This document provides a biography of Richard Wagner, a famous German composer, and discusses his innovations and influences. It describes Wagner's early life and career, his years in exile due to political unrest, and his later return to Germany. It also examines some of Wagner's controversial views and the appropriation of his work by the Nazis. The document highlights Wagner's innovations like Gesamtkunstwerk and the leitmotif, and his influence on film scores like Star Wars. Finally, it discusses Wagner's lasting legacy and influence on other artists and art forms beyond just music.

1. Richard Wagner, his
work and influence on
film, music and other
arts
SAE Institute Ljubljana
Hrvoje Hrsto
Student number: 10280
Date of submission: 19 December 2013
BAP 1113
Word count: 3,742

2. Abstract
The journey for this essay started as an comparative analysis of music scores
from two movie franchises. “Lord of the Rings” started outside of and “Star
Wars” crossed outside of the borders of the movie domain and if you have not
seen them, you have at least heard about them. Movie scores from those two
franchises became wildly successful. The frame of being background music for
a movie was not big enough.
However, during research, one particular name started popping out: Richard
Wagner. Soon I discovered that his work made a path for modern composers
and influenced a lot of movie scores. My interest shifted, and soon I realized
that his revolutionary way of thinking about music, and merging it with the rest
of the narrative elements of the story, shaped not only cinema music, but some
of the other great composers.
Coincidentally, this year - 2013 - is the 200th anniversary of Richard Wagner’s
birth. As one of the most popular names in classical music, you hear about
Wagnerism, but there are no mentions of Mozartism, Bachism or Verdism. That
alone shows his influence and legacy. I hope that this essay will show that
Wagner’s influence stretches beyond his time, place and media.
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3. Table of contents
Abstract! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! I
Table of Contents!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! II
1. Introduction! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 1
2. Wagner’s Biography! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 2
! 2.1. Early Life and Career! ! ! ! ! ! 2
! 2.2. Exile Years! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 2
! 2.3. The Return to Germany and death! ! ! ! 3
3. Controversies and Politics! ! ! ! ! ! ! 5
! 3.1. Paternity and Antisemitism! ! ! ! ! 5
! 3.2. Racism and Nazi appropriation! ! ! ! ! 6
4. Innovations in Music and Theatre Art! ! ! ! ! 7
! 4.1. Gesamtkunstwerk! ! ! ! ! ! ! 7
! 4.2. Leitmotif and Harmony! ! ! ! ! ! 7
! 4.3. Creative Invention! ! ! ! ! ! ! 8
5. Influences on Film, With Comparison of The Ring Cycle and
Star Wars original trilogy! ! ! ! ! ! ! 9
! 5.1. Ring Cycle! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 9
! 5.2. Star Wars! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 9
! 5.3. Comparison! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 10
6. Legacy and Influences on Artists and Arts! ! ! ! 12
7. Conclusion! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 14
References!! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 15
Bibliography ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! 16
III

