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Nietzsche paper The book, written by Friedrich Nietzsche The Birth of Tragedy in the 19 th century, has been discussed for many years by many philosophers. It was a great work full of interesting thoughts concerning the history of the Greek tragedy. The book had a great influence on Western intellectual world. Friedrich Nietzsche's work is not only about the history of the tragedy but he showed the difference as well as the equality between the Dionysian and the Apollonian. The author was sure that life was based on contradiction and an endless struggle between those forces. He wrote: "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. " (Nietzsche, 4, 47) The first fifteen chapters are about the nature of Greek Tragedy. It was a time when the Apollonian elements in culture met with the Dionysian. The Apollo (Apollonian) tendency in art was based on the principle of individuation. The Apollonian elements were embodied in plastic (visual) arts, beauty going along with self-control, perfection. Apollo was the god of all plastic energies: He, who (as the etymology of the name indicates) is the "shining one, " the deity of light, is also ruler over the beautiful illusion of the inner world of fantasy. (Nietzsche, 3, 40) The Dionysus (Dionysian) era was a period of celebration of nature, cruelty, music, dance and pain. A man was considered to be the work and glorification of art.
So, before the tragedy appeared, it was an era of idealized plastic art. Art was represented with numerous sculptures. The Dionysian era brought festivals and drunkenness but also it was the era of music and tragedy, a wonderful expression of humans feelings. "The same impulse which calls art into being, as the complement and consummation of existence, seducing one to a continuation of life, was also the cause of the Olympian world which the Hellenic will' made use of as a transfiguring mirror. Thus do the gods justify the life of man: they themselves live it -- - the only satisfactory theodicy!" (Nietzsche, 3, p. 43) During that period, in those centuries the Greek body flourished and the Greek soul bubbled over with life. And, on the other hand the Greeks became constantly more optimistic, more superficial, and more hypocritical. They had logic and rational understanding of the world, as well as "more cheerful" and "more scientific." Tragedy was born due to the combination of those main branches in the Greek art.
In his work Nietzsche gave an exact definition of what is art and what is not. The notion art was determined as a form of self-expression. Nietzsche had a strong belief that the Dionysus era was one of the most significant. He criticized some sides of human culture but said about deep and wonderful human soul. The author thought that the Dionysus era was the best expression of this soul. The state of Greek art before that era was naive.
It took into account only humans appearances. In this case a man stood off art and never be united with it. The appearances of Apollo were shown in such a way that provided some relief and comfort. But without the Apollonian beauty there was no the beginning of the tragedy. "It is with them that nature for the first time attains her artistic jubilee; it is with them that the destruction of the principle of individuation for the first time becomes an artistic phenomenon. " (Nietzsche, 2, p. 40) Nietzsche emphasized that Main two principles in the Greek art were constantly in connection though at the same time in an inter conflicting struggle. One tendency could not existence without the other as well as could not be regarded as the same thing. Their relationship was intimate, dynamic.
It had constant necessity in mutual exchange for their interplay. Dionysian reality would be violent and vulgar without Apollonian beauty as well as Apollonian beauty would be poor without Dionysian reality. The tragedy in Ancient Greece was considered to be the highest form of art because it was based on both Apollonian and Dionysian elements, thats why reflected the full spectrum of the human life. The Dionysiac elements are in music and the Apollonian ones can be found in the dialogues. "The Greek man of culture felt himself nullified in the presence of the satyric chorus; and this is the most immediate effect of the Dionysian tragedy, that the state and society and, quite generally, the gulfs between man and man give way to an overwhelming feeling of unity leading back to the very heart of nature. (Nietzsche, 7, 61) From the very beginning the Dionysus men shocked the Apollonian man of Greek culture.
They seemed to be quite different. According to the Dionysus perception of life, a mans existence was not limited to his individual experiences alone. The Dionysian essence was eternal. People had a new source of life and hope. But as to the theory a man had a right to take all beauty of life and immerse oneself in it now if he wanted to achieve salvation.
