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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.

(#171 is in the same family as other characteristic Gibichung Motifs such as #151, #155, #156, and perhaps #165; Cooke believed #171 was the musical antithesis of Siegfried’s Youthful Horncall #103.)

[[#172]] The Gibichung Vassals’ joyous welcome to Gunther and Bruennhilde: By virtue of Siegfried’s unwitting betrayal of his muse Bruennhilde, Siegfried’s audience (Gunther) humiliates her and makes a public spectacle of her

(#172’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained)

[[#173]] Siegfried and Bruennhilde swear oaths against each other’s testimony, the forgetful Siegfried denying, and Bruennhilde affirming, that they have been lovers

Bruennhilde, formerly Siegfried’s muse of unconscious artistic inspiration, now wreaks vengeance on him for betraying the secret processes of his inspiration, and exposing Wotan’s unspoken secret (his hoard of knowledge) which she had kept in silence, to the light of day.

(#173’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained)

 

 

(#@: D or E?) Bruennhilde - Siegfried’s surrogate Rhine - protects Siegfried, at the front, from suffering Wotan’s unhealing wound, his foresight of the gods’ (religion’s) shameful end, so Siegfried remains free from Alberich’s curse of consciousness

Bruennhilde as Prometheus, who grants mortal man both the divine gift of conscious knowledge and foresight, and the means to redeem ourselves from consciousness of this knowledge, and the fear it engenders, by hiding it behind the veil of Maya (Wahn), the artistic cunning of self-deceit embodied by religious faith and art. Bruennhilde betrays the secret of Siegfried’s Achilles’ Heel to Hagen and Gunther.

((#@: D or E?) is a compound motif comprised of a #15 Variant and a #150 Variant. See #15 and #150 for motival links. #15 of course represents Bruennhilde’s status as the unconscious mind, and music, that is, her status as a substitute for restoring the Ring to the Rhine to end its curse. Bruennhilde is the unconscious