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Jeremy Huls 18 October 2016 LBRL 422 The Birth of Tragedy and the Development of Culture Nietzsche received a lot of criticism in his life for his first majorly published work, The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music, for both his elevated praise of Richard Wagner and the lack of academic rigor evidenced by his disorganization of concepts, yet the ideas proposed by Nietzsche in this work later inspired scholars and artists alike. He saw Greek tragedy as the ultimate form of art because it captured the entire human through two primordial powers, which he labels as the “Apollonian” and the “Dionysian,” which symbolize competitive yet complementary forces that work together to create art. In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche argues that the culture of his time lacks the emotional values and attitudes that were present in the art of Greek tragedy before the time of Socrates, whom he controversially blames for repressing the Dionysian power through his endless search of the truth, and although the writing itself struggles with issues of clarity and style, it proposes an interesting question in the competing needs for a culture to maintain an identity and its need for connecting with the world around them. The young Nietzsche explored views held by Schopenhauer, mainly how he sees “the Will as essentially evil and the only way out of this suffering and evil is denial of the Will,”1 which inspired his negative attitude

1 Jackson, Roy. Teach yourself Nietzsche. McGraw Hil, UK. 2008. Print.

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towards modernity, and the belief that all forms of art in his time were merely “copies”2 of what was originally produced by the Greeks. The problem for Nietzsche, was that people did not cherish art as much as they did in the past, which is why he saw Richard Wagner as a savior that would revolutionize Germany through his music, based on the ideas he formulated in the essay Art and Revolution, where Wagner described “Drama” as the “’highest conceivable form of art,’ because in its true perfection, it is a union of all the other arts.”3 This impression by Wagner is Nietzsche’s main focus in Birth of Tragedy, which leads to the creation of his “Apollonian” and “Dionysian” models that exemplify this “true perfection” of art. According to Nietzsche, the Apollonian force is characterized primarily by dreams, and the Dionysian by intoxication; the former reinforces the idea of principium individuationis, or individuation, while the other is symbolic of dissolution, or the sense of losing self. Apollo imposes order, reason, and clarity, while its Dionysus instills chaos, frenzy, and uncertainty, and when these powers are combined they illustrate the human condition, which Nietzsche saw to be an art in and of itself. This is clear through his definition on the purpose or need for tragedy by the ancient Greeks, which was to better understand the world both around them and within them, and how a sense of joy arose from the “divine order of terror” which Nietzsche compares to “a rose growing out of thorny bushes;” the interconnected 2 Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music. Trans: Johnston, Ian. Vancouver Island University. Web Accessed. 3 Hollingdale, R.J. Nietzsche. Ark Paperbacks, London. 1985. Print. 64.

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nature of these forces becomes apparent when he further explains that “The same impulse which summons art into life as the seductive replenishment for further living and the completion of existence also gave rise to the Olympian world, in which the Hellenic “Will” held before itself a transfiguring mirror.”4 The Greeks mythologized themselves through the art of drama and tragedy, by having the human sphere of life and the sphere of their divinities actually mirror each other, in effect idealizing an artistic aspect of life that made it worth living. A majority of people in Nietzsche’s time viewed the Greek life as “idyllic,” which suggests that they generally lived happy lives with a care-free attitude, yet Nietzsche believed that they lived “brutal” lives that were “short and full of suffering.”5 He considered the possibility that tragedy itself was a kind of cultural coping mechanism, that allowed people to understand the seemingly contradictory forces of nature in a more balanced way, since he stated “to the Apollonian Greek the effect aroused by the Dionysian also seemed ‘Titanic’ and ‘barbaric.’ But he could not, with that response, conceal that he himself was, nonetheless, at the same time also internally related to those deposed Titans and heroes.”6 Here Nietzsche proposes that all which is “beautiful” and “moderate” would not be able to be known at all if it weren’t for an opposing quality that made their recognition possible. He asserts that the Apollonian power and the 4 Nietzsche. BT, 17. 5 Jackson. 45. 6 Nietzsche. BT, 4.

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Dionysian power are both necessary and desirable, because the Dionysian power is closely related to the primordial essence of nature itself, while the Apollonian power maintains its image and form, thus their synthesis makes reality relatable to the human condition. Nietzsche explains the process of artistic creation through the example of the lyric poet. The lyric poet, similar to the modern idea of a musician, is someone who creates a work of art by tapping into both the Apollonian and Dionysian powers. The lyric poet first invokes Dionysus himself in order to place himself closer to the primordial image of nature that is far removed from his regular conception of reality, by numbing the regular senses via intoxication, so that the artist can then mimic the “primordial oneness,”7 which Nietzsche relates to music. The lyric poet mimics what he sees as plain music, which is not merely the subjective interpretation of the objective art that is reality itself, because it seeks to replicate it naturally without the influence of the “I.”8 After the original music is produced, only then does the lyric poet add images, ideas, and metaphor to the creation, the purpose of which is that “The artist has already surrendered his subjectivity in the Dionysian process; the image which now reveals to him his unity with the heart of the world is a dream scene, which symbolizes that original contradiction and pain, together with the primordial joy in illusion.”9 This means that the origins and purpose of existence cannot be 7 Nietzsche. BT, 5. 8 Nietzsche. BT, 5. 9 Nietzsche. BT, 5.

