Nietzsche: The Birth Of Tragedy The Birth of Tragedy presents the duality of the Apollonian and the Dionysian as a starting point of aesthetics , of mankind as a creating being. The Apollonian art of dreams opposed to the Dionysian art of intoxication. From this, Nietzsche uses the Greek tragedy as a resolution between the somewhat opposing forces of Apollo and Dionysus. The problem is obvious; so distant are the two it seems neither may win out over the other without so much as destroying the other and thus making any compromise unfruitful and void. The two are even described as parallel lines within the first chapter of The Birth of Tragedy. Nietzsche’s explication of Greek tragedy as a resolving process is difficult and strenuous in the very least.

Nietzsche’s claim to understand the relation between the Apollonian and Dionysian “through a fraternal bond” gives rise to the understanding that both derive from the same source. The paternal source being mankind. From mankind comes understanding of himself within the world as the principal individual, an autonomous individual who shapes his own destiny, and the understanding of himself as part of a mystic whole, a thread in the greater fabric of time and fate.

Both the Apollonian and the Dionysian are expressed by Nietzsche as destructive drives of mankind. Destructive in the Roman drive of conquest or in the Indian longing for nothingness. The Greek tragedy walks a synthetic line between these two destructive elements, where an autonomous individual upon the Apollonian stage carries and is ultimately destroyed by the Dionysian weight, to the cathartic pleasure of the Greeks.

“Situated between India and Rome and forced to make a seductive choice, the Greeks managed to invent with classical purity an additional third form…”

The Greek tragedy is catharsis. The tragedy affords the full force of the destructive Dionysian intoxication to literally come about and be expressed.

The intoxication is brought about in the Apollonian world of structure. The music is played in accordance to the hero’s emotion. The god’s of fate are set out against the hero. The downfall is that of the hero, the story of one man is told in three Acts. The Apollonian world is constructed for the tragic hero, and the tragic hero alone. The repeated expression, the illusory expression, of a singularity forces the audience to use the Dionysian, the music and wanton destruction, as a lens by which one may see the individual more precisely. The destructive effects of intoxication are only immediately accessed by the individual within the tragedy, the tragic hero.

Within the tragedy each lends itself to the other. The Apollonian lends its rigid structure to the Dionysian, which merely uses this illusory world to run rampant and free in its highest form. In this way the Dionysian world is expressed through the Apollonian stage freely, but is yet separated from the audience in the very nature of the stage. It is this myth that protects the Greeks from the destruction inherent within the Dionysian.

“Myth protects us from music, while on the other hand myth alone gives music its highest freedom. For that reason, music in return lends tragic myth a penetrating and persuasive metaphysical significance…”

A unique Dionysian gift is handed over to the Apollonian stage to impart a sense of importance and worldliness. The story of the individual may carry weight and be relevant to the audience only if the Dionysian attribute of universal place is given wholly to the stage. In this way something meaningless and singular, the Apollonian, is given universality and meaning. The Dionysian message within the myth, the Apollonian, attracts the Greeks as it transcends the individual and relates to all. The people, society, are an audience so that they may not be consumed with dread, but are purged of their need to exalt in the intoxication. Vicariously through the drama of the tragedy the Dionysian drive for faceless creativity thrives. Likewise the Dionysian drive in men is vicariously fulfilled for that moment.

Nietzsche writes a give and take relationship, a relationship fighting for dominance, one over the other, where finally both learn and take something away from the other and where one is so too must the other be. The polarity between Apollo and Dionysus is clear from the very onset in The Birth of Tragedy, so clear that some readers fail to recognize the reconciliation that takes place, and find only a triumphant Dionysus. The description of the two as brothers, the fraternal bond, as a metaphor does everything but explicitly insist a resolution on the grounds of learning or acquiring. The Dionysus that is referred to in Nietzsche’s later writings, such as Thus Spoke Zarathustra, cannot be this original unlearnt Dionysus, but rather the brotherly Dionysus from the Greek tragedy, with Apollo in stride.

“Dionysus speaks the language of Apollo, and Apollo finally speaks the language of Dionysus…”

The Greek tragedy then escapes the theatre itself, for the expressions of the Dionysian in the Apollonian serve not only to momentarily satisfy the desire for intoxication, but also to bring about a new Dionysus; the Dionysus that speaks the language of Apollo, the Dionysus that has learnt about dreams and is spoken by Zarathustra. The tragedy expresses the eternal toil that is at once veiled by momentary necessity. Nietzsche’s high regard is for the positive expression of life from the tragedy. There lies a platform for a great strength to construct values, deconstruct and reconstruct, with a Dionysian understanding within an Apollonian framework.

“…and so the highest goal of tragedy and of art itself is achieved.”

Labels: philosophy

  ¶ 11:08 pm