/lit/ - Literature

>>21575673

For many lovers of Tristan, the third act is the richest—the “greatest in every way,” “practically perfect,” according to Joseph Kerman—a perception extending back at least as far as Nietzsche’s panegyric in The Birth of Tragedy. It is not just because Wagner merges the exigencies of musical and dramatic structure to an unprecedented degree in this act but also because act 3 completes a palpable large-scale design for the work in toto. Wagner himself said that act 3 was the “point of departure for the mood as a whole,” a statement confirmed by his 1854 letter to Liszt, which already looks ahead to the oppositions that attain their point of greatest intensity in act 3. Act 3 pivots around those oppositions: Tristan’s curse of the love potion and his own existence, his relapse into unconsciousness, and his reawakening and clairvoyant vision of Isolde. These events are centralized within the act.

https://youtu.be/gGAKgoclJ6A?t=10358

>The science of Æsthetics has at all times laid down Unity as a chief requirement from the artwork. In the abstract this Unity is difficult to dialectically define, and its misapprehension has led to many and grave mistakes. It comes out the plainest in the perfect artwork itself, for it is it that moves us to unbroken interest, and keeps the broad impression ever present. Indisputably this result is the most completely attained by the living represented drama; wherefore we have no hesitation in declaring the Drama the most perfect of artworks.
>The modern drama has a twofold origin: the one a natural, and peculiar to our historic evolution, namely, the romance the other an alien, and grafted on our evolution by reflection, namely, the Greek drama as looked at through the misunderstood rules of Aristotle.
>The real kernel of all our poesy may be found in the romance. In their endeavor to make this kernel as tasty as possible, our poets have repeatedly had recourse to a closer or more distant imitation of the Greek drama.
>The topmost flower of that drama which sprang directly from romance we have in the plays of Shakespeare; in the farthest removal from this drama, we find its diametrical opposite in the tragedie of Racine. Between these two extremes our whole remaining dramatic literature sways undecided to and fro.
>As I am writing no history of the modern drama, but, agreeably to my object, have only to point out in its twofold development the chief lines along which the root difference between those two evolutionary paths is plainest visible, I have passed over the Spanish theatre, since in it alone those diverse paths are characteristically crossed with one another. This makes it indeed of the highest significance in itself, but to us it affords no antitheses so marked as the two we find, with determinant influence upon all newer evolution of the drama, in Shakespeare and the French tragedie.

Reminder that poetry is meant to be sung.

Why is he referenced so much by Eliot and Joyce?

>>19342846
>Moreover, some strange experiences have come to me through my works. When I think of the pain and discomfort which are now my chronic condition, I cannot but feel that my nerves are completely shattered: but marvellous to relate, on occasion, and under a happy stimulus, these nerves do wonders for me; a clearness of insight comes to me, and I experience a receptive and creative activity such as I have never known before. After this, can I say that my nerves are shattered? Certainly not. But I must admit that the normal condition of my temperament — as it has been developed through circumstances — is a state of exaltation, whereas calm and repose is its abnormal condition. The fact is, it is only when I am "beside myself" that I become my real self, and feel well and happy. If Goethe felt otherwise, I do not envy him on that account; as indeed I would not change places with any one, — not even with Humboldt, whom you look on as a genius, an opinion I cannot share. No doubt you feel just as I do, and are not prepared to change with any one; wherein you do wisely. I, at least, admire you sincerely.

>>18476418

>>17797852
Chad neckbeard.

>>17774106
Joyce literally would not exist without Wagner.

And Proust was heavily dependant on him.

>>17743180
What did the young hegelians mean by "Freedom"?

What is it with people and treating Wagner's individual acts as if they should perfect in and of themselves? People regularly talk about the "perfect first act of Die Walkure, but disappointing second act," like even just ignoring how good the second act is, when do people critique Shakespeare this way?

Drama moves in a natural way, and not every scene or act has to have the most exciting or have the most famous bits.

>>17395158

>>17227468
>LARPs as a philosopher his entire life
>Barely knows how Hegel's metaphysics worked
>adds made up historical philosophy to the work to make up for his shortcomings
>Turns Siegfried into a parody of the world-historical figure

>>16982841
How can faggy German "intellectuals" even compete?

Look at this limp-wrist.