Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy (section 1-4, 7-15, please note these are the numbers of the sections in the text, not in the preface)
Text available at: http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/tragedy_all.htm
Journals due on May 11.
Guidance questions:
1. Why does Nietzsche talk about history of arts?
2. What are the features of Apollonian and Dionysian drives? What is tragedy?
3. What's Nietzsche's criticism on Socrates?
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Jonathan Hicks
ReplyDeleteThe birth of tragedy is when the Apollonian worldview was met with the Dionysian.I belive that music is a form of art that does not represent a phenomenon.Nietzhe,argues that we are still living in the Alexandrian age of culture, which is now on it's last leg. Nietzsche, believes that science cannot explain the mysteries of the universe. Although,he thankful of the work of Kant and Schopenhauer.I believe that Nietzsche was looking out for the good of all people as a whole.Nietzsche, believed that music is superior to all other forms of art simply, because music have a tendency to help us rise above our consciousness.
The history of the arts is discussed because that progression in the field of art and its elements of opposition. The opposition of two forms of Greek art. Its as if Nietzsche is calling Greek art and tragedy the highest form of art. He analyzes the Greek art as Dionysian and Apollonian art and its tranformations in art and music and its distinctions. The lives of the Greek citzens was lived in constant tragedy and darkness with war and politics, it would make sense for art to rise to rid this pain. Which art can do, especially music, to the sense that music can be very uplifting in times. In my opinion arthas everything to do with mentality of the artist and their society. Nietzsche breaks down the mentallity behind Greek art and defines its orgins and orginality.
ReplyDeleteWhat are ther features of Apollonian and Dionysian drives? What is tragedy?
ReplyDeleteThe ancient Greeks believed that there are two Gods of art, whom are Apollo and Dionysus. Apollo is the god of formal beauty, aesthetics and style or the god of form. Dionysus is the god of orgiastic which means that he tends to arouse or excite unrestrained emotions, or he causes estatic nature. Out of these two gods came the concepts of Apollonin and Dionysian which were not percieved to be opposing, but on the contrary as mutually conditioning to each other in the form of co-independence and dynamic inter-relation.
Apollonian and Dionysian drives are distinct styles of life concretely derived from the forces of the two gods. Apollonian drive includes thinking, rational and visual arts while Dionysian drives includes feeling, passionate, irrational and music. For the Greeks, Apollonian could not exist without Dionysian and vise versa. This is how the world of the arts are concretely connected and lived by the Greeks, and they feel it gives an individual's life a certain shape.
According to Nietzsche, tragedy is the fusion of Apollonian and Dionysian drives. Tragedy is the highest form of art due to this mixture.
From the birth of tragedy, strong criticism on ideals of Socrates appears in his book. Nietzsche envied and resented Socrates. Nietzsche noticed a curbing of the Dionysian, the spread of rationality, especially since the time of Socrates which led to a progressive weakening of creativity. He noted shallow rationalism, and the eventual demise of destroyed the Aeschylean tradition that was abundant in tragedy. He is also seen as initiating the scientific movement, which is by no means something Nietzsche wishes to condemn unequivocally. He had believed Socrates was responsible for overthrowing the sophist culture. By Socrates taking the task of correcting individualism by rational thought and opposing the poets, he in doing so was trying to curb the violence by rationalism.
ReplyDeleteNietzsche felt Socrates sought to replace the power relationships within society with his own personally advantageous ideals and values. He thought Socrates was the one truly suffering. Socrates was resented because of his status in society and his plebian descent. Socrates believed the power should be in the hands of the intelligent rather than the physically strong, rich and brutal. Nietzsche theorized that those in the weak position can overcome the powers, with clever arguments and propaganda. With rationalism, it can be perceived as a form of mental battling or fencing. Socrates attempt to dethrone the ones in charge, the highest priests, sought out to restrict aristocratic powers for the nobler people.
Nietzsche later also adds the reason why Socrates owns decadence prevents him from being able to cure decadence, are from the results of his dialectical method being too dependent on his own personality. This is why his personal decadence is potentially harmful; Thereby the of failing Socrates is not that he resented authority and wanted to replace it with true knowledge, it is that true knowledge is not what he achieved.
Nietzsche criticism of Socrates for his love of wisdom, knowledge and truth. he blames the destruction of tragedy that brings the most ponderous of accusations, while at the same time transfiguring him as a saviors of humanity. he believe Socrates force of nature puts everyone under his spell. Nietzsche believe Socrates was nothing more than a supererogation of his own brain. his quest for truth is what drove him to destroy Greek art, he believe that Socrates duty was to tear away the veil of illusion and in the process be destroy the only real path to truth which is Dionysian-influenced art.Nietzsche summarizes the Socratic maxims: "virtue is knowledge; man sins only from ignorance; he who is virtuous is happy.
ReplyDeleteNietzsche focuses on the concept that art is perceived as subjective or objective based on the categories that qualify a work of art as "subjective" or not. Nietzsche establishes the argument that literary poems, though works of art that convey intense feelings and profound thought, are not a subjective form of art because they derive from music, an element in human culture derived from a structured system of symbols.
ReplyDeleteThe Dionysian was the primal aspect of reality, raw nature, flux, life and death,pleasure and pain, desire, passion, sex, aggression, the source of primal instincts.
The Apollonian was the humanized aspect of reality, civilization, harmony, balance, order, form, stasis, peace, moderation, permanence, symbolism, language, reason. In modern Psychological terms - The Ego and Superego
Nietzsche was a philosopher that viewed the modern world to be based on rational thinking, a world of logic and rational thought. Nietzsche believed that the only way to save the modern world was through the arts, especially music. He believed that the arts were the only kind of expression that could save the human spirit by giving way to the will. Nietzsche believed in the ideas of returning to our deeper selves and exploring tragedy through the arts. He believed in the idea of passion as a human expression to justify our existence in the world. He believed that only the arts could give true meaning to life. Rational thought and the search for knowledge is only a surface truth that provides no real answers. Nietzsche believed in Greek tragedy and supported the philosophy of tragedy, myth and the arts. It is only when we go beyond our rtational selves that true wisdom will become truth for our existence.
ReplyDeleteMusic exists in the realm beyond language, and so allows us to rise beyond consciousness and experience our connection to the Primordial Unity. Music is superior to all other arts in that it does not represent a phenomenon, but rather the "world will" itself.
ReplyDeleteNietzsche sees Euripides as the murderer of art, he who introduced the Socratic obsession with knowledge and ultimate trust in human thought into the theater. By focusing entirely on the individual, Euripides eliminated the musical element that is crucial to the Dionysian experience. Euripides threw Dionysus out of tragedy, and in doing so he destroyed the delicate balance between Dionysus and Apollo that is fundamental to art. In the second half of his essay, Nietzsche explores the modern ramifications of this shift in Greek thought. He argues that we are still living in the Alexandrian age of culture, which is now on its last legs. Science cannot explain the mysteries of the universe, he writes, and thanks to the work of Kant, we must now recognize this fact