Wagner's Character, Part 2: Personality

What was Wagner like?

By all accounts, of those who loved him and those who loathed him, Wagner was an abnormal guy.

First, he was funny-looking, with an over-sized head perched on a fairly small body.  This is only relevant to his personality in that he was always very conscious of his appearance, but that is another story. Here is an account of one woman’s first impression:

Soon the young man appeared, strikingly elegant and, indeed, distinguished looking, in spite of the fact that his legs were much too short with such an extraordinarily pretty woman on his arm that she alone would have would have sufficed to make the couple interesting, even if Wagner had not had so remarkable a head as to prove involuntarily eye-catching.¹

Wagner was the livest of wires, larger than life in almost every respect. He was described by French writer Édouard Schuré as a “floodtide that nothing can stem,”² and by Franz Liszt as having “a great and overwhelming nature, a sort of Vesuvius.”³  Even his nemesis, the critic Eduard Hanslick, conceded that he was “the most remarkable of phenomena, a marvel of energy and endowment.”⁴

A highly emotional man, Wagner possessed very little in the way of a self-censor mechanism; he was quick to anger, quick to tears, quick to laughter, quick to frenzy.  If people caught him on good days, they recounted that “he bubbled with with jokes, wild ideas and comic remarks,”⁵ was “utterly charming,”⁶ and that he was “full of fun” with “childlike jollity.”⁷ He was the life of the party.

But, his volatile temperament often put an abrupt end to the fun. Shuré captures this aspect well:

His high spirits overflowed into a joyous froth of acts of sheer buffoonery and eccentric jokes, but the least contradiction provoked unprecedented anger. Then he was like a caged lion, roaring like a wild animal, pacing the room, his voice growing hoarse and the words coming out like cries, his words striking at random. He then seemed like an unleashed force of nature, a volcano erupting... Everything about him was larger than life.”⁸ 

In one famous example, when no one was paying attention to him at a party, Wagner let out a “brief but piercing” scream, and then announced he was going to read a book to everyone—from start to finish.⁹  In fairness to Wagner, the man who recounted this event, Robert Von Hornstein, then added the better side of his qualities:

Conversely, he was enchanting whenever he went walking with Ritter and me. Witty insights flew through the air. He regaled us with tales from the rich storehouse of his experiences. Many a word of wisdom there was to be heard... His whole goodnaturedness, of which he had plenty to supply, came to the fore.¹⁰

Ignoring the audacious rudeness of his “watch me” moment described above, lest you think that Wagner reading a book might be dull, not a chance. In reading recollections of Wagner, the most prominent thing that jumps out is his incredible intensity of emotion, which he used to great effect when he was acting, singing or playing out a piece, musical or not. As one friend put it, “his true element was the most violent excitement.”¹¹  And when in such a frenzy, he was able to bring  his audience to a similar peak. If I could teleport back in time, top of my list would be to go to one of these “performances.”  To give you a flavor of this talent, this recollection comes from German sculpture Gustav Kietz when Wagner, as Kapellmeister in Saxony, was rehearsing his beloved Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. (By the way, all reports are that he couldn’t sing well at all.)

There were 300 singers all told, whom he was able, in his unique way, to bring to a pitch of real ecstasy. After repeatedly breaking off and starting again, he finally succeeded in making it clear to them that the passage ‘Seid umschlungen, Milli Vater wohnen’ and, above all, ‘Brüder, überm Sternenzelt muß ein lieber Vater wohen’ [from the "Ode to Joy"] should not be sung in any ordinary way but must be hurled forth in utmost rapture. Wagner did not always find willing acquiescence; but when, after untiring efforts, he finally sang the passage to them with a sense of ecstatic joy that transported them all to a higher plane and continued to do so until his own voice, previously audible above the others, could no longer be heard, the resultant effect was so tremendous that it will forever remain indelibly etched on the minds of all who experienced it.¹²

Ferdinand Praeger, a German composer, also noted his “Vesuvius-like temper,” but added, “Yet in all his bursts of excitability, a sudden veering round was always to be expected...subduing his ebullition, falling into a jocular vein, [he] would plainly show he was conscious of having exceeded the bounds of moderation.”¹³

But exceeding bounds was his forte. In a era with much more formality then our own, he frequently shocked people by his uninhibited nature, whether it be “taking [Peter] Cornelius in his arms and kissing him tempestuously,”¹⁴ or greeting friends by standing on his head, sliding down banisters, climbing trees, or scaling house walls.¹⁵  A typical account comes from Sebastian Röckl in describing a Tristan rehearsal:

If a difficult passage went particularly well he would spring up, embrace or kiss the singer warmly, or out of pure joy stand on his head on the sofa, creep under the piano, jump on to it, run into the garden and scramble joyously up a tree.¹⁶ 

Everyone noted his “gift of gab”: a wild jumble of ideas and jokes flowed forth nonstop from his mouth with the accompaniment of his wildly gesturing body, which—not coincidentally I am sure—paralleled his new form of “continuous music.”¹⁷  Some hated it, such as the composer Robert Schumann, who said: “Wagner is impossible; there’s no doubt that he’s an intelligent person, but he never stops talking. You can’t talk all the time.”¹⁸ Hanslick agreed with Schumann: “He talked incredibly much and rapidly... He talked continuously and always of himself, of his works, of his reforms, his plans.”¹⁹  Others, however, enjoyed the one-man show, but only when he was in a good mood.

Wagner’s high emotionality created stress-related physical problems that plagued him his entire life, chiefly a skin condition and problems digesting food. There is a cottage industry of books and essays about what ailed him, some focusing on factors in the body, while most focus on his mental health, speculating that he had ADHD, Borderline Personality Disorder, Bi-Polar Disorder, and, of course, megalomania. Through his 30s and 40s, he was plagued by suicidal feelings, which are recounted in the book, Wagner and Suicide. To read his letters, his physical and emotional discomfort are readily apparent. He was a mess.

To greatly add to his stress, he was perpetually in debt, having absolutely no more restraint in matters of money than in his life in general.

But with all the sturm und drangin his life, he still managed to produce fourteen operas, eight volumes of essays, well over 10,000 letters (and as in everything he produced, they weren’t short), an autobiography, and a theater house.

