Wagner and Schopenhauer

In This Book Author And Wagnerian Scholar Milton Brener Takes Sharp Issue With Some Prevailing Ideas Concerning The Allegedly Pervasive Influence Of Arthur Schopenhauer On Wagnerian Opera. He Does So Armed With Intimate Knowledge Of The Major Writings Of This 19Th Century German Philosopher And Of The Texts Of The Mature Wagnerian Operas. He Notes That Almost All Authors Have Stated Such Influence As An Accepted Fact Without Offering Specific Evidence Or Examples. Bryan Magee In His The Tristan Chord: Wagner And Philosophy Offers The Most Detailed And Almost The Only Exemplars In The Existing Literature Which He Claims Support Such Influence. In A Surgical-Like Analysis Brener Examines Each Of Wagner’S Mature Operas Beginning With Tristan And Isolde And Each Of Magee’S Claims Of Influence In Them. He Finds That Very Few Of Them Have Serious Validity. His Conclusion Is That Wagner Found Personal Emotional Comfort In The Philosopher’S Pessimistic Misanthropic Views Of The Human Race But That Neither His Own Miseries Nor Schopenhauer’S Views Found Fertile Ground In The Operas. On The Contrary Brener Convincingly Establishes That In Many Instances There Are Embedded In The Operas Ideas That Prefigure Concepts That Did Not Become Current Until The 20Th Century And Have Nothing To Do With Schopenhauer. Three Chapters Are Devoted To Exposition And Analysis Of The Ring Of The Nibelung The Underlying Theme Of Which Brener Claims To Be The Subject Of Free Will Versus Fate Something Modern Philosophers And Scientists Refer To As Determinism. One Chapter Each Is Devoted To Tristan And Isolde The Mastersingers Parsifal And The Uncompleted Sketches For The Victors. The Discussion Of Parsifal Is Preceded By A Review Of Schopenhauer’S Extremely Misogynous Essay “On Women” And His Own Failed Relationships With Women. The Book’S Thesis Is Logically Convincing Yet Highly Readable.