this is a summary of the most important point and analysis of nietzsche's first book - "the birth of tragedy", alternative title "hellenism and pessimism". very interesting honestly, highly recommended. enjoy!
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book finished on 27.01.2024.
let's start with a relevant information: this was the first book nietzsche ever wrote, and he was at the time 28. he's so underdeveloped in it. understandably, this is very interesting to see: nietzsche at the stage of grasping on ideas and clarifying them in his head, but still very much under the influence of schopenhauer and also the society he was living in, not yet fully separated with an ideological system of his own - yet already developing some form of a grasp on ideas he would later develop from.
many of his takes here are unclear compared to later writing and he accepts a lot of schopenhauer's "pessimistic realism", glorification of pain and misery in existence, as well as the concept of the truth in existence and pursuit of it. this is a significant period before he would deny the idea of such truth and condemn and pursuit and develop the concept of will to power in individuals. nietzsche is going to cut himself off from schopenhauer radically on the ground of schopenhauer being too pessimistic and nihilistic, he's going to grow to hate nihilism, and he's going to proclaim "saying yes to life" and reject collectivistic will, celebrate egoism in unique individuals, but that's not happening yet. right now we're approaching young nietzsche in his 20s. baby nietzsche, okay.
right now his ideas are underdeveloped and he hasn't yet created a philosophy of his own, but his basic attitudes - physicalism, immoralism, specific focus on aesthetics, criticm of religion and perception of the world as a constantly changing and "permanently happening" place of power struggle, inability to grasp real nature of things because the human brain crafts an illusion of its own via logic and senses and thus inability of knowing the true nature of world via human logic, the idea that nature doesn't have to be understood just to be understood but rather as part of subjugating it and inflicting one's will onto it, for operative purposes - it's all starting to show here. most importantly, this book is where he developed the apollonian/dionysian dichotomy. "the birth of tragedy" overall is a drama theory book, and as such, it introduces these concepts in context of greek tragedy and its later development.
it's worth mentioning that has left a mark on cultural discourse about art, even though nietzsche himself later largely abandoned this framework.
what does "apollonial/dionysian" mean? well, they're two dominant tendencies, instincts or forces that impact the human genius and creation, represented by two greek gods of art - apollo, god of higher art, truth, prophecy and light, and dionysus, god of wine, threatre, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness and religious ecstasy. both are related to the ancient greek perception of nature - as something beautiful, vital, but also rough and raw, cruel, lively, and beautiful in how powerful, unfeeling and permanent it is. it's a relation of respct, love and fear; nietzsche believed that the greeks understood so called "primordial pain", existence inherently being suffering and a struggle against forces much stronger than what humanity could control - a permanently unfair fight, but also as they were much more closely connected with nature than the industrial humans of later eras, they saw it in its full majesty - both terrifying, deadly and cruel and beautiful, they feared and respected it, including respect it for how heartless it was; that left them torn between dionysus and apollo, two powers that pulled them in opposite direction that clashed in the nature of human existence as animals, but animals who developed an intellect and conscious that suffers from its own erasure.
worse, the real nature of the world is factually almost lovecraftian, a cruel place an individual couldn't possibly grasp, and finds difficult ot handle - it's a lasting, immortal march of life where some forms replace the other ones and individuals die off and get devoured to be replaced by other ones, something not only falling far from human morality, but even from human logic - the principles of causativity, separation, categorisation and such that the human brain developed and that are inherent to human reasoning, causing humans to incorrectly think they're correct for how the whole world works; but it'll get to that. anyways, the core of biological existence here is primordial pain resulting from being, state that comes from being separated from nature and put at odds it, existing in an environment meant to fight for survival and fight a constant battle uphill.
