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Introduction by Roger Scruton
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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.

this. I say this because of pervasive evidence of his suspicion, perhaps largely subliminal, that man’s inherent metaphysical impulse, man’s universal longing that his life and death have transcendent meaning and value, was founded on self-delusion, a hubris predestined to be punished, and that his contrary desire to somehow overcome his suspicion was only a part, but not the only part, of his artistic being. I’ve found a vast body of documentary evidence, especially in the words and music of the Ring, but corroborated thoroughly also by secondary evidence from Wagner’s writings and recorded remarks, and Feuerbach’s writings, that in spite of the fact that for Wagner this faith in the transcendent dignity and uniqueness of the human spirit was the primary value for which he was fighting in creating his artistic masterworks, nonetheless in his deepest, most inward, secret self he doubted this line could be held, and dramatized this fact in all of his canonical operas and music-dramas, in an ever more explicit and tragic manner.