The Tetralogy of Richard Wagner: A Mirror of Androgyny and of the Total Work of Art

Abstract

Of all Wagner's operas, the Tetralogy has a special status. Indeed, beyond the myth related by the plot, the four operas it comprises also contain the presentation of a myth of the origin of music and the total work of art. The latter is based on an androgynous myth uniting poetry and music, seen respectively as the incarnation of male and female principles, symbolized by the different characters – Siegfried, Brünnhilde, Fafner, Mime – who are all tied up with androgyny. The theme appears both in Wagner's theoretical writing penned around 1850 and between the lines of the libretto of the Ring, which concludes with the impossible reunification of the sexes on the Platonic model. Nevertheless, even if biological androgyny belongs to the world of utopia, the creative artist does have the opportunity to bring together the opera's two sexualized components, music and poetry, and thus produce the total work of art that Wagner aspired to.