The Wagner Complex

Review of Tom Artin, The Wagner Complex: Genesis and Meaning of The Ring (Charleston, SC: Free Scholar Press, 2012), ISBN 978-0-615-63878-2, i, 264 pages, softbound, $24.95.

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Robert Donington’s highly impressive psychological analysis of Richard Wagner’s operatic ring cycle appeared in the last mid-century. It utilized a Jungian approach that viewed the cycle mostly as a depiction of Wotan’s intra-psychic journey toward shifting control from the ego to the self. In his new book The Wagner Complex, Tom Artin delivers the long-awaited comprehensive analysis of the ring cycle as well as its author from a Freudian standpoint. This time, the intra-psychic journey depicts the trials, tribulations and subsequent failure of the tragic pre-Oedipal and Oedipal struggles to fuse with mother and yet to separate from her. It is a brilliant work.

The book proceeds along three basic tracks that interact with each other. The first is the operatic text itself, which receives a careful inspection for significant psychological themes as well as for loaded terms. For this purpose, the author frequently goes back to the original German terms in order to uncover nuances that might be lost in translation. This extra care makes the entire study more convincing.

The second track consists of summoning essential insights of psychoanalysis and demonstrating that the basic psychoanalytic story of human development is already imbedded in the text of the ring cycle. In order to do this, Artin goes back to classical psychoanalysis rather than more recent developments. Freud is not teamed up with Erik Erikson nor Heinz Kohut but rather Otto Rank, Melanie Klein and Ernest Jones. In this classical psychoanalysis, instincts had the upper hand and were able to overcome repressions, not to mention conscious reason. Artin’s ability to delve into numerous and minute details adds a convincing touch to his basic hypothesis that central Freudian credos are imbedded in the text of the ring. Non-Freudian readers may therefore conclude that, as usual, the devil is in the details.

The third track purports to show that the contents of the previous two tracks—the psychological loadings of the text of the ring and of psychoanalysis—formed the woof and weft of Wagner’s own personality. Utilizing material from Wagner’s life, Artin is able to jump back and forth between the operatic text and details of Wagner’s life to illustrate psychological issues involving relations to mother, to sisters, dual father images, and the more general issue

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of carrying split images of close relatives or significant others.

The opening remark of the book is that “The Ring is a circle.” It therefore ought not to have a beginning or end. As befits a mythology, it operates in a circular, not linear, time and serves as an elaborate metaphor for existence. Nevertheless, the timeless framework in which gods and giants and dwarves operate serves to express the inner world of Wagner as well as modern audiences. In this connection, one is reminded that the 1976 new choreography of the ring cycle in Bayreuth by Patrice Chéreau depicted on one occasion a hydroelectric plant and on another a run-down neighborhood of deserted tenement housing. This stage setting that was greeted at first with raised eyebrows by both audience and critics evolved in time into le succès du scandale. It serves as another reminder that timeless mythology can be very timely indeed.

What better way to dramatize a mythology that sets up an entire world to live in than the Gesamtkunstwerk—usually translated as the total artwork—that was Wagner’s brainchild for the ultimate integration of the dramatic arts into an all-encapsulating performance. Wagner’s megalomania, a trait that was acknowledged by many including Donington and Artin, embraced architecture as well. His own design for the special theater in Bayreuth that would be suitable for a performance of the ring cycle placed the orchestra in a pit and therefore out of sight. Nothing was allowed to distract the audience from the dramatic events on the stage. Within the total artwork, the captive audience should become completely captivated and shaped by the performance. This is how, with quite a bit of megalomania, the genius artist becomes the shaper of man. It was a great historical misfortune, however, that later on an art model designed for the stage was exploited in politics. In Nazi Germany, the total artwork inspired a totalistic political work. Comprehensive controls were applied to the inhabitants of the so-called Volksgemeinschaft, or people’s community, to shape them into new improved German persons. Everything became political theater in the folkish state.

The Wagner Complex is written in the classical tradition of depth psychology and is a timely reminder of how rich and far-reaching this approach can be. It portrays a worldview and/or a conception of the psyche that is replete with oral, anal, necrophilic,

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and Oedipal hurdles. In this intra-psychic world, an ironclad double-bind law rules supreme. The necrophilic fantasy implies that only one life can be shared between mother and a newborn son. What is more, even for a trickster such as Wotan, it is impossible to act out Oedipal urges without guilt. The truth always lies in the depth, in primordial waters, in the unconscious where instincts forever crave satisfaction through an illusionary infantile omnipotence. Does the myth of the ring cycle offer any promise of redemption? Could the reborn gods of the next cycle finally grow up to successfully shed off their babyish omnipotence and become mature mortals? Wagner’s mythological text is ambiguous on this point. As for the author of The Wagner Complex, he seems to be pessimistic on this issue. In unraveling how the ring cycle is actually Freudian to the core, Tom Artin has produced a masterful illustration of the fragile balance between civilization and its discontents.

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