The Birth of Tragedy was Nietzsche's first published book, and it shows. It is passionate, flamboyant, and highly creative, but it lacks structure. His arguments are not always well supported (particularly his conjectures about ancient Greek music) but his core ideas still come alive. The Apolline-Dionysian dichotomy is a powerful distinction, and one that still reverberates; the tension between mythology/theology and science is alive and well; and his aesthetic critique of music is fascinating. But I'm not sure how all these ideas hang together...

The book reads a bit like a very good first draft, like something with a lot of potential but which is ultimately unrefined. It reads like a youthful first attempt, which is what it was.

This book has really changed my life. One needs a strong background in ancient greek philosophy to full understand this work.

Early Nietzsche, not his best. The "Attempt at Self-Criticism" helps justify some absurd and extreme characterizations of Euripides and Sophocles, and to temper, despite his efforts to avoid it, the heavy dose of German Romanticism.

Ha ha ha I am an asshole. Got your attention? James and Cammy - when you in the NC?

Good edition with a great introduction and two very helpful complementary essays by Nietzsche himself. Didn’t much enjoy the main text, though.

This was my first exposure to Nietzsche. I really enjoyed it. He really scared me with his preface (written 16 years after original publication). He claimed his book was poorly written and developed. I thoroughly enjoyed it though. I didn't read the other 2 short writings, but I read all of "The Birth of Tragedy." The timing is perfect. Greek tragedy is fresh in my mind from my Greek course in the fall, and I'm just about to teach Greek tragedy in my World Lit class!
When I read the very first page, I thought, "What?!?" Then I re-read it and it suddenly clicked. After that, I was completely absorbed by his writing.
I've fallen in love with the concept he has coined "metaphysical solace."
I also have more ideas abounding about "Angel" as Greek Tragedy....

Some very cool ideas.

Dramatic theory.

Certainly not a historiographical account of tragedy, nor a purely philological or philosophical work on the topic, Nietzsche's essay on the birth of tragedy takes a unique approximation.

Rather than making a single argumentative point or grounding a univocal thesis, Nietzsche weaves a complicated tapestry of images. It is only at the very end of the essay that one recognises the final result: the German Geist. As it may well have happened in Greek theatre, after a magnificent representation, characters lose their mask to reveal real actors below. Here, the characters that Nietzsche draws are the Hellenes, and the subjacent actor is the German Volk and its genius. It's difficult not to feel somewhat betrayed by the title, as one discovers that the real protagonists here are Wagner, Schopenhauer and Kant, instead of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.

Still, Nietzsche's beautiful contribution to literature on the tragic through the dialectical opposition of the Dionysiac and the Apolline constitutes undoubtedly a work of genius.

Considering using this book together with the Gorgias as supplements to my intro to philosophy. Rereading. I remember really enjoying the book when I read it in our CIV course at Stanford.

Got to love Nietzsche the Bietzsche. In this book, Nietzsche offers a critique of Platonic virtue, Christian virtue, and Socratic reason. He argues that instead of solely embracing scientific reason and striving toward high and mighty values, we should embrace the "Dionysian" or pain-loving sides of ourselves. We should appreciate the unpredictability of the world and the intrinsic value of sadistic suffering.

This is to some extent, a nice argument. There is more to life than well-reasoned happiness. However, Nietzsche's argument is a bit too angsty. I'm not sure that we can solve all our problems by watching tragedies and listening to "Dionysiac" music. Although suffering is an inherent part of the human experience, I think there still exists value in our relationships with other people and our appreciation of the world around. Yes, Nietzsche argues that we should seek to find a balance between the "Apollonion" and the "Dionysiac," but I would have appreciated a greater articulation of how we should actually live this balance and appreciate more than tragic art.

Still, a nice book. Always good to suffer a bit.

This is a strange book. I was supposedly required to read it because it held 'the seeds' of his later ideas, but I couldn't find any.

A genuinely meta-physical exposition of art manifested by art that knows itself as such.