Rating: 
Summary: An interesting insight into the early Nietzsche.
Review: "The Birth of Tragedy" (1872) was Nietzsche's first published work, and what a work it is. Taking as its point of departure the origins and eventual death of tragedy in ancient Greece, this book shouldn't be taken as a literal meditation on Greek tragedy. Instead, Nietzsche uses his discussion of this art form to analyse trends he saw in the Germany of the early-1870s and to examine the similarities between the Hellenic world and the world of Bismarckian Germany.He begins with an explanation of the dual Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies in art. The Apollonian, based on illusion, form, and restrained aesthetic contemplation, is contrasted with the Dionysian, which is characterized by a visceral, ecstatic, transcendental state. To Nietzsche, Greek tragedy was the only art form which was able to merge these two conflicting aesthetics into a successful union. He likens the operas of his then-hero, Richard Wagner, to the tragic drama of ancient Greece, and suggests that this similarity should be a cause of hope for the renewal of the "German spirit." Crazy? Of course. Nietzsche was not a man noted for his intellectual restraint, and his associative thinking is never wilder or more disputable than in "The Birth of Tragedy." It is this very wildness which would later lead the philosopher to all but disown this book. But "The Birth of Tragedy" is more than far-fetched theorizing--it is also a penetrating gaze into the destructive side of pure reason and the sunny optimism of the Enlightenment, which Nietzsche posits as being embodied in ancient Greece in the form of Socrates, whose withering, anti-aesthetic thinking Nietzsche finds deadening and repugnant. In the hyper-rational, heavily bureaucratic world in which he found himself at the dawn of the 1870s, Nietzsche looked to the colossal operas of Wagner to find a counterbalance to the icy skepticism of Socrates (and the Enlightenment) and what he considered to be a fundamental misunderstanding of ancient Greek culture on the part of his contemporaries. In stark contrast to their appraisal of Greek culture as serene and harmonious, Nietzsche located the enduring greatness of the Hellenic world in its brave and fierce pessimism, which he saw best represented in tragedy. "The Birth of Tragedy," then, is a cry of hope from its author for what he considered a renewal of German myth and unity. It does not make for easy reading, however, and the reader should be prepared for many, many pages of exhausting and often ludicrous "insights," not one of which makes much sense from a logical point of view, but all of which play a vital role in Nietzsche's brilliant and brilliantly original analyses of ancient and modern culture.
Rating:
Summary: An interesting insight into the early Nietzsche.
Review: "The Birth of Tragedy" (1872) was Nietzsche's first published work, and what a work it is. Taking as its point of departure the origins and eventual death of tragedy in ancient Greece, this book shouldn't be taken as a literal meditation on Greek tragedy. Instead, Nietzsche uses his discussion of this art form to analyse trends he saw in the Germany of the early-1870s and to examine the similarities between the Hellenic world and the world of Bismarckian Germany. He begins with an explanation of the dual Apollonian and Dionysian tendencies in art. The Apollonian, based on illusion, form, and restrained aesthetic contemplation, is contrasted with the Dionysian, which is characterized by a visceral, ecstatic, transcendental state. To Nietzsche, Greek tragedy was the only art form which was able to merge these two conflicting aesthetics into a successful union. He likens the operas of his then-hero, Richard Wagner, to the tragic drama of ancient Greece, and suggests that this similarity should be a cause of hope for the renewal of the "German spirit." Crazy? Of course. Nietzsche was not a man noted for his intellectual restraint, and his associative thinking is never wilder or more disputable than in "The Birth of Tragedy." It is this very wildness which would later lead the philosopher to all but disown this book. But "The Birth of Tragedy" is more than far-fetched theorizing--it is also a penetrating gaze into the destructive side of pure reason and the sunny optimism of the Enlightenment, which Nietzsche posits as being embodied in ancient Greece in the form of Socrates, whose withering, anti-aesthetic thinking Nietzsche finds deadening and repugnant. In the hyper-rational, heavily bureaucratic world in which he found himself at the dawn of the 1870s, Nietzsche looked to the colossal operas of Wagner to find a counterbalance to the icy skepticism of Socrates (and the Enlightenment) and what he considered to be a fundamental misunderstanding of ancient Greek culture on the part of his contemporaries. In stark contrast to their appraisal of Greek culture as serene and harmonious, Nietzsche located the enduring greatness of the Hellenic world in its brave and fierce pessimism, which he saw best represented in tragedy. "The Birth of Tragedy," then, is a cry of hope from its author for what he considered a renewal of German myth and unity. It does not make for easy reading, however, and the reader should be prepared for many, many pages of exhausting and often ludicrous "insights," not one of which makes much sense from a logical point of view, but all of which play a vital role in Nietzsche's brilliant and brilliantly original analyses of ancient and modern culture.
