Wagner's Ring and Its Symbols

Overall an interesting book with a lot to it to help the Wagner newbie. I still agree with my first reaction about the over-abundance of Freud and Jung; I skimmed or skipped almost all of this. There is just enough detail about the plot to help the reader keep the thread, and the number musical themes that are referred to throughout are really useful. I'm going to keep this checked out at least until I get and am done with the Rheingold CD from the library. I might do the whole cycle, depending.

"This book is about the poetical and musical symbols in Wagner's ring; and what Wagner brought, with all the suggestive artistry at his disposal, into symbolical and artistic consciousness, I as critic am trying to bring some small stage further on towards intellectual and analytical consciousness".

This book is an examination of Wagner and the Ring in terms not of politics or merely musical values but in those of a depth psychology that might be termed "post Jungian".