emelir's review against another edition
4.0
‘’Only from the spirit of music can we understand delight in the destruction of the individual. For only in single instances of such destruction can we clearly see the eternal phenomenon of Dionysiac art, which expresses the will in its omnipotence, behind the principium individuationis, the eternal life that lies beyond the phenomenal world, regardless of all destruction. Metaphysical delight in the tragic is a translation of the image: the hero, the supreme manifestation of the will, is negated to our gratification, because he is only a phenomenon, and the eternal life of the will is left untouched by his destruction. ‘We believe in eternal life’ is tragedy’s cry; while music is the immediate idea of that life (...)’’
Nietzsches språk (genom översättaren Shaun Whiteside) är så otroligt levande och passionerat i denna bok, vilket gör det till en så himla fin läsning. Han belyser hur mänskligheten både härstammar och framställs som bäst genom tragedierna, och hur dikotomin mellan Apollo och Dionysus är något som människan återigen bör sträva efter. Apollo står för det mer stoiska, logiska och naiva. Det är här konsten och drömmarna finns (vilket kanske låter lite motsägelsefullt, men inte ur vinkeln att det hela bygger på att skapa en ordning). Och Dionysus står för det mer kaosartade, extatiska och berusande. Här finner vi således det lustfyllda och förhärligande. Om den apollinska människan är en konstnär, så är den dionysiska människan konstverket i sig, eller hon som förhärligar (eller slaktar, om man så vill) konstverket. Typ. Dessa två bör således inte målas upp som motsatspar då de inte kan existera utan varandra (eller de kan, men då når människan inte sin fulla potential (ska sluta med parenteser snart)). Det fina hittar man liksom i mellanrummen, inte i topparna av dessa energier! Nietzsche belyser att tragedierna – genom sin förening av det apolliniska och dionysiska – är den konstform som är mest sann vår natur. Genom att måla upp lidande och passion och acceptera samspelet däremellan så bekräftar man existensen i dess sanna form. Konsten blir även som en slags verktyg för att på ett rimligt vis (om)forma ens tankar kring existensens absurditet, och få dessa att gå i linje med livet självt. Nietzsche ställer sig även starkt kritiskt hur den västerländska kulturen sedan Euripides död har präglats av ett ideal av den teoretiska människan; att hon genom sitt logiska och sokratiska tänkande istället tror sig nå sanningen. Att man enbart genom tankarna kan nå till djupet av vad det betyder att vara människa och omfamna sanningen. Vilket är att befinna sig i en värld utan mystik och underverk. En värld där kunskap och att verka i vetenskapens tjänst ses som det enda sanna och högsta. I kritiken kring detta lyfter han även fram Goethes Faust och placerar honom intill Sokrates för att belysa hur begränsande hans (Sokrates) glädje för kunskap egentligen är. Faust målas upp som otillfreds i sin strävan efter kunskap, att det måste finnas mer till det han ser, tänker och vet om. Han vänder sig således både till magins värld och djävulen själv, och han tar sig således ur den lilla bubbla som utgjort hans egen begränsande tankeverksamhet. Nietzsche fortsätter även med att belysa att man genom Kant och Schopenhauers kunskaper (pessimism) kan segra över optimismens begränsningar. Optimism kan upplevas ligga som ett skynke över logiken, men att man genom pessimismen kan komma att närma sig frågor och tankar på ett mer inträngande vis.
Tragedierna bidrar till en slags försäkran och bekräftelse av livet. Allt som det innebär att vara människa, och det där tunga och jobbiga är ingenting som bör försvinna eller bortses. Genom konst, musik och allt annat fint så kan man nå en högre förståelse av både sig själv och sin omgivning. Och det är likväl något som kan komma att omformas med tiden. Det är därför av stor vikt att människan tillåter sig själv att ta in energin som Apollo och Dionysus står för, och balansera det hela! Att på så vis skapa en lite bättre och nyanserad ordning i världen. Det irrationella måste få finnas till, precis som det logiska och vetenskapliga. Då når man ett bredare spektrum av människan och hennes sanna natur. Tycker supermycket om denna bok, spännande och rolig läsning liksom!
