Alexander gatherer cardiff university the opposing concepts of the dionysian hereon di and apollonian hereon ap are central themes within nietzsche s first major work the birth of tragedy hereon bt his contemplation of such opposing forces of nature are primarily used to analyse greek culture in general and greek art in particular stating that its role in greek attic tragedy.
Birth of attic tragedy.
This edition presents a new translation by ronald speirs and an introduction by raymond geuss that.
The birth of tragedy is divided into twenty five chapters and a forward.
Orthodox dogmatism kills myth by consigning it to distant history thus freezing it in the remote past and denying any continuation of its natural.
The birth of tragedy is one of the seminal philosophical works of the modern period.
The theories developed in this relatively short text have had a profound influence on the philosophy literature music and politics of the twentieth century.
Nietzsche s was a polyphonic nature in which the most different and apparently most antagonistic talents had come together.
What follows is the original text of nietzsche s the birth of tragedy out of the spirit of music bt word for word as translated by william august hausmann and included in the 1910 oscar levy edition of the complete works of friedrich nietzsche following the text is my reiteration of it paragraph by paragraph with the exception of the two prefaces which i have not included.
The first fifteen chapters deal with the nature of greek tragedy which nietzsche claims was born when the apollonian worldview met the dionysian.
The first was the setting the second was a dream and the third was a rather cheap pun stolen from nietzsche s first book.
The last ten chapters use the greek model to understand the state of modern culture both its decline and its possible rebirth.
The birth of tragedy his maiden attempt at book writing with which he began his twenty eighth year is the last link of a long chain of developments and the first fruit that was a long time coming to maturity.
He declares it to be the expression of a culture which has achieved a delicate but powerful balance between dionysian insight into the chaos and suffering which underlies all existence and the discipline and clarity of rational apollonian form.
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In the birth of tragedy nietzsche expounds on the origins of greek tragedy and its relevance to the german culture of its time.
Greek tragedy is a form of theatre from ancient greece and anatolia it reached its most significant form in athens in the 5th century bc the works of which are sometimes called attic tragedy greek tragedy is widely believed to be an extension of the ancient rites carried out in honor of dionysus and it heavily influenced the theatre of ancient rome and the renaissance.