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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

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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.

recurrence here of #53 and #54, recalling Erda’s prophecy of the gods’ end, as Wotan tells Siegfried to go on his way, since he can’t stop him. Wotan of course has now resigned himself to the fact that his free hero, the redeemer, can only fulfill his mission, to redeem the gods through love (i.e., through the loving union of the artist-hero with his muse of inspiration), if the gods pass away. Accordingly, as Wotan departs we hear the “Loveless Motif”, #37, suggesting that with his departure Siegfried will find no further stumbling blocks to thwart his unwitting mission in Wotan’s behalf. These motifs also bring to mind motif #83, the “Gods’ Need Motif,” which is composed of #53 and #54, overlain by #81, and which represents Wotan’s need for the free hero who will redeem the gods from Alberich’s curse on the Ring. So far, Siegfried has met all the conditions necessary to define himself as Wotan’s free hero and redeemer of the gods. With Wotan’s departure, again accompanied by #66, Siegfried expresses the joy in his new-won freedom over all the old, traditional, conservative powers which sought to block his progress towards his destiny as a revolutionary artist-hero. This time he blows his horn in the full certainty of winning the greatest of boon companions, his muse of inspiration Bruennhilde, and passes through the fire in search of her. Siegfried’s musico-dramatic ecstasy at the moment of his ultimate emancipation from Wotan’s (mankind’s) burden of sin (i.e., from consciousness of sin) is overwhelming: rarely if ever has the feeling of freedom, a falling away of ancient burdens, been so vividly captured in a work of art. Of course, because what we are about to experience in S.3.3, the highest summit of the Ring, is Wagner’s allegorical representation of what it is like for him, the authentic artist, to be unconsciously inspired by his muse of art.