| Abstract |
This book argues that no unified moral framework can be identified in The Ring of the Nibelung, for by employing myth as his subject matter, with its largely social image of moral life, and then locating this inside a framework of ethical individualism, the resulting tensions and equivocations in Wagner's drama are inescapable. The nineteenth-century background of Wagner's work is discussed from a new perspective, namely that of the legacy of Kant. As well as offering new insights into the way in which Wagner's intellectual debts are reflected in the ethical superstructure of the Ring, the author suggests a provocative connection between the intervention of Siegfried into the action, and a neglected corner of late nineteenth-century post-Kantian romantic-messianic thought. |
