ROGER SCRUTON
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195166910
- eISBN:
- 9780199863938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195166910.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. Tristan und Isolde planted in the minds of modern artists a new vision of their goal, which was to present the secret regions of the ...
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This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. Tristan und Isolde planted in the minds of modern artists a new vision of their goal, which was to present the secret regions of the psyche in ritualized and symbolic form. However, its far-reaching influence on French symbolism and English romanticism should not blind us to the fact that its most enduring artistic legacy is to be observed in the modernists. Without Tristan there would not be modern music or modern literature as we know them. Wagner devised a new task for art: to retrace the steps from romance back to ritual, to move backward from the open, self-explaining narrative to the rite in which the human truth can be shown but not told.Less
This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. Tristan und Isolde planted in the minds of modern artists a new vision of their goal, which was to present the secret regions of the psyche in ritualized and symbolic form. However, its far-reaching influence on French symbolism and English romanticism should not blind us to the fact that its most enduring artistic legacy is to be observed in the modernists. Without Tristan there would not be modern music or modern literature as we know them. Wagner devised a new task for art: to retrace the steps from romance back to ritual, to move backward from the open, self-explaining narrative to the rite in which the human truth can be shown but not told.
Steven Huebner
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195189544
- eISBN:
- 9780199868476
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195189544.003.0024
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter analyzes Chausson's opera, Le Roi Arthus. It argues that Le Roi Arthus was not Chausson's first artistic contact with an Arthurian subject. It then considers the Arthurian sources ...
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This chapter analyzes Chausson's opera, Le Roi Arthus. It argues that Le Roi Arthus was not Chausson's first artistic contact with an Arthurian subject. It then considers the Arthurian sources Chausson used for his opera.Less
This chapter analyzes Chausson's opera, Le Roi Arthus. It argues that Le Roi Arthus was not Chausson's first artistic contact with an Arthurian subject. It then considers the Arthurian sources Chausson used for his opera.
Philip Kitcher
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195321029
- eISBN:
- 9780199851317
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195321029.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Although much of the detail is dark, with the central chapters containing an extraordinary density of material even for the Wake, Part II has an obvious structure. There are four scenes, the first ...
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Although much of the detail is dark, with the central chapters containing an extraordinary density of material even for the Wake, Part II has an obvious structure. There are four scenes, the first two of which center on the activities of the children, initially at play and then at their studies. The third, the densest chapter in the entire book, descends from the upstairs room in which the boys, Shem and Shaun, have been having their “day at triv and quad” to join HCE in the bar of his inn and to witness his collapse. The last scene occurs at sea, as four voices, those of the “evangelists”, initially embodied as seabirds, track the progress of the ship bearing Tristan and Isolde to Cornwall.Less
Although much of the detail is dark, with the central chapters containing an extraordinary density of material even for the Wake, Part II has an obvious structure. There are four scenes, the first two of which center on the activities of the children, initially at play and then at their studies. The third, the densest chapter in the entire book, descends from the upstairs room in which the boys, Shem and Shaun, have been having their “day at triv and quad” to join HCE in the bar of his inn and to witness his collapse. The last scene occurs at sea, as four voices, those of the “evangelists”, initially embodied as seabirds, track the progress of the ship bearing Tristan and Isolde to Cornwall.
Philip Kitcher
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195321029
- eISBN:
- 9780199851317
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195321029.003.0015
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
The funeral ship metamorphoses. Tristan and Isolde can be found on a vessel going to Cornwall. Though the next phase of the dreamer's explorations start with more jeers at HCE/Mark, the dismal future ...
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The funeral ship metamorphoses. Tristan and Isolde can be found on a vessel going to Cornwall. Though the next phase of the dreamer's explorations start with more jeers at HCE/Mark, the dismal future that awaits the aging man is presented obliquely. Other figures are attending to the ship on which Tristan is kissing Isolde. “They” are four old men, the “evangelists” Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, whose voices have sounded before in the Wake and who are heard at length. The official verdict of the old men, Shaun, Tristan to HCE's King Mark, is the bright promise of the future. Yet their presentation of the past, both in the style and content of their ramblings, makes it clear that the promise will be unreal unless the future is not a repetition.Less
The funeral ship metamorphoses. Tristan and Isolde can be found on a vessel going to Cornwall. Though the next phase of the dreamer's explorations start with more jeers at HCE/Mark, the dismal future that awaits the aging man is presented obliquely. Other figures are attending to the ship on which Tristan is kissing Isolde. “They” are four old men, the “evangelists” Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, whose voices have sounded before in the Wake and who are heard at length. The official verdict of the old men, Shaun, Tristan to HCE's King Mark, is the bright promise of the future. Yet their presentation of the past, both in the style and content of their ramblings, makes it clear that the promise will be unreal unless the future is not a repetition.