Ok och en sak till för tyckte även detta citat var lite roligt ändå: ‘’Yes, my friends, join me in my faith in this Dionysiac life and the rebirth of tragedy. The age of Socratic man is past: crown yourselves with ivy, grasp the thyrsus and do not be amazed if tigers and panthers lie down fawning at your feet. Now dare to be tragic men, for you will be redeemed. You shall join the Dionysiac procession from India to Greece! Gird yourselves for a hard battle, but have faith in the miracles of your god!’’. För allt jag kunde tänka på var att det lät som något (med liiiite modifiering) ur sagan om ringen hehe. Iaf tonen. Tänkte typ på Gothmog, han orchen, men kändes lite taskigt mot Nietzsche då. Men samtidigt motsätter han sig optimismen som Aragorn och co utstrålar i sina egna repliker så jaja. Oavsett kul och fint citat. :))) Kontraster och balans är viktigt osv. Tacohej :))
Nietzsches språk (genom översättaren Shaun Whiteside) är så otroligt levande och passionerat i denna bok, vilket gör det till en så himla fin läsning. Han belyser hur mänskligheten både härstammar och framställs som bäst genom tragedierna, och hur dikotomin mellan Apollo och Dionysus är något som människan återigen bör sträva efter. Apollo står för det mer stoiska, logiska och naiva. Det är här konsten och drömmarna finns (vilket kanske låter lite motsägelsefullt, men inte ur vinkeln att det hela bygger på att skapa en ordning). Och Dionysus står för det mer kaosartade, extatiska och berusande. Här finner vi således det lustfyllda och förhärligande. Om den apollinska människan är en konstnär, så är den dionysiska människan konstverket i sig, eller hon som förhärligar (eller slaktar, om man så vill) konstverket. Typ. Dessa två bör således inte målas upp som motsatspar då de inte kan existera utan varandra (eller de kan, men då når människan inte sin fulla potential (ska sluta med parenteser snart)). Det fina hittar man liksom i mellanrummen, inte i topparna av dessa energier! Nietzsche belyser att tragedierna – genom sin förening av det apolliniska och dionysiska – är den konstform som är mest sann vår natur. Genom att måla upp lidande och passion och acceptera samspelet däremellan så bekräftar man existensen i dess sanna form. Konsten blir även som en slags verktyg för att på ett rimligt vis (om)forma ens tankar kring existensens absurditet, och få dessa att gå i linje med livet självt. Nietzsche ställer sig även starkt kritiskt hur den västerländska kulturen sedan Euripides död har präglats av ett ideal av den teoretiska människan; att hon genom sitt logiska och sokratiska tänkande istället tror sig nå sanningen. Att man enbart genom tankarna kan nå till djupet av vad det betyder att vara människa och omfamna sanningen. Vilket är att befinna sig i en värld utan mystik och underverk. En värld där kunskap och att verka i vetenskapens tjänst ses som det enda sanna och högsta. I kritiken kring detta lyfter han även fram Goethes Faust och placerar honom intill Sokrates för att belysa hur begränsande hans (Sokrates) glädje för kunskap egentligen är. Faust målas upp som otillfreds i sin strävan efter kunskap, att det måste finnas mer till det han ser, tänker och vet om. Han vänder sig således både till magins värld och djävulen själv, och han tar sig således ur den lilla bubbla som utgjort hans egen begränsande tankeverksamhet. Nietzsche fortsätter även med att belysa att man genom Kant och Schopenhauers kunskaper (pessimism) kan segra över optimismens begränsningar. Optimism kan upplevas ligga som ett skynke över logiken, men att man genom pessimismen kan komma att närma sig frågor och tankar på ett mer inträngande vis.
Tragedierna bidrar till en slags försäkran och bekräftelse av livet. Allt som det innebär att vara människa, och det där tunga och jobbiga är ingenting som bör försvinna eller bortses. Genom konst, musik och allt annat fint så kan man nå en högre förståelse av både sig själv och sin omgivning. Och det är likväl något som kan komma att omformas med tiden. Det är därför av stor vikt att människan tillåter sig själv att ta in energin som Apollo och Dionysus står för, och balansera det hela! Att på så vis skapa en lite bättre och nyanserad ordning i världen. Det irrationella måste få finnas till, precis som det logiska och vetenskapliga. Då når man ett bredare spektrum av människan och hennes sanna natur. Tycker supermycket om denna bok, spännande och rolig läsning liksom!
