# What is the meaning of "gotterdammerung"?



## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

I've got another question for the Wagner minds here, as I attempt to digest all of the Ring (reading librettos, history, watching YouTube versions, etc.) in preparation for the remaining two installments at the Met ...

I'm having trouble understanding what exactly the Gotterdammerung is supposed to represent, in terms of the literal coherent plotline of the Ring cycle. Sometimes it's described as representing "the end of the world". I have seen this context often.

Other times it seems to mean the fall of a single society - in which case obviously, say, the recordings probably got played a lot in various bunkers during the fall of the Third Reich. Another instance of this is the original novel version of "Gone With The Wind", in which Ashley Wilkes comically bores Scarlett O'Hara with talk of the Gotterdammerung. Wagner is not named (I don't think) but we can assume this to be a reference to Wagner, though I believe only the libretto was published at this point and the opera had not yet been performed during the American Civil War. Anyway, Ashley Wilkes is referring to the fall of the Confederate south as his society's Gotterdammerung. 

I have trouble squaring all of this, though, with the literal event of the burning of Valhalla. As I understand it, Valhalla had only been built right before "Das Rheingold" began. So obviously the Gods are capable of living outside Valhalla. Also, are we to understand that all the Gods are going to burn to death in this fire? I hope some people here with longer experience than I have with Wagner (I'm a beginner with this composer) can help illuminate this for me - no pun intended.


----------



## Bonetan (Dec 22, 2016)

Without getting deep into it, it means twilight of the Gods...the world is being left in the hands of mankind


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

On the most basic level of its symbolism, the _Ring_ is an allegory of the emergence of humanity from the state of nature, and of the growth of moral consciousness. The various beings who populate its mythical world - water sprites, dwarves, giants, gods, and - at the end - people, enact according to their natures the levels or phases of consciousness through which we humans must pass in the process of maturation. The gods represent the reign of a moral consciousness not yet fully developed, one based on enforced convention rather than freedom of spirit. The central plot of the _Ring,_ Wotan's struggle to save himself and the world from the evil unleashed by a lust for power in which he shared, is the struggle to be fully human; Brunnhilde, born of his union with the goddess of wisdom, Erda, acts as teacher and example who, after her own betrayal by Siegfried and her transcendence of it, can bid farewell to Wotan and free the world from the primitive dominion of the gods. The sacrificial immolation of Brunnhilde, and the end of the gods it brings about, portray the leaving behind of a childish, primitive moral consciousness dependent on the enforcement of conventional rules of power, obligation and honor - the morality of the parent-child relationship and of all forms of authoritarianism, religious and secular - and the ascendance of a mature morality rooted in empathy and love between living beings.


----------



## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

Both of these answers make a lot of sense - thanks. I definitely do understand and like the idea Woodduck presents that this work symbolizes the process of primordial life developing - as I understand it, conscience, maturity, recognition of natural empathy - and that this amounts to the emergence of human nature itself. Very cool. Also calls to mind various other great works of grand philosophical scope in which humanity itself transforms through phases, like T. S. Eliot's "Waste Land" and Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey".

I also am intrigued by what Bonetan says - yes, this interpretation does make sense. I suppose this is humanity gaining its ultimate freedom, which would connect with Nietzsche's obviously Wagner-inspired book "Gotzen-Dammerung", and his statement "Gott ist tot".

On the literal plot level rather than the symbolic level, I am still a bit puzzled how I am supposed to understand the practical function of Valhalla as the essential home of the Gods - again, for the reason that they obviously don't need Valhalla to live. Perhaps we're to understand that after the destruction of Valhalla they will be in a weakened state, as they were in the middle of Das Rheingold because of Friea's absence? Or am I to understand that the Gods literally die at the end of the Ring cycle? Does twilight mean death, or just a sort of boring defeated old age, or what?


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

marceliotstein said:


> On the literal plot level rather than the symbolic level, I am still a bit puzzled how I am supposed to understand the practical function of Valhalla as the essential home of the Gods - again, for the reason that they obviously don't need Valhalla to live. Perhaps we're to understand that after the destruction of Valhalla they will be in a weakened state, as they were in the middle of Das Rheingold because of Friea's absence? Or am I to understand that the Gods literally die at the end of the Ring cycle? Does twilight mean death, or just a sort of boring defeated old age, or what?


Wouldn't it be depressing to think that Wotan goes through all his agonies and retires from the world only to end up being fed, bathed, dressed and medicated in an assisted living facility?


----------



## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

Check out this thread, and feel free to resurrect.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Ring Cycle but were afraid to ask


----------



## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

marceliotstein said:


> On the literal plot level rather than the symbolic level, I am still a bit puzzled how I am supposed to understand the practical function of Valhalla as the essential home of the Gods - again, for the reason that they obviously don't need Valhalla to live. Perhaps we're to understand that after the destruction of Valhalla they will be in a weakened state, as they were in the middle of Das Rheingold because of Friea's absence? Or am I to understand that the Gods literally die at the end of the Ring cycle? Does twilight mean death, or just a sort of boring defeated old age, or what?


Wotan wanted Valhalla to help consolidate his power. It represented his glory. Valhalla doesn't fall because it is literally stormed by Alberich's armies - as at one time Wotan feared - but because Wotan has given up. Brünnhilde's immolation is also Wotan's immolation. (Which is one reason the pyre they build for her is done up like Valhalla).

