Category: Plays/Films/Dramas

Studies in the Wagnerian Drama

Wagner a Regenerator of the Lyric Drama.--Greek Tragedy.--Solemn Speech and Music.--The Poet-composers of Hellas.--The Florentine Reformers and their Invention of the Lyric Drama.--Peri and Caccini.--Their Declamation.--Monteverde's Orchestra.--How Wagner Touches Hands with hi...

Chapters

11. CHAPTER IV.

The common error of looking upon the outward covering of things for the things themselves has led to the real plot of Wagner's tetralogical drama "The Niblung's Ring" being over...

12. CHAPTER V.

The last of Wagner's dramas is not only mystical in its subject, but also in the manner in which it confronts the critical student. In Bayreuth it exerts a most puissant influen...

6. CHAPTER I.

To understand the real position which Richard Wagner occupies in the world of art, and to appreciate the significance of the achievements which have kept that world in a turmoil...

9. CHAPTER III.

Once upon a time--if I were disposed to be circumstantial I would say in the early summer of the year of our Lord 1560, for it was the year of Hans Sachs' widowerhood--Veit Pogn...

7. CHAPTER II.

A vassal is sent to woo a beauteous princess for his lord. While he is bringing her home the two, by accident, drink a love-potion, and ever thereafter their hearts are fettered...

10. chapter twenty-eight of the same book. Then follow songs dealing with

the Gospels and Epistles. The Book of Job is not forgotten. Finally, there are a number of secular poems, many recounting Æsop's fables and anecdotes drawn from old writers. Son...

4. CHAPTER IV.

Beautiful and Enduring Legends are Universal Property.--Parallels Between the Elements and Apparatus of Mythological Tales.--The Grotto of Venus, the Garden of Delight, Avalon,...

8. Scene 3, the sufferings of the wounded Tristan are depicted in a theme

and note, too, that the closing cadence of the short phrase which stands for the love-glance is a downward leap of seven degrees. In this phrase, as we first hear it, there is m...

5. CHAPTER V.

Wagner's Last Drama.--Paradoxical in its Appeals to the Spectator and Student.--A Religious Play.--Blending of Buddhistic and Christian Plots.--Socialistic Philosophy and Asceti...

2. CHAPTER II.

The Legend in Outline.--A Subject that has Fascinated Poets for over Six Centuries in Spite of Changes in Moral Feeling.--Wagner's Variations from the Versions of Gottfried von...

1. CHAPTER I.

Wagner a Regenerator of the Lyric Drama.--Greek Tragedy.--Solemn Speech and Music.--The Poet-composers of Hellas.--The Florentine Reformers and their Invention of the Lyric Dram...

3. CHAPTER III.

Story of the Drama.--A Comedy Faithful to Classical Conceptions.--_Ridendo Castigat Mores._--Its Specific Purpose is to Celebrate the Triumph of Natural Poetic Impulse, Stimulat...