Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Richard Wagner in Bayreuth8Wagner's actual life, that is to say the gradual revelation of thedithyrambic dramatist, was at the same time an unceasing strugglewith himself insofar as he was not only a dithyrambic dramatist: hisstruggle with the world which resisted him was so furious anduncanny because he heard this 'world', this bewitching enemy,speaking out of his own being and because he harboured withinhimself a mighty demon of resistance. When the ruling idea of his life- the idea that an incomparable amount of influence, the greatestinfluence of all the arts, could be exercised through the theatre -seized hold on him, it threw his being into the most violent fe rment.It did not produce an immediate clear decision as to his fu tureactions and objective; this idea appeared at first almost as a temptation,as an expression of his obscure personal will, which longedinsatiably fo r power and fa me. Influence, incomparable influence -how? over whom? - that was from now on the question and questthat ceaselessly occupied his head and heart. He wanted to conquerand rule as no artist had done before, and if possible to attain with asingle blow that tyrannical omnipotence for which his instinctsobscurely craved. With a jealous, deeply probing glance he scannedeverything that enjoyed success, he observed even more those uponwhom influence had to be exerted. Through the magical eye of thedramatist, who can read souls as easily as he can the most familiarwriting, he saw to the bottom of the spectators and listeners, andthough he was often disturbed by what he learned he nonethelessreached at once for the means of mastering it. These means werealways available to him; what produced a strong effect upon him hewas able himself to produce; of his models he understood at everystage just as much as he was himself able to create, and he neverdoubted that he could do whatever he wanted to. In this he isperhaps an even more 'presumptuous' nature than Goethe, whosaid of himself: 'I always believed I had everything; they could haveset a crown upon my head and I would have thought it quite inorder.' Wagner's ability and his 'taste' and likewise his. objective -these have at all times corresponded as closely to one another as akey does to a lock: - together they became great and free but theywere not so at first. What to him were the feeble, noble yet selfishlysolitary sensations experienced far from the great crowd by this orthat friend of art educated in literature and aesthetically refined? Butthose violent storms of the soul produced by the great crowd when227