Cambridge Companions Online http://universitypublishingonline.org/cambridge/companions/ The Cambridge Companion to Nietzsche Edited by Bernd Magnus, Kathleen Higgins Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521365864 Online ISBN: 9781139000604 Hardback ISBN: 9780521365864 Paperback ISBN: 9780521367677 Chapter 1 - Nietzsche's works and their themes pp. 21-68 Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521365864.002 Cambridge University Press BERND MAGNUS AND KATHLEEN M. HIGGINS 1 Nietzsche's works and their themes Interpretation of Nietzsche's thought is a complex enterprise. Be- cause of his avoidance of any conventional philosophical system and his many experiments with styles and genres, Nietzsche's writings seem to demand a sense of active reading. The "Nietzsche" that emerges from scholarly discussion typically depends on the interests of the interpreter and especially often those of the interpreter's disci- pline. Themes which are taken to be most central to Nietzsche's philosophy often depend on which works are regarded as most impor- tant or most accessible; but the relative importance which attaches to each of Nietzsche's works is by no means obvious. Indeed, Nietz- sche scholarship has experienced fads with regard to given points of interest. As we will consider below, Thus Spoke Zaiathustia's celeb- rity outside of Germany declined after the Nazis invoked it for propa- gandistic purposes, while Nietzsche's early essay "On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense" has assumed new importance in recent literary-critical discussion, in part because it suggests that all lan- guage is metaphoric. In what follows, we shall trace the chronology of Nietzsche's writ- ings, mentioning themes that are prominent in each work. We shall also indicate central interpretive issues provoked by particular works and themes. While the Nietzsche that emerges here will, of necessity, be "our" Nietzsche, we hope that this synopsis will offer a basic map of the terrain of Nietzsche's works. THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY FROM THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC Nietzsche was appointed Associate Professor of philology at Basel University before he had written a dissertation, on the basis of the 21 DownloadedCambridge from Cambridge Companions Companions Online Online by © IP Cambridge 137.205.50.42 University on Thu Mar 24 Press, 16:44:21 2006 GMT 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521365864.002 Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2016 22 THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO NIETZSCHE enthusiastic support of his supervising professor, Albrecht Ritschl. His first book was, therefore, awaited with great expectations by his fellow classicists. Unfortunately, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music (1872) was far from what Nietzsche's philological colleagues had had in mind. The book, which defended a theory of the origins and functions of Greek tragedy, was largely speculative and utterly devoid of footnotes. It began by appealing to its readers' experiences with drunkenness and dreams, and it ended with an appeal to popular culture in the form of a paean to Richard Wagner. In this work, Nietzsche theorizes that Greek tragedy was built upon a wedding of two principles, which he associated with the deities Apollo and Dionysus. The Apollonian principle, in keeping with the characteristics of the sun god Apollo, is the principle of order, static beauty, and clear boundaries. The Dionysian principle, in contrast, is the principle of frenzy, excess, and the collapse of boundaries. These principles offered perspectives on the position of the individ- ual human being, but perspectives that were radically opposed to one another. The Apollonian principle conceived the individual as sufficiently separate from the rest of reality to be able to contem- plate it dispassionately. The Dionysian principle, however, presents reality as a tumultuous flux in which individuality is overwhelmed by the dynamics of a living whole. Nietzsche believed that a balance of these principles is essential if one is both to recognize the chal- lenge to one's sense of meaning posed by individual vulnerability and to recognize the solution, which depends on one's sense of oneness with a larger reality. Greek tragedy, as he saw it, confronted the issue of life's meaning by merging the perspectives of the two principles. The themes of Greek tragedy concerned the worst case scenario from an Apollonian point of view - the devastation of vulnerable individuals. Scholarship had concluded that the chanting of the cho- rus was the first form of Athenian tragedy. Nietzsche interpreted the effect of the chorus as the initiation of a Dionysian experience on the part of the audience. Captivated by music, audience members abandoned their usual sense of themselves as isolated individuals and felt themselves instead to be part of a larger, frenzied whole. This sense of self as part of a dynamic whole gave a different ground for experiencing life as meaningful than one would recognize in the DownloadedCambridge from Cambridge Companions