Apollo and Dionysus: Gods of Art and Will
Apollo and Dionysus: Gods of Art and Will
In Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy, he introduces two principles with which he drives his discourse on the nature of art: the Apollonian dream, and the Dionysian intoxication. He states his purpose in writing the book, saying that “we will have achieved much for scientific study of aesthetics when we come, not merely to a logical understanding, but also to the certain and immediate apprehension of the fact that the further development of art is bound up with the duality of the Apollonian and the Dionysian” (BOT, 11). While the two Greek principles are a means through which Nietzsche creates a specific aesthetic of art, in later books, specifically Beyond Good and Evil and On The Genealogy of Morals, these principles subtly involve themselves in Nietzsche’s discussion on the will. In the intersection of the Apollonian dream and the Dionysian intoxication, there exists both the truest development of art, and the truest development of the will.
The crux of Nietzsche’s argument in The Birth of Tragedy is that art is created in the intersection of two principles that he calls the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Those drives combined create the truest art. Nietzsche believes that Greek society mastered those principles, and that they characterized those principles in the god Apollo and the god Dionysus. Whether or not Nietzsche is successful in connecting Greek mythology to these principles, the principles themselves are relatable through the human experience. He says that “In order to bring those two drives closer to us, let us think of them first as the separate artistic worlds of dream and of intoxication, physiological phenomena between which we can observe an opposition corresponding to the one between the Apollonian and the Dionysian” (BOT, 11).
Nietzsche begins by describing the Apollonian principle through the analogy of the dream. He says that “we enjoy dreams with an immediate understanding; every
In Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy, he introduces two principles with which he drives his discourse on the nature of art: the Apollonian dream, and the Dionysian intoxication. He states his purpose in writing the book, saying that “we will have achieved much for scientific study of aesthetics when we come, not merely to a logical understanding, but also to the certain and immediate apprehension of the fact that the further development of art is bound up with the duality of the Apollonian and the Dionysian” (BOT, 11). While the two Greek principles are a means through which Nietzsche creates a specific aesthetic of art, in later books, specifically Beyond Good and Evil and On The Genealogy of Morals, these principles subtly involve themselves in Nietzsche’s discussion on the will. In the intersection of the Apollonian dream and the Dionysian intoxication, there exists both the truest development of art, and the truest development of the will.
The crux of Nietzsche’s argument in The Birth of Tragedy is that art is created in the intersection of two principles that he calls the Apollonian and the Dionysian. Those drives combined create the truest art. Nietzsche believes that Greek society mastered those principles, and that they characterized those principles in the god Apollo and the god Dionysus. Whether or not Nietzsche is successful in connecting Greek mythology to these principles, the principles themselves are relatable through the human experience. He says that “In order to bring those two drives closer to us, let us think of them first as the separate artistic worlds of dream and of intoxication, physiological phenomena between which we can observe an opposition corresponding to the one between the Apollonian and the Dionysian” (BOT, 11).
Nietzsche begins by describing the Apollonian principle through the analogy of the dream. He says that “we enjoy dreams with an immediate understanding; every