Richard Wagners Shakespeare by Yvonne Nilges

Abstract

144 Reviews 'Dead Souls and The House of theSeven Gables ask to be read as books about the nation'(p.193),and it wasmore thana little surprising thatthroughout a sustained evaluationofGogol's TheNose there was not even a reference toPhilipRoth's ingenious parodyTheBreast (1972).However,inheranalysis ofHawthorne'sThe Marble Faun sheoffers an ingenious parallel with WalterBenjamin'sfamousessay 'The Work ofArt in the Age of MechanicalReproduction', publishedeighty years after Hawthorne'slastnovel.This isaworkofconsiderable scholarship, driven bya veryinteresting andpersuasivethesis. ROEHAMPTON UNIVERSITY KEVIN MCCARRON Richard WagnersShakespeare. ByYVONNE NILGES. (WagnerinderDiskussion,3) Wiirzburg: Konigshausen & Neumann. 2007. 18o pp. C20. ISBN978-3 8260-3710-8. 'Erist mein einziger Geistesfreund.' Wagner'scomment on theunique importance ofShakespeare (to Cosima,27 May 1882) istakeninallseriousness by Yvonne Nilges inherbook, thefirst tocovertheimmenseinfluence ofShakespeareonWagner, from his earliest compositions (Leubald, Das Liebesverbot) through his theoretical meditationsand up to thegloriesof Meistersinger and beyond.The importance of the Greeksfor Wagnerhasbeenwell documented; hereat last we havea definitive study of thefructifying presence of the Elizabethanplaywright andhis stage. Nilges rightly reminds us ofhowWagner's uncleAdolf encouragedtheyoung boy'swritingand reading, ofShakespeareabove all.The fifteen-year-old's imagi nation was stimulated andLeubaldwas theresult, a diffuse andwild combination ofelements derivedfrom Hamlet, Macbeth,KingLear,Romeoand Juliet, andboth parts ofHenry IV. The work was not conceived as an opera but as a play with music, similartoBeethoven's Egmont(nomusicby Wagner isextant). Nilgesdiscussesthe workwithgusto,leadingus through bombast,tavern scenes,ghosts, witches,and mounds of corpses. We are on more familiar ground with Das Liebesverbot, which Wagner based onMeasure forMeasure. Nilges points out thatWagner, now under thespellofJunges Deutschlandand theemancipation of thesenses,insisted inan autobiographical sketchthat hewas leaving behind thefairy-tale mysteries ofDie Feenand addressingthe materialworld (he isalso rebelling againsttheelevation ofShakespeareto thestatus ofmummified deityincertaincircles). Nilges isvery perceptive in her comments on the Shakespeare translations that Wagner used and convincingly decideson the Wieland text(MaJfi fr MaJ3,1763).Wagner's opera is,however, a drasticreduction ofShakespeare's play. His courtroom scenesseem reminiscent of2HenryIV and the palpablespirit ofFalstaff seems much inevidence. The readerisalwaysgrateful foranyguidancethrough Wagner's extensive and oftentortuoustheoretical writings, andNilges deservesfullpraise forher lucid comments on the role of Shakespeare inOper und Drama and his relation to the newlyemerging form of thenovel.Laterwritings(Beethoven) extolbothGerman composerandEnglishplaywright asoverpowering geniuses, endlessly creating. But MLR, 104.1, 2009 145 Nilges isather mostoriginal whendrawing ourattention totheseminalimportance ofAMidsummer Night's Dream fortheinception ofDieMeistersinger von Niirnberg. She reminds us thatthe Wieland translation ofShakespeare's playoriginally bore thetitle Ein St. Johannis Nachts-Traum, and immediately opens our eyes to the similarities between whathappensduringa certain nightinShakespeare's Athens andWagner'sNuremberg(Lysander's plea that Hermia should leaveher father's houseand flee withhim,and the projected elopement of WaltherandEva), also the similarity of images usedbyShakespeare and Wagnerand theimportance of moon, 'Wahn', andmidsummer madness.Thisexcellent bookendswitha lookat Wieland Wagner's almostElizabethanstageset inhisMeistersinger production(1963) and an assessment of Wagner's verytelling references toShakespeareas reported by Cosima.Wagnerians and Shakespearescholarsalikewill be deeply indebtedto Nilges for herperceptive anderuditestudy. STANDREWS R. S. FURNESS The Absurdin Literature. ByNEILCORNWELL. ManchesterandNewYork: Manches terUniversity Press. 2006. xiii+354 pp. ?17.99. ISBN 978-0-7190-7410-3. This isvery much a book focusing on a few'special authors', asNeil Cornwellputs it. Afteran impressive review of theoretical literature on thenatureof theabsurd and a quick lookat elements of Shakespeareand the more obviousSterneand Swift for antecedents tothetwentieth-century absurd, PartII moves rapidly through anoverview ofFernandoPessoa,Antonin Artaud, AlbertCamus,Eugene lonesco, HaroldPinter, and the OBERIU. PartIIIfocuses on four keyauthors: DaniilKharms, FranzKafka,SamuelBeckett, andFlannO'Brien. Both thereviewsectionat thebeginning and theauthorstudiesqualifyas ex tremely rich, andattimes exhaustively detailed, mixtures ofclosereading, commen tary on existing criticism, overview of context, cross-reference betweenauthors, and,most effectively, extensive and pithy directquotationfrom someof the most influential studies and thinkers on theabsurd. MartinEsslin'sseminal TheTheatre of the Absurd(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1987) loomslarge, but we arealso frequently inthecompany ofBakhtin, Eagleton, Eco,Adorno,Baudelaire, Benjamin, Bergson, and a host of other writers and thinkers. For me this is themajor strength of the book-its encyclopedic collection andexamination ofsecondary sources. Cornwell isnotafraidtoletothers' wordsexpressthe variety of thinking onwhatconstitutes the absurd, but is also able to give us glimpses ofwhat may link these rather dif ferent authors:'aconcern with the"ontological status of the'real""(p. 18,quoting SusanStewart, Nonsense: AspectsofIntertextuality inFolklore andLiterature (Balti more: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press,1989),p. 12...