SOURCE: Large, David C., and William Weber. Introduction to Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics, edited by David C. Large and William Weber, pp. 15-27. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984.

In the following excerpted introduction, Large and Weber consider the extensive influence of Wagner's music and thought in the social, political, and intellectual movements known collectively as ‘Wagnerism.’

The name of a great artist may earn immortality, but such a name is not often adopted to form the title of a social movement. Much of what was extraordinary about the support for Richard Wagner can be seen most simply in the widespread use of the English terms Wagnerism and Wagnerian, the French wagnérisme and wagnérien, and the German Wagnerismus and Wagnerianer, to cite but three of the languages in which such words were coined. His name became affixed to magazines as well—La revue wagn...