10/19/2012 The Birth of Tragedy

by Melanie Muller

Deemed by his later self “wildly enthusiastic,” “badly written, clumsy, and embarrassing,” Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy represents his attempt to explain the contradictory elements of Greek tragedy and an exploration of human psychology through an interpretation of the classical past. He argues that tragedy represents a hybrid of two competing artistic impulses, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. He argues both impulses arise from a human need to shield itself from the knowledge of suffering and a conviction that:

“The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon.”

The Apollonian mindset takes its name from the Greek god of reason and prophecy. Nietzsche argues that it expresses itself artistically as sculpture and man’s “inner fantasy world.” It is characterized by “calm,” “freedom from wilder impulses,” “restraint” and “beauty.” He describes it as an assertion of “principium individuationis” or the principle of individuality, and its expressions in art are a glorification of this principle. The Apollonian artist creates a perfected semblance of reality; Nietzsche considers any dreamer who creates such perfected images in his mind an Apollonian artist. He argues that those who continually surround themselves with Apollonian images are “compelled to feel this semblance to be that which it is not,” something which will become the empirical reality.

A Dionysian mindset, Nietzsche argues, results when a “break down of the principium individuationis” occurs. The Dionysian is named for the Greek god of wine and associated with excess, a sense of becoming one with nature (thus losing individuality), and an intoxicated state of mind. It is expressed artistically through music and dance. Having recognized the pain of existence, the Dionysian loses themself in intoxication and oneness with nature, perversely taking pleasure from pain. As expressed in Nietzsche’s overblown language:

“Excess revealed itself as the truth; contradiction, bliss born of pain, spoke of itself from out of the heart of nature.”

In this week’s meeting we will discuss these ideas, how Nietzsche uses them to formulate a theory concerning the birth and death of Greek tragedy, and possible implications of the theory.