,

t
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I
Studies in

Nietzsche and the Classical Tradition

L
.

Edited by

James C. O'Flaherty, Timothy F. Sellner,

and Robert M. Helm

Second Edition

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Contents
@ University of North Carolina
Studies in the Germanic Languages
and Literatures 1976
Reprinted r979

James C. O'Flaherty
Introduction xi
Key to Abbreuiations xvii

I Hugh Lloyd-Jones
Nietzsche and the Study of the Ancient World I

ll Robert M. Helm
Plato in the Thought oJ Nietzsche and Augustine r6

lll Hcdwig Wingler

Aristotle in the Thought of Nietzsche and Thomas Aquinas 33
,I'RANSLATED BY TIMOTHY F. SELLNER
F*.1'* 1,1"sff tr
" , ' i ,:..:.';i':ltlFirilclvlie
:'''.. ,"'-'-*'-'*'
8-6.1-{-(Q.*
lV Eugen Biser
lletweer Inferno and Pugatorio: Thoughts on a Structural
lfiV'-itr't/u -
Oomparison of Nietzsche with Dante i5
,TRANSLATED BY CHERYL L. TURNEY AND
JAMES C. O,FLAHERTY
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
V Mlrcus Hester
'l'lu' Structure oJ Tragedy and the Att of Painting 77
Main entry under title:
Studies in Nietzsche and the classical tradition. Vl Kurt Weinberg
Includes bibliographical references and index. 'l'ln' lmpact of Ancient Creece and oJFrench Classicism on
r. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, r844-r9oo-Addresses, essays, lec- Niclr.rrfte'.s Concept oJ Tragedy 8g
tures. 2. Classicism-Addresses, essays, lectures. 3, Rome-
Civilization-Addresses, essays, lectures. 4. Civilization, Greek- Vll l)ctcr Hcller
Nicr:dr,e in His Relation to Vohaire and Rousseau r09
Addresses, essays, lectures. I. O'Flaherty, James C. II. Sellner,
Timothy F., 1938- III. Helm, Robert Meredith. IV. Series: Studies in Vlll
i ,lrntcs C, O'Flaherty
the Germanic languages and literatures (Chapel Hill, N. C.); no, 8S. of
(rrr.rlt.r in Hamant's Socratic Memorabilia and Nietzsche's Birth
'l'rugccly r34
r 833r8.C56S79 1979 I93 79-23422
..i
i I SBN o-rloTlt-llolt.s-X lX K;rrl Schlcchtl
t,
'l'!rc Ounnn "C,'/rr.rriri.rt" Cocthc as Rqflcctcd in Nietzschc's Works r44
r
b
't'llANsl.A'l'lll) Y'I'lM()',rllY Ir. lil.l.NliH
Mrnulircturcd in thc U.S,A,
;
X Helmut Rehderf
The Reluctant Disciple: Nietzsche and Schiller 156

Xl Max L. Baeumer
Nietzsche and the Tradition oJ the Dionysian I65
TRANSLATED BY TIMOTHY F. SELLNER

XII Ralph S. Fraser

Nietzsche, Byron, and the Classical Tradition r90 Acknowledgments
! XIII Sander L. Gilman
Parody and Parallel: Heine, Nietzsche, and the Classical World r99 Thc editors wish to express their great appreciation for the initial encourage-
c:

XIV Mark Boulby tlolt xnd continuing interest of Professor Herbert W. Reichert ofthe lJniversity
Nietzsche and the Finis Latinorum 214 of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the present project. They wish further to
.Walter et(prsss their gratitude to Wake Forest (Jniversity for the generous grant which
XV Kaufmann har nrade possible the publication of the volume. Not least are they grateful to
Nietzsche and the Death oj Tragedy: A Critique 234 Mrr, Mary C. Reid, secretary of the German Department,'Wake Forest (Jniver-
About the Authors 255 tlty, frrr her efliciency and unfailing patience in the typing of the manuscript.
lrtrtrtission to reprint articles appearing in the volume as individual chapters
lndex 2J8 publishers is gratefully acknowledged: Yale French
F
F
lirntcd by the following 'Walter
trrrlics (Ch. VI, in part); de Gruyter & Co. (Ch. VII, in translation);
t
Atltcniium Verlag, GmbH (Ch. VIII); Doubleday & Co.,Inc. (Ch. XV).
I

r
r

tx
 Introduction

Reminiscing years later about his scathing atrack on The Birth oJ Tragedy, ari
Unrepentant W'ilamowitz asserted that Nietzsche had become "the prophet of a
i6n-ieligious religion and an unphilosophical philosophy."t Wh.ther this
ltement is found wanting or not, it is certainly true that Nietzsche regarded his
pOphetic, Zxattrustrenrole as paramount. Ifit is the essential role of the prophet
iO tum his glance to the past in order to project his vision with more confidence
hto the futore, ,rr..ly rro^ on has fulfilled more faithfully:the dual requirements
Of that ofce than Friedrich Nietzsche. For while his most cherished (and pro-
YOCAtive) thoughts concem the future-the vision of the bermensch and the idea
Of eternal return-Nietzsche's critical reckoning with the two great streams of
tUltural influence in the Western world,'the Judaeo-Christian and the Graeco- .W'estern
l6man, may yet prove to be his most important contribution to
$OUght. In the present volume all the essays revolve to some degree around the
mttral problemtf Nietzsche's relation to the classical tradition. The term "classi-
eil fadition" here signifies not the actual culture of the Greeks and Romans, but
lt CUlture as it has been interpreted (or misinterpreted) by various representative
lnkcrs in the course of European history. The essays are, for the most part,
!thparative studies, i.e., it is the aim of the authors to contrast Nietzsche's
htCfpretation of the classical tradition, or some aspect of it, with that of repre-
thinkers and creative writers drawn from significant periods of Euro-
fnn history. Thus, the question whether ot not Nietzsche's interpretation is
Ofer that that of others to the historical facts about the Greeks and Romans is
ffi opcn.
' ih. rd'rr.ntage ofsuch an approach as that adopted here is obvious. By setting
NlOtUChc's version side by side with that of another, in many cases equally genial,
htCrpretation of the classical tradition we gain a deeper insight into his mind, and
i tl* r.*. time an insight into the minds of those with whom his thought is
lht into juxtaposition. Since Nietzsche's critical interests cover an astonish-
wlde rge of subjects within the classical tradition, he affords an unusual'
of opportunities for comparative studies of the kind to be found in the
t|lowlng prg$.It il rcadily conceded that a certain arbitrariness and subjectivity
f,tCamdly lnhers ih r compilrdoff of this kind. Some readers will miss a treat-
I Ulrldr vm Wlhmowltr.Mllendorfi My Rtcolltctlots tE18-tgt1, tnnr, G. C, Richards (Lon-
h*p,r Whdu, rgto), p, tlr,
f,l

x11 JAMES C. O,FLAHERTY
ment of this or that thinker in relation to Nietzsche, and in some cases with
complete justification, but the editors have had to work within certain practical
limits. The collection of studies is olTered with no claim to completeness of
coverage-whatever "completeness" would mean in such a context-of so large
and manifold a subject.
The volume includes essays from each of the following areas: age of the
.Weimar
Church Fathers; Scholasticism; the Renaissance; the Enlightenment;
Classicism; Romanticism; nineteenth-century Decadence. Of the fifteen essays
included in the volume, five have previously appeared in some form: one has
been published in German as part of a larger study (Ch. VII); one has been con-
siderably expanded (Ch. VI); one has appeared in English as part of a larger study
(Ch. XV); one has been reprinted essentially without change (Ch. VII!; although
written for the present collection, one essay (Ch. t) appeared earlicr, with permis-
sion of the editors, in somewhat altered form. Thus, eleven of the essays were
written expressly for the present volume.
There is no question but that Nietzsche's influence is today both widespread
and steadily increasing. Yet he remains, and is certain to remain, a highly prob-
lematic figure for'Western civilization. For European man is inescapably heir to
theJudaeo-Christian tradition and to the Platonism which Nietzsche reprobated.
These components of our 'W'estern culture may have undergone considerable
transformation in the course of two millenia, often quite secularized in the case
of the former and distorted in various ways in the case of the latter, but they
remain as essential ingredients of our civilization. Nietzsche, who coveted the
title of "Antichrist" and who would replace the worship of Christ with that of
Dionysus, invoked the culture of the ancient Greeks to effect his purpose . Since
this is so, one is justified in raising the question s to whether he correctly under-
stood the Greeks.
Despite the fact that the studies offered here are not concerned with the
answer to that question they may serve as a sort of prolegomenon to the search
for an answer as well as a stimulus to the individual's own coming to terms with
Nietzsche's conclusions. Not only will the reader find in the following essays
numerous divergences from Nietzsche's understanding of the Greeks, but he will
oftcn cncountcr agreement with or anticipation of Nietzsche's views in the most
unlikely quarters. The truth is that there is probably not a single important idea
in Nietzsche's works which has not at one time or another been advanced by a
predecessor. Yet the recognition of such a fact by no means diminishes his
originality, for in the case of his works the whole is indeed greater than the parts.
While one cannot speak of a "system" in connection with his philosophy, it is
characterized by a unity providcd not mcrcly by a pcrvrcling cthos but rlso by
what Bcrtrlrrd l\usscll, onc of his nrost pcnctnltirrg urrtl lrostilc critit's, corrccdcs
to bc "thc cortsistcrtcy urrtl r'olre'rt'rrr't'of lris tlot trirrt'.";l
-rllcrtr,trtll(trsscll,.'lllitorytlll'tttttttltltiltwplr;,(NcrvYrrrh;Srrrr,rr.rrrrlSrlrrrstcr.rrl.ll),1r'7rxr,
x111
I tt lroduction
highly significant that a classical philologist like Hugh Lloyd-Jones, heir
It is
to the rigorous scholarly tradition of a Wilamowitz, should, exactly a century
,rltcr the publication of The Birth of Tragedy, espouse a view of Nietzsche in many
wrrys diametrically opposed to that of his great German predecessor. Professor
I [rycl-Jones' essay, "Nietzsche and the Study of the Ancient World" (Ch' I), may
wcll serve as an introduction to our subject in general as well as to the specialized
rliscussions of the succeeding chapters.
For the most part, the chapters which follow deal with the theme of the
volume in chronological order, beginning with Nietzsche's relationship to one
ol' rhe most important of the Churqh Fathers. Thus in his essay, "Plato in the
'l'lrought of Nietzsche and Augustine" (ch. II), Robert M. Helm demonstrates
rlrlt, while Augustine and Nietzsche generally agree in their understanding of
rlrc Platonic philosophy, they radically disagree in their evaluation of it. (Augus-
rrrrc's and Nietzsche's essential agreement regarding the historical Plato, we may
,rtrscrve in passing, provides a striking contrast to Hamann's and Nietzsche's
r.rtlical divergence regarding the historical Socrates, as we shal1 see later in Ch.
V I II.) In her thoroughly documented study, "Aristotle in the Thought of Nietz-
r, lrt' nnd Thomas Aquinas" (Ch. III), Hedwig'Wingler shows how both thinkers
, ,,rrcnr in rejecting the rationalistic content of Aristotle's philosophy, but disagree
lrrrrtiamentally as to what should take its place and as to the usefulness of the
A listotelian logic.
Nictzsche ordinarily holds creativity and the active life to be superior to
l.rr,,wlcdge and the contemplation of truth. Yet his own visionary experience
"/,( xx) fcet beyond man and time" in the woods of Lake Silvaplana would seem to
lrr.lrc tl.rat judgment. In his comparative psychological study of Dante, the
Ar istotclian Christian, and Nietzsche, the neo-pagan antagonist of Christianity'
( l t i( lc(l "Between Inferno and Purgatorio: Thoughts on a Structural Comparison
,,1 Nicrzsche with Dante" (ch. IV), Eugen Biser calls attention, among other
rlrrrrgs, to the striking parallel between Dante's vision of the Circle of Heaven-
"rlrr.(lclcstial White Rose"-and Nietzsche's sudden illumination regarding the
rr lr.,r ot'"ctcrnal recurrence." Not only the parallel concerning the content
of the
y t\t( )1s, but also the similar circumstances under which the two men experienced
tlrcrr rttystical visions arc underscored.
Altlrough tl'rc cssays of Kurt Weinberg and Peter Heller both deal with
Nr,.lzst.lrc's rclationship to French culture, they approach their subject from
,ltll,.rt.rrt :rttglcs, arrcl thus supplement each other. Professor'Weinberg, who is
,lrrr.lly r'orrt'crrrccl with acsthctics, makes it clear in his study, "The Impact of
Arrr rt.rr( ( irt'c c :lll(l of Frcrrch ClhssiCism on Nictzsche's Concept of Tragedy"
rr lr Vl). why tlrc (it'rrrlrrt philosophcr's thcory of tragcdy thoroughly justifies
lrrr rlrt trurr tlrrrt "tlrc lrrttrtr(,()f tlrc l;rcrrclt is nruch closcr to the Greeks than the
rr rturt.ol llrt. ( it'rrrr;trrs," lt lt,lrst irr so t:rr:rs tltut t'lttrtrc is rcflcctccl irr thc Frcnch
,,,i l,r\\l(,rl ,lr..1rrrr , l)rpli.ss6r Ilt.ll..r, orr tlrt'otltt'r lrrrttl, lpprtlltclrilrg his strbicct
x1v JAMES C. O'FLAHERTY
from the standpoint of social philosophy in the chapter entitled "Nietzsche in His
Relation to Voltaire and Rousseau" (Ch. VII), illuminates the paradox that
Nietzsche felt an aflinity both for Voltaire, the advocate of high culture and
sophisticated civilization, and for Rousseau, the advocate of a return to nature.
This central problem ofnature and civilization in Nietzsche's thought will emerge
again in connection with his relationship to nineteenth-century Decadence (cf.
ch. xrv).
Nowhere perhaps are the manifold possibilities for diverse, yet viable inter-
pretations of the classical tradition more evident than in the case of the dia-
metrically opposed views of Socrates which we encounter in the case of Hamann
and Nietzsche. In the chapter, "Socrates in Hamann's Socratic Memorabilia and
Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy" (Ch. VIII),James C. O'Flaherty calls attention ro
the fact that the conception of each of these seminal German thinkers springs from
his basic epistemological position. Karl Schlechta, in his essay, "The German
'Classicist' Goethe as Reflected in Nietzsche's 'W'orks" (Ch. IX), explicates the
reasons for Nietzsche's final rejection of Goethe's (and
'Winckelmann's)
con-
ception of classical antiquity. Professor Schlechta emphasizes the central role
which metaphysics and a concern for "style" played in the development of
'Weimar
Goethe's classicism. In dealing with the other great exponent of Classi-
cism, Friedrich Schiller, Helmut Rehder notes in his study, "The Reluctant
Disciple: Nietzsche and Schiller" (Ch. X), the close parallel between that poet
and Nietzsche. Thus he writes: "Nietzsche . . . in spite of his repeated declarations
of faith in Goethe, manifested a fundamental sentiment and structure of mind
which linked him to the belie and precepts of Schiller."
In the past far more scholarly ink has been expended on Nietzsche's influence
on others than on the influences which shaped his own thinking, especially on
those arising from within the German tradition to which he was immediate heir.
In a richly documented study, "Nietzsche and the Tradition of the Dionysian"
(Ch. XI), Max L. Baeumer traces the genesis and development of this important
concept in the more than a century preceding The Birth oJ Tragedy.In so doing,
Professor Baeumer examines the concept in the writings of such diverse thinkers,
scholars, and poets as Winckelmann, Hamann, Herder, Novalis, Hlderlin,
Heine, Creuzer, Bachofen, Schelling, and others. As a result, a rare and revealing
perspective on Nietzsche's philosophy is gained. Ralph S. Fraser's study, "Nietz-
sche, Byron, and the Classical Tradition" (Ch. XID, traces the complex relation-
ship of these two ardent, but dissimilar Graecophiles through the various stages
of Nietzsche's attitude toward the English poct, ranging from uncritical youthful
admiration to a final, more realistic appraisal. It is interesting to notc that,
although Nietzsche admires thc Frcnch tragcdians of tl.rc scvcrrtccllth ccntury for
adhcring to tl.rc dramatic unitics, und thcrcf<rrc firr thcir lbility "to cllrrt'c irr
t'ltlirrs" (cf. Ohs. Vl, VII), lrr'is rrt'vcrtlrclcss critir'rrl ot'llylorr lirl tlorrrg ro irr
rllrlr:rs strt'lt ls M,utlrtl.
Ittilodudion
Heinrich Heine, with his distinction between "Hellene" and "Nazarene" and
with his emphasis on Dionysus as the "savior of the senses" and the "divine
liberator," is clearly a forerunner of Nietzsche's philosophy. It is Sander L.
(iilman's thesis in the chapter "Parody and Parallel: Heine, Nietzsche, and the
(llassical World" (Ch. XIII) that, despite Nietzsche's initial quarrel with Heine
over the nature of Greek myth and over Heine's style, Nietzsche's later "aware-
rrcss of the parallels between his fate and that ofHeine led to . . . total identifiction
with the poet."
According to Mark Boulby, "it can be demonstrated that, especially in
Nictzsche's later years, his manipulation of Roman and Greek material is some-
rlring of a touchstone of his relationship to the so-called Decadent Movement."
lrr cliscussing this relationship as well as his relationship to Stefan George, Boulby
\(rcsses the antithetical nature of Nietzsche's notion of the "classical"-namely,
rlrc paradox of the will, which is seen both as the source of order and of chaos" It
rs precisely Nietzsche's conception of the paradoxical will, Professor Boulby
r orrtcnds, that separates him from the Decadents (see Ch. XIV:
"Nietzsche and the
l:ittis Latinorum").ln the course of these studies the problematic character of
Nrctzsche's idea of nature has already come to light in another context (cf. Ch.
v il).
Two of the contributions to the present volume relate Nietzsche's ideas
,,rrrccrning Greek culture to different areas of contemporary aesthetics. ln The
llirth of Tragedy Nietzsche states that "the highest goal of tragedy and art in general
r r.t':rched" when "Dionysus speaks the language of Apollo, and Apollo finally
rlr,. llr.rguage of Dionysus." Marcus Hester, in his study "The Structure of
I r,rscc'ly and the Art of Painting" (Ch. V), throws light on the complex relation-
,,lrr1, which results when this communicatio idiomatum of the Dionysian and the
Ap,rllonian takes place. Analyzing the relationship in terms of contemporary
rr.stlrctic theory, Professor Hester shows how Nietzsche's ideas may be fruitfully
,,r t r,ntlcd to art criticism. In the concluding chapter, "Nietzsche and the Death of
I r.rgccly" (Ch. XV), Walter Kaufmann argues that Nietzsche was in error with
r,.1i:rrrl to the reasons for the demise of Attic tragedy, and, further, that his
l,,llowcrs xrc wrong in their conception of tragedy in our own time. "Neither in
Atlrt'rrs nor ir-r our time has tragedy perished of optimism; its sickness unto death
rr.rs rurrl is dcspair." Avoiding the clich6s of traditional criticism, and taking a
lr,.slr look at tl.rc representative dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides,
l'rolr'ssor Kaufmanl-r sccs adeqUate reSon to invert Nietzsche's scheme and to
r urrsirlr.r Acschylus ratltcr than Euripides as the genuine optimist among the
t irr't k trrgctlirttts.
Altlrorrglr flvc of tlrc prcscnt csslys wcrc originally written in German (none
lr,r.,.rppr.:rrt.tl prcviotrsly irr lirrglish) it wrs tlccrncd bcst to rendcr them into
I rrlilrslr, ,ts wr.ll rrs tlrc rprotutiorrs lrorrr Nictzschc:tttc'l otltcrs, in ordcr to rcach the
\\ ril(.\t l,)()\sil)lt' rt.;rtlt.rslri1, irr tlris :rrrtl otlrcr lirrglislr-spclkitrg cotttttrics. Pctcr
xv1 JAMES C. O'FLAHERTY

