Fragments on Wagner

1939 Wagner article by Theodor W. Adorno From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Fragments on Wagner" (German: "Fragmente über Wagner") is a 1939 journal article by philosopher Theodor W. Adorno. It was an early contribution to the Frankfurt School's emerging analysis of antisemitism, which Adorno approached through an analysis of composer Richard Wagner and his work. Philosopher Walter Benjamin responded positively to the material, though "Fragments" received limited attention amid war. Adorno's larger manuscript, from which the article was derived, was later published as the monograph Versuch über Wagner (1952; trans. In Search of Wagner, 1981).

Background and influences

"Fragments on Wagner" (German: "Fragmente über Wagner") is an article by philosopher Theodor W. Adorno, published in 1939 in the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (Journal for Social Research)^[1]^[2]^[3] of the Institute for Social Research. One of Adorno's Frankfurt School colleagues, philosopher Max Horkheimer, had touched on Jewish identity in an aphorism ("Belief and Profit" from Dawn and Decline or Dämmerung, 1926–31), but they emigrated from Nazi Germany having viewed antisemitism less as a social, psychological, or cultural phenomenon than through the lens of class conflict.^[4]

The material came from Adorno's larger Wagner manuscript, begun with Horkheimer's encouragement in London in autumn 1937.^[3]^[2]^[5] Later, Adorno recalled that it had been tied to earlier Frankfurt School writings, including Horkheimer's extended essay "Egoism and the Freedom Movement" (1936).^[5]^[6]^[7] Philosopher Walter Benjamin, their colleague, provided feedback on Adorno's material,^[2] and Adorno drew on Benjamin's theory of aversion.^[3] Adorno also quoted from the antisemitic fairytale "The Jew Among Thorns" collected by the Brothers Grimm.^[8]

In 1938, Adorno wrote that he had finished what he called his "notes on Wagner",^[3]^[5] and he excerpted and summarized the material as "Fragments".^[2] Later, leaving the "Fragments" sections largely unchanged while revising some of the unpublished material, he developed the manuscript into his first published musical monograph, Versuch über Wagner (1952).^[7]^[2]^[9] (In 1981, Rodney Livingstone translated Versuch into English not as Essay on Wagner, but as In Search of Wagner.^[5]^[10])

"Fragments" has four sections in the same numbered sequence as Versuch's ten chapters: Social Character, Phantasmagoria, God and Beggar, and Chimera.^[1]^[3]^[5] It lacks Versuch's epigraph, "Horses are survivors/of the age of heroes", which Adorno had used in "Motifs" (1937), his essay of aphorisms on music.^[11]^[12] (Later published in Adorno's Quasi una fantasia in 1963, "Motifs" is not Versuch's "Motiv" chapter.^[11]^[13])

In "Fragments", Adorno analyzed Wagner's antisemitism as expressing the sadomasochism in his worldview^[4] and as unmasking alignment with the bourgeoisie. Then he linked Wagner's social character and works by analyzing their gestures, leitmotifs, endless melody, harmony, and orchestration, terming the effect of these "phantasmagoria" insofar as Wagner uses them to conceal the technical means beneath his music's surface. Next, Adorno described Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) as a revolution (of the canon) undone by its rebel god Wotan's beggarly impotence. Finally, Adorno contrasted Wagner's pessimism, understood as nihilism or utopian hope amid decline, with Schopenhauer's earlier pessimism.^[1]^: 48–49

Reception

Most Zeitschrift copies, Adorno wrote, were destroyed under German military administration in occupied France during World War II.^[7]

"Fragments" was debated in a polemic essay by political theorist Josef Weber titled "The Ring of the Nibelung: The Case of Richard Wagner – The Art of Freedom and Interpretation in the Middle of the Twentieth Century" (1944), which was published in the German periodical Dinge der Zeit in 1947 and its English counterpart Contemporary Issues in 1954. Weber's essay was endorsed by philosopher Herbert Marcuse, and Adorno acknowledged Weber's essay but never responded substantively, later writing that he considered his views supported by evidence in other recent publications, including Wagner's correspondence with Ludwig II of Bavaria and Ernest Newman's Wagner biography.^[7]^[14]

