Customer Reviews

The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In this work, Nietzsche theorizes that Greek tragedy was built upon the wedding of two principles, which he associated with the deities Apollo and Dionysius. The Apollonian principle, in keeping with the characteristics of the sun god Apollo, is the principle of order, static beauty and clear boundaries. The Dionysian principle, in contrast, is the principle of frenzy, excess, and the collapse of boundaries.

These principles offered perspectives on the position of the individual human being, but perspectives that were radically opposed to one another. The Appollonian principle conceived the individual as sufficiently separate from the rest of reality to be able to contemplate it dispassionately. The Dionysian principle, however, presents reality as a tumultuous flux in which individuality is overwhelmed by the dynamics of a living whole. Nietzsche believed that a balance of these principals is essential if one is both to recognize the challenge to one's sense of meaning posed by individual vulnerability and to recognize the solution, which depends on one's sense of oneness with a larger reality. Greek tragedy, as he saw it, confronted the issue of life's meaning by merging the perspectives of the two principles.

The themes of Greek tragedy concerned the worst case scenario from an Apollonian point of view--the devastation of vulnerable individuals. Scholarship had concluded that the chanting of the chorus was the first form of Athenian tragedy. Nietzsche interpreted the effect of the chorus as the initiation of a Dionysian experience on the part of the audience. Captivated by music, audience members abandoned their usual sense of themselves as isolated individuals and felt themselves instead to be part of a larger, frenzied whole.

This sense of self as part of a dynamic whole gave a different ground for experiencing life as meaningful than one would recognize in the more typical Apollonian condition, which entails a certain psychic distance. Feeling oneself to be part of the joyous vitality of the whole, one could take participation in life to be intrinsically wonderful, despite the obvious vulnerabilities one experiences as individual. The aesthetic transformation of the audience member's sense of the significance of individual life aroused a quasi-religious affirmation of life's value. "It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified," Nietzsche concluded.

The function of characters and drama later added to tragedy depended on the fundamental, enthralled experience of oneness with the chorus, according to Nietzsche. Already incited to a Dionysian state before the tragic hero appeared on stage, the audience would see the character before them as a manifestation of the god Dionysius. Unfortunately, Euripides restructured tragedy in such a way that the chorus' role was diminished. Euripides wrote plays that would encourage an Appollonian stance of objective interest in the drama. Nietzsche contended that in his attempt to write intelligent plays, Euripides had killed tragedy. He had done so, moreover, because he had fallen under the influence of Socrates.

The Birth of Tragedy is the first of many works in which Nietzsche re-evaluates the traditional view that Socrates was the quintessential philosopher. Although granting that Socrates was a turning point in world history, Nietzsche contends that Socrates was responsible for directing Western culture toward an imbalanced, exaggerated reliance on the Apollonian point of view. A defender of reason to an irrational degree, Socrates had taught that reason could penetrate reality to the point that it could correct reality's flaws. This had become the fundamental dream of Western culture, a dream that was later manifested in the modern approach to scholarship. Unfortunately, the optimism of the Socratic rational project was doomed to failure. Reason itself, through Kant, had pointed to its own limits. Whatever reason might accomplish, it could not correct the most basic flaws in human reality--the facts of human vulnerability and mortality.

The Birth of Tragedy also involves an indictment of contemporary culture as well as an account of the significance of tragedy. Contemporary culture's reliance on reason and it's commitment to scientific optimism had rendered the modern individual largely oblivious to the Dionysian character of reality--character which engulfed all individuals in the flow of life but which also rendered everyone subject to death and devastation. The repression of vulnerability was psychologically disastrous, in Nietzsche's view. The only hope for modern culture was that it might turn to myth, which could compensate for the culture's excesses, before a crisis.

The Birth of Tragedy failed initially to secure esteem for Nietzsche among his philological colleagues. Nevertheless, the work has had enduring influence. In particular, the analysis of Apollo and Dionysius has had an impact on figures in diverse fields, among them Thomas Mann and C.G. Jung.

In The Case of Wagner (1888) and Nietzsche Contra Wagner (1895) Nietzsche analyzed and critiqued Wagner, and criticized his earlier views of Wagner. Since one of Nietzsche's early works, The Birth of Tragedy, and two of his later works were about Wagner, it would seem that the relationship between Nietzsche and Wagner was significant to Nietzsche, even though he decided not to see Wagner again more than ten years before he wrote The Case of Wagner. Although his first work was a pro-Wagner work, his last work on Wagner was an anti-Wagner work. In The Case of Wagner, Nietzsche praised Bizet's Carmen, but condemned the works of Wagner. He says that it seems that in a music drama of Wagner, it always seems that someone is being redeemed. Indeed, some of Wagner's operas are about Christian concepts, and Nietzsche was against this. Nietzsche went on to insult Wagner by stating that Wagner's music is sick and corrupt and that Wagner is a decadent, even though it seems that no one realizes even in Paris that Wagner is a decadent. Not only did he accuse Wagner of being a decadent, but he also questioned whether Wagner was a musician at all. Nietzsche also stated that Wagnerian heroines were decadents like Madame Bovary and accused Wagner of writing nihilistic music.

There is no denying Nietzsche's genius. But there is denying mine. I found this book very hard to follow. It is not a book to stop and scrutinize every line. One must know a fair bit about Greek mythology to follow it adequately. His thoughts on Socrates compared to the Dionysian is very compelling. If anyone who has read this book wishes to share what they understood, please e-mail me.