Rating: 
Summary: Life As Art!!!
Review: "The Birth of Tragedy Out Of The Spirit Of Music" is Nietzsche in the raw. This is before the later, "mature" posturing armchair philosopher took over. This is the philologist unearthing a great treasure - the Ancient Greeks REALLY lived, and in their super-abundance of LIFE, they had room for Tragedy/Pessimism! The opposite then, is also true, our modern society that cries out for OPTIMISM and "positive-thinking" is therefore the clearest sign that we are less than alive. This book is Nietzsche seeing in ART, that blazing passion for being ALIVE. This is Nietzsche as the young, unsystematic YEA-SAYER to LIFE. Aesthetics as the true metaphysics - not morality, since LIFE is beyond temporal, earthly taboos. ART-LIFE as the representation of transcending good and evil (later formulated more fully in "Beyond Good And Evil". This is art seen under the lens of life.
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Summary: Dionysian without Apollo Will Destroy - Rebirth of Tragedy
Review: .
The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche's first book. Why have I read it? Three reasons. One, I am studying ancient Greek culture. Secondly, I love to learn anything from mysticism, spiritual and Eastern thought, psychology and philosophy and again Grecian thought of Plato, Socrates, Aristophanes, Sophocles and etc. Third, I've always admired Jim Morrison, a Rock singer and poet who was also influenced by Nietzsche, primarily his interpretation of ancient Greek tragedy, more specifically, "The Birth of Tragedy. And so I've read it. Now Walter Kaufman's translation agrees with me and I think it one of the best in understanding and clarity. This book is a great read and answers so many questions and thoughts. But ultimately I found something I never intended on thinking and it's staring me right in the face with bold assertiveness. I honestly never expected to find this. First Nietzsche does a superb job in slamming the Socratic culture of logic, science and optimism, which I agree, has destroyed the real chaotic nature of true art, the Dionysus nature and that of the real meaning of tragedy. He is right on the money here. "Existence is only justified as an aesthetic phenomenon." Euripides has destroyed the Aeschylean and Sophoclean tragedy into Socratized thinking. The Dionysian element of chaos, of drunkenness and dissolution, of irrational art in it's raw existence is imaged by Apollo and necessary in conceptualization of the fleeting moment of depth that only resides in temporal flow of Dionysus and yet is destroyed by the scientific Socratized analysis. Euripides's plays have adopted such logic, lost the Dionysus, taken the optimism and linguistic clarity in destroying the satyr's chaotic hold of frenzy and creativity found in formless tragedy of music. The Apollonian form is imagery while the Dionysian forms the Apollonian. "Dionysian speaks the language of Apollo, and Apollo, finally the language of Dionysus and so the highest goal of tragedy and all art is obtained." P. 130 All of this, and much more, is brilliant and profound, but then, this now leads to something about German history, and is there in the flagrant words, of Nietzsche who calls for "The rebirth of tragedy," the rebirth of Greek tragedy. Where is this? In the German spirit. "Out of the Dionysian root of the German spirit a power has arisen which, having nothing in common with the primitive conditions of Socratic culture, can neither be explained nor excused by it, but which is rather felt by this culture as something terribly inexplicable and overwhelming hostile, the German music we must understand it. from Bach to Beethoven, and to Wagner." p. 