Re: Gobineau, the "Bayreuth Circle" and Schemann

On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 02:51:00 -0800, Laon wrote:
> 
> 
> 8.  The English
> Gobineau thought the English were the most purely Aryan people left, as
> national populations go, with the exception perhaps of the
> Scandinavians.
> 
> Wagner doesn't seem to have cared about the Aryan make-up of various
> nations. However he seems to have thought the English were amusingly
> blockheaded in most things (other than Shakespeare),  especially in
> their inexplicable taste for oratorio.

One of the confusing things about Gobineau is that his "Germanic" race,
which he claimed was superior -- of which the defining example was the
Aryans who had long ago conquered north-west India -- did not include the
modern Germans.  Gobineau regarded the Germans, i.e. the German-speaking
peoples, as a mongrel breed, mostly of Celtic and Slavic descent. It was
one of the few points on which Wagner agreed with him.  This aspect of
Gobineau's theories was later found to be inconvenient by his German
followers, such as H.S. Chamberlain, and was quietly brushed aside.



> 9.  The Irish
> Gobineau thought we Irish are inferior, lazy brutes who should be ruled
> by the English with a rod of iron. He supported the continued occupation
> of Ireland by England.
> 
> Wagner on t'other hand supported the Irish in our agitation against
> English oppression.

The dispute between Wagner and Gobineau concerning the English and the
Irish exemplifies their fundamental differences.  Gobineau regarded the
English, with their mixed but most "Germanic" descent from Saxons,
Normans, Danes, Jutes etc., as racially superior, while the Irish were
Celts and therefore racially inferior -- which meant that whatever the
English did to the Irish was alright as far as Gobineau was concerned.
Wagner always took the side of the oppressed against their oppressor, so
he angrily defended the Irish agitators.

One can imagine Wagner taking his ash walking-stick and smashing the
chandelier with a cry of "Nothung! Nothung!" ...

-- 
Derrick Everett   (deverett at c2i.net)
==== Writing from  59°54'N 10°36'E ====
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/index.htm