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

A compelling argument for the necessity for art in life, Nietzsche's first book is fuelled by his enthusiasms for Greek tragedy, for the philosophy of Schopenhauer and for the music of Wagner, to whom this work was dedicated. Nietzsche outlined a distinction between its two central forces: the Apolline, representing beauty and order, and the Dionysiac, a primal or ecstatic reaction to the sublime. He believed the combination of these states produced the highest forms of music and tragic drama, which not only reveal the truth about suffering in life, but also provide a consolation for it. Impassioned and exhilarating in its conviction, "The Birth of Tragedy" has become a key text in European culture and in literary criticism.

Customer Reviews:

The Dialectic model of Art

By Chris Coulter "dionysiac" - January 13, 2000

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... read more

The celebration of Irrational Energy

By Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" - November 1, 2005

Prior to Nietzsche the Greeks had been celebrated for their great calm and rationality. Nietzsche pointed to the irrational,passionate , energetic elements, the Dionysian force which contended with life and death as central element of the Greek Reality. The 'Birth of Tragedy (1872) is his first book but already present are his tremendous power to shock, his aphoristic brilliance, his effort to ' turn the tables' and break the mold of our ordinary thinking.

He himself says in describing the Birth of Tragedy" connects us with that which counters the Periclean desire for the beautiful and the good. He sees a desire preceding the desire for the good and the beautiful, " namely, the desire for the ugly or the good strong willing of the ancient Hellenes for pessimism, for tragic myth, for pictures of everything fearful, angry, enigmatic, destructive, and fateful as the basis of existence? Where must tragedy come from? Perhaps out of desire, out of power, out of overflowing... read more