Richard Wagner, Fritz Lang, and the Nibelungen
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A01=David J. Levin
Abelian group
Alliterative verse
Author_David J. Levin
Bayreuth
Bertolt Brecht
Brynhildr
Call and response (music)
Carl Menger
Category=ATFA
Category=AVLF
Category=AVLM
Category=QDTN
Clint Eastwood
Daniel Kahneman
Daniel Wolpert
Das Rheingold
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Zwerg
Determination
Dialogic
Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
Die Nibelungen
Diegesis
Drama
Dramaturgy
Edmond Halley
Epic poetry
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eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Franz Liszt
Fritz Lang
Fritz Machlup
From Caligari to Hitler
Genre
Georg Cantor
German art
Gesamtkunstwerk
Girih
Goethe's Faust
Gudrun
Gunther
Hose's langur
Intonation (music)
Karl Menger
Libretto
Literature
Lohengrin (opera)
Ludwig Geyer
Ludwig von Mises
Lyapunov exponent
Monologue
Narration
Narrative
National identity
Nazi Germany
Nibelung
Nibelungenlied
Odin
Opera
Opera and Drama
Oskar Morgenstern
Otto Hunte
Poetry
Recursion
Richard Wagner
Saveh
Siegfried Kracauer
Sigmund Freud
Singing
Sohn (musician)
Tetralogy
The Case of Wagner
Thea von Harbou
Theodor W. Adorno
Unsung (TV series)
Volk (German word)
Wolfgang Schivelbusch
Product details
- ISBN 9780691049717
- Weight: 340g
- Dimensions: 152 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 19 Dec 1999
- Publisher: Princeton University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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This highly original book draws on narrative and film theory, psychoanalysis, and musicology to explore the relationship between aesthetics and anti-Semitism in two controversial landmarks in German culture. David Levin argues that Richard Wagner's opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and Fritz Lang's 1920s film Die Nibelungen creatively exploit contrasts between good and bad aesthetics to address the question of what is German and what is not. He shows that each work associates a villainous character, portrayed as non-Germanic and Jewish, with the sometimes dramatically awkward act of narration. For both Wagner and Lang, narration--or, in cinematic terms, visual presentation--possesses a typically Jewish potential for manipulation and control. Consistent with this view, Levin shows, the Germanic hero Siegfried is killed in each work by virtue of his unwitting adoption of a narrative role. Levin begins with an explanation of the book's theoretical foundations and then applies these theories to close readings of, in turn, Wagner's cycle and Lang's film.
He concludes by tracing how Germans have dealt with the Nibelungen myths in the wake of the Second World War, paying special attention to Michael Verhoeven's 1989 film The Nasty Girl. His fresh and interdisciplinary approach sheds new light not only on Wagner's Ring and Lang's Die Nibelungen, but also on the ways in which aesthetics can be put to the service of aggression and hatred. The book is an important contribution to scholarship in film and music and also to the broader study of German culture and national identity.
David J. Levin is Associate Professor of Germanic Languages and Literature at the University of Chicago. He is the editor of Opera Through Other Eyes. In addition to his academic work, he has served as a dramaturg at the Frankfurt Opera, the Bremen Opera, and the Frankfurt Ballet.
