Abstract
The most remarkable assertion Nietzsche made in his Birth of Tragedy concerns "the death of tragedy." The reason for the death of the Greek tragedy is, for Nietzsche, the change of chorus, spectator and prologue in Euripides' tragedies, which are contrary to the authentic Greek tragedies that represented the Dionysian spirit. Nietzsche attributed this situation to Socratism, claiming that Socratism not only resulted in a Euripidean "Greek cheerfulness" but also related closely to the western modern enlightenment. Thereupon, the Dionysian spirit becomes Nietzsche's nostalgia against the western ancient and modern enlightening rationality. In this sense, The Birth of Tragedy is the first work on postmodernism, although the postmodernists have not been able to put Nietzsche's nostalgia in perspective. Nietzsche's poetics of nostalgia has been opposing the decadency and philistinism in the western ancient and modern enlightenment with the "will to life" and "eternal return".
First Page
107
Last Page
115
Recommended Citation
Wei, Chaoyong. 2012. "Nietzsche's Idea of "the Death of Tragedy" and the Poetics of Nostalgia." Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art 32, (2): pp.107-115. https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/vol32/iss2/10
