The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music (Penguin Classics) Paperback – 27 May 1993

Friedrich Nietzsche's 'The birth of tragedy: out of the spirit of music' raises the most profound questions about the nature art. Drawing from both Greek mythology and a deep knowledge of pre-Socratic Greek art Nietzsche attempts to account for the development and fate of Greek tragic theatre. It's a fascinating account that invites the reader to consider the contrasting artistic powers that find expression in different works of art. The text also suggests why every human is a consummate artist!

Amazing and readable.

This is a small book with big ideas.I had never read Nietzsche before and decided to read this book in conjunction with others I was reading for a talk I am giving.Although his writing is convoluted at times, as I would expect from a philosopher, I was intrigued by what he was saying, particularly in the light of later psychoanalytic theorists, such as Freud,Lacan,Klein, Bion etc., since he seems to be working on ideas that would later become crystallized in psychoanalytic thinking and theory.This, enabled me to shape what it was I wanted to say in my talk. I was also able to understand his thinking, not only theoretically, but also in the light of his illness, which would, later, have a profound effect on his work and his life.I could relate also to his notion of art, and music in particular, as stimulus for experience of the sublime.

i enjoyed it very much and the book was in excellent condition and I would recommend it to a friend

Arrived faster than expected, quality basically perfect.

You have to be really interested in Nietzsche to enjoy this book - his style is rhetorical, paradoxical, digressive, sometimes contradictory, and difficult to understand without background knowledge. The primary theme is of the lost utopian age of Ancient Greek civilization at its peak, and the role of Greek tragedy in unifying the people in a way which transcended the gloom of mortality. How was this role to be filled in the modern era? By Wagner (whom Nietzsche subsequently despised.) The The second part of the title "out of the spirit of music" misleads. N places emphasis on the role of music in Greek tragedy, but not much is known about it, except the scale (see Sir James Jeans - Science and Music, still the authority,) and the fact that singing was homophonic (no harmonies - Aristotle.) Must have sounded rather different to Wagnerian opera. Nietzsche's fundamental theories are as mad as the man (final insanity through syphillis) - but there are some interesting ideas and quotations, and he has had a great influence on today's world, particularly through the Nazi's abuse of his philosophy, and also his influence on Freud, many of whose ideas he anticipates. N himself was violently opposed to anti-semitism.

Great read

Excellent