"Friedrich Nietzsche ("The Birth of Tragedy", section XV, 1872):
"Proven in every period of the evolution, the western European
Culture tried to free itsself from the Greeks- Hellenes.
This work is imbued with deep resentment because
Whatever (Western Europeans) created, seemingly
original and worthy of admiration, lost color and life in comparison with
the Greek model, shrunk, came to resemble a cheap
copy, a caricature.
So again and again soaked in a rage, hatred erupts against the Greeks,
against this small and arrogant nation that had the nerve, to name barbarian (for each
period), what had not beeing established in their territory.
But finally, who are they, that their historical prestige was
so ephimeral, their institutions so limited, their dubious morals so unacceptable, and who require an excellent position among
nations, a position above the crowd. None of the recurrent
enemies had ever the chance to discover the hemlock,with which we
could once and for all get rid of them.
All poisons of envy, of hubris, hatred, have been insufficient to
disrupt the wonderful beauty.
So people continue to feel shame and fear in Hellenes-Greeks. Of course, occasionally, someone appears to recognize the intact truth, the truth which teaches that the Greeks are the charioteers, of any upcoming culture and almost always these chariots and
horses of the coming cultures are of very low quality compared
the charioteers (Greeks- Hellenes), who eventually work out driving their chariot
the abyss, which they overcome by Achilles Leap. "
"Proven in every period of the evolution, the western European
Culture tried to free itsself from the Greeks- Hellenes.
This work is imbued with deep resentment because
Whatever (Western Europeans) created, seemingly
original and worthy of admiration, lost color and life in comparison with
the Greek model, shrunk, came to resemble a cheap
copy, a caricature.
So again and again soaked in a rage, hatred erupts against the Greeks,
against this small and arrogant nation that had the nerve, to name barbarian (for each
period), what had not beeing established in their territory.
But finally, who are they, that their historical prestige was
so ephimeral, their institutions so limited, their dubious morals so unacceptable, and who require an excellent position among
nations, a position above the crowd. None of the recurrent
enemies had ever the chance to discover the hemlock,with which we
could once and for all get rid of them.
All poisons of envy, of hubris, hatred, have been insufficient to
disrupt the wonderful beauty.
So people continue to feel shame and fear in Hellenes-Greeks. Of course, occasionally, someone appears to recognize the intact truth, the truth which teaches that the Greeks are the charioteers, of any upcoming culture and almost always these chariots and
horses of the coming cultures are of very low quality compared
the charioteers (Greeks- Hellenes), who eventually work out driving their chariot
the abyss, which they overcome by Achilles Leap. "
Reception
ReplyDeleteThe Birth of Tragedy was angrily criticized by many respected professional scholars of Greek literature. Particularly vehement was philologist Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, who denounced Nietzsche's work as slipshod and misleading. Prompted by Nietzsche, Erwin Rohde -- a friend who had written a favorable review that sparked the first derogatory debate over the book—responded by exposing Wilamowitz-Moellendorf's inaccurate citations of Nietzsche's work. Richard Wagner also issued a response to Wilamowitz-Moellendorf's critique, but his action only served to characterize Nietzsche as the composer's lackey.
In his denunciation of The Birth of Tragedy, Wilamowitz says:
Herr N. ... is also a professor of classical philology; he treats a series of very important questions of Greek literary history. ... This is what I want to illuminate, and it is easy to prove that here also imaginary genius and impudence in the presentation of his claims stands in direct relation to his ignorance and lack of love of the truth. ... His solution is to belittle the historical-critical method, to scold any aesthetic insight which deviates from his own, and to ascribe a "complete misunderstanding of the study of antiquity" to the age in which philology in Germany, especially through the work of Gottfried Hermann and Karl Lachmann, was raised to an unprecedented height.
In suggesting the Greeks might have had problems, Nietzsche was departing from the scholarly traditions of his age, which viewed the Greeks as a happy, perhaps even naive, and simple people. The work is a web of professional philology, philosophical insight, and admiration of musical art. As a work in philology, it was almost immediately rejected, virtually destroying Nietzsche's academic aspirations. The music theme was so closely associated with Richard Wagner that it became an embarrassment to Nietzsche once he himself had achieved some distance and independence from Wagner. It stands, then, as Nietzsche's first complete, published philosophical work, one in which a battery of questions are asked, sketchily identified, and questionably answered.
Marianne Cowan, in her introduction to Nietzsche's Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, describes the situation in these words:
The Birth of Tragedy presented a view of the Greeks so alien to the spirit of the time and to the ideals of its scholarship that it blighted Nietzsche's entire academic career. It provoked pamphlets and counter-pamphlets attacking him on the grounds of common sense, scholarship and sanity. For a time, Nietzsche, then a professor of classical philology at the University of Basel, had no students in his field. His lectures were sabotaged by German philosophy professors who advised their students not to show up for Nietzsche's courses.
By 1886, Nietzsche himself had reservations about the work, and he published a preface in the 1886 edition where he re-evaluated some of his main concerns and ideas in the text. In this post-script, Nietzsche referred to The Birth of Tragedy as "an impossible book... badly written, ponderous, embarrassing, image-mad and image-confused, sentimental, saccharine to the point of effeminacy, uneven in tempo, [and] without the will to logical cleanliness."[2] Its reception was such a personal disappointment that he referred to it, once, as "falling stillborn from the press." Still, he defended the "arrogant and rhapsodic book" for inspiring "fellow-rhapsodizers" and for luring them on to "new secret paths and dancing places."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Birth_of_Tragedy
dear reader,
DeleteI do appreciate your comment..Philoshophy is not my area as my studies were related to the field of Information technology and have also naval roots (for which am very proud).
However,I finally rediscovered philoshophy just a few years ago when i tried to read some of books.