Simon Gaunt
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199272075
- eISBN:
- 9780191709869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272075.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter compares the heroes Tristan and Lancelot, examining their treatment in a range of medieval French texts with particular reference to the motif of dying for love. It also offers a reading ...
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This chapter compares the heroes Tristan and Lancelot, examining their treatment in a range of medieval French texts with particular reference to the motif of dying for love. It also offers a reading of the Tristan intertext in Chrétien de Troyes' Cligès.Less
This chapter compares the heroes Tristan and Lancelot, examining their treatment in a range of medieval French texts with particular reference to the motif of dying for love. It also offers a reading of the Tristan intertext in Chrétien de Troyes' Cligès.
Simon Gaunt
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199272075
- eISBN:
- 9780191709869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199272075.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter seeks to explore how dying for love is gendered in medieval French and Occitan texts, focusing on how women die differently from men. This chapter includes interpretations of some of the ...
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This chapter seeks to explore how dying for love is gendered in medieval French and Occitan texts, focusing on how women die differently from men. This chapter includes interpretations of some of the most iconic moments of dying for love in medieval literature: the Demoisele d'Eschalot from La Mort le roi Artu and Jaufre Rudel dying in the arms of the Countess of Tripoli in his vida.Less
This chapter seeks to explore how dying for love is gendered in medieval French and Occitan texts, focusing on how women die differently from men. This chapter includes interpretations of some of the most iconic moments of dying for love in medieval literature: the Demoisele d'Eschalot from La Mort le roi Artu and Jaufre Rudel dying in the arms of the Countess of Tripoli in his vida.
Karol Berger
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780520292758
- eISBN:
- 9780520966130
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520292758.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
The book centers on the four music dramas (Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal) Wagner created in the second half of his career. Two aims are ...
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The book centers on the four music dramas (Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal) Wagner created in the second half of his career. Two aims are pursued here: first, to penetrate the “secret” of large-scale form in Wagner’s music dramas, the secret the very existence of which was called into question by the composer’s critics, including the most perceptive of those, Nietzsche; second, to see the ideological import of Wagner’s dramas against the background of the worldviews that were current in his lifetime and, in particular, to confront his works with Nietzsche’s critique. What connects the two aims is my conviction that a grasp of Wagner’s large forms affords insights into the dramatic and philosophical implications of his works. The music dramas of Wagner’s later years registered and reacted to every major component in the complex ideological landscape that emerged during his century. Like a number of artists of his time, in his later years Wagner understood himself to be something more than just an artist; rather, he saw himself as a cultural prophet announcing and preparing better, more desirable forms of life for humanity. The specific content of his message never ceased to evolve, but his self-understanding as someone with a message to deliver remained constant. The confrontation with Nietzsche, a rival cultural prophet, takes a particular urgency in this context, since what was at stake in the philosopher’s objections to the artist was precisely the ideological import of Wagner’s works.Less
The book centers on the four music dramas (Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal) Wagner created in the second half of his career. Two aims are pursued here: first, to penetrate the “secret” of large-scale form in Wagner’s music dramas, the secret the very existence of which was called into question by the composer’s critics, including the most perceptive of those, Nietzsche; second, to see the ideological import of Wagner’s dramas against the background of the worldviews that were current in his lifetime and, in particular, to confront his works with Nietzsche’s critique. What connects the two aims is my conviction that a grasp of Wagner’s large forms affords insights into the dramatic and philosophical implications of his works. The music dramas of Wagner’s later years registered and reacted to every major component in the complex ideological landscape that emerged during his century. Like a number of artists of his time, in his later years Wagner understood himself to be something more than just an artist; rather, he saw himself as a cultural prophet announcing and preparing better, more desirable forms of life for humanity. The specific content of his message never ceased to evolve, but his self-understanding as someone with a message to deliver remained constant. The confrontation with Nietzsche, a rival cultural prophet, takes a particular urgency in this context, since what was at stake in the philosopher’s objections to the artist was precisely the ideological import of Wagner’s works.
