Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsin the unalterability of fate, and not in lack of force; but he who cannotcease from striving in spite of this insufficiency becomes as itwere embittered and thus irritable and unjust. Perhaps he seeks thecause of his lack of success in others; he can, indeed, with apassionate hatred treat all the world as being to blame fo r it; perhapshe goes off defiantly along sidepaths and into subterfuges, or takes toviolence: thus it happens that benevolent natures turn savage ontheir way to a laudable goal. Even among those whose objective isonly their own moral purification, among hermits and monks, thereare to be found such savage and morbid men, hollowed out and consumedby failure. It was a spirit full of love, with voice overllowingwith goodness and sweetness, with a hatred of violence and selfdestruction,which desires to see no one in chains - it was such aspirit that spoke to Wagner. It descended upon him, covered himwith its wings, and showed him the path. We are now taking a lookinto the other sphere of Wagner's nature: but how are we to .describe it?The figures which an artist creates art not he himself, but a successionof figures upon whom he has patently bestowed his lovedoes tell us at any rate something about the artist himself. Now callto mind Rienzi, the Flying Dutchman and Senta, Tannhanser andElizabeth, Lohengrin and Elsa, Tristan and Marke, Hans Sachs,Wotan and Briinnhilde: there passes through all of them a subterraneancurrent of moral ennoblement and enlargement whichunites them, a current which flows ever more clear and pure - andhere, if with shy reserve, we stand before a development in the innermostrecesses of Wagner's own soul. In what artist can we perceiveanything similar at a similar peak of greatness? Schiller's figures,from the Robbers to Wallenstein and Tell, go through such a courseof ennoblement and likewise express something of the developmentof their creator, but Wagner's standard is higher and the course islonger. Everything participates in this purification and expresses it,not only the myth but also the music; in the Ring des Nibelungen I discoverthe most moral music I know, for example when Briinnhilde isawoken by Siegfried; here he attains to an elevation and sanctity ofmood that makes us think of the glowing ice- and snow-coveredpeaks of the Alps, so pure, solitary, inaccessible, chaste and bathedin the light oflove does nature appear here; clouds and storms, eventhe sublime itself, are beneath it. Looking back from this vantagepoint upon Tannhauser and the Dutchman, we feel how Wagnerevolved: how he started darkly and restlessly, how he stormily202