Forget Wagner, whose disgruntled cacophony posing as music is nicely dispatched by Oscar Wilde in one of his plays with a comparative quip when somebody rings an old and disturbingly noisy doorbell. Forget Wagner because The Birth of Tragedy is the greatest work of art criticism ever written. It is also, despite being in print for a century, an underexplored gold mine for artists and intellectuals. This is Nietzsche's first book: it contains en ovo the thoughts of this great writer and thinker who had a formative influence on Heidegger and through him Derrida, the two greatest post-Nietzschean philosophers. Nietzsche's great theme is the infinite possibility opened up by Greek culture in 6th century B.C., in the time of Heraclitus and the birth of tragedy-the culture that spawned not only democracy and science but which, like a brood of many eggs only some of which have hatched (or quantum possibility before measurement "collapses" the wave function into reality)-much more besides--the culture beside whose tragedic productions (by Aeschylus and Sophocles, not Euripedes, whom Nietzsche shows lost touch with the essence of tragedy) modern cultural productions not only do not measure up, but often seem at best, as Nietzsche says, like a "caricature." The loss of art traced by Nietzsche is itself-well, not tragic, no-less than tragic: sad let us say. Not only a highly creative artist-like philosopher, but a multilingual philologist who read ancient Greek in the original, Nietzsche beams his laser-like analysis with astounding clarity into this lost realm of possibility. It is as if he stuck a bookmark into the Tome of Time, showing us the very best part of an otherwise often dry and rather bad (and perhaps overly long!) book of which we collectively are the author, called Culture. What is crucial to emphasize in B of T is Nietzsche's conclusion (or assumption) that (in its most famous line) "existence is only justified as an aesthetic phenomenon." Thus ancient Greek tragedy is not just a random subject, or one art form among others. It is the aesthetic experience par excellence, the greatest overcoming of the perils of existence into a worthy production of art humans ever developed. Nietzsche links the success of Aeschylean and Sophoclean tragedy to the brief fruitful intercourse (like that between men and women, which keeps new people coming despite often-fractious sexual relationships) between two aesthetic strains. One he identifies with the Greek messenger god of the sun, Apollo, the other with the dismembered god of wine, Dionysos. Dionysos also is not one god among others. Rather, it was to him that all the (originally religious) tragedies were devoted and, Nietzsche tells us, when other actors appeared on the sacred precursor to the Greek stage they were not to be taken as realistic but as avatars, idealized other versions, of Dionysos. Now the most crucial thing to realize about Dionysos is that "he" is split into pieces and his split pieces represent the fundamental, and contradictory, fact of the universe: that although all is one (to borrow a philosophical truism) this One is split into many. This primordial splitting (cf. Heidegger's distinction between individual beings and Being) is, according to Nietzsche, regarded by the ancient Greeks as itself the ur-source of human suffering. From Dionysos's tears came mankind, from his smile the gods. Now Nietzsche says that the Apollinian aesthetic strain manifests in the clarity of dreams-which show discrete-although ultimately illusory-images. These images are similar to those that appear before the chorus (crucial to tragedy but dispensed with by Euripedes), and before the spectators, in the form of the actors of the tragic spectacle. Thus the tragical spectacle displayed shows itself to be a dreamlike illusion of the culture, not a representation of reality per se. Just as, after we stare at the sun, we see spots before our eyes so, Nietzsche says, after we stare into the abyss we see the tragedy with its chorus and ideal human characters. The Dionysian element Nietzsche identifies with drunkenness and dissolution, the opposite of the clarity of dream imagery, made public on the Greek stage. The Dionysian in a sense represents the One, or the movement from the individual (seen a la Schopenhauer and Vedic metaphysics as a mayan illusion of universe that "I"s itself) back to the One; the Apollinian the illusory clarity of the skin-encapsulated individual. (Nietzsche's own individuality, and brain, were compromised by Treponema spirochetes, real Dionysian avatars of the syphilis that eventually killed him.) One of the most fascinating things about Nietzsche's exquisitely crafted analysis is the way it shows science, no less than Euripides, to be motivated by Socrates' false humility and dreams of total knowledge. "Who is this demigod?" Nietzsche asks of Socrates-whose reign of reasonableness, passed on to Plato, Aristotle, and the Church scholastics-defines much of the modern world. Socrates created the secular tradition, raising knowledge over aesthetics and giving mysticism a bad name. Nietzsche points out that Plato burnt his plays after coming into contact with his teacher-and that the compromise, the Platonic dialogues, were in fact the prototype of a new, Socratized art form-the novel. Thus, startlingly Nietzsche suggests the novel itself is a debased form of art-a Euripideanized, Socratized attempt to make the primal aesthetic experience more representative, reasonable, and realistic. Euripedes (he later recanted, but his influence went on) dispensed with the tragic core of stagecraft, and today we accept that drama is about individual characters in all their oddity and imperfections-rammed at us unremittingly with the hegemony of plot and wordy deus ex machina explanations in the aesthetically poisonous, hyperrationalistic aftermath of Euripides's Socratic capitulations. In sum, today we have all but forgotten the Dionysian origins of acting-more real than realism-which originally was centered around not fleeting emotions and empathy, but the central cosmological fact of the individuals tragic separation from the All. Highly recommended.

Nietzsche's writing style when viewed, as art is itself a remarkable example, par excellence, of the very topic he discusses-in The Birth of Tragedy-put into practice. It is ubiquitously bursting forth with such abundance (Dionysian)-yet streamlined by the infinite depth of his perceptions (Socratic)-that he illuminates the art of the entire Greek Civilization with elegant simplicity, compassion, and courage (Apollonian).

Nietzsche was one of the first to analyze Greek art in terms of its psychological ramifications-both conscious and unconscious. He posits that the two driving forces for art-whether it was painting, sculpture, music, or tragedy- required a mixture of the gods, Dionysus (Pan) and Apollo, whose virtues were synonymous with nature, but nearly bipolar. Apollo, the Delphic god, requires self-knowledge and demands that his disciples exorcize prudence in action; however, Dionysus demands complete abandon and excess. One cannot exist without the other: Apollo, though despising all misery and barbaric acts, knew that his existence depended upon that of Dionysus.

According to Nietzsche, Art stems directly from nature; it is not an imitation or reflection; therefore, the artist must commune with the gods and nature in order to render any art as such. The artist desires art to be 'the unvarnished expression of the truth' of the world; hence, Art is eternal universal truth. Art should achieve a fusion between the subjective and objective, hence, the artistic creation is 'like the weird image of the fairy tale which can turn its eyes at will and behold itself'.

Dionysus is the primordial artistic power that conjures the entire universe into being. It is a communal or collective consciousness, which exists in every individual just as every individual, exists in Dionysus. There is a complete absence of duality between individual and collective consciousness, hence, the individual transcends the limits of existence and becomes one with the collective mind who speaks with one voice-Art. Dionysus reveals the true nature of life as 'bliss born of pain'. Nature communicates its wisdom through the agency of pathos; it wishes to share its suffering and some of the truths in the world.

The paragon of Greek art is the tragedy. Tragedy takes place where Apollo and Dionysus have entwined perfectly forming a hybrid braid. The Dionysian Satyr is the incarnation of tragedy and exists within the realm of the gods as myth and cult. Tragedy transforms one into a Satyr. It is sudden and powerful: the Satyr dominated the "man of culture", 'like lamplight is nullified by the light of day'. This caused the tragedy to lead one back to the primal core of nature where one may stare boldly, directly into the destructiveness and cruelty of nature, which imbues one with such profound insight into the horrendous truth, that one is smitten listless with the absurdity of all worldly existence. True knowledge negates existence and the will to act-one asks, what good would it do to remedy a world, which abounds with such profound injustice-a world so askew. Then when the will is nearly irretrievably lost to the void-and a second seems to span all of eternity-art snatches us from the precipice of oblivion. The brilliance of Apollo, like a clarion call, comes shining through as art and redeems all life. Art propitiates the horrible and the comic relieves absurdity. Art soothes us with a healing immersion so sublime and tranquil that we experience life as overwhelmingly invincible and pleasurable in the face of all adversity-i.e., rapture. Through this rapture, one garners the true laurels of life and continues onward as a glorious saga that rivals that of Odysseus. This is how the Greeks experienced tragedy: it was the fount of life sustaining energy, which endowed them with a great sensitivity for the Arts. Therefore, Tragedy is a rite of passage from Man to Satyr to God (hero who is cheerful in adversity); then the vision is complete.