Heller translated his own essay into English; the remaining'four were read and
approved by the author in each case. The.book addresses itself not only to special-
ists in literature and philosophy but also to the general reader who seeks a better
Key to Abbreviations
'W'estern thought.
understanding of Nietzsche's place in the history of

3r July 974 James C. O'Flaherty lutliuidual works by Nietzsche:

(;T Die Ceburt du Tragdie (The Birth of Tragedy)
u unzeitgemJle Betuachtungen (untimely Meditations or Thoughts out of
Season)
MA Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (Hwman, All-Too-Human)
5 Der Wanderu und sein Schattm (The Wanderu and His Shadow)
Preface to the Second Edition M Morgenrte (The Dawn or The Dawn oJ Day)
FW Die frhliche Wissenschafi (The Cay Science or The Joyful Wisdom)
'/, Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra)
Y/ith the exception of two paragraphs appended to ChaPter VIII, which were J Jrntrits uon Cut und Bse (Beyond Good and Euil)
part of the original article on which the chapter was based, changes in this edition (;M Zur Cenealogie der Motal (On the Cenealogy of Morals)
have been limited chiefly to the correction of errors. Attention should be called, (i Die Ctzen-Drimmerung (The Twilight of the ldols)
however, to the fact that the last paragraph of chapter XV, by Walter Kaufmann, A Der Antichrist (The Antichtist)
was not excerpted from his book, Tragedy and Philosophy, but was added to that WM Der Wille zur Macht (The Will to Power)
chapter in the first edition, a fact which was not then noted. The editors have been
most gratified by the positive reception of the volume both at home and abroad. lilitions of Nietzsche's works:

' )E Werke: GroJsoktauausgabe, ed. Elisabeth Frster-Nietzsche et al. (Leipzig:

(;(
r July ry79 James C. O'Flaherty Naumann, r894-r9o4), r5 vols.; znd ed. (l9or-r3), r9 vols', indicated
by: GOA(z). Vol. XX, published as a partial index to znd ed' (Leipzig'

MrrsA \i*'**r* werke: Musarionausgabe, ed.Richard oehler, Max oehler,

and F. C. Wrzbach (Munich: Musarion Verlag, rgzo-29).
llK(; Werke und Briefe: Historisch-Kritische Gesamtausgabe, ed. under super-
vision of the "stiftung Nietzsche-Archiv" (Munich: Beck, rg33'42),
9 vols.
K Smtliche werke in zwlJBrinden, ed. Alfred Bumler (Stuttgart: Krner,
rq6+-6S). The twelve vols. are reprints of Nos. 7o-78,82-83, and r7o in
Krners Taschenausgabe series, and are identified by the series number
in italics, followed by the page number, e.g.:70,48;71,49, etc' The last
vol. (t7o) is Richard Oehler's index to the previous vols.
W Wcrke in drei Brinden, ed' Karl Schlechta (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1954-56;
t966). Nlelz.sche Index to foregoing (Munich, 1965).
WK(; Werke: Kritische Cesamtausgabe, ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Mon-
tin,rri (Ilcrlin: dc Cruytu, 1967 tr'), about 30 vols. planned.
(ill crsamm(lte Briqfe, 5 vols. in 6 (Lcipzig:,lnscl, rgoz-9). volume v consists
of two scpuratcly boutld pilrt, dcignatcd V/r lnd V/2.
xvll
 I

Nietzsche and the Study of the Ancient'W'orld*

HUGH LLOYD-JONES

The late Eduard Fraenkel (r8S8-r97o) once remarked to me that the most
'Wilamowitz and his own
powerfirl factor in the diffe(ence of outlook betweerr
ieneration was the influence of Nietzsche. I remembered his
remark when,
looking back at the end ofa study ofearly Greek religion and thought undertaken
ln terms of the concept of dike, that term which can mean 'Justice," but can also
l7rcan "the order of theuniverse which the gods maintain,"l I found the turning-
point in the modern understanding of early Greek thought to be the publication
jult a hundred years ago of Nietzsche's Tlre Birth oJ Ttagedy:
In Germany; the importance of Nietzsche's influence upon classical studies
hls been reco gnizeda good deal more clearly than it has been in English-speaking
Countries. Notably, Karl Reinhardt, who had perhaps the finest feeling for
poetry and the most sensitive understandirig of the Greek intellectual world
imoog Wilamowitz' pupils, grew up under this influence;2 Nietzsche's. friend 4
Paul Deussen was a habitu6 of his father's house. Many German and Italian
rcholars have been more or les aware of it. In English-speaking countries scholars
hrve been less willing to recognize it, at least until lately.
This is largely due to the unfortunate prejudice which for most of this century
hal preventJ'-ost American and English people from recognizing the immense
lmptrt.rr.. of this writer; a comparable case is that of Wagner. That prejudice is
dUe largely to the evil work of Nietzsche's sister, a Nazi before the Nazis, who
tOok over all his papers and did her best to credit him with her own detestable
6plnions; it was also fostered by the excessively strong language in which Nietz-

r Thb is the text of a lecture givr at Wake Forest Universiry in Noventber r97z and later re-
I am painfully aware that some parts of it will seem elementary to
;fited rt vrrious othq centers,
imdsttr of Nietzschc and othcr parts to classical scholars; but I have decided to print it in the form in
fhieh h wrr dclivcred, It wal publishcd in a slightly modified form in Tfte Times Litetary Supplement
[t trbrurry rgTr)r pp, Igts2or, I would likc to thar* ProfessorsJames o'Flaherty and Heinz wenzel
r thclr cncout.Scmrntt rnd Profcror Rudolf Kalscl for uscful criticisms.
I Th Jtrtlcc ol cru (Berkcley Univcrlity, of Crlifomia Prcsr' r97r).
I Sec Uvo Hhihcr, Dlt Chctru du tJnbchajmt: j Buah zut Sltutlott der klassischen Studien
(ttl4ar Vrndnrlrorck & Ruptccht' tg6r)' Pp. !t f,
I
 HUGH I,LOYD_JONES
sche's fatal vanity and his natural resentment at the neglect he suffered led him to
express himself.
In our time there is no excuse for such a misconception of Nietzsche; Karl
Schlechta's edition of ry54-56 began the necessary task of a proper publication
of the vast mass of material in the Nietzsche-Archive at-Weimar, and now the
splendid complete edition of Co1li and Montinari3 has come half way to a satis-
factory completion of the work. In America'Walter Kaufmann's pioneer study
has made it easier for the reader to do justice to Nietzsche;a from different points
of view, R. J. Hollingdale and Arthur Dantos have supplemented his work.
There is ground for hope that even in English-speaking countries the general
reader may come to realize how impossible it is to understand the origins of
existentialism, and other movements now prominent, without taking account
of this formerly proscribed writer; how great a part of the advance in under-
standing the workings of the human mind popularly ascribed en bloc to Freud
I p.operly belongs to Nietzsche; and how Nietzsche's reservations about language
point forward to the linguistic philosophy of 'W'ittgenstein.
It is generally known that Nietzsche in his mature philosophy took the
motive force of all human activities to be the will to power and saw the only
hope of improvement in the future in the procreation of more specimens of a
superior type of human being, the bermensch. On the surface that sounds akin
to Nazi doctrines, and Elisabeth Nietzsche told Hitler that he was what her
brother meant by an bermenscft. She lied. First, Nietzsche made it abundantly
clear that he regarded racial purity as a delusion, and thought the highest human
types resulted from a racial mixture; we can now know that he often spoke with
special admiration of the Jews. Secondly, when Nietzsche spoke of power, he
meant much more than the strength that can achieve physical or political domi-
nation. In its highest manifestations, he thought, the will to power produced
great saints or great artists; his favorite example of the bermersrft was not
Napoleon, but Goethe.Ithe educated reader is nowadays aware that Freud's
view that the erotic instinct is the mainspring of human behavior made it fatally
simple for people to make fun of Freud by taking as literal the meta-language
which he had to use in order to expound his theory. Thus when Freud says that
an infant is in love with his mother he is using not ordinary language but a meta-
language. In the language of ordinary life his statement is absurd, so that people
who neglect the distinction can make fun of him. But nowadays educated readers
will not do this in the case of Freud; and there is no reason why they should do it
in the case of Nietzsche.
3 WK(i. For kcy to rbbrcvirtiorts scc p. xvii abovc.
'r Wrltcr Krrrrfirrrrrrr, Ni('/-'-nrrrr Itltilo:oplrr, I)Jy.r()l()(lJ/, Atttitltrist (l'ril)cctoll: l)rittcctrr Utti-
vcrsity l'rcss, trl5o).
'l{. I llollrlllrl,rlr', Nilt,'v/l'; IltL Alut,ntl llt' l'lttlt'rttlty (ll.rtol l(,,rt1i, 'llr, l rrrttsi.rtr.r St.rtc
tJlrvr.r\ttv Ir(.\\, tr)4,\); Artlrrrr (l l).rnto, Nir'l.rr/r'tt I'lttlt:o1tln (Ntrv Yrrt[* M,trttttll.ttt, t,r(,t).
Nictzsthe and the Study of the Antient World
Nietzsche is commonly regarded, even by people who know how much
pcople like his sister have misrepresented his real views, as a dangerous subverter
o[ established ethics. He himself is partly to blame, for he often uses language
thlt gives color to this notion; it recalls to Dodds,6 for instance, the arguments
of the immoralist Callicles in Plato's Gorgias. Yet as Kaufmann has pointed out,
Nictzsche is not an immoralist, except in the sense that he criticizes modern
rrotions about morals. From the moment when, as a schoolboy, he came in
(.()nract with the views of Darwin, Nietzsche rejected the belief in God. He thus
rlcnied the existence of a divine sanction for morality; and being strongly opposed
to l distinction between spirit and matter, he rejects abstract notions of the good
likc that of Plato. FIe is concerned to base a relativist ethics upon a realistic
psychology. But that does not make him an immoralist. His superman is no more
ovcrbearing than Aristotle's megalopsych. The passions, he holds, should be
rrrbordinated to the will to power; but they must not be weakened or repressed,
Irrrt sublimated by the controlling action of the will. Courage is the supreme
virtue, and pity is looked on with suspicion; but generosity is commended, and
tltc power to be pursued is not power in the sense of arbitrary dominion over
ot Ircrs. Instinctual reactions are favored, but instinct must be controlled by reason.
Unlike Kant and Hegel, but like most great philosophers, this man of genius
wirs not a professional philosopher. But he was for ten years a proGssor in an
r In
l)ortant university; and he was by training and profession a classical philologist,
.rntl from an early age he showed a very marked aptitude for that subject, one
wlrich in Germany in his time and for long before and long aftei was of central
unl)ortance to the whole culture of the nation. In the formation ofhis philosophy
Irt'wrrs influenced by many modern thinkers, including, for example, Spinoza
,rrrtl Hume, Kant and Hegel, Darwin and Lamarck, Schopenhauer and'W.agner.
Itr rt his impetus towards philosophy derived initially from his study of the ancient
rvollil, and not only ofits philosophy but still more ofthe religious and intellectual
r lrnrrrtc in which those philosophies developed.
l.ikc many original thinkers, Nietzsche found himself at odds with the
rrr, rrrbcrs of his own profession. His first book was savagely attacked by some of
tlr,.rn rrrrd condemned in conversation by others;l and aftet ten years he resigned
lrrr t'lrair to concentrate upon philosophy. These facts, and also the nature of their
,)wn tritiltiil[I, have caused some of his interpreters to write as if Nietzsche had
,,rrly rlriftcd into classical philology by mistake, and to ignore the part played by
rlr,, rrrllrrcncc of Grcck antiquity in the formation of his opinions. That, I think,
r,,,r rrristukc.
I :urr rro plrikrsephcr, bttt l cllssical schol;rr, and much of what I have to say
li,()n(('r-rr('(l witlr '/'/rr |lirlh ttl''l'ra,gtdy;btrt I think it unfortunate that so many
'' l l{ l)orlrls. l'l,t/rr, (ir,r.(r,rr (()rlrrtrl: (ll.trt'ltrlott l'ress, lt,l5r,t), p ltt7 l.
\r't ltlorv, pp ,'ll
 HUGH I-LOYD-JONES
people begin the study of Nietzsche by reading this, or by reading Thus Spoke
Zarathustra. The overheated tone of the former work and the biblical and
prophetic manner of the latter are not calculated to reassure the skeptically or
empirically minded reader. But Nietzsche is in many wys a skeptic and an
empiricist. He detested Hegel, he finally rejected'Wagner, and he purified himself
from the influence of the latter's music by listening repeatedly to Carmen.
Correspondingly, he often writes in very different style, sharp, elegant and crisp'
"Only a genius," he said, "can write clearly in German." Nietzsche certainly
survives the test. What makes his philosophy dillicult to understand is his habit
of stringing together separate aphorisms or disconnected paragraphs; that is why
it is hard to get a general view of his philosophy till you have read all of him.
Still, it is a delight to read him; he is one of the greatest writers of German prose,
and might be considered a greater writer than any philosopher since Plato'
To understand Nietzsche's criticisms of the classical philology of his time,
and also the importance of the subject in his own formation, one must take
account of the history of classical studies in Germany, and indeed in Europe. In
modern times there have been two revivals of interest in the ancient world. The
first arose in Italy during the late middle ages and reached its climax there during
the fifteenth and in France during the sixteenth centuryi its impetus was finally
exhausted by the wars and superstitions of the early seventeenth century. The
second originated late in that same century, reached a high point in Germany
late in the next, and maintained great vigor until I9r4; since then, its impetus has
been declining under the pressure of the wars and superstitions of our own time.
Despite the progress in Greek studies made by individuals like Politian and the
great French scholars of the sixteenth century, the first renascence was largely
concerned with Greek civilization in its Latin dress. The second concentrated
far more upon Greek; and with its beginning, Greek literature for the first time
reentered the bloodstream of European civilization in an undiluted form.
Before the second renascence, classical philology had seldom been anything
but a secondary pursuit. Men used it to perfect some other skill; they were first
divines, lawyers or doctors, and only in second place classical scholars. Nietzsche
rightly noteds that a new era dawned on 8 April t777, when Friedrich August
Wolf, entering the university of Gttingen, insisted on being set down as "stu-
diosus philologiae."
of
Yet at its beginning the second renascence was, like the first, a movement
men eager to make use of the ancient world to illuminate the modern. German
classicism had its links with the universities; yet it was not an academic but a
'W'inckclmann was in a sense a great scholar, but he was less
literary movement.
conccrncd with art history than with art itsclf; Lcssing artd Gocthc madc scrious
lrrd sust:rinctl cf{rrts to bct'orrrc f;rrrrililr with tlrc rtttt'icttt worltl, btrt ditl so trot ftrr
r Wl((;. lV_t. r)il,
Nictzsche and the Study of the Ancient World
rhc sake of scholarship but for that of literature and art. During the early stage of
tlris second renascence, even professional scholars had something of this attitude.
Iohann GottfriedHermann was a close student ofKant, and interpreted Aristotle's
'Wolfe were both in touch with
/)rrc/lc-s in the light of Kantian aesthetics; he and
( ioethe, and helped him in his Greek studies. Karl Otfried Mller's history of
( ircek literature is a learned book which the general reader as well as the scholar
r'ln enjoy and admire. The link between the two worlds is seen most clearly in
tlrc person of Wilhelm von Humboldt, eminent both as scholar and as sttesman
:rnd prominent among the founders of that lJniversity of Berlin which was to
lrrovide Europe with the pattern of a modern education.
But philology could not remain unaffected by the vast development of
lrrstorical studies that marked the nineteenth century. In the early decades the
oldcr type of literary scholarship, personified by Hermann, came into conflict
with the newer type, making use of the findings of archaeology, epigraphy, and
rlrc new science of comparative linguistics, personified by Karl Otfried Mller,
'W'elcker. On the whole the victory
Arrgust Bckh, and Friedrich Gottlieb
rr.stcd with the latter; what was now called the science of the ancient world,
.,llttrtumswissenschdt, was dominated by the historical outlook. Not all the
'We
st lrolars of this period lost touch with literature. can remark, for instance, the
lirrk between romanticism and the new growth of a historical sense; thc new
lrisrcrical writing, rich in cultural and social detail, owed a debt to the romantic
rr,,vcls of Scott, as Ranke, for example, was well aware.lo But it was now that
,, lrolarship became separated from literature, and indeed from other departments
,,1 lifc. Seduced by the example of the natural sciences, whose results seemed so
r,,rsily to be expressed in concrete terms, scholars showed an increasing appetite
lor flcts collected for their own sake and an increasing pride in "production";
r1rt,r'irtlization was carried to an extreme degree, and the new historicism came to
,lr'spise, as sentimental and superficial, the classicism of the age of Goethe. Of
, ,,rrrsc by no means all scholars of the new type were dull or dry; but in the new
i llr):rtc dullness and dryness throve. By r869, when Nietzsche began his profes-
,,,rrirrl career, the sectnd renascence was showing distinct signs of a decline.
llorn in I844, Nietzsche was educated at Schulpforta,by far the most famous
, l,rssicul school of Germany, which had educated Ranke and-four years after
N rr.r zscfic-.W'ilamowitz, as well as countless classical philologists of note. In this
.,r r rt t estlblishment, in the face of the keenest competition, Nietzsche won high
lrorr()rs; :rrrcl hc maintaincd his progress after entering the [Jniversity of Bonn in
rB(,.1. At thc cnd of his first year, the famous quarrel between OttoJahn and
', Sr.r. tlrc rcti'rcrrct.s to tlrc tw() nrcrr in thc indcx of Ernst Grumach's Coethe und die Antike: Eine
(l)olstlrttt: Ii,. Sticlllr()tc, l()49).
"'lttutlttr4q
r, \(,( lf. l{.'l'r.vor-l{ol)r.t,'l'lttllttttttirMovtutlmu! tlt'Strdyol llistrty:-lohnCofinMemotial
l,,ttttt,lLlitrLl l\.ltt1,tltt'llyi1t11111y il ln,illn,t ott t7 liltn,try l969 (l.orttltr: Athkrrrc I)rcss, t969),
1,1',r111
6 HrrGH r.r.oYD-J()NES
Ritschll 1 ended in the departure of the latter to Leipzig, and Nietzsche was among
those who followed him. Nietzsche might have been expected to side withJahn,
whose strong aesthetic sense came out in his famous lifc of Mozart and ilr his
pioneer studies in Greek art, rather than with Ritschl, whose claim to fame lies
in his immense services to the study ofearly Latin, particularly Plautus. But in
fact Nietzsche attached himself to Ritschl, for whom, as he notcd, philology
meant the attempt to understand an entire civilization. Ritschl was so much
impressed by Nietzsche's work that in r869 he secured his appointment, at thc
age of 24, as Professor Extraordinarius at Basel; he became full professor a year
.rftcrwr rds.
Karl Reinhardt, who cannot be accused of prejudice against Nietzschc, has
writren that "the history of philology has no place for Nietzsche; his lack of
positive achievement is too great."12 It is true that his contribution to detailed
scholarship is comparatively small; but when we remember that he gavc up his
chair at thirty-five, he must be acknowledged to have made himself a place in
the history of the subject, even if we think only in terms of concrete achievcment.
His early work on Theognis (1864)13 is interesting chiefly on account of the
rescmblance of this poet's uncompromisingly aristocratic outlook with Nietz-
sche's own. His doctoral thesisla advanced the investigation of the problem of the
sources of thc second-rate compiler Diogcnes Lacrtius, on whom part of our
knowleclge of the history of Greek philosophy unfortunately depends. More
interesting, from the point of view of Nietzsche's own developmcnt, is his work
on Democritus;1s but we should hardly read it now if it werc by another author'
On the other hand, the three articles on Greek rhythmicl6 contain a statement of
the casc against believing in a stress accent in Greece that is referred to with
approval in Paul Maas'standard manual on Greek metre.17 A distinct contribution
to learning is made by Nietzsche's work on the fictitious contest between F{omer
and Hesiod preserved in an ancient life of Homer;18 his guess that the work
depended on the Mouseion of the late fifth-century sophist Alcidamas, ridiculed
11 For an exccllent brief account of thc quarrel, see Alfrcd Krte, Die Attike, tt (tq), zrz f-
Nietzschc's lettcr to Rohclc of 8 October r868 shows that thc attack onJahn in Die Cebutt der Tragdie
that so angered wilamowitz (c{. Erinnerungen, t648't9r4 [Leipzig: K. F. Koehler, r9z8], p. rz9) had
becn prorcked by Jahn's unfavorable criticism of Wagner' Krte' p z16 f ' shows how strongly
Wilamowitz sidcd withJahn in thc quarrel with Ritschl's supporters'
12 [n r lecturc on "l)ic klassischc Philologie und das K]assische," givcn in t94t; see Vermrichtnis der
Antikc: Cesammelte Essays zur Philosophie und Ceschichtsschreibtng, ed. Carl Beckcq znd ed. (Gttingen:
Vandcnhoeck & Ruprecht, I9ar6), p '14J.
!'l MtrsA, l, zog C
I I MttsA. Il. -tl l.; cl. l. :qq t.
r" MrrsA. ll. llr L
1r' Mr\4, ll. .'
/() I
I l'.rrrl Nl.r,r',. l,t,rl.,\lttrt tr.rrt, IlrrlllrIl,'l',1 l"rr' (()rl'rr'l ( l'rr'r"l"rr I'r( "Irx)")"'(( llr
\l,r.A ll r,',,1
\i('r:..1,e and the Study oi'the Andcnt World 7
l,y Wilamowitzin r9t6, was confirmed whcnJ. G. Winter published a Michigan
l).rpyrus in r9z5.1e It is more irrtcresting to note that in this study we see the
,,risins of Nietzsche's important observation of the significance in Greek lifc of
( ()ntcsts and competitions. This is emphasizcd in the history of Greek culture of
l,rcob Burckhardt,2o a senior collealue of Nietzsche in the lJniversity of Basel;
,,rrd though Burckhardt always kept his distance from Nietzsche, and later came
rr r nristrust him, it scems certain that this feature ofhis work was duc to Nietzschc's
rrrllucncc. The lecture notcs publishcd in thc Musarion edition of Nietzsche's
rvrrrks in r92o21 are highly interesting to studcnts of the origins of his philosophy,
,,r of the general contribution to the understanding of Greek thought which l
,,lr.rll come to presently; but they contain little positive establishment of concrete
l,rtts. In that respect, Nietzsche has rathcr more to his credit than Reinhardt's
;rrrlgment would imply; Rcinhardt, who himself was denied by somc colleagues
rlrr'titlc of philologist, may have bccn afraid to claim too much for him. But
l'.1 it'tzsche's own achievemcr-rt in profcssional scholarship is trivial in comparison
rr rtlr his llcneral contribution to the understirnding of Greek life and thought.
Thc main clcments of this are present in The Birth of Tragedy, published in
r s'7-:,. This work was greeted with derision by most ofhis professional colleagues.
aftcr publication it was bitterly attacked in a pamphlet erltitlcd Philology
",'rrrr
,'l tlrc Future, with allusion to'W.agner's-"Music of the Futurc," by doctor of
"
l,lrilology four ycars Nietzsche's junior and like him an alumnus of Schulpforta.
llris was Ulrich von Wilamowitz-MllendorfI, destined to become the most
, , lt brated Greek scholar of his time. Nietzschc was defendcd in an open letter to
, \rviss newspaper by no less a person than Richard'W'agncr, and in a pamphlet
,,,, lt'ss bitter than that of Wilamowitz and bearing the unfortunately chosen title
',t llicrphilologie by his friend and contemporary Erwin Rohde , destined in the
rri,)()s to bring out a stlrdy of Greek beliefs about the soul that is one of the land-
rrr rr ks in modern classical scholarship; thcn Wilamowitz returned to battle in a
., , ,,rrrl pamphlet. The firm of Olms has lately reprinted all this literaturc inside
,,rrr' r'()Ver.22 It makcs distressing reading; the over-excitcd tone and utter lack of
l,,rrrror of :rll partics to the dispute-it is significant that thc most moderate of them
' r', Ilich:rrd'Wagner-is the kind of thing that makes foreigners despair of thc
" l rtnsadituts ol' tlrc Americart Pltilologiml Association. 56 (r925), rzr L; M. L. Wcst, Cldssiml
ttrrtly, t7 (1967),4-j j f. bclicvcs thrt thc papyrus cornes from a manuscript of Alcidamas; G. S. Kirk,
' 'tt
,r L, 1.1 (rr15o), r4q L. E. ll. I)odds, ibid., 46 (1952), r87 f., and G. L. Koniaris, Haruard Studies in
' t, t,al I'ltilolo.qy,75 (t97i), ro7 i, think lincs r5 z3 comc lrom Alcidarnas; R. Rcuchan, ibid., 85
r ilil1.s tlrirt "lvt'rrrrst citlrcr rccclrt tlrc cntirc prpyrus as a lragnrcnt of Alcidamas or pronouDce it.rI
1., rrr, |1q1g ol (ircck ol-rrrrkrou,u lutltorsltip" (ihid., p. ro4).
' \L r' r'r1rr'r'i.rlly ( )ritrlti:rltt ktrltttt.qtsLltirlttt iv. li4 f'.. rpt. ir ()crarlrritt' Wtrkt', VIII (Daruistrdt:
rr, lr,rlllir lrc llrr, lrrlt r, lls, lr rll. r()(,.r). 8.1 l.
I\4rrA.ll.rrll
I)tt \ittttt rrrrr ;\rrl 'r/rr'' "1,,I'tru,l,t lt,tt"t'ltr'. (,1 l( (irrrrrlo (llrlrl,slrcirtr: (;c()n:, ()lr)s
I
, L, l,r r, lrl r rr r, llr rr," r, rr,, rt
 HUGH LLOYD-JONES Nictzsche and the Study of the Andent World

