4 h 37 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 4 h 37 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if Wagner’s gods and giants tell a story about gold, power, and the laws that trap their makers?
In The Perfect Wagnerite, Bernard Shaw reads Richard Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung as more than a grand legend. Beneath its treasure, treaties, and struggles, he sees the politics of Wagner’s own century. This is a guide to the plot and its people, but also an argument about what their world reveals about power.
The Rhinegold opens beneath the river Rhine, where three Rhinemaidens guard gold. In The Valkyrie, Wotan seeks escape from the treaties that bind him. Siegfried introduces a hero raised by Mime, who wants to use him to win the ring. Through these dramas, Shaw asks you to hear how the orchestra connects scenes and reveals what characters cannot—or will not—say.
What you’ll discover
- A legend with teeth Explore Shaw’s claim that this world of gods mirrors struggles over gold, law, and revolt.
- The ruler caught by law Meet Wotan, whose own treaties prevent him from taking back the ring.
- A hero others need Follow Siegfried’s place in a struggle shaped by Wotan’s hopes and Mime’s plans.
- Listen beyond the words Discover why Shaw treats orchestral themes as essential clues to the drama.
- An argument worth having Enjoy a committed socialist’s bold reading, whether you accept it or argue back.
Who will love it
You will love this if you enjoy opera and want to know what happens on stage, if politics fascinate you, or if you like a witty, argumentative guide.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Wagner puts revolution on stage
- Gold gains power when love fails
- Law traps its own ruler
- The gods are not humanity's summit
- The hero creates rather than repairs
- No single cure can govern life
- History changes the work's political meaning
- Musical phrases carry the unfolding ideas
- Myth makes modern power audible
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The Perfect Wagnerite
by Bernard Shaw · 1898
A dwarf trades love for gold, a god cheats his builders, and Shaw finds modern factories and churches in the tale.
Challenging2–5 hours to read2 languages
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In short
Why does a dwarf at the bottom of the Rhine give up love for gold, and why should a factory owner in London care? Bernard Shaw says the answer sits inside Richard Wagner's cycle of four music dramas, The Ring of the Niblungs.
The Perfect Wagnerite at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 40 min2 h 5 min fast, 3 h 10 min slow
- Length
- 38,200 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1898by Bernard Shaw
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Wagner was a revolutionary, not a court ornament
Shaw opens by clearing away a comfortable idea. Many listeners think of Wagner as a pure artist who borrowed an old saga for a good stage show. Shaw says the facts of his life forbid that picture. In 1843 Wagner took a safe post as conductor at the Dresden Opera, with a pension and a secure place in the service of the Saxon state.
Then came 1848, the year of revolutions. The discontented middle class could not move governments by moral appeals, so it joined the starving wage earners and took up arms. The unrest reached Dresden in 1849. Wagner first begged the king to take true kingship upon himself and lead his people toward reform. When that failed, he sided with the rebels. He fled to Switzerland and stayed in exile for twelve years.
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- 15-minute summary
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Details
- First published
- 1898
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h 0 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Shaw, Bernard. The Perfect Wagnerite. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-perfect-wagnerite.
Shaw, B. (2026). The perfect Wagnerite. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-perfect-wagnerite (Original work published 1898)
Shaw, Bernard. The Perfect Wagnerite. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-perfect-wagnerite.
@book{shaw2026perfect,
author = {Shaw, Bernard},
title = {The Perfect Wagnerite},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-perfect-wagnerite},
note = {First published 1898}
}
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What is The Perfect Wagnerite about?
It is Shaw's commentary on Wagner's four-part opera cycle The Ring of the Niblungs. He retells each evening and reads the gods, giants and dwarfs as classes of people, with the gold standing for capital.
What does the ring and the gold mean in Shaw's reading?
For Shaw the Rhine gold stands for capital. Whoever renounces love can forge it into a ring of power, and then drive masses of workers by hunger, as the dwarf Alberic does.
Why does Shaw say Night Falls on the Gods is an opera?
He says it grew from an early plan for a plain heroic play called Siegfried's Death. It has choruses, duets and oaths in the old style, so it does not fit the philosophical scheme of the first three evenings.
The author
Bernard Shaw
1856–1950 · Irish playwright and critic
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) was an Irish playwright and critic. Born in Dublin, he moved to London in 1876 and later lived in Ayot St Lawrence, Hertfordshire, where he died. His plays include Arms and the Man (1894), Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905), and Pygmalion (1912).
More by Bernard Shaw
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