Friedrich Nietzsche's first book, The Birth of Tragedy, examines Greek poetic and musical art leading up to Attic tragedies in the 5th century. While Nietzsche was critical of the book later in life, it explores how scholarship can be viewed from the perspective of art and vice versa. The document analyzes how The Birth of Tragedy itself mimics the tragic form through its absorption in Greek tragedy and lack of strict facts. It compares Nietzsche's views to Aristotle's Poetics, finding they both emphasize emotion in tragedy and criticize Euripides' plays. The document argues The Birth of Tragedy has more in common with tragic plots than philosophical works through its use of

1. Politics, Modernity and the Common Good
HUMS 4000
Prof. Waller Newall
Tristan Wicks
December 10th, 2012
Bridging the Abyss and Becoming the Work of Art:
Aristotle, Socrates and Poetic Form in Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy
Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy begins with a section added sixteen years later
after the book’s original date of publication. The aim of this new preface was to provide the
reader with an assessment of the quality and purpose of this, his first book. Nietzsche seems to1
have thought very little of The Birth of Tragedy but its purpose is nonetheless commensurate
with his later work, asking a question to which he had since applied himself: how is scholarship
to be seen from the perspective of art and how is art to be seen from the perspective of life. To2
explore this question, Nietzsche provides a description of the history of Greek poetic and musical
art leading up to its acme in the 5th century, Attic tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and
Euripides. Nietzsche’s investigation of Greek tragedy in this work completely absorbs the text to
the degree that, perhaps unwittingly, The Birth of Tragedy actually comes to mimic the tragic
form. I will argue that The Birth of Tragedy is at the very least highly imitative of tragedy itself
and that, to truly provide an answer to the question of scholarship from the perspective of art and
art from the perspective of life, this artistic approach, rather than a scientific approach, is
necessary. Though Nietzsche criticizes his younger self for a lack of thoroughness, particularly in
terms of supporting his arguments with any real historical evidence, I will argue that it is this
1
!
! Nietzsche, Friedrich The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals tr. Francis Golffing (Doubleday &
Company, Inc., New York, United States: 1956) p.3-5
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.62

2. 2
lack of adherence to strict facts along with other formal qualities that lends The Birth of Tragedy
its tragic elements and thus makes the work able to realize its goals. In demonstrating how the
young Nietzsche achieves this goal, I will show how the he attempts to recreate a cultural
condition if not identical then certainly similar to that of the ancient Greeks. Further, given the
subject of Nietzsche’s inquiry and indeed to his references to Aristotle in The Birth of Tragedy, it
is all but certain that he read Aristotle’s Art of Poetry. It will therefore be helpful to compare3
Nietzsche’s own portrait of the emergence of Greek tragedy against that of Aristotle. This will
help to both verify Nietzsche’s sources and to come to know the degree to which The Birth of
Tragedy mimics the tragic form, at least as far as Aristotle understood it.
3
!
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.89