Ok och en sak till för tyckte även detta citat var lite roligt ändå: ‘’Yes, my friends, join me in my faith in this Dionysiac life and the rebirth of tragedy. The age of Socratic man is past: crown yourselves with ivy, grasp the thyrsus and do not be amazed if tigers and panthers lie down fawning at your feet. Now dare to be tragic men, for you will be redeemed. You shall join the Dionysiac procession from India to Greece! Gird yourselves for a hard battle, but have faith in the miracles of your god!’’. För allt jag kunde tänka på var att det lät som något (med liiiite modifiering) ur sagan om ringen hehe. Iaf tonen. Tänkte typ på Gothmog, han orchen, men kändes lite taskigt mot Nietzsche då. Men samtidigt motsätter han sig optimismen som Aragorn och co utstrålar i sina egna repliker så jaja. Oavsett kul och fint citat. :))) Kontraster och balans är viktigt osv. Tacohej :))
adamz24's review against another edition
3.0
At times a really excellent work on aesthetics, written in a clear, though dense, style notably different from and more traditional than Nietzche's later, famously aphoristic writings. Gets at some genuinely thrilling ideas, though much of the book is of little interest to me. Most impressive is how much thought the content inspires outside of thought directly related to its ideas and arguments. As with many other accomplished works on aesthetics, there are short passages that contain remarkable insights into certain sorts of art, without making the connection explicit or betraying an intention to deal with said sorts of art.
marco_izner's review against another edition
4.0
È sempre difficile, per chi non ci è troppo abituato, avvicinarsi a un filosofo e alla filosofia in sé.
Nella sua ambiguità e nei suoi giochi, la letteratura si presta a ben altre immediatezze, talvolta veicolando anche concetti propri di altre discipline, come la Storia o, appunto, la Filosofia, troppo spesso ritenute ostiche da chi non le frequenta assiduamente, preferendo, a torto o a ragione, certe impalpabilità letterarie, cercando la distanza pure dalla logica e dalle scienze.
Conservo della filosofia un sacco di reminiscenze scolastiche, universitarie soltanto di striscio; poi, letture e letturine sparpagliate, sempre per vedere di entrarci dentro a poco a poco, magari affidandomi a coloro che ne sanno, a quegli studiosi capaci di condensare in poche pagine il pensiero di un filosofo tirando grossomodo le somme.
Sempre di introduzioni e interpretazioni si tratta, ovvio: ed è qui che uno deve andare dritto alla fonte, a consultare direttamente l'autore, se davvero si vuole addentrare nella disciplina.
A casa avevo un sacco di testi filosofici che mi scrutavano severi; tra questi, alla fine, ne ho scelto uno di Nietzsche: vuoi perché mi era stato in precedenza consigliato o perché spesso mi era stato indicato come uno dei pensatori più prossimi alla sensibilità letteraria; e dopo aver letto La nascita della tragedia, sento di doverlo confermare anch'io.
Nietzsche nasceva come filologo classico, un ragazzo prodigio con cattedra a Basilea. Studioso e intellettuale dalle infinite conoscenze, i greci e i latini li conosceva a menadito, a partire dalla lingua stessa, senza tuttavia tralasciarne i contenuti, le poetiche e lo spirito.
Ed è ai greci che si rifà in questo suo primo libro, un assurdo concentrato di idee, concetti, arti e, com'è chiaro, filosofia.
Mentirei se dicessi d'aver capito tutte queste densissime pagine: diciamo che ho inteso senza comprendere del tutto. Anche perché, Nietzsche non lascia al lettore - mi riferisco in particolare al novizio - molto spazio di comprensione, sebbene l'assunto di base sia cristallino: bisogna ripartire dai greci, dalla tragedia greca, e di questa far rivivere lo spirito metafisico, Dionisiaco, contrapposto qui a quello socratico, l'Apollineo.
Due concetti, Apollineo e Dionisiaco, che mi fecero fare qualche bella figura al liceo, e che qui ho ritrovato con piacere quasi nostalgico: sono in effetti sviscerati in tutte le loro declinazioni, con rimandi agli autori tragici che fecero grande la cultura greca, nonché ai filosofi a essi coevi.
Inoltre, il Filosofo si concentra anche sull'imprescindibilità della Musica, nella fattispecie quella strumentale, riallacciandosi alle bellissime pagine che Schopenhauer le dedicò nel Mondo come volontà e rappresentazione (finalmente qualcosa che conosco un po' meglio).
La scrittura di Nietzsche è un magma incandescente: fluviale ed evocativa come lo spirito al quale egli si rifa, trovando un filo conduttore che parte dalla grecità e arriva alla cultura tedesca del suo tempo, passando per un pessimismo che permea la disillusa visione dell'età contemporanea.