in short, he compares apollonian impulses to dreaming - an illusion, but singular and custom made for the dreamer specifically, their own internal, personal confort - and dionysian impulses to the state of intoxication, ego death, feeling unity with the world, other people and nature, and reconnecting with normally repressed instincts and thoughts. apollonian activity is so called principle of individuation - the idea of the individual to know themself and their boundaries, keep them themselves in balance, integrity, ascend above the natural instinct and develop - the individual, creating and maintaining such thing as a personhood and societal formation, ascending above biology. this way the individual can separate and keep themself safe from their dionysian instincts and call of the void. apollonian artistic vision is the vision of precision, measured parameters, mathematical planning and idealised beauty, it's a celebration of the individual and their intellect and spirit which managed to develop above the animalistic and become something granted secondary, but more complex, more focused, more controlled. apollonian are the beautiful realistic sculptures and "higher art" which is the individual celebrating themself and individuality in general artistically. the human as an individual.
the main apollonian principles are exploring and knowing oneself and keeping self discipline, and apollonian creations are "dreams" i.e. resemblations of reality which recreate and elevate the individual human and their life. dianysian counter-force is ego death, erasure of the individual, reconnection with the primal instincts and shared, collective primal nature, which causes the feeling of unity with with all living beings. don't get me wrong - when i say "unity with all living beings" i don't mean it in the hippie way; i mean it in the way of connecting with and feeling like a part of the primal, vital force of life, the river of never ending sequences, ever changing but also immortal nature. dionysian unity is ego death and reconnection with the deep running animalistic element and with the terrifying, powerful nature - now in harmony with it as a part of it; the dionysian artist becomes a satyr who laughs at all that's holy and his genius is instinctual, his genius is madness, insanity. dionysian is the folk song, folklore and cult art, celebrations of nature full of sexual energy, pagan holidays. the dionysian artist becomes part of the dualistic nature and thus gains wisdom by immersing in and embracing it. dionysian art is primarily identified with music, singing and dancing by nietzsche, and why - i'll get to it.
now you know more or less what is apollonian and what is dionysian, you can imagine the ancient greek seeking escapism from his weakness and powerlessness towards the cruel, majestic nature, and finding two alternative routes, one being to separate himself from and elevate himself above it and one being to give in to it, let themself be captivated and become a wild, cursed and free being, stop fighting it and become one. these drives are, respectively, apollonian and dionysian and they both impact the greek art.
worth saying that nietzsche at that stage borrowed a lot of schopenhauer's philosophy of music; for schopenhauer, music was a pure being in the same way the physical world of phenomena was one, unlike visual art or lyricism which always are just reflections of something, pictures processed through the human brain or worse, the individual brain, and created based on their subjective processing, secondary forms reflecting the creation process, while music was a pure form of a different origin - purely instinctual form of art, one which doesn't leave space for cognitive processing of the instincts that produced this art, but rather expresses emotion as it is, with minimal processing, and is therefore probably the most primal, mother of all art - that is, that rhythm and ritual song and dance originated before other forms of art, and are the most "direct" art that requires the least intellectual crafting, which takes away from its expression of instinct. nietzsche believed art comes from the unconscious, that expressions of human power and activity are mainly driven by unconscious forces, and the conscious is the critic and censor. generally, humans who suffer from the hardship of existence against the rest of nature have two ways of escapism, to separate from nature and to melt into it.
interestingly, there's a lot of overlap with freudian takes on the self - the ego, superego and id. there's the dionysian uncontrolled, instinctual, libidinal nature of the individual and the civilised "self" formed by the society and the desire to distance oneself from these instincts and not be devoured by them. as usual, a lot of overlap between my babygirls.