4. 1. Introduction
For this essay I chose to analyze Richard Wagner, his work, life and his
influences in many cultural and artistic aspects of life. The biggest emphasis
will be on music, since he was primarily a composer, but he was also a writer,
conductor, theater director and a polemicist.
However, to say that he influenced only music as an art would be an
understatement. His involvement in cultural and public life influenced
philosophy, politics, literature and theatre arts. Not all of these influences were
positive and a lot of them extended beyond his life span. I will present both
sides, controversies from his life and some of his inventions that revolutionized
opera.
To show his influence in movie music, as a case study I will analyze the score
from the original “Star Wars” trilogy and compare it to one of the Wagner’s most
famous works “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (The Ring of Nibelung). At the end I
will present his influences in other arts, beside film and music.
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5. 2. Wagner’s Biography
! 2.1. Early life and career
Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig on 22 May 1813, and from an early age he
was introduced to art, via his stepfather and his love of theatre. He got his first
piano lessons when he was enrolled in school in 1820, and his talent and
unusual non traditional learning curve was shown in his ability to play music
pieces by ear. Subsequently, in 1828, when he heard Beethoven’s 9th
symphony, he wrote a piano transcription for it. Alongside Mozart, Beethoven
became one of the greatest influences on Wagner in his early years. In 1831 he
enrolled at the Leipzig University and in 1833, at the age of 20, finished his first
opera “Die Feen” (The Faries). However, that piece was not staged during his
life.
In subsequent years he wrote his second opera “Das Liebesverbot” (The Ban
on Love). It was based on “Measure by Measure” by William Shakespeare, but
it was withdrawn after the first performance. During that period, he met his first
wife, actress Christine Wilhelmine “Minna” Planer with whom he had a turbulent
marriage. The couple accumulated big debts, so they moved from Leipzig to
Riga, then to Paris and finally to Dresden where they lived until 1849. During
that period, number of his operas summed up to five, and all of them were
staged in Dresden. During the May Uprising, that was a part of the European
Revolutions of 1848, Wagner wrote articles for the political journal Volksblätter,
calling people to revolt. He was also personally involved in the unsuccessful
uprising, and when the revolution failed, arrest warrants were issued for the
revolutionaries, including Richard Wagner. But before he fled the country, he
finished a scenario that will eventually become his four-opera cycle “Der Ring
des Nibelungen” (The Ring of Nibelung, The Ring Cycle further in the text).
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6. ! 2.2. Exile years
After being proclaimed a political threat and exiled, he spent more than a
decade away from Germany. His marriage to Mina Planer became even more
unstable, and he almost left her for another woman, after she briefly, several
years earlier, left him for another man. Wagner completed his fifth opera
“Lohengrin”, but since he was exiled, he wrote his friend Franz Liszt, to stage it
in his absence, which he did in 1850.
He spent his first years of exile in Zürich, where he published “Das Kunstwerk
der Zukunft” (The Artwork of the Future). There he described Gesamtkunstwerk:
a work of art that uses all or many art forms for one piece of art. Although
german philosopher and writer K. F. E. Trahndorff used the term first, the word
became associated with Richard Wagner and his aesthetics. He also published
“Das Judenthum in der Musik” (Jewishness in Music) that was his first feature of
antisemitic views.
Zürich was the town where Wagner started to write music for The Ring Cycle,
but its completion happened many years later. The first interruption was his next
opera “Tristan und Isolde” (Tristan and Isolde). The second interruption was
Mathilde Wesendonck with whom he had an affair. That resulted in Wagner’s
departure for Venice, and his wife Minna’s back to Germany. They tried to
reconcile on several occasions, but the marriage was effectively over. They
never divorced, but he financially supported her until her death in 1866.
! 2.3. The Return to Germany and death
In 1862, Wagner’s political ban in Germany was lifted and he settled in Beibrich
where he wrote “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” (The Master-Singers of
Nuremberg). His financial troubles were solved after King Ludwig II of Bavaria,
a big admirer of the composer, paid off his debts and brought him to Munich.
There he staged “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg”, opera with strong German
nationalist overtones, that is an example of his anti-semitism, although a
debatable on. In Münich he met his second wife Cosima, that was illegitimate
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7. child of his friend Franz List, and also married at the time. They had several
children before her first marriage was over and after she got divorced, they
married in 1870. It was also era of completing The Ring Cycle.
In 1871 Wagner decided to build an opera house in Bayreuth. After financial
problems that brought increasing health problems to Wagner, it was finished in
1875. The Entire Wagner family moved there and Bayreuth Festival Theatre
became the place of Bayreuth Festival. The first festival took place in 1867,
and it was the place of the first performance of the Ring Cycle.
After the first festival, Wagner began writing his last opera “Parsifal”, that was
finished four years later. It premiered in 1882 on the second Bayreuth Festival.
In his later years, he wrote a number of articles that were political and
reactionary, dismissing his previous more liberal views. He became more
invested in German nationalism and his new found Christianity. On 13 February
1883, during the trip to Venice, he died in age of 69.
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8. 3. Controversies and Politics
! 3.1. Paternity and Antisemitism
Richard Wagner was born as the son of Carl Friedrich Wagner and Johanna
Rosine Wagner. Carl died when Richard was six months old and Johanna
probably remarried to Ludwig Geyer (no documentation has been found). Until
he was fourteen, Richard Wagner was named Wilhelm Richard Geyer. Later in
life, Wagner discovered letters from Geyer to his mother, which led him to doubt
that he was his biological father and he also suspected that Geyer was jewish
but there is no proof of neither of it. Also, Richard’s second wife Cosima, noted
in her diary a resemblance between his son Seigfried and Geyer. However,
without any scientific proof of paternity, or evidence of Geyer being Jewish,
Richard Wagner’s real ancestry remains a speculation that gives a certain irony
to his antisemitic writings later in life.
(Zajacskowski, c. 1875, ‘Darvinian evolution’, suggesting Wagner was Jewish)
There was no written evidence of Wagner’s antisemitic views prior to 1850,
when he published “Das Judenthum in der Musik” under a pseudonym. In it, he
expressed that Germans disliked Jews because of their distinct appearance and
behavior. He also attacked popular composers by name like Felix Mendelssohn,
or some, like Giacomo Meyerbeer, without mentioning their name. He advised
jews to abandon judaism, like journalist and writer Ludwig Börne did. In 1868,
the expanded version was republished under his real name. He also, allegedly,
put a number of negative jewish stereotypes in several of his operas, but there
is no evidence in any of librettos that the characters were jewish. Despite his
views and publications, Wagner had a number of Jewish friends, like his
favourite conductor Herman Levi for example.
5

