WAGNER'S CONCEPTION OF THE TRISTAN MYTHOS
Wagner's treatment of his material is worth a closer consideration
because it is characteristic of his conception of the drama. Like
every poet of the first order he regards it exclusively from the moral
standpoint. In a former chapter I drew a distinction between the drama
which depends upon the play of human actions for their own sakes and
that in which the interest is centred in the motives or characters of
the actors. The character of any individual is only another name for
his permanent will, the abiding metaphysical side of his being and its
most direct expression is music, while words are the proper vehicle of
the logical intellect. Gottfried's epic--the latter part of it I mean,
with which alone we are concerned--is entirely spectacular in the
sense in which I have used that term. The poet conducts us through a
succession of incidents related as being interesting or amusing in
themselves. Wagner, for reasons which I have explained, in dramatizing
the story, went to the opposite extreme, and composed a work so
entirely musical that it makes the impression of a gigantic symphony.
Gottfried cares nothing for the moral characters of his heroes.
Wooden, soulless puppets are sufficient for him so long as they act
and react upon one another. But the drama which centres in these
characters cannot be satisfied with nonentities; the poet had
therefore to create them himself, and the incidents then dropped out
as superfluous.
For a character to be poetically interesting it is not necessary that
it should be faultless. But it must be human--intensely human, both in
its virtues and in its defects; then the large-hearted spectator can
reverence its nobility and sympathize with its shortcomings without
his aesthetic or moral faculties being outraged. Some loftiness of
purpose there must be in a dramatic hero, something which raises us
out of ourselves and calls forth feelings of worship and awe in spite
of what seem to be his errors. "Es irrt der Mensch so lang er
lebt"--"It is not the finding of truth, but the honest search for it
that profits"; the spectacle of a noble soul striving against
adversities and often failing, but never crushed, is one which touches
the heart most deeply, and is the proper subject of tragedy. Above all
the hero must be truthful; we must not be always on the watch to find
him out unawares, as in actual life.
Wagner's drama has been often described as a story of adultery; we are
even told that it would have no interest were it not a tale of illicit
love, and so it is regarded by nine out of ten of those who witness
the performance without having closely studied the text. That such a
notion should prevail in spite of the clearness of the text on this
point is due to the fact that most people can only conceive of a drama
as spectacular. They expect incidents, and, finding none, they seek
for pruriency. All they see is a man and woman in passionate love for
each other without any hope of ever being married, so they conclude it
must come under the familiar heading of illicit love. The difficulty
of the language is no doubt partly responsible for this gross
misapprehension, and the music gives no help. It tells of the passion,
but can say nothing about its legality. Of adultery or illicit love
there can be no question in Wagner's _Tristan_, if for no other
reason than that Isolde is not married to King Marke, and owes him no
allegiance. She has been carried off to be married to him, but that is
quite a different thing. Are we to suppose that after all that
happened on board the ship she consented to become the wife of King
Marke? Certainly the text gives us no authority to suppose anything so
incredible; we only learn from some words of King Marke in the second
act that she is still an inviolate virgin. Even if we could believe
the gentle and chivalrous Marke capable of committing such an outrage
upon a woman as to go through a form of marriage with her against her
will, no rite so performed would be binding by any law of God or man.
Without her consent she cannot be the wife of King Marke. The point
would not be of any real importance did it not seem to lend colour to
the absurd charge of licentiousness and sensuality which has so often
been brought against Wagner.
I have already remarked that an important difference between the old
conception of the story and Wagner's lies in the fact that in the
latter their love remains unsatisfied. The notion of their longing
being fulfilled is utterly foreign to Wagner's _Tristan_, nor is
there at any moment the smallest hope of their ever possessing each
other in this life. However consumed they are with love they retain
perfect mastery over themselves. This is so abundantly clear from the
first moment when their love is revealed--when they drink the
potion--that it is inconceivable for a misunderstanding to occur to
any one who follows the text with any attention. Were the mistake
confined to vulgar and careless people who make up the bulk of the
audience, however deplorable, it would be intelligible, but from
scholars and professional critics we expect at least acquaintance with
the text. An author who enjoys a deservedly high reputation as an
authority upon Greek art and is widely read by young students writes
in a recent work: "Any one at first hearing of Wagner's _Tristan und
Isolde_ would perceive that it was a most immoral subject.... It is
an artistic glorification of adultery." How, one must ask, does the
learned author reconcile this statement with Tristan's words just
before he drinks the supposed poison: "Tristan's Ehre--höchste Treu'"?
What is the meaning of the whole dialogue of the second act, of
Tristan's address to Isolde at the end, and of her reply to him when
both go forth to die? How does it come that at last, when all
obstacles have been surmounted, when nothing more hinders the lovers
from full possession of one another, he deliberately puts an end to
his own life? This and much more could only be explained by supposing
that Wagner wrote, in operatic fashion, words without meaning, with an
eye solely to stage effect. It is the old story! Wagner having been
once written down as the poet of licence and immorality, the facts
have to be altered to suit the theory.
