The Birth of Tragedy

Nietzsche proposes that art “derives its continuous development from the duality of the Apolline and Dionysiac” (14), which are two opposing aesthetic tendencies. We can compare these two tendencies to the states of dreaming and drunkenness, respectively. The world of dreams gives us insight into a reality beyond the everyday world in which we live. Whereas the Apolline tendency brings us a calm sense of our individual existence (comparable to dreaming), the Dionysiac—as experienced, for instance, in drunkenness—awakens powerful urges that make us forget ourselves, absorbing us into a “higher community” and involving us in wild collective revelry.

Starting in Chapter 5, Nietzsche attempts to explain the origin of tragedy within Greek culture. He argues that the poets Homer and Archilochus, with their epic and lyric poetry, helped pave the way for tragedy. Folk poetry and folk song are born out of a union of the Dionysiac and Apolline and out of an attempt to make language “imitate music.” Music itself is the expression of the universal will (See: Index of Terms), which embodies the primal sense of life as “contradiction” and “suffering” and is beyond the power of language to express. Music and tragedy thus bring us closer to the primary realities of life, which are profoundly pessimistic.

In Chapter 7, Nietzsche tries to gain further insight into the origin of Greek tragedy by examining three different theories about one of the genre’s main elements, the chorus. Nietzsche considers the theories in turn:

I. The chorus represents the populace, in contrast with the nobility depicted in the drama proper.

II. The chorus represents the “ideal spectator.”

III. The chorus acts as a “living wall” around the tragedy that protects it from the “naturalism” of the “real world” and allows it to maintain an idealistic sense of “poetic freedom.”

Nietzsche chooses the third theory as “infinitely more valuable” than the other two. The truth of the theory is reflected in the fact that one type of Greek chorus, the chorus of satyrs (See: Index of Terms), stood on a scaffold high above the stage, as if existing on a higher plane of reality, one rooted in “myth” and “ritual.” Indeed, the satyr chorus embodies the essence of tragedy and the Dionysiac, because the satyrs’ freedom from the social conventions of civilization presents a vision of the “indestructibly powerful and joyful” nature of life, “abolishing the habitual barriers and boundaries of existence” (39) and bringing a “restored oneness” to humanity.

For Nietzsche, the chorus (especially the satyr chorus) represents the ability to see through “to the essence of things” (39) and to understand the “horror and absurdity of existence” (40). Once human beings have grasped these difficult truths, they are subsequently “saved by art” (39) because art transfigures this tragic reality by turning it into the “sublime,” something that can be contemplated aesthetically. It does this by filtering the Dionysiac reality through Apolline forms and symbolism, thus making it “transparent and beautiful” (45) through the use of artistic illusions.

Through the chorus, the audience sees itself transformed and acting through this symbolic body of people, thus achieving their “unification with primal being” (44). Thus, for Nietzsche, the chorus is the very essence and origin of Greek tragedy.

In Greek culture, the Apolline had the effect of “healing” the pain caused by a knowledge of the tragic nature of reality. Therefore, what we today consider to be the serenity and “cheerfulness” of the ancient Greeks was in fact a mask for a deeply troubled vision of tragedy. Nietzsche uses the character of Oedipus in the plays of Sophocles as an example of how a tragic hero, through his depth of suffering (the Dionysiac principle), brings a “magical and beneficial power” (46) (the Apolline principle) to the audience.

Similarly, the character of Prometheus in Aeschylus’s play steals fire from the gods and gives it to humankind; as punishment, troubles and suffering are unleashed on humankind (Dionysiac principle), yet fire and civilization still sustain them (Apolline principle).

In the closing lines of Chapter 10, Nietzsche accuses the dramatist Euripides of destroying the spirit of myth, tragedy, and music by making tragedy obey the individualistic norms of Socratic reason. Nietzsche will develop this thesis further in the following section, which is dedicated to the “death” of tragedy in Greek culture.