9. ! 3.2. Racism and Nazi appropriation
It is debated that in his latter years, Wagner became a follower of aryan
philosophy of Arthur de Gobineau. In 1876, the two met in person and debated
several times over the years, and it is commonly misinterpreted that their
encounters affected Wagner’s last opera “Parsifal”. It is debated wether it
features a racist undertone. Although Gobineau’s “Essai sur l'inégalité des
races humaines” (An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races) was written over
two decades before they met, libretto for “Parsifal” was finished several years
before Wagner read Gonineau’s work in 1880.
Wagner’s views on Jews and race, both alleged and proved, together with
mythos in his operas, were a prolific material for Nazi movement that stared to
arise around his time of death. His second wife and widow, Cosima, was an
avid endorser of what was later known as The Bayreuth Circle. It was a cultural
circle of people who attended the Bayreuth Festival, and shared the same
nationalistic German views that later developed in Nazism. However, the
biggest infusion of Wagner’s work was done by Adolf Hitler himself. He was a
passionate admirer of Wagner’s music and mythos in his operas, and his works
were often played in public during the rule of the Third Reich. However, since
Wagner, and members of The Bayreuth Circle that he personally knew, died
before the first political victory of the Nazi party in 1930, any political influence
by Wagner is only subsequent and somewhat exaggerated by the party.
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10. 4. Innovations in Music and Theatre Art
! 4.1. Gesamtkunstwerk
As prevoiusly mentioned, Gesamtkunstwerk was first used by K. F. E.
Trahndorff. Richard Wagner used that term in two of his works in 1849: “Die
Kunst und die Revolution” (Art and Revolution) and “Das Kunstwerk der
Zukunft” (The Artwork of the Future). Gesamtkunstwerk can be translated as a
total work of art, meaning that many forms of art will unite in one single work of
art. Wagner primarily wanted to unite all art forms via theatre. In the book “Oper
und Drama” (Opera and Drama) that he wrote in 1851, he detailed the union
between opera and drama, and how individual arts should be submit to
emphasizing one common purpose. Perhaps the best example of
Gesamtkunstwerk is Wagner himself: he wrote his own librettos for his operas.
That was extremely unusual for that time, and it is still unusual today. He took it
a step further and even built his own opera house, the Bayreuth Festival
Theatre, which was unprecedented at the time.
! 4.2. Leitmotif and Harmony
One of the main ideas in Wagner’s music philosophy is leitmotif. Coming from
the German “leitmotiv” (leading motif), it is a short music phrase that reoccurs,
and is linked to a certain person, place or idea. Although he did not originate the
idea, or even used the expression leitmotif more than once, he is the earliest
composer that is associated with this concept.
Wagner is also known for pushing the boundaries of harmony. He implemented
chromaticism and instead of composing within the set rules of traditional tonal
system, he explored its limits and paved the way for atonality. Many music
historians are giving Wagner credit for starting modern classical music, starting
with “Tristan und Isolde” and the so called Tristan chord, that is also a part of
the leitmotif associated to Tristan.
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11. ! 4.3. Creative Invention
There is a number of creative inventions that are considered a part of normal
theatre standard today. However, because of the Gesamtkunstwerk, Wagner
changed several rules that were considered normal at his time. Many of them
premiered at Bayreuth Festival Theatre, but the theatre was also built in a way
to serve Wagner’s ideas. Bowman (1966) mentions many innovations that
Wagner built in the theatre. Besides increasing the number of musicians and
changing their position within the existing orchestra, he placed the orchestra in
the pit underneath the stage. Since he did not want to distract the audience with
the orchestra, and put the audience’s focus on the drama on stage, this was a
logical way to incorporate orchestra and stage. He was also the first conductor
to turn his back to the audience while he conducted. Until then, conductors
faced the audience, or rarely, stood sideways.
To further exclude any unnecessary interferences for the audience, he insisted
on hall being dark during the performance, the applause being allowed only at
the end of the act, and all late comers not being allowed to enter the theatre.
Today, all of these things are considered normal theatre etiquette and those
concepts were also extended to movie theaters.
(Nietzel, 2006, The Richard Wagner Festival Hall on the Green Hill in Bayreuth)
8

