Matica hrvatska
Zagreb, 1997.
Prevela Vera Čičin-Šain
Pogovor: Branko Despot
Nietzscheov jezik je tako životan da je puten. Metaforičnost je živopisno snažna. Nietzscheova metaforičnost je na prelijepoj književnoumjetničkoj razini. Jezik ovog velikana ljudskog uma je potpuna suprotnost sumraku suvremenog znanstvenog diskursa (pod znanstvenim diskursom podrazumijevam cjelokupni teorijski diskurs humanistike). Melodičnost Nietzscheovih rečenica posjeduje pogled Durerove melankolije.
U djelu jedine citate koje nailazimo su citati Schopenhaura. Divno su ukorporirani u tok misli. Nietzsche često baca Heraklita Efeškog u vidu spominjanja njegova uma. Pročitajte Heraklita Efeškog, on je najbolji filozof ikada; http://161.53.142.7/cgi-bin/wero.cgi?.... Živio Heraklit, vječni plam živosti uma!
Jezična aktualizacije Nietzschea je odraz njegove genijalnosti.
Ovo mi je bilo drugo čitanje ovog djela.
Osnovna premisa ovog teksta jest definiranje tragičke i sokratovske kulture. Tragička kultura je
rana kultura života i mita. Tragička kultura ne raspoznaje granicu umjetnosti i religije. U tom vidu Nietzsche tvrdi da je tragedija nastala tako da se kor počeo obraćati jednom glumcu (vjerniku) koji je predstavljao Dioniza. Sam kor jest "simbol cjelokupnog dionizijski uzbuđenog mnoštva." Kor je zbir vjernika koji iskazuju religijski obred u čast bogu Dionizu.
Sokratovska kultura je kasna kultura i ona je kultura propadanja. Grčka kultura je počela propadati u petom stoljeću prije Krista, uništio ju je Sokrat koji je tvorac morala i znanosti, dvaju dekadentnih strujanja. Nietzsche je tvrdio da se onodobna Europa, pa time i Njemačka, nalaze u sokratovskoj obamrlosti. Opera je po Nietzscheu glavni iskaz jer opera je izgubila sve umjetničko u sebi. Kako je izgubila sve umjetničko u sebi? Nietzsche je pametan pa zna da umjetnost nije mimetičnost niti nekakva društvena kritika. Umjetnost treba biti odraz metafizičkog svijeta, a ne kritika ovog fizičkog svijeta. Ako umjetnost nije isprepletena s mitom (ranom religijom) onda nije umjetnost. Nietzsche tvrdi da je od svih umjetnosti glazba najumjetničkija. Zašto? Jer je najuniverzalnija, glazba je odraz metafizike. Dionizijske umjetnosti su univerzalnije naravi, dok su apolonske bliže partikularnoj naravi. Likovne umjetnosti su apolonske umjetnosti. Opera stavlja tekst iznad glazbe, dakle nešto partikularno iznad nečeg univerzalnog. Zato je opera smeće, a Wagner svjetlost. Ideali Francuske revolucije su udaljili istinit koncept hijerarhije umjetnosti (i općenito hijerarhije vrijednosti) od masa.
O konceptu dionizijskog i apolonskog, i njegovoj sintezi u drami, neću govoriti jer ovom osvrtu ne bi bilo kraja. Zbilja bih trebao početi pisati na engleskom i početi naplaćivati dijelove svojih misli. Za to mi treba vlastita stranica. Moje čitateljstvo će biti upoznato s tim kada se navedeno ostvari. Prije ću početi na engleskom pisati na ovoj mreži. Tek nakon toga krećem s vlastitom stranicom.
Za kraj ovog osvrta reći ću sljedeće: ne slažem se s Nietzscheovim veličanjem njemačke nacije. Veličanje njemačke nacije nije nikako povezano s nacizmom, ali je povezano s zdravorazumskim pogledom na svijet da je čovjek čovjeku vuk, da je kultura kulturi vuk. Drago mi je da je njemačka nacija bila poražena među ostalim i mojom nacijom. Koliko god da cijenim Hoffmanna, Tiecka, Goethea, Nietzschea i Spenglera moram reći da mi se Nijemci gade. Onako blijedi, debelonožni, trbuhotrudni. Bljak! Njemice su uz Engleskinje najružnije žene na svijetu. Toliko o nadmoći bijele rase ili njemačke nacije. Bljak!
Ali, nadam se da će uskoro tragička kultura dovesti krug metafizike na svoje drugo razdoblje. Nietzscheova koncepcija povijesti na izmjenu razdoblja tragičke i razdoblja sokratovske kulture je iznjedren iz koncepcije povijesti Heraklita Efeškog koji je svu povijest promatrao kao krug, kao izmejnu ekpirosisa (razdoblja univerzalnog metaforički predstavljenog kao vatra) i diakozmesisa (razdoblja partikularnog, svih stvari i bića koja su nastala iz vatre, iz univerzalnog). Kažem, pročitajte Heraklita Efeškog!
Sokratovska kultura se danas ogledava u književnosti u vidu poetike "tržišnog realizma". Današnji magijski realizam (prije svih Cesar Aira) je bljesak svjetla u mraku realizma. Sokratovska kultura društva se ogledava u totalitarnim ideologijama feminizma, nacionalizma, rasizma, transrodnizma; sve identitetarni pokreti koji su odraz smrti Zapada.
Tragička kultura danas se odražava kroz novonastajuću religiju; vjerovanje u reptile iz druge dimenzije ili arhonte iz druge domenzije. Legende o Mothmanu, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothman, su također odraz pojave tragičke kulture. David Icke je uistinu prorok nove religije. Osobno mislim da te spike drže vodu, ne u vidu metapolitike- da ta bića upravljaju svijetom, već u vidu metafizike. Znanost je laž, a sve religije su klanjanje Demijurgu i tim zlim silama, zvali ih arhontima (kako je preferiram) ili reptilima. Dakako, da vjeruem u to skeptički i ne tvrdim da je kategorički tako. No, duboko znam da postoje metafizičke sile dobra i metafizičke sile zla. Preporučam u tom pogledu sljedeći jutjub kanal; https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvnn....
Reptili, Anunaki, Niburu- sve su to toposi novonastajuće religije koja je odraz pojave tragičke kulture. Doslovce živimo u vremenu mitova. Gotovo je s modernizmom a.k.a. sokratovskom kulturom.
Uspon paganizma je također odraz svega rečenog.
Pozdravljam čitatelje iz svih dimenzija i galaksija. Čitajte me i dalje! A, ako ste i voljni sa mnom pokrenuti neku stranicu javite mi se. No, znajte da ja nisam spreman bar još godinu dana. Trebam zgotoviti faks, a i početi čitati masovno knjige na engleskom preko Kindla da se ušemim u engleski.
S nekim mojim prijateljima na ovoj mreži već pričah o tome. Prepoznat će se.
Dakako, svi su ili libtardi ili tuđmantardi, pa moraju znati da sam ja van toga.
Hasta luego!