.rsscrtion that tragedy was killed by an alliance between Euripides and Socrates,
by older, more established
whole German nation. The condemnation of his book
lilounded as it is on a belief in a community of opinion between these two persons,
scholarsmayhavedistressedNietzschemore.IJsener,thegreatauthorityon wlrich is wholly unacceptable, leaves the book wide open to attack. Its author
Greekreligion,pronounceditsauthor..deadfromthepointofviewofscholar- lrirrrself later became dissatisfied with it; in r886 he wrore that he should have
polite but hardly less
,frip"t rriNietzsche's own teacher, Ritschl' was more rLrrc what he had to do "as an imaginative writer."27 Yet with all its appalling
severe.23 On the other hand, Rohde in a letter
of rz January 1873 claims that
l,lcrnishes it is a work of genius, and began a new era in the understanding of
JacobBernaysrecognizedinthebookideasthathadlongbeeninhismind.2aThis, than { ircck thought.
ii;., is highly sig"nificant, for Bernays had a more penetrating intelligence Through Nietzsche's writings runs a vein of criticism of the view of the
either ljsener or Ritschl.2s ( ilcck world taken by the old classicism, much as he preferred its attitude to
oJ Tragedy has many failings'
Considered as a work of scholarship , The Birth .rrrtirluity to that of the new historicism. Behind the calm and dignity praised by
AsWilamowitzsaw,itcontainssomeannoyingmistakesinscholarship;andthe Wirrckelmann, Nietzsche saw the struggle that had been needed to achieve the
authoreven]eavesoutseveralfactswhichmighthavebeenusedtosupporthis l,,rl:rrrcc; he saw that the Greeks had not repressed, but had used for their own
Apollonian
That thesis, that tragedy originated through a synthesis of
thesis.26
to say the least unprovable; and lrur[)()ses, terrible and irrational forces. Nietzsche, and not Freud, was to invent
and Dionysian elements, i, ,,-' 'i'tt,,,"nt of fact t lrr' t oncept of sublimation, so important in his mature philosophy. Nietzsche saw
the defeciiveness of the arguments confidently asserted
to prove it is rendered
in which it is written' tlrt' :rncient gods as standing for the fearful realities ofa universe in which mankind
doubly infuriating by the Jver-confident and hectic tone Ir.r,l rro special privileges. For him what gave the tragic hero the chance to display
passions which at that
Nietzsche failed entirely to control the two intellectual lrrs lrcroism was the certainty of annihilation; and tragedy gave its audiences
p.,.aofhislifehadtakenpossessionofhim,thepassionforSchopenhauerand , rrulirrt not by purging their emotions but by bringing them face to face with
the passion for Wagner. The later passion was
not simply for'Wagner's music' but
tlrr' rrrost awful truths of human existence and by showing how those truths are
forhiscriticalwritings,sothatNietzschetookoverfromhisherothenotionthat \\'lr,rt rlrakc heroism true and life worth living. In comparison with such an
'Wagnerian op"." *", in a real sense a revival of Greek tragedy' In consequence'
rrrrrlilrt, rcsting on a deeper vision of the real nature of ancient religion and the
the-impo.trn.eassignedtomusicintheemergenceoftragedyisquiteoutof 11r(',rl gulf that separates it from religions of other kinds, the faults of Nietzsche's
music of
p.opo*ior. 'Wilamowitz rightly pointed out that the very different l',,,rk. glrring as they are, sink into insignificance.
,r.l.rrrGreecewasalwayskeptinstrictsubordinationtothewords'Later l{cinhardt2s says that Nietzsche did not discover the Dionysian element in
original fifteen sections
Nietzsche came to regret ;hat t . nra ever added to the t ,r, t k thought, for archaeologists, whose work he had neglected, knew about it
of the book the ten sections about.\X/agner with which
it concludes'
I'r l.r't'. lJc might have added that the investigation of the whole problem of the
Nietzsche,sApolloandDionysusbearanobviousresemblancetothenotions rr r.rtr,rr:rl did not begin with Nietzsche. Its origins may be seen in the now for-
when Nietzsche had
of idea and will in the philosophy of Schopenhauer.Later, !r,,,tlr'n [rut perhaps still instructive controversy stirred up by the symbolistic
of position, he
abandoned his Schoph"rr".irr. dualism in favor
a monistic
two elements rlr, rrrlcs of the Heidelberg professor Creuzer; his book on Dionysus appeared in
in which the
would have operated with Dionysus only' The manner 1r1,11 ,rrtl his Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Vlker, besonders der Criechen in
Dionysian, are described in
became interfused, and the whoie functioning of
the
I rt r{ r I r.. l\cinhardt might have inquired whether in Basel Nietzsche had become
over-heatedtonesnotcalculatedtoappealtothejudiciousreader;andthe r, rlr,unl('(l with Bachofen, whose work might well have influenced him.
rgzo-3r), II, 59. ,,,,rrlirrg to l\cinhardt, Rohde would have written his great book Psyche
23 See Charles Andler, Melzsch e: Sa vie et sa llense (Paris: Editions Bossard,
2aSeeibid.;cf.NietzschesBrieJwechselmitEtwinRohde'ed.ElisabethFrster-NietzscheandFritz turlr()nl tlrcirrflucnceofhisearlyfriend.Perhapsthatistrue;perhapsthespiritof
Schi1 (Leipzig: Insel Verlag, t9z3),p' 273'
tlr, trrrrt'rrrlrlc it incvitablc that the anthropologically minded scholars of the
25onBernays,*.n.t'to.igtiano,.JacobBernays,,,MededelingenderKoninlelijk.eNederlandse t .rrnl,r r,lgc st'hool should approach Greek antiquity in the light of Durkheim's
Aleademie uan wetenschapper, afd. Letterkunde,
Nieuwe Reeks, Deel 32, No' 5 (r969)' r7'
Lycurgus, in which
t,.r, lturl',i ,rrrd tlut thc coursc of classical studies should be transformed by the
26 It is astonishing that Nietzsche doa not mention Aeschylus' trilogy about
sccm to havc clashccl with thosc of Apollo, lcd by orphcus; set: Karl Dcich- !rr,.rl rfr()v('ulclttth;ltculnrinatcs,orsccl1rstoustoculminate,inTheCreeksand
thc dcv.tcc.s of Dionysus
q), z3 r c lor criticrl tliscussion; thc lm gmcnts arc on
gnibcr, oiir/irr,qis tlu, i)ck4rr( Nadtriclttr:n, tt (r 9r ti. r ,t'rqqiilitn
tlt, ltt,ttiotttl rl'Ii. I\. l)odds.2') llut tlrc rnan who first set this in motion was
itrt Mcrtc, )ll, l]rl'gnttttk, tlLr lLs Ai l* ylos ( l }crl irr: A krclcnric Vcrlrg,
l)P' 2 5 l. rrl. I l r trs .| rlltclt I
lirr tlrc r'lrtslt l)('lw('('rr lltc two ctrlts) rrtrd
irr lrrr rrrttorllrr ttol t1, tllc rcl)rit)l ()l tl)itt yc;tr.
t{.t (tlrc tcxt. witlt cvitlettt't
1r,)1r1). sct. irr Irrrlir rrlrrr 1i,,1"1,t,,.,,t '' rr t,, ,rlrovr'
t,,,1-,,,r.,,,7t,tlr.w,,r,,l,rlill lity,tllcrrtrlerrtrltitrp"l)totlyrttr ttvcltywltt' lt trl'tt'sctvtrl lryStrrrlrrX' 1' ''I",, l( I),'rlrlr, l/tr'Iirrk',rnrl tlrlrr,rtiotrtl (ltcrkclcy; IJrrivcrsityol (]rlilirrrrirrI)rcss,r95l).
 HUGH LLOYD-JONES
\ i, / :j.l?c and the Study oj thc Ancient World Ir

'rlr.,rr.n",
From this early date in his carcer, Nietzsche, more than any German writer
in the history of philology
and by that alone hc acquired an importance ,,1 lris timc, condemned the vulgarization and brutalization of many elements of
fact could have won him.
i", g."",., than ihat which his pori,i.r. discoveries of ( ,( r nmn life and culture which acquired such frightening momentum from the
an unprecedented insight into
tvtoi" ,igr-rifi.antly still, Niet'sci"'s writings show l,,rrrrtlution of the Empire in r87r. He was now beginning to emancipatehimself
the nature of divinity as the Greeks conceived
it' The scholars of modern times
I r , , r rr Wagner's influence; and the more he did so, the more scathingly he attacked