12. 5. Influences on Film, With Comparison of The Ring Cycle and
Star Wars original trilogy
Burlingame (2010) supported Jeongwon’s view that Wagner’s music dramas,
especially his the Ring Cycle, combined literature, visual elements and dramatic
music foreshadowing cinema’s fusion of the visual and aural arts several
decades later. In the same article he also mentioned another great composer
Max Steiner who said: “Listen to the incidental scoring behind the recitatives in
his operas. If Wagner had lived in this century, he would Have been the No. 1
film composer.” (Burlingame, 2010 [online]). These two quotes quite well
summarize Wagner’s legacy in film.
! 5.1. Ring Cycle
The best known example of Gesamtkunstwerk is Wagner’s the Ring Cycle. It is
a cycle of four operas that is loosely based on Norse mythology and
“Nibelungenlied” (The Song of Nibelung) and is intended to be shown over the
span of four days. “Das Rheingold” (The Rhine Gold) is the first and shortest
opera, and is intended to serve as a prelude, for other operas that form a trilogy.
It is also called “Vorabend” (Preliminary Evening). The rest of the operas, “Die
Walküre” (The Valkyrie), “Siegfried” and “Götterdämmerung” (Twilight of the
Gods) were subtitled First Day, Second Day and Third Day, and are intended to
be staged each subsequent evening. On average the whole cycle lasts around
15 hours, depending on the conductor. The first performance took place in
1867.
! 5.2. Star Wars
As one of the best known movie franchises, George Lucas’ Star Wars and its
score are one of the best examples of Gesamtkunstwerk in movies. Consisting
of two trilogies, the first movie “Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope” (originally
released only as “Star Wars”) was released in 1977 and marked the beginning
of the original trilogy. The last movie so far, “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of
the Sith”, released in 2005 concluded the prequel trilogy. The composer on all of
9

