Not So Simply Divine: Jürgen Thym admires a dense but persuasive theological exegesis of the ‘Ring’

Review of Richard H. Bell, Theology of Wagner’s ‘Ring’ Cycle I: The Genesis and Development of the Tetralogy and the Appropriation of Sources, Artists, Philosophers, and Theologians; II: Theological and Ethical Issues (Cascade Books (Wipf and Stock), 2020).

November 2020, Volume 14, Number 3, 92–6.

That theologians would become interested in Wagner was inevitable ever since, in 1878, the composer sent a copy of the libretto of Parsifal to the philosopher Nietzsche (a theologian and god-seeker of sorts), signing it, teasingly: ‘Richard Wagner / (Oberkirchenrat: / zur freundlichen Mitteilung / an Professor Overbeck)’. (A translation of the parenthetical jibe could perhaps go like this: Head Adviser on Church Matters with friendly greetings to be passed on to Professor Overbeck.)