The birth of the tragic thought
The Birth of the Tragic Thought is an essay by Friedrich Nietzsche , which he wrote in June 1870 and which remained unpublished during his lifetime. Along with four others (The Greek Musical Drama; Socrates and the Greek Tragedy; The Dionysian World View; The Tragedy and the Free Spirits), this essay is considered to be the preparatory work for his first important work The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music . In this essay Nietzsche formulates his picture of the Apollonian-Dionysian principle, which, according to Nietzsche, represents the art-dominating principle.
The usual code of the book in Nietzsche research is "GTG".
Emergence
Little is known about the genesis of the essay. The autograph is titled "From June 1870". After Nietzsche returned to Basel from the war soon - in September 1870 - as a result of an illness , he took part of the essay Die Dionysische Weltanschauung , entitled The Birth of the Tragic Thought of Cosima Wagner, on her birthday on December 25th To be brought to Tribschen in 1870 .
content
The essay is divided into three chapters. In this essayistic preparatory work, the idea of the “birth” of tragedy appears for the first time . What is special about this work is that the actual further development of art from the duplicity of the Apollonian and the Dionysian is sketched more clearly and concisely than later in the Birth of Tragedy. Nietzsche also explicitly addresses the seasonal cultic order of Apollo and Dionysus in this preliminary stage, which is only implied in the birth of tragedy.
1st chapter
Nietzsche reports that the ancient Greeks “set up two deities as a double source of their art”: Apollo and Dionysus. They embody two opposites in which man achieves the "blissful feeling of existence": dream (Apollo) and intoxication (Dionysus). The Attic tragedy with its representatives Aeschylus , Sophocles and Euripides , in which these two principles act together, is for Nietzsche the first and most important example of true art. Nietzsche now goes into why the gods embody these principles. Apollo had always been the god of sun and light as well as the god of moderate limitation among the ancient Greeks. Furthermore he has the element of beauty. Nietzsche summarizes these properties in the term “dream”. In contrast, Dionysus, according to Nietzsche, comes from Asiatic- pagan indigenous people and cultures. He stands for excess and intoxication. While Apollo stands for the preservation of the individual, Dionysus strives for the dissolution of the individual into the masses. It is important that these principles always occur at the same time. Nietzsche goes on to explain that Apollo tears up Dionysus in battle in order to put him back together later. He understands that they need each other and that they must appear on an equal footing. Now Nietzsche goes into the music. Music is basically a Dionysian element, if there is something Apollonian it is rhythm because it is a unit that sets standards. The Dionysian intoxication, on the other hand, expresses itself in harmonies , "soul scales" and the singing itself.
2nd chapter
Nietzsche begins this chapter with the story of Silenus , Dionysus' companion. He asks him what is best for humans. Nietzsche replies with the words that Aristotle also used: “Anyone who is once a person cannot become the most excellent at all, and he cannot have any part in the essence of the best. The most excellent thing for all of you, men and women alike, would be not to be born at all. The next best thing, however - after you have been born, to die as soon as possible. ”In this chapter, in contrast to Schiller and Goethe , Nietzsche describes the life of the ancient Greeks as terrible. They created the theater as an escape from reality . Apollo and Dionysus therefore had to work together to enable the Greek to escape from reality.
3rd chapter
Nietzsche now speaks of a lethargic element. Nietzsche uses the emphasized word "lethargic" in the old etymological sense: Lethe is the river of the underworld in Greek mythology , which the dead cross and forget their whole previous existence. Forgetfulness is not the same quality as forgetfulness, nor is it the usual forgetting of the past (as in the Lethe myth), but a state in which the Dionysian excited feel an ecstatic increased existence and leave normal reality behind. With this the tragic thought reaches its full development. Nietzsche is now juxtaposing two Greek and ancient dramatists: Aeschylus and Sophocles . In the former, people and gods are closely related. For him, according to Nietzsche, justice and happiness are mostly one. Sophocles, on the other hand, insists on the human impenetrability of the divine administration of justice. Nietzsche finds that Sophocles' view is closer to the "Dionysian truth".
