Tolkien and Wagner?

[Bill Ferny]

Aside from some familiarity with Goethe, and the German romantic philosophical tradition, my knowledge of German romantic literature, Wagner and the Sturm und Drang movement is cursory at best. However, one thing in Sharkû’s post raises a question for me.

All, he thought, had got something very important not quite right.

In reference to Wagner, I wonder what exactly is it that he didn’t get quite right. I understand that Tolkien knew the source material first-hand, but that does not necessarily mean that those who know the source material second-hand can not come to an accurate understanding of said source material. For example, I was able to study, and I think with a good amount of accuracy, Heidegger with only a vague ability to read German (actually with no practical ability at all). I don’t think Tolkien would be so immodest as to base his judgement on linguistic ability alone.

Can it be that his judgement of Wagner is based on the Teutonic nationalism that Wagner inserts into the Elder Edda? If this is so, isn’t Tolkien, himself, guilty of a similar misstep when he inserts his own English nationalism into the Elder Edda?

If someone with more knowledge than I of both the Elder Edda and the German romantic movement could clarify this, it would be greatly appreciated.

[Orofarne]

Tolkien was a professor at Oxford. Let's not forget he would have known the Norse Eddas inside and out. This is the man who formed a book club where they read Icelandic literature in Icelandic.

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Bill Ferny

Can it be that his judgement of Wagner is based on the Teutonic nationalism that Wagner inserts into the Elder Edda?

That probably is the case - and the follow-up you suggesta as well. His reluctance to admit any similarities later would then arise from the legacy of Nazism so blatantly using those mythologies to their own horrible ends (let's not talk about Wagner here even if he was a role-model for Hitler; an artist and a politician at the same time with the quest of making great the nation).

But we should also see, that that kind of national-romantic world-view was not that uncommon back then (before WWII) among the intelligentsia. On the contrary it was more or less the mainstream cultural view in Scandinavia, the Great Britain and Germany. And it wasn't always just nationalistic in the way of referring to nation states only, but oftentimes took the form of Nordischen erbe, the Northern heritage - or like Hitler popularised it; as aryanism (which of course means Persian / Indian roots, but little did he understand the history of ideas and people).

So it's easy to see the prof. taking part in that general mood and like everyone else taking part in that feeling, feeling a need to distance himself from it after the Nazi-regime so mishandled that line of thought.

Originally Posted by Orofarne

This is the man who formed a book club where they read Icelandic literature in Icelandic.

You're quite right here. He even studied Finnish to be able to read the Kalevala in the original language....