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  • Published: 27 May 1993
  • ISBN: 9780140433395
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $26.00

The Birth of Tragedy

Out of the Spirit of Music




A compelling argument for the necessity of art in life.

A compelling argument for the necessity for art in life, Nietzsche's first book is fuelled by his enthusiasms 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 a consolation for it. Impassioned and exhilarating in its conviction, The Birth of Tragedy has become a key text in European culture and in literary criticism.

  • Published: 27 May 1993
  • ISBN: 9780140433395
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 160
  • RRP: $26.00

Other books in the series

Maldoror and Poems
On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

Friedrich Nietzsche

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was born in Prussia in 1844. After the death of his father, a Lutheran minister, Nietzsche was raised from the age of five by his mother in a household of women. In 1869 he was appointed Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Basel, where he taught until 1879 when poor health forced him to retire. He never recovered from a nervous breakdown in 1889 and died eleven years later.

Known for saying that 'god is dead,' Nietzsche propounded his metaphysical construct of the superiority of the disciplined individual (superman) living in the present over traditional values derived from Christianity and its emphasis on heavenly rewards. His ideas were appropriated by the Fascists, who turned his theories into social realities that he had never intended.

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