Apollo

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Apollo Dionysus An
Assignment for Contexts for the ArtsAddressing
F. Nietzsches The Birth of Tragedy from the
Spirit of Music (1872)
By Jeff Walter October, 2003
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Paragraph 1The definition of art as an evolving
duality
Instructions

• One extreme is a dream, while the other is
  intoxication. Our Apollonian urge toward
  understanding, stirring our aspirations toward
  individuation, serves to support an illusion made
  by the burning plasticity of optimistic reason
  and logic. Art is my intentional sentence of
  balanced classical/romantic meaning. The
  intoxication of Dionysian living, digesting the
  joys and terrors of unlimited reveling and
  unashamedly consuming the passions of being, is
  the music of tragedy. Art needs its own tragedy,
  which kills artists for art. Art is an affective
  effect of the natural intermingling of these
  individuated and communal extremes, playing out
  as a harmony, sometimes overly dissonant or
  consonant.

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Paragraphs 2 3The Context Virtuality from The
Birth of Tragedy
Instructions

• Nietzsche reveals the importance of virtuality by
  suggesting that everyday reality is an illusion
  which hides a "totally different kind of reality"
  (Section 1, Paragraph 3). "Although of the two
  halves of lifethe waking and the dreamingthe
  former is generally considered not only the more
  important but the only one which is truly lived,
  I would, at the risk of sounding paradoxical,
  propose the opposite view" (Section 4, Paragraph
  1). With this, Nietzsche shows influence from
  Heraclitus, proposing that humans lack the
  ability to apprehend the true reality without the
  apparitions and illusions of dreams. But it is
  equally important for humans to see virtuality as
  power, embracing the most natural urge to dance
  in ritual. In this way the artist's virtual
  reality of individualism can be severed in favor
  of the primal community on Oneness. The
  interesting thing is the absolute need for
  virtuality. As I read Nietzsche, the power of
  true being would be unbearable for humans without
  the cover of virtual illusions.
• The spirit of music, the power of nature's
  Dionysian essence, is best represented to human
  communities in folk (not art) song. "Since
  melody precedes all else, it may have to undergo
  any number of objectifications, such as a variety
  of texts it presents" (Section 6, Paragraph 2).
  Folk song is the intermingling of Apollo and
  Dionysus, with its melody preceding its text or
  poetry in importance. Songs, as we normally know
  and talk and think of them, are virtual. As
  labels, songs direct us to texts, hiding from our
  illusory view the vitality of tune and melody.
  Language is a tool of appearance, and is
  powerless to bring us into art and music. We
  must assume our satyr position, not to become
  fifing shepherds, but to be as noble, savage
  beasts revealed as the balance to contemplative
  individuation.

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Paragraphs 4 5The Context of Apocalypse from
The Birth of Tragedy
Instructions

• Finding tragedy requires Dionysian intoxication
  toward apocalypse, and the terror of loosing
  one's self is perhaps most acute for artists.
  "Not only does the bond between man and man come
  to be forged once more by the magic of the
  Dionysian rite, but nature itself, long alienated
  or subjugated, rises again to celebrate the
  reconciliation with her prodigal son, man"
  (Section 1, Paragraph 5). The revelation of
  tragedy is the realization of organic humanity.
  "Man now after the sounding of universal harmony
  and the disappearance of individuation expresses
  himself through song and dance as the member of a
  higher community he has forgotten how to walk,
  how to speak, and is on the brink of taking wing
  as he dances" (Section 1, Paragraph 5). Thus,
  the apocalypse here is a death of self, leading
  to community, and the discovery of humanity in a
  Oneness. The ideal artist is master of both
  dreams and ecstasies, but seems inevitably drawn
  to some measure of forgetfulness in one direction
  or the other. The irony of the artist involves
  the death and destruction of individuation as a
  process of discovering universal singularity.
  Strangely, it is an anti-subjective motion,
  toward an objectivity which can only be
  understood, again, through the illusions of
  dreams.
• But there is another apocalypse to all of this,
  for Nietzsche is responding to the death of
  tragedy, and only then its eventual rebirth. A
  look beyond the assigned first sections of the
  book reveals his agenda. He struggles to outline
  the death of tragedy in more detail than its
  original birth. As a result, he becomes poised
  to herald its new birth in the nineteenth century
  fervor of Wagnerian musings. However, further
  beyond, the rewriter of Zarathustra mocks himself
  and his own tragic revelations. He laughs at
  himself, and at the memory of romantic visions of
  romantic music, realizing his own apocalyptic
  maturation.