anyway, progressing to the main point - nietzsche refers to research that indicates that the greek tragedy began with the choir, actually, which may seem counter-intuitive, but is explained by its dionysian character. it is said the choir is to represent the audience - wouldn't it be weird if a spectacle meant for audience began with the audience performing for itself? originally, there was the song and the mysterium of "forgetting oneself" in the musical event, and becoming part of the scene; there's the "active audience". nietzsche argues that passive audience - a listener, a watcher, a critic who perceives mysterium from the outside as something served to him - was a later invention of socratism (again, i'll get to that); originally, the audience were active participants forgetting themselves in the song. they, as part of the mysterium, became the satyrs - beings completely united with the collective, instinctual nature and deep seated animalistic instincts, and as such were, paradoxically, able to develop a kind of distance to existence itself - united with the "primal", old instinctual forces, immersed in the neverending, heartless stream of events that life is, they found unique understanding of it and acceptance of this state, and as satyrs, they got closer to gods. madness is a blessing, in many ways. as changed and liberated, they have the power to create new vision that takes inspiration for this state.
this built ground for tragedy to develop - the choir with their participation as mythical satyrs, demigods and whatnot created a kind of mythical reality, artistic environment onto which one could introduce stories with a plot; there the apollonian element united with the dionysian one, as the choir became the fundament on which the story was grounded. what was the story about? why was it tragic and meant to be end badly?
well, according to nietzsche, that's what allowed the greeks to look into the abyss in a distanced way. tragedy portrayed an eternal, cruel, unpredictable world, the "truth" of existence - yes, this is very early nietzsche, so he still believed in form of a truth, later he will decide existence has no truth beyond consant change and the principle of will to power, which states everything pursues growth, expansion and maximal impact on the environment and the world is a scene of conflict - the apollonian plot and characters, the "dream" and distanced perspective allowed to them to perceive in a "safe" way, without falling into it, to go beyond the olympian gods - apollonian creation meant to find beauty in nature and well, cope - and into the area of the titans, deep, horrifying forces, in a way that kept them safe in this exploration. to the ancient greeks - and young nietzsche who clearly read too much schopenhauer - the nature of "nature" is not only free of morality or concern for human values, but also goes against human logic, since logic and human "common sense" is only limited to the way the human brain function. the actual nature of life can go against and be blinding the same way lovecraft imagined confrontation with beings and worlds alien to the way the human brain processes and is able to grasp things, seeing the real "nature of things" is like looking at 4th or 5th dimension beings or the great old ones, seeing it directly would drive one insane because of how at odds it is with the way the human brain perceives, hence why it can only safely be perceived indirectly, via plot and story.
nietzsche then analyses tragedies written by aeschylus and sophocles, whose era he considers peak of greek artistic development and development of tragedy. very interesting is his analysis of oedipus by sophocles. it's a creation of a good, noble man, who, solving the riddle of the sphynx and achieving extraordinary, forbidden widsom and capability, is also then damaged and degenrated by the result of that. nietzsche refers to folk beliefs present in some cultures that a person capable of miracles can only be born from an act of incest - oedipus commits incest and murders his father, because where nature is defeated and one achieves power that goes beyond its order, there its order has to be broken and a horrible contradiction with its laws must have happened. it's a fair deal - the best way to get the secrets of nature is to radically go against its laws and win, and that necessarily is tied to the horrifying character of the unnatural; for oedipus to against unnatural wisdom he had to commit unnatural acts. who solves nature's riddles and defeats it has to also become a criminal against it; this myth is saying that unique wisdom, especially of dionysian nature, is an exception in nature's laws and something that goes against it, who defeats nature and pushes it towards decay must also experience that decay. oedipus is a noble man until the end who is suffering because he won against nature and took its secrets from its jaws, and as a result had to suffer the consequences of being at odds with it, which was that he became the murderer of his father and the lover of his own mother. oedipus isn't condemned; he's a tragic hero, who pays the price for challenging the order of things and winning.
