Christa Giles

centers. Wagner’s imagination is perpetually
occupied with woman. But he never sees her
in relation to man in the form of healthy and
natural love, which is a benefit and
satisfaction for both lovers. As with all
morbid erotics (we have already remarked
this in Verlaine and Tolstoi), woman presents
herself to him as a terrible force of nature, of
which man is the trembling, helpless victim.
The woman that he knows is the gruesome
Astarte of the Semites, the frightful maneating
Kali Bhagawati of the Hindoos, an
apocalyptic vision of smiling bloodthirstiness,
in demoniacally beautiful embodiment. 308
107
Huysmans, in his commentary on Tannhäuser, sees
Wagner’s Venus as the incarnation of lust, the messenger of
Satan rather than the traditional image of antiquity,
Aphrodite:
Telle que Wagner l’a crée, cette Vénus,
emblème de la nature matérielle de l’être,
allégorie du Mal en lutte avec le Bien,
symbole de notre enfer intérieur opposé a
notre ciel interne, nous ramène d’un bond en
arrière à travers les siècles, à l’imperméable
grandeur d’un poème symbolique de
Prudence, ce vivant Tannhäuser qui, après
des années dédiées au stupre, s’arracha des
bras de la victorieuse Démone pour se