Alexander Gatherer
Cardiff University

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The opposing concepts of the Dionysian (DI) and Apollonian (AP) are central themes within Nietzsche’s first major work, The Birth of Tragedy (BoT). His contemplation of such opposing forces of nature are initially primarily used to analyse Greek culture and, in particular, art, stating that their role within Greek attic tragedy marks such plays as the pinnacle of culture and art. However, his ideas invite further social and political contemplation as to their resounding implications. In this article I intend to outline Nietzsche’s conception of DI and AP, the role he assigns them in Greek tragedy, and discuss critically the further implications that such ideas could have.

So what does Nietzsche mean by DI and AP? The latter is derived from the concept of Apollo, the Greek God of Light. Apollo is often said to rule over the realm of the self-conscious, and thus is strongly related to the idea of individuation, through which he provides the world around us with a sensible structure. In contrast we have Dionysus, God of (amongst others) Festivals, ‘centred in extravagant sexual licentiousness’ where ‘the most savage natural instincts were unleashed’ (Nietzsche, 1993). Crucially to this conception of Dionysus is that is ‘emerges as an expression of the feeling of ecstasy that accompanies the sense of loss of the individuated self’ (Sedgewick, 2009) (in the examples of festivals through narcotic substances etc.), quite the opposite to the individuated sense of the AP. This sense of individuation, Nietzsche claims, takes the individual out of nature, away from the community of beings in which they reside, whereas the latter concept negates such an alienation by placing one firmly in nature, relishing natural instincts, and in turn breaking down any and all social barriers, allowing the sense of community spirit to thrive naturally once more.

Nietzsche’s conceptions of the DI and AP are used at length in his discussion of art (which he considered the great redemptive metaphysical act of human beings, over religion), with particular focus on Greek Tragedy. A key component to such plays (e.g. Oedipus) is that of the Greek chorus, a collection of performers who narrated or passed comment on the action in unison. It is this chorus that Nietzsche deems to be fundamentally DI. We can of course see how a unified performance represents his idea of de-individuation associated with the DI but the connection goes further. The characters of the chorus ‘remain eternally the same,’ regardless of whatever may come to pass within the action of the story (such as a great deal of time passing). It is of Nietzsche’s belief that such as ‘fictitious natural state’ will cause the audience to feel ‘nullified’ and create a similar feeling of having their individuality stripped away. Furthermore, this will, he believes, provide a metaphysical comfort for them, explaining that the chorus acts as ‘a living wall against the assaults of reality because it [...] represents existence more truthfully [...] and completely than the man of culture does who ordinarily considers himself as the only reality.’ What Nietzsche means by this is that the chorus, and Greek tragedy overall, helps to bring forth matters such as death and one’s own mortality through the form of art, which in turn makes it more bearable. The metaphysical comfort comes from being able to consider these issues in an AP way (for the beauty of the dialogue and poetry utilized within the plays is logical and structured, very much AP). It is this combination of AP and DI that Nietzsche believes makes Greek tragedy the pinnacle of art and beneficial to mankind, helping to ‘sugar the pill’ of many unpleasant thoughts by displaying them in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

It is when this careful combination of the AP and DI ceases that Nietzsche believes the art form to be declining, a fault he places heavily on Euripides. Euripides founded New Attic Comedy, and was, Nietzsche claims, the first to bring the ‘spectator’ onto the stage. His plays, in contrast to that of Achilles or Sophocles, focused not on great tragic heroes but the ‘common man’, dramatic reinterpretations of everyday occurrences (similar to modern day soaps). This led to the audience feeling they ‘knew’ the characters, that they could pass moral judgement onto them in ways you could not of the tragic individuals such as Oedipus, and in turn threatens the return of individuation, as each spectator forms moral opinions upon the events and characters. Euripides’s plays were also carefully written and structured, much unlike the chaotic mess of the previous tragedies, seemingly very un-DI characteristics. Nietzsche believes that the plays are left with only the AP, an art form that help us seek the aforementioned metaphysical comfort in no way and don’t seek to bring the necessary union between the DI and the AP.

Nietzsche’s concepts on the AP and DI, along with the entirety of BoT, were not initially well received, even Nietzsche himself calling the book ‘badly written, ponderous, embarrassing, image-mad and image-confused’ (Sweet, 1999). However, the ideas have left a notable legacy and are still discussed in matters of ethics, politics and more. Indeed, Michael Motta even likens the opposing forces to mental illness, stating how stages of mania in bipolar artists can be likened to that of the DI (‘The urge to create is great, but the ability to step back, to control the process is reduced’), with depressive phases linked to the AP (‘critique and reflection take precedence over impulsivity, inhibition holds sway over exhibition(ism)’). Nietzsche was also keen to link the concepts to politics, making large distinctions between the primitive DI state (a tribal, barbarian society), the apollonian state (disciplined and lawful societies) and the AP DI state for which he of course favoured, which he considered to be a ‘life-affirming, dynamic civilization.’ However, Nietzsche considered the Greek culture to be a state of one of the two extremes, primarily AP, with only DI resemblance in certain barbaric times across history. We can of course apply this to modern day politics, although one could question its usage. Where we to accept Nietzsche’s ideas in relation to the structure of our state, which would surely be that of the AP, it would seemingly be necessary to reconsider our governments strict law and potentially defy liberalism as we currently employ it. Oswald Spengler echoed many of Nietzsche’s sentiments. In his book The Decline of the West (1991), he shamed the ‘mass culture’ of modern western civilisation, decreeing it to be full of ‘clones’ created and moulded by the media, completely devoid of the DI aspect that both he and Nietzsche thought of as necessary for a thriving, illuminated culture. Spengler, too, longed for a combination of both DI and AP aspects and the deconstruction of ‘bourgeois culture.’ However, Nietzsche’s idea seems to demand a certain degree of chaos and unpredictability in his AP-DI culture, one which it seems doubtful the majority of modern day democracies or citizens of such democracies would be willing to accept, even when combined with the AP aspects we currently employ. Whether or not Nietzsche’s reasoning could be employed to the Greek culture to which he originally referred it is difficult to say, but it seems unlikely that such as literal usage of his ideas is useful (or at least viably practical) in more modern societies.