3. 3
Nietzsche sees the greatest achievement of tragedy as consisting in the union of two
opposing forces, the Dionysian and the Apollonian. Each is fundamentally irrational and
emotional. If it is too much to say that Nietzsche borrowed his views on the emotional qualities4
of tragedy from Aristotle, he nonetheless shares an emphasis on emotion and the irrational in
tragedy with his ancient predecessor. However, Nietzsche’s emphasis on the Dionysian and the
Apollonian is fundamentally tied up in Greek religion and too some degree, Aristotle’s Art of5
Poetry puts forth a view of the tragic form that is opposed to Nietzsche’s since it makes little
reference to the religious purpose of Greek tragedy. Yet, in marked opposition to other ancient
theories about the function and importance of tragedy, particularly Plato’s view of the genre ,6
Aristotle not only makes extensive provisions for the emotional experience but emphasizes the
central importance of emotional response to the tragic form. As such, the practical outcome of7
their theories is the same. For Aristotle, as with Nietzsche, tragedy provides for its audience a
sort of conduit for expressing something deeply human creating a portrait of the effect of tragedy
which emphasizes the degree to which a tragedy causes catharsis (Gk. Κάθαρσις) whereby pity
and fear may be expressed and thus released by means of the action of the play.8
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.264
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.195
! For Plato’s view on divine inspiration for poetry see Republic (Plato, “Republic II” in Complete Works tr.6
G.M.A. Grube and rev. C.D.C. Reeve (Hackett Publishing Company, Indianapolis, US:1997)pp.1019-21) where
Plato argues that to be good and to be virtuous, it is necessary to limit external influences on the soul to the end of
maintaining a sort of spiritual stasis. External influences include, for Plato, emotionally stirring depictions of events
(Plato Republic p.1020, ) or similarly stirring music (Plato, Republic III, p.1036).
! Aristotle, Aristotle’s Art of Poetry: A Greek View of Poetry and Drama tr. W. Hamilton Fyfe (Oxford7
University Press, London, UK:1961) p.16
! Aristotle, Art of Poetry, tr. W. Hamilton Fyfe (London:1961) p.168

4. 4
Aristotle proves even more valuable to our understanding of what Nietzsche achieves
with The Birth of Tragedy when we consider his apparent distaste for Euripides. On countless
occasions Aristotle criticizes the limited vision of Euripides’ tragedies, such as his reliance on
stage-artifice with his use of deus ex machina in plays such as Medea, or how he puts
philosophical discourse in the mouths of slaves. In both cases, Aristotle’s emphasis is on the9
natural flow of the play, which he argues is either obstructed or encouraged depending on the
degree to which the sequence of events is believable. Aristotle’s view of a good play is one10
which is unified. A play for which all parts such as plot, episode, character and content are
essential, the removal of which would reduce the emotional impact of the play. Ultimately,
Euripides’ plays are disjointed, confused and incapable of creating an authentic state of tragic
pity or fear. Though Nietzsche’s criticism of Euripides travels something of a different route,11
focusing instead on Euripides’ relationship with Socratic thought, the result of their criticism is
the same. Both Nietzsche and Aristotle think that Euripides misapprehends the purpose of
tragedy. While Aristotle attacks the formal qualities of Euripides’ plays, Nietzsche emphasizes
his underlying philosophical misapprehension of tragedy. What is ultimately at the core of both
Aristotle’s and Nietzsche’s views on the tragedy of Euripides is the poet’s inability to fully
express the emotional or irrational core of tragedy and it is this criticism of Euripides which
! Aristotle, Art of Poetry tr. W. Hamilton Fyfe (London:1961) p.429
! In the case of the deus ex machina Aristotle considers this device to be simply sloppy. A tragedy is made10
believable by mean of the movement of the play itself rather than by the insertion of figures external to the play’s
rational unfolding. In the case of philosophical discourse in the mouth of a slave, Aristotle betrays his low opinion of
slaves who would have been seen as incapable of higher, intellectual thought. Aristotle, Art of Poetry tr. W.
Hamilton Fyfe (London:1961) pp.26-7
! Aristotle, Art of Poetry, tr. W. Hamilton Fyfe (London:1961) p.2811

