| 释义 |
‖ Götterdämmerung|gøːtəˈdɛmərʊŋ|
[G., lit. twilight of the gods.]
Used fig. to denote the complete downfall of a régime, institution, etc.
Popularized by Wagner's use of it as the title of the last opera of the Ring cycle.
1909C. F. G. Masterman Condition of Eng. x. 293 Mr. Wells requires for his Götterdämmerung no fresh influx of barbarian hordes. 1930G. B. Shaw Perfect Wagnerite 169 What would he [sc. Wagner] have said had he lived to see 1917 in Russia and 1918 in Germany..such a Götterdämmerung. 1934Mind XLIII. 388 If..Dr Inge should chance upon a plain unsophisticated Christian, and try to scare him with his Thermodynamic Götterdämmerung, would he not be told that the Heavenly Jerusalem was incomparably preferable to the Palestinian, in which there were no abiding habitations? 1949Koestler Promise & Fulfilment xv. 170 The Götterdämmerung of British rule in the Holy Land was not in the Wagnerian, but rather in the Dostoievskian style. 1959Listener 1 Oct. 525/1 A totalitarian régime must either prevail absolutely or else it heads straight for some kind of Götterdämmerung. |