Towards a Wagnerian Jurisprudence: Legal Symbolism in Richard Wagner’s Das Rheingold

Abstract The libretto and score of Richard Wagner’s famous tetralogy, Der Ring des Nibelungen , were influenced by various philosophers, including Ludwig Feuerbach and Arthur Schopenhauer. Several themes within these Gesamtkunstwerke , including authenticity, compassion, idealism, and love, have subsequently received detailed philosophical attention. Lacking, however, is a systematic philosophical interpretation of legal symbolism within The Ring Cycle . Providing such an interpretation helps illuminate the legal-philosophical richness of Wagner’s thought, which has, perhaps understandably, been overlooked not only within Wagner studies but also within contemporary jurisprudence. Moreover, elucidating legal symbolism within the tetralogy brings to light an underappreciated form of legal-philosophical cognition: the fundamentally aesthetic exercise of finding and appreciating legal meaning through layered harmony. I begin this task by examining six such symbols within Das Rheingold . My interpretive method is self-consciously “creative”: Although I draw extensively upon Wagner’s libretto and score, I present Rheingold as a living cultural artefact of contemporary jurisprudential relevance. It explores, to a high level of sophistication, several issues currently debated within general jurisprudence, including the nature of law, and its relationship with authority, domination, and violence. Viewed from this perspective, Rheingold discloses, both on stage and within its soundworld, a discrete and troubling Wagnerian conception of legality that both challenges existing jurisprudential debates and renders them more visceral.