5. 5
demonstrates the high degree to which Nietzsche’s views on tragedy are congruent with those of
Aristotle.
If Nietzsche’s relationship with Aristotle has been made clear then we may begin to
consider the degree to which The Birth of Tragedy can be thought of as unconsciously imitative
of the tragic form. For Aristotle, plot is at the core of his picture of tragedy since it is the plot that
is tragedy’s ultimate purpose. Purpose here ought not to be understood in the more modern12
sense of the function for which a thing exists, but rather in the sense of Aristotle’s Final Cause,
outlined in his Physics. The other parts of a tragedy such as the characters, the particular use of13
diction and the use of spectacle are only contributors to the working out of the plot. Oedipus, for
example, is not the purpose of the play because the play was not written only so that Oedipus
would exist. Rather, as Aristotle says, Oedipus is a facet of the play which contributes to the final
cause of the play which is the particular arrangement of the play’s events. A plot then is the14
purpose or end to which all other parts of a play contribute. However, the plot’s particular
characteristics are less easily distinguished. To understand exactly what a plot is, it will be useful
to compare The Birth of Tragedy with works of philosophy and with tragedies.
The best place to determine the presence of a plot is to look at the beginning of a work,
since it is here that a work of philosophy poses its questions and it is where a play’s plot is set
before the audience. At the very beginning of The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche writes:
! Aristotle, Art of Poetry tr. W. Hamilton Fyfe (London:1961) p.1512
! In Physics Aristotle says of the Final Cause that it is “[t]hat for the sake of which a thing is done,...e.g.,13
health is the cause of walking about.” The distinction begin made is of practical function as purpose--the more
modern view--and purpose as an end in itself. The purpose of walking in this example is not so that, in good health,
you may go to work but good health is the direct, final cause, the purpose of the walking in itself. (Aristotle,
“Physics” in The Pocket Aristotle tr. R.P. Hardie and R.K. Gaye (Washington Square Press, New York, United
States: 1972) p.32
! Aristotle, Art of Poetry tr. W. Hamilton Fyfe (London:1961) pp.15-1614

6. 6
“Much will have been gained for esthetics once we
have succeeded directly--rather than merely
ascertaining--that art owes its continuous evolution to
the Apollonian-Dionysiac duality, even as the
propagation of the species depends on the duality of the
sexes, their constant conflicts and periodic acts of
reconcilliation”15
!
There is a clear purpose which is laid before the reader here and yet there is something
fundamentally different about these first words in comparison with other philosophical works.
Consider the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose rhetoric can be just as colourful as
Nietzsche’s, however he begins his Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts quite differently. In
place of a narrative of the conflict between two opposing forces, his discourse is propositional.
He initially states the question, “Le rétablissement des sciences et des arts a-t-il contribué à
épurer ou à corrompre les moeurs?” Here a general question is asked and two possible answers16
are given which are later examined. Rousseau also provides reasons for the difficulty of his task
and reasons for answering the question which he sets before himself. Nietzsche does not do any
of this. There is no attempt to lay out an argument. Instead, he merely establishes the existence of
the Dionysian and the Apollonian and their conflict unfolds as a consequence of their nature. The
contrast between The Birth of Tragedy and philosophical works is clearer still if we consider the
work of Hegel who begins the Phenomenology of Spirit by indirectly labelling his work a work
of philosophy in the first sentence of his introduction. Thus with both Rousseau and Hegel, the17
difference between their work and The Birth of Tragedy is the presence or absence of an explicit
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.1915
“Has the reestablishment of the sciences and the arts contributed to purifying or to corrupting morals?”16
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Discours sur les sciences et les arts (Chicoutimi: Université du Quebec, 2002) p.7
! Hegel, G.W.F. Phenomenology of Spirit tr. A.V. Miller (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977) p. 4317