Differences to the Birth of Tragedy
Most of this essay is similar to the earlier essay Die Dionysische Weltanschauung . What is new here, however, is the aspect of the birth of tragedy. Nietzsche changed the following aspects and thoughts in the GT:
In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche only briefly outlines the “duplicate” of the Apollonian and the Dionysian. In the first chapter of the GTG, he explains his thoughts on this in more detail. The polar constellation of the terms “Apollonian” and “Dionysian” only became a more general educational asset through the GT, but both the polarity of the gods Apollon and Dionysus and that of the adjectives derived from them already existed in the GTG. The seasonal cultic order of antiquity is also becoming more explicit. Apollo is the god of the summer months, Dionysus that of the winter months. Nietzsche makes it clear that the interaction of the two gods manifested itself in antiquity beyond art. The GTG also clarifies Nietzsche's conceptual intention to portray Apollo as the god of healing. There it says: “From the standpoint of the Apollonian world, Hellenism was to be healed and atone for. Apollo, the right god of salvation and atonement, saved the Greeks from clairvoyant ecstasy and disgust for existence - through the work of art of tragic-comic thought ”(KSA 1, 596, 17-22). Nietzsche makes this clear in the dichotomy (GT) between destruction (Dionysus) and healing (Apollo).
State of research
The research status of the essayistic preparatory work of the GT is still very manageable. The pioneer here is Claudia Crawford, who created the English translation of The Dionysian Weltanschauung . This essay is largely identical to the GTG. Jochen Schmidt's commentary on the GT also provides information about the GTG.
Trivia
Nietzsche dedicated and gave the essay to Richard Wagner's wife Cosima for her birthday. “In the evening Richard reads us in the manuscript that Professor Nietzsche gave me as a birthday present”, Cosima Wagner noted in her diary on December 26, 1870, “it is [...] of the highest value; the depth and magnificence of the views given in the most condensed form is quite remarkable; we follow his train of thought with the greatest and liveliest interest. I am particularly pleased that Richard's ideas can be expanded in this area ”.
expenditure
- Friedrich Nietzsche: The Birth of the Tragic Thought, in: Friedrich Nietzsche Works I to V, Ed. K. Schlechta, Ullstein Verlag 1977, Volume 1.
- Friedrich Nietzsche: The birth of the tragic thought, in: Complete works. Critical study edition in 15 individual volumes, ed. v. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, Vol. I, Munich / Berlin / New York 1988, pp. 579-599.
- Friedrich Nietzsche: The birth of the tragic thought, in: Nietzsche works, Critical Complete Edition, 2nd section - 1st volume, ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, Berlin 1982.
comment
A separate commentary on this essay does not (yet) exist. However, the GTG is regularly referred to in the GT comment:
Jochen Schmidt, Commentary on Nietzsche's “The Birth of Tragedy” , Berlin 2012.
literature
- Barbara von Reibnitz , A Commentary on Friedrich Nietzsche, "The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music" (Chapters 1 - 12) , Stuttgart 1992.
- Jochen Schmidt , Commentary on Nietzsche's “The Birth of Tragedy” , Berlin 2012.
- Julia Crawford: The Dionysian Worldview. Nietzsche's symbolic language and music, in: Journal of Nietzsche Studies, No. 13, Nietzsche and German Literature (Spring 1997), pp. 72-80.
- Friedrich Nietzsche / Julia Crawford: The Dionysian Worldview., In: Journal of Nietzsche Studies, No. 13, Nietzsche and German Literature (Spring 1997), pp. 81-97.
Web links
- The birth of the tragic thought at Nietzsche Source
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Jochen Schmidt: Commentary on Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy . tape 1 . De Gruyter, Berlin, p. 31 .
- ↑ Jochen Schmidt: Commentary on Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy . tape 1 . De Gruyter, Berlin, p. 410-411 .
- ^ Claudia Crawford: The Dionysian Worldview. Nietzsche's symbolic language and music . In: Journal of Nietzsche Studies . tape 13 , 1997, pp. 72-80 .