In a work, originally intended to outline the genesis of an art-form, Nietzsche has created what we can liken to the most fascinating conceptual coin. On one side of the coin, we have the 'Apolline', a term which loosely relates to our love for the rational and the beautiful, for systematising reality and cherishing illusion. On the other side, we have the 'Dionysiac', a term which accurately encapsulates a primal frenzy, a chaotic revelry under which "man is no longer an artist, but a work of art." These "artistic impulses" really serve as the metaphysical thermometer for our culture; the blazing Dionysiac tends towards chaos and lack of structure and the icy Apolline tends towards rigidity.

One consideration which I could not dismiss was how Nietzsche's exceptional writing style often superseded the need for a non-circular argument. Indeed many of the arguments he advanced seemed to place words and ideas in the mouths of legendary playwrights such as Euripides whom he unequivocally blames for the death of tragedy. Being his first work, Nietzsche was not all too pleased with 'The Birth of Tragedy' but he never abandoned its notions, especially invoking the god of Dionysus in all his works that followed. We see the foundations for his arguments in 'The Gay Science' which deals with the decline of culture due to a frenzied quest for truth and a stubborn dismissal of myth, which Nietzsche finds abhorrent and which inevitably causes the figurative death of God. Essentially, 'The Birth of Tragedy' wishes to establish art as the supreme metaphysical task, and that the world is only justified as an aesthetic phenomenon, namely being the product of the convergence of the two transcendental and diametrically opposed forces of the Dionysiac and the Apolline.

