existence and the less trace it bears of the creative artist – so that through it (the work of art), the artist himself is forgotten, -- the more perfectly satisfied does the artist himself feel: and so, in a certain higher sense, his being forgotten, his disappearance, his death is – the life of the work of art.” [693W-{11/6/64} Letter to King Ludwig II of Bavaria: SLRW, p. 626-627]
[P. 528] “Burnouff’s Introduction a l’histoire du Bouddhisme was the book that stimulated me most; I even distilled from it the material for a dramatic poem, which has remained with me ever since … . I gave it the title Die Sieger [‘The Victors’] … . Apart from the beauty and the profound significance of the simple tale, I was influenced to choose it as much by its peculiar aptness for the musical procedures that I have since developed. To the mind of the Buddha [in this instance, Wotan, who, as collective, historical man, Feuerbach’s Godhead, subsumes all other characters in the Ring], the previous lives in former incarnations of every being appearing before him stand revealed as clearly as the present. The simple story owed its significance to the way that the past life of the suffering principal characters was entwined in the new phase of their lives [P. 529] as being still present time. I perceived at once how the musical remembrance of this dual life, keeping the past constantly present in the hearing, might be represented perfectly to the emotional receptivities, and this decided me to keep the prospect of working out this task before me as a labor of especial love.” [640W-{5/16/56?} ML, p. 528-529] [See also 1005W for Wagner’s own idiosyncratic version of the mathematical theory of parallels as applied to reincarnation, God (i.e., Wotan), and Nature (Erda)]
The notion that Siegfried is Wotan reincarnated, minus remembrance of his true, original identity, and that this concept provides Wagner with a theoretical basis for developing his technique of associating musical motifs with particular characters, events, symbols, and ideas in his drama, is directly related to his idea that his musical motifs and revolutionary use of the romantic orchestra as an extension of the drama and, if you will, omniscient voice of the work’s author, offer a secular substitute for dying religious faith. I have already cited several key passages from Wagner’s writings which bear witness to Wagner’s concept that his music motifs, through which we no longer try to transcend nature supernaturally, but grasp nature feelingly, offer man a secular substitute for dying religious faith. [See 524W and 522W] This of course explains why Wotan’s morale is lifted from the dregs of the despair he felt when he foresaw the gods’ demise in shame, to an ecstatic embrace of his end, because it is solely through Wotan’s willing the necessity of the gods’ “going under” that Siegfried can be freed to redeem the gods’ essence, love (feeling), from Alberich’s curse. So Wotan can afford to sacrifice to Alberich the Valhallan gods and their illegitimate claim to power, which are subject to Alberich’s curse:
“Is it so utterly impossible to Theology, to take the great step that would grant to Science its irrefutable truths through surrender of Jehova [Wotan and the gods of Valhalla, indebted to Alberich’s Ring-power: #19>#20a], and to the Christian world its pure God [the artist-hero Siegfried, who will preserve the pure essence of religion, feeling, or love, in music] revealed in Jesus the only?” [928W-{3-7/78} Public and Popularity: PW Vol. VI, p. 79]
Since Bruennhilde, Siegfried’s unconscious mind and muse, holds Wotan’s paralyzing self-knowledge, his knowledge of his egoistic motives, for Siegfried, thereby protecting Siegfried from consciousness of the knowledge which cost Wotan so much suffering, Siegfried is, as Wotan describes him here, seemingly freed from envy and fear, and therefore, Wotan asserts, freed from
