Your complimentary articles

You’ve read all of your complimentary articles for this month. To have complete access to the thousands of philosophy articles on this site, please

If you are a subscriber please sign in to your account.

To buy or renew a subscription please visit the Shop.

If you are a print subscriber you can contact us to create an online account.

Classics

The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche

Rose Thompson relates a redeeming myth by Friedrich Nietzsche.

“Greek art, and Greek tragedy above all, held the destruction of myth at bay” – Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), who would on occasion be a little bombastic, referred to art as “the highest task and the truly metaphysical activity of this life.” As an atheist, he believed that existence could be justified, or life worth living, only as an aesthetic phenomenon. But it was Greek art, notably, fifth century BC Greek tragedy, that he revered most highly. Think Oedipus Rex, Hecuba or The Oresteia Trilogy by the great tragedians Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus respectively. In Oedipus, the title character unwittingly fulfils a prophecy in which he kills his father and marries his mother.

…