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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.

repository for Wotan’s Hoard of Knowledge (that hoard represented here by #150), through which Siegfried can acquire this knowledge subliminally without suffering the wounds which consciousness would cause. Through this protection Bruennhilde grants Siegfried, he is fearless.)

[[#174abc]] The Rhinedaughters’ second lament for the lost Rhinegold: they sing of their longing to restore a sacred past, an innocence long gone, and hope the hero Siegfried will restore what they have lost

(#174abc is a loose inversion of Woglinde’s Lullaby #4, to which she introduced the first words of the Ring: #4 was Wagner’s Ur-melody, or Mother-Melody; #4 is the basis for the Woodbirdsongs #128ab and #129ab; as a pentatonic primal melody #174 is related to #98)

[[#175]] The Rhinedaughters swim jubilantly (as they once did in celebration of the Rhinegold), excited by the prospect that a hero might restore the stolen Rhinegold to them, to truly – not artificially, as in art – restore lost innocence

(#175 is a member of the motif family known as Motions of Nature, which includes #2, #3, #11, #14, and #38)

[[#176]] Siegfried has lost his path back to his muse of inspiration and unconscious mind, Bruennhilde: a motival reminiscence of the Woodbird's revelation that the sleeping Bruennhilde waits for Siegfried to wake, woo, and win her love

(#176’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained; but #176 sounds as if it may contain scarcely recognizable fragments of one or two other motifs, including motival material relating to the Woodbird’s motifs and/or fluttering of its wings, and/or Loge’s fire, perhaps #100, the Magical Fire Music.) 

 

 

(#@: E or F?) The Motif of Remembrance: thanks to Hagen (Siegfried’s natural impulse to make what was unconscious conscious), Siegfried involuntarily betrays the secret of his (Wagner’s) unconscious artistic inspiration (loving union with his muse Bruennhilde) in his (Wagner’s) narration of how he came to grasp the meaning of birdsong (how Wagner came to create his Ring)