The Birth of TragedyOut of the Spirit of Music

Friedrich Nietzsche

The birth of tragedy

Duality of the Apollonian and the Dionysian

(1844.10.15 ~ 1900.8.25)

Youth

•1844.10.15 Born in the small town of Röcken, in

the Prussian Province of Saxony.

•Father: Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813–1849)

Mother: Franziska Oehler (1826–1897)

Sister: Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche(1846–1935)

Brother: Ludwig Joseph (1848–1850).

• 1858—1864 Study in Schulpforta

• Here he became friends with Paul Deussen and Carl von

Gersdorff. He also found time to work on poems and musical

compositions. At Schulpforta, Nietzsche received an important

introduction to literature, particularly that of the ancient

Greeks and Romans.• 1864 Commenced studies in theology and

classical philology at

the University of Bonn.

• After one semester (and to the anger of his mother) he stopped his theological studies and lost his faith. 

• Nietzsche then concentrated on studying philology under Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, whom he followed to the University of Leipzig the next year.

• 1865 Thoroughly studied the works of Arthur Schopenhauer.

• He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading his Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Representation)

• 1866 Read Friedrich Albert Lange's History of Materialism.

• Lange's descriptions of Kant's anti-materialistic philosophy, the rise of European Materialism, Europe's increased concern with science, Darwin's theory, and the general rebellion against tradition and authority greatly intrigued Nietzsche. The cultural environment encouraged him to expand his horizons beyond philology and to continue his study of philosophy.

• 1867 Signed up for one year of voluntary service with the Prussian artillery division in Naumburg.

• However, a riding accident in March 1868 left him unfit for service. Consequently Nietzsche turned his attention to his studies again, completing them and first meeting with Richard Wagner later that year.

• Professor at Basel (1869–1879)

• In part because of Ritschl's support, Nietzsche received a

remarkable offer to become professor of classical philology at the

University of Basel.

• Before moving to Basel, Nietzsche renounced his Prussian

citizenship: for the rest of his life he remained officially stateless.

• 1872 Published his first book, The Birth of Tragedy.

• 1879 After a significant decline in health, resigned his

position at Basel.

 Independent philosopher (1879–1888)

• 1878 Human, All Too Human •With the publication in 1878 of Human, All Too Human, Nietzsche's reaction against the pessimistic philosophy of Wagner and Schopenhauer became evident

• 1882 Published the first part of The Gay Science.

•That year he also met Lou Andreas Salomé,through Malwida von Meysenbug and Paul Rée. Salomé reports that he asked her to marry him and that she refused, though the reliability of her reports of events has come into question. Nietzsche's relationship with Rée and Salomé broke up in the winter of 1882/1883, partially because of intrigues conducted by Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth. Amidst renewed bouts of illness, living in near isolation after a falling-out with his mother and sister regarding Salomé, Nietzsche fled to Rapallo. Here he wrote the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra in only ten days.

Mental breakdown and death (1889–1900)

•1889.1.3 Nietzsche suffered a mental collapse. 

•Overbeck traveled to Turin and brought Nietzsche to a psychiatric clinic in Basel. By that time Nietzsche appeared fully in the grip of a serious mental illness, and his mother Franziska decided to transfer him to a clinic in Jena under the direction of Otto Binswanger.•1890.3 Franziska removed Nietzsche from the clinic, and in May 1890 brought him to her home in Naumburg. 

•After the death of Franziska in 1897, Nietzsche lived in Weimar, where Elisabeth cared for him and allowed people to visit her uncommunicative brother.

•1898 and 1899 Nietzsche suffered at least two strokes, which partially paralysed him and left him unable to speak or walk.

•1900 .8.25 die

悲剧的诞生

• 《悲剧的诞生》是尼采第一部正式出版的著作，发表于 1872 年 1 月

• 耗时三年精心准备，但是却反响极其恶劣

• 原因：脱离古典语文学者对古希腊罗马文献进行学术考订和诠释的专业轨道，

对希腊精神进行哲学的阐释

Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik

• 古典研究学领域著作？ 美学著作？ 哲学著作？

• 《悲剧的诞生》一书的最独特之处是对古希腊酒神现象的极端重视。这种现

象基本上靠民间口头秘传，缺乏文字资料，一向为正宗的古典学术所不屑。

尼采却立足于这种不登大雅之堂的现象，把它当作理解高雅的希腊悲剧、希

腊艺术、希腊精神的钥匙。甚至从中提升出了一种哲学。

• 仅仅把这本书看成一部美学著作肯定是不够的。书中显然存在两个层次，后

者是前者的动机和谜底：

1. 表层：对希腊艺术的美学讨论

2. 深层：关于生命意义的形而上学的思考

• 书的主题：

• 1 生命意义的解释 2 现代文化的批判来。

• 与其后期思想联系：1. 从热情肯定生命意志的酒神哲学中发展出了权力意志理论和超人学说2. 对苏格拉底主义的批判扩展和深化成了两千年以来对柏拉图的世界二分模

式为范型的欧洲整个传统形而上学的批判，对基督教道德的批判，以及对一切价值的重估。

“ 《悲剧的诞生》是我的第一个一切价值的重估：我借此又回到了我的愿望和我的能力由之生长的土地上。”

