questioning the legendary parts, for what human beings [P. 398] have themselves thought out and imagined is more important than what really happened.” [995W-{11/17/79}CD Vol. II, p. 397-398]
Because objective nature sometimes satisfies man’s physical needs, but ultimately can’t satisfy his longing for transcendent meaning, Feuerbach described how - there being no place in nature for man’s musical (or aesthetic) longings - man renounces objective nature (the fate the Norns spin) and turns within (as Wotan seeks redemption in his unconscious mind, Bruennhilde) to confess his oppressive secrets:
“… nature [Erda] listens not to the plaints of man [as expressed in music and song], it is callous to his sorrows [Wotan’s confession to Bruennhilde]. Hence man turns away from Nature, from all visible objects [Wotan does not seek knowledge from the Norns, because they spin their rope of fate according to the world, and can alter nothing]. He turns within [to his unconscious mind, Bruennhilde], that here, sheltered and hidden from the inexorable powers, he may find audience for his griefs. Here he utters his oppressive secrets; here he gives vent to his stilled sighs. This open air of the heart, this outspoken secret, this uttered sorrow of the soul, is God.” [93F-EOC: p. 122]
This could well be a description of Wotan’s confession to Bruennhilde in V.2.2.
Wotan’s response to Erda’s suggestion that he seek a different kind of knowledge from Bruennhilde is most interesting. Wotan breezily dismisses this idea with the remark that since Bruennhilde did, “all too conversantly,” what Wotan himself desperately wished to do but couldn’t do because of the objective constraints upon him, he punished her with sleep to wake only for a man who will make her his wife. So he asks Erda what “use” it would be to ask Bruennhilde. But of course Bruennhilde’s “use” is precisely that she will wake only for Siegfried the artist-hero, who, alone among men, will have the gift of unconscious artistic inspiration which allows him to safely plunge into the silent depths to confront Alberich’s Hoard of knowledge, in order to draw that inspiration from it which gives birth to that redemptive art which reconciles us to the terrible world. And then we remember that during his confession to Bruennhilde he asked what “use” his Will (Bruennhilde) could be to him, since he can’t will a free hero into existence. But it was through his confession to Bruennhilde that the god Wotan planted the seed which gave metaphysical birth to the savior Siegfried, in whom Wotan’s ideal self is reborn minus his prosaic, loathsome lower self Mime, minus consciousness, in other words, of his true identity. Wotan’s punishment of Bruennhilde will become her blessing, once Siegfried wakes and wins her.
[S.3.1: C]
Having learned from Wotan of the fate he condemned their daughter Bruennhilde to endure, Erda launches a diatribe against Wotan’s hypocrisy and inconsistency. She asks why Wotan has punished Bruennhilde for doing what he, deep in his heart, wished her to do. She chastises him also for his inconsistency in making laws only to break them:
