Music, Suffering, and Tragic Renewal
Essential Reading Path · Reading 7 of 8
Read: The concluding discussion of §16, then §24 in full
Allow: About 55–75 minutes, including the passages, this guide, and a short written response.
Read the final two paragraphs of §16, beginning “We have therefore, according to the doctrine of Schopenhauer,” then all of §24. Both selections are included below.
Before you read
A piece of music reaches a tense chord. You want it to move, but you also want to keep listening to exactly what it is doing. Removing every disturbance would leave a different, perhaps much less compelling piece.
That familiar experience gives us a foothold in Nietzsche’s difficult account of tragic pleasure. A tragedy presents suffering and destruction. Why might the experience nevertheless make life feel richer? What does the suffering contribute that a reassuring story could not?
Reading 6 brought us to the limits of theoretical optimism. This session considers what art might offer there. We jump from the end of §16 to §24 to bring Nietzsche’s explanation of music alongside his return to tragic myth.
Between our selections, §17 restates music’s power to generate myth and argues that theoretical optimism must lose its authority before tragedy can return. §18 credits Kant and Schopenhauer with exposing limits to knowledge; it also makes modern theoretical culture depend on a slave class and treats demands for equality as a threat. §19 attacks opera’s subordination of music to intelligible words and its faith in naturally good humanity, then turns toward Bach, Beethoven, and Wagner. §20 asks German readers to expect renewal through tragic music. §§21–22 explain how myth protects the listener from music’s overwhelming force while music draws the listener beyond the visible hero. §23 makes myth a condition of a culture’s unity and imagines a German recovery through exclusion of foreign influences. These are Nietzsche’s connected philosophical and political claims; §24 carries both into its closing hope.
The main question: How can tragedy affirm life while showing an individual life being destroyed?
Read the assigned passages once. Beside each appearance of pleasure or joy, note whose pleasure Nietzsche is describing: the spectator’s, the artist’s, or something he takes to lie beneath the whole world.
What to notice
- Music and the image. In §16, does music merely accompany a story, or does Nietzsche give it a more fundamental role in making tragic myth possible?
- The spectator’s divided desire. In §24, why do we want both to contemplate the visible drama and to reach beyond it? What work remains for Apollo?
- The change of scale. Where does §24 move from an account of artistic experience to a hope about German culture? What evidence would that larger hope require?
Assigned text
Friedrich Nietzsche · translated by William A. Haussmann (1910). Source and full text · Editions.
§16 — final two paragraphs
We have therefore, according to the doctrine of Schopenhauer, an immediate understanding of music as the language of the will, and feel our imagination stimulated to give form to this invisible and yet so actively stirred spirit-world which speaks to us, and prompted to embody it in an analogous example. On the other hand, image and concept, under the influence of a truly conformable music, acquire a higher significance. Dionysian art therefore is wont to exercise—two kinds of influences, on the Apollonian art-faculty: music firstly incites to the symbolic intuition of Dionysian universality, and, secondly, it causes the symbolic image to stand forth in its fullest significance. From these facts, intelligible in themselves and not inaccessible to profounder observation, I infer the capacity of music to give birth to myth, that is to say, the most significant exemplar, and precisely tragic myth: the myth which speaks of Dionysian knowledge in symbols. In the phenomenon of the lyrist, I have set forth that in him music strives to express itself with regard to its nature in Apollonian images. If now we reflect that music in its highest potency must seek to attain also to its highest symbolisation, we must deem it possible that it also knows how to find the symbolic expression of its inherent Dionysian wisdom; and where shall we have to seek for this expression if not in tragedy and, in general, in the conception of the tragic?
Return to commentary: §16, concluding discussion
From the nature of art, as it is ordinarily conceived according to the single category of appearance and beauty, the tragic cannot be honestly deduced at all; it is only through the spirit of music that we understand the joy in the annihilation of the individual. For in the particular examples of such annihilation only is the eternal phenomenon of Dionysian art made clear to us, which gives expression to the will in its omnipotence, as it were, behind the principium individuationis, the eternal life beyond all phenomena, and in spite of all annihilation. The metaphysical delight in the tragic is a translation of the instinctively unconscious Dionysian wisdom into the language of the scene: the hero, the highest manifestation of the will, is disavowed for our pleasure, because he is only phenomenon, and because the eternal life of the will is not affected by his annihilation. "We believe in eternal life," tragedy exclaims; while music is the proximate idea of this life. Plastic art has an altogether different object: here Apollo vanquishes the suffering of the individual by the radiant glorification of the eternity of the phenomenon; here beauty triumphs over the suffering inherent in life; pain is in a manner surreptitiously obliterated from the features of nature. In Dionysian art and its tragic symbolism the same nature speaks to us with its true undissembled voice: "Be as I am! Amidst the ceaseless change of phenomena the eternally creative primordial mother, eternally impelling to existence, self-satisfying eternally with this change of phenomena!"
Return to commentary: §16, the hero and the life of the will
§24 — complete section
Among the peculiar artistic effects of musical tragedy we had to emphasise an Apollonian illusion, through which we are to be saved from immediate oneness with the Dionysian music, while our musical excitement is able to discharge itself on an Apollonian domain and in an interposed visible middle world. It thereby seemed to us that precisely through this discharge the middle world of theatrical procedure, the drama generally, became visible and intelligible from within in a degree unattainable in the other forms of Apollonian art: so that here, where this art was as it were winged and borne aloft by the spirit of music, we had to recognise the highest exaltation of its powers, and consequently in the fraternal union of Apollo and Dionysus the climax of the Apollonian as well as of the Dionysian artistic aims.
Return to commentary: §24, the visible middle world
Of course, the Apollonian light-picture did not, precisely with this inner illumination through music, attain the peculiar effect of the weaker grades of Apollonian art. What the epos and the animated stone can do—constrain the contemplating eye to calm delight in the world of the individuatio—could not be realised here, notwithstanding the greater animation and distinctness. We contemplated the drama and penetrated with piercing glance into its inner agitated world of motives—and yet it seemed as if only a symbolic picture passed before us, the profoundest significance of which we almost believed we had divined, and which we desired to put aside like a curtain in order to behold the original behind it. The greatest distinctness of the picture did not suffice us: for it seemed to reveal as well as veil something; and while it seemed, with its symbolic revelation, to invite the rending of the veil for the disclosure of the mysterious background, this illumined all-conspicuousness itself enthralled the eye and prevented it from penetrating more deeply He who has not experienced this,—to have to view, and at the same time to have a longing beyond the viewing,—will hardly be able to conceive how clearly and definitely these two processes coexist in the contemplation of tragic myth and are felt to be conjoined; while the truly æsthetic spectators will confirm my assertion that among the peculiar effects of tragedy this conjunction is the most noteworthy. Now let this phenomenon of the æsthetic spectator be transferred to an analogous process in the tragic artist, and the genesis of tragic myth will have been understood. It shares with the Apollonian sphere of art the full delight in appearance and contemplation, and at the same time it denies this delight and finds a still higher satisfaction in the annihilation of the visible world of appearance. The substance of tragic myth is first of all an epic event involving the glorification of the fighting hero: but whence originates the essentially enigmatical trait, that the suffering in the fate of the hero, the most painful victories, the most agonising contrasts of motives, in short, the exemplification of the wisdom of Silenus, or, æsthetically expressed, the Ugly and Discordant, is always represented anew in such countless forms with such predilection, and precisely in the most youthful and exuberant age of a people, unless there is really a higher delight experienced in all this?
For the fact that things actually take such a tragic course would least of all explain the origin of a form of art; provided that art is not merely an imitation of the reality of nature, but in truth a metaphysical supplement to the reality of nature, placed alongside thereof for its conquest. Tragic myth, in so far as it really belongs to art, also fully participates in this transfiguring metaphysical purpose of art in general: What does it transfigure, however, when it presents the phenomenal world in the guise of the suffering hero? Least of all the "reality" of this phenomenal world, for it says to us: "Look at this! Look carefully! It is your life! It is the hour-hand of your clock of existence!"
And myth has displayed this life, in order thereby to transfigure it to us? If not, how shall we account for the æsthetic pleasure with which we make even these representations pass before us? I am inquiring concerning the æsthetic pleasure, and am well aware that many of these representations may moreover occasionally create even a moral delectation, say under the form of pity or of a moral triumph. But he who would derive the effect of the tragic exclusively from these moral sources, as was usually the case far too long in æsthetics, let him not think that he has done anything for Art thereby; for Art must above all insist on purity in her domain. For the explanation of tragic myth the very first requirement is that the pleasure which characterises it must be sought in the purely æsthetic sphere, without encroaching on the domain of pity, fear, or the morally-sublime. How can the ugly and the discordant, the substance of tragic myth, excite an æsthetic pleasure?
Here it is necessary to raise ourselves with a daring bound into a metaphysics of Art. I repeat, therefore, my former proposition, that it is only as an æsthetic phenomenon that existence and the world, appear justified: and in this sense it is precisely the function of tragic myth to convince us that even the Ugly and Discordant is an artistic game which the will, in the eternal fulness of its joy, plays with itself. But this not easily comprehensible proto-phenomenon of Dionysian Art becomes, in a direct way, singularly intelligible, and is immediately apprehended in the wonderful significance of musical dissonance: just as in general it is music alone, placed in contrast to the world, which can give us an idea as to what is meant by the justification of the world as an æsthetic phenomenon. The joy that the tragic myth excites has the same origin as the joyful sensation of dissonance in music. The Dionysian, with its primitive joy experienced in pain itself, is the common source of music and tragic myth.