In his turn, Apollo helped people to understand the essence of Dionysus through Apollos appearances. Representations of the essence were chorus and actors of tragedy. They showed how a man would redeem their sins from worldly suffering. The metaphysical comfort -- - that life is at the bottom of things, despite all the changes of appearances, indestructibly powerful and pleasurable... behind all civilization and remain eternally the same, despite the changes of generations and the history of nations. (Nietzsche. 7, 65) For in the eyes of morality (and particularly Christian morality, that is, absolute morality) life must be seen as constantly and inevitably wicked, because life is something essentially amoral. However, pressed down under this weight of contempt and eternal nobody's life must finally be experienced as something not worth desiring, as something worthless?
And what about morality itself? Isn't morality a "desire for the denial of life, " a secret instinct for destruction, a principle of decay, diminution, and slander, a beginning of the end, and thus, the greatest of all dangers? (Nietzsche, 22, 120). Nietzsche pointed that in real tragic art the elements of Dionysus and Apollo got mixed up. Words helped to show the depths of the Dionysian essence and music was also the life of the tragic art form. It was beyond language and even beyond our consciousness and experience.
Apollo and Dionysus were both participants of art. They represented the relationship between instinct (intuition) and consciousness around. They came from early times myths. Nietzsche pointed: Without myth every culture loses the healthy natural power of its creativity: only a horizon defined by myths completes and unifies a whole cultural movement. Myth alone saves all the powers of the imagination and of the Apollonian dream from their aimless wanderings... Even the state knows no more powerful unwritten laws than the mythical foundation... " (Nietzsche, 23, p. 135) In the end of his work the author examined relationship between myth and reality, art and life. "That life is really so tragic would least of all explain the origin of an art form -- - assuming that art is not merely imitation of the reality of nature but rather a metaphysical supplement of the reality of nature, placed beside it for its overcoming.
The tragic myth, too, in so far as it belongs to arts at all, participates fully in this metaphysical intention of art to transfigure. " (Nietzsche, 24, p. 140, ) The death of tragedy is considered to be after the time of Aeschylus and Sophocles. Nietzsche thought that the writers like Euripides led to the death of the genre. Nietzsche blamed such authors for the death of tragedy. After the time of reality and.
It was a time for rationality. Nietzsche sees Euripides tendency in art to be very close to the ritual, religious form of tragedy. Authors of that art reflected more the realities of daily life. The role of myths was diminished. Knowledge about reality captured humans attention. Things were seen too clearly that there was no need to reflect the life in tragedy the way as it was represented earlier.
Euripides considered the musical element to be the main and crucial to the Dionysian experience. There are some who, from obtuseness or lack of experience, turn away from such phenomena as from "folk-diseases, " with contempt of pity born of consciousness of their own "healthy-mindedness. " But of course such poor retches have no idea how corpse like and ghostly their so-called "healthy-mindedness" looks when the glowing life of the Dionysian revelers roars past them. (Nietzsche, 15, 85) Science that time art was focusing entirely on the individual. Rationality threw Dionysus out of tragedy. The delicate connection between Dionysus and Apollo was destroyed.
Nietzsche regarded the balance as fundamental to art. The philosopher proves that modern culture is still living in the Alexandrian age. At this collapse of the principium individuation's, we steal a glimpse into the nature of the Dionysian, which is brought home to us most intimately by the analogy of intoxication. (Nietzsche, 10, 78) Nietzsche age that the balance of Dionysian and Apollonian is the main component in any art. He wished the rebirth of tragedy. "We may assume that there were merely images and artistic projections for the true author, and that we have our highest dignity in our significance as works of art -- - for it is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified. " (Nietzsche, 5, p. 52) Human health, his soul lie in art. The opposition of Apollo and Dionysus are not the myth of Ancient Greek but also a reality that embodies struggle between the tragedy of the world and desire. Art saves him, and through art -- - life (Nietzsche, 7, 63) Bibliography: Carl, Pletsch.
Young Nietzsche: Becoming a Genius. Free Press, 1991. Friedrich, Nietzsche. Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy: The Birth of Tragedy and Other Writings. Cambridge University Press, 1999. Walter, A.
Kaufmann. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist. Princeton University Press, 1998.
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