According to Nietzsche-although the Germans have succumbed to "Socratic Optimism" and predominantly guided by concepts-there are still some vestiges of the true German spirit, which lies deep within an abyss dreaming in glorious 'Dionysian strength, like a knight sunk in slumber'. This is the myth of Sigfried used in Wagner's Ring. However, this also elicits the myth of Endymion whose immortality-granted by the gods-reaches a state of final atonement by spending all of eternity sleeping. Perhaps, Nietzsche is being more critical of the Germans than he appears to be.

Socrates, speaking as a Philosopher, proposed that the mind perceives the truth of the world, but the body is an encumbrance acting as fetters to the mind and higher pursuits (See The Last Days of Socrates by Plato). Therefore, Socrates freed his mind (a priori) to discern the true nature of reality from mere appearance; thus, he became the first theoretical man. Everything that exists satisfies him; he never suffers from pessimism-upon uncovering the truth, there are still more layers of undiscovered wisdom, which saves him so "through his own efforts" he succeeds. Socratic philosophy instills an insatiable hunger for knowledge in its disciples-exploring and fathoming nature ad infinitum becomes an end in itself-Science becomes Art. Socrates' influence upon the neophyte, Plato, was quite profound; hence, the entire world has adopted causality as the one true god. The individual is enshrined within a realm of solvable problems from which predictability becomes the god. There is rapture with scientific discovery and inquiry. There is a transition from man to mind, however, the mind must transcend the body in order to commune with nature and divine the truths of the world, which are highly abstract. When truth is uncovered, one experiences rapture (i.e., a gift from Apollo) and becomes a god.

Who is the wisest man of all-it is Nietzsche.

The ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche has had considerable influence on much of twentieth century philosophy and other areas as well. Indeed, the modern dance technique of Doris Humphrey is one of the many, and was taken to be based on his distinction between the Apollinian and Dionysian duality. Walter Kaufmann, the translator and commentator of this book, has given the reader a distinct view of Nietzsche in two of his works, the "Birth of Tragedy" being his first, and one of his last, "The Case of Wagner".

Nietzsche was one of the few philosophers who engaged in self-criticism, and is the most honest of all philosophers who took to the pen. This is indeed manifest in his "Attempt at a Self-Criticism", which was added to the 1886 edition of "The Birth of Tragedy". Nietzsche attempted to view the nature of truth without any masks, and his need to do this resulted in his works perhaps being more of a dialog with himself than with his readers. With every line written, Nietzsche was making sure that he himself was convinced of what was put down on paper. But this must at all times be done without "arresting the play" and negating the "terrors of existence".

Kaufmann represents "The Birth of Tragedy" as a work that allowed Nietzsche to justify his appointment to a full chair of philology at the young age of 25, but also a book that would not appeal to anyone in German academic circles. It would appear that Nietzsche was determined to remain independent, and not become intoxicated with the "prestige" of being appointed to such a position at such an early age. Nietzsche's later criticism of his own work would seem to justify this interpretation. This total intellectual honesty of Nietzsche is unique in the history of philosophy.

What is most valuable about "The Birth of Tragedy" is its restatement of Greek life and culture, which up to Nietzsche's time was conceived in terms of the "Winckelmann view" according to Kaufmann. The "noble simplicity, calm grandeur" of Goethe and the "sweetness and light" of Matthew Arnold were the appropriate adjectives for Greek culture. But Nietzsche brought in the Dionysian festivals, as another aspect of it, and its longing, in the words of Kaufmann, to "exceed all norms". This insight of Nietzsche has wide-ranging applications, for it points to the need of all cultures, and thus all individuals, to at times attend the Dionysian festival and get out of equilibrium, remain for awhile off-balance, and get intoxicated with the dance of unreason.

But with intellectual honesty towards oneself comes the same for others, and Nietzsche did not hesitate to depart with friends when there was conflict with this honesty. Thus Nietzsche wrote "The Case of Wagner", a very damning indictment against his former friend Richard Wagner, and a book which Nietzsche subtitled "A Musician's Problem". Nietzsche describes his reasons for writing at it as a consequence of a "special self-discipline: to take sides against everything sick in me". This included Wagner, Schopenhauer, and all of what Nietzsche called "modern humaneness". According to Nietzsche, Wagner was just one of his sicknesses. But sickness can be a stimulant to life, he says, but only if one is healthy enough for this stimulant.

So what about Wagner bothered Nietzsche? It was the fact in Nietzsche's view, Wagner's music was nongenuine. Wagner was an "actor in music", according to Nietzsche, and a lack of honesty or genuineness was intolerable to Nietzsche. The integrity and "authenticity" of musicians has never been put to the test so dangerously, he says. Wagner's music is a sign of a declining culture, and in such a culture, believed Nietzsche, authenticity becomes superfluous and a liability. Thus the passion that Wagner's music instilled in people, and the boredom it alleviated in orchestra musicians, was more of a sign of decadence, rather than achievement. It was an attempt to "arrest the flow", to negate the original "difficulty of life", and this, in Nietzsche's view, was its essential crime, a crime that Christianity and other forms of decadence also committed. The ninth part of the book ends with the following lines which make Nietzsche's Wagnerian complaint particularly manifest: "That the theatre should not lord it over the arts. That the actor should not seduce those who are authentic. That music should not become an art of lying. "

I read this book for a graduate seminar on the philosophy of art. Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy" and "On The Genealogy of Morality" begin to shape or force the latter character of his thought, which is an affirmation of life. An affirmation of life, even with its tragic character rather than an affirmation of life without tragedy. Nietzsche agrees with Schopenhauer about the nature of reality being dark. He accepts Plato's characterization about tragedy, but affirms tragedy instead of wanting to ban it like Plato argued for in his "Republic." He rejects Aristotle' formalism, Nietzsche rejects Kant's notion of disinterest, and its life denying implications, the whole idea that you have to be disinterested in art is a complete contradiction of the vitality of art. It betrays a kind of life denying implication, if the point of art is to find a zone to turn off ones interests, then why would you think that, that is valuable. Why would someone think that that is a good thing? Nietzsche accepts the idea of genius and like Hegel, although not in the same way as Hegel, Nietzsche elevates art to a high level, by saying that art and reality mirror each other, in that art is a kind of forming formlessness and that is the way reality is. Nietzsche had a big influence on 20th century art.

Nietzsche unlike Aristotle insists on a religious component in tragedy, the two main Greek myth currents is Apollo and Dionysus. By associating these two religious sects with tragedy, it is more historically true for Nietzsche. He observes Greek tragedy and Dionysian religion and its character. The image of Greek culture was one of being measured and civilized, however Nietzsche sees the Dionysian religion was dark and violent and irrational as well. Tragedies were performed at Dionysian festivals it is a "nature" based religion, celebrating the cycle of life, both birth and death. The world is like a restaurant, all living things live off other living things. Dionysian rites probably included animal sacrifices, maybe human as well. Dionysus was an unusual deity in Greece; he was the only one to suffer death and to be brought back to life, unlike other Olympian deities. Dionysian religion was very popular in Greece; Apollonian religion was very popular as well. Nietzsche says tragedy has something to do with Dionysius religions dark side.

