Now in its 2nd, revised edition, The Wagner Complex sets forth an unapologetically psychoanalytic interpretation of Wagner’s Ring. Though it seems a commonplace that Wagner’s works offer fertile ground for such an approach, remarkably little analysis along these lines has actually been published. This book fills a conspicuous void in the vast literature on Wagner. Its primary focus is on the genesis and meaning of The Ring, but the book is by the way an essay in the intellectual and cultural history of nineteenth century Europe, an exploration of the Zeitgeist in whose atmosphere Wagner's operatic creations and Freud's psychological speculations alike came to fruition, most notably the emerging conjecture--scientific as well as philosophical--of the fundamental role played by the unconscious in everyday life and the creative process. The overarching conclusion of The Wagner Complex is that The Ring comprises not merely fanciful adventures (and misadventures) of gods, giants, and dwarves, of super-human heroes and anti-heroes such as traverse its intricate surface, but shadows forth symbolically the drama of unconscious psychic conflict.

The Wagner Complex: Genesis and Meaning of The Ring

Arts & Photography

Artin, Tom

Music

Free Scholar Press

When he was a boy, Elliot pressed himself up against the plate glass of the noumenal world. He made a face, and when the noumenal world made a face back, he was scared. Ever since then, like some kind of neo-objectivist anchorite running amok, whose daily reprieve depends on the purposeful brick by brick removal in order to see or re-see, he has been fleeing the cloister of this world only to find himself again in this world. In this third full-length collection, he breathes life into the everyday so that we can stop and pick it up and look at it and see that it is, and therefore we are, or might be, whole, too. These poems restore the magic of anonymity to a city bus, a park bench, a tree, a man and his dog, his loop of thought, and in doing so strip away what and who we think we are, laying bare the that-ness that’s there, a little to the left and beyond the frame, a that-ness that seems to make a face back at us and we laugh.

Idea for a B-Movie

Literature & Fiction

Elliot, Joe

Poetry

"What Parsifal Saw" is a psychoanalytically informed interpretation of Wagner's final and perhaps greatest work for the stage, "Parsifal. Following his ground-breaking study "The Wagner Complex," a Freudian analysis of "The Ring, "Tom Artin has turned his attention to the work its author/composer designated a "Stage Consecrating Festival Play," and brings to light its unconscious themes and meanings.

What Parsifal Saw

In this ground-breaking work, H. W. Matalene distills years of scholarly inquiry into the meaning and role of characterization, an elusive but defining element of human interaction and its representation in the arts. Why do we act the way we do, and why do we respond as we do to manners, dress, speech, and the other traits of characterization? Dr. Matalene's range is broad--from the ancient Greeks to the Romantics to contemporary culture and politics. But he has woven the various skeins of his subject into a brilliant tapestry.

Characterization and History: Social Recognition in the West from Antiquity to Romanticism

Politics & Social Sciences

Matalene, H. W.

Social Sciences

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