Redemption through Art 89the pinnacle of all possible hierarchies. For Wagner, art assumed the
place of religion. This idea intrigued Nietzsche, but ultimately struck
him as too pious, and he retreated from it in favor of an artistic approach
to life. He sought enhancement of life in art, not redemption. In a bor-
derline case—and Nietzsche always had borderline cases in view—one
should fashion an unequivocal work of art out of one's own life.
Nietzsche and Wagner ultimately parted ways over their disagreement
as to the function of myth. For Wagner, myth laid claim to religious
authority; for Nietzsche, myth was an aesthetic game to foster the art of
living. Before they reached this impasse, however, Nietzsche concurred
with Wagner's attempt to establish a new mythology from the spirit of
music
Nietzsche followed in Wagner's footsteps by adopting impulses from
early German Romanticism at the turn of the nineteenth century. The
early Romantics had already dabbled in originating myths.
A key document in understanding early Romantic myth was a brief
essay later given the tide "The Oldest Systematic Program of German
Idealism." Most likely written in 1796, it has been variously attributed to
Schelling, Hegel, and Hölderlin. Some consider it a collaborative effort
of all three. The text concluded with the following announcement: "I
will offer an idea that has never entered anyone's mind, as far as I am
aware—we must have a new mythology, but this mythology must stand
in the service of ideas and must become a mythology of reason"
(Hölderlin 1,917).
Two motives impelled the search for a new mythology. The first was
that reason had become subject to considerable self-doubt toward the
end of the Enlightenment era. Reason is strong when it questions and
casts a critical glance on moral and religious traditions. 'The critical spir-
it," Friedrich Schlegel wrote, "has become overdy political and has
attempted a revolution of the bourgeois world, but it has purified and
clarified religion for such a long time that it finally evaporated altogether
and vanished in its own clarity" (Schlegel 3,88). This clarity was held to
be negative, and the need for a higher meaning and purpose continued