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{{Short description|1898 book by George Bernard Shaw}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
[[File:GBShaw1900.jpg|thumb|George Bernard Shaw date between 1900 and 1910]]
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'''''The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring''''' (originally published London, 1898) is a philosophical commentary on [[Richard Wagner]]'s ''[[Der Ring des Nibelungen]]'', by the [[Irish people|Irish]] writer  [[George Bernard Shaw]].

Shaw offered it to those enthusiastic admirers of Wagner who "were unable to follow his ideas, and do not in the least understand the dilemma of [[Wotan]]." According to Shaw:

{{blockquote|I write this pamphlet for the assistance of those who wish to be introduced to the work on equal terms with that inner circle of adepts...The reason is that its dramatic moments lie quite outside the consciousness of people whose joys and sorrows are all domestic and personal, and whose religions and political ideas are purely conventional and superstitious. To them it is a struggle between half a dozen fairytale personages for a ring, involving hours of scolding and cheating, and one long scene in a dark gruesome mine, with gloomy, ugly music, and not a glimpse of a handsome young man or pretty woman. Only those of wider consciousness can follow it breathlessly, seeing in it the whole tragedy of human history and the whole horror of the dilemmas from which the world is shrinking today.}}

Shaw interprets the ''Ring'' in [[Marxism|Marxian]] terms as an allegory of the collapse of [[capitalism]] from its internal contradictions. Musicologically, his interpretation is noteworthy for its perception of the change in aesthetic direction beginning with the final scene of ''[[Siegfried (opera)|Siegfried]]'', in which he claimed that the cycle turns from ''[[Musikdrama]]'' back towards ''[[opera]]''.<ref>Robert Anderson, "Shaw, (George) Bernard" in Stanley Sadie, ed., ''The new Grove dictionary of music and musicians'' (London: Macmillan, 2001), vol. 23, pp. 223-24.</ref>

==References==
<references />

==External links==
*[http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/shaw/works/wagner.htm ''The Perfect Wagnerite'' Online ]
* {{librivox book | title=The Perfect Wagnerite | author=George Bernard Shaw}}

{{George Bernard Shaw}} 
{{Der Ring des Nibelungen}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perfect Wagnerite, The}}
[[Category:1898 non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Books by George Bernard Shaw]]
[[Category:Irish non-fiction books]]
[[Category:Der Ring des Nibelungen]]