Download or read book A Kingdom Not of This World written by Kevin Karnes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-19 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book challenges prevalent understandings of elite artistic culture in fin-de-siècle Vienna by examining creative manifestations of utopian imaginings that ran counter and parallel to the cultural pessimism widely diagnosed in that society. It argues that the music and writings of Richard Wagner played a key role in inspiring such imagining, which either embraced and extended Wagner's own visions or countered them with visions that were wholly new.