One of the best sources of the Dionysian religion is Euripides in the "Bacchae." There is some question about his intent in writing the "Bacchae." Euripides turns against his Greek tragic tradition by showing the Greeks the absurdities and ironies in their tragic tradition with his plays, which also essentially recommend that Greeks turn away from their form of tragedy. Euripidean heroes are usually rebelling against the state rather than accommodating it. However, the "Bacchae" is an unusual play because it seems to be just the kind of portrayal of the Dionysian religion. It is a tragic satire of Dionysian religion by presenting its absurdities.

Nietzsche's point is that there is something very different about tragedies, they have measured constructions of beauty and form, and Aristotle is very good at pointing that out. Greek tragedys are not chaotic not just wild abandonment, they are beautifully constructed artistic works with plots and characters and story lines. This is often misunderstood, for Nietzsche Greek tragedy is not a purely Dionysian phenomenon. Apollo, the Apollonian religion is equally important to understand tragedy, and in fact, it is the Apollonian part that makes tragedy for Nietzsche not a life of pessimism art form. You could say the Dionysian and Apollonian religions were two powerful forces that are very different from each other. Nietzsche said they had different manifestations and often looked on each other with antagonism. Dionysian religion and Christianity has similarities, the dying God, sacrament of eating and drinking of the body. Nietzsche's tragic hero is done in by faith, for both. Big difference for Christianity is the resurrection. Nietzsche believes that what makes Greek tragedy special is that it is a joining of these two forces, the Apollonian form in representing measured power and the darker undoing power of the Dionysian religion.

Apollo represents form and Dionysus formlessness. Apollonian form is an artistic phenomenon it is not a rational form. Sometimes people read the Apollonian as a rational principle, but they do this because Socrates comes on the scene who represents what Plato wanted. The overcoming of the tragic by way of the conscious reflection and rational principles and so on. The Apollonian is always an artistic sensuous produced form. The Dionysian is the impulse to self-transcendence and by self-transcendence Nietzsche means the Greek word ecstasy, which literally means to stand outside oneself. It would be proper therefore to say that the Dionysian experiences were ecstatic in the literal sense because there was a loss of individualization a loss of self-consciousness and an emersion in these powerful natural forces. Therefore, the whole point of the Dionysian religion was to overcome the self. You can see that eroticism and killing are two forms of dismemberment. Killing is obviously the termination of life, but as every human cultural knows, the power of the erotic has its own kind of dismembering force in that it is a natural force that can easily undue the culture. Sex is always an enemy in some respects, and yet, no sex, no culture. The erotic is a natural force and all cultures have recognized the power of the erotic as a powerfully disintegrating force. It can lead people to abandon all decorum and measure and responsibility. Therefore, sex, birth, and death are the Dionysian religion in a nutshell. Dionysian's would argue no sex no culture, so why not give cultural expression to power of sex. This releases pent up depression. Nietzsche wants to understand tragedy as interdependent, yet the form of the one religion is dependent of the other religion. Dionysian part and Apollonian part are together in tragedy, but with dark theme but no wholly chaotic art form. Tragedy represents reconciling of the two religions. Nietzsche's point is we truly don't understand what tragedy meant to the Greeks. It wasn't simply a dark story of destruction. It had religious connotations.

From this religious cultural analysis, Nietzsche wants to form an art theory. In Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy" he sees things in the Greek world having a stimulus of thought starting philosophy. Regeneration of art world, was he thought, found in Richard Wagner's music. Nietzsche is a life philosopher. Nietzsche believes there is some life force tapped into by the creative person. Artists are "touched" by a force. Dionysian religion is a bit of this you lose yourself and are given over to something more powerful like Nietzsche's life force. Creativity has to be a little abnormal or as Nietzsche says dissatisfaction with the normal. Nietzsche argued that philosophy should contain artistic elements. One of the messages of Nietzsche's philosophy is that the problem arose when philosophy came on the scene and tried to organize and govern everything by rational concepts and methods and reflection and categorization and demonstration and logical arguments. That is the reason why Socrates and Plato found tragedy so offensive, so unwieldy and such a stimulation. But then again Nietzsche asks the question, before I get on board with this plan to overcome these terrible forces, I want to know why its so terrible, this is his constant method, which is to ask, prove to me why tragedy has to give way to philosophy. Part of Nietzsche's approach to philosophy itself is that philosophy should contain artistic elements. This is the reason for his writing style, which are elusive and not straightforward argumentations.

Remember, Schopenhauer who influenced Nietzsche's thinking said the ultimate nature of will is this formless chaotic energy, that we strive for meaning that we have here and there but in the end it is all taken away from us and that is the end of it and that is why life is meaningless. However, Nietzsche says the fact that the Greeks had this very same insight but did not turn away from life should not have been a puzzle to Schopenhauer it should have made Schopenhauer question his own argument. Instead, Schopenhauer argued that the Greeks didn't realize the full impact of tragic insight, they were naive. Nietzsche thought Schopenhauer was wrong about tragedy. Schopenhauer thought tragedy was a necessary insight into meaninglessness, which would lead to resignation. That is why the Apollonian is so important for Nietzsche; the Apollonian is what saves the human spirit from disintegration. Therefore, art has this saving power. However, the fact that the Greeks had in one form in tragedy, the two forces of Apollo and Dionysus interests Nietzsche. On the one hand, they recognize the limits of things, in the other hand they delighted in the artistic orientation of this dark story. How can there be pleasure from dark themes in art, in a way Nietzsche is giving his own version of it, for him it is inherently life affirming to actually render the dark in artistic form. There is a difference between coming to the insight that life is meaningless, and then saying that now guides all my thinking and all my dispositions. The very fact of tragedy as an artistic form is life saving element for the Greeks. The curious thing is that the Greeks could enjoy these tragic performances and yet the message was dark.

Therefore, it is important to note that Nietzsche insists that the Apollonian and Dionysian dyad are a characteristic of reality. One by themselves is not real. Form is by itself just an allusion of formal structure; an allusion of formal structure is what so many philosophers wanted, eternal being eternal structures, timeless truths that would be form. Formlessness by itself is too chaotic, no culture, no art, no creativity. Nietzsche was always a philosopher of culture, always pointing to his German culture that he thought needed to be renewed and revived. Nietzsche recognizes the force and reality of wildness, but it is the two together that make human life, the wild, and the cultured, both are unavoidable dualities the Apollonian and Dionysian. Greek tragedy brought them into focus; his philosophy tries to work from that and he says, yes that is how we should see existence.