*hoh",.bestapprehendedthisareReinhardthinrselfandWalterF.otto. rlr, ( rucle and stupid nationalism which saw in the triumph over France con*
Anyone*irort",t'theviewofNietzsche'simportanceinthehistoryof , rrrr irrg cvidcnce of the superiority of German culture. He saw that this affected
some intercst to the criticism
s.holr.rhip which I have put forward must ac.cord , 11 n( (' rllld scholarship, just as much as it affccted trade, commerce, and tcch-
ofscholarship",,ds.hol,.swhicharescatteredthroughhiswritings,particularly rr,'l.l1y. l)ominated by the prevailing materialism, scholars had become fatally
thoseoftheearlyperiod'.Weseethesecriticismsbeginningtotakeshapeinthe
,,rntroduction to philo1ogy," which N.ictzsche deliv- rrrrl,rlious to emulate thc positive and concrete achievements of natural science.
nores for a course entitred llr, lr.rssionate devotion to antiquity that still marked German scholarship had
eredinthesummerofr8Tr.Thisremarkablcdocumentmlybc-rc:rdintlrc l,r i (,nr(' rrrechanized; and most members of the vast learned profession that had
practice which it implies
arise
Musarion edition;30 thc criticisms of contemporary 1,, r n t r-r'ltcd werc devoted to the accumulation of facts for thcir own sake. So far
sting tl-rcy carry in
out of thc subject-matter, and lack rhc almost waspish , rr ( ()rlccrns German classical scholarship, Nietzsche's criticism finds a striking
""i"r"[,
Nietzsche,s larcr writings. Above ail, Nietzsche
insists thrt the philologist mLlst
for teaching, 1,,r rll, lirr Housman'sinaugurallecturegivenatCambridgein rgrr.3aYetwhat
of philology: a bent
love l.ris subject; in listini the tlrrec rcquircments i rr, r ,/\( lrc says about his own profession is only a part of his criticism of Gcrman
desire for knowledgc'
lt"tto1ne")' and pure
"delight in antiquity" 1:Frtudc '- ,,rllrrr, irr qcneral.
Modern classical education'
fr. .frfv girr., ,p..i'itonsideration to the second' I lrr' prcfcrence accordcd to classical studics, he says in "'W'e Philologists," is
scholars; how different that is from
he ruefully remarks, is designed to produce l{r, r(, r!tnorlnce of the rest of antiquity; to false idcalization of the humanity of
comic' he says' about
the purpose of the Greeks tilemselvesl There is something ri,, { ,1q 1 1,1, who wcrc really less humane than Indians or Chincse; to the arrogance
The most important thing' and the
the relation of scholars to the great poets'31 ,t ,lr,,.lrrrrstcrs; to the tradition of admiration of thc Grccks inherited from
and to feel the diffcrence ' F{e warns
hardest, is ro enter into the life of anliquity lJ, ,,r( rr, prcjudicc for, or against, Christianity; to the belief that wherc mcn
!,, , ,. l,rng clug therc must be gold; to aptitude and knowledge dcrivcd from
"g"ir*orr.rrpecialization,andinsiststirattheacquisitionofknowledgeisameans
andnotanend;indcfianceofthespiritofhistime,hcpleadsforconcentrationon
he insists 1lirl,,l,,1iit;rl studics. In sum, it derivcs from ignorance, false prejudice, wrong
the real classics, which have pt'-"""" value' In a magnificent passage ,',t, r, rrr ( s, :u)cl professional interest; he speaks also of cscapism, "Flucht aus der
'of the Grecks; they arc "traiv"'hc says' and this word
upon the csscntial simplicity '{ ,rl lrr lrl.cit." The grounds for this preferencc have one by one been removed,
connotes both simplicity and depth' ,,,,1 ,,rr, ,l,ry pcople will notice this. Many philologists, he thought, had driftcd
institutions of r 872,32 Nietzsche
In the essay on the future odc"r-rn.oitural ,,,r,, rlrr lrrofcssion without being really suited to it. Such people wcre un{it to
attacksphilologists"'"t"i"gunabletoteach^theirpupilsartandculture'lnthe
very similar arguments are ', ,, lr ,,rlrr'r's, lrccause thcy had no real conception of the object of their study; if
of , s7a oi th. o'"' " di"d""tages of history' ,1, , ,,rrl,l gnrsp thc real nature of antiquity, they would turn from it in horror.
"rrry
directcdagainsthistorians.ThefourUntimelyMeditations,.Publishedbetwecn I l, ,, , rr.,i,t st'lrolrrs of lack of respect for antiquity, excess of respect for one
1873 and 1876, were otigirr"lty to have
nlmbered eight' Thc frfth was to have ,,,, ,r lr, r lr.rvirrg 'idc:rs above their station, sentimentality, and loose rhetoric.
bcen entitled "w. philogi'i'"; number of the notes collected for it have ,1,.r, rl ,ultrrrc, lrcsrid,wasforthefew;there oughttobespecialpolicctostop
'
appeared in the Col1i-Montinari edition'33 r ,,t,1, Ir,,rrrlrcirrsbudscholars,asthcrcoughttobcaspecialpolicetostoppeople
r, ,,' 1,lr1rrrr'. Ilt'cthovcn brclly. Hc thought pcople would get more out of the
"Bald hcads, forgctful of their .,1,1, r rl tlrcv lrcsrrr thc study latc in lifc. Hc quotes with approval Wolls
'
, ,,,,rI rlr.rt lrtoplt' wlro lrrc n()t sch()lirrs nrly understand the ancients better, if
,1, lrrrr ,r rr'.rl .rllirrity witlr tlrt'rrr, thlrr pcoplc who :rre. The most notable
, rt ir,,rrrlrl,r\\rlr',rl)()rr tlr,,l.rr.rrs. lrut rvlrol;r,ktlrc;rbilityoltlrcintlttstrytocqrtipthcmsclvc:
! ., ,,rrrl,r t, rrl l\
l', l,l, lr,,l rrrr,l, r tlr, ,rl',rrr,l trtl, I lrr'( orrltrrlr ()l (lrtrrtsrt" l,v llrr'().rrrrbrirlgc Urtivcrsity
 HUGH LLOYD-JONES. \ri'l--.{.re and the Study of the Anctent Worlil r3
I2

but Goethe, ,nrliqrlity with honesty and truth. The self-conscious attitude recommended by
products of our study of the ancient world, he said, are not scholars,
f ,rt'gcr has fortunately not caught on.
But to do in our time what Snell demands is
w"grr.. and Schopenhauer; later in his life, he might have said Goethe, Leopardi
rr( )t crrsy. (Jnless the noble conception of the unified study of the ancient world as
and himself.
.what see that Nietz- ,r wlrole is to be abandoned, a large labor force is needed; and in the nature of
comment can be made on these criticisms? It is easy to
it gave no scope for his tlrrrrgs most of these laborers must be mere technicians. Can we do without them?
sche became dissatisfied with philology partly because
out to be not a Nietzsche was prepared to sacrifice the concept of antiquity as a whole, and
philosophic and prophetic mission. The Birth of Tragedy turned
I r r ( ( )r)ccntrte attention on the really creative period of Greek thought. Wilamo-
construction; and Nietzsche was right
-o.t or scholarship, but an imaginative
'wilamowitz and gave up his profession. But rlrtz usked, "'What can we do for philology?"; Nietzsche preferred to ask, "'W'hat
when he finally took the advice of
, ,rrr philology do for us?" To the classicists, with whom Nietzsche's standpoint
to say that hardly disposes of Nietzsche's criticisms. It must be recognized that
held that' Ir,rr so rnuch in common, the ancients had supplied a pattern, an ideal standard of
many other p.rro.rr, by ,to *""r,, prejudiced against the subject' have
philology was passing , r, cllcnce; for the historicists with their relativistic outlook no such thing could
at the time when Nietzsche began his professorial career,
had become exhausted , rrrr. Flven those who do not accept the notion of an ideal pattern may feel that
through a difcult period, when one wave of inspiration
wr' nrust get from antiquity what we can; and in modern conditions, which have
and the next had not yet gathered strength'
11,t,rhly reduced our labor force, that is what we are being forced to do. Even in
Intheevent,philologymadearemarkablerecovery,thankstothegreat
rrrrrlt nr conditions, and in our new awareness of the dangers of historicism, we
generation of Nietzsche's contemporaries' With the example of Mommsen
to
of comprehensive learning. men r,rrrlr()t rcnounce the idea of Ahertumswissenschaft as a unity; if only as an ideal
[uide them, and by an immense tour-de-force above r,,rr()n, it must still be kept in mind. But scholarship involves a subject as well as
k. gdr".d Meyer, Hermann Diels, Eduard Schwartz, Friedrich Leo, and
specialized compartments of rrr olrjt'ct; and if our studies are to enhance the value of life, we must ask the
all Wilamowitz broke down the barriers between
that Odysseus in the ,lu,'\rt()ns which will yield the most interesting results. Often the people who ask
the subject.'Wilamowitz in a lecture atbxford35 once said as
tlr,,rr'tlrrcstions are those who, like Nietzsche, are not restricted by narrowly
underworld had to give the ghosts blood before they could speak to him, so
the
philologist had to give the spirits blood-his own-before they would reveal l,r,l,'\\r()r)rl limits. Such people have to guard against reading back inco the
.rri, r('ilt world the things they want to find in it. AII generations have to some
ih.i. ,.Jr.,r. By the astonishing vitality of his teaching and writing, and with the r \ri rt (l()r)c that, as, when we look into the past of scholarship, hindsight easily
aid of his colleagues, Wilamowitz was able for a time to put off the crisis
of
indicated by Nietzsche were 1, r,',rls. At least we can be quick to suppress movements which are still looking
philology. But throughout his lifetime the dangers
Ir,r rr'lr,rt our predecessors wanted to discover, and instead look for those things
drawing nearer.
'w'erner the now evident lr llr( l);rst-real things to the best of our ability-which our own position in
nurirrg the rgzos Jaeger tried to institutionalize
need for a "third humanism" in Irr.t,,ry rrr:rkcsitpossibleanddesirableforustofind.Thatcanbcdone,ifitcanbe
reaction aginst historicism by proclaiming the
in ancient culture of the past. Philology rlrrrrr ,rl ,rll, by him who is willing to enter in imagination completely into the life
the wake of the two revivals of interest
learning imposed on it by the ,,1 tlr, p;rst, while carrying back with him as little as possible of the mental
was not to renounce the burden of comprehensive
it, without degenerating into mere belles-lettres? lrrrrutrrrt'of the present. In the past, we can find working models of culture and
nineteenth century; how could
r\ rlr/,rtr()n that may be of value to us when we make our own experiments. The
But it was to publish its omcial divorce from history; and while it went
about its r

itself that it was all the time reflecting on its m I r r \'.rlu(' of historical scholarship is that it can furnish such models to those who
business, it w;s to keep reminding
intellectual history of the Greeks from the stand- , ur lr.rL(' profitrble use of them. Nietzsche himself was such a one. Ernst How-
purpose. So Jaegcr rewrote the
rl,l'rlilrtlysilysthatNietzscheowednothingtophilology,butmuchtoantiqui-
poirt of .,rltrrio.rceived as education, and produced one ofthe most respected,
l\ rrr,l lr :r ti'w pagcs rtf The Twilight oJthe ldols, written in r888, the last year of
and one ofthe dullest, learned books ofour century'
of ll. rrtrlrtv,rBNictzschcspcaksofhisdebttotheancientsinatoneofopen-minded
Bruno Snell in a famous review ofJaeger36 truly said that the business
rL r r r lrr r rt'rrt. I lc ucknowlcdgcs a debt to Sallust, who he says awoke his feeling for
philologyisnottoproclaimnewhumanisms,buttoinvestigateandpresent
ApLtllo: 7'un I't'ttrtrts ' I rrrrt llowrrlrl, Ni'l-'siht nnl dir ('/rrs.slsrirc l)hilologit (Gotha: F. A. Perthes, lgzo), p. r. Brief m
3sUlrich von wihmowitz-Mllcndorl{, crk Histotital writin,q, and irr Il,rr.rl,l'rlr.rtrrlci\n((cssrrryrt'rrtlirrgfirrrryoncscriouslyintcrcstcdinthcsubject.Itwelldeserves
(iilbcrt Mtrrrry (()xfrrrtl: (llrrcnclort
DtliurLtl htlitrt tht I)nivusiry ttl ()xlitrd,-lrrtt,.1 and 4, tgott, trrrts. r 1,, r,l,ilrt(,(l Sr.r..rlso(lrr. lil(.rirtrrre rlrrotcrl byMrrrtclkr(iigrrrtcirtthccottrscofhiscxcellentremarks
lrrt.ss, rr)oll), P. :5, ,1.,',,r Ilr, llrlrl irr l.,t1t11111,1 ,h1 y,ttttto, rsn(r()74),rslt.
ri (;ii//,,,,(irr(' ()rlthtr' ,4tr:ri.qr'l1. 1r17 (r'rn), 1'r,r l , tltt irt ()ttttnurltt Sr/rrrltor ((iiittirrgerr:
"'Wl((;, Vl t. t.tt't L
V.tttrlcrtltrx'r k & l{ trlrr r'r lrl. I r)''r, ltI l I I
t
HUGH I-LOYD..IONES Nrr'/--srlre and the Study of the Antient World I5
I4

style and for the epigram stylistic medium' and to Horace; the sketch for this
as a Itis not hard to see tht in the formation of philosophy designed ro meer the
says' he owes no
.il;;;"; i, th. ,roi.ooks adds Petronius'3e To the Greeks' he rrt t tls of his own time Nietzsche made use of the work of many modern thinkers.
llrt' influence upon him of classical antiquity receives less attention in most
suchdefiniteimpressions;herepeatswhathehaswrittenearlier'thattheGreeks
'we may well
of his day believed' , un('nt manuals; even the exhaustive study of Charles Andler,al who pain-
are more remote r.oln ,r, than the scholars
'.r,rk rrrgly lists every conceivable influence upon Nietzsche's thought, hardly does
wonderwhetherhewasaltogethertruetohisearlierselfatthispoint;butonecan
understand his wish to avoiJ the all too
easy self-identification with the Greeks rr lrrll .justice. It would, I think, have been better apprehended if it had been
, ,r'rly rcsolvable into the influences of individual philosophers. Thus the love-hate
ofsomanyofhiscontemporaries.HisskepticismaboutPlatoextendstostyleas
r,l,rtiorrslrip with Socrates which Nietzsche often mentions has received much
wellasmatter;Plato,likeatruedecadent'wroteintoomanydifferentstyles'a
refrned judges of
"the most .rtt('n(i()n; yet this is not positive but negative. The truth is that in building his
judgment in which he fortifies himself by quoting
referring to Dionysius of Halicarnassus' His I'lrrl,,soplry Nietzsche used not so much the doctrines of any individual ancient
taste of antiquity"-an odd way of
tlrrrrkr'rs, lrot even that of Heraclitus, whosc thought sccms to provide several
relieffromPlatohas,lwaysbe.nThucydides;Thucydides,andalsoMachiavelli,s
'.trrkrrrg parallels, as the religious and ethical attitude held generally in Greece
Prince,havealwaysb".'-"lo"tohimbecauseoftheirunconditionedwilltotake
Thucydides' who for Nietzsche ,l, Iwr) t() the fifth century, and expressed, with variations, by many Greek poets,
nothing for granted and to see reason in reality'
Irr',tor i:rns and thinkers. The influence of Greek ethics upon Nietzsche's ethics is,
incarnatesallthosesophistswhomhemuchpreferredtoSocratesandPlato'is
summation, the last revelation of ih't strong'
strict' hard factuality ,,r Equally undoubted, in my view, is the influence of the
the great 'lrorrlci be, obvious.
, ly ( ircck world outlook upon his philosophy. The Greek universe was god-
whichlayintheinstinctoftheearlyGreeks.Plato,hesays,isacowardinthefacc 'r
, , r rl r o llccl, but not anthropocentric; the gods granted men occasional favors, but
,

of realitY.ao
rejects all attempts to rrrtlrlt'ssly hcld them down in their position of inferiority; it was in the face of this
Next, with the German classicists in mind, Nietzsche
see
golden means or other types of perfection' Their
in the Greeks beautiful souls,
rlrrt lrt'rocs showed their heroism. Nietzsche's theory of tragedy contains the
r ',r n( ( of-l.ris whole metaphysic; so that the Greek influcnce on this can hardly be
Strongestimpulsewasthewilltopower,andalltheirinstitutionsarosefrom
safety regulations, to protect themselves
from the potentially explosive matter 'lr',1,rrlttl. Arr important difference is that the Greeks, unlike Nietzsche, bclievcd
iyirg Af"r.""nd th.m. The inner rension in a Greek srate bursr out in ruthless rlr rt 1,,1115 controlled the universe. But, as modern expcriencc has shown, a meta-
and so was realism' 1,1r1'.r, likc that of Nietzsche is not necessarily atheistic.a2
external enmities; strength was a necessity'
with pride, has been the first to see the signifi-
He himself, Nietzshe claims
\rr rr. u-j above.
canceofDionysus;tsurckhardtsawatoncetheimportanceofhisdiscovery.Hc ' I )r l'ctcr Walker, Bishop of Dorchester, draws my attention to thc influcnce of Nietzsche upon
poursContemptonthematter-of-fact,rationalisticexplanationofDionysiac l,r'rrr, lr llrrrrhocffcr,whoevenfindsinNietzsche's bermLnsch "manyof thctraitsof thcChristian
Christian Augu.st Lobeck'
mysteries given by Creuzer's learned antagonist' ,,,, l, lr, r. .rs l)rul and Luther described him." Andr['Dtma1 Dietrich BonhoelJer, Theologian of Reality,
mysteries; therefore Goethe did not
Goethe would not have understood the ,. .,, lt ,rlrr.rt McAfee Brown (New York: Macmillan, r97r), p. 285.

understandtheGreeks.Theysignifiedeternallife,theeternalteturnoflife,a
true life as the continuancc
iri.r.rrpfr"rr, Yes to life beyond death and change;
throughgeneration,tt.o"ghthemysteriesofsexuality'Thekeytotheconcept
given him' he claims' by the
of tragic feeling, *i,,"dt'itood by Aristotle' was
psychology of orgiasm' Tragedy-and here
he is correcting his own early
of a Schopenhauer; it is abovc rrll
treatment_is far removed rr tir" pessimism
free us from terror and pity nor trr
an aflirmation of life. Its purpose is not to
fcelings' but by means of thenr trr
frrg. o, by allowing o' io i"h".gtdelight
11]":"
of bcing' that delight which incttr-
a1low us to participa in the cternal
porates also the dclight of rnnil'rilation'

r') Wl((;, Vlll-1..1 1r,.