Return to commentary: §24, dissonance and aesthetic justification
Is it not possible that by calling to our aid the musical relation of dissonance, the difficult problem of tragic effect may have meanwhile been materially facilitated? For we now understand what it means to wish to view tragedy and at the same time to have a longing beyond the viewing: a frame of mind, which, as regards the artistically employed dissonance, we should simply have to characterise by saying that we desire to hear and at the same time have a longing beyond the hearing. That striving for the infinite, the pinion-flapping of longing, accompanying the highest delight in the clearly-perceived reality, remind one that in both states we have to recognise a Dionysian phenomenon, which again and again reveals to us anew the playful up-building and demolishing of the world of individuals as the efflux of a primitive delight, in like manner as when Heraclitus the Obscure compares the world-building power to a playing child which places stones here and there and builds sandhills only to overthrow them again.
Hence, in order to form a true estimate of the Dionysian capacity of a people, it would seem that we must think not only of their music, but just as much of their tragic myth, the second witness of this capacity. Considering this most intimate relationship between music and myth, we may now in like manner suppose that a degeneration and depravation of the one involves a deterioration of the other: if it be true at all that the weakening of the myth is generally expressive of a debilitation of the Dionysian capacity. Concerning both, however, a glance at the development of the German genius should not leave us in any doubt; in the opera just as in the abstract character of our myth-less existence, in an art sunk to pastime just as in a life guided by concepts, the inartistic as well as life-consuming nature of Socratic optimism had revealed itself to us. Yet there have been indications to console us that nevertheless in some inaccessible abyss the German spirit still rests and dreams, undestroyed, in glorious health, profundity, and Dionysian strength, like a knight sunk in slumber: from which abyss the Dionysian song rises to us to let us know that this German knight even still dreams his primitive Dionysian myth in blissfully earnest visions. Let no one believe that the German spirit has for ever lost its mythical home when it still understands so obviously the voices of the birds which tell of that home. Some day it will find itself awake in all the morning freshness of a deep sleep: then it will slay the dragons, destroy the malignant dwarfs, and waken Brünnhilde—and Wotan's spear itself will be unable to obstruct its course!
Return to commentary: §24, the hope of renewal
My friends, ye who believe in Dionysian music, ye know also what tragedy means to us. There we have tragic myth, born anew from music,—and in this latest birth ye can hope for everything and forget what is most afflicting. What is most afflicting to all of us, however, is—the prolonged degradation in which the German genius has lived estranged from house and home in the service of malignant dwarfs. Ye understand my allusion—as ye will also, in conclusion, understand my hopes.
Return to commentary: §24, the awakening knight
Close reading
Music gives the image a deeper significance
The selected ending of §16 begins with a premise borrowed from Schopenhauer: we understand music as the language of the will. Here will means the underlying reality expressed in the world’s striving and changing forms. It reaches beyond a person’s conscious intentions or passing mood.
Nietzsche gives music two related powers. It stimulates the imagination to create symbolic images, and it makes those images appear more significant. The tragic story gives visible form to something music communicates more universally. A hero’s particular conflict becomes an image of a condition that exceeds that one person.
Recall the account of chorus and stage in Reading 3. The visible drama allows a Dionysian experience to appear in figures we can follow. The explanation now gains a stronger metaphysical claim: music brings us into relation with the will underlying those figures. Notice how much rests on accepting that starting point. §16, concluding discussion
What survives the hero’s destruction?
At the end of §16, the individual hero is a manifestation of the will. The hero can be destroyed while the life expressed through that individual continues. Tragic pleasure becomes intelligible, Nietzsche thinks, when the spectator’s attachment reaches beyond the particular figure to that underlying creative life.
This is the structure of metaphysical consolation: the loss of an individual does not exhaust what exists. The assurance concerns the continuing life of the will; it gives no promise that this hero will personally survive or receive compensation. We still see a terrible loss onstage.
Keep consolation distinct from aesthetic justification. Consolation describes an assurance that can sustain us through suffering. Aesthetic justification is the larger claim that existence, including its destruction, can appear justified through art. §24 asks us to consider the world’s creating and destroying as an artistic activity. Feeling comfort and establishing that claim are separate achievements. §16, the hero and the life of the will
Apollo still gives us something to see
§24 opens by returning to the visible drama. The Apollonian image protects the spectator from immediate oneness with Dionysian music. It provides a middle world: characters, gestures, and actions through which musical excitement becomes something we can apprehend.