Sudhir Kakar and John Munder Ross
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198072560
- eISBN:
- 9780199082124
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198072560.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The story of Tristan and Isolde has been retold many times, with various narrators exploiting the plight of lovers according to the place granted to Eros in their era and culture, thereby allowing ...
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The story of Tristan and Isolde has been retold many times, with various narrators exploiting the plight of lovers according to the place granted to Eros in their era and culture, thereby allowing for aesthetic and philosophical reinterpretations. With the tale of Tristan and Isolde at its centre, this chapter examines the ambivalence between fathers and sons, the qualities of regret, and the harsh pangs of conscience suffered because of increasingly unknown crimes of the heart. The chapter also looks at Hamlet, a tale of incest that is more about mysterious guilt than real remorse.Less
The story of Tristan and Isolde has been retold many times, with various narrators exploiting the plight of lovers according to the place granted to Eros in their era and culture, thereby allowing for aesthetic and philosophical reinterpretations. With the tale of Tristan and Isolde at its centre, this chapter examines the ambivalence between fathers and sons, the qualities of regret, and the harsh pangs of conscience suffered because of increasingly unknown crimes of the heart. The chapter also looks at Hamlet, a tale of incest that is more about mysterious guilt than real remorse.
Jon Cogburn
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781474415910
- eISBN:
- 9781474434942
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474415910.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology
Tristan Garcia holds that what makes something some thing is its resistance to reductionism, the attempt to explain it in terms of its constituents and relations to other things. For Garcia, ...
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Tristan Garcia holds that what makes something some thing is its resistance to reductionism, the attempt to explain it in terms of its constituents and relations to other things. For Garcia, something just is the differentiation between those things that constitute it and the things that it helps constitute. Tristan Garcia and the Dialectics of Persistence situates Garcia’s systematic unfolding of this idea via both classical thinkers such as Aristotle, Hegel, Heidegger, and Kant as well as modern and contemporary luminaries in analytic and continental philosophy such as A.J. Ayer, Alain Badiou, Jacque Derrida, Graham Harman, Paul Livingston, John McDowell, W.V.O. Quine, and Graham Priest. The metaphysics, differential ontology, and militant anti-reductionism from Book I of Form and Object are first charitably evaluated by the way Garcia dialectically moves through a series of seemingly incompatible oppositions concerning: substance and process, analysis and dialectic, simple and whole, and discovery and creation. After explicating Garcia’s general ontology, some of the regional ontologies of Book II, those involving intensity (events, time, life, goodness, truth, and beauty) and Garcia’s own tragic aporetic dialectics (gender, adolescence, and death), are presented. Tristan Garcia and the Dialectics of Persistence bridges analytic and continental philosophy and is moreover accessible to devotes of both traditions. The marriage of analytic and continental philosophy gives rise to original argumentation, including a new understanding of the process philosophical route to metaphysical holism, a new enclosure paradox concerning metaphysical explanation, and a new argument for the existence of an empty set.Less
Tristan Garcia holds that what makes something some thing is its resistance to reductionism, the attempt to explain it in terms of its constituents and relations to other things. For Garcia, something just is the differentiation between those things that constitute it and the things that it helps constitute. Tristan Garcia and the Dialectics of Persistence situates Garcia’s systematic unfolding of this idea via both classical thinkers such as Aristotle, Hegel, Heidegger, and Kant as well as modern and contemporary luminaries in analytic and continental philosophy such as A.J. Ayer, Alain Badiou, Jacque Derrida, Graham Harman, Paul Livingston, John McDowell, W.V.O. Quine, and Graham Priest. The metaphysics, differential ontology, and militant anti-reductionism from Book I of Form and Object are first charitably evaluated by the way Garcia dialectically moves through a series of seemingly incompatible oppositions concerning: substance and process, analysis and dialectic, simple and whole, and discovery and creation. After explicating Garcia’s general ontology, some of the regional ontologies of Book II, those involving intensity (events, time, life, goodness, truth, and beauty) and Garcia’s own tragic aporetic dialectics (gender, adolescence, and death), are presented. Tristan Garcia and the Dialectics of Persistence bridges analytic and continental philosophy and is moreover accessible to devotes of both traditions. The marriage of analytic and continental philosophy gives rise to original argumentation, including a new understanding of the process philosophical route to metaphysical holism, a new enclosure paradox concerning metaphysical explanation, and a new argument for the existence of an empty set.