119 What is this Dionysian root, this power from the German spirit.? Nietzsche symbolically calls it a "demon, " a power one that cannot be easily subdued, and it is rising from the unfathomable depths, which is against the Socratic logic and superficial optimism. And here Nietzsche goes further than music into a Dionysian spirit of German philosophy that he believes transcends the boundaries of Socratic thinking into adrenaline flowed tragic rediscovery, a rebirth of Greek tragedy. "Let us recollect further that Kant and Schopenhauer made it possible for the spirit of German philosophy, streaming from similar sources to destroy scientific Socratism's complacent delight in existence by establishing its boundaries; how through this delimitation was introduced an infinitely profounder and more serious view of ethical problems and of art, which we may designate as Dionysian wisdom comprised in concepts. . . ." p. 120 In the earlier sections Nietzsche brought home the point that lyrical composition and most certainly concepts of any nature could not contain any shape or form of Dionysian, as it is only found in the raw and creative form of music. And now I find a contradiction, as Nietzsche is telling us of Kant's and Schopenhauer's thoughts to be comprised in Dionysian wisdom. It has now planted the seed for German readers and thinkers. What this philosphical Dionysian wisdom and the German spirited power of Dionysian music now needs is a new political leader. "And if the German should hesitantly look around for a leader who might bring him back again into his long lost home whose ways and paths he scarcely knows anymore, let him merely listen to the ecstatically luring call of the Dionysan bird that hovers above him and wants to point the way for him." p. 139 I don't know about you, but this sounds like the Dionysan "furor" to me. A new tragic, ecstatic leader, a non-Socratic leader with charisma and power. Now who later fits this bill? Just imagine the adrenaline flow as the German people leave their Socratic constraints of logic and enter into their Dionysian nature of power and run down the street and smash the Jewish windows declaring in ecstasy, the Dionysian power of the new German spirit, the rebirth of Greek tragedy. Do you see what I'm leading to here? Real history! Don't get me wrong, please. Nietzsche does not talk hatred, or anti-Semitic, no not at all! But he sets the stage for chaos, for hate to come out of the depths of men and women that already contain Dionysian nature deep inside their non-Socratic nature, the "primitive man" as Nietzsche calls it, when the Apollonian is disregarded and the rational, optimistic Socratic man is destroyed and the Dionysian can come out and "tragedy be reborn." Don't get me wrong, I think Nietzsche is amazing in his acknowledgment and connection to the real depth of the Dionysian spirit. But do get me right on this; this is dangerous teaching, dangerous enough to let educated people loose their Socratic, scientific nature and enter places they should not be. Nietzsche even writes in a letter 10/8/1868 to Rohide, (p. 120 ftn.) that the dimension of feelings of Wagner's music are greater than the "weak eyes and feeble legs of the educated." Live life to the fullest without Apollo to conceptualize and form you, which subdues and constrains, and you will most assuredly mis-translate William Blake's words (as Jim Morrison did) in telling us "to live the road to excess." Live Socratic thinking alone, without Dionysus, and you will be destroyed, dead to the aesthetic, inner creative and primordial self. Live Dionysus without Apollo and without Socratic thinking and you will either destroy yourself or those around you.