La nascita della tragedia è un testo che può sembrare semplice rispetto ad altri suoi fratelli e parenti, predecessori o epigoni; ma è un dato solo apparente: questo è un volumetto ricco e complesso, che spalanca portoni e apre inattesi spiragli di luce, a tratti indecifrabili. È l'opera prima di uno dei più grandi filosofi mai nati, dunque quella che darà il là a quello che sarà poi il pensiero nietzschiano.
Insomma, tutto parte da qui.
clothildenaej's review against another edition
2.5
il va me falloir du temps et des relectures pour le digérer :)
leic01's review against another edition
5.0
”Tragedy sits in the midst of this superabundance of life, suffering, and delight, in sublime ecstasy, listening to a distant, melancholy singing which tells of the Mothers of Being, whose names are delusion, will, woe.”
It is impossible to forget Nietzsche’s philosophy laid out in the Birth of Tragedy. Reading this book there is a great possibility you will go deep down the rabbit hole of Greek tragedy and it is a hell of a place to dwell in.
The Birth of Tragedy was written by young Nietzsche, being only 27 years old. He later critiqued his passionate, idealistic, poet-philosopher writing style but not the core ideas he outlined that massively impacted modern thought. Nietzsche here is verbose but vivid, daring, enthusiastic, in highest exaltation of his Dionysian self, making often abstract, vague arguments in a completely non-linear fashion which makes linear, coherent breaking down of text a demanding task. I will attempt to give my reflection on what would I consider the big overlaying themes.
Helenism and pessimism
Nietzsche makes an argument, similar to Aristotle's in Poetics, that the tragic theatre in Ancient Greece was the highest art form. Here he is specific about the time period - he thinks the early period of Greek art and philosophy is the pinnacle of Greek thought and civilization. As laid out in his also brilliant book [b:Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks|496747|Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks|Friedrich Nietzsche|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1393447350l/496747._SY75_.jpg|484899] the decline of Greek culture, as well as the whole Western civilization, started with Socrates who believed that truth can be reached through reason and dialectic, not through art, and caused the shift from mythos to logos. Inherent optimism is the aftermath of Socratic philosophy, reflected also in Christian morality, the tradition of Western rationalism and science where man thinks he can know everything and reign all (the inheritance of Genesis where God said to the man to rule all life) through reason, with faith in its complete omnipotence. Nietzsche thinks that we long waited for the first pessimist philosopher, his great influence, Schopenhauer, who was an original anti-rationalist, one who believed in the primacy of irrational Will. As Schopenhauer, Ancient Greeks were also pessimists, because they acknowledged the horrible and enigmatic character of existence - the pain, suffering and death that are inexplicable. The human mind is finite and the mystery that pervades life through tragedy goes beyond reason and consciousness. Through the invention of tragedy, Greek could go beyond pessimism to the tragic affirmation of life - they were saying yes to life more fully and passionately and descended into the mystery of life more profoundly than anyone.
They could say yes to life because the tragedy is formed by the interplay of two deities, of the two opposite ruling principles of life that Nietzsche named after two Greek gods, making now widely used terms of Apollonian and Dionysian.
The Apollonian
Apollon is the god of Reason and appearance, the Shining one that gives the enlightenment of logic and thrives in order, rules and perfect form whether it is morality, aesthetics, art, or beauty. Apollo is the bearer of the light of consciousness, self-knowledge and memory as his ruling principle is “Know thyself”. He gives the principle of individuation - the formation of finite identity through injection of limitation and measure, faith in the shining of one's own individuality and the unity of the Self. Apollinian art has extraordinary clarity, giving hard edges to what it depicts - painting, sculptures, epics, poetry - exemplifying the principium individuationis which Schopenhauer had located as the major error that we suffer from epistemologically that we perceive and conceive of the world in terms of separate objects, including separate persons. Apollo gives the sublime truth of logic and heals through it (medicine) and his truth shields us from chaos and suffering.
