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Craig White's Literature Courses Critical Sources
Notes to Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy
Chapter 1 |
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Chapter 1
p. 14, para. 1
art derives its continuous development from the duality of the Apolline and Dionysiac; just as the reproduction of species depends on the duality of the sexes . . . . [sexual metaphor]
constant conflicts and only periodically recurring reconciliations [dialectic of ideas, trends, symbols]
Greeks . . . revealed the profound mysteries of their artistic doctrines to the discerning mind, not in concepts but in the vividly clear forms of their deities.
the Apolline art of the sculptor [i.e. visual forms, as in dreams or drama]
and the non-visual Dionysiac art of music [no separation b/w viewer and form; listener to music becomes the music]
. . . violent opposition . . . inciting one another to ever more powerful births [sexual metaphor]
. . . finally, by a metaphysical miracle of the Hellenic will," the two seem to be coupled [sexual metaphor], and in this coupling they seem at last to beget [sexual metaphor] the work of art that is as Dionysiac as it is Apolline—Attic tragedy.
14, para. 2
separate art worlds of dream [Apolline] and intoxication [Dionysiac] [physiological metaphor]
in dreams . . . wondrous forms of the deities first appeared before the souls of men . . . the great sculptor saw [Apolline as individualized forms of things, especially human figures]
mysteries of poetic creation [begin in dreams]
light x dark
good x evil
reality x ideal (notice how the line-up breaks down)
Euminides 886: avoid both anarchy and tyranny
>
15 dream worlds: every man a consummate artist
precondition of all visual art . . . poetry
an illusion [cf. mimesis]
Schopenhauer
artist reacts to reality of dreams as philosopher (scientist) to reality
> interprets life, trains himself for life [art as instructive modeling]
life as shadow-play + fleeting sense of illusion [cf. mimesis]
dream on! > same dream for successive nights
16 our innermost being, our common foundation, experiences dreams with profound pleasure and joyful necessity [i.e., dreams give form to life, and in a pleasant way; instruction and entertainment]
16 Apollo deity of plastic forces (sculpture) + soothsaying (prophecy) (both akin to dreaming)
Apollo over beautiful illusion of inner fantasy world
the higher truth, the perfection of these states in contrast to imperfectly comprehensible daily reality [narrative]
nature healing and helping in sleep and dreams = symbolic analogue of soothsaying powers and of art in general, through which life is made both possible and worth living [Libation Bearers 669]
pathological: illusion deceive as solid reality
freedom from wilder impulses [Dionysus]
principium: illusory realm of Maya* or surface appearances, all objects appear to have an individual status or separate existence (a vision that conforms to the Apolline dream-illusion of art), while in reality no one thing is differentiated from another (conforming to the Dionysiac experience of ecstatic union with nature) [*Maya as concept from Schopenhauer and Hinduism, meaning illusory surface of reality behind which truth of will persists]
Apollo as the glorious divine image of the principium individuationis
sublime, dread
17 ecstasy
17 glimpse into the nature of the Dionysiac
17 Dionysiac: analogy of intoxication [Apollo = dreams]
Dionysiac urges are awakened
forgetting of self (contrast Apolline form of individual self)
17 dancers of St John and St. Vitus (Burning Man) (dance) (dance like no one's watching)
Bacchic choruses (cf. Bacchae)
prehistory in Asia Minor (cf. Bacchae)
glowing life of Dionysiac revellersthunders past them
Dionysian magic: bond b/w man and man . . . nature too
all the rigid and hostile boundaries . . . erected b/w man and man break down
mysterious primal oneness
singing and dancing
forgetting of self
bond b/w man and man, man and nature
Beethoven's Ode to Joy (music): Performance of Beethoven's Ode to Joy on YouTube
Dandy Warhols, "It's a 16-Minute Drive"
18 fly dancing into the heavens
walks about enraptured and elated
man no longer artist > work of art
supreme gratification of primal oneness
Eleusinian mysteries [rituals]
Apolline art as visual, sculptural, individualized
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Dionysian chorus, unindividuated