The Essay

Wagner and Schopenhauer Professor Christopher Janaway on Wagner's life-changing encounter with the pessimistic philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. In 1854 he read Schopenhauer's masterwork, The World as Will and Representation; and it hit him like a thunderbolt. Wagner discovered a thinker who endorsed his own developing views on the role of music and gave him a new way to think about his perpetual...

Wagner and the Philosophy of Revolution: Professor Anthony Grayling looks at the crucial years before and after the Dresden uprising of 1849 when Wagner was manning the barricades with revolutionaries such as Mikhail Bakunin. After the death of the philosopher, Hegel, in 1831, a group of his followers, the Young Hegelians argued that the forces of freedom and reason would continue to conquer every...

Wagner and German Idealism Professor Roger Scruton explores the philosophical background that influenced the young Richard Wagner. The German universities of his youth were in a state of intellectual ferment in the aftermath of the greatest philosopher of modern times, Immanuel kant. Out of this came a school of philosophy known as German Idealism. Wagner was particular influenced by the most famo...