Chapter 19 Eight

Satyr is the same as the shepherd in modern idylls, both are products of nostalgia for primitive and natural factors.Yet how resolutely and resolutely the Greeks embraced their forest-man, and how shyly and timidly the modern man flirts with the flattering image of a tender flute-player!What the Greeks saw in Satyr was the nature in which knowledge had not yet been made and the cultural barrier had not yet been opened.Therefore, for the Greeks, satyrs are not comparable to ape-men.On the contrary, it is the true image of man, the expression of the highest and strongest impulse of man, the ecstasy who is elated by being close to the gods, the friend in trouble with the gods, the prophet who proclaims the wisdom in the deepest bosom of nature, It is a symbol of the neutral universal power of nature.The Greeks were always in awe of this power and stared in amazement.A satyr is something sublime, and in the eyes of a dying Dionysian he must especially be so.The hypocritical shepherds insulted him.His eyes linger on the clear and healthy strokes of nature, thus obtaining sublime satisfaction.Here, the true image of human beings has washed away the leaden splendor of civilization.Here, the real man appears, the bearded satyr, cheering to his god.Before him civilized man shrinks into a false caricature.Schiller is also right about this beginning of tragic art: the chorus is a living wall against the surging reality because it (the satyr chorus) is more sincere and real than civilized man, who usually regards himself as the only reality , A more complete simulation of life.The realm of poetry does not exist outside the world like a castle in the air imagined by the poet's mind, but on the contrary, it wants to be the undisguised expression of truth, which must therefore abandon the pretense of the false reality of civilized man.The opposition of this true natural truth to the cultural lie that claims to be the only reality is exactly like the opposition between the eternal core of things, the thing-in-itself and the entire phenomenal world.Just as tragedy, with its metaphysical consolation, points out the immortality of the core of existence in the constant destruction of appearances, so the satyr chorus uses a metaphor to illustrate the original relationship between the thing-in-itself and appearances.The shepherd in the pastoral songs of moderns is but a portrait of all the false upbringing they call nature.The Dionysian Greeks demanded the strongest truth and spontaneity—they saw themselves transformed into satyrs.

The Dionysians wandered in bands, reveling in revelry, immersed in a certain mood and realization, whose power transformed them before their eyes, so that they saw themselves in their imaginations as recreated spirits of nature, satyrs. .The subsequent structure of the tragic chorus is an artistic imitation of this natural phenomenon, in which it is of course necessary to separate the Dionysian audience from the Dionysian magician.It must always be remembered that the spectator of the Attic tragedy rediscovers himself in the chorus, and that in the final analysis there is no opposition between the spectator and the chorus, for the whole is a majestic chorus composed of songs and dances. Satyr or people represented by a satyr.Schlegel's insight must be developed here in a deeper sense.The chorus is the "ideal spectator" in the sense that it is the only spectator, the spectator of the stage illusion.The concept of an audience as we know it was unknown to the Greeks.In their theatres, since the audience hall is a stepped structure rising in concentric arcs, everyone can truly ignore the entire civilized world around him, and feel himself a member of the chorus in the saturated gaze.On this view we may call the early chorus of primitive tragedy the self-reflection of the Dionysian man.This phenomenon is most clearly seen when the actor is acting, if he is really talented, he will see the image of the character he plays floating before his eyes.The satyr chorus is at first an illusion of the Dionysian masses, just as the stage world is an illusion of this satyr chorus.So powerful is this illusion that it blinds one to the impression of "reality" and the educated people seated all around them.The configuration of the Greek theater reminds one of a silent valley, and the stage building is like a splendid cloudscape, and the Dionysian worshipers gathered on the hill look down on it from a height, like a splendid frame in which the image of Dionysus appears to them .

The primitive phenomenon of art which we speak of here in order to illustrate the tragic chorus is almost disreputable in the eyes of our scholarship on the fundamental artistic process.Yet it is quite true that a poet is a poet in that he sees himself surrounded by images, that they live and act before him, and that he penetrates into their deepest nature.Owing to a peculiar weakness of the modern faculty, we are fond of imagining the primitive phenomena of aesthetics too complex and abstract.For the true poet, a simile is not a figure of speech, but an image that takes the place of an idea that actually arises before him.For him, character is not a whole composed of collected individual characteristics, but a living figure with a distinct purpose, which only shows the difference from the similar fantasy of the painter because of its continuous living and acting. .Why is Homer more vivid than all poets?Because he stares more.The reason we talk about poetry so abstractly is because we are usually bad poets.The aesthetic phenomenon is ultimately simple.Whoever has the ability to continually watch a vivid game, living constantly surrounded by phantoms, is a poet.He who has only to feel the urge to change himself, to speak from other bodies and souls, is a dramatist.

