The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music (Penguin Classics)

Rating:
Summary: Knowledge through tragedy
Review: Any westerner (occidental man),will tell you if asked that knowledge must contain reason in order to qualify as such.Science will testify to that.Shall it be added that dialectic consists of the method to achieve this conclusive perfection.Presocratic thinkers were on a different track.The chaotic and fulgurent rythms of the Dyonisan asiatic music merge with the stern powerful measured,proportionated art of the Appolonian god gave their true followers inspired knowledge.Try it and you will know.Let fear have no part in it.

Rating:
Summary: The Dialectic model of Art
Review: Since the only other review is fairly obtuse about this book, it seems necessary to write another. If you consider yourself a creative entity, an artist, a musician, a filmmaker, a writer; then this book should be required reading. It describes two opposing "forces", Apollo and Dionysus, who are in perpetual conflict. From this conflict, all great art is born.

It is a dialectic, Thesis meets Antithesis to beget Synthesis.

The real point is though, after reading the book, you look for these opposing forces in everyday life and find them everywhere. Man and woman, religion and science, good and evil (for rudimentary examples). After reading the book it was apparent how much of this world is constructed out of, and centered on, opposition. It's like Matt Modine's helmet in Full Metal Jacket, man is a creature with inherent duality.

The Birth of Tragedy touches on something so essential and instinctually true to our existence that it can only vaguely be explained in words. Nietszche knows this and presents the concept as eloquently and clearly as it allows. It is up to the reader to take this knowledge as a starting point and explore deeper into their own individual experience and perspective.