Virginia Commonwealth University VCU Scholars Compass Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 2013 Richard Wagner's Jesus von Nazareth Matthew Giessel Virginia Commonwealth University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd Part of the History Commons © The Author Downloaded from https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/etd/3284 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at VCU Scholars Compass. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of VCU Scholars Compass. For more information, please contact [email protected]. © Matthew J. Giessel 2013 All Rights Reserved Richard Wagner’s Jesus von Nazareth A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University by Matthew J. Giessel B.A., Virginia Commonwealth University, 2009 Director: Joseph Bendersky, Ph.D. Professor, Department of History, Virginia Commonwealth University Thesis Committee: Second Reader: John Powers, Ph.D. Assistant to the Chair, Department of History, Virginia Commonwealth University Third Reader: Paul Dvorak, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, School of World Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, Virginia December 2013 ii Acknowledgment τῇ Καλλίστῃ: ὁ ἔρως ἡμῶν ἦν ἀληθινός. “Jede Trennung giebt einen Vorschmack des Todes, — und jedes Wiedersehn einen Vorschmack der Auferstehung.” iii Table of Contents Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………....v Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………..1 Part I: Religion and Revolution: Historical Contextualization……………………………………5 Chapter 1: Broad Influences ……………………………………………………………...6 The Passion in Drama and Music…………………………………………6 Martin Luther, Protestantism, and Catholicism………………………….15 Chapter 2: Wagner’s Internal Development……………………………………………..23 Wagner’s Revolutionary Mentality……………………………………....23 Speech to the Vaterslandsverein…………………………………………24 Volksblätter Articles……………………………………………………..28 Die Kunst und die Revolution....................................................................32 “Künstlerthum der Zukunft”......................................................................37 Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft.......................................................................38 “The Unbeauty of Civilization”……………….…………………………41 Das Judenthum in der Musik…………….………………………………42 Das Liebesmahl der Apostel……………….………………………….…44 Rienzi..........................................................................................................48 Tannhäuser and Lohengrin........................................................................49 Chapter 3: Contemporary Intellectual Influences………………………………………52 Hegel, Schelling, and Fichte………………………………………..……52 Feuerbach…………………………………………………...……………62 Bauer…………………………………………………………………..…72 Stirner……………………………………………………….……………74 Ruge…..………………………………………………………………….76 Strauss……………………………………………………………………77 Weitling………………………..…………………………………………80 Junges Deutschland and Saint-Simone……………...………..………….83 Bakunin……..……………………………………………………………88 Röckel……………………………………………………………………92 Proudhon…………………………………………………………………94 Lamennais and Lamartine……………………………………………..…98 Part II: Jesus von Nazareth…………………………………………………………………..…102 Chapter 4: General Outline of the Work………..………………………………………102 Historiography……….…………………………………………………102 Structure…………………………………………………………..……112 Plot Summary……………………………………………………..……117 Analysis of the Drama……………………………………………….…120 Wagner’s Exegetical Framework………………………………………128 Chapter 5: Scriptural Citations and Theoretical Underpinning…………………...……132 Wagner’s Relative Understanding of Greek……………………………134 Love……………………………………………………………….……136 iv The Law………………………………………………..………………141 Materialism…………………………………………………..…………154 Revolution………………………………………………………………170 Theoretical Section……………………………………………..………174 Chapter 6: Wagner’s Subsequent Christology: A Summation…………………………175 Wagner’s Retrospective Thoughts on Jesus von Nazareth…………..…175 Schopenhauer and the Transcendental Turn……………………………179 Gfrörer and Renan………………………………………………………185 Religion und Kunst…………………………………………………...…186 Wagner’s Letters………………………………………………..………191 Die Sieger and Parsifal…………………………………………………194 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………...…196 Appendix………………………………………………………………………………….……211 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………..