I lr( 1il\l lllll)()tl,lllt
(r l)( r'll lll
ll tttttsl ll,l\'(
Lrrltrt, ,rl rlll\i \\ t, tlr'rl "l l'lrt" llt' lrt t, 'l /'tt 1' tt'r

XV
* Electra ends on a note of triumph. Evenin Ajax the hero's suicide occurs at line 8o5,
Nietzsche and the Death of Tragedy: A Critique
\VALTER KAUFMANN
I
,,the death of tragedy" goes back to Nietzsche. He did not only
The idea of
proclaim, frcst in The Cay Science and then in Zarathustra, that "God is dead": in
his first book, Tlre Birth oJ Tragedy, we read:
Greek tragedy met an end different from her older sister-arts: she died by
suicide,in consequence of an irreconcilable conflict; she died tragically. . .. when
Greek tragedy died, there rose everywhere the deep sense of an immense void.Just
as Greek sailors in the time of Tiberius, passing a lonely island, once heard the
,,Great Pan is dead," so the Hellenic world was now pierccd by thc
shattering cry,
.,tragedy is dead! Poetry itself has perished with herl . . ." (sec. rI)
grievous lament:
In the first half of the twentieth century, it was Nietzsche's discussion of the
birth of tragedy, and of what he called the Apollinian and the Dionysian, that
established the fame of his first book. The so-called Cambridge school in England
developed his ideas on this subject, and a host ofscholars accepted them by way of
Jane Harrison's and Gilbert Murray's
books. But Gerald Else has contested thcir
theories and argued for a different hypothesis.l
Since world war II, Nietzsche's discussion of the death of tragedy hal
become more influential, and his ideas have become almost a commonplacc, It
will be one of the central points of the present chapter to show that these popullf
ideas are untenable, regarding the death of both Greek tragedy and tragcdy in
our time.
one of the systematic flaws of the popular argument is that one typc (tf
*Except for the last paragrph (p. 254), which was added for the prcscnt volumc, thc prcscnt cheptd!
consistsofpassagesexcerptedfromWalterKaufmann, TragedyandPhittsophy (NcwYork: Doublcdayt
Compmy, 1968), sections 34, 37, 38,40, 48 nd 5o, rcprintcd by pcrnrission of thc publisher' All
translations from the German and thc Grcck arc by thc author, cxccpting scvcral irrstrttccs fronr Hontcr'l
Ilial where the translation is by E. V. Ricu. ln such casu, thc rcfcrcttcc givcrr lirst is tltc prgt'tttrnrbcr front
his Pcnguin translation (Hrrntonclsworth' Mitltllcscx' tt)so)' thcll thc lrrxrk attd v<'rsc tttttttbcrs of'thc
origitral (ircck vcrsion.
| ( ie raltl I;, Iilsc, 'l',r ( hi.gh tnl lttrn
fl l irly ( irtk 'l'ntltrly (( irrrtlrrrrlgc, M rrr, I I lrrvard [ )ll lvcillty
I)rc$i. t()61).
r l,l
Nietzsche and the Death oJ Tragedy: A Critique 235
tragedy is treated as if it were the only one; when writers speak of the death of
tragedy they usually mean that no tragedies llke Oedipus Tyrannus were written
after the fifth century 8.C., or are being written in the twentieth century. But
Sophocles himself, once he had written Oedipus Tyrannus, wrote no more trage-
dies like it: neither Philoctetes flor Oedipus at Colonus ends in catastrophe, and
and most of the remainirg iii lines are concerned with the question of whether
he is to receive a hero's burial or not, nd in the end he does. In other words, of
Sophocles'extant tragedies, only three end tragically.
My argument might be countered as follows. Although Sophocles was older
than Euripides, both died in 4o6-Euripides a few months before Sophocles. If
Euripides was responsible for the death of tragedy, or if he at least embodied the
spirit of a new age in which tragedy was no longer possible-and this is Nietz-
sche's thesis-it stands to reason that Sophocles, particularly in his old age, during
the last twenty years of his career, was infected, too.
Nevertheless, the admission that Euripides' tragedies were not really trage-
dies and that Sophocles, too, wrote only three bona Iide tragedies would reduce
the whole notion of the death of tragedy, either around 4o6 B.C. or in our time, to
the absurd-unless we could introduce Aeschylus at this point, saying that /re was
the creator of tragedy and that we must turn to his plays ifwe want to know what
real tragedies look like. This is what Nietzsche clearly implies, and if this point
could be sustained his argument would not be absurd. For in that case we could
say that Aeschylus' seven extant tragedies are the paradigm cases ofthe genre to
which Sophocles contributed three great masterpieces before he, like Euripides,
succumbed to the essentially untragic outlook of the dawning fourth century.
The facts of the matter are, however, quite different. Perhaps in large part
because so much philology is microscopic and pedestrian, those who aspire to deal
wirh our subject philosophically go to the opposite extreme and take it for granted
that it would be sub-philosophical to dwell on particular Greek tragedies. As a
result, the philosophical dimension of Aeschylus and Sophocles remains unex-
plored-in The Birth of Tragedy no less than in the Poetics. Hence it never struck
Nietzsche, or those who have refurbished his thesis in our time, that the very
attitudes they associate with the death of tragedy are found preeminently in
Aeschylus.
Nietzsche's account of the death of Greek tragedy is diffuse, flamboyant, and
shot through with interesting ideas. Instead of offering a detailed summary and
lcngthy polemics, let us stress three central themes. Nietzsche repeatedly calls the
ncw spirit of which tragedy died "optimism"-and this he professes to find not
orrly in Socrates but also in Euripides, along with a delight in dialectic and an
cxccssivc faitlr irr knowlcdgc. Thc passage in which he attributes "the death of
tltgcdy" tr optitttisttt :tncl rrttiotralisnr will bc quotcd and discussed below; for the
1t()11(,1t, it will srrtljcc to lirrk thesc two lnoti with rr third thlt hclps to clarify

WALTER (AUFMANN
46
the other two: the faith that catastrophes can and ought to be avoided.
would only use their reason properly-this is the optimistic notion of which
tragedy is thought to have perished-there would be no need for tragedies-2
I will argue that this was the faith of Aeschylus. Euripides, far from bcing an
optimist, was indeed, as Aristotle put it, albeit for different reasons, "the most
tragic of the poets." Aeschylus was, compared with Sophocles and Euripides, the
most optimistic: he alone had the sublime confidence that by rightly employing
their reason men could avoid catastrophes. His world view was, by modem
standards, anti-tragic; and yet he created tragedy.
On this perverse fact most discussions of this subject suffer shipwreck. How
can we resolve the paradox? We should cease supposing that great tragedies must
issue from a tragic vision that entails some deep despair or notions of inevitablc
failure and, instead, read Aeschylus with care.
One point may be anticipated: tragedy is generally more optimistic than
comedy. It is profound despair that leads most of the generation born during and
after World War II to feel that tragedy is dated; they prefer comedy, whethcr
black or not. Tragedy is inspired by a faith that can weather the plague, whethcr
in Sophoclean Athens or in Elizabethan London, but not Auschwitz. It is con.r-
parible with the great victories of Marathon and Salamis that marked thc
threshold of the Aeschylean age, and with the triumph over the Armada thrt
inaugurated Shakespeare's era. It is not concordant with Dresden, Hiroshima, antl
Nagasaki. Tragedy depends on sympathy, ruth, and involvement- It has littlc
appeal for a generation that, like Ivan Karamazov, would gladly return tfic
ticket to God, if there were a god. Neither in Athens nor in our time has tragcdy
perished of optimism: its sickness unto death was and is despair.
II
Gilbert Murray said of Aeschylus: "He raised evcrything he touchccl to
grandeur. The characters in his hands became heroic; the conflicts became tcttst'
'War I it became fashionablc ttr
and fraught with etemal issues."3 After World
contrast our own paltry and unpoetic time with the greit ages of the past, l:r-
menting that the modern writer lacked that store of mytl.r on which an Acschyltts
and Sophocles could draw.
The Greeks did havc many myths, but if Acschyltts rtrcl Soplroclcs ltltl ttol
brought offthis feat, nobody could havc saicl thrt tltcsc tttytlrs firrrrislrcd gootl
2'Ilrt'lrstruotif islrorr. lrrornirrerrl irr tlre rrvcttticllt ((rltllt! llr'rir ll \\,r\llr Nr,tut, lr, rll,,rr1'll lr,
ili,l rtssorirttt lrirlle(ly willr tlt, irr, rrr,rl,l,
.
r6illrr.rr Mrrrr,rv..l,.',/r1,/ri'. llr(.tt,ttttt ,'l 'lt't.t'r',11, (rr1 1r,,r1rr ()rlorrl ( ltt,tr,l,,tt lrrr",,. rr)(, '),
l) .r()\
,tr
Nietzsche and the Death of Tragedy: A Critique
If men material for great trage dies or for seriolts litcrature of any kind. In his own genre,
F{omcr could nor be surpassed; hence it was pointless to retell what he had told.
There were stories on which he had barely touched, like that of Oedipus; and one
might well have thought that this tale would lend itself to tretment as a horror
story or a comedy-certainly not to tragedy. Yet by the time Sophocles com-
posed his masterpiece, he even had the added disadvantage that one ofthe greatest
poets of all time-none other than Aeschylus-had preceded him in writing a
tragedy on Oedipus, which was first performed the year after Sophocles had first
defeated him in the annual contest, barely more than forty years before. More-
over, Sophocles wrote Oedipus Tyrannus in a city at war, its population decimated
by the plague, its policies adrift in the contention among demagogues, its spiritual
climate saturated with both superstition and enlightenment, its many moods
including both an optimistic faith in reason and deep disillusionment. Had he not
succeeded in becoming a great poet, he could easily have said that "the damage of
a lifetime, and of having been born in an unsettled society, cannot be repaired at
the moment of composition."a
It may be objected that Sophocles was bom long before the devastations of
the Peloponncsian'War. But when he was a child the Persians invaded and pillaged
Greece before they were stopped at Marathon, about twenty milcs from Athens;
and ten years later they sacked Athens before they were beaten at Salamis-and
the following year, they sacked Athens again, before their defeat at Plataea. After
that, to be sure, Athens was rebuilt along with thc temples on the Acropolis whose
ruins we still admire, and she enjoyed unexampled prosperity-and precisely the
well-being and smugness that are often considered the worst climate for artistic
achievements and above all for tragedy. Yet it was in those ycars that Aeschylus
created his extant tragedies and Sophocles, too, his early works, including
Antigone.
Great art comes into being in spite of the age to which it is linked by its
wcaknesscs. And Aeschylus triumphed not on account of the myths he could use
but in spite of them.
Gilbcrt Murray shown in detail "what raw matcrial Aeschylus found to
has
work" onhis Prometheus.s First, there was a local cult in
lris l-rand when he set to
Athens "of a pctty daemon called Promctheus, who was a trade patron of the
potcrs and tl'rc smiths"; and what was related about him was "just the sort ofthing
lor a cunning firc-dwarf to do; and so, of coursc. Zeus punished him." But there
was also anothcr poct who had dealt with this material somc time ago: the great
Ilcsiod. Murrrry cites thc rclevant passages from Hesiod befote asking: "Now
wlut clocs Acsc:hylus nrakc of tl'ris very triviai and unimprcssive story? He drops
tlrc rrrrdisrriflcrl cyulrrcl rrbout tl'rc clividing of tlre burnt sacrificc. He drops the
ll \ llr,,r,.llttt.\tt,tttr'r(i,',lt.ll'tirttrtnll\lltnt /,1'rlty(l.orilon:l:.tlrr'rrttxlFrtbcr,r93,1),p.:(r.
Mtrtt rl,1,1' t't 't,
 .WALTER
KAUFMANN
238
rustic wit about Pandora."6 And he answen his own question in part by finding
in the tragedy "the will to endure pitted against the will to crush'"7
'What we have found in Homer about the slaying of Agamemnon and
Orestes' revenge is certainly far from being trivial and unimpressive. Neither,
'What makes it impressive is morc
however, is it fraught with eternal issues.
Homer's poetry than the plot. But that might have served as a warning against
picking this theme: why choose an essentially unpromising tale that a previous
poet whom everyone knows has already told and varied several times?
Aeschylus changed the story, feeling quite free to create his own myth.
Without contradicting Homer he added what Homer had not said: that Orestcs
killed his own mother. He moved the mother into the center in the first play 11f
his trilogy in which he dealt with the murder of Agamemnon. In the second phy
he let Orestes kill both-.Clytemnestra and Aegisthus at the express command ot'
Apollo, but let the Furies pursue the matricide. And in the third play he presentctl
the rival claims of Apollo and the Furies, showed them unable to come to terms,
and brought them to Athens where Athene finally founded a new court and cast
the decisive vote for Orestes' acquittal. Most of this has no basis whatevcr itt
Homer, and the plot of the last play may be almost entirely Aeschylus', owrr
invention.
ln Aeschylus does what many critics of modern playwriglrts
Agamemnor.r
consider a sign of bankruptcy and a warrant of second-rate literature: he takcs:r
story already told by a vcry great poet and makcs some changes in it' These will
be considered in a moment. ln The Libation Bearers he takes a terrible deed, matri-
cide, not menrioned by Homer, and makes it the clrx of the play. onc crttt
imagine a critic exclaiming, "First a pastiche and then outright decadence!" Irr
The Eumenides, finally, we encounter in absolutely climactic form that rationalisrrr
and optimism of which tragedy is said to have died-and find them at the ctrl-
mination of the greatest work of the so-called creator of tragedy'
A court is founded in Athens not only to adjudicate the case of Orestes, wlrrr
is acquitted, but also to sit on all capital cases henceforth so that future tragcdit1
like that of The Libation Bearers may be prevented; and the action closes witlt
hymns of jubilation. In heroic times Orestes' vengeance was justified, but irr
civilized Athens a man in such a dilemma needs only to comc to the Arcoplgtrs,
and all will be taken care of without catastrophc. Men havc only to lcrtrtt trr
employ their reason properly, and their most terriblc morxl problcms cltt hc
solved. In this respect, as in others, Athcns has led thc way, rnd thc joyorts chorttst's
in the end celebratc the great triumph of rcasot-t ancl, pltriotit':rlly, Atlrcrrs.
One can imaginc thc outcry of intcllcctuuls itt our till)(' tlt rttty 1'rtlt't's t'ott
cluclilg a trugcdy with suclt l show of p:ttriotisrtt, glorilyirrg ltis owtt sotit'ly
" Ilrr.l l) -r()
/ ll,r,l
I' I I
S,
J
&r
Nietzsche and the Death oJ Tragedy: A Critique 239
instead of exposing its dry rot-of which there was plenty in Athens, along with
so much conceit and self-satisfaction that most citizens of the other Greek cities
hated her. And Aeschylus sang her praises because he thought that she had an
institution by means of which tragic dilemmas could be avoidedl
A modem writer has said, voicing the common sense of his generation in his
uncommonly vigorous prose: "Any realistic notion of tragic drama must start
from the fact of catastrophe. Tragedies end badly. The tragic personage is broken
by forces which can neither be fully understood nor overcome by rational
prudence. This again is crucial. Where the causes of disaster are temporal, where
the conflict can be resolved by technical or social means, we may have serious
drama, but not tragedy. More pliant divorce laws could not alter the fate of
Agamemnon; social psychiatry is no answer to Oedipus. But saner economic
relations or better plumbing cdn resolye some of the grave crises in the dramas of
Ibsen. The distinction should be borne sharply in mind. Tragedy is irreparable."s
A page earlier we are told that, while "in the Eumenides and it Oedipus at
Colonus, the tragic action closes on a note ofgrace," "both cases are exceptional."
'We have alrcady sr:en that thc conclusion of Oedipus at Colonus was not excep-
tional for Sophocles; none of his later tragedies ends "badly." W.e have also seen
in the first section of the present chapter that the whole theory of thc death of
tragedy depends on Aeschylus.
It is not enough to say of The Eumenider that it "closes on a note of grace." It
exemplifies the vcry view held to be incompatible with tragedy, namely that the
conflict can be resolvcd by reason, by social means, by sound institutions like
those at Athens.
A play like The Eumenides, if written in our time, would not be called a
tragedy. Nor did Aeschylus write many, if any, tragedies in the modern sense of
that word. Like most of his plays, six of his seven extant tragcdies were parts of
connected trilogies, and not only the Oresteia voiced the very temper of which
tragedy is supposed to hve died a few decades later, but the trilogies of which
The Suppliants and Prometheus were the first plays gave expression to the very
same experience of life. Scholars agree that both of these trilogies ended happily,
not in catastrophe.
Oniy in Seven Against Thebes is catastrophe final, but Aeschylus goes out of
his way to tell us that al1 of it, including Oedipus' tragic fate, could have been
avoided but for Laius' "folly" 0+S tr.); he had been told by the oracle to save his
city by not }rrving children. This version of the oracle seems to have been original
with Acschylus,e and its introduction (or repetition) at this point in the final play
x (irrst' Stcincr. '/'/rr l)tath ol Tragcdy (Ncw York: Knopl, r96r), p. 8. Similar statements by
Niltzsr lte (rrrrrrJr lrrit li r) rrrrtl Mrrx Sclrc)cr (rrruclr lcss clotlucnt) arc citcd in sccs. 5{l and 59 of Trageily
l)ltilttoltlty.
'trrl
" lI W l'|,rrl,r ,rr,l l) li W W,,rrrrr.ll, /7a, l)r'lylti ()r,trk (()xfirrrl: l]hckwcll, t\)s6),1, zqq.
Ntrtlrlr \r,1'1r,,,l,r rr,,r l rrrrl,r,l,, tlt.rtrr',1 Alr,lrvlrtr't,ttsl,rt
 WALTER KAUFMANN Nietzsche and the Death oJ Tragedy: A Critique 24r
24O