I will be taking up many of these issues in later posts: his debts, mental and physical health, depression, productivity, et al. This post is primarily to give you a sense of the man as a whole before I delved into this sort of detail later on. Let me sum up by quoting Shouré:

[Wagner was] the constant union between profound reflection and ebullient spontaneity. With him, excessive thinking had not dulled his vital spark, and whatever life’s vicissitudes, he never ceased to philosophize, combining a calculating, metaphysical intellect with the joy and eternal youth of a truly creative temperament.²⁰

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End Notes

1 Spencer, ed., Wagner Remembered, page 29. (First, I really don't know how to do end-noting in Blogger, so if you hit the link it doesn't take you back and forth from text to note.  If anyone knows how to do it, help! Secondly, the reason I am end-noting everything is to contrast with the usual litany of attacks without any references. As I have said before, I think Spencer’s book of remembrances is the best thing out there to understand Wagner’s personality. You can “look inside the book” at Amazon if you want to read more of any quote to see the context.) 

2 ibid, 180

3 Newman, Ernest, Wagner as Man and Artist, 2nd edition, Vintage Press, as quoted on page 173. Newman is the principal English-language biographer of Wagner, having published the fair-minded 4-part Life of Wagner beginning in 1933, as well as this shorter, earlier book (1924). By the way, Mount Vesuivius had erupted multiple times in the 19th century, which I sure accounts for using that particular volcano as the metaphor.
4 ibid, as quoted on page 179

5 Spencer, page 79

6 ibid, page 96

7 ibid, page 86

8 ibid, page 181

9 ibid, page 97

10 ibid, page 97

11 ibid, page 177

12 ibid, page 51

13 ibid, page 84

14 ibid, page 134; Cornelius was "supposedly bisexual," so this added to the shock.

15 Magee, Bryan; Tristan’s Chord, page 236.  

16 ibid, as quoted on page 236

17 Spencer, see for example pages 55, 81-89, 94-102, 192

18 ibid, as quoted by Hanslick ong page 46. In the same remembrance, Hanslick quotes Wagner as saying the following: “You can’t converse with Schumann: he’s an impossible person, he never says anything.” I expect that this is hyperbole and those quotes aren’t to be trusted as literally true, but there is truth in the quotes.

19 Newman, as quoted on page 173

20 Spencer, page 181

Wagner's Character - Part 3: Sexist, Womanizer, and Wife-stealer?

Sexist

At the outset, let me just say this is hogwash, relatively speaking. There were, of course, very few men or women who could be termed “feminist” in the 19^thcentury, but Wagner came closer than many, at least in certain areas. I think it fair to say that he had some misanthropic tendencies, but this was largely directed at men. He declared in one letter, for instance, that people were “worthless.”²  But, in a letter written a month later, he amended this slightly and said, “on the whole it is the men whom I find most repugnant, while women are soonest capable of making an agreeable impression upon me.”³  Throughout his life Wagner had and maintained many platonic friendships with women, treated them as equals, sought their opinions, and generally behaved as would a man who respected women as human beings.

As well, he was progressive in his thought. He was part of the “Young Germany” movement of the mid-1800s, which, among many progressive things, advocated raising the political and social  position of women. Concomitant with this was the “free love” movement, which sought to separate marriage and sexual matters from the state: Marriage should be for love only; if there was no love, it wasn’t a marriage. Wagner abhorred the fact that women were treated as the property of men. All these opinions were clearly elucidated via dramatic means in Der Ring des Nibelungen, particularly in Die Walküre.

I am a feminist, and I am drawn to Wagner in part due to that fact, as have been many feminists historically.  For example, read Wagner Nights, which details the history of women’s, particularly feminists’, attraction to Wagner’s music around the time of the suffrage movement in America. Wagner’s music and librettos are so attractive because women are usually very strong and very pro-active, often the prime instigators of the dramas. This is true of Senta in the Flying Dutchman; Elisabeth and Venus in Tannhäuser; Ortrud (though she is evil, unlike most of his female characters) and Elsa in Lohengin; Sieglinde, Brünnhilde and Erda in the Ring cycle; Isolde in Tristan and Isolde; Eva in Meistersinger; and Kundry in Parsifal.

All that said, Wagner had very traditional views of women’s and men’s roles in the world, as virtually everyone did in that century. He considered women more peace-loving and moral, compassionate and closer to nature.  He thought that men were rougher and often disagreeable, but that they were the movers and shakers of the world. This was the natural order. Even many feminists, as well-captured in Wendy Kaminer's book A Fearful Freedom, shared these views then and now.

According to Wagner, “a human being is both man and woman: it is only when the two are united that the real human being exists... But when nowadays we talk of a human being, such heartless blockheads are we that we only think of man.”⁴  Wagner wanted to become a full human being through the love of a woman.  He greatly desired her nurturing and support—to him, that was the job of a women—while he, the man, was creating his and, united, their life work.

Sure, this view of women and men is sexist, and should be so labeled in this day and age, but to categorize such a view from the 19th century is so ahistorical as to be senseless.  And to pin it on Wagner particularly, a guy very progressive about women in many ways, is particularly unhinged.

Womanizer

This one is absolute bull. Womanizers are guys who only want sex and pretend to care about the women in order to get it. Presumably over the course of their lifetime they have dozens, even hundreds, of casual affairs. This is so far from Wagner’s behavior as to be absurd.

First, he didn’t have many relationships. As explained by Wagner scholar Barry Millington in his Wagner Compendium, “[Wagner's] serious and casual affairs taken together hardly exceed a dozen.”⁵  But, more importantly, while it is clear from his music that Wagner did love sex, it is also clear from all his letters, his relationships, and his operas that for him love was supreme. For virtually all his relationships he truly cared about the women he was involved with, even the more casual relationships. He had many faults, but he wasn't a cad.

It has been said that men get in a relationship to have sex; women have sex to order to have a relationship. To the extent this is true, Wagner does not fit the profile of a womanizer; he fits the profile of a woman. He believed in love, sought it, despaired that he wouldn’t ever find it (and probably didn’t ever find what he was looking for, his second “happy" marriage to Cosima notwithstanding).

He was a true romantic.

Wife-stealer

One of the reasons people say he was sexist was because he was a “wife-stealer.” Now, this phrase gets my feminist hackles up. The whole logic of “wife-stealing” is that the woman is a possession of the man, and that the stealer is an interloper who takes away the man’s private property. To me the phrase “wife-stealer" is patently sexist, and an impossibility unless, of course, we are talking literal kidnapping (but the fact that the woman is a “wife” seems irrelevant in the kidnapping scenario). In any case, whatever you think of it, it isn't sexist to have an affair with another man’s wife.

Also, I have a long-held belief that in the affairs of the heart, people are way too judgmental (unless it comes to themselves or people they know intimately). Certainly, at the very least, you should know the full story before making a judgment. In Wagner’s case, people like to reduce him to “wife-stealer” with no context whatsoever. It would take much more space than I will devote in this post to give some sense of the full story, but I will sketch out a few brief facts to give some context. Wagner gets blasted primarily for his alleged adulterous relationships with Jessie Laussot, Cosima Liszt—Franz’s daughter—and to Mathilde Wesondonck, so I will just concentrate on those three, along with his first wife, Minna.