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deduced by reason alone, instead it requires a dissolution of the senses, in order to contemplate the primordial state of being. Early in the text, he Birth of Tragedy proclaims that “art — and not morality — was the essential metaphysical human activity; in the book itself there appears many times over the suggestive statement that the existence of the world is justified only as an aesthetic phenomenon,”10 which illustrates Nietzsche’s disinterest in any kind of “God” in the moral sense. He elucidates on this meaning in the introduction of the 1886 revision, where he mentions he does believe in some kind of “amoral artist God,” who seeks to know itself “in creation and destruction; good and evil,”11 as a way of describing the seemingly contradictory nature of existence itself, through the interaction between Apollonian and Dionysian powers. He further explains that “the world is at every moment the attained redemption of God, as the eternally changing, eternally new vision of the one who suffers most, who is the most rent with contradictions, the most inconsistent, who knows how to save himself only in appearances,”12 meaning that reality itself is created by fluctuating forces that do not fit into a moral model of existence; the Dionysian force is metaphorical for the ever-changing, fluctuating nature of time and space, and the Apollonian force then is metaphorical for the need to maintain an individuated counter-force capable of preserving itself against the Dionysian current of dissolution. The combination of these 10 Nietzsche. “An Attempt at Self Criticism.” BT, 5. 11 Nietzsche. “An Attempt… 5. 12 Nietzsche. “An Attempt…” 5.

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energies originated in art, which Nietzsche also believed to be a reflection of nature. The Greek tragedies written by Sophocles and Aeschylus were perceived by Nietzsche as the best representations of the Apollonian and Dionysian interplay that made Greek tragedy as great as it was. Euripides, on the other hand, was criticized by Nietzsche on the account that he drastically changed the structure of Greek tragedy, since he “rid Greek drama of the role of the chorus, the Dionysian element.”13 Before Euripides became popular, the chorus in Greek tragedy was separate from the main stage, which was symbolic of the primordial Dionysian world being strange and foreign to the Apollonian characters that act out the play. The members of the chorus itself were also originally satyrs, the half-man half-goat creatures that where the male followers of Dionysus, and are symbolic of wildness, licentiousness, irrationality, and the “primordial image of man,”14 which was later almost completely ignored by Euripides. Nietzsche thought that Euripides feared the irrational by limiting the role of the chorus, which was the turning point that pushed Greece towards becoming a dominantly Apollonian culture. Rationality, paired with reason, were the catalysts for the fall of classic Greek tragedy according to Nietzsche, but he did not believe Euripides alone was responsible for the change. The most controversial aspect of Birth of Tragedy, is the harsh attack on Socrates that Nietzsche instigates. To him, the Socratic way of life is “the 13 Jackson. 48. 14 Nietzsche. BT, 8.

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most honest theoretical man, ventured to state that for him the search for the truth counted for more than truth itself,”15 which is where Nietzsche formulates the idea of the “theoretical man.” This “theoretical man” represents the endless pursuit of knowledge and science, which seeks to destroy myth by elevating the value of reason over metaphor. Nietzsche is critical of Socrates because of its failure to come up with an objective truth about the meaning of existence, a mission that he saw as overly optimistic. This is further proof as to why Nietzsche rejected a moral basis for existence, because it always seemed to aim at a more profound; constantly correcting itself without ultimately defining a practical rule for living. Art however, does come to a practical goal, which is to create myth; an eternal representation of the human condition powered by metaphor. While The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music was initially met with harsh criticism after its publication, both by reputable academics and later Nietzsche himself, he formulates incredibly interesting ideas that helped him develop his own unique style of writing and philosophy. The Apollonian and Dionysian forces are fascinating because they are vastly complex and difficult to define in a simple and succinct manner, yet they are recognizable by contemplating the human condition in relation to the world as a whole, as the Greeks did with the art of tragedy. Nietzsche argued that the forces need to be balanced, but not “moderated,” in order to cultivate a healthy culture, since moderation leans towards the Apollonian force.

15 Nietzsche. BT, 15.

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However, he also asserted that culture had become excessively Apollonian through the pursuit of science and the development of modernity, and as a result people had become stagnant and uninspired, which although was an unpopular opinion for his time became popular in the early 20th century and onwards to the present. Culture was very important to Nietzsche, as evidenced by his nostalgia for Ancient Greece, and one of the most important idea expressed in his early writings is that modernity is dangerous, because it aims at an endless pursuit of truth that fails to stop to take in the beauty of the Apollonian and Dionysian powers working together to create art.

Works Cited Hollingdale, R.J. Nietzsche. Ark Paperbacks, London. 1985. Print Jackson, Roy. Teach Yourself Nietzsche. McGraw-Hill, UK. 2008. Print. Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music. Trans: Johnston, Ian. Vancouver Island University. Web Accessed.