Like a walnut, this book appears firm and rigidly uninviting from the outside, but its kernel contains savoury thoughts imbued with Nietzsche's unparalleled skepticism and literary prowess.

Before Nietzsche became unhinged he wrote this great work. It took a toll on me after I read it because it was my introduction to Nietzsche and everything of his that I read afterwards was miscued; it scattered my thought process for a few years. The Joyful Wisdom, filled with remarkable poetry, was nearly like an acid trip. Thank goodness young minds have the capacity of recovering.

At its simplest, The Birth of Tragedy is a foundation for drama - that which captures you and also moves you, wax and wane of the mind, the up and down tugs on your heartstrings, or a punch to the relaxed gut. It's one thing and still another, the back and forth of Apollo and Dionysis in a shared space and time each with their moments. More complex, and more definitive, and more exemplary of Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy could be seen as the birth of Irony.

Young Nietzsche appeals to Wagner, Schopenhauer, Goethe, and even to Kant in order to defend the Dionysian and the Greek tragedy against the Apollonian, Socrates, the optimism and superficiality of sciences, and so on. The individual may try to hide behind Apollonian appearances and subterfuges, but in the end the creative destruction represented by the Dionysus will triumph in life. The proper understanding of all that is essential in life and art should be purely aesthetic; while any ethical, logical, or scientific interpretation is just missing the point. Nietzsche is quite verbose, passionate, and optimistic in this book. Later Nietzsche will denounce Wagner's music, Schopenhauer's philosophy, the German culture as a whole, and this book as fundamentally romantic and decadent; while Dionysus will morph and take a clear identity as Zarathustra and/or the Antichrist.

A young, bookish moustachioed professor, newly appointed to a provincial chair of philology, falls under the spell of a mysterious, scheming and possibly malevolent composer, whose unholy music break all the boundaries of taste or custom. Our hero soon suspects a dark secret at the heart of his mesmerizing arrangements – but enamored of the composer's innocent wife, the professor descends further and further into the primal madness of music, exploring ancient nameless wisdom so terrible mankind had to be sheltered from its sight by salutary delusions. How far will our young hero follow the mad sorcerer of music-drama down the road to madness? Will he attempt to face the unspeakable horror of the Ur-Eine, that Dark God in each of us whose sight alone is enough to rob us from reason and self-hood? Or will he succumb, like many before him, to the philistine impulse of negating all that cannot be mastered? Find out in the new installment of the Nietzsche Mythos, “The Call of Wagner” in kiosk for 5c!

A great introduction to Nietzsche. If you want to understand him at all, you have to understand the tension and balance between the Apollonian and Dionysian forces and this is where he clearly explains that dynamic. This is the book that started my love affair with all things Nietzsche.

ja hmmm

The Birth Of Tragedy is a book written by Nietzsche in 1872. The book details notions of Apollonian and Dionysian elements found in art. Apollo is the god of order and stability while Dionysian is the art of wine and chaos. The great works of man discusses the battle between good and evil; take for instance The Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost- it is a survey of good versus evil.
What I learned from this book
-too read slowly.
I must admit I do read a bit quickly, even some philosophy books, from here I learned that one should take their time with great works in order to properly understand the text where one wouldn’t be able to do so if one had read quickly.

