SOURCE: Ziolkowski, Theodore. “Wagner's Parsifal between Mystery and Mummery; or, Race, Class, and Gender in Bayreuth.” In The Return of Thematic Criticism, edited by Werner Sollors, pp. 261-86. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993.
In the following essay, Ziolkowski provides background to Wagner's opera Parsifal and makes a thematic analysis of its libretto, while noting the “racist, sexist, and elitist” assumptions of the text.