Companions Online Online by © IP Cambridge 137.205.50.42 University on Thu Mar 24 Press, 16:44:21 2006 GMT 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521365864.002 Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2016 Nietzsche's works and their themes 23 more typical Apollonian condition, which entails a certain psychic distance. Feeling oneself to be part of the joyous vitality of the whole, one could take participation in life to be intrinsically wonderful, despite the obvious vulnerabilities one experiences as an individual. The aesthetic transformation of the audience member's sense of the significance of individual life aroused a quasi-religious affirmation of life's value. "It is only as an aesthetic phenomenon that existence and the world are eternally justified/' Nietzsche concluded.1 The function of characters and drama later added to tragedy de- pended on the fundamental, enthralled experience of oneness with the chorus, according to Nietzsche. Already incited to a Dionysian state before the tragic hero appeared on stage, the audience would see the character before them as a manifestation of the god Diony- sus. Unfortunately, Euripides restructured tragedy in such a way that the chorus's role was diminished. Euripides wrote plays that would encourage an Apollonian stance of objective interest in the drama. Nietzsche contended that in his attempt to write "intelli- gent" plays, Euripides had killed tragedy. He had done so, moreover, because he had fallen under the influence of Socrates. The Birth of Tragedy is the first of many works in which Nietz- sche re-evaluates the traditional view that Socrates was the quintes- sential philosopher. Although granting that Socrates was a turning point in world history, Nietzsche contends that Socrates was respon- sible for directing Western culture toward an imbalanced, exagger- ated reliance on the Apollonian point of view. A defender of reason to an irrational degree, Socrates had taught that reason could pene- trate reality to the point that it could correct reality's flaws. This had become the fundamental dream of Western culture, a dream that was later manifested in the modern approach to scholarship. Unfor- tunately, the optimism of the Socratic rational project was doomed to failure. Reason itself, through Kant, had pointed to its own limits. Whatever reason might accomplish, it could not "correct" the most basic flaws in human reality - the facts of human vulnerability and mortality. The Birth of Tragedy also involves an indictment of contemporary culture as well as an account of the significance of tragedy. Contem- porary culture's reliance on reason and its commitment to scientific optimism had rendered the modern individual largely oblivious to the Dionysian character of reality - a character which engulfed all DownloadedCambridge from Cambridge Companions Companions Online Online by © IP Cambridge 137.205.50.42 University on Thu Mar 24 Press, 16:44:21 2006 GMT 2016. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521365864.002 Cambridge Companions Online © Cambridge University Press, 2016 24 THE CAMBRIDGE COMPANION TO NIETZSCHE individuals in the flow of life but which also rendered everyone subject to death and devastation. The repression of vulnerability was psychologically disastrous, in Nietzsche's view. The only hope for modern culture was that it might turn to myth, which could com- pensate for the culture's excesses, before a crisis. Nietzsche's defense of Wagner as a cultural hero emerged in con- nection with this endorsement of myth as the necessary antidote to reason. Nietzsche believed that Wagner's operatic embodiments of Germanic myths had the potential to effect a new merger of the Apollonian and Dionysian principles, with redemptive effects on German culture. Nietzsche's great expectations of Wagner were not only central to his first book - they were also fundamentally impor- tant to him personally. Nietzsche and Wagner shared an enthusiasm for Schopenhauer, and for a number of years Nietzsche was a per- sonal friend of Wagner's, visiting him regularly at his home in Tribschen - and sufficiently close to have been sent on one occasion to do some of the Wagners' Christmas shopping. Nietzsche's endorsement of Wagner in the context of a philological work struck many of his professional colleagues as jarring. One, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Mollendorf, responded to The Birth of Trag- edy's publication with a hostile pamphlet called " Zukunftsphil- ologie" ["Philology of the Future"], playing on Wagner's grandiose aspirations to create a Kunstwerk der Zukunft [artwork of the fu- ture]. The pamphlet presented The Birth of Tragedy as thoroughly unscholarly, filled with omissions and inaccuracies. With Nietz- sche's encouragement, his friend Erwin Rohde wrote a pamphlet (October 1872) replying to Wilamowitz-Mollendorf, entitled Af- terphilologie [Ass's Philology], which emphasized Wilamowitz- Mollendorf's own inaccuracies in citing from The Birth of Tragedy. The Birth of Tragedy failed initially to secure esteem for Nietz- sche among his philological colleagues. Nevertheless, the work has had enduring influence.