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Paragraph 6A Primary Source Connection
Instructions
Sophocles, Oedipus the King, The Harvard
Classics.  190914, http//www.bartleby.com/8/5/
I selected three from the pride of Sophocles,
Nietzsches exemplar for the beginning of the end
of original tragedy. What strikes me most about
these passages are the singular pronouns. Some
explain them away as adaptations of the
developing individual actor. However, now they
read as signals of the unifying elements of
tragic involvement. When we become our role in
the tragedy, we are the chorus. But we speak as
one, our thoughts reflecting the balanced
intermingling of our Apollonian and Dionysian
natures.
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Paragraphs 7 8A Contemporary Tragedy
Instructions

• The passion of John F. Kennedy is a tragic art
  work of our contemporary world. Kennedy is
  Oedipus, killing and defiling his father and
  mother. We are his engendered parents, the
  paternal and maternal mass public. We view
  greatness, believing the virtual reality of his
  living and his dying. His own tragic death does
  not qualify as the core and essence of the
  tragedy. He makes the tragedy, killing the
  Father State through Dionysian feasts with
  mobster-monsters, and defiling Mother Integrity
  by ejaculating into the whores of visible fame.
• We are the Chorus of this tragedy, believing in
  and craving the television's ritual of mirror
  living. We sing blindly, ignoring his turn from
  luminous truth to vilest nature, as he digests
  sins at the Bacchian feats of Sinatra in Vegas.
  Then we vomit in confusion and terror when faced
  with the brain-spattered wife at his tragic turn.
  This is an Apocalypse of democracy, an end which
  reveals the truth of our imitative dreams.
  Nietzsche holds that Zarathustra spoke most
  importantly through his "down going." And it is
  that Zarathustra, the one that moves us into
  life, who laughs at our illusory knowledge.

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The Assignment
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• DUE DATE - Monday, October 27, 2003 at 1100am
  (via email posting date and time). No late
  submissions accepted.
• EVALUATION - Submissions of this assignment will
  be graded objectively and subjectively according
  to the quality of the submissions in terms of
  content, style, structure, presentation, and rule
  compliance. The rules are outlined below in the
  "Instructions" section of this page. The
  assignment is worth 20 of your final grade in
  the course. The grade of "C" or below on this
  assignment may result in a student's inability to
  earn a grade of "B" or above in the course.
• MATERIALS NEEDED
• This URL http//www.geocities.com/thenietzschech
  annel/bt3.htm.
• Access to a word processor/computer and the
  ability to email submissions to
  jwalter_at_txwes.edu.
• Thoughtful consideration, the willingness to
  learn, the ability to follow instructions, an
  appreciation for clarity, the ability to think,
  respect, the willingness to work, discovery, the
  ability to reform instructions, creativity,
  obedience, the ability to write well, patience,
  perseverance, the tenacity to solve problems
  independently, and other characteristics and
  traits expected of learners in higher education
  settings focused on the study of the arts.
• OBJECTIVES
• To invite students to learn.
• To entreat students to learn about some thing.
• To enable students to master the content of an
  assignment pertaining to the course.
• To assist students in realizing their inability
  to master the content of an assignment pertaining
  to the course, thereby providing students with an
  initial understanding of the subversion of
  didactic learning methodologies and pedagogies.
• To provide students a summation of the Context of
  Virtuality and the Context of Apocalypse within
  one primary source.
• INSTRUCTIONS
• Find the web page at the URL listed above (see
  Materials Needed).
• Read this web page, which is a translation of the
  first eight sections of Friedrich Nietzsche's
  1872 publication The Birth of Tragedy out of the
  Spirit of Music.

