This research monograph studies and reinterprets the works and ideas of
Richard Wagner that have had such a profound influence on the artistic
and intellectual life of France. His Romanticism influenced the French
symbolists so greatly that they named their major journal La Revue
Wagnerians. His musical themes, dramatic structures and philosophical
tropes recurred in the works of almost every major French composer
before World war One. Massenet was so devoted that he earned the
sobriquet "Madamoiselle Wagner". Proust employed Wagnerian concepts and
allusions in his modernist fiction and publicly defended Wagner's
artistic achievements against the general assault on German kultur
during the 1914-1918 war. Wagner remained important during the interwar
years as well as the occupation 1940-1944 and after the Liberation. Du
Quenoy interprets the phenomenon of France's infatuation with Wagner and
discusses why Wagner's influence has been misunderstood and
understudied. The author points to the effects of competition, war and
political recrimination on the French psyche. In the face of such bitter
struggle who would expect a German cultural icon to have played such an
important and consistent role in French life? The author points to the
strength and uniqueness of Wagner's creativity and his spiritual
universalism as the answer. The author also discusses Wagnerism and
Wagnerites in France's literary, musical and political culture.