almost anyone else; but what must be learned, not only by men but also by titans
of thc trilogy great deal about Aeschylus' outlook'
tel1s us a
go beyond the play that hls and Furies and gods-Apollo in The Eumenides and Zeus in The Llnbinding oJ
In thc case of The Sttpplian'ts,too, we need not Prometheus-is the willingness to reason with one's opponents and to come to
survivcd to find that
..as
'Th, E *rnldes, reason and pcrsuasion are put forwarcl
terms. It is violencc that makes for catastrophes that prudence could prevent;
astheproperprinciplesofcivilizcdlifc'"loInfact'theparallelisstrikingantl and in democrtic institutions such prudence is embodied.
extendstothecrucialpoint:nosoonerhasthepoetStressedthetragicdilemmaofthus Plainly, Aeschylus himself embodied the very spirit of which tragedy is said
to the suppliant maidens'
ifr" U"g of Argos who must either deny asylum to have died first in thc ancient world and later, after its rebirth in Shakespeare's
plunge his city into war with tl'rc
outraging Zeus, the patron of suppliants' or timc, again in modern times. And yet Gilbert Murray voiced a view shared by
Egyptians who pursue them, than he cuts the
knot by having the king announcc
scholars and critics generally when he subtitled his book on Aeschulus: "The
thatheknowsanhonorablesolution.Beirrgakingoffreemenwithfineinstittr-botlr Creator ofTragedy."
them' take counsel' weigh
tions, hc needs only to bring this matter before It might seem .rs if no more than Aeschylus' reputation were at stake.
sides,ancltakcavote.onceth.citizenshavevotedtoprotectthesuppliants,thc
..thc Suppose wc simply said that most of his plays were not tragedies; that The
speech but one,
issue is clear' And when the Egyptian herald says in his last Persians and Seuen represent two early forerunners of tragedy, while the works of
judgeisArcs,"thegoodkingremindshimthat'ifthemaidenswerewillingor his maturity that we know-Suppliants, Oresteia, arrd Promeleus-represent an
.oia U" persuaded, he *o'lJltt them go with the Egyptians' but the unanimotrs 'Who,
altogether anti-tragic spirit. in that case, did write tragedies? 'W'e have
votedecreedthattheymustnotbe'utte',dertdtoforce'Andwhathasthusbccrr aiready seen that Sophocles' last three plays were not tragedies in the narrow,
resolved by vote is the law and the voice
of freedom'
to the founding of modern sense either, and that only his Antigone, Women of Trachis and Oedipus
lnthc Oresteia we gradually move from the Homeric
age
pro- Tyrannus end in complete catastrophe. And according to Nietzsche, tragedy died
the spirit of Athens is boldly
rhe supreme court of Aiher,,r. Ir-, 71, suppliants under Euripides' violent hands.13 Clearly, Nietzsche's reputation, too, is at stake;
fought at Marathon'
jected into the heroic past by ' po"t *ho tlearly felt' having for from what we have found it appears that he was utterly wrong both about
force this was not morally prob-
that if a free people resolved to resist aggressivc Aeschylus and about the alleged death of tragedy. And yet more is at stake. It has
lematic.InthePrometheustrilogythesamecthosisprojectedonacosmicscalt.: been said that it was "not between Euripides and Shakespeare that the'Western
we cannot help sympathizirrg
in the surviving first play, the tii"'"' *ith whom mind turns away from the ancient tragic sense oflife. It is after the late seventeenth
any doubt aboutthis he is crucifictl
delics naked force and thieats; and to removc century."l'1
'What becomes of the ancient-or any "tragic sense of lifc?" If the
of the last hundred and fifty
rrf,*o demons, Might ancl Force. Thc crescendo
Grcek tragic poets lacked it no less than Ibsen and the moderns, was it merely an
linesinwhichPrometheushurlshisdefianceofZeusintotlrefaceofHermes,tlrt' Elizabcthan phenomenon? And if some few of the so-called tragedies of the
-.,,..*".ofthegods,isindescribable.ButwhenZeusthereuponcastshimirltrl
two more plays follow: '/Jrr' Greeks rcally were tragedies in the more exacting sense of that word, can poets
Tartarus that is the .r-rd o,.lly of the beginning; without a tragic sense of life write great tragedies, if only occasionally? In that
Llnbintling oiPrometheus and Prometheus the
Fite-Bearer- on the basis of survivirrg
case, is there any close connection between the tragic sense oflife and tragedy, and
fragmentsandmanyreferencesinancientliterature,atleasttheoutlincsoftllc arc there any good rcasons for saying that tragedy is dead?
plotcanbemadeo,t'Pto''"theusknewthatThetis'sonwasdestinedtolrc
followed through his plan of having r s,,il
!r."*. than his father, and if zeshad But Zeus and Prometheus collrc t()
i"i,r, n.. this would have been his undoing.
III
terms: the titan reveals the secret and is set
free-and thcll I grcrt fcstiv'r1 may lt:tvt'
been founded in the titan,s honor in the third play. If Gilbcrt Murray's rc('()u-
vcry closc' What Aristotle did to some extent, modern critics have done with a ven-
Eumenlde-s is
struction is right,11 the analogy to The . He thor-rght that tragedy had "found its true nature" when Sophocles
ge2rnce
Inanycase,wcmaylrcrcrecallascntL.l-lCCfrcltrttltc//i.rrl:..Whycli)wcltl:ltltc "lr wrotc Ocdipus Tyranruts, and in many passages of thePoetics he made this tragedy
Hades more than any god, if ,]o, bccrlttsc ltc is stl:ttl:ttrllttltiltc lrrrd tllryit'ldirlg
it ttlort'ttt:t!t'stit llt'ttr thc norrn. lltrt tl-ris clid not prevent him from arguing in chapter 14 that, other
Priclc wills Acschylt,r',,,lntirutiotr,;rrltl llc
fltrtls rvortls tirr
thirrgs bcirrg cclrurl, tl.rc bcst type of plot was one that involved a happy ending.

l'llililt Vlll'r' rrtt ttt lltt lrtt l tr t l. ltts l)r'ttl"ttttt ll

Irr rlr\l rlr()tl
rr( i l'. rlr ro. lirr,rl 1,,rr.r1ir.r1,lr.
rr \,4ttt t.,r 1'1' 'lr ll ;: ll\t, rtr, r. 1' 1,71
| ' l\ | \li | ,, r I'lrrl"'"ylty
"t I t,trt 'ly 'ttr,l
*
a

ru
 Nietzsche and the Death oJ Tragedy: A Critique 243
242

point Aeschylus does not insist on being metaphysical; he simply pictures suffering
Most critics, we have seen, have balked at this conclusion and tried to show,
as
with a concentrated power, piling image upon image, overwhelming us with the
albeit unsuccessfully, that he did not really mean it. But there is every reason for
not havc whole weight of human grief, leaving a mark on our minds that no eventual
believing that he did mean it, and that the great Greek tragic poets would
insight, institution, orjoy can wipe out. All the glory of the triumph at the end of
taken offense at this Preference.
The Eumenides cannot silence Cassandra's cries: they stay with us, like Prometheus'
Modern critics go much further than Aristotle in their single-minded admir-
defiant anguish; they echo through the centuries and change world literature.
ation for Sophocles' Tyrannus. They postulate this one play, for the most part
Tragedy is not what the philosophers and critics say it is; it is far simpler.
quite unconsciously, as the standard of true tragedy and feel uncomfortable with
What lies at the heart of it is the refusal to let any comfort, faith, or joy deafen our
,jl G.".k tragedies that are nor very similar to it. They want a tragic hero, but
(four ears to the tortured cries of our brothers. Aeschylus believed, like Hegel, that
The Persians, Suppliants, Eumenides, and even Aamemnon do not have one
though history was a slaughter bench, the monstrous sacrifices of men's happiness
outofthemaster'sseven); andinTheWomenofTrachk,inAntigone,rnPhiloctetes,
not only of and virtue had not been for nothing. But the founding of the Areopagus does not
and to some extent even in Ajax there is a dual focus. The same is true
but also, very strikingly, of Julius erase Cassandra's anguish any more than the establishment of the state of Israel
Romeo and Juliet and of Antony and cleopatra
wipes out the terrors of Auschwitz.
Caesar and, in a different way, of King Lear.
Aristotle,living much To call the poet who created Cassandra an optimist would be grossly mis-
Tragedies, alas, are not what they're supposed to be. so
justice to thc leading; but to call the author of The Eumenides and Suppliants a pessimist would
closer to the evidence, came far closer than recent writers to doing
when he said that tragedies are plays that evokc be worse. Admittedly, the Cassandra scene alone is not conclusive, although it
wide range of Greek tragedy
emotional relief. Such relief is obviously ranks with Lear on the heath and Gretchen in the dungeon as one of the most
eleos and pnoAo, but provide a sobering
What is decisive is not the end btrt magnificent and heartrending dramatic creations of all time. Nothing is more
q,rit. .o*p"tible with non-tragic conclusions.
moving than a noble mind gone mad; and Aeschylus was the first poet to realize
whether we participate in tremendous, terrifying suffering'
this. (The author of the First Book of Samuel did not depict the madness of King
No poel before Aeschylus and hardly any after him equalled either l.ris
Saul in a comparable scene.) But if one had to call Goethe either an optimist or a
majestic, awe-inspiring poetry or the immensity of human misery he captured
irr
the of reason has no parallel in Homer alrcl pessimist, one would surely have to choose the former label, in spite of the dun-
it. His belief ir-r progrers through use
concern l.rinr geon scene; and Aeschylus' case is similar.
seems basically untragic. His preoccupation with moral issues, which
points in the same direction. He is not interested irr Optimism and pessimism are simplistic categories, and Nietzsche did us a
more than individuals,
disservice when, as a young man under Schopenhauer's influence, he introduced
Agamemnon and clytemnestra beyond what is relevant to what one might
crtll
them into the discussion of tragedy. lJnfortunately, others have acccpted the
piilorophic issues; he does not dwell on Agamemnon's life or his adventures, rtr
raise the question whlt suggestion that tragedy perished of optimism and faith in reason; but we have
,h" q.r..rr,, relation to him, her upbringing; he does not
said what needs to bc said about this as far as Aeschylus is concerned.
it felt like to be the sistcr of the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen; rror
does he care what became of orestes. Aeschylus does not approach
Homcr's
interest in his heroes, in their deeds of valor, and in hundreds of dcteils: hc is
to that Honrc'r IV
centrally concerned with justice. Yet it would be utterly absurd say

wrote a tragic poem and Aeschylus destroyed the tragic spirit. Aeschylus is nr,,r,' 'We are brought back to Nietzsche and the death of tragedy. The step Aes-
tragic than-Homer and everyone else before him in his determination and
ability ltl

and sanity' chylus took from Homer's world toward the realm of the Piatonic dialogue was
,o sho* how tragiclife is without reason, compromise,
far bigger than the further step in that direction taken by Euripides. It is cvcn
Homer's radiant appreciation of the countless aspccts of ltunlrttt cxpcrit'trt t'
tlt:tt is :rrguable that Acschylus' interest is more purely philosophical than Euripides',
distracts from the tragic element-that is irrcmcdirblc, but thcrc is so tttttclt
ol lc:rdirtg rt sltort bttl corrsidcrir-rg thc later poet's morc intense concern with character and with psy-
beautifui and interesting; thcrc rcmlins thc possibility
tltt'tttst'lvcs witlr gloly clrologv. Prrts of Euripidcs'plays are certainiy closcr to Plato than anything in
glorious lifc; and tcllirrg ancl hcaring of rrrcn wlro r'ovcretl
is rcrttcrlillrlr' ;ttttl tt'pt t'st'lttt'tl rrs;r liril lirr Acsclrylus; firr cxamplc, thc scctrcs in which Clytemnestra in Electra and Helen in
i.-s cx;il,rr.ti1g. For Acschy'lus thc tr:lgic
'I'ltt"lt'o.itrt Wotrtt'tt rrrc t'orrlnrntcd with thc cl'rargcs brought ag:rinst thcm and
pr()gr(.ss tlrrgtrglr tlrt. trst' ol'rt'rrsorr. lltrt rrtist'r'y is tto lt'ss 1'.r't';lt lirt
lr.rvitrll lrt't lr
,,u,,1,1,,1,1,..()rrt.rrri!llrt(.v(.r.r.r,,lr(. llr.rr tlrt'lrr'lrtlirrttt'ttssilys1,, llst,,tttli,tt.wlrilr' l,t rrrriltt'rl t() try t() rlcli'rrtl tlrt'rrrst'lvcs. llut rro Er,rripiclc:rn tntucdy rs I wltolc is:ts
r lrrst'ltr l)l,rlr,.rs (lrt'( )lr'r/r'i,r, t.rkt'rr :rs,r lvlt,,l,', ttr
'l'lrt l;trrttt'ttirlr.s itt p:trtit'ttllrr. '/'/tc
llr, rr'rrscllt.rt,rr.rl,tsltoIllt w,l\llol itllvtl'rlrlt lrtti',111t1'"otll \llll('lrrr1l' llrrt 'rl llltr

I&
 Nietzsche and the Death o;f Tragedy: A Critique 245
244

they must live. The whole people must be wiped out of existence, and none bc
Trojan women, for example, is far from being a particularly philosophical plly.
left to think of them and shed a tear.' The justice of this made Menelaus change
The oresteia, on the other hand, is preeminently about justice . Not only rrrt'
his mind" (r r8; VI, 57 ff.). Or more literaily: "he turned the heart of his brother,
Agamemnon and orestes incidental to this larger theme, even the house of Atrctts
joyotrs for he urged justice." One cannot imagine Aeschylus letting such a conception of
is."As the trilogy ends, the house of Atreus is out of the picture. The
of frtlrtt justice pass unchallenged. Euripides later presented its inhumanity inhis Trojan
conclusion celebrates neither Orestes' acquittal nor the passing the curse
(777) The wholt' Women. But wc have already noted that this play is less philosophical than the
Atreus' house; both are forgotten when Orestes leaves the stage '
Oresteia; and we have found ample rcasons for rejecting Nietzsche's notion that
final quarter of the drama is concerned with the very matter that modern critit's
rragedy died at thc hands of Euripides. as well as the popular variant that ir was
corrriJe. most incompatible with tragedy: the founding of an institution thxt will
justicc destroyed by the currents of thought and feeling that Euripides represented to
resolvc conflicts by eliminating the causes of disaster, namely a court of
Nietzsche's mind.
I love and admire Agamemnon more than its two sequels, and Cassanclrrl's
play merely scts The question remains how in that case tragedy died, for it remains a striking
scene above all; but this cannot change the plain fact that the frrst
poet to pose problcrrrs fact that the fourth century evidently did not produce tragedies that could be
the stage for orestes' dilemma, which in tum allows the
In no is thc c6tr- rankcd with those of the three masters, nor is Roman tragedy in the same class
about justice and to weigh different conceptions ofjustice. sense

clusion merely tacked on: iike Homer and Sophocles and the builders of the Greck with fifth-ccntury tragedy. Indeed, no tragedy at all was, for two thousand years
'lVhat, then, happcned in
aftcr the death of Euripides and Sophocles in 4o6 B.C.
temples, Aeschylus was a master craftsman with a superb sense f<lr architectotti s
the fourth century?
ln rJtrospect it becomes perfectly clear, if it was not t the time, that Cassarttlr;r.
with a conception course, her own.
ofjustice-not, of At first glance, it may seem easier to say what did not happen. The demise of
too, confronted us
of as a prophctcsi tragedy was not due to a changed attitude toward the gods. To be sure, Aeschylus
All this is as foreign to Homer as the conception Cassandra
daughter (XIII, 365) and thc first had uscd the myths and figures of traditional religion, but not in order to shore up
h the Iliad she is merely Priam's most beautifnl
by her father (XXIV, 699 ff.). Justicc ir its ruins, and least of all to counter the iconoclastic spirit of the Greek enlighten-
to see Hecror's remains brought home o1d
the Trojan or tlrc ment with miracle, mystery, and authority. On the contrary, he had attacked
of no central concern in tine lliad, and the question whether
Homer. The vague poetic notion that tht'rt' tradition. Even as Homer had found the language of polytheism ideally suited to
Achaean cause isjust does not agitate
a poem about war, Aeschylus, sublimating Homer's contests into moral collisions,
is some balance in human affairs sufltces him. when Hector, having killc.l
patroclus, who had been wearing Achilles' armor, strips the corpse and puts ()rl had found that he could side against Apollo with Athene, and that he could blast
Zeus through Prometheus.
the armor, the Homeric Zeus saYs:
A critic
whose eloquence and erudition "almost persuade" has said that
. . . For now I grant you your moment of power' "tragedy is that form of art which requires the intolerable burden of God's
rccompense for your not coming home from the battle presence. lt is now dead because His shadow no longer falls upon us as it fell on
to Andromache-not she will take from you Agamemnon or Macbeth or Athalie."15 This comes close to being an inversion
Achilles' glorious armor' (XVII, zo6 ff')
of the truth. Did His shadow really fall on Macbeth? And are there not miilions
t'But you must P:ty lot of believers today? And if one were a believer, what further evidence could one
The free rendering of Rieu puts the point as we usually do,
possibly rcquire that His shadow has indeed fallen upon us?
it" (3zr)-and falsely suggests that Hector has become guilty of hybris' Nietzsche, incidentally, associated precisely our age with His shadow.16 But
A more prccise.orl.ptio, ofjustice is encountered in anothcr passagc, wltt'lr'
pttl lo more to the point, Oedipus Tyi,annus does not require "the intolerablc burden of
Acamas, a Trojan, taunts the Achaeans: "Look at yollr man Promachtts,
for my brothcr's dcrth' Thrt is wlr;rl 't God's prescnce"; neither does Aniigone, nor Philoctefes. Indeed, in Philocietes the
sleep by my spear, in prompt repayment
him lrld ilvcllgc lris flrll" (.:,rx-); XlV, outcomc would be tragic but for the sudden appearance of a deus ex machina. And
*ir" -rn p."y, fo.-^ kinsman to survivc
about this notirtn ofjtrsticc wotrltl bc totrllly ottt ol |)1,11 1' wlrilc tlre Dclphic oracle is involved in the tragedy of Oedipus, the presence of the
4gz fi^.). Any argument
cxamincs this vcry irlc:r irt tltt' ()rt'.r/r'irr. socls not to spcak of God-is not, and at the very least it is not indispensable. The
\n thc lliad; but Acscl-rylus
Hcrc, fi,ully, is rr plssugc frorrr tllc lli,rl in wlrit'lr.itlstitt' is lI)('lr(l()ll('{l
cxprcssly. Wlrt'rr Mt'rtclrtttsisltlrottt to t:tkt'Atlri'strls,:t'l'loi;ttt':tlivt', 'rs'r l)li\rrll('l ri ll,r(1., l). l5.l

t,, lr,.r,ttts,rrrr,.rl, Ag:rtrtt.rrrn()ll r('[)t();t(lt('s lrirrr: "'No; wt ,ll( llr)l l',r)llll',