So poetry and tragedy are both pre-conceptual artforms that start culture, no culture starts with philosophy, conceptual formations and definitions and axioms and truths. Culture begin with religion and art forms and habit and things that are not clarifying with conceptual structure. They have life to them and a culture lives them out. Although he values philosophy as higher form of thinking, he always insists that philosophy can't alienate itself from pre-conceptual world of art, (poetry), which he certainly thought Plato was saying when he wanted to ban poetry. Nietzsche would say there is an infinite relationship between poetry and philosophy and that means that those who might want to distinguish philosophy with having a higher value than just poetry are wrong. He thinks it is wrong that you can have a pure conceptual procedure on the one hand and have anything of deep value or that you can simply have a poetic genre on one hand all by itself. Thinking is important, not just poeticizing. However, Nietzsche argues we must have thinking with poeticizing.

I recommend this work for anyone interested in Nietzschean philosophy, philosophy of art, Greek tragedy, culture, and history.

A strange combination, representing many polarizing dichotomies in Friedrich's career. They were his first major work and his last major work, his most serious and academic piece and his most polemical and personal, one in praise of Wagner and of course one against Wagner.

The Birth of Tragedy along with THE WILL TO POWER, are the two books of Nietzsche one is most likely to go awry with in estimating his beliefs. In the case of the TWTP the problem is it was never intended to be published in the first place and was merely strewn together notes that his sister manipulated to make it look like he supported policies and ideas that the rest of his works clearly show he didn't. THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY, on the other hand was intended to be published, but Nietzsche spent nearly the rest of his professional life trying to refute what he had himself put down in this work. Nietzsche says in the book THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS, "We beat those dogs we love most." Nietzsche loved himself most apparently, because there was no other person he really tried to bring down and overcome then he did his own earlier self. The self that believed in Schopenhauer's philosophy and the pessimistic Germanic Apollonian ideal he thought was represented in Wagner.

So the BOT should be underscored in its importance in regards to using it as a way of understanding Nietzsche's philosophy as he wanted it to be seen. It still has importance in other ways. It outlines the progression of Nietzsche's early thought and his starting influences. It lays out some terms and ideas that would still hold some semblance of importance in his later philosophy. The Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy comes to mind. Although he doesn't always use the dichotomy in the same way he does in this book, he does generally use and tout the merits of Dionysus in the same way that he does here. This book along with samplings from his other works went on to influence literary analysis in ancient Greek culture and some of his suggestions were taken very seriously in this regard at the starting point of the last century. I also think it was amusing to see Nietzsche playing the part of the serious academic. It is such a strange thing to see him use that writing style when you have read his later works first.

The book has its problems, but Nietzsche himself knew that. His updated forward showed his general disdain towards his introductory text and his early influences. This also led into what would be the last thing Nietzsche wrote before becoming a convalescent, THE CASE OF WAGNER.

THE CASE OF WAGNER, is extremely small and understated. I think that Nietzsche wasn't nearly as insulting to his old mentor in this as he had been in other books and to other figures in those books. It was inoffensive enough to be a eulogy to some extent. He doesn't really present any new ideas or criticisms against Wagner, it seems he just wants to make his break with Wagner as official as possible.

In some ways the essay shows how in tandem with his first work he had come full circle. Nietzsche had lost the stylistic grace he had in his middle period and wrote similarly to the way he did in his first book. The dichotomies emerged and closed with these works in a way that almost makes it seem orchestrated. Did that little demon plan TCOW to be his last work, much like his first and yet showing his key differences? The world may never know...

I read this book for a graduate seminar on the philosophy of art. Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy" and "On The Genealogy of Morality" begin to shape or force the latter character of his thought, which is an affirmation of life. An affirmation of life, even with its tragic character rather than an affirmation of life without tragedy. Nietzsche agrees with Schopenhauer about the nature of reality being dark. He accepts Plato's characterization about tragedy, but affirms tragedy instead of wanting to ban it like Plato argued for in his "Republic." He rejects Aristotle' formalism, Nietzsche rejects Kant's notion of disinterest, and its life denying implications, the whole idea that you have to be disinterested in art is a complete contradiction of the vitality of art. It betrays a kind of life denying implication, if the point of art is to find a zone to turn off ones interests, then why would you think that, that is valuable. Why would someone think that that is a good thing? Nietzsche accepts the idea of genius and like Hegel, although not in the same way as Hegel, Nietzsche elevates art to a high level, by saying that art and reality mirror each other, in that art is a kind of forming formlessness and that is the way reality is. Nietzsche had a big influence on 20th century art.

Nietzsche unlike Aristotle insists on a religious component in tragedy, the two main Greek myth currents is Apollo and Dionysus. By associating these two religious sects with tragedy, it is more historically true for Nietzsche. He observes Greek tragedy and Dionysian religion and its character. The image of Greek culture was one of being measured and civilized, however Nietzsche sees the Dionysian religion was dark and violent and irrational as well. Tragedies were performed at Dionysian festivals it is a "nature" based religion, celebrating the cycle of life, both birth and death. The world is like a restaurant, all living things live off other living things. Dionysian rites probably included animal sacrifices, maybe human as well. Dionysus was an unusual deity in Greece; he was the only one to suffer death and to be brought back to life, unlike other Olympian deities. Dionysian religion was very popular in Greece; Apollonian religion was very popular as well. Nietzsche says tragedy has something to do with Dionysius religions dark side.

One of the best sources of the Dionysian religion is Euripides in the "Bacchae." There is some question about his intent in writing the "Bacchae." Euripides turns against his Greek tragic tradition by showing the Greeks the absurdities and ironies in their tragic tradition with his plays, which also essentially recommend that Greeks turn away from their form of tragedy. Euripidean heroes are usually rebelling against the state rather than accommodating it. However, the "Bacchae" is an unusual play because it seems to be just the kind of portrayal of the Dionysian religion. It is a tragic satire of Dionysian religion by presenting its absurdities.

Nietzsche's point is that there is something very different about tragedies, they have measured constructions of beauty and form, and Aristotle is very good at pointing that out. Greek tragedys are not chaotic not just wild abandonment, they are beautifully constructed artistic works with plots and characters and story lines. This is often misunderstood, for Nietzsche Greek tragedy is not a purely Dionysian phenomenon. Apollo, the Apollonian religion is equally important to understand tragedy, and in fact, it is the Apollonian part that makes tragedy for Nietzsche not a life of pessimism art form. You could say the Dionysian and Apollonian religions were two powerful forces that are very different from each other. Nietzsche said they had different manifestations and often looked on each other with antagonism. Dionysian religion and Christianity has similarities, the dying God, sacrament of eating and drinking of the body. Nietzsche's tragic hero is done in by faith, for both. Big difference for Christianity is the resurrection. Nietzsche believes that what makes Greek tragedy special is that it is a joining of these two forces, the Apollonian form in representing measured power and the darker undoing power of the Dionysian religion.