Wagner married  Minna Planer, who was a 27-year-old actress, when he was 23 in 1836. It became clear fairly early that they were mismatched. In their early years, Wagner, always emotional, was even more so, and was, according to Minna's daughter⁶, often very jealous. While there is no evidence that he was physically abusive, he was clearly a bellower (followed inevitably by being apologetic and sweet, begging Minna to forgive him and making promises that he would be better, which he generally wasn’t, of course).  The fact that Minna did, a year into the marriage, run off with another man for many months didn’t help matters. That said, his jealousy did abate after the early years of marriage and did not appear to be a problem for most of the marriage. However, their real break, beyond Minna’s affair, was over politics: Minna wanted a conventional life and Wagner became a revolutionary, first in politics and then in art. When he fled Dresden to avoid arrest for his participation in May Uprising of 1848, Minna would not follow. Up to this point, 13 years into the marriage, there is no evidence that Wagner—in contrast to Minna—had ever been unfaithful. But at this point of both physical and emotional rupture with his wife, Wagner had a serious affair with a woman name Jessie Laussot, herself trapped in an unhappy marriage, and resolved to permanently leave Minna for Jessie. Due to the intervention of Jessie's parents and husband it didn't happen, though Jessie did end up leaving her husband soon thereafter.

In 1850, recognizing his incompatibility with Minna in virtually all matters, Wagner wrote to her a long letter seeking the end of their relationship.  To quote just one small part:

We who, at the end of 15 years, understand each other less than before & who are condemned by our innermost natures to face each other as total strangers, shall we allow this misunderstanding to continue to rankle until our dying day, causing us both increasing torment?  I know – alas! alas! – that I cannot bring you happiness, living together with you!... If we can retain a memory of those features which we understood & admired in each other, we may continue to love each other even after we are separated.  For the sake of what remains of the love which still exists between us, I say to you: let us remain apart!⁷

Their break didn’t last, for practical reasons. Minna had ill-health (most seriously, she had congenital heart problems, which led to her death at 56) and was not able to support herself, so Wagner felt obligated to do so and, given his lack of monetary resources, he wasn’t in a position to keep two homes. Plus, he needed someone to run the household while he worked. Thus, ill-matched as they were, they gave it a go—punctuated by several separations—until the strain of their frequent quarreling was too much to endure. For all intents and purposes, a marriage based on love, which is the type Wagner respected and wanted, was over many years before their final separation.

Into this picture Mathilde Wesendonck appeared. She was married to a wealthy industrialist, Otto, and they both supported Wagner's art: Otto as a principal financial benefactor, Mathilde as a sounding-board and his muse. In 1857, Minna and Wagner moved into a small house on their estate. It was during this period that the emotional connection between Mathilde and Wagner grew. Both of them claimed vehemently that the relationship had never become physical. Scholars most intimate with their story tend to think, just as they claim, that while they did have strong feelings for each other, they never consummated the relationship.⁸ There were two reasons for this. First, neither Wagner nor Mathilde wanted to bite the hand that fed them: Otto. Secondly, using Mathilde as his muse for Tristan and Isolde, he wanted to share the emotions of his character Tristan—who suffered from his unfilled desires for Isolde—by denying himself his own yearning for Mathilde.

Minna didn’t believe Wagner and Mathilde’s denials of intimacy, though Otto did. And, given that Minna was right about his feelings, even if it was a chaste relationship, it still made enormous sense that she would be greatly upset. The upshot is that Wagner moved to Venice, alone, while Minna retreated to her family in Dresden. From this point on in—from 1859 to Minna’s death in 1866—they were mostly separated, with the final break coming in 1862.

Wagner had given up on love. In the letter to his friend Eliza Willie in June of 1863 in which he said of Mathilde that “she is, and remains, my first and only love,” he went on to say that henceforth, “my only desire is now to regain at least some sense of domestic calm.”⁹

“Domestic calm” was actually code for “I want someone to take care of me.” He really hated being alone and always wanted a sympathetic woman to tend his needs—practical, emotional, intellectual and sexual. He just wasn’t expecting much in the love department any more.

Therefore, he started casting about for a Minna replacement, even considering men for the role (though presumably without the sexual component). He asked at least four women and two men to move in with him to be his companion and caretaker.¹⁰ Cosima Von Bülow, the wife of the conductor Hans Von Bülow, was absolutely primed to take the role. Her marriage to Von Bülow notwithstanding, she had been smitten with Wagner from the day she met him when she was 16 (though given that he was a married man, and 24 years older, she didn’t think he was obtainable). She had married at 21, but quickly realized it was a mistake, so much so that she had tried several times to kill herself—and I think this is odd but I suppose it could have worked—via “attempts to contract various fatal illnesses” beginning in the second year of marriage.¹¹  When Wagner and Minna finally separated, Cosima saw her opportunity and strove to become closer to him. Though they claim that they “sealed their confession to belong together” in November, 1963, I am fairly skeptical that Wagner was in love.¹²   First, there was the fact of his letter of a mere 6 months before saying that Mathilde was his only real love. But, also, because he was offering the “position” of care-taker/emotional supporter/lover to Mathilde Maier eight months after this alleged confession in June of 1964.¹³   It was only when Cosima showed up on his doorstep, with two daughters in tow, in July of 1964, that he withdrew his offer to Mathilde.

To call this wife-stealing just doesn’t give a true picture.

And let me just add that in the 19th century, the type of woman that Wagner wanted—a mature, intellectual, educated, and emotional lover of the arts and music—were in short supply and rarely single. Most woman did not get a formal education and married young by necessity and family pressure. After the failure of his first marriage, the ability to attract a partner who would suit him pretty much necessitated a widow or an unhappily married woman.

Part 2

Wagner liked women, and women liked Wagner. Setting aside for the time being the issue of his first wife, Minna, the company of women brought out the best in him, and he credited women with being his biggest and most sympathetic supporters. This doesn’t mean he couldn’t be an absolute jerk to women, as well as men. As should be clear from my previous brief character post, he was extremely emotional, which had both very strong positives and negatives that flowed from that fact. But in general, most women who knew him said very nice things about him and his conduct towards them, finding him “warm-hearted and kind”¹ and “affable,”²  and “a tease and raconteur.”³  Wagner’s default position—when not upset or stressed by something—was clearly good humor, which was widely acknowledged by those who knew him. Even women with whom he was romantically linked, such as Mathilde Wesendonck or Judith Gautier, spoke well of him after their relationships cooled.⁴  For instance, Mathilde wrote towards the end of her life that “it is to him alone that I owe all that has been the best in my life.”⁵ 

So he clearly wasn’t a complete ogre as he is often depicted.

