The Birth of Tragedy Section 6-7

(Originally written June 22, 2007 in Book 15)

The Birth of Tragedy
Frederich Nietzsche

Section 6

Folk songs occur after being violently stirred by Dionysian currents

[pg 53] - Essay on the 1960's could use this as a thesis

Melody is primary and universal; it is also regarded as the essential element of the folk song.

The poetry that accompanies the melody of the folk song is "strained to its utmost that it may imitate music" (Nietzsche, 53).

"To be will it would have to be wholly banished from the realm of art for the will is the unaesthetic-in-itself; but it appears as will" (Nietzsche, 55).

The lyricist is an Apollonian genius that interprets music through the image of the will while himself is completely void of the greed of the will.

Lyric poetry is dependent on the spirit of music. Music is absolutely sovereign and does not need images of concepts. Music merely endures images and concepts as accompaniments.

Poetic lyrisch cannot express anything that is not already implicitly present in the music itself. "Language can never adequately render the cosmic symbolism of music, because music stands in symbolic relation to the primordial contradiction and primordial pain in the heart of primal unity, and therefore, symbolizes a sphere which is beyond and prior to all phenomena".

Section 7

Tragedy arose from the tragic chorus.

Tragedy arose out of religious origins, not politico-social origins.

Tragedy bridges the gaps between man and man creating a unity - a metaphysical comfort.

Tragedy arose out of a fictitious natural state and fictitious natural beings.

Tragedy in its Dionysian quest to obliterate individual will brings nearly about its end when art rescues the viewer. Then the viewer can see with clarity the horrible absurdity of reality. By entering into the obliteration of individuality in Dionysian reality only to be rescued out of it by art the viewer can have knowledge of the true reality.