Chapter 11 birth of tragedy

Given the peculiar nature of our aesthetic public, the ideas concentrated in this work are likely to give rise to doubts, unease, and misunderstandings of every kind.In order to escape all this, and to be able to write the preface of this work with the same contemplative happiness that stamps on every page as the stamp of a beautiful and sublime moment, I vividly contemplate you, my esteem My friend, the scene when I received this book.Perhaps after an evening walk in the snow, you gazed at Prometheus Unchained on the title page, read my name, and immediately believed: Whatever the book says, the author must say something serious and touching; besides, he talks to you as if to face to face with everything he thinks, and writes down only what is suitable for talking to you face to face.You will also remember at this time that it was at the time when your brilliant commemorative essay on Beethoven appeared, that is, in the frightened solemnity of the war that had just broken out, that I was absorbed in these thoughts.Anyone who, from this preoccupation, imagines the contrast between patriotic excitement and aesthetic luxury, between gallant seriousness and merry play, will of course be misunderstood.Let them be surprised, when they read this work carefully, to see what serious German problems we are discussing, which we justifiably see as the center of German hopes, as eddies and turning points.In their view, however, it may be unseemly to take an aesthetic question so seriously, for art, they believe, is no more than a leisurely affair, a dispensable object attached to the "seriousness of life." alarm.No one seems to know the meaning of what stands in such contrast to this "seriousness of life."The lesson for these serious people is this: I am sure that to the man who understood that art is life's highest calling and life's inherent metaphysical activity, I dedicate this work here, to the man who walks My noble forerunner on the same road.