The Birth of Tragedy [Paperback]

He begins with an explanation of the dual Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies in art. The Apollonian, based on illusion, form, and restrained aesthetic contemplation, is contrasted with the Dionysian, which is characterized by a visceral, ecstatic, transcendental state. To Nietzsche, Greek tragedy was the only art form which was able to merge these two conflicting aesthetics into a successful union. He likens the operas of his then-hero, Richard Wagner, to the tragic drama of ancient Greece, and suggests that this similarity should be a cause of hope for the renewal of the "German spirit."

Crazy? Of course. Nietzsche was not a man noted for his intellectual restraint, and his associative thinking is never wilder or more disputable than in "The Birth of Tragedy." It is this very wildness which would later lead the philosopher to all but disown this book.

But "The Birth of Tragedy" is more than far-fetched theorizing--it is also a penetrating gaze into the destructive side of pure reason and the sunny optimism of the Enlightenment, which Nietzsche posits as being embodied in ancient Greece in the form of Socrates, whose withering, anti-aesthetic thinking Nietzsche finds deadening and repugnant. In the hyper-rational, heavily bureaucratic world in which he found himself at the dawn of the 1870s, Nietzsche looked to the colossal operas of Wagner to find a counterbalance to the icy skepticism of Socrates (and the Enlightenment) and what he considered to be a fundamental misunderstanding of ancient Greek culture on the part of his contemporaries. In stark contrast to their appraisal of Greek culture as serene and harmonious, Nietzsche located the enduring greatness of the Hellenic world in its brave and fierce pessimism, which he saw best represented in tragedy.

"The Birth of Tragedy," then, is a cry of hope from its author for what he considered a renewal of German myth and unity. It does not make for easy reading, however, and the reader should be prepared for many, many pages of exhausting and often ludicrous "insights," not one of which makes much sense from a logical point of view, but all of which play a vital role in Nietzsche's brilliant and brilliantly original analyses of ancient and modern culture.

Nietzsche was one of the first to analyze Greek art in terms of its psychological ramifications-both conscious and unconscious. He posits that the two driving forces for art-whether it was painting, sculpture, music, or tragedy- required a mixture of the gods, Dionysus (Pan) and Apollo, whose virtues were synonymous with nature, but nearly bipolar. Apollo, the Delphic god, requires self-knowledge and demands that his disciples exorcize prudence in action; however, Dionysus demands complete abandon and excess. One cannot exist without the other: Apollo, though despising all misery and barbaric acts, knew that his existence depended upon that of Dionysus.

According to Nietzsche, Art stems directly from nature; it is not an imitation or reflection; therefore, the artist must commune with the gods and nature in order to render any art as such. The artist desires art to be 'the unvarnished expression of the truth' of the world; hence, Art is eternal universal truth. Art should achieve a fusion between the subjective and objective, hence, the artistic creation is 'like the weird image of the fairy tale which can turn its eyes at will and behold itself'.

Dionysus is the primordial artistic power that conjures the entire universe into being. It is a communal or collective consciousness, which exists in every individual just as every individual, exists in Dionysus. There is a complete absence of duality between individual and collective consciousness, hence, the individual transcends the limits of existence and becomes one with the collective mind who speaks with one voice-Art. Dionysus reveals the true nature of life as 'bliss born of pain'. Nature communicates its wisdom through the agency of pathos; it wishes to share its suffering and some of the truths in the world.

The paragon of Greek art is the tragedy. Tragedy takes place where Apollo and Dionysus have entwined perfectly forming a hybrid braid. The Dionysian Satyr is the incarnation of tragedy and exists within the realm of the gods as myth and cult. Tragedy transforms one into a Satyr. It is sudden and powerful: the Satyr dominated the "man of culture", 'like lamplight is nullified by the light of day'. This caused the tragedy to lead one back to the primal core of nature where one may stare boldly, directly into the destructiveness and cruelty of nature, which imbues one with such profound insight into the horrendous truth, that one is smitten listless with the absurdity of all worldly existence. True knowledge negates existence and the will to act-one asks, what good would it do to remedy a world, which abounds with such profound injustice-a world so askew. Then when the will is nearly irretrievably lost to the void-and a second seems to span all of eternity-art snatches us from the precipice of oblivion. The brilliance of Apollo, like a clarion call, comes shining through as art and redeems all life. Art propitiates the horrible and the comic relieves absurdity. Art soothes us with a healing immersion so sublime and tranquil that we experience life as overwhelmingly invincible and pleasurable in the face of all adversity-i.e., rapture. Through this rapture, one garners the true laurels of life and continues onward as a glorious saga that rivals that of Odysseus. This is how the Greeks experienced tragedy: it was the fount of life sustaining energy, which endowed them with a great sensitivity for the Arts. Therefore, Tragedy is a rite of passage from Man to Satyr to God (hero who is cheerful in adversity); then the vision is complete.

