Apollonian and Dionysian
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The Apollonian and Dionysian is a philosophical and literary concept that is based on certain features of ancient Greek mythology. It has been used by several Western philosophical and literary figures, including Plutarch, Friedrich Nietzsche, literary critic G. Wilson Knight, and cultural critic Camille Paglia.
In Greek mythology, Apollo is the god of lightness and poetry. Dionysus is the god of wine and drunkenness. In the literary usage of the concept, this contrast is transformed into a metaphysical principle of individuality versus wholeness. The Classical Greeks did not consider the two gods to be in any formal opposition as gods.
[edit] Nietzsche's usage
Nietzsche's aesthetic usage of the concepts, which was later developed philosophically, began with his book The Birth of Tragedy. In this work he states that a fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian "Kunsttriebe" (artistic impulses) is dramatic art's (tragedy's) main prerequisite and that this has essentially failed to be achieved since ancient Greek tragedy. Nietzsche emphasizes that the works of Aeschylus, above all, and also Sophocles represent the summit of artistic creation, the true realization of tragedy; it is with Euripides, he states, that tragedy finds its "Untergang" (decline, deterioration, downfall, death, literal: "going under"). Nietzsche objects to Euripides' utilization of Socratic rationalism in his tragedies, The Bacchae in particular, claiming that the infusion of ethics and reason in tragedy robs it of its foundation, namely the fragile balance of the Dionysian and Apollonian.
Dionysus (Dionysian): intoxication, celebration of nature, cruelty, music, dance, pain, individuality dissolved and hence destroyed, wholeness of existence, orgiastic passion, dissolution of all boundaries, excess, human being(s) as the work and glorification of art, destruction.
Apollo (Apollinian or Apollonian): the dream state, principium individuationis (principle of individuation), plastic (visual) arts, beauty, stint to formed boundaries, individuality, reason, celebration of appearance/illusion, human beings as artists (or media of art's manifestation), self-control, perfection, exhaustion of possibilities, creation.
