Apollonian and Dionysian

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The Apollonian and Dionysian is a philosophical and literary concept, or dichotomy, based on certain features of ancient Greek mythology. Several Western philosophical and literary figures have invoked this dichotomy in critical and creative works, including Plutarch, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ruth Benedict, Thomas Mann, Ayn Rand, literary critic G. Wilson Knight, and cultural critic Camille Paglia.

1 Definition
2 Nietzsche's usage
3 Examples
4 See also

[edit] Definition

In Greek mythology, Apollo is the god of the sun, lightness, and poetry. Dionysus is the god of wine, ecstasy, and drunkenness. In the modern literary usage of the concept, the contrast between Apollo and Dionysus symbolizes a metaphysical principle of individuality versus wholeness. The ancient Greeks did not consider the two gods as opposites or rivals.

Apollo (Apollinian or Apollonian): the dream state, principium individuationis (principle of individuation), plastic (visual) arts, beauty, clarity, stint to formed boundaries, individuality, critical reason, celebration of appearance/illusion, human beings as artists (or media of art's manifestation), self-control, perfection, exhaustion of possibilities, creation.^{[citations needed]}

Dionysus (Dionysian): intoxication, celebration of nature, instinctual, intuitive, 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.^{[citations needed]}

[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 stated that a fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian "Kunsttriebe" (artistic impulses) is dramatic art's (tragedy's) main prerequisite and that this has essentially not been 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 begins its "Untergang" (literally "going under," meaning decline, deterioration, downfall, death). 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.