Boedder—“Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg.” 
109 
pedant. As he stands in the stage representations Beckmesser is 
an ill-natured and wicked buffoon, a caricature of a peculiarly 
gross kind, and only an infinitesimally tiny corrective idea lies in 
the fact that a manly young knight who loves a pretty young wo¬ 
man should have saved her from falling into such a rival’s hands 
by marrying her himself. He would have had the vote of the 
public on his side if he had sung like a crow and Beckmesser like 
Anacreon. ’ ’ 
This last statement, in order to clear one objection out of the 
way, seems to me begging the question. First, the public had no 
vote in the matter, Hans Sachs’s motion at the meeting in St. 
Catherine’s having been voted down; and secondly, it was a mat¬ 
ter of outsinging the competitors and not of personal attractive¬ 
ness and similar advantages. But to revert to the charge, let us 
quote Erich von Schrenck: 26 
“In Beckmesser there is so much grotesque exaggeration that 
sober criticism should not be content with mere praise. One need 
only think of the mutilated prize song, with which Beckmesser al¬ 
most ranges himself among the lunatics. It is not easy to see how 
critics can pass over such matters as though everything were here 
as it should be. ’ ’ 
On the other hand Finck, p. 228, has this to say: 
“Another amusing actual feature in this comedy is that some 
of the critics who feel more or less guilty of having once been 
Beckmessers, still are a little sore on the subject and mercilessly 
abuse actors who are intelligent enough to treat this part in a real 
burlesque spirit. But Wagner shows by his whole treatment of 
this role—the blackboard scene, the tuning and twanging of the 
lute, the grotesque serenade, the antics (musical and mimic) in 
Sachs’s room after the fight, and especially the laughable parody 
of the prize song on the little stand on the meadow, that he in¬ 
tended this character to be essentially a burlesque, and not the 
doleful, dignified duffer the critics referred to would have it. Wag¬ 
ner even rewrote the mock prize song and made it more extrava¬ 
gant than before. Beckmesser is naturally a silly fellow, and in 
this case his pedantry, arrogance, and incompetence are aggravated 
in such a manner by blinding jealousy that he cannot help mak¬ 
ing a fool of himself. If he did not make a fool of himself, why 
should the people laugh at him loudly, and the Masters exclaim: 
“What does this mean? Can he be crazy?”—A note to this page 
adds: “Of course, the self-burlesque must be unconscious on 
26 Richard Wagner als DicTiter, Munchen 1913, p. 167. 