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Summary: The Greatest Work of Art Criticism Ever Written
Review: Forget Wagner, whose disgruntled cacophony posing as music is nicely dispatched by Oscar Wilde in one of his plays with a comparative quip when somebody rings an old and disturbingly noisy doorbell. Forget Wagner because The Birth of Tragedy is the greatest work of art criticism ever written. It is also, despite being in print for a century, an underexplored gold mine for artists and intellectuals. This is Nietzsche's first book: it contains en ovo the thoughts of this great writer and thinker who had a formative influence on Heidegger and through him Derrida, the two greatest post-Nietzschean philosophers. Nietzsche's great theme is the infinite possibility opened up by Greek culture in 6th century B.C., in the time of Heraclitus and the birth of tragedy-the culture that spawned not only democracy and science but which, like a brood of many eggs only some of which have hatched (or quantum possibility before measurement "collapses" the wave function into reality)-much more besides--the culture beside whose tragedic productions (by Aeschylus and Sophocles, not Euripedes, whom Nietzsche shows lost touch with the essence of tragedy) modern cultural productions not only do not measure up, but often seem at best, as Nietzsche says, like a "caricature." The loss of art traced by Nietzsche is itself-well, not tragic, no-less than tragic: sad let us say. Not only a highly creative artist-like philosopher, but a multilingual philologist who read ancient Greek in the original, Nietzsche beams his laser-like analysis with astounding clarity into this lost realm of possibility. It is as if he stuck a bookmark into the Tome of Time, showing us the very best part of an otherwise often dry and rather bad (and perhaps overly long!) book of which we collectively are the author, called Culture. What is crucial to emphasize in B of T is Nietzsche's conclusion (or assumption) that (in its most famous line) "existence is only justified as an aesthetic phenomenon." Thus ancient Greek tragedy is not just a random subject, or one art form among others. It is the aesthetic experience par excellence, the greatest overcoming of the perils of existence into a worthy production of art humans ever developed. Nietzsche links the success of Aeschylean and Sophoclean tragedy to the brief fruitful intercourse (like that between men and women, which keeps new people coming despite often-fractious sexual relationships) between two aesthetic strains. One he identifies with the Greek messenger god of the sun, Apollo, the other with the dismembered god of wine, Dionysos. Dionysos also is not one god among others. Rather, it was to him that all the (originally religious) tragedies were devoted and, Nietzsche tells us, when other actors appeared on the sacred precursor to the Greek stage they were not to be taken as realistic but as avatars, idealized other versions, of Dionysos. Now the most crucial thing to realize about Dionysos is that "he" is split into pieces and his split pieces represent the fundamental, and contradictory, fact of the universe: that although all is one (to borrow a philosophical truism) this One is split into many. This primordial splitting (cf. Heidegger's distinction between individual beings and Being) is, according to Nietzsche, regarded by the ancient Greeks as itself the ur-source of human suffering. From Dionysos's tears came mankind, from his smile the gods. Now Nietzsche says that the Apollinian aesthetic strain manifests in the clarity of dreams-which show discrete-although ultimately illusory-images. These images are similar to those that appear before the chorus (crucial to tragedy but dispensed with by Euripedes), and before the spectators, in the form of the actors of the tragic spectacle. Thus the tragical spectacle displayed shows itself to be a dreamlike illusion of the culture, not a representation of reality per se. Just as, after we stare at the sun, we see spots before our eyes so, Nietzsche says, after we stare into the abyss we see the tragedy with its chorus and ideal human characters. The Dionysian element Nietzsche identifies with drunkenness and dissolution, the opposite of the clarity of dream imagery, made public on the Greek stage. The Dionysian in a sense represents the One, or the movement from the individual (seen a la Schopenhauer and Vedic metaphysics as a mayan illusion of universe that "I"s itself) back to the One; the Apollinian the illusory clarity of the skin-encapsulated individual. (Nietzsche's own individuality, and brain, were compromised by Treponema spirochetes, real Dionysian avatars of the syphilis that eventually killed him.) One of the most fascinating things about Nietzsche's exquisitely crafted analysis is the way it shows science, no less than Euripides, to be motivated by Socrates' false humility and dreams of total knowledge. "Who is this demigod?" Nietzsche asks of Socrates-whose reign of reasonableness, passed on to Plato, Aristotle, and the Church scholastics-defines much of the modern world. Socrates created the secular tradition, raising knowledge over aesthetics and giving mysticism a bad name. Nietzsche points out that Plato burnt his plays after coming into contact with his teacher-and that the compromise, the Platonic dialogues, were in fact the prototype of a new, Socratized art form-the novel. Thus, startlingly Nietzsche suggests the novel itself is a debased form of art-a Euripideanized, Socratized attempt to make the primal aesthetic experience more representative, reasonable, and realistic. Euripedes (he later recanted, but his influence went on) dispensed with the tragic core of stagecraft, and today we accept that drama is about individual characters in all their oddity and imperfections-rammed at us unremittingly with the hegemony of plot and wordy deus ex machina explanations in the aesthetically poisonous, hyperrationalistic aftermath of Euripides's Socratic capitulations. In sum, today we have all but forgotten the Dionysian origins of acting-more real than realism-which originally was centered around not fleeting emotions and empathy, but the central cosmological fact of the individuals tragic separation from the All. Highly recommended.