Apollo represents form and Dionysus formlessness. Apollonian form is an artistic phenomenon it is not a rational form. Sometimes people read the Apollonian as a rational principle, but they do this because Socrates comes on the scene who represents what Plato wanted. The overcoming of the tragic by way of the conscious reflection and rational principles and so on. The Apollonian is always an artistic sensuous produced form. The Dionysian is the impulse to self-transcendence and by self-transcendence Nietzsche means the Greek word ecstasy, which literally means to stand outside oneself. It would be proper therefore to say that the Dionysian experiences were ecstatic in the literal sense because there was a loss of individualization a loss of self-consciousness and an emersion in these powerful natural forces. Therefore, the whole point of the Dionysian religion was to overcome the self. You can see that eroticism and killing are two forms of dismemberment. Killing is obviously the termination of life, but as every human cultural knows, the power of the erotic has its own kind of dismembering force in that it is a natural force that can easily undue the culture. Sex is always an enemy in some respects, and yet, no sex, no culture. The erotic is a natural force and all cultures have recognized the power of the erotic as a powerfully disintegrating force. It can lead people to abandon all decorum and measure and responsibility. Therefore, sex, birth, and death are the Dionysian religion in a nutshell. Dionysian's would argue no sex no culture, so why not give cultural expression to power of sex. This releases pent up depression. Nietzsche wants to understand tragedy as interdependent, yet the form of the one religion is dependent of the other religion. Dionysian part and Apollonian part are together in tragedy, but with dark theme but no wholly chaotic art form. Tragedy represents reconciling of the two religions. Nietzsche's point is we truly don't understand what tragedy meant to the Greeks. It wasn't simply a dark story of destruction. It had religious connotations.

From this religious cultural analysis, Nietzsche wants to form an art theory. In Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy" he sees things in the Greek world having a stimulus of thought starting philosophy. Regeneration of art world, was he thought, found in Richard Wagner's music. Nietzsche is a life philosopher. Nietzsche believes there is some life force tapped into by the creative person. Artists are "touched" by a force. Dionysian religion is a bit of this you lose yourself and are given over to something more powerful like Nietzsche's life force. Creativity has to be a little abnormal or as Nietzsche says dissatisfaction with the normal. Nietzsche argued that philosophy should contain artistic elements. One of the messages of Nietzsche's philosophy is that the problem arose when philosophy came on the scene and tried to organize and govern everything by rational concepts and methods and reflection and categorization and demonstration and logical arguments. That is the reason why Socrates and Plato found tragedy so offensive, so unwieldy and such a stimulation. But then again Nietzsche asks the question, before I get on board with this plan to overcome these terrible forces, I want to know why its so terrible, this is his constant method, which is to ask, prove to me why tragedy has to give way to philosophy. Part of Nietzsche's approach to philosophy itself is that philosophy should contain artistic elements. This is the reason for his writing style, which are elusive and not straightforward argumentations.

Remember, Schopenhauer who influenced Nietzsche's thinking said the ultimate nature of will is this formless chaotic energy, that we strive for meaning that we have here and there but in the end it is all taken away from us and that is the end of it and that is why life is meaningless. However, Nietzsche says the fact that the Greeks had this very same insight but did not turn away from life should not have been a puzzle to Schopenhauer it should have made Schopenhauer question his own argument. Instead, Schopenhauer argued that the Greeks didn't realize the full impact of tragic insight, they were naive. Nietzsche thought Schopenhauer was wrong about tragedy. Schopenhauer thought tragedy was a necessary insight into meaninglessness, which would lead to resignation. That is why the Apollonian is so important for Nietzsche; the Apollonian is what saves the human spirit from disintegration. Therefore, art has this saving power. However, the fact that the Greeks had in one form in tragedy, the two forces of Apollo and Dionysus interests Nietzsche. On the one hand, they recognize the limits of things, in the other hand they delighted in the artistic orientation of this dark story. How can there be pleasure from dark themes in art, in a way Nietzsche is giving his own version of it, for him it is inherently life affirming to actually render the dark in artistic form. There is a difference between coming to the insight that life is meaningless, and then saying that now guides all my thinking and all my dispositions. The very fact of tragedy as an artistic form is life saving element for the Greeks. The curious thing is that the Greeks could enjoy these tragic performances and yet the message was dark.

Therefore, it is important to note that Nietzsche insists that the Apollonian and Dionysian dyad are a characteristic of reality. One by themselves is not real. Form is by itself just an allusion of formal structure; an allusion of formal structure is what so many philosophers wanted, eternal being eternal structures, timeless truths that would be form. Formlessness by itself is too chaotic, no culture, no art, no creativity. Nietzsche was always a philosopher of culture, always pointing to his German culture that he thought needed to be renewed and revived. Nietzsche recognizes the force and reality of wildness, but it is the two together that make human life, the wild, and the cultured, both are unavoidable dualities the Apollonian and Dionysian. Greek tragedy brought them into focus; his philosophy tries to work from that and he says, yes that is how we should see existence.

So poetry and tragedy are both pre-conceptual artforms that start culture, no culture starts with philosophy, conceptual formations and definitions and axioms and truths. Culture begin with religion and art forms and habit and things that are not clarifying with conceptual structure. They have life to them and a culture lives them out. Although he values philosophy as higher form of thinking, he always insists that philosophy can't alienate itself from pre-conceptual world of art, (poetry), which he certainly thought Plato was saying when he wanted to ban poetry. Nietzsche would say there is an infinite relationship between poetry and philosophy and that means that those who might want to distinguish philosophy with having a higher value than just poetry are wrong. He thinks it is wrong that you can have a pure conceptual procedure on the one hand and have anything of deep value or that you can simply have a poetic genre on one hand all by itself. Thinking is important, not just poeticizing. However, Nietzsche argues we must have thinking with poeticizing.

I recommend this work for anyone interested in Nietzschean philosophy, philosophy of art, Greek tragedy, culture, and history.

I read this book for a graduate seminar on the philosophy of art. Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy" and "On The Genealogy of Morality" begin to shape or force the latter character of his thought, which is an affirmation of life. An affirmation of life, even with its tragic character rather than an affirmation of life without tragedy. Nietzsche agrees with Schopenhauer about the nature of reality being dark. He accepts Plato's characterization about tragedy, but affirms tragedy instead of wanting to ban it like Plato argued for in his "Republic." He rejects Aristotle' formalism, Nietzsche rejects Kant's notion of disinterest, and its life denying implications, the whole idea that you have to be disinterested in art is a complete contradiction of the vitality of art. It betrays a kind of life denying implication, if the point of art is to find a zone to turn off ones interests, then why would you think that, that is valuable. Why would someone think that that is a good thing? Nietzsche accepts the idea of genius and like Hegel, although not in the same way as Hegel, Nietzsche elevates art to a high level, by saying that art and reality mirror each other, in that art is a kind of forming formlessness and that is the way reality is. Nietzsche had a big influence on 20th century art.

