SOURCE: Rather, L. J. “On the Quality of Wagner's Poetry and Prose.” In Reading Wagner: A Study in the History of Ideas, pp. 32-58. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Rather chronicles Wagner's development as a prose writer and as a poet (particularly in regard to his Ring librettos). Rather concludes by noting Wagner's theories on the decline of language.

Wagner's writings, including the nine volumes of collected works published during his lifetime, together with his voluminous correspondence and huge autobiography, constitute a formidable bulk of material, much of it still available only in German. William Ashton Ellis's Richard Wagner's Prose Works, an eight-volume edition of Wagner's essays, short stories, and posthumous writings, appeared in the 1890s; it has been reprinted as recently as 1972.¹ Wagner's ten-volume collected works in German (volume ten appeared in 1883, after his death), the Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen, have been...