Tristan's crime is indeed in the eyes of a chivalrous soul a far
blacker one than that of adultery. He has betrayed his friend, his
sovereign, his kinsman, his benefactor, and has broken his faith
towards the woman who trusted him. He is so completely overcome with
love for the woman whom he himself has brought to be the bride of his
uncle, that no going back is possible. But one course is yet open to
him to save his honour. He may die; and he accordingly seeks death
with full consciousness and determination. Three times he tries to rid
himself of life: first when he drinks the supposed poison with Isolde;
again when he drops his sword in the duel with Melot; the third time
he succeeds, when he tears off his bandages at the decisive moment,
when no escape is possible but by instant death.
Love for its own sake is not a subject for dramatic treatment.
Love-stories are the bane of love. In real life we do not talk about
our love-affairs, most men thinking that they have quite enough to do
with their own without caring to hear those of other people. Still
less do we wish to hear the vapid inanities which seem proper to that
condition poured forth on the stage. I know of no European drama of
any importance which treats of a prosperous and happy love as its
principal subject; it needs the delicate pen of a Kálidása to make it
endurable. It does not of course follow that love is to be altogether
banished from dramatic art. The dramatist surveys the whole field of
human life and could not, if he wished, afford to neglect the most
powerful and universal of human motives. All depends upon the
treatment, and no subject is more beset with difficulties. The earlier
Greek dramatists, with their usual unerring judgment, avoided sexual
love, i.e. the love between a young woman and a young man, although
love-stories and love-lyrics were well known to them. The only play
which has come down to us where love is a predominant motive is the
_Trachiniae_. The love of Deianeira is the ardent longing of a
highly emotional young woman and mother, but its very intensity brings
disaster on both herself and her husband. Broadly speaking, love is a
legitimate motive for the dramatist when it is used, not as a purpose
in itself, but as a setting for something else. In the words of
Corneille, "l'amour ne doit être que l'ornement, et non l'âme de nos
pièces," and this is how it is generally employed by the best
dramatists. The love of Benedict and Beatrice, for example, is simply
a setting for their witty talk and repartee. On the Spanish stage love
is often a setting for entertaining intrigue, as in Lope de Vega's
_El Perro del Hortelano_. In Schiller's _Wallenstein_ the
love of Max and Thekla is a refreshing breath of pure air through the
abyss of treachery and corruption; almost the same applies to _Romeo
and Juliet_, and in both the end is death. Of the Elizabethans,
Ford seems to have had a predilection for love-plots, but all, as far
as I remember, end tragically. I have selected, as they occurred to
me, a few representative plays from the dramatic literature of
different countries; an exhaustive inquiry would, I feel sure, only
confirm the view that a preference for love subjects for their own
sake is a sure sign of decadence in the drama. Goethe, who in his
youth swore to dedicate his life to the service of love,
and--unhappily--kept his vow; Goethe, who nauseates us with love in
his romances and lyrics, who even in the Eternal City cannot forget
his worship of "Amor" and his visits to his "Liebchen," never misuses
love in his dramas. He tells us sarcastically that on the stage, when
the lovers are at last united, the curtain falls quickly and covers up
the sequel.
A work of art like _Tristan und Isolde_ can never be understood
by the norms which prevail in society. By the social theory, marriage
is a contract between two parties for their mutual advantage; it is
inspired by a refined form of selfishness. That spontaneous
self-immolation which marks the love of pure and vigorous natures lies
beyond its intelligence. The law is satisfied if only the parties
subscribe their names in solemn agreement before a proper civil or
ecclesiastical authority. It could not well be otherwise, for the
true-born _Aphrodite Ourania_ will not submit to any bonds but
her own. I should be indeed misunderstood if it were thought that I
was advocating licence in any form whatever. What is called
"free-love" is pure sensuality, the bastard _Aphrodite Pandemos_.
Nothing is more sacred to me than the marriage vow, but I hold that
the marriage vow itself needs the sanction of love, and that when this
is absent, or has broken down in the stress of life, I say--not that
sin is justified, but that love will take vengeance upon those who
have insulted her name. Lovers whose object is sensual enjoyment with
as little personal inconvenience as possible, who break the law while
wishing to escape the legal penalty, have nothing in common with
Wagner's _Tristan und Isolde_. Those who love for the sake of
loving, whose love is stronger than life, who readily and cheerfully
accept death as the due penalty of sin, these, and these alone, are
beyond the pale of human conventions; they can only be judged by the
laws of a higher morality than that of human tribunals.
