New Wagner thread

[Anonymous No.22560183]

Because the other one went to shit.

I think Wagner is one of the most interesting thinkers of the past 200 years, (far better than that resentful bitch Nietzsche), and it's such a shame that he's been relatively forgotten except for his music. Even then, I believe the actual content of the operas also deserves to be discussed more, like the whole prize-song contest from Die Meistersinger and all that entails. Anyway, here's an excerpt from Art and Revolution which I quite like:

>These gladiators and fighters with wild beasts, were sprung from every European nation; and the kings, nobles, and serfs of these nations were all slaves alike of the Roman Emperor,
who showed them, in this most practical of ways, that all men were equals; just as, on the
other hand, he himself was often shown most palpably by his own Pretorian Guard, that he
also was no more than a mere slave.
>This mutual and general slavery—so clear, that no one could gainsay it—yearned, as every universal feeling of the world must yearn, for an adequate expression of itself. But the manifest degradation and dishonour of all men; the consciousness of the complete corruption of all manly worth; the inevitably ensuing loathing of the material pleasures that now alone were left; the deep contempt for their own acts and deeds, from which all spirit of Genius and impulse of Art had long since joined with Freedom in her flight; this sorrowful existence, without actual aimful life,—could find but one expression; which, though certainly universal as the condition that called it forth, must yet be the direct antithesis of Art. For Art is pleasure in itself; in existence, in community; but the condition of that period, at the close of the Roman mastery of the world, was self-contempt, disgust with existence, horror of community. Thus Art could never be the true expression of this condition: its only possible expression was Christianity.

[Anonymous No.22560185]

>This beauteous naked man is the kernel of all Spartanhood; from genuine delight in the beauty of the most perfect human body – that of the male – arose that spirit of comradeship which pervades and shapes the whole economy of the Spartan State. This love of man to man, in its primitive purity, proclaims itself as the noblest and least selfish utterance of man's sense of beauty, for it teaches man to sink and merge his entire self in the object of his affection
>The higher element of that love of man to man consisted even in this: that it excluded the motive of egoistic physicalism. Nevertheless it not only included a purely spiritual bond of friendship, but this spiritual friendship was the blossom and the crown of the physical friendship. The latter sprang directly from delight in the beauty, aye in the material bodily beauty of the beloved comrade.
What did Wagner mean by this...?

[Anonymous No.22560186]

>I am better now and I even believe that Wagner's death was the most substantial relief that could have been given me just now. It was hard for six years to have to be the opponent of the man one had most reverenced on earth, and my constitution is not sufficiently coarse for such a position. After all it was Wagner grown senile whom I was forced to resist; as to the genuine Wagner, I shall yet attempt to become in a great measure his heir (as I have often assured Fräulein Malvida, though she would not believe it).
Rent-Free.

[Anonymous No.22560192]

>>22560185
That (You) are gay!

[Anonymous No.22560290]

>>22560183

[Anonymous No.22560322]

>>22560290
topkek

[Anonymous No.22560404]

Is there a Wagner reading chart?

[Anonymous No.22560431]

>>22560183
>like the whole prize-song contest from Die Meistersinger and all that entails.
I've always found the erotic subtext of the prize song very interesting but I don't see many people take note of it. We know Wagner preceded psychoanalysis in a few ways, and Freud said it struck a sympathetic chord. Walther has a dream of Eva, Sachs teaches him how to turn it into poetry and he then performs it in front of the whole community. It entirely shows the relation between eros and artistic inspiration, as well as the integration of eros, which will always be in contradistinction to social norms, into society through art. The real climax of the drama isn't the song context, but the song composition. An astounding portrayal of the creative process:

https://youtu.be/PsHtqVTJ_6k?t=1364

[Anonymous No.22560642]

>>22560404
There isn't, though I reckon there should be. I've been going through the list in picrelated which an anon wrote up earlier this year, but it doesn't come close to covering his collected works, which holds a lot. Still, I think this list does a good job, we could always make a chart out of it.