7. 7
statement of philosophical or investigative intent. However, it is not only on account of direct
statements such as these that we should consider a work to be philosophy or tragedy. Consider
the first words of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, “πᾶσα τέχνη καὶ πᾶσα µέθοδος, ὁµοίως δὲ
πρᾶξίς τε καὶ προαίρεσις, ἀγαθοῦ τινὸς ἐφίεσθαι δοκεῖ” The Ethics begin with a statement and18
a short justification and then Aristotle follows a chain of logical deductions from that point.
Aristotle begins all of his works in this way and the works of Rousseau and Hegel follow a
similar path. Philosophy then, consists both in the explicit statement of philosophical intent
coupled with the following of a chain of logical deductions.
In contrast with these works of philosophy, tragedies have something of a different
approach to setting out their final cause or purpose. Consider Sophocles’ Oedipus The King
which begins by establishing the conflict between Oedipus and the pollution which has taken
hold of his city. There is no obvious method for solving the problem presented at this point.
There are no propositions, only the presentation of the characters and their attendant
circumstances. In the case of Oedipus the King this is Oedipus himself, the pollution which has
afflicted his land and Oedipus’ promise that he will root out the cause of this pollution.19
Consider also the introduction of the plot of one of Shakespeare’s tragedies, The Tragedy of
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, which introduces the problem of the dead king, haunting Denmark
and the means by which the the haunting might cease or even the reason for his haunting remain
! “Every art and lesson, just as work and course of life, seems to aim at some (sort of) good.” Aristotle,18
Nicomachean Ethics ed. J. Bywater (Perseus Digital Library: Dec.7 2012, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?
doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0053%3Abekker+page%3D1094a%3Abekker+line%3D1)
! Sophocles, “Oedipus the King” in Sophocles I tr. David Grene (The University of Chicago Press, Chicago,19
United States: 1991) p.11-3

8. 8
unclear. There is a distinct absence of knowledge on the part of the audience in a tragedy.20
Instead, elements are presented and their paths are tracked. For a philosophical work of any sort,
there is some degree of assumed knowledge on the part of the audience such as familiarity,
perhaps, with the questions posed. However, what most fundamentally underlies the
philosophical approach is the degree of confidence in the process. For the philosopher, it
assumed that by following a logical chain of deductions, a solution may be reached. This simply
is not the case in tragedy. It is until we see things unfold that we must wait to to apprehend
whether or not a solution to the conflict is possible to any degree.
In the case of The Birth of Tragedy the plot consists in a narrative of Greek art,
beginning with the birth of the epic form from the Apollonian and moving through the various
conflicts with the Dionysian, each possessing a tragic uncertainty in terms of outcome. Further,
each of these conflicts is given life and colour, rather than by means of rational support, by
means of a dominant image. Consider, for example, Nietzsche’s portrait of Doric art and Apollo
facing down the Dionysian and holding up the head of the Gorgon “to those brutal and grotesque
Dionysian forces.” The image is vivid and serves to express the conflict Nietzsche describes in21
a far clearer way than by means of a series of propositions. We see this again when he relates the
story of Silenus and his terrifying wisdom. Later, he dives, without any real, tangible evidence22
into statements about the mindset of the Apollonian with statements such as “The effects of the
Dionysiac spirit struck the Apollonian as titanic and barbaric; yet could not disguise from
! Shakespeare, William “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” in The Complete Works of20
Shakespeare (Clarendon Press, Oxford, United Kingdom:1991) pp.655-6
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.2621
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.2922

9. 9
themselves the fact that they were essentially akin [to the Dionysian]”. The Birth of Tragedy is23
therefore not defined by propositions. Nietzsche relies on something more akin to the sturm und
drang of the German Romantics, drawing his audience through various episodes rather than24
presenting them with a reasoned argument. In any of the instances where Nietzsche describes the
interaction of the Dionysian with the Apollonian, the only thing that the reader is left with is the
knowledge provided at the beginning of The Birth of Tragedy of their conflict and their periodic
reconciliation. In place of a supreme confidence in reason and an argumentative approach,
Nietzsche places before his reader a plot of images of conflict throughout Greek artistic history
without any real sense of the necessity for resolution.
Whether these images are representations of actual historical events or not is
questionable. Particularly in the case of Doric art and Apollo standing against the onslaught of
the Dionysian, Nietzsche barely gives any historical evidence or even anecdotal information.
Rather, it can be seen as an extrapolation from Nietzsche’s interpretation of Homeric epic.
However, Nietzsche’s interpretation is not an unreasonable interpretation and extrapolation if we
consider the tremendous gulf between tragedy and homeric epic in terms of emotional impact but
it is nonetheless unsupported. In the end, the absence of precision or strict historical accuracy
does not actually impair the movement The Birth of Tragedy but brings it closer to the form of
attic tragedy as Aristotle saw it. For, Aristotle argues, tragedy and poetry in general do not aim at
describing what is--that is the under the purview of the historian--but rather, poetry aims at
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.3423
Commonly translated as ‘storm and stress’, sturm und drang was an early Romantic movement pioneered24
by Goethe often considered an “irrational counterpoint to the Enlightenment” . It emphasized powerful language and
the sublime in place of the rational or logical. (Leidner, Alan C. The Impatient Muse: Germany and the Sturm und
Drang (The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, United States of America: 1994)pp.1-5

