Synopses & Reviews
Whatever might have been be the basis for this dubious book, it must have been a question of the utmost importance and charm, as well as a deeply personal one. Testimony to that effect is the time in which it arose (in spite of which it arose), that disturbing era of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. While the thunderclap of the Battle of Worth was reverberating across Europe, the meditative lover of enigmas whose lot it was to father this book sat somewhere in a corner of the Alps, extremely reflective and perplexed (thus simultaneously very distressed and carefree) and wrote down his thoughts concerning the Greeks, the kernel of that odd and difficult book to which this later preface (or postscript) should be dedicated.
Synopsis
The Birth of Tragedy argues the importance of the tension between what Nietzsche called Apollonian and Dionysian forces. These contrasting forces enable a work of art to reveal the truth about human existence in such a way that we are able to bear the weight of its tragic wisdom. Nietzsche boldly combines aesthetics and psychology in a creative meditation on the sources of artistic inspiration. He also addresses the problem of nihilism in modern culture. The Birth of Tragedy offers an excellent point of entry into Nietzsche's corpus.