110 Wisconsin Academy of SciencesArts, and Letters. 
Beckmesser’s part. Wagner wrote to a tenor in 1872: ‘Be seri¬ 
ous throughout . . . Great pettiness and much gall. Take as 
a model any captious critic. ’ ’ ’ 
Wagner’s mention of the “captious critic” brings up a matter 
on which the dust of controversy has not yet settled, namely, the 
amount of autobiographical material that is, or is supposed to be, 
contained in his Meistersinger. 
“A word of caution,” says Krehbiel, p. 79f., “should be uttered 
against the autobiographic stamp which some extremists have 
wanted to impress upon it. The comedy is not rendered more in¬ 
teresting or its satire more admirable by thinking of Walter as 
the prototype of Wagner himself, of Beckmesser as Wagner’s op¬ 
ponents, and of Hans Sachs as King Ludwig, embodying in him¬ 
self, furthermore, the symbol of enlightened public opinion, which 
neither despises rules nor is willing to be ridden by them. Such 
an exposition of its symbolism lies near enough in its broad lines, 
but there is danger in carrying it through all the details of the 
plot. When it is too far pushed, critics will ask in the future, 
as they have asked in the past,' how this can be accepted as the 
satirical motive of the comedy when the hero who triumphs over 
the supposed evil principle in the drama does so, not to advance 
the virtue which stands in opposition to that evil principle, but 
simply to win a bride—a purpose that is purely selfish, however 
amiable and commendable it may be. Walter does, indeed, dis¬ 
cover himself as the champion of spontaneous, vital art, and the 
antagonist of the pedantry represented by the mastersingers; but 
this is not until after he has learned that he can only win the 
young lady by himself becoming a member of the guild, and de¬ 
feating all comers at the tournament of song. Knowing none of 
the rules, he boldly relies on the potency of the inspiration begot¬ 
ten by his love, and does his best under the circumstances; that he 
ultimately succeeds he owes to the help of Sachs, and the fact that 
his rival defeats himself by resorting to foul means.” 
The very fact that the naive spectator all over the world can 
appreciate and enjoy Wagner’s Meistersinger without knowing 
how much of the poet’s own experience is contained therein, should 
give us pause when we search for autobiographical material in this 
play. This criterion furnishes the best of evidence that we are 
dealing with a genuine work of art, one in which the gold has been 
cleansed in the furnace of creative inspiration of all the dross of 
individual experience which had clung to it. To be sure, Wag¬ 
ner’s works, like Goethe’s, and like all great works of art, are 
‘ 1 fragments of a great confession, ’ ’ but the exact knowledge of the 
