be included among the family generated from #53 which also includes #71, #77, #88, #92, and #95. However, conceptually it is hard to understand why Gunther, who is if anything the antithesis of a true hero, would deserve a motif linking him with Siegfried (#92). Dunning agrees with me that #152 sounds closely related to #115, generally known as the Power of the Gods, but which I note is also associated in its definitive form with the fated destruction of the gods, in which all the Gibichungs play a role. Conceptually, #152 is much more likely to be related to #115 on this basis. I have also noted, however, that though Cooke traces #115 ultimately back to #21 (Wotan’s Spear), its stepwise ascending motion seems more akin to #1 and #53, which brings us back to the family of heroic motifs stemming from #53, but on a different conceptual basis.)