The Nietzschean Odyssey: The Birth of Tragedy

And so the story of Nietzsche begins. Reflecting on this work towards the end of his career (which is to say the end of his sanity), Nietzsche said that this was in every sense "a first book," which is to say it reflects the moment of youth when you simply know that everything makes sense, when you've found in one thing the answer to everything and are excited to present it to the world in all its glory; that moment of victory that will without exception be reflected on later as romantic, idealistic, foolish, and will very likely be categorically rejected, even if underlying tendencies and habits of mind presented continue to be a background for future though up until the moment of death (something Nietzsche would not admit out loud, but I get the feeling was not unaware of).

So, as Nietzsche himself might say, what is of value in this "first book"? Once again he feels he has an answer in his later years: while perhaps Wagner doesn't understand the meaning of drama, while perhaps Schopenhauer hasn't singlehandedly cracked the core of human nature, there is something in life that is called Dionysiac. The Dionysiac is exuberance, irrationality, light-heartedness incarnate. It is pure in its own way. Later on Dionysus would become the great "yes-sayer" of Nietzsche whose purpose it was to deny all the Nihilism and dogmatism of the world. At the beginning, however, Dionysus represented for Nietzsche something directly true about life itself, something so depressing and actually destructive that it necessitated an opposing, fictively-oriented, creative energy to counter it: here we get the Apolline. One gives us truth, and kills us; the other gives us lies, and makes life livable. Together they give us meaning while still allowing us our sanity after the event. Nietzsche speaks to this with all the Romanticism of a youth totally engrossed in music, as though music is life itself. I don't think it's too far to say that we've all had moments where music seems to give us an insight into a place where words fail; however, to turn it into a metaphysics as Nietzsche did is something else entirely.

Nietzsche also uses this work as the indirect beginning of his (im)moral crusade. For when the music which epitomized life mixed with the illusions that one needs to endure, life was good. But then came Socrates. The great mistake of Socrates was to present a different purpose, that of truth. Socrates posited something objective in life, a right way. While he claimed to not know what that right way was, he certainly tried to push people in that direction. Furthermore, whatever that way was could apparently only be discovered through reason. Thus reason came in, and everything had to be explained. The escape in rapture became subsumed by rationality, and with it something essential to understanding what is actually valuable in life. This would continue up to the present day in what might be called (though Nietzsche doesn't use this term) "scientism," a sort of faith in science as revealing truth in the way a religion might be though of as doing so. Once again the emphasis is on the objective and the ultimate, and Nietzsche voices his unilateral opposition even here (something which he would go on to push for virtually his entire literary career). "What supernatural power gave you the keys to ultimate reality?" he would ask. "What gives you the audacity to ask for such claims?"

But here we are going ahead of ourselves, for these questions will be the subject of Nietzsche's later writings, which I am getting to next. I will be skipping a few (not by choice, mind you), and doing next "The Gay Science," a personal favorite along with Zarathustra as it has not only an expansive range of topics but also some of my favorite pieces of writing in literature. Stay tuned.