—— 尼采《我感谢古人什么》

• 这部著作应该被看成是他一生主要哲学思想的诞生地，从中能发现帮助我们正确解读他后期哲学的密码。

二元艺术冲动 1—3duality of the Apollonian and Dionysian

斗争 和解 4

strife reconciliation

悲剧的本质与诞生 5—8

structure

C Duality of the Apollonian and the Dionysian

Apollo Dionysus

the beautiful appearance of the inner fantasy world

rising up out of the collapse of the principium individuationis from the innermost depths of a human being

自然的冲动 dream intoxication

世界的二元架构 idea will

艺术形式 The visual art The non-visual art of music

C Duality of the Apollonian and the Dionysian

Apolloder Scheinende → Schein

Dionysus

the beautiful appearance of the inner fantasy world

rising up out of the collapse of the principium individuationis from the innermost depths of a human being, indeed, from the innermost depths of nature

• Continuing strife and only periodically occurring reconciliation• These two very different drives go hand in hand, for the most part in open conflict with each other and simultaneously provoking each other all the time to new and more powerful offspring, in order to perpetuate in them the contest of that opposition…

Duality of the Apollonian and the DionysianApollo Dionysus

自然的冲动

Artistic forces which break forth out of nature itself

Dream

Beautiful appearance of the world of dreams

Shimmering sense of their illusory quality

These facts are clear evidence showing that our innermost beings, the secret underground in all of us, experiences its dreams with deep enjoyment and a sense of delightful necessity.

Intoxication

The subjective fades into complete forgetfulness of self

Under the magic of the Dionysian, not only does the bond between man and man lock itself in place once more, but also nature itself, no matter how alienated, hostile, or subjugated, rejoices again in her festival of reconciliation with her prodigal son, man.

Duality of the Apollonian and the DionysianApollo Dionysus

世界的二元架构

World as Will and Idea Schopenhauer

principium individuationis

个体化原理

Idea 表象

世界意志由认识对主体呈现现象的冲动

个体：在个体化原理支配下执着于现象包括一己生命的冲动

Will 意志→ 世界的本质

无意义的盲目的生命冲动

个体：摆脱个体化原理回归世界意志的冲动

• the imperturbable trust in that principle and the calm sitting still of the man caught up in it attained its loftiest expression in him, and we may even designate Apollo himself as the marvellous divine image of the principium individuationis, from whose gestures and gaze all the joy and wisdom of “illusion,” together with its beauty, speak to us

• Now the slave a free man; now all the stiff, hostile barriers break apart, those things which necessity and arbitrary power or “saucy fashion” have established between men. Now, with the gospel of world harmony, every man feels himself not only united with his neighbour, reconciled and fused together, but also as one with him

• as the intoxicating reality, which once again does not respect the individual, but even seeks to abolish the individual and to redeem him through a mystical feeling of collective unity.

C Duality of the Apollonian and the Dionysian

Apolloder Scheinende → Schein

Dionysus

艺术形式 The visual art

God of all plastic art

The plastic artist, as well as his relation, the epic poet, is absorbed in the pure contemplation of images.

The non-visual art of music

as a Dionysian artist, become entirely unified with the primordial oneness, with its pain and contradiction, the reflection of this primordial oneness as musica re-working of the world and its second castingThe Dionysian musician totally lacks every image and is in himself only and entirely the original pain and original reverberation of that image.

Dionysus ApolloDionysus Apollo

毁灭人生的可怕力量 纳入肯定人生的轨道

生存的痛苦 世界的痛苦 美好外观的幻觉来掩盖

酒神不断呼唤日神 日神不断约束酒神

相互制约相互促进

希腊人身上的二元冲动

Given the incredibly clear and accurate plastic capability of their eyes, along with their intelligent and open love of colour, one cannot go wrong in assuming that, to the shame all those born later, their dreams also had a logical causality of lines and circumferences, colours, and groupings, a sequence of scenes rather like their best bas reliefs, whose perfection would certainly entitle us

the dreaming Greek man as Homer and Homer as a dreaming Greek man希腊人是一个日神性的民族。

From the feverish excitement of those festivals, knowledge of which reached the Greeks from all directions by land and sea

No power was more dangerous than this massive and grotesque Dionysian force.