Roger C. Smith (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813056760
- eISBN:
- 9780813053523
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813056760.001.0001
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology
Florida’s Lost Galleon tells the story of the Emanuel Point Shipwreck, recounting its discovery and our subsequent archival and archaeological investigations, analysis of recovered materials, and ...
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Florida’s Lost Galleon tells the story of the Emanuel Point Shipwreck, recounting its discovery and our subsequent archival and archaeological investigations, analysis of recovered materials, and interpretation of its role in the 1559 fleet of Tristán de Luna. The excavation of this shipwreck, the earliest to be found in Florida, has opened a forgotten chapter in American history. Although two interim reports, numerous academic and popular articles, and several master’s theses have resulted from work conducted on the Pensacola Bay site, this book provides a timely and comprehensive accounting of shipwreck research that is written and presented with general readers and scholars in mind. Less
Florida’s Lost Galleon tells the story of the Emanuel Point Shipwreck, recounting its discovery and our subsequent archival and archaeological investigations, analysis of recovered materials, and interpretation of its role in the 1559 fleet of Tristán de Luna. The excavation of this shipwreck, the earliest to be found in Florida, has opened a forgotten chapter in American history. Although two interim reports, numerous academic and popular articles, and several master’s theses have resulted from work conducted on the Pensacola Bay site, this book provides a timely and comprehensive accounting of shipwreck research that is written and presented with general readers and scholars in mind.
C. W. Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199233540
- eISBN:
- 9780191730948
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199233540.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Most leading French authors wrote travel books in the first half of the nineteenth century. This book is the first study exclusively devoted to surveying the Romantic travelogues they produced and ...
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Most leading French authors wrote travel books in the first half of the nineteenth century. This book is the first study exclusively devoted to surveying the Romantic travelogues they produced and the reasons for and significance of this trend. For while ‘the journey’ was a central image and myth of all Romanticism, suggesting as it did a dynamic, expanding, and evermore complex world in which artists' lives were increasingly experienced as wanderings and endless quests, the fashion for Romantic travel books was more marked in France than in Germany or England. Chateaubriand, Staël, Stendhal, Nodier, Hugo, Lamartine, Nerval, Gautier, Sand, Custine, Quinet, Mérimée, Dumas, and Tristan all wrote one or more travelogues, including four masterpieces — Hugo's Le Rhin (1842), Nerval's Le Voyage en Orient (1851), and Stendhal's two Rome, Naples et Florence (1817 and 1826). The book explores the reasons for this difference from England and Germany and its underpinning by the aims of French foreign and cultural policies as well as the needs of Parisian publishers. It puts the case for the collective achievement and essentially promising character of these Romantic travel books, compared to those of most later writers in nineteenth‐century France. A distinctive feature of the survey is its belief in the value of concentrating on the text of these books as published by their authors, as opposed to manuscript and peripheral material, whether recovered posthumously or published piecemeal in contemporary reviews.Less
Most leading French authors wrote travel books in the first half of the nineteenth century. This book is the first study exclusively devoted to surveying the Romantic travelogues they produced and the reasons for and significance of this trend. For while ‘the journey’ was a central image and myth of all Romanticism, suggesting as it did a dynamic, expanding, and evermore complex world in which artists' lives were increasingly experienced as wanderings and endless quests, the fashion for Romantic travel books was more marked in France than in Germany or England. Chateaubriand, Staël, Stendhal, Nodier, Hugo, Lamartine, Nerval, Gautier, Sand, Custine, Quinet, Mérimée, Dumas, and Tristan all wrote one or more travelogues, including four masterpieces — Hugo's Le Rhin (1842), Nerval's Le Voyage en Orient (1851), and Stendhal's two Rome, Naples et Florence (1817 and 1826). The book explores the reasons for this difference from England and Germany and its underpinning by the aims of French foreign and cultural policies as well as the needs of Parisian publishers. It puts the case for the collective achievement and essentially promising character of these Romantic travel books, compared to those of most later writers in nineteenth‐century France. A distinctive feature of the survey is its belief in the value of concentrating on the text of these books as published by their authors, as opposed to manuscript and peripheral material, whether recovered posthumously or published piecemeal in contemporary reviews.
