APOLLONIAN AND DIONYSIAN

The 'Apollonian and Dionysian' is a philosophical and literary concept, or dichotomy, based on certain features of ancient Greek mythology. Several Western philosophical and literary figures have invoked this dichotomy in critical and creative works, including Plutarch, Friedrich Nietzsche, Robert A. Heinlein^[1], Ruth Benedict, Thomas Mann, literary critic G. Wilson Knight, Ayn Rand (who rejected it in favor of mind-body integration), and cultural critic Camille Paglia.

Contents

Definition

German philosophy

Nietzsche's usage

References

See also

Definition

In Greek mythology, Apollo and Dionysus are both sons of Zeus. Apollo is the god of the Sun, lightness, music, and poetry, while Dionysus is the god of wine, ecstasy, and intoxication. In the modern literary usage of the concept, the contrast between Apollo and Dionysus symbolizes a metaphysical principle of individuality versus wholeness. The ancient Greeks did not consider the two gods as opposites or rivals.
''Apollo'' (Apollinian or Apollonian): the dream state, ''principium individuationis'' (principle of individuation), plastic (visual) arts, beauty, clarity, stint to formed boundaries, individuality, celebration of appearance/illusion, human beings as artists (or media of art's manifestation), self-control, perfection, exhaustion of possibilities, creation.
''Dionysus'' (Dionysian): intoxication, celebration of nature, instinctual, intuitive, pertaining to the sensation of pleasure or pain, individuality dissolved and hence destroyed, wholeness of existence, orgiastic passion, dissolution of all boundaries, excess, human being(s) as the work and glorification of art, destruction.

German philosophy

Although the use of the concepts of Apollinian and Dionysian is famously related to Nietzsche's ''The Birth of Tragedy'', the terms were used before him in Prussia ^[2]. The poet Hölderlin used it, while Winckelmann talked of Bacchus, the god of wine.

Nietzsche's usage

Main articles: The Birth of Tragedy

Nietzsche's aesthetic usage of the concepts, which was later developed philosophically, began with his book ''The Birth of Tragedy''. In this work, he stated that a fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian "Kunsttriebe" (artistic impulses) is dramatic art's (tragedy's) main prerequisite and that this has essentially not been achieved since ancient Greek tragedy. Nietzsche emphasizes that the works of Aeschylus, above all, and also Sophocles represent the summit of artistic creation, the true realization of tragedy; it is with Euripides, he states, that tragedy begins its "Untergang" (literally "going under," meaning decline, deterioration, downfall, death). Nietzsche objects to Euripides' utilization of Socratic rationalism in his tragedies, claiming that the infusion of ethics and reason in tragedy robs it of its foundation, namely the fragile balance of the Dionysian and Apollonian.

References

1. Heinlein, ''Stranger in a Strange Land'', 1961
2. Adrian Del Caro, "Dionysian Classicism, or Nietzsche's Appropriation of an Aesthetic Norm", in ''Journal of the History of Ideas'', Vol. 50, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1989), pp. 589-605

See also

★ Weimar Classicism