We can see the legacy of the AP and DI concepts even more clearly in psychoanalysis. Freud’s original theory is clearly grounded in the same ideology that Nietzsche employed, with the DI id contrasting to the AP superego. He praised Nietzsche as a forerunner of his ideas and took them a step further, universalising them to not such the topic of culture and society but to every individual, whose subconscious was continue battling the two extremes. Freud did, however, seem reluctant to concur with Nietzsche that the DI should be as equally utilised as the AP. It wasn’t until Otto Gross that a psychoanalyst would fully appeal to the idea of a DI culture. Gross thought that, in contrast to the idea that such a lifestyle would be destructive to society, the progression and stability of a society depended on it. He spoke out for a ‘hedonist’ way of life, including unrepressed sexual activity and almost animalistic tendencies. It is unsurprising that Gross became to be considered an anarchist, and his ideas overwhelmingly dismissed from the world of psychological research. It seems clear that in a modern society, such ideas are not only impractical but potentially dangerous, undermining liberalism and current laws (for it would be easy, under Gross’s interpretation of the DI society, to excuse acts such as rape as merely being in line with a hedonist lifestyle). While psychoanalyses has been hugely important in shaping psychological research and development, the influences that Nietzsche’s DI and AP conceptions left upon it appear to be minimal, outside of its initial inspiration towards Freud’s conceptions of the id, ego and superego. Here, much like with their influence on modern politics, the themes presented in BoT, and in particular the supposed necessity of a DI aspect to culture, seem wholly incompatible with a modern liberal society.

Somewhat like Freud, Camille Paglia (1990) took Nietzsche’s ideas of the AP and DI to be even biological, claiming that ‘the quarrel between Apollo and Dionysus is the quarrel between the higher cortex and the older limbic and reptilian brains.’ A dissident feminist, her thesis claimed that the DI was associated with women (and their hedonist, chaotic lifestyle) while the AP is the male portion of society rebelling against their DI nature. It is due to this supposedly superior virtue that males have been dominated in many areas of culture, politics, science and history, with Palgia even going so far as to claim that ‘the male orientation of classical Athens was inseparable from its genius. Athens became great not despite but because of its misogyny.’ While it is important to note that such anti-feminist ideals were not that of Nietzsche’s, his influence on their creation is clear. Such notions in modern society would be, by the vast majority at least, considered not only insulting to women but going against the kind of liberal progression which has taken place over the past several centuries. So the concept of the DI and AP and their implications when taken in ways such as Paglia’s, can be seen, to not only be politically dangerous but socially, too, and, once more, wholly incompatible with today’s western culture.

There are, however, certain contexts in which Nietzsche’s concepts are relevant and potentially illuminating. Written as they were about Greek culture, we can perhaps hope to gain some insight into the structure of ancient Greek society, and in particular their relationship towards art and the theatre. More recently, the concepts have been used anthropologically by Ruth Benedict (2009) to illustrate the differing values of varying cultures (such as the self-restraint of the Zuni people, which would be associated with the AP, and the somewhat vulgar and ostentatiousness of the Kwakiutl, associated with the DI). We have seen, through its implications and impracticalities, that it would be difficult and dangerous to implicate the concept of a culture that employs both DI and AP lifestyle in modern western cultures, but perhaps, as with the above, they are useful in our exploration of ancient or anthropological societies. The opposing forces are certainly a crucial matter in the study of Greek art and continue to be an interesting line of thought when studying cultures outside of the current modern liberalism.

Works Cited

Benedict, Ruth, ‘Configurations of Culture in North America’, American Anthropologist 34 (American Anthropological Association, 2009)

Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Birth of Tragedy (Penguin ed., 1993)

Paglia, Camille, Sexual Personae (USA: Yale University Press, 1990)

Sedgewick, Peter, Nietzsche: The Key Concepts (Routledge, 2009)

Spengler, Oswald, The Decline of the West (OUP Australia and New Zealand; abridge edition, 1991)

Sweet, Dennis, ‘The Birth of The Birth of Tragedy’, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 60, No. 2 (Penn Press, 1999)