ROGER SCRUTON
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195166910
- eISBN:
- 9780199863938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195166910.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter begins with a discussion of the Tristan legend, which predates the age of chivalry, probably by many centuries. The legend is generally thought to be of Celtic origin, entering medieval ...
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This chapter begins with a discussion of the Tristan legend, which predates the age of chivalry, probably by many centuries. The legend is generally thought to be of Celtic origin, entering medieval literature from the Breton lais. It examines several themes that should be borne in mind in considering Gottfried's version of the legend of Tristan. It describes how Wagner uses the story of Tristan and Isolde as a foil for his idiosyncratic conception of love.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of the Tristan legend, which predates the age of chivalry, probably by many centuries. The legend is generally thought to be of Celtic origin, entering medieval literature from the Breton lais. It examines several themes that should be borne in mind in considering Gottfried's version of the legend of Tristan. It describes how Wagner uses the story of Tristan and Isolde as a foil for his idiosyncratic conception of love.
ROGER SCRUTON
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195166910
- eISBN:
- 9780199863938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195166910.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter analyzes Wagner's opera. Wagner's three acts focus on three climactic moments: that of the first avowal of love, at the very moment when Isolde is to be given in marriage to King Marke; ...
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This chapter analyzes Wagner's opera. Wagner's three acts focus on three climactic moments: that of the first avowal of love, at the very moment when Isolde is to be given in marriage to King Marke; that of the betrayal by Melot and the discovery of Tristan and Isolde by the royal hunting party; and that of the death and transfiguration of the lovers. In each of these moments Tristan and Isolde vow to die and attempt to do so; only in the last do they succeed. Everything superfluous to this central narrative is removed.Less
This chapter analyzes Wagner's opera. Wagner's three acts focus on three climactic moments: that of the first avowal of love, at the very moment when Isolde is to be given in marriage to King Marke; that of the betrayal by Melot and the discovery of Tristan and Isolde by the royal hunting party; and that of the death and transfiguration of the lovers. In each of these moments Tristan and Isolde vow to die and attempt to do so; only in the last do they succeed. Everything superfluous to this central narrative is removed.
ROGER SCRUTON
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195166910
- eISBN:
- 9780199863938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195166910.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter focuses on philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's influence on the music of Tristan and Isolde. Wagner discovered the philosophy of Schopenhauer while conceiving the drama of Tristan and ...
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This chapter focuses on philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's influence on the music of Tristan and Isolde. Wagner discovered the philosophy of Schopenhauer while conceiving the drama of Tristan and Isolde. Both composer and philosopher had been deeply influenced by Kantian metaphysics; both were drawn to Hindu and Buddhist mysticism; and both were pessimists who saw renunciation as the highest human goal. Schopenhauer was the only disciple of Kant to develop a halfway believable philosophy of music, and his theories had a profound impact on Wagner, whose reading of Schopenhauer fostered his conception of a drama that would unfold entirely through the inner feelings of the characters. These feelings, hinted at in words, would acquire their full reality and elaboration in music.Less
This chapter focuses on philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's influence on the music of Tristan and Isolde. Wagner discovered the philosophy of Schopenhauer while conceiving the drama of Tristan and Isolde. Both composer and philosopher had been deeply influenced by Kantian metaphysics; both were drawn to Hindu and Buddhist mysticism; and both were pessimists who saw renunciation as the highest human goal. Schopenhauer was the only disciple of Kant to develop a halfway believable philosophy of music, and his theories had a profound impact on Wagner, whose reading of Schopenhauer fostered his conception of a drama that would unfold entirely through the inner feelings of the characters. These feelings, hinted at in words, would acquire their full reality and elaboration in music.