another myth he analyses is prometheus by aeschylus. prometheus challenges the gods and forces them into taking him as an equal; he believed he could create humans and certainly destroy gods, he forced them to step to his level, and took from the power of creation - prometheus is a proud, cold and inspired artist, ready for any sacrifice for his will of creation, and ends up suffering because that's the consequences of how far he went for this act of creation; nietzsche believes prometheus is a figure of an artist while oedipus is a figure of a saint. both are humans who reached for the forbidden and paid the price that goes with breaking the eternal laws of nature but still considered it worth it, won and paid for it. there isn't a resigned pessimism - that's the interpretation of later, socratic audiences; they were stories of elevation through which the greeks could look into the dionysian nature of life - its forces that couldn't be defeated unless at a great cost, its dualism that dictated so all greatness comes necessarily with suffering.
it is something he went a bit deeper into and something i essentially agree with, and it's very relevant to my philosophy - to truly want to experience life one has to want it all, there's happiness so intense it hurts and causes pain and misery that one can find beauty in; i'm not a fan of glorifying unhealthy states but i am a fan of embracing the whole spectrum of human emotions - for me love is beautiful because it "has it all", the yearning, the desire, the anxiety, the fear. dionysian nature of things meant the world is beautiful for the same reasons it's cruel and horrible, or at least both come from the same sources and can't be separated, love and hatred have the same roots, greatness wouldn't be as tempting without the great risks and costs; for the world to be exicting and fascinating it has to have dark aspect and there has to be conflict and rivalry; i don't want a utopia, i want a full world with all it has to offer. nietzsche portrays both the apollonian and the dionysian elements as equal, none of them is "better", and they both cooperate and compete in art, both cooperated in creation of tragedy; nietzsche however aligns his philosophy moreso with the dionysian nature of things.
then he also has an antisemitic and misogynistic moment where he compares the semitic mythology to the greek and european mythology and paints at "feminine" - passive, the eden story with the idea of sin - giving in to a temptation as the root of things, versus the greek and "aryan" idea of sacrilege - active, conscious challenging of the gods in the name of one's own pride. interesting comparison even, but framed in a bigoted, biased way by young nietzsche.
besides, i do agree with the dualism thing, i do agree that any greatness has to do with alienation and sensibilities that make one exhausted with existence, because the same traits that make one extraordinary tend to also make them suffer. that's a digression, though. myself i do think there's beauty in nuance and complexity and bittersweetness.
anyways, progression - nietzsche introduces socrates and euripides as main murderers of tragedy. why? because socrates only accepted whatever he could deconstruct and logically understood; he was frustrated that people performed their job instinctually, without conscious understanding. deconstructed tragedy had to be understandable, therefore euripides introduced prologues and detailed explanations of the plot, and marginalised the choir; this kind of tragedy hast lost is dionysian character, since it couldn't anymore represent the deep, instinctual and non-understandable elements of nature and humanity; it didn't allow to look into the depth anymore, and instead of active participation in the mysterium it focused itself on copying the real life, which according to nietzsche made it aristically shallow; poetry and music became slaves to philosophy and logic, the same way philosophy would later become slave to religion. euripides believed art could be only appreciated if it's understandable, similar mindset as socrates. only the art subjugated to the human hierarchy of values and conscious, logical understanding was worth bothering with.
ok, now a digression from me, kotte, personally - i have to admit philosophically i'm torn between the instinct and the logic; torn between the past which brought the human will to this level of development and which created the conscious only as an interface to interact with the surroundings and inflict its will on it - which is what i very strongly believe - and future, which i believe is the logic taking control over the instinct; even though the logic is only operative. i don't know how positive nietzsche would be on this, i admit i have ambitions to become the great liquidator, or the total annihilator if you prefer, and worse, i consider that the only logical conclusion of nietzschean philosophy. the final realisation of evolution, instinct et cetera is eventual total deconstruction of itself. i believe the will achieves its total realisation, fulfilment and autonomy the moment it takes total control of itself, which means liberation from its own laws that rule it. in my philosophy - i don't know yet what this current will be called - the breaking point was contraception being invented, which is what enabled the intellect to go against the core laws of darwinist evolution that created it. i said one time that i love evolution, i admire it, i'm fascinated to death with it as a process, and therefore i want to end it. i've taken radical turns in my philosophical development lately. i think soon i will write something on where i diverge from nietzsche, and there i'll describe in more detail how i've gotten to the conclusion that the final logical conclusion of nietzscheanism is deconstruction of... most things the current world is grounded in. i'll also digress on it more later.
