Reading Wagner : a study in the history of ideas / L.J. Rather.

Author/creator Rather, L. J.
Format Book
Publication InfoBaton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, ©1990.
Descriptionxiii, 349 pages ; 24 cm
Subjects
Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883--Books and reading.

Contents Wagner's reading -- On the quality of Wagner's poetry and prose -- Wagner in France -- Wagner on the human use of animal beings -- Aspects of pro- and anti-Judaism in the nineteenth century -- German and Jewish questions -- The insurresction of woman -- Harmonies and dissonances.
Abstract This book presents a wide ranging meditation on the thought and writings of one of the principal intellects of the nineteenth century. Many people have studied the poetry and music of Richard Wagner, but most critics, the author contends, have focused on works in isolation or, more frequently, on the undeniable influence of Wagner's works on twentieth-century thought. This book instead considers the works within their immediate intellectual and artistic milieu. In accommodating the rich and vibrant context within which Wagner wrote and developed his weltanschauung, Rather lays bare many of the misconceptions that have dominated Wagnerian criticism. The author first considers the link between Wagner's voracious reading and his prodigious production of music, poetry, and prose. He gives an account of the contents of Wagner's Dresden library of some four hundred hooks, newly discovered after World War II, as well as the far more extensive library Wagner imagined at Bayreuth. In his discussion of the wind books Wagner found influential, Rather also draws on Cosima Wagner's diaries, which describe in detail the reading habits of the Wayne household. The author offers an extended consideration of Wagner's own writing, showing the high degree to which such contemporaries of Wigner's as Schopenhauer, Ferdinand Lasalle, Nietzsche valued Wagner's poetry and prose. The author describes the foundation of Wagner's ethics and shows the influence of Schopenhauer's philosophy on Wagner. And he discusses Wagner vis-à-vis such other nineteenth-century figures as Mikhail Bakunin, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Benjamin Disraeli, George Sand, and George Eliot. The author provides enlightening, frequently provocative insights into Wagner's concern over the use of animals in medical experiments, his support of nineteenth-century feminism, and his anti-Semitism. The author concludes his analysis with a consideration of the function of chromaticism in music and its relationship to the development of an all-embracing human community. Readers already familiar with the author's engaging, meditative manner will find this book a compelling work. It will appeal not only to the scholar seeking a fresh consideration of Wagner but also to the more general reader, who will benefit from the author's illumination of central themes still applicable today.
Bibliography noteIncludes bibliographical references (pages 317-333) and index.
LCCN 89037814
ISBN0807115576 (alk. paper)

Availability

Library Location Call Number Status Item Actions
Music Closed Stacks - Ask at Circulation Desk ML410.W19 R25 1990 ✔ Available Place Hold