10. 10
describing what is plausible to the end of elucidating universal principles. Further, by playing25
on images which produce an emotional reaction, catharsis becomes possible relating the
audience far more profoundly to the tragic form than a philosophical treatise might.
Nietzsche’s plot of plausible images does not, in itself, provide enough evidence to argue
that The Birth of Tragedy is a tragedy but, as Aristotle argues, characters are also a necessary part
of the unified whole. Here perhaps more than in any other place is The Birth of Tragedy most26
like the genre it seeks to describe. Since Nietzsche spends such a great deal of time dealing with
the concepts of the Apollonian and the Dionysian, it is tempting to argue that these are his
characters but this is not the case. However, insofar as they exert a great deal of influence over
the true characters of The Birth of Tragedy, it is useful to understand their nature. Nietzsche
describes each through the metaphors of dream for the Apollonian and intoxication for the
Dionysian. In terms of dreams, Nietzsche sees the Apollonian as something of an illusion27
imposed upon the world. It is something akin to law in the sense of an imposed order which28
relates the individual to their circumstances. Indeed, Nietzsche states that the most prominent or
noticeable product of the Apollonian is the principium individuationis or principle of
individuation that is to say, the Apollonian produces the sense that a human being is an
individual. For Nietzsche, the Apollonian is most clearly identified in the spirit of the Homeric29
! Aristotle, Art of Poetry, tr. W. Hamilton Fyfe (London:1961) p.2525
! Aristotle, Art of Poetry tr. W. Hamilton Fyfe (London:1961) p.1726
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.1927
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) pp.20-128
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.3329

11. 11
epics in which everything, all actions and all things and all beings, are imbued with meaning and
importance which ultimately relate the individual to their circumstances.30
On the surface, the Apollonian may seem to be somewhat vapid. It seems to be but an
illusion founded upon nothing in particular--but this is where the Dionysian enters. The best way
to describe the Dionysian is by Nietzsche’s fable of Silenus taken from Greek folk legend. In it,
King Midas hunts down the wise Silenus, a companion of Dionysus, and asks what man’s
greatest good is. Silenus responds:
“Ephemeral wretch, begotten by accident and toil, why do
you force me to tell you what it would be your greatest
boon not to hear? What would be best for you is quite
beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be
nothing. But the second best is to die soon.”31
!
This denial of the validity and importance of human existence, Nietzsche suggests, is what is at
the core of the Dionysian, and by extension, at the core of human existence. Yet, while this may
seem to be a wholly negative view of existence, Nietzsche doesn’t think so. For Nietzsche, it is
by confronting this essential truth about human existence that the human being is absorbed into
it, annihilating the pincipium individuationis, unifying with nature and asserting the bond
between human beings who may distinguish the beginning and end of themselves no longer.32
Consider the conclusion of Nietzsche’s famous aphorism: “when you gaze long into an abyss,
the abyss also gazes into you.” The Dionysian is an abyss, a completely imageless and indeed33
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.3130
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.2931
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.2332
! Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil tr. R.J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, London, United Kingdom:2003) p.33
102

