The Birth of Tragedy
The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste
der Musik, 1872) is a 19th-century work of dramatic theory by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It was reissued in 1886 as The Birth
of Tragedy, Or: Hellenism and Pessimism (Die Geburt der Tragödie, Oder:
Griechentum und Pessimismus). The later edition contained a prefatory
essay, An Attempt at Self-Criticism, wherein Nietzsche commented on
this very early work.
The Book
Nietzsche found in classical
Athenian tragedy an art form that transcended the pessimism and nihilism of a fundamentally meaningless world. The Greek spectators,
by looking into the abyss of human suffering and affirming it, passionately and
joyously affirmed the meaning of their own existence. They knew themselves to
be infinitely more than petty individuals, finding self-affirmation not in
another life, not in a world to come, but in the terror and ecstasy alike
celebrated in the performance of tragedies.
Originally educated as a philologist,
Nietzsche discusses the history of the tragic form and introduces an
intellectual dichotomy between the Dionysian
and the Apollonian (very loosely:
reality undifferentiated by forms versus reality as differentiated by forms).
Nietzsche claims life always involves a struggle between these two elements,
each battling for control over the existence of humanity. In Nietzsche's words,
"Wherever the Dionysian prevailed; the Apollonian was checked and
destroyed.... wherever the first Dionysian onslaught was successfully
withstood, the authority and majesty of the Delphic god Apollo exhibited itself
as more rigid and menacing than ever." Yet neither side ever prevails due
to each containing the other in an eternal, natural check, or balance.
Nietzsche argues that the tragedy of Ancient Greece was the
highest form of art due to its mixture of both Apollonian and Dionysian
elements into one seamless whole, allowing the spectator to experience the full
spectrum of the human condition. The Dionysian element was to be found in the
music of the chorus, while the Apollonian element was found in the
dialogue which gave a concrete symbolism that balanced the Dionysiac revelry.
Basically, the Apollonian spirit was able to give form to the abstract
Dionysian.
Before the tragedy, there was an era of static, idealized plastic
art in the form of sculpture that represented the Apollonian view of the world.
The Dionysian element was to be found in the wild revelry of festivals and
drunkenness, but, most importantly, in music. The combination of these elements
in one art form gave birth to tragedy. He theorizes that the chorus was
originally always satyrs, goat-men. (This is speculative, although the
word “tragedy” τραγωδία is contracted from trag(o)-aoidiā = "goat
song" from tragos = "goat" and aeidein =
"to sing".) Thus, he argues, “the illusion of culture was wiped away
by the primordial image of man” for the audience; they participated with and as
the chorus empathetically, “so that they imagined themselves as restored
natural geniuses, as satyrs.” But in this state, they have an Apollonian dream
vision of themselves, of the energy they're embodying. It’s a vision of the
god, of Dionysus, who appears before the chorus on the stage. And the actors
and the plot are the development of that dream vision, the essence of which is
the ecstatic dismembering of the god and of the Bacchantes' rituals, of the inseparable ecstasy and suffering of human
existence…
After the time of Aeschylus and Sophocles, there was an age where tragedy died. Nietzsche ties this to the
influence of writers like Euripides and the coming of rationality, represented by Socrates. Euripides reduced the use of the chorus and was more
naturalistic in his representation of human drama, making it more reflective of
the realities of daily life. Socrates emphasized reason to such a degree that
he diffused the value of myth and suffering to human knowledge. For Nietzsche,
these two intellectuals helped drain the ability of the individual to
participate in forms of art, because they saw things too soberly and
rationally. The participation mystique aspect of art and myth
was lost, and along with it, much of man's ability to live creatively in
optimistic harmony with the sufferings of life. Nietzsche concludes that it may
be possible to re-attain the balance of Dionysian and Apollonian in modern art
through the operas of Richard Wagner, in a rebirth of tragedy.
The Apollonian and the Dionysian
In contrast to the typical Enlightenment view of ancient Greek culture as noble,
simple, elegant and grandiose,]Nietzsche
believed the Greeks were grappling with pessimism. The universe in which we
live is the product of great interacting forces; but we neither observe nor
know these as such. What we put together as our conceptions of the world,
Nietzsche thought, never actually addresses the underlying realities. It is
human destiny to be controlled by the darkest universal realities and, at the
same time, to live life in a human-dreamt world of illusions.
