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Modern scholars of aesthetics fail to mention the triumphant union of Apollo and Dionysus in art, wherein the soul of tragedy is born. Rather, they constantly focus on the struggle of the hero with fate, the triumph of the moral order of the world, or the cathartic emotional release through tragedy. One is forced to conclude that such thinkers are not aesthetically sensitive men when hearing tragedy, but rather are moral beings. They are intent on discovering the moral truths hidden in tragedy, and so they fail to apprehend that tragedy is the highest Art.
With the rebirth of tragedy, the "aesthetic hearer" is also reborn. This new man of art replaces the "critic," who has infested the theater for far too long. These critics had ears only for art that would excite "moral-religious" emotions, rather than for art that would enrapture them in a powerful spell. And now, theater has abandoned even this task of morally educating the people. Art has thus been demoted to a trivial topic of conversation, constantly discussed but little esteemed. Some theatergoer might have experienced an inkling of the thrilling sensations that accompanied true art, but as there has been no formal understanding of true nature of art, such an experience would easily have passed out of his consciousness and been lost.
One can easily identify as either an "aesthetic hearer" or a "Socratic-critic" by examining the feeling with which he accepts the "wonder" represented on stage. For, in this way, he will know how capable he is of understanding myth, which cannot exist without wonder. It is likely that almost every one who does this will have been so affected by the "critico-historical" spirit of modern culture that he can only experience myth by learned means and through intermediary abstractions, unable to experience the joy of direct contact. This is a dangerous situation; for, deprived of myth, every culture loses its creative power. Myth frees the power of imagination, gives meaning to man's life and to his struggles, and serves as the great unwritten law of the state.
In the present culture, man is guided not by myth, but by abstract education, abstract morality, abstract justice, and the abstract state. Modern culture has no fixed and sacred primitive seat, but is forced to feed off of other cultures. Our culture is consumed by a desire for knowledge, yet remains ever unsatisfied. A culture is to be valued only according to its ability to impress the stamp of eternity on its experiences. For it is only with this consciousness of eternity that man shows his understanding of the relativity of time and of the true metaphysical significance of life. Once a culture begins to comprehend itself historically and to destroy the myths at its base, it experiences marked secularization, with great ethical consequences.
Luckily, the German character has not become inextricably tangled in this culture. The German man still hopes that beneath this relentlessly civilized life there still lies a glorious primitive power. The first music of this concealed power was born in the Reformation, in the form of the Lutheran choral- hymns. The potential is clearly present, but in order to seize it, we must hold fast to the Greeks as our guides, and exile those foreign myths and cultural influences which have polluted the German spirit. The Greeks can teach us to reestablish our household gods and mythical home, and thus revive the German spirit.
Nietzsche proposes that modern scholars of aesthetics have missed the point of tragedy because they are in fact not aesthetically sensitive men at all, but rather are moral critics. They have focused intensely on the struggle of the tragic hero with fate and the triumph of the moral order in the tragic world, failing entirely to comprehend the full revelatory and redemptive powers of the tragic medium. In keeping their noses pressed to their books, they fail to understand tragedy as being the highest art. Nietzsche urges us to dispense with our Socratically critical impulses and to become aesthetic listeners again. We must resist the urge to analyze art, and allow ourselves to fall under its spell. Our intuition will then lead us to a far greater understanding than any logical thought could bring us.
This is a powerful and influential book. Dealing with philsophy, geneology and anthropology. Nietzsche does a good job at combing the macro philosophies of his time, with the micro interpretations of the detail of these stories and songs. None of which this reviewer picks up upon. So then this review gets a fail from me!
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I just finished listening to an audiobook of The Birth of Tragedy, and now I found my way to SparkNotes! I'm glad to have a chance to dig deeper into this famous philosophical work, and I wouldn't have been able to do this if it weren't for SparkNotes! Many thanks, and keep up the great work! John V. Karavitis
Take a Study Break!