12. 12
fundamentally contradictory level of existence, since it is both at the core of human existence
while it annihilates any sense of humanity’s importance altogether. The Apollonian responds to34
the Dionysian through the emergence of images and forms, as a sort of every-day state. The
Apollonian is a way to cope with the despair felt in face of the Dionysian, what Nietzsche calls
“the terrors and horrors of existence”. Existence as an individual is asserted by means of the35
Apollonian and he is capable of contemplation, of order and of the creation of images.
Having established the nature of the Dionysian and the Apollonian in The Birth of
Tragedy, it will now be necessary to return to discover whether there exists anything akin to
characters. As has been established, Nietzsche’s description of events are described more as
extrapolations from literature after the application of his understanding of the Dionysian and
Apollonian. Further, Nietzsche himself admits to the impossibility of actually knowing whether
what he says is true during his initial explanation of the Apollonian saying that he cannot truly
speculate on the nature of the dreams of a Greek. However, for Aristotle, the actual historical36
veracity of a tragedy is of little import instead, a poet seeks to produce a likely image to the end
of illuminating universal principles. It is this which distinguishes the work of a poet from the
work of a historian. A character then, is something distinct from a historical figure in the sense37
that the message it represents is more important than whether or not that the character existed at
all and this is certainly the case if we consider Nietzsche’s novel interpretation of Sophocles’
Oedipus in Oedipus the King. In the play Nietzsche describes Oedipus as a source of wisdom in
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.3834
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.2935
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.2536
! Aristotle, Art of Poetry, tr. W. Hamilton Fyfe (London:1961) p.2537

13. 13
his defeat of the Sphinx and her riddles but it is this very virtue which destroys him for he would
not have married his mother nor unraveled the illusion of his life. Wisdom is Oedipus’ tragic
flaw, his hamartia (Gk. ἁµαρτία). He ultimately participates in a higher order of actions and
consequence of which he is wholly ignorant and to which he is totally subjected but it is out of
his ashes that a newer world arises. In Oedipus’ investigation, his proclamations and38
judgements, Nietzsche sees the Apollonian unraveling its own images. As a symbolic expression
of his inability to participate any longer in the illusion of the Apollonian he is blinded and is thus
thrust back into the Dionysian. Though this is certainly a reasonable interpretation of Oedipus
the King, it is certainly Nietzsche’s own, only realized by means of his Apollonian and
Dionysiac forces. In view of this, the very subjects of Nietzsche’s investigation become the
characters in his tragedy as the audience watches Nietzsche describe the way the Apollonian and
Dionysian drive them. The Dionysian and the Apollonian are seen as reconciled, as fulfilling
Nietzsche’s description of their relationship by means of the very activity of the subject--
tragedy--of The Birth of Tragedy. In a way, Attic tragedy serves as an Apollonian image for39
Nietzsche’s own Dionysiac philosophy. However, Attic tragedy is only a single character, even if
it represents the perfect union of the forces Nietzsche describes. The characters of The Birth of
Tragedy come in the form of all of the figures Nietzche discusses, both historical and literary. As
such, more than just Oedipus or Apollo himself, humanity itself becomes Nietzsche’s character,
becomes the work of art.
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) pp.6038
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) pp.60-139

