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Part 3. Complete Research Report: Write at least 8-10 substantial paragraphs with four sources to complete your Research Report on selected special topic.
Michaela Fox
Nietzsche, You Complete Me
Honesty is the best policy. With that in mind, I confess my enrollment in this
course had little to do with my interest in the topic and more to do with
balancing my schedule. However, I quickly realized my extreme interest in the
complexity and depth that is tragedy. As an aspiring English teacher of grades
seven through twelve, I expect I will have likeminded students, entering my
classroom with little to no expectations of finding joy in literature. The
source on Horace and Literature describes mixing the pleasant with the useful,
which directly mimics my own philosophy on learning and teaching. If students do
not believe in the purpose of their learning, they will not learn it. This
relates to not only students but all learners, regardless of age. We must find
some connection to information in order for a true experience of learning to
occur. Fortunately, tragedy has within it the potential for connectivity, but it
is the teachers who must help students make that connection.
Mimesis is described as the “representation
or imitation
of the real world in (a work of) art,
literature, etc.” The genre of tragedy depicts this type of real world
imitation in a fashion unlike any other genre of literature, because it involves
concepts central to being human. It poses questions central to identity and
character, which reside within the souls of all human beings. Complications in
teaching tragedy arise due to the conjectures implying it as dreadful,
devastating, and depressing. Unfortunately, the wall of ignorance cannot be
broken down until one experiences tragedy in all of its glory. As a teacher, I
will have the responsibility of exposing tragedy in an advantageous light.
I had originally decided to write on the topic of teaching tragedy,
however, as I dig further into the meat of tragedy, I discover my indescribable
magnetism towards Friedrich Nietzsche’s ideas involving the tragic chorus and
the Apolline/Dionysiac in The Birth of
Tragedy. He explains that similar to how the “reproduction of species
depends on the duality of the sexes,” art depends on the “duality of the
Apolline and Dionysiac”—Dionysus being the non-visual “god of wine, disorder or
ecstasy, ecstatic worship, and drama” and Apollo being the visual “god of light,
music and poetry, order, medicine, prophecy, and interpretation of dreams” (14).
To better understand the two tendencies of the Apolline and the Dionysiac,
Nietzsche explains them as the “two separate art worlds of
dream and
intoxication” (14).
The
dream world is the “precondition of all visual art” in that it permits the
artist to put forth a visible form
for observers to admire, yet it will always be a mere
“illusion”—an imitation of reality.
However, the ultimate poet observes his creations (dreams) as a way to interpret
life, which deems dreams as necessary experiences for human enjoyment. Nietzsche
compares this to principium
individuationis, an illusory state situated in an undifferentiated reality,
that when fragmented by the disappearance of forms (visual—Apollo), gives us a
“glimpse into the nature of the Dionysiac” (17). Therefore, the Apolline
consists of dreams and forms, and individualization*, whereas the Dionysiac
involves unity, oneness, and spiritual harmony. In the union of these two art
worlds, tragedy takes its form.
While the Apolline and the Dionysiac tendencies account for the makeup of
tragedy, it is the tragic chorus, Nietzsche explains, from which tragedy arose.
He discusses the illogicality of the proposal of the chorus as the “ideal
spectator” in that it contradicts the original ideal of art as a means for
contrasting the nobility with the populace (36).
Yet, if we visualize the chorus as the Apolline vision of Dionysiac
unity, it is possible to see the original chorus as the “ideal spectators” of
their own unified (Dionysus) dream world (Apollo). As an “unscientific yet
brilliant” concept, it introduces the idea of transformation occurring within
the members of the chorus. However, Nietzsche claims Schiller’s
Bride of Messina provides a more
accurate description of the chorus, describing it as “a living wall” that closes
off tragedy from reality.
In viewing the chorus as a “living wall,” we conceptualize the Greeks
intention to invent a “floating scaffold of an invented
natural state” where “natural
beings” are “invented especially for it.” This created space provides life
for the Dionysiac chorus to reveal the world of myth and ritual. Making up the
Dionysiac chorus is the satyr, which
Nietzsche describes “relates to cultural humanity as Dionysiac music relates to
civilization.” The satyr, or the “idyllic shepherd,” is the man of primal
instinct and primitive nature, which the members of the chorus seek in their
transformations. By abandoning individuality and joining together to form a
unified sanction of worshippers, the tragic chorus prepares to receive its
Apolline counterpart.
As mentioned previously, Nietzsche insists on the unification between the
Dionysiac and the Apolline, which comes to life when the Dionysiac chorus pairs
with the lyrical tone of the Apolline. Once the Dionysiac spirit intercedes with
the Apolline image, the “drama is complete” and the audience waits to join the
show. The process of drawing the audience in occurs in a transformative manner
through the internal transformation of the members of the chorus themselves.
They begin to see the characters for what they are, rather than as a man in a
costume—they are transformed into a sphere of myth.
The Apollonian/Dionysian and the tragic chorus may be two of Nietzsche’s
most complex ideals in The Birth of
Tragedy because they require a level of thought way outside of traditional
thinking processes. The unification of the world of beauty and order with the
world of ecstatic worship results in an art form that reveals the truths of
life, yet it provides us with a consolation for those truths. This concept aids
in understanding tragic plays but it can also exist as profound concept on its
own. Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy
will remain one of the most interesting reads I have ever come across even if it
literally gave me headaches and made me want to dunk my head in a bath of hot
oil.
Works
Cited
Del
Caro, Adrian. "The Birth of Tragedy." A Companion to Friedrich Nietzsche. Ed.
Paul Bishop. Rochester: Camden House, 2012. 54-79. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century
Literary Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 290. Detroit: Gale, 2014.
Literature Resource Center. Web. 8 May 2015.
Nietzsche, Frederich. The Birth of
Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music. Trans.
Shaun Whiteside. Ed. Michael Tanner. England: Penguin Books, 2003. Print.
Sophocles. The Three Theban Plays:
Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus. Trans. Robert Fagles.
England: Penguin Books, 1984. Print.
White, Craig. LITR 4370 Course Webpage.
University of Houston – Clear Lake, 2015. Web. 1 Apr. 2015.
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