ROGER SCRUTON
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195166910
- eISBN:
- 9780199863938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195166910.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter argues that in Tristan und Isolde Wagner wished to reawaken in us the knowledge that the erotic is fundamental to the human condition, an aspect of our freedom, and an avenue to ...
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This chapter argues that in Tristan und Isolde Wagner wished to reawaken in us the knowledge that the erotic is fundamental to the human condition, an aspect of our freedom, and an avenue to redemption. The structure of his drama is dictated by this goal: the lovers are cut off from marriage; and already, at the outset of the drama, it is too late for renunciation. All they can do is confront the sacred moment, to acknowledge that their love must find its goal and its vindication here and now or not at all. In confronting the moment, they prepare themselves for death.Less
This chapter argues that in Tristan und Isolde Wagner wished to reawaken in us the knowledge that the erotic is fundamental to the human condition, an aspect of our freedom, and an avenue to redemption. The structure of his drama is dictated by this goal: the lovers are cut off from marriage; and already, at the outset of the drama, it is too late for renunciation. All they can do is confront the sacred moment, to acknowledge that their love must find its goal and its vindication here and now or not at all. In confronting the moment, they prepare themselves for death.
ROGER SCRUTON
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195166910
- eISBN:
- 9780199863938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195166910.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter argues that Wagner was one of the early inspirers of the new understanding of Greek tragedy and that the extent to which his own dramas were influenced by it, both in form and content, ...
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This chapter argues that Wagner was one of the early inspirers of the new understanding of Greek tragedy and that the extent to which his own dramas were influenced by it, both in form and content, should be recognized. It is through reflecting on tragedy that we can best approach the mystery of Tristan und Isolde, a drama which proceeds toward death through every kind of mental, physical, and spiritual suffering, and which is yet one of the most consoling works of art to have been produced in modern times.Less
This chapter argues that Wagner was one of the early inspirers of the new understanding of Greek tragedy and that the extent to which his own dramas were influenced by it, both in form and content, should be recognized. It is through reflecting on tragedy that we can best approach the mystery of Tristan und Isolde, a drama which proceeds toward death through every kind of mental, physical, and spiritual suffering, and which is yet one of the most consoling works of art to have been produced in modern times.
ROGER SCRUTON
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195166910
- eISBN:
- 9780199863938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195166910.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This chapter argues that in Tristan und Isolde the victims themselves are redeemed, and this redemption is to be thought of as a purely human achievement involving no miracles, no supernatural ...
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This chapter argues that in Tristan und Isolde the victims themselves are redeemed, and this redemption is to be thought of as a purely human achievement involving no miracles, no supernatural powers, no transubstantiation, but merely the aura of seclusion and inviolability that attaches naturally to the object of erotic love. It discusses the underlying religious message of Tristan und Isolde. When writing of the “redemption” achieved by his lovers, Wagner is using this term in its true religious sense, to mean a regaining of the sacred in a world where sacrilege is the prevailing danger.Less
This chapter argues that in Tristan und Isolde the victims themselves are redeemed, and this redemption is to be thought of as a purely human achievement involving no miracles, no supernatural powers, no transubstantiation, but merely the aura of seclusion and inviolability that attaches naturally to the object of erotic love. It discusses the underlying religious message of Tristan und Isolde. When writing of the “redemption” achieved by his lovers, Wagner is using this term in its true religious sense, to mean a regaining of the sacred in a world where sacrilege is the prevailing danger.
Bryan Magee
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198237228
- eISBN:
- 9780191706233
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198237227.003.0017
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
Outstanding among the many creative artists on whom Schopenhauer exercised influence was the opera composer Richard Wagner (1813–83), who, rarely for a composer, was an intellectual and studied ...