The Dionysian
Dionysus is the twice-born, the god of duality, the enigma and paradox, the god of many forms and inexpressible depth, a raving god whose presence makes man mad and incites him to savagery and lust for blood. He gives a compulsion to frenzy - excessive energy in intoxication and ecstasy. He is deeply rooted in nature, instinctual and animalistic and frees man from his humanity making him descend into passion, sexuality, cruelty and darkness. By bringing destruction, chaos and ugliness he brings a new creation as a new form cannot arise without the obliteration of the old. Opposite to Apollonian memory and self-knowledge, Dionysus is the god of forgetting - forgetting our strengths, our failures and struggles in order to achieve greatness, and forgetting oneself to reach a new state of being. Dionysus brings the annihilation of the principle of individuation as in forgetting one is free to merge into the collective where the boundaries of subjectivity exist no more. In Dionysian celebrations, masquerades and festivals one is transgressing the limits of own individuality in the obliteration of the self-identity where one can become anything he desires, anything at all. Dionysus heals through a creative transfiguration in the experience of both suffering and ecstasy, and in the return to the primordial unity, there is a reconciliation of humanity and nature. Dionysian gives us immediate access to nominal reality (the thing in itself) but bypasses the representing (Apollonian), and gives us feeling (pathos) for what lies beyond our boundary conditions bringing the wisdom of lived experience, not logic, as truth. In the Twilight of Idols, Nietzsche named himself "the last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus."
“But how suddenly the wilderness of our tired culture, which we have just painted in such gloomy colours, can be transformed, when it is touched by Dionysiac magic! A storm seizes everything that is worn out, rotten, broken, and withered, wraps it in a whirling cloud of red dust and carries it like an eagle into the sky. Our eyes gaze in confusion after what has disappeared, for what they see is like something that has emerged from a pit into golden light, so full and green, so luxuriantly alive, so immeasurable and filled with longing. ”
The long-lasting repression of Dionysian in the West as part of our nature can make us idolize and glorify Dionysus, this alluring, but highly dangerous god. As much as it is fun to critique rationality, the Apollonian light of reason is the part that makes us capable of even reflecting on Dionysian - and the borders of our individuation shield us not to experience psychotic disintegration, but mystical unity. As much as Nietzsche critiqued Socrates - he did it by apparatus of classical intellectual - examination and judgment.
Greek Tragedy
“The metaphysical solace which, I wish to suggest, we derive from every true tragedy, the solace that in the ground of things, and despite all changing appearances, life is indestructibly mighty and pleasurable, this solace appears with palpable clarity in the chorus of satyrs, a chorus of natural beings whose life goes on ineradicably behind and beyond all civilization, as it were, and who remain eternally the same despite all the changes of generations and in the history of nations.“
Giving examples, Nietzsche makes an argument that Apollonian without the Dionysian is stale and restraining and Dionysian without the Apollonian is menacing and chaotic. The Greek Tragedy is the most perfect form because it represents the holy marriage of Apollonian and Dionysian, art that merges two sides, the mystical unity of life. In Ancient form Greek tragedy contained acting on stage as well as music and dance, and what Nietzsche finds vital for the catharsis of the audience - chorus. His thesis is that in the peaks of the tragedy the chorus dominates so that the audience sees on stage its own reflection, raised to overpowering heights of suffering and transfiguration. Nietzsche admired Aeschylus and Sophocles (and offers a great analysis of the characters in their plays, especially Oedipus as well as Prometheus), whereas with Euripides he thinks that the decline of Greek tragedy began. Euripides' plays acted out in theater had no longer dance, music, or choir within them, just pure forms of images, making his tragedies Apollonian, condensed philosophical thought with the accent on a psychological drama of individual, which represents the triumph of Socratic rationalism and asceticism. Euripides manifested an interest in an individual, in psychology, and worst of all, in the beneficial effects of rationality, or as Nietzsche tends to call it, ‘dialectic’, making him the poet of aesthetic Socratism (for something to be beautiful it must be reasonable).
Existential implication
Greek Tragedy gave Greeks “great health” as they not only could endure but worship as divine the contrast embedded in the nature of reality, pain and suffering as part of the primordial essence of being, of all forms of life and creation. Dionysian gives a justification of pain and tragedy on both a personal level as well on a cosmic level - suffering is an intrinsic part of all things and to remove it would be to remove life itself. An important part of Nietzsche's philosophy is the complete affirmation of life in the totality of being - he criticized the Christian morality for acknowledging solely moral aspects of life - and therefore rejecting the inherent immorality of existence, which is almost the same as hatred for life. Nietzschean tragic affirmation of life is saying yes to life even in its strangest, hardest, most nefarious problems - having a Will to live, truly Dionysian quality - to join together peak and abyss, horrors of darkness and heights of bliss. The great health in not only accepting the horrible, evil, problematic aspects of existence as necessary but affirming them as a desirable part of the whole. To know the good as well as the bad is to know the wholeness of life and only by knowing the wholeness can one say a complete YES to life. To experience the most painful thoughts and the most extreme form of nihilism, and yet be able to emerge from such depths and affirm life in its totality is undoubtedly the highest state of being.
