SOURCE: Lindenberger, Herbert. “Wagner's Ring as Nineteenth-Century Artifact.” Comparative Drama 28, no. 3 (fall 1994): 285-310.

In the following essay, Lindenberger identifies the Ring as “embedded in the world of its time,” while acknowledging the importance of its poetic experimentalism and epic mode of narration.

Suppose that Wagner had died in 1853, exactly thirty years before his actual death. At this point he would have left behind at least three operas that count for us as major works, The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin. Most important for the ideas I hope to develop in this paper, he would also have left behind the libretto for another set of operas, namely the Ring. Early in 1853 he had had fifty copies of this libretto printed privately for friends. Had he died at the time it would surely have been necessary for some propagandist to enter the scene and call attention to the importance...