oceanic feeling which music engenders. This equation links Siegfried’s current experience of ecstasy in loss of self, with the experience of Tristan and Isolde, and even Senta and the Dutchman, whose redemption and resurrection is preceded by immersion in the sea:
[P. 112] [Speaking of musical harmony, Wagner says that:] “The eye knows but the surface of this sea; its depth the depth of Heart alone can fathom. (…)Man dives into this sea; only to give himself once more, refreshed and radiant, to the light of day. His heart feels widened wondrously, when he peers down into this depth, pregnant with unimaginable possibilities whose bottom his eye shall never plumb, whose seeming bottomlessness thus fills him with the sense of marvel and the presage of Infinity. It is the depth and infinity of Nature [Erda] herself, who veils from the prying eye of Man the unfathomable womb of her eternal Seed-time, her Begetting, and her Yearning; even because man’s eye can only grasp the already manifested, the Blossom, the Begotten, the Fulfilled. This Nature is, however, none other than the nature of the human heart itself [Wotan’s and Erda’s daughter Bruennhilde, who feels what Wotan thinks], which holds within its shrine the feelings of desire and love in their most infinite capacity; which is itself Desire and Love, and – as in its insatiable [P. 113] longing it yet wills nothing but itself – can only grasp and comprehend itself.” [436W-{9-12/49} The Artwork of the Future: PW Vol. I, p. 112-113]
And Wagner suggests below that through such immersion in the sea of harmony, which he describes as the deep and unending mystery of woman, the poet – i.e., Siegfried – no longer feels dread, fear, and terror in the presence of this woman. In this way, the artist-hero, the music-dramatist, becomes the Lord of Nature, remaking nature according to his own whim driven by feeling, which in another place we found was both Feuerbach’s definition of God, and his critique of God, the basis of what Feuerbach found wrong and sinful in religion’s denial of Mother Nature:
[P. 285] “Only the poet whose Aim we have here expounded [the inspired music-dramatist], will feel driven so irresistibly to a heart-alliance with the ‘eternal womanly’ of Tone-art, that in these nuptials he shall celebrate alike his own redemption. Through the redeeming love-kiss of that Melody the poet is now inducted into the deep, unending mysteries of Woman’s nature: he sees with other eyes, and feels with other senses. To him the bottomless sea of Harmony, from which that beatific vision rose to meet him, is no longer an [P. 286] object of dread, of fear, of terror [thanks to his loving union with his muse Bruennhilde, Siegfried the artist-hero forgets the fear she taught him], such as earlier it seemed in his imaginings of the strange and unknown element; [* Translator’s Footnote: “Siegfried, last scene: ‘Wie end’ ich die Furcht? Wie fass’ ich Muth?’ “] now, not only can he float upon the surface of this ocean, but – gifted with new senses – he dives into its lowest depth. (…) For the very winds of heaven, does the poet now command, -- since those winds are nothing but the breath of never-ending Love, of the Love in whose delight the poet is redeemed, and through its might becomes the lord of Nature.” [537W-{50-1/51} Opera and Drama: PW Vol. II, p. 285-286]
But according to Wagner’s metaphor of the relationship of music (Bruennhilde) to drama (Siegfried), Siegfried likewise bestows on Bruennhilde redemption by condensing her infinitude, her limitless feeling, to the specificity of words and concrete events and images in the drama:
