consciousness, so that redemption for Wagner lay in a sort of artificial restoration of man’s pre-human instinctuality, through music, a product of nature.
Bruennhilde can now - as Siegfried’s unconscious repository for Wotan’s repressed knowledge - inspire him subliminally, and thus safely, with Wotan’s fear, to produce works of art which will redeem us from fear. This links Bruennhilde’s defiance of Wotan, her breach of divine law, and Wotan’s subsequent employment of her as the muse of inspiration for the hero whom he hopes will redeem the gods from Alberich’s curse, with Feuerbach’s praise of Eve’s defiance of God’s injunction against eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. Feuerbach praises Eve because he believes man’s gods are illusions, and therefore Eve’s disobedience was according to Feuerbach a symbol for man’s first step toward freedom from dependency on the illusion of a divine creator or legislator:
[P. 246] “ ‘Prelude’:
Your attention please! I will reach a conclusion in your best interests:
Eve was reason, Adam was faith.
‘The Curtain Rises on the Lost Paradise of Faith’:
In the beginning faith was alone and in a condition of innocence,
But, sadly, this innocence was of short duration.
Adam had a normal growth as long as he was alone;
Thus he developed a strong yearning for a female companion.
God pitied his plight, took a rib out of the body of faith,
And created for him Eve, that is, reason.
(…)
At first they were naked but not ashamed in front of one another;
For Adam had not yet known Eve.
But, alas, Eve! Unhappy Eve!
But, alas, Eve! Lustful reason!
But, alas, Eve! She seduced upright faith
Into plucking the fruit from the tree of knowledge.
And an angry God now drove the pathetic pair
[P. 247] Out of Paradise, the land of simple innocence.
Now a cherub watches at the gates of Eden
With a fiery sword and never lets the little pair in.
So the lovely Eden of belief is lost forever!
(…)
You must now work, bring forth in pain; you must no longer merely believe,
But must earn on your own what you need for life and salvation.” [35F-TDI: p. 246-247]
“ ‘Examples of the most glorious and noble deeds of women’: (1) The Fall’:
‘Eve led Adam astray.’ I certainly am not upset by the fact
That she finally pulled the night cap off the head of the pious fool.