13. the movies is John Williams. For storytelling analysis I will disregard the prequel
trilogy because it does not add anything new and it takes away some of the
storytelling and whole mythos by adding some “scientific” explanations.
However, the original trilogy can be seen as a work of its own, so simply
ignoring the prequel trilogy will not diminish the value of the analysis or any of
the movies.
! 5.2. Comparison
Ring Cycle and Star Wars have more than a century between them, different
medium domains and opposite economic aspects. While Star Wars is one of
financially most cost-effective franchises, Ring Cycle stages and productions
rarely are. Another notable difference is that Wagner composed both the story
and the music for his work, while Lucas wrote the story and had Williams
compose the music. If we take all of this into consideration, they still have a lot
in common, mainly because both are excellent examples of Gesamtkunstwerk.
Just like Wagner built his Bayreuth Festival Theatre to make his environment
balanced for the sound and the visuals of his operas, Lucas founded a film
studio “Lucasarts”, a company for visual effects “Industrial Light & Magic” and
invented a standard for sound and picture reproduction THX. Complete creative
control is one of the main things for Gesamtkunstwerk, and they achieved it.
Evensen (2008, [online]) observes that storytelling aspects of both stories are
epic myths. They follow an orphaned hero throughout strange lands filled with
strange creatures. His youth and heroism are the vehicle for correcting the sins
of his ancestors, along with his sister. While the relationship between the
daughter and father is based on conflict of will, conflict between the father and
son is based on fight for life and death. In both stories son initially does not
know that he is in conflict with his father. Stories end with a battle between
younger and older generation. There are more parallels, but the major overtone
and the realization of both stories have enough similarities, so I will not expand
on the subject of storytelling.
10

14. As far as music is concerned, Williams used the philosophy of leitmotif, but in
much smaller magnitude than Wagner. The cores for both Star Wars and Ring
Cycle are equally important as the narratives that are happening on the screen
or on the stage. Just like Wagner, Williams used leitmotifs to represent
characters, objects and ideas. Some of them occur in only one movie/opera,
while others were used and varied over the span of the whole series.
11

15. 6. Legacy and Influences on Artists and Arts
Wagner’s influence on film music is undeniable, although that form of art did not
exist while he was alive. Besides Williams’ work on Star Wars trilogies, another
notable film Wagnerian is Howard Shore.
“the triumph of the Gesamtkunstwer came with another ‘Ring Cycle’, this time it
was of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy and composer Howard Shore
was to take the Leitmotiv to new levels creating over 90 themes he introduced
and reprised throughout the three films” (Wiebe, C. 2013 [online]).
Shore is currently composing for the Hobbit trilogy. Both trilogies are based on
works of J. R. R. Tolkien that revolve around the Ring, but a different one than
in Wagner’s Ring Cycle. All similarities, according to Tolkien, are accidental.
Wagner also influenced his contemporaries and some of them acknowledged it
like Giacomo Puccini. Others, like Claude Debussy denied it, although music
historians find evidence that show clear influence, at least in the case of
Debussy and his only opera “Pelléas et Melisande” (Pelléas and Melisande).
However, leitmotifs are not attached only to mythical epic. Movies like “Jaws”,
“James Bond”, ”Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and many others have
leitmotifs that are instantly recognized. Also, in very un-wagnerian manner,
“McDonalds”, ”Coca-Cola”, “Deutsche Telekom” and other companies utilized
leitmotif throughout their marketing campaigns, to achieve an instant connection
to consumers. Since Wagner heavily criticized artist that primarily created for
money, it is very likely that he would disapprove of this commercial usage of
leitmotif.
McDuff (2013) on her blog “Wagner Tripping” analyzes one of the more unusual
music influences, the one Wagner left in rock and metal music. Some of the
bands acknowledged his influence, like Manowar or Rammstein, while others
took that a step further. In 2010 the German band Noneuclid cooperated with
Katherina Wagner, Bayreuth director and Wagner’s great-granddaughter, on
project called “Transition Metal” where a classic orchestra played both metal
12

