Richard H. Bell Theology of Wagner's Ring Cycle I

Annotation

Wagner's Ring is one of the greatest of all artworks of Westerncivilization, but what is it all about? The power and mystery of Wagner'screation was such that even he felt he stood before his work 'as though beforesome puzzle'. A clue to the Ring's greatness lies in its multiple avenues of self-disclosure and thecorresponding plethora of interpretations that over the years has granted amplescope for directors, and will no doubt do so well into the distant future. Onepossible interpretation, which Richard Bell argues should be taken seriously,is the Ring as Christiantheology. In this first of two volumes, Bell considers, among other things, howthe composer's Christian interests may be detected in the 'forging' of his Ring, in his appropriation of sources (whether theybe myths and sagas, writers, poets, or philosophers), and in works composedaround the same time, especially his Jesus ofNazareth.