Perhaps an overly simplistic introduction but it will do. Not that unreadable for a PhD Thesis - although I must admit having only skimmed it at present. 250 pages in total can be read or downloaded in PDF directly from the University by clicking the link below. I also provide the abstract below - it reads a little better than the abstract would suggest so you might want to check out the full document.
McGregor, J. A.
(2009)
Myth, music and modernism : the Wagnerian dimension in Virginia
Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway" and "The Waves" and James Joyce's "Finnegan's
Wake".
PhD thesis, Rhodes University.
The study of Wagner's influence on the modernist novel is an established
field with clear room for further contributions. Very little of the
criticism undertaken to date takes full cognizance of the philosophical
content of Wagner's dramas: a revolutionary form of romanticism that
calls into question the very nature of the world, its most radical
component being Schopenhauer's version of transcendental idealism. The
compatibility of this doctrine with Wagner's earlier work, with its
already marked privileging of myth over history, enabled his later
dramas, consciously influenced by Schopenhauer, to crown a body of work
greater than the sum of its parts. In works by Virginia Woolf and James
Joyce, the "translation" of Wagnerian ideas into novelistic form
demonstrates how they might be applied in "real life".
In Mrs Dalloway, the figure of Septimus can be read as partly modelled
on Wagner's heroes Siegfried and Tristan, two outstanding examples of
the opposing heroic types found throughout his oeuvre, whose contrasting
attributes are fused in Septimus's bipolar personality. The Wagnerian
pattern also throws light on Septimus's transcendental "relationship"
with a woman he does not even know, and on the implied noumenal identity
of seemingly isolated individuals.
In The Waves, the allusions to both Parsifal and the Ring need to be
reconsidered in light of the fact that these works' heroes are all but
identical (a fact overlooked in previous criticism); as Wagner's solar
hero par excellence, Siegfried is central to the novel's cyclical
symbolism. The Waves also revisits the question of identity but in a
more cosmic context – the metaphysical unity of everything.
In Finnegans Wake, the symbolism of the cosmic cycle is again related to
the Ring, as are Wagner's two heroic types to the Shem / Shaun
opposition (the Joyce / Woolf parallels here have also been overlooked
in criticism to date). All three texts reveal a fascination with the two
contrasting faces of a Wagnerian hero who embodies the dual nature of
reality, mirroring in himself the eternal rise and fall of world history
and, beyond them, the timeless stasis of myth.
Download or read the full PDF by clicking here: Myth, music and modernism : the Wagnerian dimension in Virginia Woolf's "Mrs Dalloway" and "The Waves" and James Joyce's "Finnegan's Wake"
