Fundamentally different from the foregoing natural outgrowths of the
Nibelungen saga are the modern dramas and poems founded upon it since the
time of the romanticists at the beginning of the nineteenth century.[7]
Nearly all of these have already vanished as so much chaff from the
winnowing-mill of time: only two, perhaps, are now considered seriously,
namely, Hebbel's _Die Nibelungen_ and Richard Wagner's _Ring des
Nibelungen_. Hebbel in his grandly conceived drama in three parts follows
closely the story as we have it in our epic poem the Nibelungenlied, and
the skill with which he makes use of its tragic elements shows his
dramatic genius at its best. But not even the genius of Hebbel could make
these forms of myth and saga live again for us upon a modern stage, and
the failure of this work with its wealth of poetic beauty and many scenes
of highest dramatic effectiveness to maintain its place as an acting
drama is sufficient evidence that the yawning gap that separates the
sentiment of the modern world from that of the early centuries in which
these sagas grew is not to be bridged over by the drama, however easy and
indeed delightful it may be for us to allow ourselves to be transported
thither to that romantic land upon the wings of epic story. Wagner in his
music-drama in three parts and prelude has followed in the main the saga
in its Northern form [8] up to the death of Siegfried and Brunhild, but
to the entire exclusion of the latter part of the story in which Atli
(Etzel) figures; his work has accordingly hardly any connection with the
Nibelungenlied here offered in translation. Only the pious loyalty of
national sentiment can assign a high place in dramatic literature to
Wagner's work with its intended imitation of the alliterative form of
verse; while his philosophizing gods and goddesses are also but decadent
modern representatives of their rugged heathen originals.
[7] The curious will find a list of these in the introduction to Piper's
edition, cited below, Chapter 7.
[8] See above, Chapter 2.