The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music

by Friedrich Nietzsche

So strong men are needed not only to provide, but also to enjoy tragedy. The period during which they were able to turned out to be lamentably brief, though Nietzsche seems to think that that was due to misfortune rather than any historical necessity. What happened was that the third of the three Greek tragedians killed it by the production of works in which, though few have realized it, knowledge (Wissenschaft) was preferred to wisdom (Weisheit). This is signalized in Euripides’ plays (for he is the villain) by the comparative insignificance of the chorus, and the multiplication of individual characters who think that they can resolve their conflicts by argument, or as Nietzsche puts it, dialectic. As soon as one puts one’s faith in reason and reasoning, as opposed to intuition mediated through music, one has forfeited the possibility of genuine knowledge, which must always be tragic.