Theory of Art
”Function of art: to give us a hint of a truth, a truth that the world was chaotic and meaningless but, equally, art had to shield us from this dark, dreadful reality.”
Nietzsche believed that when artists transfigure the world aesthetically it produces profound existential satisfaction - the world and suffering are justified by art and creativity, what he called the ”only satisfactory theodicy”. Art gives us both healing and redemption through illusion, and saves us from the horrors of existence, giving the affirmation, the blessing, the deification of existence itself. Therefore, art is “the highest task and the proper metaphysical activity of this life”.
In a large sense, Nietzsche is a philosopher of self-realization, and the question he posed in the subtitle of Ecce Homo; “How one becomes who he is?” is central to his philosophy. How does a human become great? The Apollonian aspect of art, from the god of plastic energies, makes us dream beautiful illusions and create them in reality. The Dionysian aspect, makes us embody art in ourselves. Nietzsche believed that in the matrimony of Apollonian and Dionysian we are both the artists and the art form. Nietzsche believes that the Dionysian incites us to make ourselves into the work of art, an embodiment of art itself - one of the most beautiful thoughts that philosophy ever produced.
“Man is no longer an artist [as he had been in creating the gods], he has become a work of art: the artistic power of the whole of nature reveals itself to the supreme gratification of the primal Oneness amidst the paroxysms of intoxication.“
The Nietzschean, but also universal truth is we need both Apollonian and Dionysian, self-knowledge and self-forgetfulness, order and chaos, construction and destruction, pessimism and tragic affirmation - to be in unity of the opposite and to love life in the fullness of human experience.
Read Birth of Tragedy to gain more understanding of Greek tragedy on the journey of mythical inner exploration.
”Yes, my friends, believe as I do in Dionysiac life and in the rebirth of tragedy. The time of Socratic man is past. Put on wreaths of ivy, take up the thyrsus and do not be surprised if tigers and panthers lie down, purring and curling round your legs. Now you must only dare to be tragic human beings, for you will be released and redeemed. You will accompany the festive procession of Dionysos from India to Greece! Put on your armour for a hard fight, but believe in the miracles of your god!”
It is impossible to forget Nietzsche’s philosophy laid out in the Birth of Tragedy. Reading this book there is a great possibility you will go deep down the rabbit hole of Greek tragedy and it is a hell of a place to dwell in.
The Birth of Tragedy was written by young Nietzsche, being only 27 years old. He later critiqued his passionate, idealistic, poet-philosopher writing style but not the core ideas he outlined that massively impacted modern thought. Nietzsche here is verbose but vivid, daring, enthusiastic, in highest exaltation of his Dionysian self, making often abstract, vague arguments in a completely non-linear fashion which makes linear, coherent breaking down of text a demanding task. I will attempt to give my reflection on what would I consider the big overlaying themes.
Helenism and pessimism
Nietzsche makes an argument, similar to Aristotle's in Poetics, that the tragic theatre in Ancient Greece was the highest art form. Here he is specific about the time period - he thinks the early period of Greek art and philosophy is the pinnacle of Greek thought and civilization. As laid out in his also brilliant book [b:Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks|496747|Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks|Friedrich Nietzsche|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1393447350l/496747._SY75_.jpg|484899] the decline of Greek culture, as well as the whole Western civilization, started with Socrates who believed that truth can be reached through reason and dialectic, not through art, and caused the shift from mythos to logos. Inherent optimism is the aftermath of Socratic philosophy, reflected also in Christian morality, the tradition of Western rationalism and science where man thinks he can know everything and reign all (the inheritance of Genesis where God said to the man to rule all life) through reason, with faith in its complete omnipotence. Nietzsche thinks that we long waited for the first pessimist philosopher, his great influence, Schopenhauer, who was an original anti-rationalist, one who believed in the primacy of irrational Will. As Schopenhauer, Ancient Greeks were also pessimists, because they acknowledged the horrible and enigmatic character of existence - the pain, suffering and death that are inexplicable. The human mind is finite and the mystery that pervades life through tragedy goes beyond reason and consciousness. Through the invention of tragedy, Greek could go beyond pessimism to the tragic affirmation of life - they were saying yes to life more fully and passionately and descended into the mystery of life more profoundly than anyone.
They could say yes to life because the tragedy is formed by the interplay of two deities, of the two opposite ruling principles of life that Nietzsche named after two Greek gods, making now widely used terms of Apollonian and Dionysian.
