Death-Devoted Heart Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde

"For those who wish to wrestle with religious and philosophical interpretations, Scruton provides ample grist and excellent analysis of the story and music."- The Opera Journal"This is possibly the best book ever written about Tristan und Isolde from the dramatic as well as the musical point of view. Scruton does not leave a historical stone unturned without dusting and exposing it to the sunlight of his extraordinary power of synthesis. And his musical analysis is phenomenal. Even if you do not read music it has plenty to grab your attention. I would buy it just for the chapter on chivalry and courtly love, for instance, in which Scruton's clairy of narration and research put many other writers to shame.... A book the reader does not want to put down."--Eduardo Benarroch"A wide-ranging analysis of Richard Wagner's influential tribute to romantic love, by a noted philosopher and social critic.... Scruton's status as an unusually accomplished polymath is apparent throughout Death-Devoted Heart, as he moves easily from topic to topic, discussing such figures as Geoffrey Chaucer, Arthur Schopenhauer, Plato, Chretien de Troyes, and Claude Levi-Strauss with equal aplomb." -- Magill's Literary Annual 2005"Roger Scruton's Death-Devoted Heart is an elegant, erudite exploration attempting to make the operagoer 'get' this piece and, by extension, Wagner's intent in all of his Gesamtkunstwerk ventures. Scruton shows us that traditional dismissals of Tristan's brief plot as Wagner's self-therapy in the wake of a frustrated love affair miss the point...Scruton is more interested in our understanding the philosophical substrate...devoting chapters to Wagner's conceptions of love, sacrifice and redemption, and ritual."--Books & Culture"Scruton has prepared his brief with care. Medieval chivalric romance, Kantian ethics, anthropological mythography, and musicological close-work propel his sinuous but lucid argument...Death-Devoted Heart is a breathta