16. songs and Wagner’s works. Finnish band Apocalyptica published an album
called “Wagner Reloaded” and it is one of the best examples of fusion of metal
and classic sound. Although more avant-garde then rock or metal, Slovenian
band Laibach collaborated with Symphonic orchestra RTV Slovenia in 2009,
and created a sonic suite in three acts called “VolksWagner”, using only
materials from Wagner’s operas
Besides influencing film and film music, Wagner is participating in it even after
his death. His works are used on many occasions and in multiple movies.
Maybe the most notable example is the usage of his “Walkürenritt” (Ride of the
Valkyres) in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now”. Also, his life was the
subject of several biographical movies and documentaries and one of the more
popular ones is “Wahnfried” from 1986, with Richard Burton in the role of
Wagner.
Outside music and theatre arts, Wagner had an influence on some of the
famous names from philosophy, psychology and literature, notably on Friedrich
Nietszche, Sigmund Freud and Édouard Dujardin. Nietszche personally knew
and debated with Wagner, but they parted ways after the first Bayreuth Festival,
when Nietszche felt that Wagner was too close to Third Reich and aryan
philosophy. In case of Sigmund Freud, even before he was born, Wagner
publicly analyzed the concept of dreams and the Oedipus myth in terms of
psychological importance. Édouard Dujardin took the concept of long interior
monologue from Wagner’s works and translated it into literary form, best known
in his novel “Les Lauriers sont coupés” (The Laurels are Cut). Wagnerian
influence extended on James Joyce, who always credited Dujardin’s novel as
inspiration for his novel “Ulysses”.
“There was and is nobody else remotely like him in the modern era; he was the
most important cultural figure in the 19th century, launching a movement known
as Wagnerism that had a profound effect on all the arts, and a number of social
movements, with reverberations that are still obvious to this day.” (McDuff,
2013, [online])
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17. ! 7. Conclusion
The influence and legacy of Richard Wagner are indisputably big. His works
alone were revolutionary in his time, and are still very valued and performed
today. Some of his philosophy, inventions and ideas were original, some
improvements upon ideas of others. However, that should not diminish the fact
that he perhaps singlehandedly changed the course of music and other arts.
Maybe without him we would still have Gesamtkunstwerk and leitmotif, we
might not, but those two principles were made widely known and used thanks to
him.
His life, morals, relationships and controversial beliefs are often brought up,
because it shows that he was a man with flaws. Although historians still argue
about his influence in the Third Reich, it cannot be denied that big part of the
Nazi party and Hitler in particular, loved and played Wagner’s music.
However, all of that should not distract from the fact that he had a deep impact
on arts, especially opera and film.
14

18. References
Bowman, N. A. (1966) “Investing a Theatrical Ideal: Wagner’s Bayreuth
Festspielhaus”, Education Theatre Journal, Vol. 18, No. 4, December, p
429-438 [online] available at: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3205270?
uid=3738200&uid=2134&uid=2477360647&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=2477360
637&uid=60&sid=21103224441213 (Accessed: 16.12.2013)
Burlingame, J. (2010) “Underscoring Richard Wagner’s influence on film music”,
Los Angeles Times, 19 June [online] available at: http://articles.latimes.com/
2010/jun/17/entertainment/la-et-wagner-movies-20100617 (Accessed:
16.12.2013)
Evensen, K (2008) “The Star Wars series and Wagner’s Ring Structural,
thematic and musical connections” [online] available at: http://www.trell.org/
wagner/starwars.html (Accessed: 16.12.2013)
Hanfstaengl, F. (1871) Richard Wagner [Photograph] available at: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RichardWagner.jpg
McDuff, R. (2013) “Wagner’s Influence: Credit is Due”, Wagner Tripping, 25
October, [online] available at: http://wagnertripping.blogspot.com/2013/10/
wagners-influence-credit-is-due.html (Accessed: 16.12.2013)
McDuff, R. (2013) “Wagner’s Influence on Music: Opera, Conducting and Metal
Music”, Wagner Tripping, 6 December, [online] available at: http://
wagnertripping.blogspot.com/2013/12/wagners-influence-on-music-opera.html
(Accessed: 16.12.2013)
Nietzel, R. (2006) The Richard Wagner Festival Hall on the Green Hill in
Bayreuth [Photograph] available at: http://www.rizi-online.de/wp2/privates/
wikicommons-und-ich-bin-vorne-mit-dabei/102/
15

19. Wiebe, C. (2013) “Joh Williams and Richard Wagner”, Examiner.com, 6 June
[online] available at: http://www.examiner.com/article/john-williams-and-richard-
wagner (Accessed: 16.12.2013)
Zajacskowski, T (c. 1875), Darwinian Evolution, Vienna, illus. available at: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wagnershofar.jpg
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16

20. Karst, L (2013) “Wagner’s Influence On: James Joyce, Part 1”, Wagner
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