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Wagner and the Rise of Modern Mythology
Linnaeus University, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of Cultural Sciences.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-2598-5542
2020 (English)In: The Cambridge Companion to Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen / [ed] Mark Berry;Nicholas Vazsonyi, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020, p. 70-82Chapter in book (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Since the Renaissance, artists introduced imaginative narratives to complement, or even replace, the Christian stories that functioned to shape society. They tried to introduce new mythologies. Despite the danger of encountering criticism from rationalists, as well as the threat of being absorbed by commercialism, some mythologies managed to gain influence in modern societies. Wagner’s venture, undertaken in an era no longer dominated by theology, but also not yet favored by “mythophile” psychology and spirituality, is arguably the most successful of them all. This chapter analyzes the ingredients of the success for the narrative to become a forceful mythology in the nineteenth century. This includes the ideology of humanism, the romantic idea of myths as symbolic narratives, Feuerbach’s idea of gods as signs of human alienation, Nietzsche’s view of Wagner’s Ring as an instance of anti-intellectualism, and the interpretation of the opera as at its core a socialist work of art. According to the author, the Ring should be conceived of as a special type of modern myth, namely a revolutionary myth.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020. p. 70-82
Series
Cambridge Companions to Music
Keywords [en]
myth, mythology, imagination, humanism, Romanticism, socialism, nationalism, capitalism
National Category
Religious Studies History
Research subject
Humanities; Humanities, Study of Religions; Humanities, History
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-58302DOI: 10.1017/9781316258033.004ISI: 000606741500004Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85194999292ISBN: 9781316258033 (electronic)ISBN: 9781107108516 (print)ISBN: 9781107519473 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:lnu-58302DiVA, id: diva2:1049652
Available from: 2016-11-25 Created: 2016-11-25 Last updated: 2024-11-13Bibliographically approved

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Arvidsson, Stefan

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CiteExportLink to record
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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
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Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
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  • nn-NB
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More languages
Output format
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