Nietzsche's 'the Birth of Tragedy': A Reader's Guide »

Introduction to one of Nietzsche's most important works - a key text in nineteenth-century philosophy.

Introduction 1

1 Context 4

2 Overview of Themes 9

3 Reading the Text 14

'An Attempt at Self-Criticism' 14

Foreword: Art, Wagner and War 24

Section 1 The Apolline and Dionysiac as Art-Drives and 'Living Concepts'; Envisaging a New Science of Aesthetics. Note: Nietzsche and Darwin 27

Section 2 The Drives at Work in Pre-Socratic Greece; Three Types of Symbolization; Psychogenesis of the Dionysian in Asia and in Greek Culture 45

Section 3 The Origins of 'Genealogy': Psychogenesis of the Apollonian in the Greek 'Character'. Note: Nietzsche, German 'Hellenism' and Hölderlin 50

Section 4 Necessity of Relationship between the Drives: their 'Reciprocal Intensification'; the 'Ethics' of the Drives; the Five Periods of Greek Culture; Introduction of 'Attic Tragedy' 58

Section 5 Historical Manifestation of the 'Third Type' of Symbolization: Archilochus, the 'Father' of Tragedy; The Fusion of the Drives in Lyric Poetry 61

Section 6 Folk Song; Fusion of Language and Music 65

Section 7 The Chorus as Historical Nucleus of Tragedy; Nietzsche's Critique of Hegel 68

Section 8 The Chorus as Earliest Cell of Tragedy; Modern Poetry and Theory of Language. Note: Philosophy of Language in Nietzsche 73

Section 9 The Double Meaning of Sophoclean and Aeschylean Tragedy 80

Section 10 The Revival of Myth in Tragedy as its Death Throes: The End of the Mythological Age and the Dawning Age of Logic 85

Section 11 Euripides as Critic rather than Poet 88

Section 12 The Misunderstanding and Repression of the Art-Drives 90

Section 13 Socrates - The Axis of Cultural History 93

Section 14 Death of Tragedy; Birth of Modern Art 97

Section 15 Science as a Deficient Mode of Art; Socrates at the Gates of Modernity 102

Section 16 Aesthetics of Modern Music Drama. Note: Nietzsche, Music and Style 107

Section 17 Death of Myth as the Death of Tragedy 114

Section 18 The Crisis of Socratic Modernity. Note: on 'Bildung' 116

Section 19 Naïve and Sentimental; Early Opera-Mismatch of Ingredient Elements 124

Section 20 German Education; Revolutionary Epiphany 130

Section 21 Modern Opera - Wagner's Tristan and Isolde as Aesthetic Paradigm 132

Section 22 The Aesthetic Listener 141

Section 23 The Still Untroubled Unity of the German Spirit 144

Section 24 Justification of the World as Aesthetic Phenomenon Radicalised - Theory of Musical Dissonance 147

Section 25 The Study of Dissonant Man 151

4 Reception and Influence 154

Study Questions 161

Notes 163

Further Reading 181

Index 191