This resistance became more questionable and even impossible as similar impulses finally broke out from the deepest roots of Hellenic culture itself

his entire existence, with all its beauty and moderation, rested on a hidden underground of suffering and knowledge, which was exposed for him again through that very Dionysian.

酒神性源自人的天性，包括希腊人

This deification of individuation, if it is thought of in general as commanding and proscriptive, understands only one law, the individual, that is, observing the limits of individualization, moderation in the Greek sense. Apollo, as an ethical divinity, demands moderation from his followers and, so that they can observe self-control, a knowledge of the self. And so alongside the aesthetic necessity of beauty run the demands “Know thyself” and “Nothing too much!”

reconciliation

we do not need to speak merely hypothetically when we are to expose the immense gap which separates the Dionysian Greeks from the Dionysian barbarians.

the meaning of the festivals of world redemption and days of transfiguration in the Dionysian orgies of the Greeks, in comparison with that Babylonian Sacaea, which turned human beings back into tigers and apes.

Dionysian Apollonian

毁灭人生的可怕力量 纳入肯定人生的轨道

Dionysus ApolloDionysus Apollo

毁灭人生的可怕力量 纳入肯定人生的轨道

生存的痛苦 世界的痛苦 美好外观的幻觉来掩盖

酒神不断呼唤日神 日神不断约束酒神

相互制约相互促进

希腊人身上的二元冲动

Suffering creature, born for a day, child of accident and toil, why are you forcing me to say what would give you the greatest pleasure not to hear? The very best thing for you is totally unreachable: not to have been born, not to exist, to be nothing. The second best thing for you, however, is this—to die soon.

The Greek knew and felt the terror and horrors of existence生存的痛苦 世界的痛苦

in order to be able to live at all, he must have placed in front of him the gleaming dream birth of the Olympians.

that entire philosophy of the woodland god, together with its mythical illustrations, from which the melancholy Etruscans died off—that was overcome time after time by the Greeks, or at least hidden and removed from view, through the artistic middle world [Mittelwelt] of the Olympians.

用美的映照来对抗痛苦和痛苦的智慧

Dionysus Dionysus ApolloApollo

毁灭人生的可怕力量 纳入肯定人生的轨道

生存的痛苦 世界的痛苦 美好外观的幻觉来掩盖

酒神不断呼唤日神 日神不断约束酒神

相互制约相互促进

The Dionysian and the Apollonian ruled the Hellenic world in a constantly new sequence of births, one after the other, mutually intensifying each other

希腊人身上的二元冲动

CThe birth of tragedy

悲剧的题材：神话（日神的艺术，本身不具备悲剧力量）→ 形象性的

借助 产生音乐的譬喻性画面

悲剧的表现形式：音乐（酒神的艺术）→ 非形象的，需要象征表现

悲剧的起源

亚里士多德《诗学》： 1. 悲剧起源于酒神颂歌队领队的即兴口诵

（歌队也是由一群扮演萨提儿的队员组成）

2. 悲剧的前身是萨提儿剧

The satyr chorus is, first and foremost, a vision of the Dionysian mass, just as, in turn, the world of the stage area is a vision of this satyr chorus

The enraptured horde of those who served Dionysus rejoiced under such moods and insights, whose power transformed them even before their very eyes, so that they imagined they saw themselves as restored natural geniuses, as satyrs. The later constitution of the tragic chorus is the artistic imitation of that natural phenomenon, in which now a division was surely necessary between the Dionysian spectators and those under the Dionysian enchantment.

Enchantment is the precondition for all dramatic art. In this enchantment the Dionysian reveller sees himself as a satyr, and then, in turn, as a satyr he looks at his god; that is, in his transformed state he sees a new vision outside himself as an Apollonian fulfilment of his condition. With this new vision drama is complete.

• 连歌队也不存在，它只是酒神群众的情绪与幻觉

• 酒神的力量使其发生了魔变——开始模仿萨提儿• 出现合唱（萨提儿歌队产生）

• 引入日神艺术（舞台造型艺术）——从音乐变为戏剧

……This is the Apollonian dream state, in which

the world of day veils itself and a new world,

clearer, more comprehensible, more moving than

the first, and yet more shadow-like, generates

itself anew in a continuing series of changes

before our eyes. With this in mind, we can

recognize in tragedy a drastic contrast of styles:

speech, colour, movement, dynamics of speech

appear in the Dionysian lyric of the chorus and, on

the other hand, in the Apollonian dream world of

the scene as expressive spheres completely

separate from each other.

Thanks for listening!