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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring by George Bernard Shaw: them all to a triumphant climax in Germany in I87I, when Wagner
himself celebrated the event with his Kaisermarsch, which sounded
much more convincing than the Marseillaise or the Carmagnole.
How, after the Kaisermarsch, could Wagner go back to his
idealization of Siegfried in 1853? How could he believe seriously
in Siegfried slaying the dragon and charging through the mountain
fire, when the immediate foreground was occupied by the Hotel de
Ville with Felix Pyat endlessly discussing the principles of
Socialism whilst the shells of Thiers were already battering the
Arc de Triomphe, and ripping up the pavement of the Champs
Elysees? Is it not clear that things had taken an altogether
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