It was precisely this human-dreamt world that the Greeks had
developed into perfection from the Homeric legends onward. The Olympian complex
of deities, combined with all the details of their heroic lives and their
numerous interactions with men and women of earth, formed a world picture in
which individual people can live. This picture literally rendered humans as
individuals, capable of greatness, always of significance. There is, in this
world, objective clarity. The beings are almost sculpted. Hence, Athenians
mature within the illusions of a world and life that is under control and that
has clear models of personal significance and greatness. It is a beautiful
creation. But it is, as Nietzsche observes, an Apollonian aesthetics, Apollo
being the god who most typifies the Olympian complex in this regard. (BT, 1, p. 36)
Apollo is the god of plastic arts and of illusion.
The problem—and it is a problem for all times and all human
life—is that the dark side of existence makes itself apparent and forces us to
confront whatever we have tried to shut out of our nice, tidy livable world.
Thus, for Nietzsche, while the Greeks, and the Athenians in particular, had
developed a rich world view based on Apollo and the other Olympian gods, they
had rendered themselves largely ignorant of reality's dark side, as represented
in the god Dionysus. Only in the distant past, and largely outside of Athens,
had Dionysian festivals paved the way to direct (and destructive) experience of
life's darkest sides—intoxication, sexual license, absorption by the primal
horde, in short, dissolution of the individual (occasionally, actual
dismemberment) and re-immersion into a common organic whole.
The Apollonian in culture he sees as Arthur Schopenhauer's concept of the principium
individuationis (principle of individuation) with its refinement, sobriety and emphasis on
superficial appearance, whereby man separates himself from the undifferentiated
immediacy of nature. Nietzsche claims sculpture as the art-form that captures
this impulse most fully: sculpture has clear and definite boundaries and seeks
to represent reality, in its perfectly stable form. The Dionysian impulse, by
contrast, features immersion in the wholeness of nature, intoxication,
non-rationality, and inhumanity; rather than the detached, rational
representation of the Apollonian that invites similarly detached observation;
the Dionysian impulse involves a frenzied participation in life itself.
Nietzsche sees the Dionysian impulse as best realized in music, which tends not
to have clear boundaries, is unstable and non-representational, and, in
Nietzsche's view, invites participation among its listeners through dance.
Nietzsche argues that the Apollonian has dominated Western thought since Socrates, but he sees German Romanticism (especially Richard Wagner) as a possible
re-introduction of the Dionysian, which might offer the salvation of European
culture. The book shows the influence of Schopenhauer.[2]
The issue, then, or so Nietzsche thought, is how to experience and
understand the Dionysian side of life without destroying the obvious values of
the Apollonian side. It is not healthy for an individual, or for a whole
society, to become entirely absorbed in the rule of one or the other. The
soundest (healthiest) foothold is in both. Nietzsche's theory of Athenian
tragic drama suggests exactly how, before Euripides and Socrates, the Dionysian
and Apollonian elements of life were artistically woven together. The Greek
spectator became healthy through direct experience of the Dionysian within the
protective spirit-of-tragedy on the Apollonian stage
Influences
The Birth of Tragedy is a young man's work, and shows the influence of many of
the philosophers Nietzsche had been studying. His interest in classical Greece
as in some respects a rational society can be attributed in some measure to the
influence of Johann
Joachim Winckelmann, although Nietzsche
departed from Winckelmann in many ways. In addition, Nietzsche uses the term
"naive" in exactly the sense used by Friedrich Schiller. More important influences include Hegel, whose concept of the dialectic underlies[citation needed] the tripartite
division of art into the Apollonian, its Dionysian antithesis, and their
synthesis in Greek tragedy. Of great importance are the works of Arthur Schopenhauer, especially The World as Will and Representation. The Apollonian experience bears great
similarity to the experience of the world as "representation" in
Schopenhauer's sense, and the experience of the Dionysian bears similarities to
the identification with the world as "will." Nietzsche opposed
Schopenhauer's Buddhistic negation of the will. He argued that life is worth
living despite the enormous amount of cruelty and suffering that exists.
Friedrich Nietzsche
(The Apollonianism and Dionysiansism)
Nietzsche’s
"Apollonianism and Dionysianism" is one of the philosophy in which
he has presented serious concept of two forces prevalent in the human world.
They are Apollonianism and Dionysianism they come from the word Apollo and
Dionysus. They are the names of Gods worshiped by Greek people and these two
Gods represent two different qualities. Apollo stands for beauty, order,
harmony, love, progress, serenity, calmness and individualism while Dionysus
stands for ugliness, disorder, hatred, passion, emotion, intoxication and
group.
Nietzsche studies about such
opposite feature in these two Gods and made a theory that there are Apollo
like as well as Dionysus like qualities found everywhere in the human world.
