What a poet am I! Heaven help me, I am growing quite arrogant! This everlasting translation of Tannhäuser has made me so conceited already. It is just this task which forces me to go through my work word by word, that has shown me how concise and unalterable the poem is as it stands. Take away a word, a meaning, and my translator, and myself, have both of us to admit that an essential motif has been sacrificed. [...] I can better improve on the music. In particular, I am giving the orchestra more expressive and richer passages here and there. [...]
Prose translations of the four pieces, The Dutchman, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin and Tristan, are soon to be published, and I intend to write a preface for the special purpose of giving my friends here some elucidation of the nature of my tendencies in art. I have just been through these translations, which necessitated making a fresh detailed examination of my poems. Yesterday Lohengrin touched me very deeply and I cannot but think it the most tragic of all poems, because only a terribly wide outlook on the universe makes the basis of reconciliation discoverable.
Nothing but the profound assumptions of the doctrine of the transmigration of souls could reveal to me the moment, rich in consolation, at which all things at length unite on the same peak of redemption. [...] According to the beautiful Buddhist belief, the only explanation of the spotless purity of Lohengrin is that he is the reincarnate Parzival, who won to purity by his own efforts. In the same way Elsa would reach Lohengrin through rebirth. Accordingly, my theme for The Victors seemed to me to be the continuation and fulfilment of Lohengrin. In it Savitri (Elsa) achieves Ananda utterly. All the terrible tragedies of life are but due to the divisions inherent in time and space. [...]
Tristan is, and remains, a miracle to me! I find it more and more difficult to understand how I could have done such a thing. As I read it through again, I had to open my eyes wide! I shall have to pay terribly for this work one day if I mean to have it performed to perfection. I can see that most incredible sufferings lie before me. For I do not disguise from myself that I have far overstepped the limits of our capacity for performance. The wonderful geniuses of actors who alone would be equal to the task are incredibly rare in the world nowadays. And yet I cannot resist the attempt! If I only hear the orchestra!!
Parzival has been stirring in me much again of late. I am coming to see more of it and more clearly. When it is fully ripe, the writing of this poem will be an inexpressible delight to me. But many a good year may pass before then! Moreover, I should like to leave everything to the poem itself. I hold back as long as I can and only think about it when it comes upon me with power! When that is so, this miraculous process of generation makes me forget all my misery. [...]
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Vol. 2, selected and ed. Wilhelm Altmann, trans. M. M. Bozman (J. M. Dent & Sons, 1927), No. 472