lo lt,tvt"t r', lrW, sr.r roX irr, lrr,lr,,l irr
rry r',litiorr rrl'(iM (Ncw York: Virrtrgc Iiroks, r9(r7), p. tgl, rntl
ll()l r'\'('ll ur rry li,r\! ll'tititt,. tl Nirt ,rh'(Ncw York: Mrtrlctrt I ilrr,rry, trtrrli).
sitr1,.lt.,trr1 1l llrr.trt ;lliv(., (l()w1 l6.tltt' lr.rl1tr llr ll)( ll tttltltltr' w.llll)\
 246 WALTER KAUFMANN
situation in which Oedipus finds himself at the outset is preeminently tragic, and
neither its genesis nor the development to the final catastrophe requires the supcr-
natural. That adds a note of inevitability, but the keen sense that great calamitics
wcre not inevitable can be just as tragic. The gods can add great weight; but this
can be achieved without "the intolerable burden of God's presence": witncss
Lear, Othello, or-the critic's own example-Agamemnon.
Tragedy requires no reverence f,or the gods, and it is doubtful whcthcr
Aeschylus had much of that. It would certainly be difcult to name many grcrt
poets who composed blasphemies to match Prometheus'. No less than in thc
Iliad, belief is out of the picture. Indeed the grcat tragic pocts experienced tradi-
tional religion as an intolerable burden. Obviously, most poets during thosc
twenty centuries when tragedy was all but dead had more rcligious belicfs than
Aeschylus did-or Shakespeare.
To understand-what happened after Aeschylus, we will have to considcr
Sophocles and, above all, Euripides. To wind up our consideration of Aeschylus
and the death of tragedy, it will almost suffice to quote a remarkable but all too
little known passage from Goethe's conversations with Eckermann. On r May
r82j, not quite frfty years before the publicationof The Birth o;f Tragedy, Goethc
contested "the widespread opinion that Euripides was responsible for the decay
of Grcek drama." His'remarks are worth quoting at length:
Man is simple. And however rich, manifold, and unfathomable he may be, tl'rc
circle of his states is soon run through. If the circumstanccs had been like those among
us poor Gcrmans, where Lcssing wrote two or three passable plays, I myself three or
four, and Schillcr fivc or six, there might have been room for a fourth, fifth, and
sixth tragic poet. But among the Greeks with their abundant productivity, where
each ofthe Big Thrcc had written over a hundred, or close to a hundred, plays, and
the tragic subjccts of Homer and the heroic tradition had in some cases been treated
three or four times-given such an abundancc, I say, we may supposc that material
and conterlt had gradually been exhausted, and a poet coming after the tsig Thrcc
did not really know, what next.
And wl-rcn you come right down to it, why should they? Wasn't it really cnough
for a while? And wasn't what Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripidcs had prociuccd of
such quality and depth that one could hear it again and again without lnakirrg rt
trivial or killing it? After all, these few grar.rdiose fragrnents tl.rat l.rave cornc dowrr to
us are ofsuch scope and significancc that wc poor Europcans havc bccn occrrpicrl
with them for ccnturies and will yet havc food arrd work crrough hrr r Fcw rrrorc
centurics.
Amen.
()r
is Gocthc too scrcrrc? Wls Nictzstlrc rrot riglrt rrlit'r rrll llt:t( (ltt't-r'w:rs,r
sotrrcwhut sirristcr tlt'vt'l,r1rnrt'rrt lrotrr At'sr'ltyltrs to lirrripi,lr's? llr'w.rs. Witlr tlrr'
Ioss ol'tlrt'llr(irt wrr tlr:rt lr:rrl l:rs(r'tl :rltttosl tlrilty yt'.rls,.rrr,l tlrt l).rssinli ol Iitrltpt
i ,lt's, Sol,lror l, s,'l'lrtrt y,li,lt'r. ,ttt,l S,,r r,rtt r, ,rll wtlltttr lcss llt.ttt lt tr y(.rr\,,r l,,t(',rl .ll',(
Niet2sche and ihe Dcatlt ol''l'rqqtdy: A Critique ),1 /
cnded. The new gcncrltion that was bom during and pfter the war had a d'iflt'rt'nr
attitude toward lifc' ancl suffcring. 'war was no longer the glory of Marathorr rrrrtl
salamis, heroisrn sccrnccl futile, and Euripides' skepticism became much rrr.r,.
popular than it had bccn during his lifetime. Aeschylus came to appcar sonrcwlr,r(
archaic, Sophocles old-fashioned, while Euripides' mistrust of convcntiorr :rrr,l
prctension, his social criticism, and his pioneering tragicomcdies (/rrrr, li,r
example, and Alcestis) became paradigms for thc new age. Gradually rhc c.rrlr
dcnce that had grown in the wakc of Marathon and found its ultimate cxpr'(.)sr.rr
in Pericles' great funeral oration gave way to doubt and increased self-crrrrst i,,rrs
ness, and eventually the New Comedy rcplaced tragedy.
V
No othcr poet of the first rank has been undcrcstimated as much as Etrrilritlt.s.
Itwas his great ill fortune that nineteen of his plays survived, comparccl t() s(,v( n
each by Aeschylus and Sophocles.
The extant tragedies of the two older pocts represent selections of wlr:rt wt.rt.
considered their best plays. There is reason to suppose that most of thcir losr lrlrrys
were no better than, if as good a.s, The Supplianis and Seuen, or Ajax. Srrp1,1rr1.
Acschylus and Sophocles were each representcd by anothcr dozen of strch tlrr n r rrs,
while Euripidcs were known to us only through Alcestis and Medea; Hippolyrrrt.
The Trojan Women, Electra, Ion, and The Bacchae!11
Like his two predecessors, and other major poets, Euripides should bc r:rnkr.tl
according to his best works. And we should also be grateful to him for his slrrrr.t.
in making possible Sophocles' best plays. All but two of Sophocles' scvcn w(.r('
17 Of these sevcn,
Hippolytus won first prize, as did The Bacchae posthumously. ,4lrr,.rti.r.rnrl '//1,
Tro.im Woruen won second prize. Medea placed third in a contest in which Euphorion, Acschyltrs'so1.
won first prize and Sophocles placed second. For the way in which thejudgs werc choscn by lot, sct.
Gilbert Norwood, creek rragedy, rev. ed. (r9zo; rpt. New york: Hill and wang, r96o), p. (rr. It is ris.
noteworthy that the extremely wealthy and popular Nicias was oftm choregus, paying hrr thc prr>
rlrrction, and he was never defeated (Plutarch's Life oJNirias, p. 524).
In antiquity tm ofEuripides'plays werc selected lor school use, along with all ofthc surviviqg
plays of Acschylns and Sophoclcs: Hecuba, Orestes, Phoenician Women, Hippolytus, Medea. Alcestis,
,'lndromache, Rhesus, Troj an Women, tnd Bacthae . Five of these are surely inferior to some of thc other
rrinc cxtant plays, which survived purcly by accident, as they werc close to each other in m alphabetical
'rrrrngcment: Helen, Elera, Heracleidae, Heracles, lon, suppliants, Iphigenid ia Aulis, Iphigenia in Tauris,
,rnd CyrLrp.s, thc only satyr play that has survived in its entirety.
For thc history of thesc manuscripts scc Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Mllendorfl Einleinmg in die
Ir icthischt' 'liagi;die, unverandtrter lsrc.f Abdn.rtb aus der ersten At-flage uon Euriltides Herakles I Kdpitel l-lV
(llerlirr: wcidnrrnnschc lluchhlntllung, r9o(r), taptcr III; Norwood, ibid., zr; Ilruno Srrcll, "Zwci
I rilrli' rrrit lrtrripitlcs-l)r1ryri," lltrntt. To (r9.1s), r rt) f-., rrrtl I)crys 1.. l)rgc irr rlrc irrrrotluctitrr kr lris
,,litiorr ol l,r/rrr (r;.111; rpt ( )rlorrlr ( l,rrcrr,lrrr Prr.ss, r,lS-r). xli ll.
 il
Nietzsche and the Death oj Tragedy: A Critique 249
248

The Eumenides and, not quite to the same extent, in Antigone. while the super-
writtellincompetitionwithEuripides,whoseinfluenceisoftenstriking.Rutthc abundance of dialectical fireworks in somc Euripidean tragedies dissipates our
of Trachis' Philoctetes'
;;i;i.r, ,t this influence is writ large in The Women
"i important fact that the younger rival, who tragic emotions, it usually illustrates the futility of reason, its inability ro prevenr
and elsewhere, than the in{initely more tragedy.le At this point, Aeschyius is infinitely morc optimistic than Euripides.
was a great innovator, t"pl ti'" oldcr poet from gctting into rut' Sophoclcs
''r
is that he did not Aristotle says that Euripides was criticized for having more tragic endings
..f"rr'}tt*r"1f a good dt"l t"t''t in his extant plays; the marvcl
that four or five of his seven were than the other poets.2o ro have had more than Aeschylus cannot have been diffi-
copy his own sllcccsscs even morc' considering and the cult, but evidently the surviving nineteen plays give a misleading picture of the
competition of Euripides
written aftcr he *", ,",,.-"ty' Not only did the way most of his tragedies ended. of the seven that most critics would probably
prcscnce of a master criticai powers were second to none force Sopho-
po"'*ho"
to be satisfied with nothing lcss than his
very best, Euripides was also one of agree in calling his best, four end in catastrophe; the two earliest, Alcestis and
cles
Medea, are, however, no less relevant. The former ends happily, but was per-
themostoriginaidramatistsof-alitime,andhisnewideasprovidednever-failing formed in lieu of a saryr play. while it provides some laughs at the clrunken
stimulation. Heracles, it was, no doubt, incomparably more tragic than any satyr play. The
ThemytlrthattragedydicdatEuripides,handsisthusalmosttheobverseof portrait of the king is anything but optimistic, the less so if we recognize ir as a
thetruth;onlyoneofSophocles'masterpieces'tineAniigons'antedatcshisin- cutting attack on the men of that, and not only that, time. His wife, Alcestis,
Nietzsche thought it was when he charged
fluencc. Nor was tf is i'-'fl'e'-ltt what belongs with Antigone and Deianeira and foreshadows Euripides' later heroines
an anti-tragic optimism. If there is a sense
in which Aeschylus is
Euripides with who die for others-few critics question that the Sophoclean Deianeira was
moretragicthanHomer,"a"dSophoclesmoretragicthanAeschylus'Euripides profoundly influenced by her. Admetus needs someone to die for him, or he will
is indeed "the most tragic of the poets'"18 have to die; he eagerly accepts his wife's self-sacrifice, and then feels that others
mistakcn:
Nictzsche's point is clear but nonetheless
should feel sorry for him because he has lost his wife. Eventually, Heracles brings
Socratcs. thc dialcctical l-rero of the Platonic
drama' rcminds us of the kindrcd nature her back from the underworld, but it is difcult to find any oprimism in this play;
Euripidean l-rero who must dcfend his rctions with lrgumcnts and counter- rather is it a bitter tragicomedy, perhaps the first one ever written, and quite
of the
loss of our tragic pity; for who could
ilrgumcnts ancl in the proccss often risks the possibly the best. It is doubtful whether anybody before Shakespeare wrote a
oncc penetrated tragcdy' must grad-
rnistake thc optimistic.l"t""t which' having tragicomedy that merits comparison wrth Alcestis.
and impel it nccessarily to sclf-destruction-
ua11y overgrow its l)ionysian regions Medea, Euripides' earliest surviving tragedy, ends with t machina, b:ut
the consequcnces of the
to thc deatl-r-l""p i'-'to tht bnt'ig"oi' drama' Consider he who is hardly with "poetic justice." Having killed hcr husband's new wife and slain her
sins only from ignorance;
Socratic maxims: 'V:irtue is kr-to*l"dg.; men
of optimism lics the dcath of tragcdy' own children, because they were also his, the triumphant sorceress flies ofr, un-
virtuous is I'rappy.' In thesc three basiJ forms
must be a dialectician; now there must be a neccssary' scathed. Where is virtue? Where happiness?'Where optimism? What makes the
For now the vrrtuous hero
faith and morality;. now the play great, apart from the poetry, is, once again, the telling attack on the callous-
visible connection between virtuc and knowlcdge,
to the superficial and insolent
transccndental justicc of Acschylus is dcgraded ness of men, the poet's subtle understanding of the feelings of a woman, his insis-
(GT' sec' r4)
principle of 'poetic justice' with it"t"to-"'y
rieus ex machina' tence that barbarian women wronged suffer no less than other human beings, and
his probably unprecedcnted portrait of impassioned jealousy. The Women o;f
end Phto is invcrted' and botll
Here thc relationship of Euripides to Socrates Trathis,might well show the influence nor only of Alcestis (a38 B.C.) but also of
ana.nisptriiosophical dimensio'r are. totally mis- Medea (4t B.C.) and possibly even of Hippolytus (az8 B.C.). 'We cannot be
rhe poet,s historical ,igr-rin.rr-r..
tl-re spcll of Socratcs'
There is no evidencc that iuripidcs was under certain whether Sophocles meant to counter the younger poet's Phaedra and
"ppr.h"nd.d.claimed, and thcre is every erriJcr-rc. tl-rat hc did not rcccpt thc thrc(' Medea, or whether Euripides felt provoked by the idealized portrait of Deianeira
as Nietzsche
'socratic dicta of which Nietzs.h. r^yr, "in tlrcsc thrcc brsic I'orms t>f optinlisrrr and resoived to show the Athenians how a jealous woman really feels. Either way,
lies the dcath oftragcdY'"
i'i prcst'tlt irl F'trri,i-
intc.rsc ir'rt"r.'r't irr:rrgttrttcttts lttrcl ctttttltcrltrgtlll)('l)ts
re Cli
A, John H. Finley,.fr., "Euripids and Thucydides," Harvard Studies in Clasical Philology, 49
t() :lttril)tltc tt t. tlrt ittllttt'ttt t' .l'S.t r:ttct' (rq:U),4r: "llotlr T'hucydidcs and Euripidcx lost fai in debatc, although both, it must be added, were
clcs, brrt thcrc is l1()t tltc sliglrtcst rcrls()ll
;tlso lri' rt't:rllt'tl ltt'rv rtrttt lt t'l tlris is lirrlrttl irr rrrrrltlcd irrttlltcttralJy by it." Alm E. l\, l)odcls's introduction to Bacchae (Oxford: Clarcndon press,
tlrrrt ll.tltt'SoIlrists will ,l.,. lt slrotrltl rr,),1,1), P xliii: " l'lrcrc rre v('r wrs rt writcr wlro rnorc corrspicuously lackcd tlrc proprgarrdist's laith in
r',rry ,rrr,l ( r)nll)l(.t(. s,rlrrtrols."
.,r 11,.,/i,\ I I \t.l
250
Nietzsche and the Dedth of Tragedy: A Critique 25r

ought to be' Euripides The fact that Ion-a magnificent tragicomedy is quitc generally considered
one might say that Sophocles portrayed pcople as they
as

really are.21 Euripides' most anti-clerical play throws a good deal of light on the old Goethe
they,\V.h","previouslydiscussedHippolytuslndTheBacchae:22neithertheynor
who had just finished his Faust (writing Act IV after Act V). Goethe's implicit slur
The Trojan Women fit *ietzs.he's account of Euripides'
untragic optimism' The on Shakespearc is surely unintcntional; his many refercnces to Shakespeare
testify to that. But evcn if one considcred Euripides as merely the fourth greatest
pointisnotthatNietzschewasdevoidofinsight;hcscarcclyeverwroteonany
are comprised tragic poet of all timc, it would be uttcrly absurd to suppose that this was grounds
,ubj.ct without noting something interesting' The few exceptions
by"."..,inwhichherepeatedthcprejudiccsofearlierwriters,forexample,about for censurc.

*o-.rl.Theopinion,widespreadatonetime'thatinTheBirthoJTragedy We will resist thc tcmptation to consider his plays, one by one, conceding
t""ot be sustained' and it is odd how regularly those weaknesscs but showing again and again how, "even though Euripides manages
Nietzsche vilified Socrtes
his plays badly in other respccts, he is obviously the mosr rragic of the poets."z3
whohavemadethischargehavesimplyignoredthevehemerrtlyanti-tragicout-
p1ato. But Nietzsche r.uas exceedingly unfair
look of Socrates, most frioo, pupil,
;;;";r;rd.t, faliing in with an old prejudice against that poet' which Goethe
alreadyhadattacked.ThemostrelevantpassagefromGoethe,sconvcrsations VI
noting that classical
with Eckermann has been quoted above; here is another: After
philologists have long .,,-,k.d Acschylus and Sophocles
far above Euripides, E. R. Dodds argued in an early article, long before he succeeded to Gilbcrt
Euripides his flaw-s'" But he Murray's chair at Oxford, that Euripidcs, though, of course, a "rationalist" in the
Goethe said: "I have no objection to the vicw that
has

felt outraged by August Schlegel's treatment of Euripides: "Ifa modern

wit}r"t- sense that he was anti-clerical, was more importantly an "irrationalist."2a By this
suclr a grand old poet, decency
man like Schlegel should have to censure flaws in
Dodds meant two things. His first point, to which most of "Euripides the Irration-
March r8z7)' alist" is devoted, is grist to my mill. Euripides steadfastly opposed the thrce claims
demands that tre should do it on his knees"
(28
A passage in Goethc's diaries (Tagebcher' zz November r83r) is more ..I
"that reason (what the Greeks called rational discourse, logos) is the sole and
.",."-". Exactly four months before his cleath, he jotted down these words:
odd to
suilicient instrumcnt of truth"; "that the structure of Reality must be in itself in
again- It does seem some sense rational"; and "that moral, like intellectual, error can arise only from a
reread the 1or ofEuripides to be edified and instructed
mCthatthearistocracyofthephilologistsfailstograsphismeritsand,^puttingon failure to use the reason we possess; and that when it does arise it must, iike
feeling justified by thc
traditional airs, subordinates him to his predecessors, intellectual error, be curable by an intellectual process."25
buffoonAristophanes....Haveallthenationssincehisdayproducedadramatist Dodds shows this in somc detail, calling atrention, for example, to Medea's
who was even fit to hand him his slippers?" words "in vv. Io78 ff 'I recognise,' she says, 'what cvil I am about to do, but my
thymos (my passion) is stronger than my counsels: thymos is the cause of Man's
worst crimes.'Her reason can judge her action, which she frankly dcscribes as a
2lAristotleascribesthisrcmarktoSophocleshimself(Poelirsz5:6ob)' 'foul rnurder,' (r:8:) but it cannot influence it: the springs of action are in the
The datc of The women oJTrachisis uitcrly uncertain.
cedric H. whitman, sophocles: A study Ltl'
r95r), p. 48, strcsses its "unmistakably
ihymos, beyond the reach of reason."26
Heroic Humanism(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvarcl university Press,
it rather carly, betwecn 437 and 432 (p Dodds's second point, on the other hand, seems dated. He applauds what he
Etrripidcm flavor" and th" irflr.... of Alcestis, but dates 5S)'
has spelled out in the abovc three claims and calls rationalism. "The philosophy
Hir".g.r*.rtthat"thcimmensetcchnicalsupcriorityoftheOedipa-rlTyrdnntrl'lrowevcr'secmst()
denand that wc allow a few more ycars to elapre betweer thc
two" (P. 2J7, rotc 40) crrries little wcight' ths summed up in its most generalised traits was thc decisive contribution of the
perlection either. G. M. Kirkwoocl, A snuly ,rl
as Sophoclcs, last two plays do .tt "ppr.ximate
its Greeks to human thought."zz "Socrates afhrmed the supremacy of reason in the
Drama (Ithtca.. Cor.ell Urrirerrity Press, r958), p. 293 f., clcvotcs r wholc rppcndix to tlrt'
Soplrotlem
q.,.rtion; he concludcs that "the evidcncc lor carly datiug is not
rcrlly strorrll," btlt trtvors "'r rlrtc :rfit'r
()rtk'l'mqtly: A Likr,ty
,4nr3.,, In thc encl hc rcknowlcdgcs thrt FI. l). F. Kitto,
2:J Clilbcrt Murrry says
)1o* very ncatly: "There is not one play of Euripids in which a critic cannot
^ndbcfore (rg3g; rpt. (iartlcn c)ity: I)oublcday Atrcltrr- liroks, rr'tl )' Il:rcctl thc Phy "'tlrt'ttt llttcl scriorts flrws or offcrrscs; though it is truc, perhaps, that thc worse thc critic, the more he will find"
saidy, 3rd rcv. ed.
(Mcssinr rncl Milrrr: l)ritrcip:tlo, 1r2.15). "rrt ttrt t ttti ol SoPltor'lcs' ('l'lt' Litt'rontrc pi Attriutt Cr,rc, p. z7j). Murray and Wilarnowitz dicl not rank Euripids below his
4zo,, ancl Gcnrraro lrcrrotta, ,So/irr/r,
carccr." WilrrnOwitz rrrgUcrl lt qrtrt ltttrltlt ill l)is la)l-1)rru( itrtl()(lrl( l()ly r'sstv itt ltis t 'lltiorl ol lirrrilrt
,I./t.. lrre,lcct ssrlrs.
(.rlit'r ,1.1r ll'( i,) rv,rs wttt l.tltl.tlt r "lirrripitlcs tlrr' lrrrtion:rlist," (.'iassirz/ l?oittu.
tlcs. l/r,r.rl/r,r (:rltl rcv. c.1,, rs9;1 (llltt tllt.ittllttt.ttrr..,l Ilr,t.rrl.,r 4j
-r (tL.;z<;1), <17 tot,.
ltttitttl ;
.li:

