How, in Nietzsche�s view, does tragedy enable human beings to accept
the world?
Greg Detre
Sunday, 21 January, 2001
Dr Rosen, post-Kantian II
Since the uproar after publication of Nietzsche�s only major scholarly discussion of the Greeks, an �impossible� though �audacious� book (in his own self-critical words), the Birth of Tragedy has settled into comfortable notoriety. Although unmistakeably written with the same verve as his later works, its sections are longer and less demagogical in their prose style. It addresses many of the themes that preoccupy his later writings through its discussion of the distinction between the Apollonian and Dionysian �art-impulses�, his characterisation of Attic tragedy as the supreme consolation of art in a Schopenhauerian metaphysic, its corrosion by Socratism and finally Wagner as a modern embodiment of this thesis.
At this early stage in Nietzsche�s thought, the influences of Schopenhauer and Wagner are still foremost. Schopenhauer�s �formless, aimless, turbulent principle� of the �will� as the world in itself provides the backdrop for Nietzsche�s affirmations of art as �the highest task and the truly metaphysical activity of this life�. In order to make sense of this supreme significance he allocates to tragedy, it is necessary to investigate its derivation as he understands it.
The central dichotomy that Nietzsche introduces in art lies
between the Apollonian and Dionysian, derived from the two gods of art in the
Greek pantheon. This duality should not be seen as a simple opposition (indeed,
Euripides muddies the clean distinction with a third aspect, which draws on the
Apollonian), nor should Dionysus be polarised as �good� or �positive� or Apollo
�negative�. Nietzsche contrasts them along a variety of different lines. Apollo
is the sun god, inspiring dreams, weaving illusion and creating representations
of individuation. Apollonian art includes sculpture, visual art and drama, the
twice-removed forms of representation. The Dionysian rapture gives rise to
music (especially harmonic/melodic, and excluding rhythmic music) and poetry
(though he later regrets these over-simplified genre categorisations). But the
dichotomy runs deeper than this. The Dionysian is reality and presence to
Apollonian appearance. The Dionysian is ambiguously linked with �will�, the
underlying nature of the world as suffering, veiled by Apollonian beauty and
illusory representation. Attic tragedy can be seen as growing out of a union of
the Apollonian and Dionysian, with the protagonists and the satyr as the masked
Dionysian on stage. Attic tragedy (set to music) combines both, as the only
bearable and consoling access to the unendurable truth.
It is this strongly Dionysian element to tragedy as represented in Apollonian dramatic form that allows the spectator the most direct glimpse of the �unendurable truth�, while at the same time providing consolation. He uses the case of Hamlet to illustrate the paralysing power and dismay of this Dionysian reality, a man unable to act not because of all the options available but because he so clearly understood the complete futility they all presented.
Aeschylus and, to a lesser extent, Sophocles, represent Attic tragedy at its most powerful, with Euripides and Socrates as its death-knell. Nietzsche�s attitude to Socrates is complex and ambivalent. He seems to view him with grudging respect, as to a worthy adversary. Socrates is the precursor to the theoretical man, the will to truth in its most rational embodiment. With his �tremendous intellect�, his �monstrous� logical consciousness that overpowers an underdeveloped natural instinct, he is the second spectator, encouraging Euripides in putting the spectator on the stage, substituting the Dionysian for the �inartistic� and �naturalistic�, pruning the Apollonian down to rational arguments and the Aeschylean to �poetic justice�, all according to the Socratic maxims: �Virtue is knowledge; man sins only from ignorance; he who is virtuous is happy�.
Ultimately, Nietzsche brands Socrates the Cyclopes (perhaps a reference to the �third eye� for the theatrical in life), incapable of appreciating the Dionysian Rausch, and so destined to denigrate it to the level of his Aesopian fables, seeking to find in tragedy the sort of order and moral rationality that grows into Christianity�s �hostility to life� casting �art as lies�. Nietzsche acknowledges bitterly the irony of Socrates� tragic death, safe in the knowledge that his teaching would be perpetuated.