Wagner's Ring and its symbols
Subtitle: the music and the myth
By: Robert Donington
Publisher: Faber and Faber
Published: 1963
Language: eng
Number of pages: 324
Copyright date: 1963
Subjects: Symbolism in opera; Ring des Nibelungen (Wagner, Richard)
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 309-318).

Internet Archive - 2

Internet Archive 2
Table of contents: title: Myth and music. Symbols at work ; Symbols common to our species ; Wagner's attitude to his symbols ; Symbols as archetypal images ; Symbols regarded as functions of psychic consciousness ; Symbols as inner experience ; The musical symbols ; The dramatic symbols ; Wagner's characters as symbols; title: Prelude to 'Rhinegold'. The beginning of the world as a symbol for our own beginning ; The state of nature and the fall from innocence ; Accepting the opposites or escaping them in fantasy ; The return to nature in rebirth symbolism; title: 'Rhinegold', scene I. Alberich and the Rhinemaidens ; The Rhinemaidens and their gold ; Money seen as the root of all evil ; The fire under the water ; Accidentally on purpose? ; The renunciation of love ; A Promethean theft?; title: 'Rhinegold', scene II. Wotan as an image of the self ; Wotan as a sky-god and a saviour god ; Wotan as psychic consciousness ; Wotan as ego consciousness ; Wotan as father-image ; Fricka as part of Wotan's inner femininity ; Other representatives of the eternal feminine ; The god's dilemma ; Loge the trickster and his tricky remedy; title: 'Rhinegold', scene III. The paradox of the situation brought out in the music ; The underworld of Nibelheim ; The ring as a symbol for the self ; Tarnhelm as a symbol of unconscious fantasy ; The tricking of Alberich; title: 'Rhinegold', scene IV. Wotan acts the ruffian ; Alberich curses for the second time ; Alberich's curse : sheet disaster or blessing in disguise? ; Erda prophesies to Wotan and Freia is ransomed ; The curse gets to work : Fafner murders Fasolt ; Valhalla the impregnable fortress at last; title: 'The Valkyrie', act I. Incest hpysical and mythological ; Incest a danger in the flesh and in fantasy ; Transgression or heroic accomplishment? ; Mythological incest as a ritual marriage ; Siegmund and Sieglinde in their hour of destiny ; Sieglinde and Hunding hear Siegmund begin his story ; Siegmund tells us of his unquiet and lonely life ; Siegmund's story shows Hunding to be his enemy ; Why Wotan is entangled in his bargains ; The sword in the tree ; The sword itself ; the long winter ends with the coming of love; title: 'The Valkyrie', act II. Brynhilde as Valkyrie and more than Valkyrie ; Wotan and Fricka ; The sacrificial significance of Siegmund's death ; Wotan confindes in Brynhilde ; The end of Siegmund ; The consequences of Siegmund's death; title: 'The Valkyrie', act III. The Valkyrie sisterhood and the rescue of Sieglinde ; Wotan's estrangement from Brynhilde ; The partial reconciliation of Wotan and Brynhilde ; The parting of Wotan and Brynhilde; title: 'Siegfried', act I. Mime and Siegfried ; Mime and Wotan ; The forging of nothing; title: 'Siegfried', act II. Alberich and Wotan ; Siegfried and the forest murmers ; Siegfried and Fafner ; Alberich and Mime ; Siegfried's foster-father ; The birds guide Siegfried toward Brynhilde; title: 'Siegfried', act III. Wotan and Erda meet for the last time ; Wotan and Siegfried ; Siegfried and Brynhilde ; To thine own self be true; title: 'Götterdämmerung', act I. Life's two faces : the light and the dark ; The three aged Norns ; The journey to the Rhine ; The Gibichungs ; Siegfried and Gutrune ; Siegfried and the magic potion ; The plot against Brynhilde; title: 'Götterdämmerung', act II. The personal shadow and the shadow archetype ; The quarrel between Brynhilde and Siegfried ; The alliance of Brynhilde with Hagen ; The terrible mother as invisible partner in the plot ; The plot against Siegfried; title: 'Götterdämmerung', act III, part 1. Siegfried accepts his destiny ; Siegfried's narrative and self-discovery ; Siegfried's death; title: 'Götterdämmerung', act III, part 2. The dark night of the soul ; The eternal masculine and the eternal feminine ; Brynhilde's hour ; The return to innocence in a maturer state ; The voluntary sacrifice of outworn values ; The baptism by fire and water ; The sacred marriage as the union of opposites ; Redemption as transformation in the psyche.