In conjecturing a potential fourth stage, the three previous
ones must be regarded as one. The second explanation is that Wagner's
feeling in his last work is no longer representative of the feeling of
the race, but is, as it were, a personal matter, at least in so far as
love is concerned. For although the principal subject in _Parsifal_ is
not love, yet it plays a very prominent part in it. I am only touching
upon these two alternatives. But if the latter debatable point be
omitted, my analysis of Wagner's emotional life must have shown in which
sense the inspired man may be rightly regarded as typical of the race.
He leads the broadest and at the same time the most personal life, and
yet he manifests in it something which is far greater, far more
universal and representative.
My argument proves that the evolution as well as the aberrations of love
have affected man alone and, roughly speaking, to this day affect only
him. He is the Odysseus, wandering through heaven and hell, ultimately
to return home, perhaps, to where woman, the unchangeable, is awaiting
him.
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