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Summary: Genius at its most engaging.
Review: I read this book years ago and I fell in love with the ideas of Nietzsche. I think every teenage intellectual goes through an existentialist phase, it fits so well with the pubescent and oncoming adulthood experience. His theories opened up my mind in a way I never thought it could. The time for me was one of emense confusion, vacillation and angst. It opened up for me a love of philosophy that has carried through to this day as I prepare to further my education on the subject. It helped guide me creating myself into a better man and for that this book and his philosophy will always have a certain affection. Now I have mixed feelings about some of the things that he has written, but this book is incredible. I am a lover of art and theatre, and as an amatuer playwright this book gave insights that I still find breathtaking. I have always believed that history is not the story of stone hard facts and dates but the spectrum of human thought, philosophy, art, music, notions, inventions and a constant state of progress and change. This book is one large key to that spectrum. I would recommend this to any teenager in a place that I was in or any member of the human race for that matter. If you love theatre and want to engage in it in any fashion, then you really need to read this book.
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Summary: Art verses Science
Review: It's helpful to get a sense of the context in which Nietzsche wrote this subversive treatise against Science as Truth which would establish the directional pattern of his later writing and mushroom into a towering influence on the thinking of the century following it. Nietzsche was writing in Germany at a time when Hegel's dialectical account of History which is supposed to consumate itself in Absolute Knowledge, a utopian culture of ('big S') Science and an eternally modern present was sweeping through the intellectual ether. As has been summarized much before, the dialectical motion of Plato's Socratic reasoning, which Hegel adapts to the History of Mankind, moves from thesis (an idea about the way things are) to anti-thesis (it's contradiction and negation, or disatisfaction with that idea) to a synthesis (a new idea about how to do things which advances by and with preserving the knowledge of both prior ideas). Repeat for two millenia and Hegel says you get Absolute Knowledge of the human condition and the possibility of utopia. Nietzsche begs to differ. He thinks this situation leads to nihilism. Man (or at least the philosophical type) has engorged himself with an insatiable lust for knowledge and is now dying from overfullness, being fat as a pig. Nietzsche's analysis also reflects disatisfaction on the 'folk' side of this equation with pessimism about a 'modern' culture which has no purpose other than consumption. A culture with no sense of art, no ability to see beauty in the tragic and human finitude, and wants only more Science to help make itself fatter. This 'harmony' of enlightened consumer culture Nietzsche feels is the result of the triumph of (what he calls in "The Birth of Tragedy") "Socratic" man, the utilitarian, scientific man who insists on certainty and posesses imagination. Man as calculating consumer and librarian of the past, all head and stomach, but no heart, spirit or creative imagination for the future. Nietzsche does not reject the dialectical metaphysics of Plato and Hegel completely. He just rejects the third moment, the synthesis, he thinks we're at our best in the second moment, the strength-inducing moment of antagonism. It is a kind of materialist metaphysics of nostalgia for the time when metaphysics did not have to accept materialism. A nostalgia for a time when man (a metaphysical concept 'him-self') was Appollinian, when he used his reasoning with will as art of transforming the wild and passionate 'mere-appearances' of Dionysian nature or phenomena into products of great imagination. Scientific, Socratic man wants to skip this struggle and enjoy the pleasures of nature entirely from his sofa. Nietzsche's concept of Man (Dionysian, Appollinian and Socratic) as presented in "The Birth of Tragedy" follows, perhaps even 'corresponds' to a great tradition of 'three-fold' concepts of man throught Western history. The first notable being Plato's idea of man as composed of natural desires, thymos ('spirit' in the sense of pride) and reasoning mind. The most recent being Freud's id, ego and super-ego. Nietzsche stands between Plato and Freud. He rejects Plato's exaltation of the Socratic, mental, reasoning element above all others, but he would also reject Dr. Freud's (himself a 'Socratic' man?) belittling of man's 'irrational heart' and fetishizing of the id. For Nietzsche, Plato and Freud represent the twin modern evils of mentalism and naturalism, or CALCULATING and CONSUMERISM, both of which team up to reject and belittle the strong poetry of Nietzsche's heart, the idiosyncratic spirit and creative capacity of man which he sees as what is essential to making a life WORTH living. The vision is layed out in The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredibly bad Scholarship
Review: Nietzsche was trained as a philologist. In this book he proves himself a miserable philologist and classicist. I will later discuss my criticism, but first I have to start by unrecommending this work to the general reader: differently from, say, The Antichrist Nietzsche here does not present easy to understand, easy to assimilate (even if repugnant) ideas, but a boring literary discussion.
