Editing Tristan und Isolde (section)

===Mysticism and Spirituality===
[[File:Ecstasy of Saint Teresa September 2015-2a.jpg|thumb|''[[Ecstasy of Saint Teresa]]'' (1652) by [[Gian Lorenzo Bernini]]. Like Bernini's sculpture, the mysticism of Wagner's operas like ''Tristan'' drew criticism for an "emotionalism of a colour at once erotic and religiously enthusiastic".<ref>{{cite book|last=Nordau|first=Max|author-link=Max Nordau|title=Degeneration|title-link=Degeneration (Nordau)|date=1895|location=New York|publisher=Appleton |page=[https://archive.org/details/degeneration1895nord/page/172/mode/2up 172]}}</ref> ]]

In the years leading up to 1857, when Wagner would set aside his work on ''[[Der Ring des Nibelungen|The Ring]]'' to instead focus on ''Tristan und Isolde'', Wagner's interests were dominated by spiritual matters. In 1855 his attention turned to [[Indian religion]], reading [[Eugène Burnouf]]'s ''Introduction to the History of Indian Buddhism'', and [[Hinduism|Hindu]] texts published in [[Adolf Holtzmann]]'s ''Indian Sagas''.<ref name="Letters">{{cite book |last1=Wagner |first1=Richard |last2=Spencer |first2=Stewart |last3=Millington |first3=Barry |title=Selected letters of Richard Wagner |date=1988 |publisher=W. W. Norton |location=New York |isbn=0393025004 |page=164 |edition=1st American |url=https://archive.org/details/selectedletterso0000unse_w4l9/page/164/mode/2up}}</ref> In addition to ''Tristan'', this culminated in the conception of two additional operas at this time, ''[[Die Sieger]]'', based on the life of the [[Buddhism|Buddhist]] monk [[Ānanda]], and ''[[Parsifal]]'', a [[Holy Grail]] quest based on the medieval poem ''[[Parzival]]'' by [[Wolfram von Eschenbach]].

Wagner was interested in the [[Orient]] and already acquainted with [[Sufism|Islamic mysticism]] prior to reading Schopenhauer in 1854, having written to his friend [[August Röckel]] in September 1852 declaring the [[Iran|Persian]] Sufi poet [[Hafez]] to be the "greatest of all poets".<ref name="Wagner Letters">{{cite book |last1=Spencer |first1=Stewart |last2=Millington |first2=Barry |title=Selected letters of Richard Wagner |date=1987 |publisher=W.W. Norton |location=New York |isbn=0393025004 |page=270 |url=https://archive.org/details/selectedletterso0000unse_w4l9/page/270/mode/2up |access-date=30 August 2024 |ref=Spencer}}</ref> Schopenhauer's discussion of German [[Christian mysticism|Christian mystics]], such as [[Meister Eckhart]], further piqued Wagner's interest in [[mysticism]].

When Tristan and Isolde willingly drink the potion at the end of act 1 but do not die, their eyes are opened to the illusions of material Day and to the higher spiritual insight of Night. Tristan celebrates the enlightenment brought about by the potion in act 2:

<poem style="margin-left:2em;">
Oh hail the potion! Hail to the draft!
Hail to its magic's magnificent craft!
Through the gates of Death, to me it flowed,
wide and open, for me it showed,
that which I've only dreamed to have sight,
the wondrous realm of Night!
</poem>

Mythologist [[Joseph Campbell]] described this moment of drinking the potion as follows:

{{blockquote|...as [Tristan and Isolde] have already renounced psychologically both love as lust and the fear of death, when they drink, and live, and again look upon each other, the veil of māyā has fallen.<ref>{{cite book |last=Campbell |first=Joseph|author-link=Joseph Campbell|title=The Masks of God: Creative Mythology |date=1968 |publisher=Penguin Compass|location=United States |page=79|isbn=0-14-01-9440-1|url=https://archive.org/details/TheMasksOfGodVol.04CreativeMythologyCampbell_201703/page/n91/mode/2up|via=[[Internet Archive]]|access-date=31 August 2024}}</ref>}}

