Go Go The od The od APOLLOAPOLLO DIONYSUSDIONYSUS ❁ ❂

APOLLO famously installed an oracle at Delphi. DIONYSUS was associated with the instinctual side He was known as: of human life and the wilder impulses: ecstasy, sexual indiscipline, intoxication and madness. ❂ Prophecy and vision THETHE GODGOD OFOF ❂ Healing ❂ Fertility ❂ The Arts THETHE GODGOD OFOF ❂ Wine ❂ Agriculture He was depicted as a beautiful young male whose dealings with mankind were universally held to be just. He was called the ‘twice-born’, and was the symbol of Apollo was identified with the sun and light (the rebirth and transformation. He was associated with god Helios). music and dithyrambic poetry or ecstatic choral singing. In §1 Nietzsche brings out these associations: At Dionysian festivals, the god inspired collective He is the ‘god of light’, ruler ‘over the beautiful outbursts of ecstasy wherein the individual would lose appearance of the inner fantasy world’, the divine possession of his or herself and become merged with image of ‘moderation’, ‘the principium individuationis’. nature. ‘Either through the influence of narcotic drink … or Apollo ‘sheds light’ on an otherwise chaotic existence through the powerful coming on of spring, which by the gift of ‘dream-like images’ which will be used drives joyfully through all of nature, that Dionysian to interpret existence and give it a higher purpose and excitement arises; as it intensifies, the subjective meaning. As the ‘principle of individuation’, he brings fades into complete forgetfulness of self’ (§1). order and intelligibility to worldly objects and events. THETHE APOLLONIANAPOLLONIAN THE DIONYSIAN ASAS ‘PRINCIPLE’‘PRINCIPLE’ AS ‘PRINCIPLE’ In its metaphysical aspect, the Apollonian connotes In its metaphysical aspect, the Dionysian connotes Schopenhauer’s world of appearances or representation: the Schopenhauerian ‘world of the will’: a world the world of ‘illusion’ (‘veil of maya’) as opposed to the of blind and non-localisable desire and striving, real world of the will or nature in itself. nature in itself, not accessible to our knowledge. Psychologically, the Apollonian is experienced in Psychologically, familiar dis-individuating states such as dreaming, and is associated with the experiences such as intoxication and sexual love mind’s organising activities (principium individuationis). are said to be Dionysian. The Dionysian can also The Apollonian involves an attitude to life which be thought of as an ‘attitude’ or approach to life emphasises restraint and the creation of ‘beautiful which values such experiences. forms’ to held out as exemplars. In aesthetic terms, what is Dionysian is In its aesthetic dimension, the Apollonian is experienced experienced in a manner akin to the Kantian as the beautiful and well-formed, and as in accord with sublime, overwhelming rational apprehension our intellectual capacities. It is typically associated with and evading capture in a sensible form. It is arts such as sculpture, monumental architecture, music typically associated with the ‘imageless’ arts (the lyre as opposed to the Dionysian flute), and epic of dance, music (the flute), and ecstatic choral poetry (such as that of Homer). singing (the dithyramb).