The Apollonian
Apollon is the god of Reason and appearance, the Shining one that gives the enlightenment of logic and thrives in order, rules and perfect form whether it is morality, aesthetics, art, or beauty. Apollo is the bearer of the light of consciousness, self-knowledge and memory as his ruling principle is “Know thyself”. He gives the principle of individuation - the formation of finite identity through injection of limitation and measure, faith in the shining of one's own individuality and the unity of the Self. Apollinian art has extraordinary clarity, giving hard edges to what it depicts - painting, sculptures, epics, poetry - exemplifying the principium individuationis which Schopenhauer had located as the major error that we suffer from epistemologically that we perceive and conceive of the world in terms of separate objects, including separate persons. Apollo gives the sublime truth of logic and heals through it (medicine) and his truth shields us from chaos and suffering.
The Dionysian
Dionysus is the twice-born, the god of duality, the enigma and paradox, the god of many forms and inexpressible depth, a raving god whose presence makes man mad and incites him to savagery and lust for blood. He gives a compulsion to frenzy - excessive energy in intoxication and ecstasy. He is deeply rooted in nature, instinctual and animalistic and frees man from his humanity making him descend into passion, sexuality, cruelty and darkness. By bringing destruction, chaos and ugliness he brings a new creation as a new form cannot arise without the obliteration of the old. Opposite to Apollonian memory and self-knowledge, Dionysus is the god of forgetting - forgetting our strengths, our failures and struggles in order to achieve greatness, and forgetting oneself to reach a new state of being. Dionysus brings the annihilation of the principle of individuation as in forgetting one is free to merge into the collective where the boundaries of subjectivity exist no more. In Dionysian celebrations, masquerades and festivals one is transgressing the limits of own individuality in the obliteration of the self-identity where one can become anything he desires, anything at all. Dionysus heals through a creative transfiguration in the experience of both suffering and ecstasy, and in the return to the primordial unity, there is a reconciliation of humanity and nature. Dionysian gives us immediate access to nominal reality (the thing in itself) but bypasses the representing (Apollonian), and gives us feeling (pathos) for what lies beyond our boundary conditions bringing the wisdom of lived experience, not logic, as truth. In the Twilight of Idols, Nietzsche named himself "the last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus."
“But how suddenly the wilderness of our tired culture, which we have just painted in such gloomy colours, can be transformed, when it is touched by Dionysiac magic! A storm seizes everything that is worn out, rotten, broken, and withered, wraps it in a whirling cloud of red dust and carries it like an eagle into the sky. Our eyes gaze in confusion after what has disappeared, for what they see is like something that has emerged from a pit into golden light, so full and green, so luxuriantly alive, so immeasurable and filled with longing. ”
The long-lasting repression of Dionysian in the West as part of our nature can make us idolize and glorify Dionysus, this alluring, but highly dangerous god. As much as it is fun to critique rationality, the Apollonian light of reason is the part that makes us capable of even reflecting on Dionysian - and the borders of our individuation shield us not to experience psychotic disintegration, but mystical unity. As much as Nietzsche critiqued Socrates - he did it by apparatus of classical intellectual - examination and judgment.
Greek Tragedy
“The metaphysical solace which, I wish to suggest, we derive from every true tragedy, the solace that in the ground of things, and despite all changing appearances, life is indestructibly mighty and pleasurable, this solace appears with palpable clarity in the chorus of satyrs, a chorus of natural beings whose life goes on ineradicably behind and beyond all civilization, as it were, and who remain eternally the same despite all the changes of generations and in the history of nations.“
Giving examples, Nietzsche makes an argument that Apollonian without the Dionysian is stale and restraining and Dionysian without the Apollonian is menacing and chaotic. The Greek Tragedy is the most perfect form because it represents the holy marriage of Apollonian and Dionysian, art that merges two sides, the mystical unity of life. In Ancient form Greek tragedy contained acting on stage as well as music and dance, and what Nietzsche finds vital for the catharsis of the audience - chorus. His thesis is that in the peaks of the tragedy the chorus dominates so that the audience sees on stage its own reflection, raised to overpowering heights of suffering and transfiguration. Nietzsche admired Aeschylus and Sophocles (and offers a great analysis of the characters in their plays, especially Oedipus as well as Prometheus), whereas with Euripides he thinks that the decline of Greek tragedy began. Euripides' plays acted out in theater had no longer dance, music, or choir within them, just pure forms of images, making his tragedies Apollonian, condensed philosophical thought with the accent on a psychological drama of individual, which represents the triumph of Socratic rationalism and asceticism. Euripides manifested an interest in an individual, in psychology, and worst of all, in the beneficial effects of rationality, or as Nietzsche tends to call it, ‘dialectic’, making him the poet of aesthetic Socratism (for something to be beautiful it must be reasonable).