Nietzsche unlike Aristotle insists on a religious component in tragedy, the two main Greek myth currents is Apollo and Dionysus. By associating these two religious sects with tragedy, it is more historically true for Nietzsche. He observes Greek tragedy and Dionysian religion and its character. The image of Greek culture was one of being measured and civilized, however Nietzsche sees the Dionysian religion was dark and violent and irrational as well. Tragedies were performed at Dionysian festivals it is a "nature" based religion, celebrating the cycle of life, both birth and death. The world is like a restaurant, all living things live off other living things. Dionysian rites probably included animal sacrifices, maybe human as well. Dionysus was an unusual deity in Greece; he was the only one to suffer death and to be brought back to life, unlike other Olympian deities. Dionysian religion was very popular in Greece; Apollonian religion was very popular as well. Nietzsche says tragedy has something to do with Dionysius religions dark side.

One of the best sources of the Dionysian religion is Euripides in the "Bacchae." There is some question about his intent in writing the "Bacchae." Euripides turns against his Greek tragic tradition by showing the Greeks the absurdities and ironies in their tragic tradition with his plays, which also essentially recommend that Greeks turn away from their form of tragedy. Euripidean heroes are usually rebelling against the state rather than accommodating it. However, the "Bacchae" is an unusual play because it seems to be just the kind of portrayal of the Dionysian religion. It is a tragic satire of Dionysian religion by presenting its absurdities.

Nietzsche's point is that there is something very different about tragedies, they have measured constructions of beauty and form, and Aristotle is very good at pointing that out. Greek tragedys are not chaotic not just wild abandonment, they are beautifully constructed artistic works with plots and characters and story lines. This is often misunderstood, for Nietzsche Greek tragedy is not a purely Dionysian phenomenon. Apollo, the Apollonian religion is equally important to understand tragedy, and in fact, it is the Apollonian part that makes tragedy for Nietzsche not a life of pessimism art form. You could say the Dionysian and Apollonian religions were two powerful forces that are very different from each other. Nietzsche said they had different manifestations and often looked on each other with antagonism. Dionysian religion and Christianity has similarities, the dying God, sacrament of eating and drinking of the body. Nietzsche's tragic hero is done in by faith, for both. Big difference for Christianity is the resurrection. Nietzsche believes that what makes Greek tragedy special is that it is a joining of these two forces, the Apollonian form in representing measured power and the darker undoing power of the Dionysian religion.

Apollo represents form and Dionysus formlessness. Apollonian form is an artistic phenomenon it is not a rational form. Sometimes people read the Apollonian as a rational principle, but they do this because Socrates comes on the scene who represents what Plato wanted. The overcoming of the tragic by way of the conscious reflection and rational principles and so on. The Apollonian is always an artistic sensuous produced form. The Dionysian is the impulse to self-transcendence and by self-transcendence Nietzsche means the Greek word ecstasy, which literally means to stand outside oneself. It would be proper therefore to say that the Dionysian experiences were ecstatic in the literal sense because there was a loss of individualization a loss of self-consciousness and an emersion in these powerful natural forces. Therefore, the whole point of the Dionysian religion was to overcome the self. You can see that eroticism and killing are two forms of dismemberment. Killing is obviously the termination of life, but as every human cultural knows, the power of the erotic has its own kind of dismembering force in that it is a natural force that can easily undue the culture. Sex is always an enemy in some respects, and yet, no sex, no culture. The erotic is a natural force and all cultures have recognized the power of the erotic as a powerfully disintegrating force. It can lead people to abandon all decorum and measure and responsibility. Therefore, sex, birth, and death are the Dionysian religion in a nutshell. Dionysian's would argue no sex no culture, so why not give cultural expression to power of sex. This releases pent up depression. Nietzsche wants to understand tragedy as interdependent, yet the form of the one religion is dependent of the other religion. Dionysian part and Apollonian part are together in tragedy, but with dark theme but no wholly chaotic art form. Tragedy represents reconciling of the two religions. Nietzsche's point is we truly don't understand what tragedy meant to the Greeks. It wasn't simply a dark story of destruction. It had religious connotations.

From this religious cultural analysis, Nietzsche wants to form an art theory. In Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy" he sees things in the Greek world having a stimulus of thought starting philosophy. Regeneration of art world, was he thought, found in Richard Wagner's music. Nietzsche is a life philosopher. Nietzsche believes there is some life force tapped into by the creative person. Artists are "touched" by a force. Dionysian religion is a bit of this you lose yourself and are given over to something more powerful like Nietzsche's life force. Creativity has to be a little abnormal or as Nietzsche says dissatisfaction with the normal. Nietzsche argued that philosophy should contain artistic elements. One of the messages of Nietzsche's philosophy is that the problem arose when philosophy came on the scene and tried to organize and govern everything by rational concepts and methods and reflection and categorization and demonstration and logical arguments. That is the reason why Socrates and Plato found tragedy so offensive, so unwieldy and such a stimulation. But then again Nietzsche asks the question, before I get on board with this plan to overcome these terrible forces, I want to know why its so terrible, this is his constant method, which is to ask, prove to me why tragedy has to give way to philosophy. Part of Nietzsche's approach to philosophy itself is that philosophy should contain artistic elements. This is the reason for his writing style, which are elusive and not straightforward argumentations.

Remember, Schopenhauer who influenced Nietzsche's thinking said the ultimate nature of will is this formless chaotic energy, that we strive for meaning that we have here and there but in the end it is all taken away from us and that is the end of it and that is why life is meaningless. However, Nietzsche says the fact that the Greeks had this very same insight but did not turn away from life should not have been a puzzle to Schopenhauer it should have made Schopenhauer question his own argument. Instead, Schopenhauer argued that the Greeks didn't realize the full impact of tragic insight, they were naive. Nietzsche thought Schopenhauer was wrong about tragedy. Schopenhauer thought tragedy was a necessary insight into meaninglessness, which would lead to resignation. That is why the Apollonian is so important for Nietzsche; the Apollonian is what saves the human spirit from disintegration. Therefore, art has this saving power. However, the fact that the Greeks had in one form in tragedy, the two forces of Apollo and Dionysus interests Nietzsche. On the one hand, they recognize the limits of things, in the other hand they delighted in the artistic orientation of this dark story. How can there be pleasure from dark themes in art, in a way Nietzsche is giving his own version of it, for him it is inherently life affirming to actually render the dark in artistic form. There is a difference between coming to the insight that life is meaningless, and then saying that now guides all my thinking and all my dispositions. The very fact of tragedy as an artistic form is life saving element for the Greeks. The curious thing is that the Greeks could enjoy these tragic performances and yet the message was dark.

