CHAPTER V.

"PARSIFAL."

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 Asceticism.--Identification of Parsifal and Christ.--Monkish Relic Worship.--Ethical Idea of the Drama.--The Apparatus, the Hero, the Trial.--Mission of the Music.--It must Reconcile Modern Thought and Feeling and Mediæval Religion.--Imagination and Fancy.--Suffering and Aspiration.--Original Elements of the Grail Story.--Parsifal an Aryan Hero.--His Name as an Index of Moral Character.--"The Great Fool Tales."--The Holy Grail not Originally a Christian Symbol.--Percival and Peredur.--Parsifal in Wagner's Drama.--His Musical Symbols.--Properties of the Talisman: Physical, it Provides Sustenance; Spiritual, it is a Touchstone and Oracle.--Its Prototypes in Many Lands.--The Golden Cup of Jamshid and the Joseph of Arimathea Legend.--The Grail and Coral.--Dr. Oppert's Theory.--Blood the Essential Element.--The Prelude.--Amfortas.--Question and Lance.--Herzeleide.--Musical Symbols of Suffering and Aspiration.--Wagner's Interpretation.--Tried by Temptation.--Klingsor.--Kundry.--The Loathly Damsel and Herodias.--Wolfram's Married Parzival Pages 162-198

THE WAGNERIAN DRAMA.