The Birth of Tragedy; or, Hellenism and Pessimism — Nietzsche — John Shaqi
The Birth of Tragedy; or, Hellenism and Pessimism
Nietzsche · en
If, therefore, we may regard lyric poetry as the effulguration of
music in pictures and concepts, we can now ask: "how does music
_appear_ in the mirror of symbolism and conception?" _It appears as
will,_ taking the word in the Schopenhauerian sense, _i.e.,_ as the
antithesis of the æsthetic, purely contemplative, and passive frame
of mind. Here, however, we must discriminate as sharply as possible
between the concept of essentiality and the concept of phenominality;
for music, according to its essence, cannot be will, because as such it
would have to be wholly banished from the domain of art--for the will
is the unæsthetic-in-itself;--yet it appears as will. For in order to
express the phenomenon of music in pictures, the lyrist requires all
the stirrings of passion, from the whispering of infant desire to the
roaring of madness. Under the impulse to speak of music in Apollonian
symbols, he conceives of all nature, and himself therein, only as the
eternally willing, desiring, longing existence. But in so far as he
interprets music by means of pictures, he himself rests in the quiet
calm of Apollonian contemplation, however much all around him which
he beholds through the medium of music is in a state of confused and
violent motion. Indeed, when he beholds himself through this same
medium, his own image appears to him in a state of unsatisfied feeling:
his own willing, longing, moaning and rejoicing are to him symbols by
which he interprets music. Such is the phenomenon of the lyrist: as
Apollonian genius he interprets music through the image of the will,
while he himself, completely released from the avidity of the will, is
the pure, undimmed eye of day.
Our whole disquisition insists on this, that lyric poetry is dependent
on the spirit of music just as music itself in its absolute sovereignty
does not _require_ the picture and the concept, but only _endures_
them as accompaniments. The poems of the lyrist can express nothing
which has not already been contained in the vast universality and
absoluteness of the music which compelled him to use figurative
speech. By no means is it possible for language adequately to render
the cosmic symbolism of music, for the very reason that music stands
in symbolic relation to the primordial contradiction and primordial
pain in the heart of the Primordial Unity, and therefore symbolises a
sphere which is above all appearance and before all phenomena. Rather
should we say that all phenomena, compared with it, are but symbols:
hence _language,_ as the organ and symbol of phenomena, cannot at all
disclose the innermost essence, of music; language can only be in
superficial contact with music when it attempts to imitate music; while
the profoundest significance of the latter cannot be brought one step
nearer to us by all the eloquence of lyric poetry.
7.