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Outstanding among the many creative artists on whom Schopenhauer exercised influence was the opera composer Richard Wagner (1813–83), who, rarely for a composer, was an intellectual and studied Schopenhauer's philosophy seriously. He was already composing operas in accordance with a published theory of his own, which involved treating all its constituent elements as of equal importance. Schopenhauer persuaded him to accept not only hitherto rejected metaphysical ideas but also the supremacy of music over the other arts. In response, Wagner composed works such as Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal whose libretti are pervaded with Schopenhauer's ideas and whose music dominates the opera. Although the first of these Schopenhauerian works, Tristan and Isolde, was published in 1859, and therefore before Schopenhauer's death in 1860, it is virtually certain that he never knew of its existence.Less
Outstanding among the many creative artists on whom Schopenhauer exercised influence was the opera composer Richard Wagner (1813–83), who, rarely for a composer, was an intellectual and studied Schopenhauer's philosophy seriously. He was already composing operas in accordance with a published theory of his own, which involved treating all its constituent elements as of equal importance. Schopenhauer persuaded him to accept not only hitherto rejected metaphysical ideas but also the supremacy of music over the other arts. In response, Wagner composed works such as Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal whose libretti are pervaded with Schopenhauer's ideas and whose music dominates the opera. Although the first of these Schopenhauerian works, Tristan and Isolde, was published in 1859, and therefore before Schopenhauer's death in 1860, it is virtually certain that he never knew of its existence.
C. W. Thompson
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199233540
- eISBN:
- 9780191730948
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199233540.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
Unusual travelogues of the period are Staël's Dix annés d'exil, Tristan's Pérégrinations d'une paria, Sand's Lettres d'un voyageur and Un hiver à Majorque. All three women wrote provocatively with a ...
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Unusual travelogues of the period are Staël's Dix annés d'exil, Tristan's Pérégrinations d'une paria, Sand's Lettres d'un voyageur and Un hiver à Majorque. All three women wrote provocatively with a feeling of doing so from a position of difference and some oppression. Travel, even when thrust upon them, became for each an opportunity to escape constraints and censorship, to express resentments, and to change or give a new shape to the story of their lives. The three seized on the opportunity to write autobiographically, and each sought to give themselves a mythical dimension as the Exile, the Pariah, and the Traveller, so appropriate a metaphor did they feel that a journey was for romantic lives and heroines. Travel thus became central to their public image, and comparison brings out the attractions of the form, as well as the problems that it posed, for the best women writers.Less
Unusual travelogues of the period are Staël's Dix annés d'exil, Tristan's Pérégrinations d'une paria, Sand's Lettres d'un voyageur and Un hiver à Majorque. All three women wrote provocatively with a feeling of doing so from a position of difference and some oppression. Travel, even when thrust upon them, became for each an opportunity to escape constraints and censorship, to express resentments, and to change or give a new shape to the story of their lives. The three seized on the opportunity to write autobiographically, and each sought to give themselves a mythical dimension as the Exile, the Pariah, and the Traveller, so appropriate a metaphor did they feel that a journey was for romantic lives and heroines. Travel thus became central to their public image, and comparison brings out the attractions of the form, as well as the problems that it posed, for the best women writers.
Sylvia Huot
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199252121
- eISBN:
- 9780191719110
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199252121.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This chapter examines the portrayal of the madman as a member of a community. In Arthurian romance, the court fool Daguenet offers a parody of knighthood, while heroic figures such as Lancelot and ...
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This chapter examines the portrayal of the madman as a member of a community. In Arthurian romance, the court fool Daguenet offers a parody of knighthood, while heroic figures such as Lancelot and Tristan stand at the pinnacle of greatness; these figures define the outer limits of the chivalric identity adopted by ‘normal’ knights. When Lancelot and Tristan lapse into madness, their role at court changes while retaining its liminal quality. Comparative analysis of their madness, together with the character of Daguenet, brings out the variety of ways that madness serves as a literary device to characterise the culture and ethos of a royal court. Adam de la Halle’s Jeu de la Feuillee features a madman in an urban setting whose antics mask a more serious commentary on the ways that social exclusion operates in defining communal identity.Less
This chapter examines the portrayal of the madman as a member of a community. In Arthurian romance, the court fool Daguenet offers a parody of knighthood, while heroic figures such as Lancelot and Tristan stand at the pinnacle of greatness; these figures define the outer limits of the chivalric identity adopted by ‘normal’ knights. When Lancelot and Tristan lapse into madness, their role at court changes while retaining its liminal quality. Comparative analysis of their madness, together with the character of Daguenet, brings out the variety of ways that madness serves as a literary device to characterise the culture and ethos of a royal court. Adam de la Halle’s Jeu de la Feuillee features a madman in an urban setting whose antics mask a more serious commentary on the ways that social exclusion operates in defining communal identity.