Now, Wagner did have a very difficult marriage with his first wife, Minna. While I do think he was primarily at fault for the problems in this relationship in his 20s when he was consumed with jealousy, the problem seemed to abate as he got older (and as his passion cooled.) The real problem that doomed the relationship was well-expressed by his friend Malwilda von Meysenberg:

[Minna wanted him to make] concessions to the world which he could not and should not make. From her inability to grasp the essence of genius and its relation to the world, there arose constant friction in their daily life. Nevertheless, Frau Wagner was a good woman, and, in the eyes of the world, decidedly the better and the more unhappy of the two. My sympathies were more for Wagner, however, for whom love should have been the medium of reaching all human hearts. Instead, she made his cup of life more bitter still.⁶  

She wanted him to give up what she considered the nonsense of the “music of the future” and his endless polemics, and instead write operas more like his early Rienzi that could be staged and from which income could be derived and normality could ensue. But, of course, Wagner would have been a different man had he merely tried to make a living as Minna wanted.

Wagner was not blind to her misery or unsympathetic to it, and often refrained from an action, or did something affirmative, with only her needs in mind. But the gulf between them was far too wide, and his need for sympathetic support far too great, for the relationship to last. After their final separation in 1862, he wrote to Natalie, Minna’s daughter: “She writes in a vein which, by her own lights, is fair and just, nay, almost charitable and friendly. And ultimately she is quite right to see things as she does: it is simply that I see them differently—and therein lies our misfortune”.⁷

I don’t believe that when a couple is as mismatched as they were that blame is particularly helpful. They never saw eye to eye from his revolutionary period forward. What was he to do in this situation? They could stay together and make each other miserable, which they did for much of it. They could live apart, and remain married for the sake of convention, which is what they did for the rest of it. They could have divorced, but Minna didn’t want that and Wagner was more than willing to honor that wish. He always ably supported her, even during his worst financial crisis (more on that issue in a later blog post on money). To me, he was a stand-up guy given it all.

During the periods when they were separated, it is true that he did have affairs. But to say this is adultery really depends on your point of view. Since he did her the kindness of not divorcing, I personally have no problem with it and find no fault for that.

The relationship Wagner had with Mathilde Wesendonck was the exception. He and Minna were not separated when he fell in love with Mathilde, and Minna just didn’t buy his “but she is my muse and we aren’t having sex” argument. I understand her position, but I also understand Wagner’s. He finally found a woman who did understand, support, encourage, and nurture him—the thing that was his deepest desire all his adult life. She also provided a much-wanted intellectual companion: his letters to Mathilde are some of the most interesting and illuminating letters he ever wrote. Under his spell of enchantment with her, he wrote what I think was the most beautiful and emotional love music of his life: the first act of Die Walküre. And of course, Wagner let those close to him know—much to Minna’s shame and upset—that Mathilde was, via his unfulfilled passion and yearning for her, his muse for Tristan and Isolde.

He also made very clear, too, that another passion was equally responsible for that seminal work: the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, who was “the greatest single influence in Wagner’s life” according to virtually all his biographers.⁸  His passion for Mathilde and Schopenhauer commingled—in his life, in his letters, in his dreams, in his music—to create Tristan and Isolde. The world would have been a poorer place without these great loves. I feel bad for Minna, truly, but I am more than happy that Mathilde, and Schopenhauer, entered his life as they did.

Wagner’s greatest wish—here articulated in his 1850 “break-up” letter to Minna, but repeated often throughout his letters and evident in his art as well—was to find “unconditional love, the love with which we love the other person as he is and love him, moreover, for the man he is.”⁹  Now on some level, you might think that is badly stated in that “we” is plural, but “he” is singular. But given that he wanted to become fully human through uniting with a woman—become “we” that is—and that the two together would love him, well that is Wagner! This great love was supposed to be in service to him and his work, that is quite clear.

Enter Cosima.

As I have already said, I don’t think Wagner was madly in love with Cosima as he was with Mathilde, but he was around 50 at the time and was primarily looking for a homemaker as well as an intellectual and emotional companion at that point in his life. So, in this, she was an able and fulfilling partner. Cosima, on the other hand, was madly in love with Wagner. She knew what he wanted in a partner, believed she was fated for that role, and offered to be all that he ever wanted and dreamed of in a woman. Wagner had witnessed that her marriage to Hans von Bülow was a disaster and, in fact, physically abusive (Wagner had seen Hans strike Cosima, and she told him that this wasn’t a unique incident).¹⁰  Wagner and von Bülow were friendly colleagues: von Bülow was an enthusiastic supporter of Wagner’s music and it was his claim to fame to be the conductor for it. What was Wagner to do? Deny his life-long desire for such a woman in deference to his relationship with the man (as he had done with Mathilde in deference to Otto Wesendonck)? Perhaps that would have been the honorable thing to do, but with the result of leaving Cosima and himself even more desolate and depressed than they both already were. Ultimately, as I think he should have and most people similarly situated would have, he chose love over honor.

Turning now to the sanctimonious critics who damn him for this act of “wife-stealing.” Perhaps they have the good fortune of a happy marriage, so it is easy to be self-righteous, not having gone through the hell of a bad marriage.  Or, perhaps the person who damns him for this has kept vows to an ill-matched partner for moral reasons, and feels superior for that denial. Well, bully for him (or, much less frequently, her). My bet, though, is that a whole lot of those critics are just pure and simple hypocrites.

As for me, I have been in a similar situation and I did exactly what Wagner did. This is but one reason why I sure as hell won’t cast a stone in his direction.

