Nietzsche General Thoughts: ☆Return to an older source of being, bring self back to its origin. ☆Rebelled against the general value, saw the vitality of the Greeks owed to darker psychological attraction and the old gods of violence and intoxication. Inverted (reversed) the classical way: Individual-universal; present-eternal; the singular-type ► ► ► ► Rejected: 1/intellectual control and conceptual limits 2/the abstraction of Hegelian history The difficulties: 1/ denial and negation 2/ can’t be anthologized, the works stood alone. Devotion: 1/ Aesthetics as the integration of philosophy and art. 2/ Felling replaces reason. Art replaces philosophy. The Birth of Tragedy Preface to Richard Wagner (Basel, end of the year 1871) as my sublime predecessor on this path, I wish to dedicate this essay ► ► what a seriously German problem is faced here and placed right in the center of German hopes I am convinced that art represents the highest task and the truly metaphysical activity of this life ► art owes its continuous evolution to the ApollinianDionysian duality Apollonian ► Cool and distanced ► Ration, lawgiver ► Plastic arts ► Freeze at a moment ► Visions: complete, coherent ► Controlled harmony ► Order and creative expression Dionysus ► Ecstasy and intoxication ► Mystery and disorder ► Music (non-visual) ► Wild and untrained, passionate ► Without appeal to image ► Exuberance and ecstasy ► Disorder and chaos to creation ☆Attic tragedy exhibits the salient features of both. ► Apollo, the interpreter of dreams, takes deep delight in the contemplation of his dream. ► ☆Apollonian norm: self-control ► So: “Know thyself” (Prometheus) “Nothing too much” (Oedipus) ► Apollonian forces resisted against the titanic and barbaric menace. Chorus-Dionysian talk the poetry abstractly. The dramatic chorus is the primary dramatic phenomenon; one can enter another body. ► ☆Don’t Anti-Dionysus ► Euripides: Beautiful-Sensible; Anti-Dionysiac tendency led the inartistic naturalism. ► Socrates: Knowledge- Virtuous Beautiful-Conscious ► Orpheus: His cult opposed that of Dionysus Nietzsche criticized the Socratic notion. ► (1) The insatiable thirst for knowledge, if it not for the purpose of knowledge, but for practical and egotistical end, it is barbarism. Nietzsche’s Method: art as religion or science ► (2) The optimism implicit in logic must collapse. The logic bites its own tail. New perception: a tragic perception requires the remedy of art. Apollo & Dionysus Apollo: Plastic art Apollonian spirit embodies the principium individuation, achieves redemption in illusion. ► Dionysus: Art of music Dionysus opens a path to the maternal womb of being. Music is the will directly. ► A. & D. work alongside, the relation between MUSIC & IMAGE, CONCEPT. ► ☆ Music gave birth to myth, to tragic myth. It’s vain to find tragic spirit from illusion and beauty. Music alone gives us the delight felt at the annihilation of individual. Dionysian art expresses the omnipotent will behind individuation. ► Apollo vs. Dionysus (1) Apollo wins marvelous illusion. Apollonian spirit wrests man from his Dionysiac self-destruction and deceives him by particular image. The harmony of sound and visual movement. By the help of music, we see a delicate tissue the curtain of the scene. (2) Apollo changes the extravagance and onrush from Dionysus. Music is the true idea of the cosmos, drama but a reflection of that idea. (3) The Apollonian element in tragedy has utterly triumphed over the Dionysiac quintessence of music. (4) But in the final effect of tragedy, the Dionysiac element triumph once again. (5) The highest goal of tragedy: a fraternal union between the two deities. German spirit--- highest value of tragedy ► 21. tragedy means for the innermost life ► 22. aesthetic; the aesthetic listener is also reborn with the rebirth of tragedy ► 23. our German character this so questionable culture of ours has as yet nothing in common with the noble core of our people's character the German Reformation ► We think so highly of the pure and vigorous core of the German character ► 24. the German spirit the tragic myth. With the Apollinian art sphere he shares the complete pleasure in mere appearance and in seeing, yet at the same time he negates this pleasure and finds a still higher satisfaction in the destruction of the visible world of mere appearance. Blessed people of Hellas! -----curious stranger ► 25. back into an ancient Greek existence how much did this people have to suffer to be able to become so beautiful! But now follow me to witness a tragedy, and sacrifice with me in the temple of both deities! http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ hopper/ Perseus Collection/Greek and Roman Materials ► Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus Sir Richard Jebb, Ed. ► Oedipus [330] Ah my children, my sisters!