For a few strange people (including me!) this book is a feast of stimulating ideas. But it is still bad literary criticism and terrible classicism. The number one rule of classicism is to avoid explaining the past with the present. In order to avoid mistakes you have to examine the ancient texts as they are, with reference only to precedent or contemporary works. Projecting the present into the past is a mortal sin and a sure way of misunderstanding ancient texts. If you apply this simple (but essential) rule, not much will be left of this work.
For instance, in this work allegedly devoted to the origin of the Greek tragedy, none of the extended quotations (quotations that extend more than one line) are from Greek tragedies. This is so incredible that I will give a complete list of the quotations. The first quotation (in the attempt at a self criticism) is from Goethe's Faust. The next quotation (section 1) is from the Mastersingers. Then (section 9) there is a quotation from Goethe's Prometheus, followed by another quote from Faust. Next (section 14) is a quote from a fable by Christian Gellert (1715-1769). In section 18 we have yet another quote from Faust, followed in section 22 by a quote from Isolde.
So you see the point: there are no quotations from any Greek tragedy: if I had to grade this work as a student's assignment on Greek tragedy, the student would get an F. In fairness to this (admittedly, imaginary) student, I must give this "work" the minimum rating. Wagner, Goethe and German Nationalism have no place in a study of Greek tragedy. By the way, this was the reason for the rejection of this "work" by the academic community, back in the 1870's; it is still valid today. We are simply more used to BS posing as scholarship.
Differently from classicism, philosophy is timeless: it does make sense (to some extent) to measure past philosophies against present ones. Platonism, for instance, is still the main philosophy of mathematics. (But this, of course, does not exempt you from reading Plato in his own terms, without reference to present-day ideas; only successively you can observe how much his ideas are still relevant today.)
We can examine this work, as a work of philosophy, from a contemporary point-of-view. The result of this exercise is also devastating for Nietzsche: he can be seen as the originator of the confusion of literary criticism with philosophy as seen in pathological figures like Derrida.
Rating:
Summary: Veritas
Review: Nietzsche's writing style when viewed, as art is itself a remarkable example, par excellence, of the very topic he discusses-in The Birth of Tragedy-put into practice. It is ubiquitously bursting forth with such abundance (Dionysian)-yet streamlined by the infinite depth of his perceptions (Socratic)-that he illuminates the art of the entire Greek Civilization with elegant simplicity, compassion, and courage (Apollonian). Nietzsche was one of the first to analyze Greek art in terms of its psychological ramifications-both conscious and unconscious. He posits that the two driving forces for art-whether it was painting, sculpture, music, or tragedy- required a mixture of the gods, Dionysus (Pan) and Apollo, whose virtues were synonymous with nature, but nearly bipolar. Apollo, the Delphic god, requires self-knowledge and demands that his disciples exorcize prudence in action; however, Dionysus demands complete abandon and excess. One cannot exist without the other: Apollo, though despising all misery and barbaric acts, knew that his existence depended upon that of Dionysus. According to Nietzsche, Art stems directly from nature; it is not an imitation or reflection; therefore, the artist must commune with the gods and nature in order to render any art as such. The artist desires art to be 'the unvarnished expression of the truth' of the world; hence, Art is eternal universal truth. Art should achieve a fusion between the subjective and objective, hence, the artistic creation is 'like the weird image of the fairy tale which can turn its eyes at will and behold itself'. Dionysus is the primordial artistic power that conjures the entire universe into being. It is a communal or collective consciousness, which exists in every individual just as every individual, exists in Dionysus. There is a complete absence of duality between individual and collective consciousness, hence, the individual transcends the limits of existence and becomes one with the collective mind who speaks with