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End Notes to Part 1

<sup>1.To remind you of the charge from The Rough Guide to Opera: "He was...an infamous womanizer, fathering countless illegitimate children. He tyrannized his first wife then stole another man's wife, finding in her an echo of his limitless self-adoration (he habitually referred to himself in the third person)."  My retort: First, where the writers came up with the "fathering countless children" I don't know; there is absolutely nothing in any reputable biography that says such a thing. It's totally fabricated. Second, the "tyrannized" charge implies that he was completely dominant over Minna, and this was not the case at all, except, perhaps, in their early years. They fought bitterly, it is true, but she held her own in their fights. Third, I have read most of his letters, and many biographies, and I have never seen him refer to himself in the third person, so it wasn't habitual, if he ever did it at all. The rest of the charges are handled in the text. ↩
2. Spencer and Millington, ed.,</sup> Selected Letters of Richard Wagner,1987, page 263, letter of July 15, 1852 ↩
<sup>3. Ibid, page 278, letter of December 30,1852↩
4. as quoted in Shaw, G.B. The Perfect Wagnerite, page 129.↩
5. Millington, Wagner Compendium page 118. Millington's short article on Wagner's relationship with women is the best short piece available on the subject for the basic facts. For a book on the subject, this one written by German writer Eve Rieger seems like the most promising from reviews that I have read: Richard Wagner's Women ↩
6. Spencer, ed., Wagner Remembered, see page 122-124. Minna's daughter, Natalie, was born out of wedlock before she met Richard. She was passed off as Minna's sister, a secret that Wagner always kept; Natalie didn't know this fact until her old age. Wagner supported Natalie throughout his life, as he did Minna. ↩
7. Op.cit. Spencer and Millington, page, letter pages 192-199, quote from 197↩
8. For instance, Barry Millington and Eve Rieger are of this opinion. People who think they did have a sexual relationship have no proof; it's just an assumption that ignores anything Wagner and Mathilde ever said. All I can say is: read his letters on the subject and it will make you a believer. But, as my partner Leslie always says, "I don't care if you have sex with someone, just don't fall in love." I believe, to Minna, it didn't matter if they had sex or not, what mattered was that he was totally in love with her, something he didn't deny.↩
9. Op. cit., Spencer and Millington, pages 559-560↩
10. Ibid, see pages 414 and 588 for those Wagner tried to recruit for this "position. "↩
11. Ibid, page 621↩
12. Gregor-Dellin, Wagner, page 326↩
13. Op. cit. Spencer and Millington, page 588↩</sup>

1 Spencer, ed. Wagner Remembered, page 155

2 Ibid., pages 151, 226

3 Ibid., page 155

4 I haven’t mentioned Gautier before but Wagner was enamored of her towards the end of his life. He carried on a secret correspondence with her, which led many to assume that they were having a physical affair. But, as with Wesendonck, that is based on assumption and not proven fact. The reason for the secret correspondence will be taken up in a later post entitled: “Wagner was queer.” Stay tuned.

5 Ibid., page 105 

6 Ibid., page 121

7 Spencer and Millington, Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, page 561 

8 Magee, The Tristan Chord, see pages 133-40 for a summary of Schopenhauer's role in Wagner's life, music and philosophy. 

9 Op. cit. Spencer and Millington, page 192
10 Gregor-Dellin, Wagner, page 358 

---

End Notes to Part 2

1 Spencer, ed. Wagner Remembered, page 155

2 Ibid., pages 151, 226

3 Ibid., page 155

4 I haven’t mentioned Gautier before but Wagner was enamored of her towards the end of his life. He carried on a secret correspondence with her, which led many to assume that they were having a physical affair. But, as with Wesendonck, that is based on assumption and not proven fact. The reason for the secret correspondence will be taken up in a later post entitled: “Wagner was queer.” Stay tuned.

5 Ibid., page 105 

6 Ibid., page 121

7 Spencer and Millington, Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, page 561 

8 Magee, The Tristan Chord, see pages 133-40 for a summary of Schopenhauer's role in Wagner's life, music and philosophy. 

9 Op. cit. Spencer and Millington, page 192
10 Gregor-Dellin, Wagner, page 358 

Wagner's Character Part 4: On Money and Begging

Wagner and money: what a mess! The intersection of his utter self-absorption with his intemperate nature has left his reputation in this area in tatters. As with most areas, this criticism of Wagner is rarely tempered by the historical situation or any attenuating circumstances.  I will try to strike a balance here, but his behavior in this realm is not attractive.

A principal biographer, Barry Millington, sympathetic to Wagner’s monetary woes, has tried to inject perspective in an article in The Wagner Compendium. His introduction:

More nonsense has been uttered on this topic than on almost any other connected to Wagner. The conventional image, wearisomely peddled, is that of an unscrupulous, exploitative scrounger, constantly touching friends, patrons, and publishers for loans with which to subsidize a life of luxury. Such a view betrays an extraordinary failure of imagination, as well as a lack of understanding of the historical situation.¹

In a nutshell, Millington makes the point that Wagner was born into an era that, due to existing practices and law, assured that all German artists, no matter how famous, would struggle financially. The age of patronage was coming to an end; the age of royalties was just dawning (Germany first passed a copyright law ensuring that right towards the end of Wagner’s career in 1870.) Millington writes that “a single, flat fee was normally payable, any profits accruing to the publisher and the theater.... Wagner could scarcely expect a fair return for his labours.”

Wagner’s financial problems were greatly compounded by refusing to compromise his artistic vision in a quest for wealth, or at least a steady living. The fact that he wasn’t a “pure musician,” but had political – nay, theological – aspirations, meant that the means to make money was more difficult. He wasn’t trying to get rich; he was trying to overturn the relationship of art to society. For Wagner to be able to afford to compose the works he did, he simply had to supplement the meager pay he could make through loans and gifts.

Millington makes this point about the modern age of money-raising:

In our own time, artist and administrators are driven to extend the begging-bowl to patrons, sponsors and funding bodies of all kinds – yet no moral censure seems to attach itself to such behaviour.²

While Millington’s contention is incontrovertible as far as it goes, the reason that Wagner is censured in this area is not that he asked people for money, but for the manner in which he approached some of those potential fund givers, his relationship with his benefactors, and the uses of those funds.

According to people who knew him well, he constantly sized up friends for what they could do for him; if no use could be found for one, he or she rarely remained a friend. In 1953, his brother, Albert, wrote in a letter to him complaining of this:

I am used to seeing you respect people only if and as long as they can be useful to you; when the usefulness is over, the person also no longer exists for you. Gratitude for the past is unknown for you: all that is merely an infernal obligation. It has always been so.... Greatly as I value and love your talent, it is just the opposite as regards your character.³ 

A decade later, the German composer Peter Cornelius, who was a friend and close associate for many years, wrote along the same lines in a diary post about Wagner:

I say in a word that his morality is weak and without a true basis. His whole lifecourse, along with his egotistic bent, has ensnared him in ethical labyrinths. He makes use of people for himself alone, without any real feeling for them, without even paying them in return the tribute of pure piety. Within himself he has been too much intent on making his mental greatness cover all his moral weaknesses; I fear that posterity will be more critical.⁴  

Karl Ritter, a long-time friend of Wagner, consoled the German composer Robert von Hornstein, who felt used by Wagner, by telling him: “Wagner likes you a lot and has a high opinion of your talent, but it is so much a part of his nature to have these ulterior motives.”⁵

In other words, many around him, those who knew him best, perceived him to be a user. These folks didn’t complain about him asking for money per se, just that he was a friend only on very limited – and totally his – terms.