Therefore, it is important to note that Nietzsche insists that the Apollonian and Dionysian dyad are a characteristic of reality. One by themselves is not real. Form is by itself just an allusion of formal structure; an allusion of formal structure is what so many philosophers wanted, eternal being eternal structures, timeless truths that would be form. Formlessness by itself is too chaotic, no culture, no art, no creativity. Nietzsche was always a philosopher of culture, always pointing to his German culture that he thought needed to be renewed and revived. Nietzsche recognizes the force and reality of wildness, but it is the two together that make human life, the wild, and the cultured, both are unavoidable dualities the Apollonian and Dionysian. Greek tragedy brought them into focus; his philosophy tries to work from that and he says, yes that is how we should see existence.

So poetry and tragedy are both pre-conceptual artforms that start culture, no culture starts with philosophy, conceptual formations and definitions and axioms and truths. Culture begin with religion and art forms and habit and things that are not clarifying with conceptual structure. They have life to them and a culture lives them out. Although he values philosophy as higher form of thinking, he always insists that philosophy can't alienate itself from pre-conceptual world of art, (poetry), which he certainly thought Plato was saying when he wanted to ban poetry. Nietzsche would say there is an infinite relationship between poetry and philosophy and that means that those who might want to distinguish philosophy with having a higher value than just poetry are wrong. He thinks it is wrong that you can have a pure conceptual procedure on the one hand and have anything of deep value or that you can simply have a poetic genre on one hand all by itself. Thinking is important, not just poeticizing. However, Nietzsche argues we must have thinking with poeticizing.

I recommend this work for anyone interested in Nietzschean philosophy, philosophy of art, Greek tragedy, culture, and history.

.
The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche's first book. Why have I read it? Three reasons. One, I am studying ancient Greek culture. Secondly, I love to learn anything from mysticism, spiritual and Eastern thought, psychology and philosophy and again Grecian thought of Plato, Socrates, Aristophanes, Sophocles and etc. Third, I've always admired Jim Morrison, a Rock singer and poet who was also influenced by Nietzsche, primarily his interpretation of ancient Greek tragedy, more specifically, "The Birth of Tragedy. And so I've read it. Now Walter Kaufman's translation agrees with me and I think it one of the best in understanding and clarity. This book is a great read and answers so many questions and thoughts.

But ultimately I found something I never intended on thinking and it's staring me right in the face with bold assertiveness. I honestly never expected to find this. First Nietzsche does a superb job in slamming the Socratic culture of logic, science and optimism, which I agree, has destroyed the real chaotic nature of true art, the Dionysus nature and that of the real meaning of tragedy. He is right on the money here. "Existence is only justified as an aesthetic phenomenon." Euripides has destroyed the Aeschylean and Sophoclean tragedy into Socratized thinking. The Dionysian element of chaos, of drunkenness and dissolution, of irrational art in it's raw existence is imaged by Apollo and necessary in conceptualization of the fleeting moment of depth that only resides in temporal flow of Dionysus and yet is destroyed by the scientific Socratized analysis. Euripides's plays have adopted such logic, lost the Dionysus, taken the optimism and linguistic clarity in destroying the satyr's chaotic hold of frenzy and creativity found in formless tragedy of music. The Apollonian form is imagery while the Dionysian forms the Apollonian. "Dionysian speaks the language of Apollo, and Apollo, finally the language of Dionysus and so the highest goal of tragedy and all art is obtained." P. 130

All of this, and much more, is brilliant and profound, but then, this now leads to something about German history, and is there in the flagrant words, of Nietzsche who calls for "The rebirth of tragedy," the rebirth of Greek tragedy. Where is this? In the German spirit.

"Out of the Dionysian root of the German spirit a power has arisen which, having nothing in common with the primitive conditions of Socratic culture, can neither be explained nor excused by it, but which is rather felt by this culture as something terribly inexplicable and overwhelming hostile, the German music we must understand it. from Bach to Beethoven, and to Wagner." p. 119

What is this Dionysian root, this power from the German spirit.? Nietzsche symbolically calls it a "demon, " a power one that cannot be easily subdued, and it is rising from the unfathomable depths, which is against the Socratic logic and superficial optimism. And here Nietzsche goes further than music into a Dionysian spirit of German philosophy that he believes transcends the boundaries of Socratic thinking into adrenaline flowed tragic rediscovery, a rebirth of Greek tragedy.

"Let us recollect further that Kant and Schopenhauer made it possible for the spirit of German philosophy, streaming from similar sources to destroy scientific Socratism's complacent delight in existence by establishing its boundaries; how through this delimitation was introduced an infinitely profounder and more serious view of ethical problems and of art, which we may designate as Dionysian wisdom comprised in concepts. . . ." p. 120

In the earlier sections Nietzsche brought home the point that lyrical composition and most certainly concepts of any nature could not contain any shape or form of Dionysian, as it is only found in the raw and creative form of music. And now I find a contradiction, as Nietzsche is telling us of Kant's and Schopenhauer's thoughts to be comprised in Dionysian wisdom. It has now planted the seed for German readers and thinkers.

What this philosphical Dionysian wisdom and the German spirited power of Dionysian music now needs is a new political leader.

"And if the German should hesitantly look around for a leader who might bring him back again into his long lost home whose ways and paths he scarcely knows anymore, let him merely listen to the ecstatically luring call of the Dionysan bird that hovers above him and wants to point the way for him." p. 139

I don't know about you, but this sounds like the Dionysan "furor" to me. A new tragic, ecstatic leader, a non-Socratic leader with charisma and power. Now who later fits this bill?

Just imagine the adrenaline flow as the German people leave their Socratic constraints of logic and enter into their Dionysian nature of power and run down the street and smash the Jewish windows declaring in ecstasy, the Dionysian power of the new German spirit, the rebirth of Greek tragedy. Do you see what I'm leading to here? Real history! Don't get me wrong, please. Nietzsche does not talk hatred, or anti-Semitic, no not at all! But he sets the stage for chaos, for hate to come out of the depths of men and women that already contain Dionysian nature deep inside their non-Socratic nature, the "primitive man" as Nietzsche calls it, when the Apollonian is disregarded and the rational, optimistic Socratic man is destroyed and the Dionysian can come out and "tragedy be reborn."

Don't get me wrong, I think Nietzsche is amazing in his acknowledgment and connection to the real depth of the Dionysian spirit. But do get me right on this; this is dangerous teaching, dangerous enough to let educated people loose their Socratic, scientific nature and enter places they should not be. Nietzsche even writes in a letter 10/8/1868 to Rohide, (p. 120 ftn.) that the dimension of feelings of Wagner's music are greater than the "weak eyes and feeble legs of the educated."

Live life to the fullest without Apollo to conceptualize and form you, which subdues and constrains, and you will most assuredly mis-translate William Blake's words (as Jim Morrison did) in telling us "to live the road to excess." Live Socratic thinking alone, without Dionysus, and you will be destroyed, dead to the aesthetic, inner creative and primordial self. Live Dionysus without Apollo and without Socratic thinking and you will either destroy yourself or those around you.