The book delves into Richard Wagner's strategic self-promotion and the innovative methods he employed to cultivate his celebrity status. It explores how he leveraged various platforms and techniques to enhance his public image and influence the music world, highlighting his unique approach to fame and artistry.
This book examines the innovative ways in which Richard Wagner made himself a celebrity, promoting himself using every means available: autobiography, journal articles, short stories, newspaper announcements, letters, even his operas themselves. Vazsonyi reveals how Wagner created a niche for his works in the crowded opera market that continues to be unique.
Long recognized as one of the foremost literary critics of the twentieth century, the Hungarian-born Georg Lukacs (1885-1971) shocked many by turning to Marxism in 1918. Using his formidable knowledge of European cultural history, he revitalized Marxist theory with his book History and Class Consciousness (1923), and continued to write extensively about literature. The ultimate question posed by this book is how Lukacs in the 1930s was able to write enthusiastically about Goethe, citing him as an ideal exponent of humanism, while simultaneously accepting and even condoning Stalinism.