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Wagner's Parsifal book cover
Wagner's Parsifal
The Music of Redemption
2020
First Published
4.02
Average Rating
256
Number of Pages
Richard Wagner's final creation is also his most mysterious. The story of Parsifal, the 'pure fool, knowing through compassion', who has been called to rescue the Kingdom of the Grail from the sins that have polluted it, appears familiar enough, but the redemption sought by Wagner's characters is far from the Christian archetype. Wagner's Parsifal is an exploration of the drama, music and philosophy of this extraordinary musical icon by a writer whose knowledge and understanding of the Western musical tradition are the equal of his capacities as a philosopher. It shows how, through musical connections and brilliant dramatic strokes, Parsifal expresses in music a depth of feeling for which we do not have words, a deep longing for wholeness and relief from suffering which, Scruton argues, contains within itself the image of salvation.
Avg Rating
4.02
Number of Ratings
54
5 STARS
41%
4 STARS
31%
3 STARS
20%
2 STARS
4%
1 STARS
4%
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Author

Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
Author · 50 books

Sir Roger Scruton was a writer and philosopher who has published more than forty books in philosophy, aesthetics and politics. He was a fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He taught in both England and America and was a Visiting Professor at Department of Philosophy and Fellow of Blackfriars Hall, Oxford, he was also a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, Washington D.C. In 2015 he published two books, The Disappeared and later in the autumn, Fools Frauds and Firebrands. Fools Frauds and Firebrands is an update of Thinkers of the New Left published, to widespread outrage, in 1986. It includes new chapters covering Lacan, Deleuze and Badiou and some timely thoughts about the historians and social thinkers who led British intellectuals up the garden path during the last decades, including Eric Hobsbawm and Ralph Miliband. In 2016 he again published two books, Confessions of A Heretic (a collection of essays) and The Ring of Truth, about Wagner’s Ring cycle, which was widely and favourably reviewed. In 2017 he published On Human Nature (Princeton University Press), which was again widely reviewed, and contains a distillation of his philosophy. He also published a response to Brexit, Where We Are (Bloomsbury).

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