According to Nietzsche-although the Germans have succumbed to "Socratic Optimism" and predominantly guided by concepts-there are still some vestiges of the true German spirit, which lies deep within an abyss dreaming in glorious 'Dionysian strength, like a knight sunk in slumber'. This is the myth of Sigfried used in Wagner's Ring. However, this also elicits the myth of Endymion whose immortality-granted by the gods-reaches a state of final atonement by spending all of eternity sleeping. Perhaps, Nietzsche is being more critical of the Germans than he appears to be.

Socrates, speaking as a Philosopher, proposed that the mind perceives the truth of the world, but the body is an encumbrance acting as fetters to the mind and higher pursuits (See The Last Days of Socrates by Plato). Therefore, Socrates freed his mind (a priori) to discern the true nature of reality from mere appearance; thus, he became the first theoretical man. Everything that exists satisfies him; he never suffers from pessimism-upon uncovering the truth, there are still more layers of undiscovered wisdom, which saves him so "through his own efforts" he succeeds. Socratic philosophy instills an insatiable hunger for knowledge in its disciples-exploring and fathoming nature ad infinitum becomes an end in itself-Science becomes Art. Socrates' influence upon the neophyte, Plato, was quite profound; hence, the entire world has adopted causality as the one true god. The individual is enshrined within a realm of solvable problems from which predictability becomes the god. There is rapture with scientific discovery and inquiry. There is a transition from man to mind, however, the mind must transcend the body in order to commune with nature and divine the truths of the world, which are highly abstract. When truth is uncovered, one experiences rapture (i.e., a gift from Apollo) and becomes a god.

Who is the wisest man of all-it is Nietzsche.

Nietzsche was one of the few philosophers who engaged in self-criticism, and is the most honest of all philosophers who took to the pen. This is indeed manifest in his "Attempt at a Self-Criticism", which was added to the 1886 edition of "The Birth of Tragedy". Nietzsche attempted to view the nature of truth without any masks, and his need to do this resulted in his works perhaps being more of a dialog with himself than with his readers. With every line written, Nietzsche was making sure that he himself was convinced of what was put down on paper. But this must at all times be done without "arresting the play" and negating the "terrors of existence".

Kaufmann represents "The Birth of Tragedy" as a work that allowed Nietzsche to justify his appointment to a full chair of philology at the young age of 25, but also a book that would not appeal to anyone in German academic circles. It would appear that Nietzsche was determined to remain independent, and not become intoxicated with the "prestige" of being appointed to such a position at such an early age. Nietzsche's later criticism of his own work would seem to justify this interpretation. This total intellectual honesty of Nietzsche is unique in the history of philosophy.

What is most valuable about "The Birth of Tragedy" is its restatement of Greek life and culture, which up to Nietzsche's time was conceived in terms of the "Winckelmann view" according to Kaufmann. The "noble simplicity, calm grandeur" of Goethe and the "sweetness and light" of Matthew Arnold were the appropriate adjectives for Greek culture. But Nietzsche brought in the Dionysian festivals, as another aspect of it, and its longing, in the words of Kaufmann, to "exceed all norms". This insight of Nietzsche has wide-ranging applications, for it points to the need of all cultures, and thus all individuals, to at times attend the Dionysian festival and get out of equilibrium, remain for awhile off-balance, and get intoxicated with the dance of unreason.

But with intellectual honesty towards oneself comes the same for others, and Nietzsche did not hesitate to depart with friends when there was conflict with this honesty. Thus Nietzsche wrote "The Case of Wagner", a very damning indictment against his former friend Richard Wagner, and a book which Nietzsche subtitled "A Musician's Problem". Nietzsche describes his reasons for writing at it as a consequence of a "special self-discipline: to take sides against everything sick in me". This included Wagner, Schopenhauer, and all of what Nietzsche called "modern humaneness". According to Nietzsche, Wagner was just one of his sicknesses. But sickness can be a stimulant to life, he says, but only if one is healthy enough for this stimulant.

So what about Wagner bothered Nietzsche? It was the fact in Nietzsche's view, Wagner's music was nongenuine. Wagner was an "actor in music", according to Nietzsche, and a lack of honesty or genuineness was intolerable to Nietzsche. The integrity and "authenticity" of musicians has never been put to the test so dangerously, he says. Wagner's music is a sign of a declining culture, and in such a culture, believed Nietzsche, authenticity becomes superfluous and a liability. Thus the passion that Wagner's music instilled in people, and the boredom it alleviated in orchestra musicians, was more of a sign of decadence, rather than achievement. It was an attempt to "arrest the flow", to negate the original "difficulty of life", and this, in Nietzsche's view, was its essential crime, a crime that Christianity and other forms of decadence also committed. The ninth part of the book ends with the following lines which make Nietzsche's Wagnerian complaint particularly manifest: "That the theatre should not lord it over the arts. That the actor should not seduce those who are authentic. That music should not become an art of lying. "