Alexander H. Shapiro provides a fresh look at the influences on Wagner's Götterdämmerung, and critically re-evaluates the composer's intellectual worldview as revealed in his own prose works, letters and diary entries. The book challenges conventional views that continue to impede a clear understanding of this work's meaning.

Alexander H. Shapiro is a practicing lawyer and independent scholar based in New York, U.S. His published works include "McEwan and Forster: The Perfect Wagnerites" in The Wagner Journal (2011), and "'Drama of an Infinitely Superior Nature': Handel's Early English Oratorios and the Religious Sublime" in Music & Letters (1993).

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1: Siegfried as historical anomaly

Chapter 2: Brünnhilde and the tragedy of jealousy

Chapter 3: Brünnhilde's immolation: dramatizing species consciousness

Chapter 4: Brünnhilde's mercy

Chapter 5: Renunciation on the Rhine?

Chapter 6: Myth versus history

Bibliography

Index