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

by George Ainslie Hight

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.