ABSTRACT
The implications for the Ring are not quite so straightforward. Schopenhauer never entirely replaces Young Hegelianism or socialism in Wagner's thought; nor does renunciation entirely supplant revolution. There exists, however, a transitional stage between hesitant renunciation of Valhalla and breaking of the Will, namely Wotan's role, during the first two acts of Siegfried, as the Wanderer- Olympian, in the sense of a Kantian observer. Fricka's denial of the Volsung siblings' love, let alone Alberich's renunciation of love, look no more positive seen in that light, yet Wagner nonetheless acknowledges love's destructive force. Wotan's renunciation possesses another, mystical side: what Schopenhauer terms 'the Will's self-elimination, in other words, resignation'. Wotan's renunciation of creation and knowledge is as vital to Wagner's conception as the god's abdication of law and custom. Wotan completes Feuerbach's work, rejecting wholesale that which would transcend, spurning the consolations of love-communism upon which Feuerbach had fallen back.
