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The Valkyrie: Page 347
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(…) The Understanding [say, Alberich’s and Wotan’s hoard of objective knowledge of the world which Erda, Mother Nature, imparted to Wotan] is therefore driven by necessity to wed itself with an element [the womb of the unconscious and its special language of feeling, music] which shall be able to take-up into it the poet’s Aim as a fertilising seed, and so to nourish and shape this seed by its own, its necessary essence, that it may bring it forth as a realising and redeeming utterance of Feeling.

This element is that same mother-element, the womanly, from whose womb – the ur-melodic expressional-faculty, -- there issued Word and Word-speech [say, Woglinde’s Lullaby #4, in which music evolved into meaningful words], so soon as it was fecundated by the actual outward-lying objects of Nature [man’s objective experience of Erda, the world]; just as the Understanding throve from out the Feeling, and is thus the condensation of this womanly into a manly, into an element fitted to impart.” [530W-{50-1/51} Opera and Drama: PW Vol. II, p. 235] [See also 512W]

And here we find Wagner equating music effectively not only with Wotan’s unspoken secret, described here as the “unspeakable,” but, appropriately enough (since this is the god’s confession of his secret), also with the religious mysteries, which Wotan imparts to Bruennhilde in his confession:

[P. 316] “… now, we have plainly to denote this Speaking-faculty of the Orchestra as the faculty of uttering the unspeakable.(…) [P. 317] That this Unspeakable is not a thing unutterable per se, but merely unutterable through the organ of our Understanding; … this is shown plainly enough by the Instruments of the orchestra themselves … . … This easy explanation of the ‘Unspeakable,’ one might extend, perhaps not altogether wrongly, to the whole matter of Religious Philosophy; for although that matter is given out as absolutely unutterable, from the standpoint of the speaker, yet mayhap it is utterable enough if only the fitting organ [i.e., music] be employed.” [539W-{50-1/51} Opera and Drama: PW Vol. II, p. 316-317]

In another passage from Opera and Drama, Wagner provides explicit evidence that he equates the seed which the Poet plants in the womb of music, and which he describes as the “Past,” with what I have called the hoard of objective knowledge which Erda imparted to Wotan, and which he in turn imparts to Bruennhilde during his confession.

“[Wagner states that:] “This fecundating seed … is brought by the Poet, i.e., the artist of the present; and this seed is the quintessence of all rarest life-sap, which the Past has gathered up therein [i.e., Wotan’s account of world-history which he imparts to Bruennhilde], to bring it to the Future as its necessary … fertilising germ: for this Future is not thinkable, except as stipulated by the past.” [555W-{50-1/51} Opera and Drama; PW Vol. II, p. 376]

The “Future” of which Wagner speaks here is the redemptive music-drama which Siegfried - inspired by the love of his muse Bruennhilde, who imparts to him subliminally, musically, Wotan’s confession – will some day create.

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