Tolkien and Wagner? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

***Sharkû*** · 03-18-2002, 10:33 AM

Germanic mythology: yes; Wagner: no. These two things are quite different, anyway.

In his Letter #229, on someone who claimed that "The Ring is in a certain way 'der Nibelungen Ring'....", Tolkien wrote: "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases. [...] It has nothing whatsoever to do with The Lord of the Rings."

And from TA Shippey's Road to Middle-Earth, p. 296:

"Tolkien was irritated all his life by modern attempts to rewrite or interpret old material, almost all of which he thought led to failures of tone and spirit. Wagner is the most obvious example. People were always connecting The Lord of the Rings with Der Ring des Nibelungen, and Tolkien did not like it. 'Both rings were round', he snarled, 'and there the resemblance ceases' (Letters, p. 306). This is not entirely true. The motifs of the riddle-contest, the cleansing fire, the broken weapon preserved for an heir, all occur in both works, as of course does the theme of 'the lord of the Ring as the slave of the Ring', des Ringes Herr als des Ringes Knecht. But what upset Tolkien was the fact that Wagner was working, at second-hand, from material which he knew at first hand, primarily the heroic poems of the Elder Edda and the later Middle High German Nibelungenlied. Once again he saw difference where other people saw similarity. Wagner was one of the several authors with whom Tolkien had a relationship of intimate dislike: Shakespeare, Spenser, George MacDonald, Hans Christian Andersen. All, he thought, had got something very important not quite right. It is especially necessary, then, for followers of Tolkien to pick out the true from the hertical, and to avoid snatching at surface similarities."

[ March 18, 2002: Message edited by: Sharku ]

03-18-2002, 10:33 AM	#1
*Sharkû* Hungry Ghoul Join Date: Jun 2000 Posts: 1,719	Germanic mythology: yes; Wagner: no. These two things are quite different, anyway. In his Letter #229, on someone who claimed that "The Ring is in a certain way 'der Nibelungen Ring'....", Tolkien wrote: "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceases. [...] It has nothing whatsoever to do with The Lord of the Rings." And from TA Shippey's Road to Middle-Earth, p. 296: "Tolkien was irritated all his life by modern attempts to rewrite or interpret old material, almost all of which he thought led to failures of tone and spirit. Wagner is the most obvious example. People were always connecting The Lord of the Rings with Der Ring des Nibelungen, and Tolkien did not like it. 'Both rings were round', he snarled, 'and there the resemblance ceases' (Letters, p. 306). This is not entirely true. The motifs of the riddle-contest, the cleansing fire, the broken weapon preserved for an heir, all occur in both works, as of course does the theme of 'the lord of the Ring as the slave of the Ring', des Ringes Herr als des Ringes Knecht. But what upset Tolkien was the fact that Wagner was working, at second-hand, from material which he knew at first hand, primarily the heroic poems of the Elder Edda and the later Middle High German Nibelungenlied. Once again he saw difference where other people saw similarity. Wagner was one of the several authors with whom Tolkien had a relationship of intimate dislike: Shakespeare, Spenser, George MacDonald, Hans Christian Andersen. All, he thought, had got something very important not quite right. It is especially necessary, then, for followers of Tolkien to pick out the true from the hertical, and to avoid snatching at surface similarities." [ March 18, 2002: Message edited by: Sharku ]