Grant Law

31 March 2019

The Apollonian and Dionysian Aesthetic of Plato’s Healthy and Fevered City

In Plato’s Republic, the Greek philosopher maps out what he perceives as the ideal city Kallipolis, a metaphysical plane of existence that is believed by the ancient philosopher to be analogous to the soul, or in specifics the morals, of its citizens. Through the process of constructing the Platonic city, Plato describes two cities as binary forms of existence, the healthy city, and the fevered city. The former city concerns itself with communal, democratic living stripped of luxuries whereas the latter is a city of industrialization and extravagance. This dichotomy of the metaphysical cities existence as a binary between what is ostensibly good or bad is reminiscent of Nietzsche's Apollonian and Dionysian conflict. Similar to Plato’s dichotomy of the two cities, the former is a force for the German philosopher which represents a strict, structural, and moral focus of existence and the latter is, again, the opposite, a state of chaotic flux, exuberance, and euphoria. These two philosophical modes of mapping human behavior are in the literary realm in the form of utopias and dystopias. The utopian city is both Apollonian and the healthy city as it is a community focused on the greater social and moral good of the citizens. However, the dystopian city is the Dionysian, fevered city which represents a dilapidated ruined state of a fallen community overwrought or brought down by their exuberance and narcissistic pleasure. In this research, I will explore and attempt to pair these two philosophical concepts to the dichotomy of utopias and dystopias.

Through research, the idea that Plato’s healthy city is an analogous representation of the human soul came across the bulk of academia published. Raphael Woolf states that Kallipolis is to “represent an ideal way of organizing human beings” in both a moral and social mold of living (Woolf 10). The organization of human beings is directly linked to the Apollonian form of adhering to rigid structures of moral codes that bind the individual in a social contract of mutually accepted forms of socializing with society. Certainly, both claims draw comparisons to the fictive utopias seen in Ecotopia, The Dispossessed, and Herland as all three have elements of an organizational force that dictates the existence of the citizens within the utopias (e.g., the Herlanders' refusal of male citizens or the expansive family style living of the Ecotopians). The adherence to the social contract of these various utopias echoes Plato’s claim of the individual soul mirroring the collective experience of his ideal city: “And so of the individual; we may assume that he has the same three principles in his own soul which are found in the state” ( IV:435 italics mine). By understanding Plato’s claim that the individual’s core elements are found in the presence of the state, the ideal city or utopia, it then can be perceived as the apotheosis of an Apollonian model of existence as the Apollonian is the strict adherence to laws and societal norms. Furthermore, Abraham Akkerman elaborates on this notion of Plato’s ideal city and the individual self to be a synthesized whole as “a Platonic form of a city” which is used as an “analogy [for] a universal standard for all humankind” (Akkerman 759). This then means, possibly, that the utopia is an Apollonian mode of civilization that mirrors the description of the healthy city of Plato’s Republic.

The fevered city is a society in ruin as it relies on luxuries and narcissistic tendencies which yields itself to its destruction much like the tendencies of the Dionysian mode of existence. Erman Kaplama explains that the dynamics of the Nietzsche's two opposing forces appear in conflict as the Apollonian as a “formative force” that represents “measured restraint” which allows itself to “avert self-destruction caused by the boundless attraction of the Dionysian” (180). Urras, the capitalistic society in The Dispossessed, is the ultimate example of the fevered, Dionysian city in the form of a dystopia. Overly luxurious with elements naturally yielded from its capitalistic government, Urras offers an aesthetically exciting society that lures and encaptures individuals into a hierarchical structure the simultaneously oppresses and excites them. However, this is where Plato’s and Nietzsche’s views diverge. While the fevered city has elements of the Dionysian, Nietzsche readily states that the Dionysian is an aesthetic form which is not bad in its totality, unlike Plato’s utter disdain for the fevered city. For Nietzsche, the Dionysian is a form of exuberance but also a tragic element that represents “metaphysical solace” that moves towards the “transcendence towards oneness and unity” (Kaplama 180).

Through this research, I found that Plato’s concept of the healthy and fevered city as well as Nietzsche's concept of Apollonian and Dionysian aesthetics pair almost seamlessly with the literary function of the utopia and dystopia. The healthy city and Apollonian aesthetic tie directly with the utopia, however, it can be argued that there are healthy city and Apollonian dystopias, as seen in Anthem, do exist. However, this research has opened up the question if there is a possibility for a fevered, dystopian city utopia, a more anarchic interpretation of the utopia. Because, in all honesty, the fevered city and the Dionysian aesthetic is entirely more appealing than their structurally rigid counterparts.

Work Cited

Akkerman, Abraham. "Platonic Myth and Urban Space: City-Form as an Allegory." University of  Toronto Quarterly, vol. 83 no. 4, 2014, pp. 757-779. Project MUSE,muse.jhu.edu/article/564121.

Kaplama, Erman. “Kantian and Nietzschean Aesthetics of Human Nature: A Comparison between the Beautiful/Sublime and Apollonian/Dionysian Dualities.” Cosmos & History, vol. 12, no. 1, Jan. 2016, pp. 166-217. EBSCOhost.

Plato. The Republic of Plato in Ten Books. Trans. H. Spens. London: J.M. Dent, 1906.

Woolf, Raphael. "Truth as a Value in Plato's Republic." Phronesis, vol. 54, no. 1, 2009, pp. 9-39. EBSCOhost.