…..220 v Abstract RICHARD WAGNER’S JESUS VON NAZARETH. By Matthew J. Giessel, M.A. A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts at Virginia Commonwealth University. Virginia Commonwealth University, 2013. Director: Joseph Bendersky, Ph.D., Professor, Department of History. In addition to his renowned musical output, Richard Wagner produced a logorrhoeic prose oeuvre, including a dramatic sketch of the last weeks of the life of Jesus Christ entitled Jesus von Nazareth. Though drafted in 1848-1849, it was published only posthumously, and has therefore been somewhat neglected in the otherwise voluminous Wagnerian literature. This thesis first examines the origins of Jesus von Nazareth amidst the climate of revolution wherein it was conceived, ascertaining its place within Wagner’s own internal development and amongst the radical thinkers who influenced it. While Ludwig Feuerbach has traditionally been seen as the most prominent of these, this thesis examines Wagner’s sources more broadly. The thesis then summarizes and analyzes Jesus von Nazareth itself, particularly in terms of Wagner’s use of biblical scripture. The thesis demonstrates how his not infrequent misuse thereof constitutes one way in which Wagner transmogrifies Jesus as mutable lens through which his own ideology of social revolution is reflected. It also attempts to provide a critical assessment of the relative dramatic merits of Jesus von Nazareth and looks into Wagner’s ultimate decision not to complete the work. The thesis then briefly summarizes the changes that occurred in Wagner’s mature Christological outlook subsequent to his drafting of Jesus von Nazareth, attempting to concisely demonstrate some developments beyond Wagner’s well-known encounter with the philosophy of vi Arthur Schopenhauer. The thesis concludes with an evaluation of how Jesus von Nazareth informed Wagner’s general religious outlook and the extent to which this worldview is a productive one. Introduction “κτῆμά τε ἐς αἰεὶ μᾶλλον ἢ ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα ἀκούειν ξύγκειται.”1 Rarely has there been a more polarizing artistic figure than Wilhelm Richard Wagner. But despite his enduring legacy of controversy, his continued relevance has derived in part from the manner in which he composed his works, which, to paraphrase Thucydides, he intended not to garner “the applause of the moment” but instead to function as “an everlasting possession.” Though Wagner felt that his musico-dramatic output stood outside of time, and in this way somewhat solipsistically inured himself to criticism, he was nevertheless inevitably a product of his era. Wagner’s nineteenth-century Europe was a time and place in which religious dogma was increasingly questioned and in which art grew in importance to become a nigh-sacred ritual experience in its own right. Wagner was at the forefront of both of these trends, and he in fact played a large role in creating a kind of art-religion in his operas. Indeed, we find Wagner opening his 1880 essay Religion und Kunst2 with a bold statement to this effect: One might say that where Religion becomes artificial, it is reserved for Art to save the spirit of religion by recognising the figurative value of the mythic symbols which the former would have us believe in their literal sense, and revealing their deep and hidden truth through an ideal presentation. Whilst the priest stakes everything on the religious allegories being accepted as matters of fact, the artist has no concern at all with such a thing, since he freely and openly gives out his work as his own invention. But Religion has sunk into an artificial life, when she finds herself compelled to keep on adding to the edifice of her dogmatic symbols, and thus conceals the one divinely True in her beneath an ever growing heap of incredibilities commended to belief. Feeling this, she has always sought the aid of Art; who on her side has remained incapable of higher evolution so long as she must present that alleged reality of the symbol to the senses of the worshipper in form of fetishes and idols,— whereas she could only fulfil her true vocation when, 1 “In fine, I have written my work, not as an essay which is to win the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time.” (trans. Richard Crawley) Cf. “My history is an everlasting possession, not a prize composition which is heard and forgotten.” (trans. Benjamin Jowett) Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, book 1, chapter 22, accessed November 27, 2013, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3atext%3a1999.01.0199. 2 Religion and Art. 1 by an ideal presentment of the allegoric figure, she led to apprehension of its inner kernel, the truth ineffably divine.3 Such a manifesto could have served as an explanation for Wagner’s Jesus von Nazareth, written thirty years prior, to say nothing of encompassing the spirit of most of his artistic oeuvre in general. Though the exact timeframe of its drafting is not definitively known, Jesus von Nazareth was most likely written in late 1848-1849 in Dresden, when Wagner increasingly became involved with the revolutionary movement