Boedder—“Die Meistersinger von Niirnberg 87 
year 1861 he wrote out the present form of his work, could say 
that the original plan offered him little or nothing. 5 
To gain an insight into the growth of Wagner’s spiritual life 
as expressed in the play from its first inception to its completion, 
and at the same time to obtain a satisfactory answer to the ques¬ 
tion as to how much Wagner is indebted to his “sources” for 
the plot, it will be necessary to give a fairly detailed synopsis of 
the Marienbad sketch. 6 In this the characters are not yet named, 
excepting Hans Sachs, his apprentice David, and Magdalene, 
David’s elderly sweetheart, the kinswoman and companion of the 
unnamed daughter of the senior of the mastersingers ’ guild. The 
later Walter von Stolzing appears merely as a junger Mann, Beck- 
messer as the Merker, and Eva as the Preismadcken, For brev¬ 
ity’s sake we shall in the following insert the names used in the 
final version. 
Walter, a young knight, inspired by the reading of the Helden- 
buch and the old Minnesingers, an ardent lover of poetry, descends 
from his impoverished ancestral castle in Franconia, in order to 
learn the art of the mastersingers in Nuremberg. To join the 
guild, he presents himself at the house of its senior, Veit Pogner, 
the goldsmith, and here meets Pogner’s daughter, with whom he 
quickly falls in love. 7 Pogner has offered his daughter’s hand as 
a prize to the master who shall defeat his competitors in a sing¬ 
ing contest to be held in the near future. The deciding vote in 
the matter is to be left to the maiden herself. When at the meet¬ 
ing of the guild Walter presents himself for the master’s test, 
which he must pass in order to participate in the coming competi¬ 
tion, Hans Sachs, who happens to be the warden of the law for 
the time being, reads to him the rules of the guild, with a decided 
admixture of irony, and Walter is rather nervous and intimidated. 
Beckmesser, the all-important marker,—whose official business it 
is to keep tally of the mistakes and infractions against the narrow 
rules and laws of the mastersingers’ art,—himself aspires to the 
fair maiden’s hand and her father’s gold. He scents a rival, and 
naturally avails himself of this glorious chance to put him out 
of the way. So he interrupts Walter’s singing before he is half 
5 Richard Wagner an MatMlde Wesendonk, p. 293. 
6 For a full synopsis of the drama in its present form see Henry Edward 
Krehbiel, Studies in the Wagnerian Drama, New York, N. D. (1891), pages 
72-77, or Henry T. Finck, Wagner and his Works. The Story of his Life with 
Critical Comments, vol. II, New York, 1893, pages 217-223. 
7 So it is not, as in the final version, his acquaintance with Eva and his love 
for her that suggests to him the desire to become one of the mastersingers 
himself, but in first visiting Pogner’s house he has no ulterior purpose beyond 
his reception into the circle of the masters. 