14. 14
Ultimately, The Birth of Tragedy cannot be considered to mimic the tragic form simply
on account of plot and character. What remains then is to discover the tragedy of The Birth of
Tragedy. To reiterate, Nietzsche sees the Apollonian and Dionysian as truly united in 5th century
Athens where they give birth to the Attic tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. The40
reason why Attic tragedy emerges has to do with the complementary relationship that the
Dionysian and Apollonian share. Consider again how Oedipus returns to the Dionysian by means
of his Apollonian investigation. In Nietzsche’s view the Dionysian underlies all authenticity in
theatre but it is hamstrung in its ability to express itself beyond isolated human beings without
the generalizing order of forms and laws created by the Apollonian. An excellent early example41
of how the Dionysian and Apollonian bring about the tragic spirit can be seen in Nietzsche’s
consideration of the poet Archilochus. Though he refers to no specific poems, much of his extant
work expresses the Dionysiac-Apollonian relationship. Consider the following lines: “...and I
gently took her breasts in my hands,/...her fresh skin showed/the bloom of youth,//and caressing
all her lovely body/I released my white force,/just touching her golden hair.” What Archilochus42
here describes is not something that anyone can truly experience. We are not taking the young
girl’s breasts in our hands nor caressing her body. The rest of the poem does not even really
describe this girl in any clear way, yet the poem is captivating. For Nietzsche this effect is
generated not by the experience itself per se but rather by the Dionysian which underlies the
original source of the poem and as it is mediated by the world of forms and images, themselves a
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.1940
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.6741
! I am not providing Archilochus’ Greek here because the translation by Peter Constantine et al., shows42
clearly enough the relationship I am trying to describe. Archilochus, “Hold back completely” in The Greek Poets
(W.W. Norton & Company Inc., New York, United States of America: 2010) p.76

15. 15
product of the Apollonian. Consider Archilochus’ description of the release of his “white force”.
It is visceral and shocking and moves something deep within, something perhaps akin to disgust
but ultimately inexpressible. In this way has the Dionysian taken control of the generalized
images and form of the Apollonian enabling the communication of the intensely personal outside
of personal experience. Thus we see what is at the core of the tragic experience. It is the power
to communicate what ought to be impossible to communicate. Its power is in forming a bridge
between the abyss and the individual.
The final episode in this conflict involves the Socratic success over both the Apollonian
and the Dionysian. A new force is introduced with its own characters which denies the validity43
of its predecessors and defines western civilization for over 2500 years. The tragic flaw, the
hamartia of tragedy is its own role in bringing forth its end. Both Nietzsche and Aristotle discuss
the reduction of the role of the chorus in Greek tragedy to the point that, with Eurpides the
chorus is mere decoration. On the surface this may seem to be a positive thing for, as we saw44
with Archilochus’ poetry, it was precisely the movement toward human languages to bridge the
gap between music and individuals that lent the Dionysian its strength to speak out to all and for
Oedipus is was the power of the Dionysian to shatter the principium individuationis bringing all
back to itself. The tragedy could not have been if it were otherwise. Yet with Euripides this is
done to the detriment of the Dionysian, cutting it off from the stage altogether. This, Nietzsche
argues is a result of the emergence of the Socratic emphasis on discursive knowledge.45
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.7943
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.74; Aristotle, Art of Poetry, tr. W.44
Hamilton Fyfe (London:1961) p.52
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.7845

16. 16
“[A]esthetic Socratism”, as Nietzsche calls it, is the idea that the only things which are
truly beautiful are those things which are comprehensible by means of reason. The echoes of46
Apollonian order should be obvious. Euripides’ tragedies express aesthetic Socratism by means
of their extended prologues which outline all of the facts of the story both those prior to the
action of the tragedy and those which are about to occur in the play itself. No secrets are left for
the audience, all is a working out of an often moral lesson with the pieces simply falling into
place. What is left is only the action and speeches of the play. The result is that the almost
argumentative speeches of the actors become the sole source of any and all emotion. For
Euripides, Nietzsche suggests, this is because he looked upon the Dionysian and, incapable of
understanding it, thought it ought to be removed from the tragic stage. The Euripidean prologue
is something akin to the philosopher’s statement of philosophical intent. The result of Euripidean
tragedy was that the Apollonian was cut off from the Dionysian yet the Apollonian, without the
Dionysian is empty: nothing but form and image since the Dionysian is that out of which the
Apollonian emerges and that to which it eventually returns. By seeking only one facet of the
tragic spirit he lost both and needed a new foundation upon which to justify his tragedies. It is
into this void that aesthetic Socratism entered. In a strange twist of fate, very much akin to that
which shattered Oedipus’ life, the tragedy of The Birth of Tragedy is nothing less than the
impossibility for tragedy to exist any longer. By removing the Dionysian from the stage,
Euripides and those who follow him are incapable of finding that divine union in opposed forces
and the death of tragedy is complete.
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.7946

