Influences of ancient Greek spirit on music romanticism as exemplifies in Richard Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk

Abstract

The romantics' ideal of the arts' collaboration (Mischgedichte) finds its most substantial equivalent in Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) "total work of art" (Gesamtkunstwerk). This theory for the restoration of the 'lost' unity of arts was elaborated in many theoretical essays of Wagner and 'applied' in his music dramas. Unity of arts, as well as unity of arts with nature existed according to Wagner in Ancient Greece while drama was the epitome of all expressive elements of nature. This "new art of the future", which Wagner envisaged, would restore the 'wholeness' of ancient Greek drama. It is the purpose, therefore, of this study to analyze mainly from an aesthetic point of view the influences of ancient Greek spirit on romantic thought, by focusing on Wagner's work.