Wotan's plan of having his valkyries stir up trouble to get heroes to defend him didn't germinate until after he saw the power of the ring, but he is nothing but a planner (in _Die Walküre_ he chides Fricka for not thinking ahead). Defending the power of the gods against Alberich was an immediate need, but it wasn't the only possible threat. Wotan wanted to maintain his status, so he felt the need to keep growing his power. It's also important to note that Wotan's scheme for Valhalla (risking Freia to get his new fortress) wasn't his first one, but it was probably his first one to run into so many complications.

The power of the ring and his inability to get it revealed to him his limitations. In trying to get the ring, he was forced to punish Brünnhilde. He was not allowed to help Siegfried, and had to try and stop him. I believe he defended that path quite honestly; that he was legitimately angry at Siegfried (which is entirely understandable!) The result was the man broke the god's spear, and Wotan lost a major source/symbol of his power. He could go on... but he was just defeated by a mere human!

Wotan, the other gods, and his heroes were huddling in Valhalla, waiting for the end. Yes, Wotan could have continued on, as a second-rate being. Limited and bound. But he cannot bear such a fate after being king of the gods.

There was no outside need for Valhalla to burn. It was not attacked from the outside; it burned because it represented Wotan's power and glory, and Wotan had no use for such symbols anymore.

After the Norns in the prologue (who we see losing their power) there are no gods in the opera _Götterdämmerung_. It is the time of mortals. There is one Valkyrie, the three Rhinedaughters, and (what I consider the ghost of) Alberich. But every major character in the opera is a mortal including Hagen, son of a Nibelung, and Brünnhilde, a former Valkyrie. Even the story has moved on!


----------



## mountmccabe (May 1, 2013)

In popular culture there is a common use of the word Götterdämmerung to mean the end of the world. This is mostly because some people are sloppy about meanings and have superficial understandings the opera (I'm sure I have a superficial understand of many things, too).

But it's not only Wagner that people are misrepresenting; his Götterdämmerung came from the Old Norse Ragnarök. A note on Wikipedia describes it more succinctly than I could: "which in Norse mythology refers to a prophesied war among various beings and gods that ultimately results in the burning, immersion in water, and renewal of the world."

So even Ragnarök was about renewal and not the end of the world, but the idea of all of the gods and most everyone else dying in a giant battle with the world continuing on is unfathomable to many people.

And, to be fair, from an anthropic perspective it's easy to approximate Ragnarök as the end of the world even though the world literally continues on. There are almost no human survivors, so odds are you won't be one (and in this worldview dying in battle was an honor; it'd be shameful to hope/scheme to survive).

_Götterdämmerung_ and Ragnarök are about monumental change and renewal. And there are plenty of people that are not interested in renewal and see change as the end of the world, so.


----------



## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

Absolutely great and informative answer, mountmccabe, thank you! It is all coming together. This explanation and the others provided in this thread do add up to an overall picture that I am starting to understand - and yes, it is a compelling and philosophically provocative view of the world that Wagner is presenting here. Absolutely fascinating. Armed with these answers as my shield, I now feel prepared to attend the remaining two installments of the Ring cycle at the Met! And please keep the commentary coming, if there is more of it.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The most complete understanding of the _Gotterdammerung_ is the most radical. I will paraphrase Nietzsche: the gods are dead, and man is on his own.

The burning of Walhall is only the final sacramental cleansing by fire of a world in which, for all practical purposes, the gods are already dead. The power of the gods to determine the course of events long precedes their obliteration: when Wotan kisses Brunnhilde to sleep, singing "So Kusst ich der Gottheit von dir," he turns the world over to humanity, and the last remnant of his power - or rather his last hope of retaining it - is shattered when his spear is shattered on Siegfried's sword. With Siegfried's awakening of Brunnhilde to a life of human love and freedom, the world belongs wholly to humanity for good or ill, and in the hall of the Gibichungs we see that the gods are honored in shrines and called upon to bless festivities but have no power, no effective existence. When Waltraute comes to Brunnhilde to beg her to give the ring back to the Rhinedaughters and save the world from its curse, Brunnhilde cannot yield to her entreaties, not merely because the ring symbolizes Siegfried's love but because the old order is finished, and the gods are a phantom from the past to which she knows there can be no return; she is a woman now, her concerns are human concerns, and she has already said her farewells to the war-father who sits on his throne remembering when she was "Wotan's will," the instrument of his godly power. Her refusal to give up her life's joy to a nostalgic vision of an extinct world is the refusal of humanity to turn back to the infantile state of subjugation to archaic beliefs, creeds and dominions. And that is why Wotan's realm must finally be destroyed in the ardent flames of human heroism and love.

Wagner was a modern man, a post-Enlightenment humanist for whom the symbols of myth and religion had profound meaning but not material reality. The _Ring_ is his story of the evolution of human consciousness, and in that evolution the gods, representatives of the myths, beliefs and creeds to which the mind of pre-Enlightenment man was subject, are given up. Wagner subverts myth by means of myth - an astonishing enterprise! - and he was to do it again in _Parsifal,_ a work which has baffled many, but which anyone who understands the message of the _Ring_ will not miss.


----------



## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

Yes. Makes a lot of sense. I'm especially glad to understand how Wotan's "humanizing" of Brunnhilde makes sense in this context. I was wondering how that particular form of punishment made sense, and this helps explain. Her humanity, I guess, is a gift.

Regarding the whole thing, again, T. S. Eliot comes to mind - "this is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper".


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

What is the meaning of "gotterdammerung"?
_Gotterdammerung_ is the equivalent of
_Gesundheit_ only it lasts 4 hours longer.


----------



## marceliotstein (Feb 23, 2019)

Larkenfield said:


> _Gotterdammerung_ is the equivalent to _Gesundheit_ only 4 hours longer.


Not a Wagner fan, I take it?


----------

