Del sentido iniciático en el Parsifal de Richard Wagner

Abstract

Richard Wagner's libretto Parsifal (1882) is a drama with a universal symbolic resonance and great hermeneutical scope. It is, in fact, an archetypical drama, that is to say, a non-historical and founding drama for our vision of the western world. The authors of this paper, centring on the mythocriticism of Gilbert Durand, first examine the character of Parsifal (the so-called "chaste innocent"), which was described by Wagner himself and which, in turn, was inspired by the literary version of Parzival, written by Wolfram von Eischenbach between 1200 and 1207. Secondly, the authors maintain that the deepest meaning of the Wagnerian libretto (as Bühnenweihfestspiel, or sacred drama play) is to be found in the initiation traditions, which were well studied by Mircea Eliade, René Guénon and Pierre Gallais, among others. Thirdly, the authors explore the meaning of initiation unveiled in the libretto in its projection in contemporaneity. In a highly un-mythologized society such as the one we live in today, it is urgent to return to the fountains of Tradition, which is identified by us in a re-mythologizing perspective of the Myth.