Abstract
Nietzsche anticipates twentieth-century literary criticism, since he emphasises the distinction between a work of literature and the actual spheres of nature and society. He is not impressed by mimesis either as a principle of art or in the practice of individual artists. However, as we have remarked, he goes much further than that, contending that everyday life, no less than a piece of art, is to all intents and purposes a man-made structure, for we reduce life to the contours of our vision. That the world overwhelms these contours is the basis of tragedy. Further, Nietzsche is sure that the world as a whole is best understood as an assemblage of ‘artistic’ processes: ‘the world as a work of art that gives birth to itself—’.1
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Notes and References
WP, Book Four, Section 796, p.419.
GM, Third Essay, ‘What is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals?’ Section 4, p. 100.
Ibid., p. 101.
HAH, Section 170, p. 90.
WP, Book Three, Section 681, p. 361.
This idea is central to the argument of The Case of Wagner.
Richard Schacht, Nietzsche (Routledge and Kegan Paul 1985) p. 228. First published 1983.
HAH. Section 160, pp. 84f.
See Lou Andréas-Salome, Frédéric Nietzsche, traduit de l’allemand par Jacques Benoist-Méchin (Gordon and Breach) pp. 34f. First edition Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1932.
WP, Book Three, Section 645, p. 339.
WP, Book Four, Section 1019, p. 527.
Heraclitus, On The Universe Fragment 55, see Hippocrates Volume iv and On The Universe with an English trans. by W. H. S. Jones (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press and London: William Heinemann, 1979) p. 503. First printed 1931.
F. Nietzsche, Daybreak — Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality (D), trans. R. J. Hollingdale with intro. by Michael Tanner (Cambridge University Press, 1982) Book I, Section 9, p. 9.
Aeschylus, Volume ii, The Loeb Classical Library, The Libation Bearers, trans. Herbert Weir-Smyth, ed. Hugh Lloyd-Jones (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press and London: William Heinemann 1983) p. 185. First printed 1926.
Goldhill, Simon, Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge University Press, 1986) p. 56.
H. D. F. Kitto, Greek Tragedy — A Literary Study (Methuen, 1939) p. 66.
Aeschylus, Volume ii, Agemamnon, p. 7.
Ibid., p. 27.
Ibid., p. 79.
Ibid., p. 119.
Ibid., The Libation-Bearers, p. 163.
Aeschylus, Volume i, The Loeb Classical Library, Prometheus Bound trans. Herbert Weir Smyth (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press and London: William Heinemann, 1973) p. 261. First printed 1922.
UM, ‘Schopenhauer as educator’, p. 127.
BGE, ‘On the Prejudices of Philosophers’, Section 19, p. 25.
Ibid.
WP, Book One, ‘European Nihilism’, Section 90, p. 55.
WP, Book Two, ‘Critique of the Highest Values Hitherto’, Section 136, p. 86.
Aeschylus (see note 22), Prometheus Bound, p. 283.
Ibid., p. 233.
BT, p. 70.
Aeschylus (see note 22), Prometheus Bound, p. 239.
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© 1990 Keith M. May
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May, K.M. (1990). Aeschylus. In: Nietzsche and the Spirit of Tragedy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-09882-8_2
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