Journal Article

Toward a new understanding of the wanderer in 'Siegfried', act III: Wotan's voluntary moral step backward

Solomon Guhl-Miller

2014

Overview

The thesis that Wotan, or Wotan in combination with Siegfried and Br nnhilde, embodies a moral-philosophical progression is hardly new. Aside from Wagner's own explanations, articles in the Bayreuther Bl tter and the Richard Wagner Jahrbuch by authors such as Otto Eiser, Josef Schalk, Alois H fler, and Robert Petsch contain numerous explanations of Wotan's character development, philosophical and otherwise, in the years immediately following the premiere and into the first decades of the twentieth century. More recent studies include those in which the Ring is analysed by comparing it to a philosophical system such as Theodor Adorno's Schopenhauerian, Carl Dahlhaus's Feuerbachian, Sandra Corse's Hegelian and Joachim K hler's Schellingian analyses, not to mention the numerous analyses dealing with aspects of Wotan's character like Joachim Herz's 'The Figure and Fate of Wotan in Wagner's Ring.'

• Subject: Musical analysis / Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883 / Wagner, Siegfried, 1869-1930