The image also seems to disclose more than it contains. Nietzsche compares it to a curtain we want to draw aside, even as its clarity holds our attention. We want the scene before us and want to reach through it. The two desires coexist.
This helps us refine the first reading’s question about the cooperation of Apollo and Dionysus. In tragedy, the distinct image makes an encounter with what exceeds individuality possible. Apollo therefore remains essential even when the hero’s destruction draws us beyond the individual. Ask what would be lost if we replaced the whole drama with an abstract announcement that everything passes away. §24, the visible middle world
Dissonance makes pleasure harder to explain
Nietzsche now asks how the ugly and discordant can produce aesthetic pleasure. Pity and admiration for moral courage may accompany tragedy. He thinks those responses still leave its specifically artistic attraction unexplained. Why do we want to experience the work again?
Musical dissonance supplies his central analogy. We can delight in an artistically shaped tension while feeling a longing that presses beyond it. His point concerns pleasure within this troubled movement; he gives no simple rule that a pleasant final chord must cancel everything difficult.
He then takes what he calls a “daring bound” into a metaphysics of art. Tragic myth lets the world’s suffering appear within the will’s creative play. The image of a child building and overthrowing sandhills makes the proposal vivid: construction and destruction belong to one activity.
A chord belongs to a composition. A destroyed individual belongs to the world. Can pleasure in the first teach us to affirm the second? Mark the point where the musical example begins carrying that larger claim. §24, dissonance and aesthetic justification
A theory of tragedy becomes a cultural hope
In §24’s final paragraphs, Nietzsche turns to Germany. He imagines its spirit as a sleeping knight whose Dionysian strength might awaken. The names Brünnhilde and Wotan locate this hope in the mythic world of Wagner’s music dramas.
The awakening also involves slaying dragons and destroying “malignant dwarfs.” Renewal is imagined through the defeat of enemies as well as the recovery of music and myth. §24, the awakening knight
The shift matters. Nietzsche wants renewed music and myth to transform how a culture lives with suffering. He is dissatisfied with an existence governed by concepts and art reduced to pastime. His proposed renewal depends on music recovering a power he associates with Greek tragedy.
These paragraphs give us an impassioned hope, expressed through a national myth. They do not by themselves establish that modern German music recreates Greek tragic experience, or that a whole culture can be diagnosed this way. Keep the closing knight beside the opening dissonance: how did an observation about listening become this prediction? The final reading will confront Nietzsche’s later objection to that very move. §24, the hope of renewal
A difficulty
Does making suffering meaningful to a spectator justify it for the person who suffers?
A musical tension gains significance from its place in a work. Nietzsche asks us to see individual destruction within a larger creative life. The difficulty is that the spectator and the suffering individual occupy different positions. A compelling whole may delight someone who can contemplate it while offering very little to someone enduring the loss.
Give Nietzsche his strongest reply: tragedy can change our relation to existence without promising to repair every individual fate. Then press the question again. Does this explain how an artwork sustains its audience, or show that the world itself is justified? Identify what would have to connect those claims.
Check your understanding
Why does §16 give music more importance than an emotional accompaniment?
Because music is treated as the language of the underlying will. It stimulates symbolic images and deepens their significance, making tragic myth possible. Calling it background mood leaves out the metaphysical premise and its role in generating the visible drama.
What distinguishes metaphysical consolation from aesthetic justification?
Consolation is the assurance that underlying life continues despite an individual’s destruction. Aesthetic justification is the stronger claim that existence can appear justified as an artistic phenomenon. An experience of reassurance does not by itself establish that larger claim.
Why does Apollo remain necessary in §24?
The visible drama gives Dionysian excitement a form the spectator can encounter. Its figures both hold our attention and suggest a reality beyond them. Erasing the image would remove the mediation Nietzsche says makes musical tragedy possible.
Writing prompt
Write 150–200 words answering:
How far does the comparison with musical dissonance help explain our pleasure in tragedy?
Begin with one precise observation about a tense musical passage, real or imagined. Explain Nietzsche’s comparison using §24, then connect it to the hero and the continuing life of the will in §16. Finish by identifying one step that still needs an argument.
A successful response distinguishes an experience of artistic pleasure from a claim about reality. It also explains why the hero’s suffering remains part of the work’s power, rather than something the account simply removes.
Continue
The final session moves fourteen years forward. Nietzsche returns to this book and challenges its borrowed philosophy, its cultural hopes, and its need for consolation. Bring your own judgments to that confrontation.
Reading 8: Nietzsche Challenges His Own Book →
A reading guide from Reading Nietzsche · Revised .