Weber, Wagner and Thoughts of Death

Abstract

This article seeks to show the ways in which an addition made to the second edition of The Protestant Ethic can be illuminated by placing it in the context of Weber's personal life and how that text can also illuminate various personal concerns and relationships that characterised Weber's life, in particular during his last year alive in Munich. Aspects of Weber's personal life are explored making use of Marianne Weber's account of her husband's life, although her account is subjected to some critical analysis. It is shown that key concerns in Weber's life at this time included death, family responsibilities and eroticism. The addition (which basically involves the quotation of Siegmund's answer to Brünnhilde - the herald of death in Wagner's opera Die Walküre), relates to these themes, and in the context of The Protestant Ethic opens up a whole range of intertextual affinites which serve to highlight the way in which Weber drew on a cultural heritage to give expression to his ideas and emotions. This complexity also relates to Weber's relationships with Else Jaffé, Mina Tobler, Marianne Weber and his sisters, Klara and Lili; and it is to these relationships that I seek to relate Weber's use of Wagner. However, it is argued that the reference to Wagner in The Protestant Ethic, when understood in the context of Weber's life, is overdetermined, and that it is difficult to specify precisely what Siegmund's speech meant to Weber and to the persons in his immediate circle. It is argued that rather than this indeterminancy undermining the biographical perspective of the paper, the complexity of Weber's relationships and emotions that is uncovered serves to capture the dilemmas of `real' life.