“There is nothing more terrible than a barbaric slave class who have learned to take regard their existence as an injustice, and now prepare to take vengeance… for themselves but for all generations.”
(Nietzsche, 76)

An exploration of the nature of art and tragedy, bred from the interplay of Dionysus (the god of wine, insanity and religious ecstasy) and Apollo (god of prophecy, knowledge and contemplation), Nietzsche draws upon the history and philosophy of the Greeks, as well as Schopenhauerian thought, to produce a riveting analysis of the role of art in human life. He explores the dialectic between these two opposing yet complementary forces of art, that of order and measured beauty, and that of chaos, unbridled and exhilaratingly free... The Dionysiac side of art is, according to dear Friedrich, the essence of life itself, dazzling and terrible in its purity. The Apolline, on the other hand, is a mere reflection, an imitation, somewhat softened and reduced to measured order. These notions are applied to music and drama, music being the manifestation of the true nature, core and essence of life. Though it's true that the words and visual representations of drama have their limitations, I don't think this necessarily places music at a level closer to truth, solely due to its intangibility. Nonetheless, words will certainly never be enough to project an exact representation of a thought, a notion, all the abstractions of life...perhaps precisely because music is an abstraction in itself, it can indeed have the power to transcend those restrictions imposed upon words to draw us ever closer to the truth. Or perhaps truth simply isn't compatible with human nature...after all, Nietzsche stresses that both Dionysus and Apollo are just as essential to life as the other; the Apolline deception can relieve us of the burden of the Dionysiac surge and excess, offering some equilibrium to the fickle scales of the human temperament. Without the restraint offered by the Apolline, we would succumb to chaos and insanity - for this is the price of Truth.

Nietzsche then launches into a denouncement of Socratic principles, claiming that he brought about the death of tragedy through valuing rationality and reason above art and chaotic creation... "And here stands man, stripped of myth, eternally starving, in the midst of all the past ages, digging and scrabbling for roots, even if he must dig for them in the most remote antiquities..." Here, Nietzsche notes the inherently unsatisfied nature of modern culture, and our inevitable strive to reunite ourselves with myth, legend, some ancient culture which will sate our desire for the intangible, the unknowable, the ecstasy of the obliteration of all reason... He calls for the rebirth of tragedy out of the snares of Socratic reason, stressing the importance of this for the elevation of German culture in a desire to reach the heights of the Greeks.

"Tragedy sits in sublime rapture amidst this abundance of life, suffering and delight, listening to a far-off, melancholy song which tells of the Mothers of Being, whose names are Delusion, Will and Woe."

التراجيديا الأثينية ماهي إلا تزاوج مابين الفن الديونيسي والأبولوني تصورهما نيتشه كعالمين فنيين متمايزين هما عالم الحلم والنشوة. في التراجيديا كان العنصر الأبولوني من خلال الوهم الذي خلقه طغى وانتصر على الديونيسي الذي هو العنصر الأصلي للموسيقى خلاصة نيتشه أن ديونيزوس الذي يتكلم لغة أبولون وأبولون الذي ينتهي به المطاف إلى تحدث لغة ديونيزوس وهنا في هذه النقطة يتحقق هدف التراجيديا والفن عموما. أما السقراطية ما هي إلا آداة لتشتت شمل الإغريق وكانت نموذج للإنحطاط (العقل ضد الغريزة) لذلك سقراط لم يكن إلا شخص منحط والأخلاق ما هي إلا عرض من أعراض الإنحطاط

The author, who certainly knew his Greek history, argues that early classical Greek tragedies (i.e. written by Aeschylus and Sophocles) demonstrated an heroic effort to understand and affirm human suffering and existence in a meaningless world. Greek culture was a blend between the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Apollo, the sun god, sought to bring order, meaning, and form to the harsh world people saw around them. Dionysus, the god of wine, sought to immerse people in the immediate changing world of experience. The Dionysian often emphasized the "darker" aspects of life (sexual license, anger, drunkenness, violence, etc.). Nietzsche believed the tension between these two ways of looking at life produced great Art. Later Greek writers and thinkers would emphasize the Apollonian over the Dionysian. Permanent form, meaning and purpose would find it's strongest proponent in Plato. Christianity (which Nietzsche saw as Platonism for the masses) would spread this way of looking at the world throughout Western civilization. Nietzsche preferred a balance between Dionysus and Apollo, the irrational and the rational. I personally prefer orderliness and lean toward the Apollonian.

