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Table of Contents

Title Page
Dedication Page
General Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations for key references
Guide to abbreviations used in text
Allen Dunning's numbered Guide to the Ring's Musical Motifs
Detailed Table of Contents

The Ring

Introduction


References
Appendix I
Appendix I I

Key Colour Coding

Donations Welcome

I would be grateful for donations of any size, small or large, to help defray the cost (1) of maintaining this website, (2) and to finance my past and present research which produced my book posted here, Volume One of "The Wound That Will Never Heal," and my forthcoming revision of Volume One (to be submitted for publication), and completion of Volume Two on Wagner's six other canonic operas and music-dramas. I sacrificed at least seven years of paid employment and incurred debts to complete this project, and am currently unemployed, so I thank you in advance for any financial help you can provide. Your friend, Paul Heise.

[[#16]] The Rhinedaughters' song, dance, and verse in praise of the Rhinegold

The Rhinedaughters as muses of the arts, representing instinct, musical feeling, as the basis for aesthetic intuition

(#16’s motival links, if any, not yet ascertained)

[See #13 for #16’s dramatic context]

[[#17ab]] “World Inheritance” (The power of the human mind)

By forging a Ring from the Rhinegold, one would gain limitless power. This is a symbol symbol for the power of the human mind, which grants man power over his world unknown to any other animals

(#17ab grows naturally out of some of the Rhinedaughters' joyous singing in praise of the Rhinegold; basis of #19 and therefore also of #20a; #19ab in turn basis of #46, #50, #51, #68, and #159)

“Alberich: is the gold good only for your diving games? Then it would serve me little.

 

Woglinde: [#Music expressing the Rhinedaughters’ joy gradually transforms into #17] The golden jewel he’d not despise if only he knew all its wonders.

 

Wellgunde: [[ #17 ]] The world's inheritance would be won by him who forged from the Rhinegold the ring that would grant him limitless power.

 

Flosshilde: Father told us and bound us over to guard the bright hoard wisely that no false thief should filch it from the flood: be silent, then, you babbling brood!

 

Wellgunde: Wisest of sisters, why complain? Do you not know to whom alone it is given to forge the gold?

 

Woglinde: [[ #18 ]] Only the man who forswears love's sway, only he who disdains love's delights, can master the magic spell that rounds a ring from the gold."