O. Shapoval

Christian Tragedy in the Creative Embodiment by R. Wagner

The author defines the place of the Christian tragedy in R. Wagner`s artistic worldview and writes about the world picture of the composer, which defined the conceptual basis of his works, starting from the 1840s opuses and including “Parsifal”. The interaction of Christian and pagan motifs, the usage of apocryphal plot motifs was very special for Wagner`s style. The connections of the German composer’s creativity with the Christian tragedy, which is optimistic in its essence, are revealed. The Wagnerian metaphor of the Christian tragedy reveals a typology of the characters: the redeemers who follow the path of the Messiah, and the sinners who are eager for salvation. Lohengrin combines the features of both groups, because it is the personification of the Divine light, on the one hand, and feels the imperfection of personal inner life, the thirst for finding yourself in Love for the Virgin, which was the Ideal, on the other. Based on the reflection of R. Wagner, the author of the article establishes that in the tetralogy the composer embodied the features of the Christian tragedy in the removed form as one of the intentional modes. Thus, the reflection of the operas of the German composer merges with psychoanalysis. A kind of «premonition» of Freudianism is revealed in Wagner`s works along with the Christian tragedy.

Key words

R. Wagner, Christian tragedy, redemption, metagenre.

• Read full article