inspire Siegfried to create redemptive works of art, subliminally, and that in these works of art man’s existential fear can be forgotten. It is in this sense that Siegfried offers Wotan redemption from Alberich’s curse, by love. This is the fulfillment of Wotan’s second request of Erda, first mentioned in R.4, and repeated by Wotan now, that she show him how to end his care. What this also means is that Bruennhilde, Siegfried’s unconscious mind, can redeem the artist-hero Siegfried (and presumably the audience for his art) temporarily from suffering Alberich’s curse of consciousness, only so long as she remains the inviolable repository for Wotan’s hoard of forbidden knowledge.
And here we have Wagner’s variation on Feuerbach’s theme, that through aesthetic intuition man can feel redeemed from his otherwise all-consuming, vulgar egoism, the source of that envy and fear from which, according to Wotan, Siegfried is free:
“we … find … abnormal individuals in whom the cognitive organ, i.e. the brain, has evolved beyond the ordinary and adequate level of development found in the rest of humanity … . Such a monstrosity – if it reaches its highest level of development – is genius, which essentially rests upon no more than an abnormally fertile and capacious brain. This cognitive organ, which originally and in normal circumstances looks beyond itself in order to meet the needs of the will to live [Mime is a perfect example of this type], gains such lively and fascinating impressions from outside –in the case, that is, of abnormal development – that there are times when it breaks free from its role of serving the will – which had after all created it solely for that purpose – and is thus able to perceive the world undistorted by the will, i.e. aesthetically; the objects of the world of external phenomena are thus seen undistorted by the will and are its ideal images, which it is the artist’s task to capture and set down … . In the case of a strong individual, his interest in the world of external phenomena is necessarily encouraged by this act of observation [think here of Wotan’s remark to Alberich in S.2.1 that Wotan does not act, but only observes], and it grows to the point where he permanently forgets the original needs of his own personal will, in other words he begins to sympathize with the things outside him, and he does so for their own sake [art for art’s sake] and not because of any personal interest in them.” [635W-{6/7/55} Letter to Franz Liszt: SLRW, p. 345] [See also 732W]
[Describing what “German” is, Wagner says:] to wit, the thing one does for its own sake, for very joy of doing it; whereas Utilitarianism [recall here Alberich’s asking the Rhinedaughters in R.1 what use could be made of the Rhinegold if it only serves the Rhinedaughters for games], namely the principle whereby a thing is done for sake of some personal end, ulterior to the thing itself, was shown to be un-German. The German virtue herein expressed thus coincided with the highest principle of aesthetics, … according to which the ‘objectless’ (das Zwecklose) alone is beautiful, because, being an end (Zweck) in itself, in revealing its nature as lifted high above all vulgar ends its reveals at like time that to reach whose sight and knowledge alone makes ends of life worth following; whereas everything that serves an end is hideous … .” [732W-{9-12/67} German Art and German Policy: PW Vol. IV, p.107] [See also 977W]
And, in the following extracts (previously cited), which provide our most decisive evidence for construing Wotan’s relationship to Siegfried as based upon the relationship of dying religious faith to authentically inspired secular art, faith’s heir, we find first Feuerbach, and then Wagner, describing how the artist is freer than the man of religious faith because the artist does not stake a claim on the truth, but admits his product is a fiction:
