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What did Tolkien think of Wagner's Ring Cycle?

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Tolkien refused to admit that his ring had anything to do with Wagner's. “Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceased,” he said. But he certainly knew his Wagner, and made an informal study of “Die Walküre” not long before writing the novels. read more

Deciding just what Tolkien thought of Wagner’s Ring Cycle and just what influence it may have had on his own work poses some thorny problems. First of all, it’s kind of a “loaded” question in that Richard Wagner is the undoubted “bad boy” of the world of classical opera. read more

The interesting question is not whether Wagner’s Ring Cycle asserted some influence on Tolkien. It almost certainly did, at least at an unconscious level. The more interesting line of inquiry is why Tolkien disliked Wagner’s Ring Cycle and in what meaningful ways their treatments differed. read more

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