Edited by Kirsten Malmkjær, Adriana Şerban and Fransiska Louwagie
[Benjamins Translation Library 140] 2018
► pp. 53–77
To some, the message of The Ring of the Nibelung is that love and sacrifice can redeem the world; for others, like G.B. Shaw, it is a capitalist drama. For many, the Ring is quintessentially German, for others, its mythic themes are universal. Its Germanness is examined in this article in terms of nationalism expressed as a dialectic between German and non-German, specifically Jews. I address the debate of whether or not Wagner’s anti-Semitism is evident in the libretto and music of the Ring and discuss whether translators, working before and after the two World Wars, have censored or adjusted Wagner’s language for present-day tastes. I conclude that any interpretation of the Ring as anti-Semitic does not appear to have influenced the translation choices of post-war translators.