Summary
Artistic creation depends on a tension between two opposing
forces, which Nietzsche terms the “Apollonian” and the “Dionysian.” Apollo
is the Greek god of light and reason, and Nietzsche identifies the
Apollonian as a life- and form-giving force, characterized by measured
restraint and detachment, which reinforces a strong sense of self.
Dionysus is the Greek god of wine and music, and Nietzsche identifies
the Dionysian as a frenzy of self-forgetting in which the self gives
way to a primal unity where individuals are at one with others and
with nature. Both the Apollonian and the Dionysian are necessary
in the creation of art. Without the Apollonian, the Dionysian lacks
the form and structure to make a coherent piece of art, and without
the Dionysian, the Apollonian lacks the necessary vitality and passion.
Although they are diametrically opposed, they are also intimately
intertwined.
Nietzsche suggests that the people of ancient Greece were
unusually sensitive and susceptible to suffering and that they refined
the Apollonian aspect of their nature to ward off suffering. The
primal unity of the Dionysian brings us into direct apprehension
of the suffering that lies at the heart of all life. By contrast,
the Apollonian is associated with images and dreams, and hence with
appearances. Greek art is so beautiful precisely because the Greeks
relied on the appearances generated by images and dreams to shield
themselves from the reality of suffering. The early, Doric period
of Greek art is dull and prim because the Apollonian influence too
heavily outweighs the Dionysian.
The Greek tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, which Nietzsche
considers to be among humankind’s greatest accomplishments, achieve
their sublime effects by taming Dionysian passions by means of the
Apollonian. Greek tragedy evolved out of religious rituals featuring
a chorus of singers and dancers, and it achieved its distinctive
shape when two or more actors stood apart from the chorus as tragic
actors. The chorus of a Greek tragedy is not the “ideal spectator,”
as some scholars believe, but rather the representation of the primal
unity achieved through the Dionysian. By witnessing the fall of
a tragic hero, we witness the death of the individual, who is absorbed
back into the Dionysian primal unity. Because the Apollonian impulses
of the Greek tragedians give form to the Dionysian rituals of music
and dance, the death of the hero is not a negative, destructive
act but rather a positive, creative affirmation of life through
art.
Unfortunately, the golden age of Greek tragedy lasted
less than a century and was brought to an end by the combined influence
of Euripides and Socrates. Euripides shuns both the primal unity induced
by the Dionysian and the dreamlike state induced by the Apollonian,
and instead he turns the Greek stage into a platform for morality
and rationality. Rather than present tragic heroes, Euripides gives
his characters all the foibles of ordinary human beings. In all
these respects, Nietzsche sees Socrates’ influence on Euripides. Socrates
effectively invented Western rationality, insisting that there must
be reasons to justify everything. He interpreted instinct as a lack
of insight and wrongdoing as a lack of knowledge. By making the
world seem knowable and all truths justifiable, Socrates gave birth
to the scientific worldview. Under Socrates’ influence, Greek tragedy
was converted into rational conversation, which finds its fullest
expression in Plato’s dialogues.
The modern world has inherited Socrates’ rationalistic
stance at the expense of losing the artistic impulses related to
the Apollonian and the Dionysian. We now see knowledge as worth
pursuing for its own sake and believe that all truths can be discovered
and explained with enough insight. In essence, the modern, Socratic,
rational, scientific worldview treats the world as something under
the command of reason rather than something greater than what our
rational powers can comprehend. We inhabit a world dominated by
words and logic, which can only see the surfaces of things, while
shunning the tragic world of music and drama, which cuts to the
heart of things. Nietzsche distinguishes three kinds of culture:
the Alexandrian, or Socratic; the Hellenic, or artistic; and the
Buddhist, or tragic. We belong to an Alexandrian culture that’s
bound for self-destruction.
The only way to rescue modern culture from self-destruction
is to resuscitate the spirit of tragedy. Nietzsche sees hope in
the figure of Richard Wagner, who is the first modern composer to
create music that expresses the deepest urges of the human will,
unlike most contemporary opera, which reflects the smallness of
the modern mind. Wagner’s music was anticipated by Arthur Schopenhauer,
who saw music as a universal language that makes sense of experience
at a more primary level than concepts, and Immanuel Kant, whose
philosophy exposes the limitations of Socratic reasoning. Not coincidentally,
Wagner, Schopenhauer, and Kant are all German, and Nietzsche looks
to German culture to create a new golden age.
