Beyond Reason relates Wagner's works to the philosophical and cultural ideas of his time, centering on the four music dramas he created in the second half of his career: Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal. Karol Berger seeks to penetrate the "secret" of large-scale form in Wagner's music dramas and to answer those critics, most prominently Nietzsche, who condemned Wagner for his putative inability to weld small expressive gestures into larger wholes. Organized by individual opera, this is essential reading for both musicologists and Wagner experts.

PrefacePrologue: Beyond AutonomyThe Uncanny Grace: A Gloss on Kleist's MarionettesReasonBeyond ReasonHistoryNationWillReligion, the Enlightenment, the Counter-Enlightenment: The New Configurationpart one1. The Secret of Music-Dramatic Form: Music Drama as Opera2. Der Ring des Nibelungen: The Anarchist UtopiaDas Rheingold: The FallDie Walküre: How One Becomes HumanAct 1: Becoming WagnerAct 2: Becoming BrünnhildeAct 3: Waiting for the HeroSiegfried: How One Becomes a HeroAct 1: Getting the SwordAct 2: Using ItAct 3: The AwakeningGötterdämmerung: The ApocalypsePrologue: The Past and the FutureAct 1: The Entrapment 1Act 2: The Entrapment 2Act 3: Death and TransfigurationThe Myth of Revolutionpart two3. Tristan und Isolde: The Erotic UtopiaThe Lyrical AxisThe Narrative AxisThe Orchestral StrandThe Music-Dramatic FormThe Myth of WillPostscript4. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Politics after TristanAct 1: The Knight's FailureAct 2: The Clerk's FailureAct 3, Part 1: A Lesson in PoeticsAct 3, Part 2: The Shoemaker's TriumphThe Myth of Nation5. Parsifal: Ethics after TristanThe Communion Sequences of Acts 1 and 3The Monologues of Acts 1 and 3Act 2: The Kiss of Self-KnowledgeThe Music-Dramatic FormEros and AgapeThe Myth of RedemptionEpilogue: Wagner contra NietzscheWagner and Nietzsche: A History of the RelationshipBecoming NietzscheNietzsche contra Wagner, Wagner contra NietzscheAppendix 1. Das Rheingold: The Music-Dramatic PlanAppendix 2. Die Walküre: The Music-Dramatic PlanAppendix 3. Siegfried: The Music-Dramatic PlanAppendix 4. Götterdämmerung: The Music-Dramatic PlanAppendix 5. Tristan und Isolde: The Music-Dramatic PlanAppendix 6. Die Meistersinger: The Music-Dramatic PlanAppendix 7. Parsifal: The Music-Dramatic PlanAcknowledgmentsAbbreviations Used in NotesNotesWorks ConsultedIndex