So the question becomes: why did these people remain his friend if his character was so clear to them? I think the answer is that the good—his talent, his amazing larger-than-life personality, his vision—trumped the bad. Plus, let’s face it: everyone knew that he was destined for greatness, and they were riding those tails. One friend, a now-largely forgotten composer named Felix Draeske, put it into a letter to another in Wagner’s circle, Wendelin Weißheimer:

At present it is not exactly agreeable to have relations with him. Later, however, in another thirty or forty years, we shall be envied by all the world for a phenomenon like him is so gigantic that after his death it will become greater and greater, particularly as then the great image of the man will not be disfigured by any unpleasant traits.⁶ 

(Well, clearly Draeseke wasn’t clairvoyant, as now Wagner is seen solely through the lens of negative traits.)

I think it is clear that the friendship offered by others was often not “pure” itself. His friends wanted to be around the phenomenon and be part of the glory, come hell or high water. Peter Cornelius, who saw his negative characteristic so clearly as quoted above in his diary, did break with the composer at one point. But, ultimately, he came back because of one of Wagner’s better traits:

I am quite determined to stick with him steadfastly.... When I see how others, like Bülow, Liszt, Berlioz, Tausig, Damrosh treat me, ignore me, forget me, and how he, the moment I show him even a hint of my heart, is always ready to give me his full friendship, then I tell myself that it is Fate that has brought us together.⁷

I have come to the conclusion that Wagner often did treat friends very poorly; everything was in service to his vision, his program. However, if you accepted that basic tenant of friendship with him, he was actually quite a kind-hearted guy. Millington writes of this good side:

His letters overflow with expressions of effusive thanks: sometimes for money received, but even more often for love and understanding shown. He expected much of his friends, but he gave generously in return, not only gifts, but also in terms of aid, affection and moral support... His impassioned letters to such stalwart friends as Liszt, Anton Pusinelli and Eliza Willie give the lie to the notion that he was indifferent to the feelings of others.⁸

Again, I don’t disagree with anything Millington writes—I’ve read his letters and enough biographical information to know it is true—but it is also true that if one of those friends cooled on his artistic vision, the relationship would have cooled equally.

His great biographer, Newman, sums it up rightly, I think: “The moralist may regret the insensitiveness of Wagner the man in these matters: the historian is bound to recognise that without that insensitiveness Wagner the artist would have gone under.”⁹

Turning to his use of funds that he procured through his insistent fund-raising: his spending was completely unhinged. If he had money, he spent it—lavishly, stupidly, bizarrely—both on himself and others. He got into debt in his early 20s and never really got out of debt, even when “saved” by King Ludwig when he was 50.10  As creditors closed in (debtor’s prison was alive and well, and a real threat), he found another creditor to take over. It’s an old story, but with a twist: He would borrow from Peter to pay Paul, and then throw a huge party for Paul, with only the finest, and most expensive, champagne and gifts for all! Throughout his life he suffered through, as one friend puts it, “fits of generosity,” though he could ill-afford it.¹¹ 

When he was young, he didn’t try to rationalize this crazed behavior, any more than he rationalized his inability to control his emotions; it was just the way he was. In a letter to a friend after one spending frenzy, when he was 22, he wrote:

I knew I had not the least solid support & nothing to fall back on, & yet I behaved like a madman, living beyond my means in every conceivable respect; other people, & especially rich people, do not squander their money as I do. The result was a whirlpool of chaos and misery whose complexities I can look on only with horror. Not even I can reconstruct all the individual details – it is scandalous and inexplicable into what an abyss I have fallen.¹² 

He continued the behavior, but created rationalizations, as he grew older. His politics lined up nicely with his rationalizations, so it isn’t clear which came first. It’s a chicken/egg conundrum. The gist is that he always felt the quest for money was at the root of all that was bad with society, which is what drew him to the socialist movement. After the failed revolutions of 1848, he grew disenchanted with the hope for a change via the political process and turned his full attention to art for the reminder of his life.

Wagner believed strongly that art—and the artists that make it—should be at the pinnacle of society and, therefore, artists were the most deserving to obtain the bounty available in life for their labors. Those who lived off the labor of others—capitalists—were totally undeserving. He was the giver; capitalists were the takers. He considered himself to be taking from the rich in the service of deserving poor—both the masses who would enjoy the art, and himself, the person who suffered to create the art. I don’t know if Wagner knew the English tale, but he was a veritable Robin Hood of the arts!

The fact that he spent much of his life struggling and poor was a source of continual embitterment. He summed up his view in a letter he wrote to his sister Cäcilie in 1852: “There is no man alive who does not feel a greater need than I do to pour out all his riches without reserve, and yet there is none who is given less in return than I; my outgoings bear no relation to my income.”¹³  Thus, when he did manage to wrangle up some money, he felt it should be spent and enjoyed by himself and his friends; let the consequences be damned!

So, there you have a great formula for constant stress. Let me remind you of Mr Micawber’s—from David Copperfield – famous saying: “Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen [pounds], nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” And, yes, Wagner was normally miserable, and he had only himself to blame.

There can be no doubt that if Wagner had been born in the 20th century and had the level of fame he did—he was the most famous and influential musician of the century—he would have been a rich man and his money problems would have been less and maybe his reputation would have been much improved in this area.

But, then I think of Michael Jackson and his debts and think, maybe not.

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End Notes

1 Millington, ed., The Wagner Compendium, page 116

2 Ibid., page 117

3 Newman, The Life of Wagner, Vol. 1, page 83 

4 as quoted in Ibid., Vol. 3, 207

5 as quoted in Spencer, ed. Wagner Remembered, pages 100-101

6 as quoted in Newman, Wagner, Man and Artist, page 179 

7 as quoted in Tanner, Wagner, page 20

8 Op. cit., Millington, page 116

9 Newman,  The Life of Wagner, Vol 1, page 172 

10 The whole story of Wagner and Ludwig will be a later post, but all I can say is it is like a Hollywood movie, with an plot that almost defies belief, except that it happened.

11 Op. cit., Spencer, page  96

12 Millington, ed., Selected Letters of Wagner, page 29 

13 Ibid., page 278

Wagner's Anti-Semitism - Part 4: Beyond the Pale

We all know that there are a vast number of cultures and subcultures in the world. We are all human, of course, but within our “tribes” there are real differences. The fields of anthropology and sociology study both the differences and our shared humanity in these cultures: what is true of all human cultures, and what is unique to each culture. In general, people talk freely about the differences between cultures, even the things that might be considered negative qualities in a culture. I can say what I like and dislike in, for instance, the American or French or Italian culture without much worry that I will be accused of being anti-American, French or Italian.

This is not true of the Jewish culture at this point in time. If one says something negative about the culture now or in the past, it is often dismissed—at least by a very vocal sub-group of Jews and non-Jews alike—as anti-Semitism. And the person who says or writes this negative thing will be under a cloud of suspicion that they are, in fact, anti-Semitic. 