interesting conclusion on this - nietzsche also believed that the socractic element changed the greek mentality fundamentally and introduced the idea that anything must be logically understandable and must be defined in order to justify its existence, which laid ground for the scientific mind - the state of deconstructing things solely for the process of deconstruction, not to find and reveal the truth but rather to take satisfaction from being able to defeat obstacles to get to it - this kind of person, the socratic mind, murdered tragedy and real art via the notion that the catharsis it brings must be of moral kind, not artistic, that art overall must only be ground to promote "higher" (moral and religious) values. the socratic mind then however developed the current of understanding and measuring everything about the world. nietzsche here states that the dionysian element couldn't have been defeated by the apollonian since they couldn't exist without each other, but could and was defeated by the socratic - the logical deconstruction of everything and required logical and moral justification, which took away from art. the socratic mindset says that human reasoning and understanding of things can not only defeat but even change them, which is a sort of blasphemy in itsef, and the invention of "catharsis" as morality-based has bastardised the original roles of tragedy. that's not the end, though.
anyway, nietzsche states that eventually the scientific mind would cannibalise itself and return to a new kind of tragedy, via realisation that it cannot study, discover and know everything - that science eventually developed enough that it realised the more it discovers the more it doesn't know, the more problems it solves the more questions open in front of it, and everything it discovers only leaves it with more new information it cannot explain - that it leads to the new discovery of tragedy, in realisation that the world is essentially non-understandable and non-explainable, and the more riddles of it are solved, the more it reveals its nature in which it goes against human capability of understanding. nietzsche was a prophet here; he couldn't have known that later developents in quantum mechanics as well as theory of symbiosis which eventually challenges the sole concept of a specimen or individual given how many organisms usually form a living ecosystem such a human, as well as other discoveries in science, will prove that the world isn't understandable by common sense, and goes beyond and against the way the human brain reasons. that would spark a rebirth of tragedy.
and once again kotte's irritating digression - this is also what i mean; the scientific mind and process looping back to tragedy is somewhat related to my idea of evolution of humanity as a process that leads to the creation taking control of its own process of becoming and starting to creating itself, ending the role of the "artist". i find something beautiful in the idea that the same mechanisms that would create homo sapiens would be then replaced by their own creation in birth of homo deus - the successors of homo sapiens sapiens; my homo deus can be indentified with nietzsche's ubermensch, just a more elegant and less fascist-coded way to phrase the same concept - the species or post-species that will be the next form of development of humanity, and that me and anyone now alive at this stage isn't but i want to be one of the direct ancestors, the midwives in birth of that new post-species.
speaking of fascist-coded, by the end nietzsche says a few weird german-nationalist things about eliminating alien elements from german culture, which is... proof that he was young and stupid when he wrote this, since in his later writing he will hate germans and condemn nationalism. here however he decided to go full stupid, fine.
then he basically goes on about music as the primal art and quotes schopenaheur quite a lot - reminds me how dry copenshower's writing style is, as much as i will love to read "the world as will and representation" it's also going to be pain and suffering - says a few interesting things about the direct, instinctual character of music as compared to other art which is secondary; slags off opera, says a few relevant things about how myth and living story is necessary for a culture to thrive and how religion starts when the myth dies because it now has to be defended as true and stay in a consistent form.
very good book, however nietzsche himself criticises his writing style back then as feminine as if he wrote any less like a slur in his later books. definitely inspiring. i had a few moments reading this over how i feel the ambivalent character of beauty in destruction and the part where he believes the pinnacle of human development is aesthetic rather than moral or spiritual, something i second also, but kind of gay of him if you ask me. anyways. i've very much enjoyed this book.