Dionysian excitement can transmit this artistic talent to a whole crowd: to see oneself surrounded by a group of spirits, and to know that one is inwardly one with them.This process of the tragic chorus is a primitive phenomenon of the theater: to see oneself transformed before one's own eyes, and now to act, as if one had really entered another body, another character.This process occurs at the beginning of the development of the play.Here, there is something different from the bard, who does not merge with its images, but sees them with detached contemplation, like a painter.Here the individual renounces himself by remaining in an alien nature.Moreover, the phenomenon spread like an epidemic, and throngs of people felt themselves transformed in this way.Dionysus is thus fundamentally different from other kinds of chorus.The maidens holding laurel branches moved solemnly towards the temple of the sun god, singing marches, they remained the same and kept their civic names; while the Dionysian chorus was the chorus of perverts, their civic experience and social status Forgotten, they become the timeless and socially transcendent servants of their gods.All the rest of the lyrical chorus of the Greeks was but a monstrous magnification of the Apollonian soloist; in the Dithyramb, on the other hand, there appears a group of unconscious actors who see themselves transformed in each other.

Verzauberung (Verzauberung) is the premise of all dramatic art.In this state of metamorphosis the Dionysian ecstasy sees himself as a satyr, and as a satyr he sees the god again, that is to say, he sees in his transformation a new phantom outside him. , it was the Apollonian completion of his condition.Drama follows this vision. In light of this recognition, we must understand Greek tragedy as the Dionysian chorus constantly bursting afresh into a world of Apollonian images.Therefore, the chorus part used to connect the tragedy is to a certain extent the womb of the whole so-called dialogue, that is, the womb of the whole stage world and drama in the original sense.In burst after burst, this source of tragedy radiates dramatic phantoms.This phantasy is definitely a dream-phenomenon, and thus has an epic nature; but, on the other hand, as an objectification of a Dionysian state, it is not the Apollinian liberation in appearance, but the disintegration of the individual and its companions. The oneness that existed in the beginning.Therefore, drama is the Apollonian sensibility of Dionysian knowledge and Dionysian function, so after all, there is a gap between epic and epic.

On this view of ours, the chorus of Greek tragedy, the symbol of the whole crowd in Dionysian excitement, is fully explained.If we are accustomed to the role of the chorus on the modern stage, and especially to the opera chorus, we cannot at all understand that the tragic chorus of the Greeks is older, more primitive, and even more important than the original "plot", although this original is a very clear tradition; if because the chorus consisted only of lowly servants, at first even of goat satyrs, we should not agree with the high importance and origin of its tradition; if the orchestra in front of the stage Always a mystery to us--well, now we have come to the realization that the stage and action were at first conceived as phantasms, and that the chorus alone is the only "reality" which creates phantasms out of itself, with dance, All the symbolism of sound, of words, to speak of visions.The chorus sees its master and master Dionysus in hallucinations, and is therefore always a chorus in service.It sees how the god suffers and glorifies itself, and therefore does not act of its own accord.In this post entirely in the service of the gods, it is, after all, the highest expression of nature, the Dionysian expression, and so, like nature, utters the oracle and wise precepts in its agitation.It is both a friend in distress and a philosopher who proclaims the truth from the heart of the world.Thus was born the fanciful and seemingly indecent image of the wise and passionate Satyr, who, compared with Dionysus, is a "dumb horn," a copy of nature and its strongest impulses, a symbol of nature. , but also the proclaimer of natural wisdom and art, integrating musicians, poets, dancers, and wizards.

Dionysus, the original hero of the stage and the center of the phantasy, was not really present in the oldest period of tragedy, but only imagined to be present, according to the above view and according to tradition.In other words, tragedy was originally just a "chorus", not a "drama".It was not until later that an attempt was made to present the god as a real person, so that the phantom and its radiant aura could be seen.So began to have "drama" in a narrow sense.It is now the task of the Dionysian carols to excite the audience in the Dionysian way to such an extent that when the tragic hero appears on the stage, they do not see ugly masked figures, but A phantom born of my own madness.Let us imagine Admetus, who longed deeply for his late wife Alcestis, and tried his best to figure out her image. At this time, a veiled woman Suddenly brought before him, resembling his wife in stature and gait; let us imagine his sudden trembling uneasiness, his quick assessments, the certainty of his intuition—then we shall have an approximation. It is with this feeling that the Dionysian excited spectator sees the god with whom he has been called to the stage with whom he is prepared to share misfortune.Involuntarily he transfers the whole image of the god, trembling magically in his mind, onto the masked actor, almost dissolving the latter's reality in a spiritual unreality.This is the Apollonian dream, in which the everyday world becomes blurred, and a new world, which is clearer, more intelligible, more exciting than it, but still more phantom, is born in constant change and refreshes our eyes.Thus we see in tragedy two diametrically opposed styles: language, mood, flexibility, the driving force of speech, which on the one hand enters the Dionysian choral lyricism, and on the other enters the Apollonian stage dream, becoming completely different from each other. expression field.The Apollonian phenomenon in which the Dionysian impulse objectifies itself is no longer "an eternal sea, a changing fabric, a fiery life" like chorus music, no longer the Dionysian phenomenon that makes the passionate Dionysian The servant can only perceive the unseen power with which the servant has a premonition of the coming of God.Now, the epic figure appeared to him clearly and distinctly from the stage.Now Dionysus speaks no longer by force, but almost in the language of Homer, like the epic hero.