" Ilri,l.. p ,;7

ll,ottttlol /)trrlrir(1.tr.tr'/)..rttil (iillrcrt Mrrrlrywt"'l tlt'\'rlrr(olrrrrr.rr\tlnlit'ttttttttnl ?
(irrr,,r.1rrli.rl.lrS,l7.rpr ( lrrr,r1,.,, l)lrrrlrrrtv,'l( l'lr,'rrrrr li'rol', r')\('l'l) 'l(') " llrrrl.,1, ,1s
lrr,,r1',,1'rr",'
**
.&
'll,r,l I',//

t
' \r'r 1 '. I t'ttt
'ly art'l
I'lrtlt"'!'ltl
IE
C'
 Nietzsche and the Dedth ol'Tra,gedy: A Crit'it1uc 253

these spheres Euripides

governnce of the universe and in the life of man; in both hng, Hcgcl, and Schopenl-raucr provides a striking example. Even so, Euripides'
cr-ried it. . . . Some of the passages about the relation
between knowledge and influence on Socrates remains only probable; but his decisivc influence on Plato
conductdoatanyratelookiikeaconsciousreactionagainsttheopinionof .rppcJr\ ir rdisput rblc.
Socrates, or of other persons who thought like Wc havc noted eariier that Aeschyius stands halfr,vay bctwcen Homer and
Socrates'"28
reason governed
Itsurely uncertain whether socrates really afrmed that
i.s Plato, and Euripidcs 1'ralfr,vay bctwccn Acscl'rylus and Plato. The dialoguc between
"some of the characteristic
the univcrse, and Dodds himself goes on to admit that Electra and hcr mothcr and othcr such sccncs in Euripides are not great poetry or
in the produced in
featurcs of this [Euripideanl outtok appear already theetre but point toward a ncw genre: the Platonic dialoguc. To try writing
Alcestis,

438 B.C.; and it is very dtubtful if

Socrates had emerged as an independent better tragcdics than Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Er"rripidcs was not an inviting
at so early a date,"2s But in that casc Dodds mi'ght be
almost as wrong as prospect, and Plato, who had tricd, dcstroycd tl.rese early efforts whcn he met
,hir1k".
The truth of
Nictzschc, who thought that Euripides got his ideas from Socrates. Socrates. To try writing better philosophic dialogucs than Euripides, wedding the
tradition relates that hc
rhe matter might be that Socrates, of whom ancient poet's talcnt to thc legacy of Socrates, was the challenge Plato tricd to meet.
attendcd or-,1y ih" plays of Euripides, was stimlllated by this poet-to develop Dodds's conclusion is utterly unfair to Euripides:
says in the Apology
countertheses.3o This hypothesis goes well with what Socrates The disease of which Greek culturc eventu:r1ly died is known by rnany names. Tcr
beiieved themselves to be
about the poets: "upon th" rt..,-tgth of their poetry they some it
appears as a virulcnt form of scepticism; to others, as a virulent form of
werc not wise."31 And Plato's
the wisest of men in other thinls in which they mystic'ism. Professor Mnrrry has callcd it thc F:rilurc of Nerve .

far better than eithcr

attitude toward thc tragic poets supports my rcconstruction My own nrme for it is systcmatic irratiorralism. . . . To my nrind, the case of
Nietzsche's or Dodds's. Euripidcs provcs that an acute attack of it was alrcady threatcning the Grcck world
and that a young
Philosophers have rarely had any great influence on poets' in the fifth centlrry. . . . He shows a1l thc charactcristic symptoms: tl-rc pcculiar blend
mature poet in whose oeuzre wc
philosopher should have decisively influenced a of a destructive scepticism with a no lcss dcstructivc rnysticism; the assertion that
we safely discount it. The philo- emotion, not rcasoll, dctcrmincs human conduct; dcspair of the statc, rcsulting in
..r-, n.i no break at all is so improbable that can
did it postlrumously; for example, quictism; dcspair of rational thcology, rcsulting in a crrving for a rchgion of thc
sophers who did influence impo.t",-,t poets
poet whosc work obviously has orgi:rstic typc. For thc timc bcing the attack was avcrted-in prt by the develop-
Aiuir.ar, Kant, ancl Nietzschc' That a mature
influence younger philosophers' cven somc r.nent of the Socratic-Platonic pl'rilosophy. . . . Greek rationalism died s1owly.. . .32
st.or.g philosophical relevance should
influence on Schcl-
of his ntempo.aries, is much morc likely; Goethe's strong Nietzsche thought that rationalism pllt an end to the grcat age of Greece, and
found rationalism in Socrates, Phto-and Euripides. Dodds blames irrationalism
2E Ibid-, p. ro3. end considers Socratcs and Plato the culmination of the Grcck genius but
,e Ibid.
Euripidcs is again on the losing side. As Goethe remarked long ago, the classical
30IfindcorfoboratlonforthissurmiseinBrunoSrrell,..DasfrhsteZeugnisbcrSokratcs,,'
to77 ff' may have led Socrates to formulatc ltis plrilologists-and wl'ren Nietzsche wrote Te Birth oJ Tragedy, he was one-are
Philologus, gT (I948), rz5-34' He argues that Medea
to Socrates That Plato's polemic htrrd on Euripides.
counterthesis, rnd that HippolyiL 3io ff' *"y bc Euripicles'reply
has lortg
against the view ofthe multituie (protagoras 352) rcpresens his reply to the Hippolytrs passage Suppose we ask fora moment, not of what Greek culture "died"-a rather
rz9, note);e g'' by Wilamowitz at the end of along foottrt>tc
bI". r.ot.d, as Snell himself emphasizeslp' qucstionablc and misleading mctaphor, when yoll come to think of it-but
rhar documents thc ways in which Plato was stimulatcd by Euripides (Einleitung, pp 24 f )
vandenhoeck & Ruprccht, I954)' pp' rather whether the thrcc claims that comprise "rationalism" happen to be true.
In the znd rev. ed. of Dle.gr iechisthe'fragdie, II (Gttingcn:
gnsll'5 dsmrxstration that Phacdra's words in Hippolytus consrittttt 11, as I think, none of them is, Euripides was wiser than the rationalistic philoso-
rrz, f., Max pohleu accepts
t

clircct polcmic against Socrates, but not his chim that Medea' r378-8o fsicl ]' lcd Socrats
to fornrttlrtc phers. 'What philosophers nowadays would consider reason "sulhcient" for the
rcfcrs Sncll's rrticlc to tllc wrol)li'
his counterthesis. Pohlcnz's briefnote bears thc signs ofhastc (hc also
discovcry ol al1 truth, particularly whcn rcason is cxprcssly juxtaposed with
year) and is unconvincing. Sce also Snell's scenes-from craek
Dtana (llcrkclcy: Urrivcrsity of ()lifirrrri'r
scnsc-perccptior-r?33 And who would hold that all moral crrors are curable by a
Press, r964), chaPter 3. purcly "intcllccturl proccss"? And why speak of "despair of rational theology"?
Sotr:trts'ottllttoli
Thcfirsttoadducc Hippolyns374rllrirrstNictzscl)c'sclrtitttthrtIitrripidtsslr:rrcrl
If lrtionrr'l tlrcology is rrot soulrd, why not qivc our poet credit for rcnouncing it?
(tlcrlirr: (ictrriitlr., ll,,r,,tr,,.g.:,,rt7:j, 1,.rtt. l(olttlc'stlelitrre
ol Nitlzstlx otrrlttrPoitrt lrtks'tll li'trt'

'l,,ttttrl,ltlrt,:
"7,ttk'lrtltryltiltlt,l,'i" ll lr1,zr1i li W I'trtzsrlr, lH7''l l'l) lt) I ) ' tr,,,t,|,. I, r,,.1
, 1,t.rr,,., 11,,,/,,,,1. , ,
" ll,r,l, 1, ,11
&

&
254 WALTER KAUFMANN
with which Euripides is charged by Dodds,
Since my outlook is close to thar
I might be considered partisan; and this is not the place for detailed arguments
against the kind of rarionalism Dodds extols. But we should at least note that a
double standard is implicit in this criticism of Euripides: like Hegel and Nietzsche,
he is fair game, while Sophocles is not. Surely, Sophocles was not a rationalist in
Dodds's sense; he did not believe the three crucial claims, nor did he credit rational
theology. But it would never do to use language so negatively charged when
speaking about Sophocles.
Dodds's later book on The Creeks and the Irrational is not only far more
judicious than his early article but an outstanding contribution to our under-
standing of Greek culture. His early article on Euripides, of which he made some
use in the chapter on "Rationalism and Reaction in the Classical Age," is no more
representative of Dodds at his best than is The Birth o.f TragedT of Nietzsche in his
pri*.. And Dodds's edition, with introduction and commentary , of The Bacchae
is a masterpiece. But it should be plain that we do Euripides a monstrous injustice if
we associate him with "the Failure of Nerve." Without any optimistic fith that
he could stem the tide of superstition that, seven years after the poet's death,
claimed Socrates as one of its victims-and during Euripides' lifetime, it had
driven into exile, probably Aeschylus and, without a doubt, Anaxagoras and
Protagoras-Euripides fought his public his life long, and died in voluntary exile.
That Sophocles always remained a popular favorite, even at such a time,
might raise questions abot him. But he led his own chorus in mourning for
Euripides when the news of his death reached Athens; and in our reading of
oedipus Tyrannus-and, of course, of The women o.f Trachis-we find how far
he was both liom popular superstition and from "rationalism'"
In sum, in his first book Nietzsche was wrong about the birth of tragedy;
about Aeschylus and Euripides, and about the death of tragedy. Yet the remarkf
about Hamlet in section 7, much of section r5, and the "self-Criticism" added er
apreface in r 8 86, are magnificent; and nobody has ever found a better characteri.
zation of Nietzsche than the image of the "artistic Socrates" in section 14. All in
all, however, neither The Birth oJ Tragedy nor his other early books can brook
comparison with Nietzsche's later works, beginning with The Cay Science. ThC
Birth of Tragedy is widely overrated, but the later Nietzsche is inexhaustible.
About the Contributors
Max L. Baeumer-Professor of German and Permanent Member, Institute for
Research in the Humanities, University of Wisconsin. Author of.. Das
Dionysische in den Werken Wilhelm Heinses (tS6+); Heinse Studien $966);
editor and co-author of: Toposforschung (r97); W. Heinse: Ardinghelto
(rSl): and author of articles and reviews in his field. Professor Baeumer is
currently writing a book on the subject: "Das dionysische Phnomen in der
antiken und deutschen Literatur."
Eugen Biser-Professor of Christian Thought and the Philosophy of Religion,
University ofMunich. Among Professor Biser's writings may be mentioned:
"Cott isi tot": Nietzsches Destruktion des christlichen BewuJltseins (1962);
Theologische Sprachtheorie und Hermeneutik (tg7o); Theologie und Atheismus
(tSZz); Claubensuerstindnis: Grundrif einer hermeneutischen Fundamental-
theologie (rSl).
Mark Boulby-Professor of German, University of British Columbia. Author
of '. Cerhart Hauptmann: Die Weber (rg6z); Hermann Hesse: His Mind and Art
(tS6l); UweJohnson (rSl4; and numerous journal articles, including studies
of Nietzsche and Stefan George.
Ralph S. Fraser-Professor and Chairman of the Department of German,'W'ake
Forest University. Author of articles and translations in his freld, he is co-
author of Reimarus: Fragments (rSlo), anci editor of IJwe Johnson, Karscfr
und andere Prosa (tg7z).
Sander L. Gilman-Professor and Chairman of the Department of German Litera-
ture, Cornell University. Author of a study of Klabund and of liturgical
parody in' Western letters; editor of the works of Johannes Agricola von
Eisleben and F. M. von Klinger. Professor Gilman's arricles include studies of
Nietzsche.
Peter Heller-Professor of German and Comparative Literature, State (Jniversity
of Ncw York at Buffalo. Author o{: Dialectics and Nihilism (r966); "Von den
trstcrr rmd lctzten Dingen": Sfudicn und Kommentar zu einer Aphorismenreihe
pott l;ritdrich Nir,/:.rrlrc lglz), as wcll rs articlcs on modcrn literature and
xssthetics,
,11
 About the Contibutors About the Confiibutors 257
256

Timothy F. Sellner, Associate Professor of German, 'Wake Forest University. He is

Robert M. Helm-Professor of Philosophy, wake Forest (Jniversity. Author of
contributor to editor and translator of Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel's On Improuing the
The Cloomy Dean: The Thought of Witliam Ralph Inge (1962);
Status of Women (rg7g), and author of articles on German literature.
theNeuCatholicEncyclopeiliaandotherreferenceworksinhisfield.
Author of Cheryl L. Turney, a graduate of 'Wake Forest university, studied at the Free Uni-
Marcus B. Hester-Professor of Philosophy, wake Forest ljniversity.
in the field of aesthetics. versity of Berlin. Since then she has pursued graduate work in German litera-
The Meaning of Poetic Metaphor (r967) and articles
ture at Indiana University.
'walter Kaufmann-sruarr Professor of Philosophy, Princeton university. His
(r95o, 4th Kurt Weinberg-Professor of French, German, and Comparative Literature, Uni-
many books include: Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antithrist
versity of Rochester. Author of: Henri Heine, romantique dJroqu, hraut du
edition,enlarged,rgT4);ThePortableNietzsche(1954'translationoffour
with symbolismefrangais (rgy): KaJkas Dichtungen: Die Trauestien des Mythos (rS6:);
complete works); Basic Writings of Nietzsche (1968' five more works'
(t974)' both On Gide's Promithie: Priuate Myth and Public Mystifcation (rg7z); The Mind's
commentary) ; The Witt to Power (1967) and The Cay Science Body: The Figure oJ Faust in Val1ry and Goethe (1976); and numerous articles
with commentary. His most recent books include Tragedy and Philosophy
on German and French writers.
(1968)andWithoutGuiltandJustice(lg7|.ProfessorKaufmannhasalsotrans-
lated Goethe's Faust (t96t). Hedwig Wingler-lectured on the philosophy of language, the philosophy of sci-
ence, and aesthetics at the Technische Hochschule Darmstadt ry67-t975.
Hugh Lloyd-Jones-Regius Professor of Greek, Christ Church, oxford
[Jniver-
(196o); a Since 1975 Dr. Wingler resides in West Berlin. She is the author of articles
sity. Among his publications are: an edition of Menander's Dyscolus
(tglo); The oJ Zeus and a frequent radio lecturer in her field; currently she ,is writing a book on
translation of Aeschylus' trilogy, The oresteia Justice
of Amorgos on Women (1975)' Pro- the Pre-Socratics.
(tgZr); ;lnd Fetiales of the Species: Setnonides
fessor Lloyd-Jones is also the author of numerous articles in his field.
'wake Forest IJniversity, Author of
James c. o,Flaherty-Professor of German,
l)nity and Language: A Study in the Philosophy oJ Hamann (t952' tpr' tg66);
Hamann,s Socratic Memorabilia: A Translation and Commentary
(t967); Hamann
(rSlS); articles on German literature and culture' including studies of
Nietzsche.
Au-
Helmut Rehderf-Ashbel Smith Professor of German, University of Texas.
thor of: J. N' Meinhard und seine bersetzungen (rSs:); (co-author)' Goethe's,

Faust (t95o, tg55); Deutsch: Verstehen und Sprechen (t962) ar,d other
texts;

(editor)LiterarySymbolism:Asymposium(1965);numerousjournalarticlec'
including studies of Nietzsche.

Karl Schlechta-Pro{bssor Emeritus and Director of the Institute for Philosophy,

Technische Hochschule, Darmstadt. Editor of Nietzsche's werke
in drei Bnden
(rq66); among his numerous publications on Nietzsche are Nietzsches gro!*:
iittag Og5a1; Der Falt Nietzsche (rqS8); (with Herbert W' Reichert) lntema-'
among hll
tional Nietzsche Bibliography (196o, 1968); Nietzsche-Chronik (tglS);
writings on Goethe: Coetie in seinem Verhltnis zu Aristoteles (rp38); Goethe'l
Wilhelm Meister (t953).