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The implications of ancient tragedy move beyond the work in itself. For the modern, the
tragedy is lived imperfectly and she is drained of meaning. Consider what Nietzsche says of
Hamlet. Hamlet is understood as being cut off from action by his vision of the Dionysian. He has
become the purely Dionysian man and is disgusted by this vision of life’s essential absurdity and
the horror experienced in face of life’s meaninglessness and he can no longer find in himself the
drive to act. For Hamlet’s condition there is salvation in man’s true metaphysical purpose: the47
creation of art. Art redeems man from immobility through the sublime and the comic as the
mastery of the horror and absurdity of life. What underlies this, of course, is the relationship
between these Dionysiac and Apollonian forces. The artistic expression of the horror and
absurdity of life in the sublime and comic is only a bridge between the Apollonian and
Dionysian. This act of bridge-building is the particular power of humanity. For the modern, she
has chosen for herself the opposite condition to that of Hamlet. In place of the immobility of the
Dionysian man, the modern, propelled by the forces of the Socratic daemon is naught but action
without underlying meaning. She has become pure function without end. In a sense, the modern
is also a tragic figure like Oedipus as she propels herself through a hollow life, full of
technological wonder but completely ignorant and it is Nietzsche who hopes to come, like
Oedipus’ messenger, to break the spell and pierce her eyes with Dionysiac needles.
Throughout The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche does engage in some philosophical
discussions however, perhaps as a result of his youth when writing it, they do not take centre-
stage and he relies much more profoundly on the images and forms of ancient Greece. In any
case, what is most significant about The Birth of Tragedy seen as mimicking the tragic form is
! Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy tr. Francis Golffing (New York: 1956) p.5147

18. 18
that it shows us how much Nietzsche thought we have lost since the ancient past. The modern
world on account of Socrates and his accomplice, Euripides, was predicated on something which
alienated humanity from herself. The rational, Nietzsche argues, is something important but it
should not be seen as the acme of human achievement and certainly not as the final judge on art.
As for the answer to the question of science from the perspective of art, in this, his first attempt
to answer the question, he highlights the vanity of pursuing science without art. For the question
of art from the perspective of life, we learn that it is the very purpose, the final cause, of
humanity to create art, a purpose which itself is only achievable when we become art.
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Works Cited
Archilochus, “Hold back completely” in The Greek Poets (New York: W.W. Norton & Company
Inc., 2010) pp.75-6!
Aristotle, Aristotle’s Art of Poetry: A Greek View of Poetry and Drama tr. W. Hamilton Fyfe
(London: Oxford University Press,1961)
Aristotle, The Pocket Aristotle tr. R.P. Hardie and R.K. Gaye (New York: Washington Square
Press, 1972)
Hegel, G.W.F. Phenomenology of Spirit tr. A.V. Miller (New York: Oxford University Press,
1977)
Nietzsche, Friedrich The Birth of Tragedy and The Genealogy of Morals tr. Francis Golffing
(New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1956)
Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil tr. R.J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin Books,2003)
Plato, “Republic” in Complete Works tr. G.M.A. Grube and rev. C.D.C. Reeve (Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing Company:1997)
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques Discours sur les sciences et les arts (Chicoutimi: Université du Quebec,
2002) http://sbisrvntweb.uqac.ca/archivage/13868098.pdf
Shakespeare, William “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” in The Complete Works of
Shakespeare (Oxford: Clarendon Press,1991) pp.654-90
Sophocles, “Oedipus the King” in Sophocles I tr. David Grene (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1991)