Existential implication
Greek Tragedy gave Greeks “great health” as they not only could endure but worship as divine the contrast embedded in the nature of reality, pain and suffering as part of the primordial essence of being, of all forms of life and creation. Dionysian gives a justification of pain and tragedy on both a personal level as well on a cosmic level - suffering is an intrinsic part of all things and to remove it would be to remove life itself. An important part of Nietzsche's philosophy is the complete affirmation of life in the totality of being - he criticized the Christian morality for acknowledging solely moral aspects of life - and therefore rejecting the inherent immorality of existence, which is almost the same as hatred for life. Nietzschean tragic affirmation of life is saying yes to life even in its strangest, hardest, most nefarious problems - having a Will to live, truly Dionysian quality - to join together peak and abyss, horrors of darkness and heights of bliss. The great health in not only accepting the horrible, evil, problematic aspects of existence as necessary but affirming them as a desirable part of the whole. To know the good as well as the bad is to know the wholeness of life and only by knowing the wholeness can one say a complete YES to life. To experience the most painful thoughts and the most extreme form of nihilism, and yet be able to emerge from such depths and affirm life in its totality is undoubtedly the highest state of being.
Theory of Art
”Function of art: to give us a hint of a truth, a truth that the world was chaotic and meaningless but, equally, art had to shield us from this dark, dreadful reality.”
Nietzsche believed that when artists transfigure the world aesthetically it produces profound existential satisfaction - the world and suffering are justified by art and creativity, what he called the ”only satisfactory theodicy”. Art gives us both healing and redemption through illusion, and saves us from the horrors of existence, giving the affirmation, the blessing, the deification of existence itself. Therefore, art is “the highest task and the proper metaphysical activity of this life”.
In a large sense, Nietzsche is a philosopher of self-realization, and the question he posed in the subtitle of Ecce Homo; “How one becomes who he is?” is central to his philosophy. How does a human become great? The Apollonian aspect of art, from the god of plastic energies, makes us dream beautiful illusions and create them in reality. The Dionysian aspect, makes us embody art in ourselves. Nietzsche believed that in the matrimony of Apollonian and Dionysian we are both the artists and the art form. Nietzsche believes that the Dionysian incites us to make ourselves into the work of art, an embodiment of art itself - one of the most beautiful thoughts that philosophy ever produced.
“Man is no longer an artist [as he had been in creating the gods], he has become a work of art: the artistic power of the whole of nature reveals itself to the supreme gratification of the primal Oneness amidst the paroxysms of intoxication.“
The Nietzschean, but also universal truth is we need both Apollonian and Dionysian, self-knowledge and self-forgetfulness, order and chaos, construction and destruction, pessimism and tragic affirmation - to be in unity of the opposite and to love life in the fullness of human experience.
Read Birth of Tragedy to gain more understanding of Greek tragedy on the journey of mythical inner exploration.
”Yes, my friends, believe as I do in Dionysiac life and in the rebirth of tragedy. The time of Socratic man is past. Put on wreaths of ivy, take up the thyrsus and do not be surprised if tigers and panthers lie down, purring and curling round your legs. Now you must only dare to be tragic human beings, for you will be released and redeemed. You will accompany the festive procession of Dionysos from India to Greece! Put on your armour for a hard fight, but believe in the miracles of your god!”
borjanjordanovitch's review against another edition
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
leelulah's review against another edition
3.0
You need some huge previous knowledge about german authors and ancient greek beliefs to understand this book, and some understanding about Nietzsche vision of life. It's extremely dense and "long". Some things can be a little more resumed. Since he had all those doubts around him, about God and life, it's no surprise the fact that he's always describing concepts like the idea of wilderness as main idea of the art and not balance, he's contionuosly opposing to the socratic idea and making a rivalry against music and sciences, for him Socrates killed the essence of the tragedy by considering the only way to understand the world, philosophy and not arts.
essierain's review against another edition
4.0
[4⭐]
Lo apolíneo y lo dionisiaco: la contienda más extraña y larga de la historia artística.
Lo apolíneo y lo dionisiaco: la contienda más extraña y larga de la historia artística.
regitzexenia's review against another edition
2.0
Philosophy is just not for me, or maybe it is just Nietzsche.