My dearest friend,
Your letter, far from making me feel argumentative, has rather served to confirm me in my belief that in this world nothing is ever gained by disputation. That which is most unique to us as individuals we owe not to our conceptualizations but to our intuitions: but these latter are so much our own that we can never fully express them nor adequately communicate them, for even the most complete attempt to do so - in what the artist does, namely his work of art - is ultimately apprehended by others, in turn, purely in accordance with their own particular way of apprehending things. But how can an artist hope to find his own intuitions perfectly reproduced in those of another person, since he himself stands before his own work of art - if it really is a work of art - as though before some puzzle, which is just as capable of misleading him as it can mislead the other person. And how, in turn, can we reach a clearer understanding of this singular state of affairs except, at best, by falling back on our own intuitions? I can speak with some authority on this subject since I have made the most surprising discoveries on this very point. Rarely, I believe, has anyone suffered so remarkable a sense of alienation from self and so great a contradiction between his intuitions and his conceptions as I have done, for I must confess that only now have I really understood my own works of art (i.e. grasped them conceptually and explained them rationally to myself), and I have done so with the help of another person, who has furnished me with conceptions that are perfectly congruent with my own intuitions. The period during which I worked in obedience to the dictates of my inner intuitions began with the flying Dutchman; Tannhäuser and Lohengrin followed, and if there is any single poetic feature underlying these works, it is the high tragedy of renunciation, the well-motivated, ultimately inevitable and uniquely redeeming denial of the will. It is this profound feature that gives sanction to my poem and to my music, without which they would have no ability to stir us. Now, nothing is more striking in this context than the fact that, in all the conceptions that I held and which were devoted to speculating upon and reaching an understanding of life, I was working in direct opposition to my own underlying intuitions. While, as an artist, my intuitions were of such compelling certainty that all I created was influenced by them, as a philosopher, I was attempting to find a totally contrasting explanation of the world which, though forcibly upheld, was repeatedly - and much to my own amazement - undermined by my instinctive and purely objective artistic intuitions. My most striking experience in this respect came, finally, through my Nibelung poem; it had taken shape at a time when, relying upon my conceptions, I had constructed a Hellenistically optimistic world for myself which I held to be entirely realizable if only people wished it to exist, while at the same time seeking somewhat ingeniously to get round the problem why they did not in fact wish it to exist. I recall now having singled out the character of my Siegfried with this particular aim in mind, intending to put forward here the idea of a life free from pain; more than that, I believed I could express this idea even more clearly by presenting the whole of the Nibelung myth, and by showing how a whole world of injustice arises from the first injustice, a world which is destroyed in order — to teach us to recognize injustice, root it out and establish a just world in its place. Well, I scarcely noticed how, in working out this plan, nay, basically even in its very design, I was unconsciously following a quite different, and much more profound, intuition, and that, instead of a single phase in the world’s evolution, what I had glimpsed was the essence of the world itself in all its conceivable phases, and that I had thereby recognized its nothingness, with the result, of course - since I remained faithful to my intuitions rather than to my conceptions - , what emerged was something totally different from what I had originally intended. But I also recall once having sought forcibly to assert my meaning - the only time I ever did so - in the tendentious closing words which Brünnhilde addresses to those around her, a speech in which she turns their attention away from the reprehensibility of ownership to the love which alone brings happiness; and yet I had (unfortunately!) never really sorted out in my own mind what I meant by this “love” which, in the course of the myth, we saw appearing as something utterly and completely devastating. What blinded me in the case of this one particular passage was the interference of my conceptual meaning. Strange to relate, this passage continued to torment me, and it required a complete revolution in my rational outlook, such as was finally brought about by Schopenhauer, to reveal to me the cause of my difficulty and provide me with a truly fitting key-stone for my poem, which consists in an honest recognition of the true and profound nature of things, without the need to be in any way tendentious.
This sequence of events is by no means without interest, and my reason for telling you of it now is to make clear to you, at least, how I have come to interpret the problem of differentiating between intuitions and concepts - a problem resolved for me by Schopenhauer’s profound and happy solution - not simply as a conception but as an experience, the truth of which has now impressed itself upon me with such compelling conviction that, especially now that I have admitted to myself the true nature of the situation, I am perfectly content to accept it for myself and not be misled into presuming to force it upon others by a process of dialectic reasoning. I myself recognize all too well that such a conviction could never have been forced upon me if it had not already corresponded to my own deepest intuitions; equally, I recognize that it cannot be forced upon anyone else either, unless he has grasped it intuitively before he recognizes its conceptual validity. We cannot accept a thing conceptually if we have not already grasped it intuitively: this state of affairs is too self-evident for anyone who has seen it clearly for himself, especially if he feels as little of a philosopher as I do, to expose himself in public as a dialectician. I can speak only in works of art. - Nevertheless, I ask you, in order to bring the matter to a summary conclusion: - can you conceive of a moral action except in the sense of renunciation? And what is the greatest holiness, i.e. the most perfect redemption, if this principle is not acknowledged as the basis for all our actions? - But even with such simple questions as these I am already straying too far from my purpose, and becoming more abstract than is good for me. Let me tell you, therefore, something about my concrete existence. -
I am only an artist: - that is my blessing and my curse; otherwise I should gladly become a saint and know that my life was settled for me in the simplest way possible; as it is, I run round in circles, fool that I am, in search of peace and quiet, i.e. the complicated peace of an undisturbed and tolerably comfortable existence, in order - to be able to work, and to be only an artist. But it is so difficult for me to achieve this end that, in my perpetual pursuit of peace and quiet, I am often obliged to laugh out loud at myself. [...]
As far as the external events of my life are concerned, the German theatres continue to perform my operas badly, albeit with lasting success, a fact that fills me with amused astonishment. Efforts are being made to obtain permission for me to return to Germany, the Grand Duke of Weimar in particular has taken a most active interest in the affair, but without so far having received a favourable reply. For my own part, what I chiefly desire for myself is the soundness of health necessary to complete all the plans of which I am still full; unfortunately, I am fuller than I need be, since, in addition to the Nibelung dramas, I have in my head a Tristan and Isolde (love as fearful torment) and my latest subject “the Victors” (supreme redemption, Buddhist legend), both of which are clamouring for attention, so that it requires great obstinacy on my part to suppress them in favour of the Nibelungs. -
Here, my dearest August, you have in black and white all that I - a man in great need of rest - could produce at a single go. Remain cheerful and clear-headed, and suit your philosophy to your needs: ultimately we know only what we want to know, for this much at least you will admit, namely that, for all our knowledge, we are nothing but the will incarnate and, as such, the most powerful but certainly not the wisest, of all beings. Fare you well, and remember me with affection,
Yours,
R. W.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 193