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The Assignment
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• In one paragraph describe the continually
  evolving duality to which art owes its existence.
  Your answer may be composed out of information
  gathered from various sections of the assigned
  text. The paragraph must contain six sentences.
  Each sentence should be at least ten words in
  length, but must not exceed twenty five words in
  length. This question is intended to force a
  learner to reduce a central idea of the treatise
  in a manner which protects, communicates and
  expresses the integral importance of that central
  idea.
• Write two paragraphs explaining how the assigned
  text best elucidates the Context of Virtuality.
  Both paragraphs must be six sentences in length,
  and all sentences should conform to the 10-25
  word limit guidelines provided in number 1 above.
  This answer must also contain two direct quotes
  ("citations") from the text, both of which will
  not be counted in the paragraph/sentence length
  requirements. In other words, the quotes from
  the assigned text are exclusive from the sentence
  requirements, regardless of the sentence and word
  length of those quotes. Citations from the text
  should be formatted parenthetically, at the end
  of the quoted material, and should list section
  and paragraph numbers ("Section 3, paragraph 4"
  for example). This question is intended to
  compel students to read carefully, completely and
  creatively, and to make the learning connections
  required to give the course meaning and purpose.
• Write two paragraphs explaining how the assigned
  text best elucidates the Context of Apocalypse.
  Follow all guidelines for these paragraphs as
  explained in number 2 above (with the exception
  of the topic of the paragraphs). This question
  is intended to force students to meet the goals
  listed in number 2 above.
• First, complete a source-extending activity. Go
  to the Wesleyan Library or another suitable
  location and find a Greek tragedy in English
  translation. Search the text of the tragedy to
  find three "lines" of the Chorus which you can
  quote as examples of the arguments/opinions
  expressed in the assigned text. Write one
  paragraph (six sentences, 10-25 words each) which
  explains the connection that you forge between
  these primary source examples and the specific
  arguments in the assigned text. Make sure to
  refer to section and paragraph numbers of the
  assigned text as explained in number 2 above.
  Format the citation of quotations of primary
  material (lines from the Chorus of your chosen
  Greek tragedy) by listing Author, Title, Version,
  and Relative Location for example
• "(Sophocles, Trachiniae, Translated by R. C.
  Jebb, online at http//ancienthistory.about.com/g
  i/dynamic/offsite.htm?sitehttp//classics.mit.edu
  /Sophocles/trachinae.html)." This question is
  intended to engage students in the
  responsibilities and work involved in learning
  about the arts, and to suggest the necessity of
  careful examination in relation to the expression
  and communication of personal convictions and
  opinions.
• Complete one more source-extending activity.
  Choose a contemporary ("from the current day, or
  time, or society") tragedy or tragedy-like art
  work which has, in your opinion, elements of a
  Greek Chorus as elucidated by the assigned text
  and your discovered example (number 4 above).
  Your interpretation of what those elements are
  and/or should be is the focus of this question.
  Compose two paragraphs (following the guidelines
  above six sentences, 10-25 words each, per
  paragraph) explaining your choice, drawing
  connections to the assigned text and to your
  chosen Greek tragedy Chorus lines. Finally
  (within the two paragraphs), explain how your
  chosen contemporary source directly applies to
  the Contexts of Virtuality and Apocalypse. This
  question is intended to challenge students to
  attain the privilege of protest and discontent as
  exemplified through the work of the author of the
  assigned text.
• ASSIGNMENT OUTLINE (60-150 words per paragraph,
  480-1200 total words, 2-5 pages, app. 250 words
  per page)
• A total of 8 paragraphs each comprised of six,
  10-25 word sentences.
• Paragraph 1 A summary of the "evolving duality"
  in the assigned text.
• Paragraphs 2 3 The Context of Virtuality from
  and in the assigned text.
• Paragraphs 4 5 The Context of Apocalypse from
  and in the assigned text.
• Paragraph 6 An exemplar Greek tragedy related to
  the assigned text.
• Paragraphs 7 8 A fully contextual
  interpretation of a contemporary source.