References

[1]
Adorno, Theodor W. (1939). Max Horkheimer (ed.). "Fragmente über Wagner". Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (in German). 8 (1–2). Paris: Librairie Félix Alcan: 1–49 [1–17 §1 (Social Character), 17–27 §6 (Phantasmagoria), 27–37 §9 (God and Beggar), 37–48 §10 (Chimera), 48–49 abstracts (English and French)]. doi:10.5840/zfs193981/21.
[2]
Müller-Doohm, Stefan (2005). Adorno: A Biography. Translated by Livingstone, Rodney. Polity Press. pp. 151, 236–240, 251, 326–327, 522n107, 541–542n113, 616. ISBN 0-7456-3108-8.
[3]
Adorno, Theodor W.; Benjamin, Walter (1999) [1994]. Lonitz, Henri (ed.). The Complete Correspondence, 1928–1940. Translated by Walker, Nicholas. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. pp. 207–211, 237–238, 268. ISBN 9780674154278.
[4]
Jay, Martin (1986). Permanent Exiles: Essays on the Intellectual Migration from Germany to America. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 90–93. ISBN 978-0-231-06073-8.
[5]
Baragwanath, Nicholas (January 2006). "Musicology and Critical Theory: The Case of Wagner, Adorno, and Horkheimer". Music & Letters. 87 (1): 52–71. doi:10.1093/ml/gci177. JSTOR 3526414.
[6]
Gordon, Peter E. (November 2016). "Wounded Modernism: Adorno on Wagner". New German Critique. 43 (3 (129)). Duke University Press: 155–173. doi:10.1215/0094033X-3625421. ISSN 0094-033X. JSTOR 44211664.
[7]
Adorno, Theodor W. (1971). Rolf Tiedemann (ed.). Gesammelte Schriften (in German). Vol. 13. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. pp. 7–8 [prefatory remarks].
[8]
Adorno, Gretel; Benjamin, Walter (2008) [2005]. Lonitz, Henri; Gödde, Christoph (eds.). Correspondence, 1930–1940. Translated by Hoban, Wieland. Cambridge: Polity Press. pp. 278–283. ISBN 978-0-7456-3669-6.
[9]
Markus, Gyorgy (February 1999). "Adorno's Wagner". Thesis Eleven. 56 (1): 25–55. doi:10.1177/0725513699056000003. S2CID 145510440.
[10]
Adorno, Theodor W. (1981). In Search of Wagner. Translated by Livingstone, Rodney. London: NLB (New Left Books). ISBN 0-86091-037-7. LCCN 82223979. OCLC 7759771. OL 3115050M.
[11]
Loeffler, Zachary (April 2024). "Help for the Helpless: Teddie's Music Theory of Communism, A Prelude". CTWG Diwan. Critical Theory Workshop Group. Retrieved 2026-08-01.
[12]
Adorno, Theodor W. (1998). "Motifs". Quasi una fantasia: Essays on Modern Music. Translated by Livingstone, Rodney. London: Verso. pp. 9–36. ISBN 1-85984-159-7.
[13]
Adorno, Theodor W. (2005). "Motiv". In Search of Wagner. Translated by Livingstone, Rodney. London: Verso. pp. 33–50. ISBN 9781844673438.
[14]
Weber, Joseph (2000) [1954]. Trevor, Stanley; Watter, Pierre (eds.). The Ring of the Nibelung: The Case of Richard Wagner (Re-translated from German, with introductory material; revised ed.). Anarcho Press. pp. 1–6 [introductory material, including "About the Author" and "Editorial Note"].

Fragments on Wagner

Background and influences

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Reception

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References

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