Wagner's Tristan und Isolde: An Essay on the Wagnerian Drama

Hight, George Ainslie, 1851-1937Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 2.8
Word count
320K words
Chapters
33

Tags

English Originals Dramatic LiteratureMusic Classical MusicMusic and TheaterLegendary RomanceLove EntanglementsTragic LoveRomanticismAcademic StudyOpera AppreciationArt CriticismTragic Aesthetics

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde": An Essay on the Wagnerian Drama by HightAuthor: Hight, George Ainslie, 1851-1937,Language: English, Class: ML: Music: Literature of music, Release Date: Apr 1, 2005

Editor's review

This is a short critical essay on Wagner's music drama Tristan und Isolde. George Ainslie Hight approaches the work from a literary and dramatic angle, discussing its dramatic structure, character relationships and emotional logic, and helping readers understand how Wagner made music and drama support each other. Its value lies not in score analysis or performance history but in building a bridge for readers new to Wagner from plot to dramatic ideas: first understand what the drama is about and why it is told this way, then listen to the music, and the work becomes easier to enter. The language is English, the prose bears the marks of early twentieth-century critical writing, and the sentences are rather formal but generally clear. It suits as preparatory reading before a performance or listening session, and is also suitable for readers interested in nineteenth-century European music drama and Romantic theatre. Because it was written early, its views represent the author's personal critical stance; readers may treat them as one interpretation rather than a settled conclusion.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read a plot summary or watch a recording of a performance first; the book will then be easier to follow.
  2. Take notes on the main passages as you read, testing the author's dramatic judgments against your own listening impressions.
  3. Read in sections and listen to the corresponding music after each chapter, creating a read-listen loop.
  4. Treat the book's views as one critical perspective; after reading, ask yourself whether you agree and note any disagreements.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33

FAQ

Do I need music theory to read this book? No. The book focuses on drama and literature rather than harmony, orchestration or other technical analysis; basic reading ability is enough. If opera as a form is entirely new to you, it is easier to learn the outline of the plot and the main character relationships first.
Is this book the libretto of Tristan und Isolde? No, it is not the libretto itself but a critical essay on the drama. It discusses the work's dramatic conception and the characters' emotions to help readers understand its dramatic logic. If you want the lines, you still need a libretto or a translation for comparison.
How difficult is the English? Is it suitable for non-native readers? The prose belongs to early twentieth-century formal criticism; sentences are long but the logic is clear, and non-native readers need a fair vocabulary. Read slowly with a dictionary, skip musical terms at first, and focus on the author's judgments about characters and plot.
Are the book's views still authoritative? The book represents the author's personal critical stance and was written long ago, so it may not reflect current scholarly consensus. Its use is to offer one way into the work, not to settle matters. Readers can compare it with modern criticism and recordings to form their own judgment.

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About the author

Hight, George Ainslie, 1851-1937 Author · British · 1851–1937

George Ainslie Hight (1851–1937) was a British classical scholar, also known as a secondary school headmaster. He devoted himself to the study of Homer and ancient Greek literature, working in a manner characteristic of Victorian classical philology, with attention to close reading of texts and to the classical tradition. His interests were not confined to ancient Greece but extended to drama and music: the volume held in this catalogue, Wagner's Tristan und Isolde: An Essay on the Wagnerian Drama, is a study of Wagnerian drama, showing his attempt to apply the analytical eye of classical drama to modern music drama. Public information about him is limited, and he has been little translated into Chinese; his output is small, yet it spans classical scholarship and Wagner studies, offering a concrete case for understanding how late nineteenth-century British scholars received Wagner's music dramas.