Life of Richard Wagner. Louis Nohl
to revolt against the art-circumstances of his time, and as he became convinced that the condition of art was but the result of the social and political, indeed of the existing mental condition of the people, he at last broke out into open revolution against the entire system. This very agitation of soul, however, became the source of his artistic creations, wherein he attempted to disclose grander ideals and nobler art, and they form therefore, as in the case of every real artist, his own genuine biography. In tracing the origin of his works, we follow the inner current of his life.
Thus far we have availed ourselves of the biographical notes which Wagner, prior to the representation of the “Flying Dutchman,” gave to his friend Heinrich Laube for publication in the “Zeitung fuer die elegante Welt.” We are now guided further by one of the most stirring spiritual revelations in existence, his “Communication to my Friends,” in the year 1851, in that banishment to which his noblest endeavors had brought him, written with his heart’s blood, as a preface to the publication of the three opera poems, namely, “Flying Dutchman,” “Tannhaeuser” and “Lohengrin.” It is the consummation of his artistic as well as human development out of which grew his highest creations.
We must recur to the “Flying Dutchman,” whose real name was “Hel Laender,” the guide of the deadship, or the fallen sun-bark, which, according to the Teutonic legend, conveyed the heroes to Hel, the region of perpetual night. We shall confine ourselves however to the later version of the middle ages, the only one with which Wagner was familiar. “The form of the ‘Flying Dutchman’ is the mythic poem of the people; a primeval trait of humanity is expressed in it with heartrending force,” Wagner says to those who in spite of Goethe’s “Faust” had formed no conception of the vitality, and poetic treasures that lay concealed in the myth. In its general significance the motive is to be considered as the longing for rest from the storms of life. The Greeks symbolized this in Odysseus, who, during his wanderings at sea, longed for his native land, his wife, and home – “On this earth are all my pleasures rooted.” Christianity, which recognizes only a spiritual home, reversed this conception in the person of the “Wandering Jew.” For this wanderer, condemned eternally to live over again a life, without purpose and without pleasure, and of which he has long since grown weary, there is no deliverance on earth. Nothing remains to him but the longing for death. Toward the close of the middle ages, after the human mind had been satiated with the supernatural, and the revival of vital activity impelled men to new enterprises, this longing disclosed itself most boldly and successfully in the history of the efforts to discover new worlds. An “impetuous desire to perform manly deeds” seized mankind as the earth-encircling, boundless ocean came into view, no longer the closely encircled inland sea of the Greeks. The longing of Odysseus, which in the “Wandering Jew” has grown into longing for death, now aims at a new life, not yet revealed, but distinctly perceived in the prospective. It is the form of the “Flying Dutchman,” in which both expressions of the human soul are joined in a new and strange union, such as the spirit of the people alone can produce. He had sworn to sail past a cape in spite of wind and waves, and for that is condemned by a demon, the spirit of these elements, to sail on the ocean through all eternity. He can gratify the longing which he feels, through a woman, who will sacrifice herself for his love, but to the Jew it was denied. He seeks this woman therefore that he may pass away forever. There is this difference however: She is no longer Penelope caring for her home, but woman in general, the loving soul of mankind, which the world has lost in its eager strife to conquer new worlds, and which can only be regained when this strife shall cease and yield to a new activity, truer to human nature.
“From the swamps and floods of my life often emerged the ‘Flying Dutchman,’ and ever with irresistible attraction. It was the first popular poem which took deep hold of my heart,” says Wagner. At this point his career began as a poet, and he ceased to write opera-texts. It is true there was still much that was indecisive and confused in the experiment, but the leading features are pictured verbally with remarkable clearness, and the music invests them with a sense and distinctness of convincing force as an inseparable whole, such as had not been previously known in opera. It may be said that with the “Flying Dutchman” a new operatic era began, or rather the attainment of its dimly conceived destiny as a musical drama. It also expresses the mental activity of the time and the longing for a new world, which was to redeem mankind and secure for us an existence worthy of ourselves. It still appears to us as the native land, encircling us with its intimate associations, and yet there also appears in it the longing for a return to our own individual identity, in which alone we can find the traces of our higher humanity, which a narrowing and degrading foreign influence had banished. Goethe’s “Faust,” Byron’s “Manfred,” and Heine’s “Ratcliff,” all give utterance to the same feeling, with more or less beauty and power; but the blissful repose of deliverance really secured, they could not express with the perfection displayed by Wagner. He was not only secure in this advantage, but he was able to pursue it with increasing energy, so as to push away to a great distance the obstacles which burdened the time.
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