All the qualities of Apollo are called Apollonianism and qualities of Dionysus
are Dionysianism. He also says that such contradiction qualities are found everywhere;
they are psychological forces alternatively dominating individual mind, the
culture as well as the art and the artist. Nietzsche says that human mind is
sometimes Apollonianism and sometimes Dionysianism even a culture in the
product of both Apollonianism and Dionysianism.
Even an artist can be either
Apollonian or Dionysus art because Apollo and Dionysus are - art sponsoring
Gods. The Apollonian art is plastic while Dionysian art is non-plastic. In
Nietzsche’s view, the naive art is the non-plastic. In Nietzsche’s view,
the naïve art is the dualistic combination with balance between Apollonianism
and Dionianism. In other words, what Nietzsche says that the balance of
Apollonianism as well as Dionysianism in an art makes it as the credit
example of best art. Tragedies as the examples of naïve art as in this
tragedies there is dualistic balance between Apollonian and Dionysian qualities.
Such reconciliation between Apollonian and Dionysus quality gives birth not
only to the best art but also to the best culture development.
Nietzsche
also describes that Apollo and Dionysus are also the Gods related to
individual and throng or mob. He says that Apollo is the God of individual
because an individual is dominated by Apollonian qualities such as order,
harmony, intellect etc. But, the throng or the mob or the collective is
related to Dionysus. Dionysus qualities such as intoxication, passion, chaos,
disorder are connected with the collective. Generally, when an individual is
alone, he is in the collective he becomes passionate and intoxicated as if he
has drunk wine. He loses his personal identity and like a maddened person, he
behaves mysteriously so Nietzsche calls that there is mystical experience in
the collective. Why the mass or the collective behaves so mysteriously is
really a surprising but Nietzsche says that it is because of Dionysus
dominating the collective. As the collective or the throng is associated with
God Dionysus, it is so mystically intoxication.
Nietzsche
also describes about dream and illusion and even connects them with
Apollonianism and Dionysianism. As long as dream concerns, he talks about
real dream and daydreaming. Day dreaming is a fantasy but it is the world of
perfection or completeness. Even in the real dreaming, we enter the fantasy
world, which is also perfect world. The world of reality is imperfect.
Nietzsche says that Greek artists loved dream more than reality and they
claimed that in the dream world they could get the vision of the Gods and
Goddess to whom they worshiped.
Even God
Apollo appeared in their dream and inspired them to create art. It is
perhaps, because of the dream vision the Greek artists were able to create
the picture of deities, may be because of the inspiration of the deities in
the dream. They were able to create best art. Therefore, dream is not real
but for the Greek artist it was better and more realistic than the reality.
On the
other hand, illusion is the concept of human existence. Nietzsche says that
human existence is an illusion so it is like a dream but in spite of being an
illusion, our life is meaningful it is because of what Nietzsche calls the
veil of Maya. In other words, Nietzsche believes on platonic concept of human
life as illusion and he gets meaning in it because of the Maya. He says if
there had not been the veil of Mayas, the human world would already have been
perished. What Nietzsche says that because of the Maya it is possible that
there is order, harmony, beauty love and progress, which are the Apollonian
qualities? But, sometimes the veil of Maya is torn so that there is passion,
intoxication madness and destruction which are the Dionysonian domination.
Finally, Nietzsche talks about the probable emergence of Apollo and Dionysus. He believes that before the Greek civilization there was a human race called the race of the Barbarians. The Barbarians were very savage or wild, mainly in the sexual activities, their world was like a pot of witches and poisonous snakes. There was no any morality in sexuality. It was like the animal sex, as everyone would have sex with anyone he liked. They also worshiped the savage God called satyr, half-human and half goat as the symbol of Barbarism. Some of the people were fad up, such savage Barbarian world so they stopped to worship the satyr God. They established another image of the God in the Mt Olympus, where they began to worship the God of order beauty, intellect, progress and peace. This God come to be known God Apollo. On the other hand, the other people, who were worshiping satyr God, come to be known as God Apollo. On the other hand, the other people who were worshiping satyr God also began to worship the image of another God also began to worship the image of another God in which satyr, like negative qualities came together. They worshiped the God that represented disorder ugliness, passion, intoxication, destruction violence etc. The God came to be known as God Dionysius, so for the Greek people Apollo represent the highest good while Dionysius represented the highest bad. Having all positive qualities they found highness God in Apollo but in Dionysus they found highest bad, having negative qualities. But, for Nietzsche the reconciliation between such good and bad is necessary for progress or for creation of naïve art and culture. |
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