A few weeks ago, I finished Marx’s Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. It strikes me now that that book and this one are similar, in that they shed light on the two thinkers as young men. In Marx’s Critique, we see the twenty-something grappling with the tentacled beast of Hegel; in The Birth of Tragedy, we see young Nietzsche taking his first bold step off the straight-and-narrow path of academia into his own world of thought. Both books are, to put it delicately, ‘young men’s books’—bold, daring, reckless, overly-ambitious, under-researched, brimming over with impetuosity and life. But the major difference between the two works is that Marx’s Critique (apart from its famous preface) is quite boring; while Nietzsche’s debut has all the fire and fury you’d expect from the mustachioed thinker.
t
As a piece of scholarship, this book is worthless. Everyone told Nietzsche so immediately, and it’s unnecessary to say more on the subject. But as a piece of… something, it’s fantastic. Here we get the rare treat of Nietzsche’s excellent prose combined with a fairly straightforward argument. But what, exactly, is the argument?
t
Although commonly discussed, I think that Nietzsche’s division of Apollonian/Dionysian is also commonly misrepresented. (For the sake of honesty, I should say I’m merely parroting what I read in the Douglas Smith’s introduction, bolstered by my own reading.) The main conflict Nietzsche identifies is not Apollonian vs. Dionysian, but Apollonian/Dionysian vs. Socratism.
t
Apollonian art is representational, such as paintings, sculpture, novels, and epic poetry. That’s why Nietzsche calls Homer the ultimate Apollonian artist, because he paints a picture with words. Now, mind you, these images don’t have to be rational. In fact, they often aren’t. (Does anything about the Iliad or the Odyssey strike you as particularly rational?) In fact, one of the first examples Nietzsche uses as Apollonian imagery are dreams—the ultimate in senselessness.
t
Dionysian art is not representational. It is, rather, a pure manifestation of the will to live. This is heavily influenced by Schopenhauer’s philosophy: Schopenhauer, building on Kant, thought that the world of the senses was but a visual manifestation of the primordial Will to Live—which is Schopenhauer’s interpretation of Kant’s noumena. Thus, since Apollonian art represents this world of the senses, it ends up being copy of a copy—twice removed from the primordial will. But music is a pure sensation, and therefore closer to the fundamental truth of reality.
t
So, for Nietzsche, the greatness of Greek Tragedy is that it combined these two aspects of art: the representational and nonrepresentational. The drama depicted on stage is Apollonian; but the music of the Chorus is Dionysian. It is the balance of myth and music, of words and will. And therein lies the rub.*

The death of tragedy comes with this fateful balance is disrupted. And it is disrupted by rationality: in the form of Euripides and Socrates. Socrates’s (or Plato’s) way of thinking was opposed to both the Apollonian and the Dionysian. His guiding light was reason, cold and pure. Socrates’s objection to Apollonian art is similar to Schopenhauer’s—it is a mere representation of the visual world, which itself is a mere manifestation of the Ideal Forms. But music is equally abhorrent for Socrates, because it is irrational, and distracts the soul from philosophy. In place of the Will to Live Socrates proposes the Will to Truth.

From then on, nonrepresentational art is not to be trusted, since it appeals to the senses, like wine or the lust for power. The point of art becomes, instead, to manifest reason and truth rather than to represent the Will to Live. Instead of the Apollonian world of dreams and myth we get the Socratic world of diagrams and dialectic.

I’m not sure why I took the trouble to summarize the book. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard it incorrectly summarized so many times before; or maybe it’s because it's so darn interesting. In any case, this is a marvelous little book, even if you think Nietzsche is both a bad scholar (which he is) and has dubious moral values (which is arguable). In the end, I think one of Nietzsche’s main points, at any time in his life, was that aesthetics is perhaps more important than either logic or ethics. Logic tells you what is true; ethics tell you what is right. But aesthetics makes life worth living—and who cares what’s true or right if it isn’t?




*One can see how influential this was on Freud, whose entire system is a kind of internalized version of Schopenhauer’s and Nietzsche’s. For Freud, the primal id (read “the will to live” or “the Dionysian”) is represented symbolically via dreams (read “the world of the senses” or “the Apollonian”).