Nietzsche expresses his thoughts about art in his work “Birth of Tragedy” for the first time. The main reason why he writes this book is to examine Greek tragedy. He creates two concepts in this work: Apollonian and Dionysian principles. Apollonian principle is created by influencing from Apollo who is son of Zeus and Leto. He is god of order, harmony and rationalism. Dionysian principle stands for Dionysus’ qualities. Being son of Zeus and Semele, he is known as the god of disorder, irrationalism and passion. Nietzsche glorifies tragedy and claimes that it should be the unity of these two concepts because Apollonian principle represents visual arts, while Dionysian principle represents non-visual arts:
The age of the earliest lyric poets …show more content…
He doesn’t have boundaries and this makes him not to beware deriving pleasure. This pleasure is related to “dithyrambs”. They were the festivals held so as to honour Dionysus. Pleasure was the most important element in these festivals. People were dancing, drinking and having sex in order to ecstasize and poets wrote poems for Dionysus. That’s why music and poetry were so important. Nietzsche explains this influence: “The Dionysian musical enchantment of the sleeper now, as it were, flashes around him fiery images, lyrical poems, which are called, in their highest form, tragedies and dramatic dithyrambs.” (Nietzsche, Guess & Speirs 1999, 30) Dionysian artist doesn’t hesitate to reflect the all sides of reality unlike the Apollonian one. He shows all the corruption and chaos of the life and he manages to be universal while doing this. As he can reach the large masses, this leads to corruption of individualism. Williams clarifies the difference between Apollonian and Dionysian artists’ reality by examining Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy:
For Nietzsche, Dionysian reality embodies a dissolution of distinct identities in which dissolution there is no place for the boundaries and differences characterizing the Apollonian world of appearances. Thus, there is no place for the boundaries and differences distinguishing one nation from another. (2001,
The age of the earliest lyric poets …show more content…
He doesn’t have boundaries and this makes him not to beware deriving pleasure. This pleasure is related to “dithyrambs”. They were the festivals held so as to honour Dionysus. Pleasure was the most important element in these festivals. People were dancing, drinking and having sex in order to ecstasize and poets wrote poems for Dionysus. That’s why music and poetry were so important. Nietzsche explains this influence: “The Dionysian musical enchantment of the sleeper now, as it were, flashes around him fiery images, lyrical poems, which are called, in their highest form, tragedies and dramatic dithyrambs.” (Nietzsche, Guess & Speirs 1999, 30) Dionysian artist doesn’t hesitate to reflect the all sides of reality unlike the Apollonian one. He shows all the corruption and chaos of the life and he manages to be universal while doing this. As he can reach the large masses, this leads to corruption of individualism. Williams clarifies the difference between Apollonian and Dionysian artists’ reality by examining Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy:
For Nietzsche, Dionysian reality embodies a dissolution of distinct identities in which dissolution there is no place for the boundaries and differences characterizing the Apollonian world of appearances. Thus, there is no place for the boundaries and differences distinguishing one nation from another. (2001,