[[Maya (religion)|Māyā]] is a concept in the Indian religions that refers to the appearance of the material world, connoting a "magic show, an illusion where things appear to be present but are not what they seem", and "conceals the true character of spiritual reality"; it finds its parallel in Schopenhauer's "Phenomenon". Tristan denounces the lying "disguise" of Day and resolves to yearn for and seek out only the "Holy Night":

<poem style="margin-left:2em;">
Oh, now we are with Night anointed!
The treacherous Day, with envy pointed,
could part us with its disguise,
but no longer cheat us with lies!
Amid the Day's deluded churning,
remains one single yearning—
the yearning for the Holy Night,
where all-eternal's solely true
Love does laugh with delight!
</poem>

After expressing this sentiment, the famous act 2 love duet, the "Liebesnacht" ("O sink hernieder, Nacht der Liebe"), begins. Here, Tristan and Isolde dedicate themselves to eternal Night and wish that Day would never come again, instead dying a transcendental "Love-Death" together as the ultimate consummation of their love. The music builds to ecstatic, mystically-elated climaxes, where they imagine the dissolution of their individual egos and merging into unity with each other and "supreme love":

<poem style="margin-left:2em;">
Tristan you, I Isolde, no longer Tristan!
You Isolde, Tristan I, no longer Isolde!
Without naming, without separating,
newly perceiving, newly igniting;
endless, eternal, one-consciousness:
a heart fervently burning with supreme love's joy!
</poem>

The themes of spiritual yearning in ''Tristan'' resonate with the introspective and passionate elements found in Christian mysticism, particularly the concept of "[[unio mystica]]"—the soul's union with the [[Divinity|divine]]. The character's relentless pursuit of an idealized love that transcends earthly bounds and the notion of love leading to a metaphysical union can be seen as parallel to the Sufi pursuit of "[[Fana (Sufism)|fana]]", the [[Ego death|annihilation of the self]] in the universal presence of the divine.

The closing "Liebestod", Isolde's "transfiguration" sung before she dies, invokes Hindu and Buddhist sentiments. The German word for breath, Atem, is related etymologically to the [[Sanskrit]] word [[Ātman (Hinduism)|Ātman]], meaning soul or eternal Self. Isolde sinking "unconscious" into a state of bliss is associated with the Buddhist concept of [[Nirvana]], although Schopenhauer and Wagner at the time misunderstood this concept to imply a state of non-being:

<poem style="margin-left:2em;">
In the unbounded swell,
in the resounding call,
in the world's breath, flowing in all!
To drown...
to sink...
unconscious...
supreme bliss!
</poem>

Wagner scholar John Pohanka has written on the spiritual influences in Wagner's works, commenting that they not only contribute material to the libretto but how the power of the Wagnerian music and drama can itself invoke a transformative, ineffable experience in some audience members comparable to a mystical experience.<ref name="Mystic">{{cite book |last1=Pohanka |first1=John J. |title=Wagner the Mystic |date=May 2010 |publisher=The Wagner Society of Washington, D.C. |location=USA |isbn=978-0615366487 |edition=First}}</ref>

Given the influence of Schopenhauer and the apparent framing of ''Tristan und Isolde'' as a tragedy, many have remarked on the opera's "pessimism". On this, British scholar George Ainslie Hight wrote in 1912:

{{blockquote|Such is Wagner's pessimism: it is the pessimism of the Vedânta philosophy; that is to say, it is most clearly formulated in that system, and in the Upanishads upon which it rests, but really it is the common basis of all religions. It breathes in the poems of Hafiz, in the philosophy of Parmenides, Plato, and the Stoics, in the profound wisdom of Ecclesiastes, in mediaeval mysticism, and the faith of the early Christian Church. Buddhism and Christianity are both pessimist in their origin.<ref>{{Gutenberg book|last=Hight|first=George Ainslie|name=Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde": An Essay on the Wagnerian Drama|year=1912|no=7834|access-date=2 May 2025|bullet=none}}</ref>}}