Birth of Tragedy

A compelling argument for the necessity for art in life, Nietzsche's first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy' is fuelled by his enthusiasm for Greek tragedy, for the philosophy of Schopenhauer, and for the music of Wagner, to whom this work was dedicated. Nietzsche outlined a distinction between its two central forces: the Apolline, representing beauty and order, and the Dionysiac, a primal or ecstatic reaction to the sublime. He believed the combination of these states produced the highest forms of music and tragic drama, which not only reveal the truth about suffering in life but also provide consolation. Impassioned and exhilarating in its conviction, it has become a key text in European culture and literary criticism. "e;What does our great historical hunger signify, our clutching about us of countless cultures, our consuming desire for knowledge, if not the loss of myth, of a mythic home, the mythic womb?"e; Friedrich Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy)