The Birth of Tragedy
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- Category: English: Poetic Works
- Date Submitted: 02/05/2011 01:56 PM
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Nietzsche: Birth of a Tragedy
Nietzsche and his nature of Greek tragedy were very tough for me to comprehend. He relates tragedy and culture to a part of philosophy called Aesthetics, which is a lack of sense experience dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and perception. Aesthetics studies emotional values and new ways of seeing and of perceiving the world. From what I understand, his definition of art is somewhat inspirational. Nietzsche states that progression in the field of art is bound with the Apollonian and Dionysian opposition, Gods whom he calls the two art-deities of the Greeks.
Apollo is associated with conscious images, controlled expressions, and dream illusions. He represents beautiful Greek art, which relies on the appearances generated by fantasies to shield the reality of suffering. Nietzsche mentions the principle of individuality, which symbolizes man’s separation from the chaos of life when under productive influence of Apollo. An image where it is you or I separated from everything else in the world. Dionysus is associated with wine, ecstasy, and music. He brings the sense of chaos by unconscious, uncontrolled fantasies, and the loss of self to a primal unity where individuals are at one with others and with nature. The Birth of Tragedy resolves the central conflict between order and chaos, Apollo and Dionysus.
Basically, a tragedy is not a tragedy merely through one God. In order to fully experience the sense of a drama, both come into the equation through one another. Tragedy is then a Dionysian chorus which losses itself in Apollonian images.
Nietzsche and his nature of Greek tragedy were very tough for me to comprehend. He relates tragedy and culture to a part of philosophy called Aesthetics, which is a lack of sense experience dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and perception. Aesthetics studies emotional values and new ways of seeing and of perceiving the world. From what I understand, his definition of art is somewhat inspirational. Nietzsche states that progression in the field of art is bound with the Apollonian and Dionysian opposition, Gods whom he calls the two art-deities of the Greeks.
Apollo is associated with conscious images, controlled expressions, and dream illusions. He represents beautiful Greek art, which relies on the appearances generated by fantasies to shield the reality of suffering. Nietzsche mentions the principle of individuality, which symbolizes man’s separation from the chaos of life when under productive influence of Apollo. An image where it is you or I separated from everything else in the world. Dionysus is associated with wine, ecstasy, and music. He brings the sense of chaos by unconscious, uncontrolled fantasies, and the loss of self to a primal unity where individuals are at one with others and with nature. The Birth of Tragedy resolves the central conflict between order and chaos, Apollo and Dionysus.
Basically, a tragedy is not a tragedy merely through one God. In order to fully experience the sense of a drama, both come into the equation through one another. Tragedy is then a Dionysian chorus which losses itself in Apollonian images.