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3 - The tragic moment (§§7–10)

Paul Raimond Daniels
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne, Australia
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Summary

[MESSENGER]

he hurled at the twin doors and bending the bolts back

out of their sockets, crashed through the chamber.

And there he saw the woman hanging by the neck,

cradled high in a woven noose, spinning,

swinging back and forth. And when he saw her,

giving a low, wrenching sob that broke our hearts,

slipping the halter from her throat, he eased her down,

in a slow embrace he laid her down, poor thing …

(The Messenger reports Oedipus finding Jocasta, OK, 236–7)

Sections 7–10 of The Birth of Tragedy see Nietzsche hone in on the origins of the tragic drama and how it evolved into the mature tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles. Tragedy springs from the chorus, itself an outgrowth of Dionysiac cult worship. From here the transformative power of the citizen's participation in the chorus – in its music, dance and song – give birth to increasingly sophisticated and exquisite Apolline images (in the guise of dialogue and mask), which in turn depict and complement the Dionysiac powers. In this manner, Apollo and Dionysos reconcile in a reciprocal relationship in the one art form, revealing to the Greek the awful nature of existence while simultaneously deifying that existence in art. For the Greek at the precipice of negating life itself, “art saves him, and through art life saves him – for itself” (BT, 40).

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Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2013

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