one voice-Art. Dionysus reveals the true nature of life as 'bliss born of pain'. Nature communicates its wisdom through the agency of pathos; it wishes to share its suffering and some of the truths in the world. The paragon of Greek art is the tragedy. Tragedy takes place where Apollo and Dionysus have entwined perfectly forming a hybrid braid. The Dionysian Satyr is the incarnation of tragedy and exists within the realm of the gods as myth and cult. Tragedy transforms one into a Satyr. It is sudden and powerful: the Satyr dominated the "man of culture", 'like lamplight is nullified by the light of day'. This caused the tragedy to lead one back to the primal core of nature where one may stare boldly, directly into the destructiveness and cruelty of nature, which imbues one with such profound insight into the horrendous truth, that one is smitten listless with the absurdity of all worldly existence. True knowledge negates existence and the will to act-one asks, what good would it do to remedy a world, which abounds with such profound injustice-a world so askew. Then when the will is nearly irretrievably lost to the void-and a second seems to span all of eternity-art snatches us from the precipice of oblivion. The brilliance of Apollo, like a clarion call, comes shining through as art and redeems all life. Art propitiates the horrible and the comic relieves absurdity. Art soothes us with a healing immersion so sublime and tranquil that we experience life as overwhelmingly invincible and pleasurable in the face of all adversity-i.e., rapture. Through this rapture, one garners the true laurels of life and continues onward as a glorious saga that rivals that of Odysseus. This is how the Greeks experienced tragedy: it was the fount of life sustaining energy, which endowed them with a great sensitivity for the Arts. Therefore, Tragedy is a rite of passage from Man to Satyr to God (hero who is cheerful in adversity); then the vision is complete. According to Nietzsche-although the Germans have succumbed to "Socratic Optimism" and predominantly guided by concepts-there are still some vestiges of the true German spirit, which lies deep within an abyss dreaming in glorious 'Dionysian strength, like a knight sunk in slumber'. This is the myth of Sigfried used in Wagner's Ring. However, this also elicits the myth of Endymion whose immortality-granted by the gods-reaches a state of final atonement by spending all of eternity sleeping. Perhaps, Nietzsche is being more critical of the Germans than he appears to be. Socrates, speaking as a Philosopher, proposed that the mind perceives the truth of the world, but the body is an encumbrance acting as fetters to the mind and higher pursuits (See The Last Days of Socrates by Plato). Therefore, Socrates freed his mind (a priori) to discern the true nature of reality from mere appearance; thus, he became the first theoretical man. Everything that exists satisfies him; he never suffers from pessimism-upon uncovering the truth, there are still more layers of undiscovered wisdom, which saves him so "through his own efforts" he succeeds. Socratic philosophy instills an insatiable hunger for knowledge in its disciples-exploring and fathoming nature ad infinitum becomes an end in itself-Science becomes Art. Socrates' influence upon the neophyte, Plato, was quite profound; hence, the entire world has adopted causality as the one true god. The individual is enshrined within a realm of solvable problems from which predictability becomes the god. There is rapture with scientific discovery and inquiry. There is a transition from man to mind, however, the mind must transcend the body in order to commune with nature and divine the truths of the world, which are highly abstract. When truth is uncovered, one experiences rapture (i.e., a gift from Apollo) and becomes a god. Who is the wisest man of all-it is Nietzsche.
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Summary: The Op. 1 of Frederic Niezsche !
Review: The first essay of this giant philosopher is deeply influenced for the echoes of Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner and pretends expose a new conception of the world : the tragic thought, , the intuition of the unity of the things , the converse affirmation of the life and death , the timeless return , the innocence of becoming .
Fundamental text if you want to get ready for the Apollonian and Dionisus duel!
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