Treacherous bonds and laughing fire
Subtitle: politics and religion in Wagner's Ring
By: Mark Berry.
Publisher: Ashgate
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Burlington
Language: eng
Number of pages: 287
Subjects: Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883.; Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883 -- Political and social views.
Description: "Mark Berry explores the political and religious ideas expounded in Wagner's Ring through close attention to the text and drama, the multifarious intellectual influences upon the composer during the work's lengthy gestation and composition, and the wealth of Wagner source material. Many of his writings are explicitly political in their concerns, for Wagner was emphatically not a revolutionary solely for the sake of art. Yet it would be misleading to see even the most 'political' tracts as somehow divorced from the aesthetic realm; Wagner's radical challenge to liberal-democratic politics makes no such distinction.

This book considers Wagner's treatment of various worlds: nature, politics, economics, and metaphysics, in order to explain just how radical that challenge is."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction : Problems and opportunities; title: The intellectual and biographical background; title: Musical drama; title: The natural world and its despoliation; title: Property, capital, and production; title: Law, government, and the state; title: The strength and weakness of religion; title: Power or love; title: Revolution; title: Renunciation; title: Annihilation, redemption, and augury.