I get the reasons for this. The sensitivity, of course, is related to the long history of anti-Semitic thought and action, with its horrible culmination in the Holocaust. It’s a very rational sensitivity. But I do believe that academic discussion has been chilled by it. This is certainly true amongst those who write about Wagner. If you defend his views in any way, you are an “apologist” at best. Therefore, everyone—those who seek to defend him in any way or those on the attack—tend towards hyperbole about his anti-Semitism, just to distance themselves from the charge of anti-Semitism. This subject will be a more detailed post later, but I wanted to raise it as I am going against that grain in this post, and throughout my blog.

There is a widely held—though by no means universal—academic view that anti-Semitism is unrelated to actual, real Jews, their actions, or their culture. The author of the popular, but deeply flawed, book Hitler’s Willing Executioners, Daniel Goldhagen, puts it this way in his book: “All antisemitism is fundamentally ‘abstract,’ in the sense of not being derived from actual qualities of the Jews.” And a few pages later he writes: “...anti-Semitism has fundamentally nothing to do with an antisemite’s knowledge of the real nature of Jews.”¹ The author of Christian Anti-Semitism, William Nicholls, states it this way: “Causeless hatred for Jews came first, and conscious reasons for the hatred were always rationalizations.”²

This view tends to stop any kind of reasonable discussion as to what, if anything, may or may not be true in whole or part in Wagner’s views of Jewish culture (or anyone else’s for that matter.) If anti-Semitism is seen as solely irrational, just a learned hatred and can’t be anything but rationalizing, well then, that kills any sort of historical analysis, doesn’t it? 

The problem with discussing what is true or not true about Jewish culture extends to saying things about that culture that are positive, as well. For instance, Joe Biden was accused of accidentally fueling anti-Semitism in this 2013 speech to honor Jewish American History last month. In the talk, Biden praised the “outsized influence per capita” of Jews, which he then went on to list. Johnathan Chait wrote about his speech:

It’s obviously true that Jews have flourished in the United States and, as Biden says, have achieved massively disproportionate representation in fields like science, culture, politics, academia, and so on. Jews regard this fact with a mixture of pride and neurosis. The neurosis is a fear that our success will be seen as a kind of invidious control, that the broader society will at some point say, no, you have too much.

I say, neurosis be damned. Facts are facts, and it is simply impossible to reasonably address modern anti-Semitism without at least knowing about the incredible rise of the Jews post-Englightenment—specifically Ashkenazi Jews—even if just to argue that it had nothing to do with later developments.

There are scholars, of course, who do connect the quick advancement of the Jews with the rise of modern anti-Semitism. Historian Arthur Lindemann, for example, argues in his book Esau’s Tears that “the most obvious material factor to take into consideration in trying to account for the growth of modern anti-Semitism – though not of course its deepest origins – is the rise of the Jews. It is not a fantasy but rather a perfectly real, measurable, and understandable development.”³

I would like to give a quick summary of that rise, before turning to Wagner’s position. While some of this will be repetitive, I am a Wagnerian and that’s what we do! (For those who don’t get the joke, the great comedian Anna Russell’s tour de force Ring lecture here will enlighten you.) 

The Jews lived in Europe without controlling any land for hundreds of years, and this put them in a very precarious position indeed (which led to multiple expulsions). Traditionally, the Jews had some—if obviously limited—protection given that, as George Fredrickson puts it in his book Racism, a Short History, “the existence of Jews must be tolerated because their ultimate conversion was essential to God’s plan for the salvation of the world.”⁴ Post-enlightenment, when religious reasons had lost their sway, the Jews' historical protection no longer existed as it had. The question in Germany became, again summarized by Fredrickson:

How Jews would fit in when cultural and linguistic identity became the basis of citizenship...[and it] could be answered in only one of two ways. Either Jews had to surrender their Jewishness and become good Germans or there would be no place for them. At the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, a liberal assimilation's perspective was ascendant in German thought, but beneath it lurked a deep intolerance of the Jew who remained distinctive.⁵

You can condemn Germans for having the above view, but then virtually all cultures in all times must be equally condemned. That is certainly true of the United States which—I have already pointed out here—was far worse to our “others” than Germans were to Jews at this point, and that certainly includes Wagner. 

What is a fact is that Jews were different: they were foreign, they spoke a different language, they had a different history, and they were disliked or distrusted fairly universally in Germany for a variety of religious and cultural reasons. Therefore, virtually no one wanted them as part of Germany as they were.

It was in this fraught context—post-Enlightenment—that the rise of the Jews in Germany began. According to Peter Pulzer, “[u]p to the end of the eighteenth century, the great majority of Jews of the German states lived lives that were marginal to the economy and the rest of society, engaged in peddling or begging at a near destitute level.”⁶ These poor Jews were the ones seen invariably as backward and vulgar, by non-Jews and the small sub-group of Westernized Jews alike.

Given the “choice,” many Germans Jews quickly made the move away from that past, leaving the country for towns and cities, replacing religious Orthodoxy with a more secular viewpoint, dropping Yiddish and speaking only Hochdeutsch.  Along with it, they distanced themselves from other Jews, particularly Ostjuden (Eastern European Jews). According to Lindemann, “[t]he reactions of the overwhelming majority of western-educated German Jews to Yiddish paralleled and indeed epitomized their attitudes to the Ostjuden. Yiddish was, as one assimilated Jew typically put it, a “barbarous mishmash” and “an insult against all languages which it wrenches and destroys, monstrous in form and shocking in tone.”⁷

Thus, by rejecting their Eastern brethren, these Westernized Jews were attempting to show their assimilation, their essential Germanness. They were keeping the enlightenment bargain, and, therefore, they argued that they deserved full citizenship.

To fast forward, full citizenship came with the birth of the nation-state in 1871. By that point, the German Jews' rise had become stunningly obvious. As reported by Fredrickson:

The opportunities in commerce that opened up in the first half of the century became the launching pad that enabled the next generation to go to the university (admission was not restricted) and achieve success in the ‘free professions’ of law and medicine. Jews also found opportunities in the arts and journalism, while continuing to be prominent in the business world, not only in banking and finance but also in retail trade and light manufacturing. ‘By 1871,’ according to David Sorkin, ‘fully 80% of German Jewry qualified as bourgeois.’”⁸

It was this rise that Wagner was forever bitching about. Essentially, his argument was that Jewish culture was way more together than the German culture, and the Germans could not get it together with Jews in the mix. He argued that Jews would easily dominate the backward German people. His entire program was, of course, to regenerate the German people and culture, so this was a huge threat to his life's work. He believed that the rise of capitalism gave Jews the means of economic and, therefore, cultural ascendancy, in that they were given the reins of capitalism via their domination of banking and financing. Wagner acknowledges—and blames—the Christians who put Jews in this role in the first place as part of a subjugation process, but also argued that, with the rise of capitalism, the Jews, who had both an intelligence and experience and who were the “virtuosi in an art which we bungle,” were now in control, and he believed that those who controlled the money ruled in the modern world.⁹

He further argued that German culture had degenerated and into this void, Jews brought entertainment for profit, which he called “art-commodity-exchange.” His life was devoted to regenerating German art. He hated art for profit; he hated art as mere entertainment. He believed art was sacred, so the Jewish cultural relationship to art was a direct threat to his life work and plan.

