Wagner's Ring in 1848 – New Translations of The Nibelung Myth & Siegfried's Death. By Edward R. Haymes
Edward R. Haymes' "Wagner's Ring in 1848" is a new translation of Siegfried's Tod (Siegfried's Death) and the sketch "Der Nibelungen-Mythus" (The Nibelung Myth). The passages that survived the transformation from Siegfrieds Tod to Götterdämmerung are marked in italic, and this is a valuable feature. Edward R. Haymes has written a 43 pages long introduction as well as commentaries.
Wagner's Ring in 1848 – New Translations of The Nibelung Myth & Siegfried's Death. By Edward R. HaymesIn 1848 Richard Wagner began what would become the largest stage work of his career, the Ring of the Nibelung. In preparation for the task he composed an overview of the Nibelung myth designed to lead to a drama; he then composed the verse "libretto" Siegfried's Death.
Although Wagner abandoned the idea of a single opera on Siegfried in favor of the huge project that developed out of it in the succeeding years – the Ring cycle – he did consider the two early documents important enough to include them in his collected works.
"Wagner's Ring in 1848" seeks to inform the English-speaking reader in three ways:
- by providing modern, reliable translations of the two Wagner texts, which are otherwise not available (the German original is provided on facing pages)
- by furnishing an overview of German scholarship available to Wagner and others working on the Nibelung legend in the first half of the nineteenth century
- by making available a bibliography of further reading.
Edward R. Haymes is Professor in the Department of Modern Languages at Cleveland State University