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5 - Modernity and the rebirth of tragedy (§§16–25)

Paul Raimond Daniels
Paul Raimond Daniels
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne, Australia
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Summary

Yes, my friends, believe as I do in Dionysiac life and in the rebirth of tragedy. The time of the Socratic man is past. Put on wreaths of ivy, take up the thyrsus and do not be surprised if tigers and panthers lie down, purring and curling round your legs. Now you must only dare to be tragic human beings, for you will be released and redeemed. You will accompany the festive procession of Dionysos from India to Greece! Put on your armour for a hard fight, but believe in the miracles of your god!

(BT, 98)

The final third of The Birth of Tragedy constitutes, in effect, Nietzsche's clarion call for his aesthetically sensitive readers to reconnect with art as the ancient Greeks did and thereby bring about a new tragic age in their own time. Foremost in Nietzsche's mind are the two conditions that must be met if this rebirth of tragedy is to take place. The first condition is that the optimism at the heart of Socratism must be shown to be unsustainable. Nietzsche believes this to have been fulfilled with science (in the form of philosophy) reaching its logical limits in the works of Kant and Schopenhauer, whereupon it must then negate itself.

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Nietzsche and The Birth of Tragedy , pp. 139 - 166
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2013

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