Some details of the story we must construct for ourselves, and are
entitled to do so when they are not essential. The poet is himself not
always conscious of all the bearings of what he composes; he works by
inspiration, not by reason, and we know that Wagner himself was
sometimes under singular delusions with regard to his own works. Two
questions will occur to everybody at the beginning: 1. Has Isolde
started on the voyage to be the bride of King Marke with her own
consent? 2. Does she love Tristan before they drink the potion? Many
will answer these questions quite positively, the first in the
negative, the second in the affirmative. But the indications are very
shadowy indeed in the text, and the old story, the only source which
could throw any light on the question, tells the contrary in both
cases. Perhaps it will be contended that the constant presence of the
love-motive at decisive moments leaves no doubt that they love each
other from the beginning. To this I reply that it is not possible for
a musical strain by itself to prove anything. It can only call to mind
as a reminiscence something with which it has been definitely
connected before. We cannot do better than leave such questions to be
answered by each according to his own judgment. Like a skilful painter
Wagner has drawn secondary incidents with a shadowy outline in order
that the attention may be concentrated on the main features. The main
thing is to realize that they are inessential, but those who feel the
need of greater clearness may reconstruct for themselves. My own
belief is that their feelings at the beginning of the first act are a
very subtle and complex mixture, of which they could not then have
given a very clear account even to themselves, and that the poet has
therefore, with consummate artistic skill, purposely left them
unexplained.
The one decisive and all-important motive of the drama is the love of
the hero and the heroine in conflict with Tristan's honour; and on
this the whole force of the musical torrent is concentrated. In the
end love must prevail. Love, with Wagner, is the divine possession
which dominates every noble heart, but here it is incompatible with
the conditions of human life, and of that honour which is its very
breath. And so at the end, as the lovers pass through their
death-agony clasped in each other's embrace, the love-motive soars
triumphant and joyous above the surging billows of the orchestra, and
they are united in the more glorious love beyond, in the "love that is
stronger than death."
I have now to speak of Wagner's much discussed "pessimism." At first
sight it might seem a strange contradiction to speak of pessimism in a
man who composed _Die Meistersinger_, whose love of all things
beautiful was a passion, whose faith in human nature, unshaken by
every disillusionment, would almost seem like madness, did we not know
that it was that very faith which finally carried him through to
victory. Wagner's pessimism was not borrowed from Schopenhauer, but
was his own, as it is, in one form or another, the creed of every
thinking man, the foundation of every satisfying philosophy and art.
Pessimism does not consist in looking only at the dark side of things,
and closing the eyes to all that is beautiful; that is blindness and
ignorance, not philosophy. Pessimism is on the contrary the outcome of
an intense love, of a passionate delight in the harmony, the fitness,
and beauty of nature, inspiring a keenly sympathetic soul. He cannot
close his eyes to the fact that all this lovely world is made to
perish; that its individuals are engaged in a fierce warfare upon one
another; each preys upon its fellows with a savagery which shuns no
cruelty and recks of no crime. Love itself in its mortal embodiment
withers and turns to evil. His moral sense tells him that this ought
not to be; there must be some delusion; is it in nature or is it in
his own understanding? As a rule we put this darker aspect of nature
out of sight; we exclude the poor, the vicious, the unhappy from our
company, because they would hinder us in our mad pursuit of pleasure,
and it needs the strength and sincerity which accompany the advance of
years to bring a revolt against the selfish blindness of our youth. As
we watch and learn from the terrible tragedy of nature, as we realize
more and more the baseness and depravity of human life, our faith
becomes stronger that beauty, truth, righteousness, are eternal and
cannot be born only that they may perish; that man is not "a wild and
ravening beast held in check only by the bonds of civilization," but
is a divine and immortal being. Our vision gradually opens and we
learn more clearly that all which we once took for pleasure and for
pain are unreal, visionary reflections from a higher and purer
existence where all creation is united in the eternal embrace of love.
For those who, through courage and sincerity, through faith and hope
and love, have attained the higher insight, have seen the very face of
Brahm behind the delusive veil of Mâyâ, there is no discord or
contradiction in all this; despair gives way to a resigned quietism,
to that "peace of God which passeth all understanding." Such is the
ineffable insight of the artist, and no poetry is satisfying which
does not spring from this source. Wagner in the letter I quoted
before, speaks of the cheerful playfulness of Spanish poets after they
had adopted the ascetic life. The philosophic pessimist is not a
fretful and malignant caviller who sneers at the follies of others
because he thinks himself so much wiser than they. Any one may note
among the ascetics of his acquaintance, those who take no pleasure in
what delights others and live a life of self-denial and
abstemiousness, how cheerful is their conversation, how bright and
steadfast their glance, how their tolerance of the follies of others
is only equalled by the saintliness of their own lives.
Such is Wagner's pessimism; it is the pessimism of the Vedânta
philosophy; that is to say, it is most clearly formulated in that
system, and in the Upanishads upon which it rests, but really it is
the common basis of all religions.[28] It breathes in the poems of
Hafiz, in the philosophy of Parmenides, Plato, and the Stoics, in the
profound wisdom of Ecclesiastes, in mediaeval mysticism, and the faith
of the early Christian Church. Buddhism and Christianity are both
pessimist in their origin. It is not an "opinion," i.e. a creed or
formula which may be weighed and either accepted or rejected, but is
an insight which, when once understood and felt, is as self-evident as
the air we breathe. But it is an insight which can only be attained
through moral discipline, never through the rationalism of vulgar and
self-seeking minds. Nor is it for those who are enlightened at all
moments of their lives, but only in times of poetic exaltation, when
the faculties are awake and become creative.
[Footnote 28: Except Islam, which is rather a moral discipline than a
religion.]