JOURNALfor the STUDYof ANTISEMITISM

248 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 3:243
Jewish song that R[ichard] was trying to ridicule. In consequence [there
was] some hissing in the second act.”
Wagner’s antisemitic subtlety in Meistersinger is matched by his cunning
in depicting Jewish characteristics in The Ring. In that monumental
music drama he would employ all of the artifacts used to characterize
Beckmesser and add a few more, including references to the blood libel and
the dangers of race mixing.
THE RING
It is possible to tell the story of The Ring, but the collection of characters,
plots, and subplots make it difficult to understand. There are gods,
goddesses, giants, gnomes who live beneath the earth, mermaid-like creatures
living in the Rhine, mortals, and other roles difficult to categorize.
The Ring is a pagan tale of sorcery and incest that presents an incomprehensible
mythology as a rational philosophy for the world, but it is
strong enough stuff to allow the modern listener to become drunk in its
embrace. Rarely has the art-loving world been presented with such a deceit
as this attempt at a complete work of art, for it is a tangle of falsehoods and
pathetic arrogance run amok, where trivial opinions are made into ponderous
utterances, and bankrupt personal pursuits are elevated to matters of
universal significance. Like every other written utterance of Wagner, The
Ring is largely egocentric. But here it is of such proportions that it forms a
stage work in which Wagner’s fantasies were transformed into the future of
the German people.
Excluding those few characters who are neutral, the personalities of
the drama fall into two groups having opposite characteristics. One such
group is the “Volk,” roughly translated as “the race” or “the nation,” but not
“the common people.” The other is the “outsider,” who differs from the
Volk in many specifics.
Wagner assigns various characteristics to the good Volk, and then displays
the opposite attributes as present in the evil outsiders. One such characteristic
is that the Volk walk in a poised and confident manner, while the
outsider staggers and stumbles. This stage device is derived from the medieval
superstition that Jews had goat feet. In the Middle Ages, the billy goat
was presented as a symbol of satanic lechery and the devil’s most usual
disguise. The Jews, believed to be Satan’s minions, were also accused of
having the same attribute. That the Jew’s feet were shod in public was interpreted
as using the cloak of civilization to disguise his corruption. This
acceptance of Jewish deviltry gave rise to the concept that the Jewish foot
could not function at a normal gait; the Jew stumbled and staggered. In The
Ring, the gnomes walk in this fashion while the Volk are surefooted, a