I would argue that Wagner's views—whatever you think of his argument—had an internal consistency that was rational. Those who assert that there can be no rationality in anti-Semitism, of course, won’t agree. (Obviously, his views were based on cultural stereotypes, but this post has gone on much too long to take up that issue now. I will do that next time.) Bottom-line: I don’t buy anything Wagner is selling in his argument, but I also don’t think it was morally wrong in and of itself to have his opinions and make his case. I don’t think his arguments are solely a product of irrational prejudice and paranoia.

Cultures are very often in conflict and that is just part of life, part of the human condition. This was a real, not illusory, conflict, with a mix of rational and irrational. I, to give a modern example, am in a real conflict with evangelic Christian culture: I argue against it; I think it is extremely damaging to the sort of society I want to live in; I think they are dead wrong. That said, I do not begrudge a Christian making the case that I am wrong, including saying that my “lifestyle” of being a lesbian is wrong, that my atheism is morally bankrupt, etc. That is what they honestly think, and I believe that anyone should be able to voice their beliefs in a civilized way. 

Given that Wagner lived in a time when almost every German shared his general beliefs about Jewish culture, and given that he devoted his entire life to his beliefs about art and spirituality, I absolutely think both his anti-Semitic beliefs and his public polemics about it were not beyond the pale of that day.

But here is the rub: He had a mean streak and liked to get revenge when he felt wounded. And this mean streak came out in his writings, in his public life and in his private life. As I have mentioned previously, everyone who has studied his life has come to the conclusion that the major point of Wagner's article “Judaism in Music” was to get revenge on Giacomo Meyerbeer who he was convinced, via a paranoid delusion, had plotted against him, as well as to distance himself from Meyerbeer, whom he had groveled to. Although there is much in this article that could be defended, it is impossible to actually do so because of the meanness that inundates the piece. It is truly hard to quote a sentence that doesn’t have a dig, or several, in it.

Giacamo Meyerbeer, the object of Wagner's scorn

One of Wagner’s key points in the article was to argue that since Jews had a different language and culture, they couldn’t write authentic German music. That argument does not, in itself, seem anti-Semitic. People have argued that only someone from Appalachia can play true hillbilly music and only a Black person can really play the blues or gospel. Other people argue against that. Whatever. I am agnostic on this issue. But, on the face of it, it’s not considered a racist thing to say.

The problem is that Wagner makes his argument in a obnoxious, cruel way. I will re-quote one sentence of his essay as an example:

The first thing that strikes our ear as quite outlandish and unpleasant, in the Jew's speech, is a creaking, squeaking, buzzing snuffle: add thereto an employment of words in a sense quite foreign to our nation's tongue, and an arbitrary twisting of the structure of our phrases—and this mode of speaking acquires at once the character of an intolerably jumbled blabber; so that when we hear this Jewish talk, our attention dwells involuntarily on its repulsive how, rather than on any meaning of its intrinsic what.

(What he was describing here was, of course, an Eastern European Jew speaking Yiddish.)

As I noted above, German Jews were at this time trying to distance themselves from their Eastern brethren. Meyerbeer, Wagner's target, was a German (and French)-speaking Jew and could not be described at all by this description. So, by making that link, he was trying to keep tied together what German Jews were trying to sever. Wagner was making the argument that they shared the same “essence” of Jewishness, which they could not escape, whatever distinctions German Jews wanted to make. He was tweaking Meyerbeer, and all assimilated German Jews, with sentences such as this: “Although the peculiarities of the Jewish mode of speaking and singing come out the most glaringly in the commoner class of Jew, who has remained faithful to his father's stock, and though the cultured son of Jewry takes untold pains to strip them off, nevertheless they show an impertinent obstinance in cleaving to him.” This is a typical Wagner sentence, malevolent in many different ways.

You can spin it—he tried to do so—that he was an objective observer simply telling it like it was. But it just comes out malicious. In this area, there really is only one reaction any decent human being can have: What a jerk! I strongly believe it is legitimate to have contrary viewpoints, but to just be mean, to try to hurt someone and a whole people by being intentionally spiteful—now, that is beyond the pale. That was the dark part of his soul. It is this aspect of his character that I find the most difficult to forgive.

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End notes

In terms of the subtitle of this blog, of course I mean "beyond the pale" figuratively, as it is used in this post as a figure of speech.  But I think the literal meaning of "beyond the pale" has some aptness as well.  If you don't know the literal meaning, see here.

By the way, when Disney put in the Ostjuden caricature of the wolf in the original Three Little Pigs as I mentioned in this post, I think he was being mean in exactly the same way. According to this, “[i]n their book, Cartoon Confidential (Malibu Graphics Pub., 1991) authors Jim Korkis and John Cawley describe how Disney fired back at his tormentors [Jewish movie moguls] every time the opportunity arose. He would purposely inject anti-Semitic scenes in his cartoons, well aware they made Jews squirm.”

1 Goldhagen, Daniel, Hitler’s Willing Executioners, 34, 41 The quotes are out of context, but I think it is a fair summary of his thesis.

2 Nicholls, William, Christian Anti-Semitism, page 313 

3 Lindemann,Albert, Esau’s Tears, 536-37.  Of course, this book was attacked by some for being anti-Semitic; see here. 

4 Fredrickson, George, Racism-A Short History, 21

5 Ibid, 71

6 Pulzer, Peter, Jews and the German State, 1848-1933, 69 

7 Wistrich, Socialism and the Jews, 142. What schmucks! For the record, I love Yiddish. I’ve stolen more words from Yiddish than any other language by far. 

8 Op. cit., Frederickson, 78; the David Sorkin quote comes from The Transformation of German Jewry, 1780-1840, page 173.  One should not think that formal legal equality actually led to real equality; just as barriers existed for Blacks in the United States long after formal equality, so too did multiple barriers remain against Jews.

9 Summary of Wagner's views came from these writings: Judaism in Music, What is German, Modern, Know Thyself. All can be downloaded here. The quote comes from Know Thyself.