Chapter 20 The Birth of Tragedy Chapter Six

birth of tragedy Chapter Six With regard to Archilochus, the studies of scholars have found that he introduced folk songs into literature, and for this feat the Greeks generally judged him worthy of a special place alongside Homer.But what is the folk song in contrast to the Oneiroi-type epic?Is it not the Perpetuum vestigum (sign of eternity) of Oneiroi and Dionysus combined?Folk songs are widely popular among all peoples, and they continue to grow and grow stronger, which is a testament to how powerful this dual artistic impulse of the soul is. It leaves traces in folk songs, just as the mysterious activities of a nation depend on its music. And passed on to posterity.Indeed, history can prove that the era when folk songs are most abundant is often the era that is most violently impacted by the Dionysian trend, and we should always regard this wave as the source and prerequisite of folk songs.

However, we must first regard the folk song as a musical mirror reflecting the world, and express it as poetry as the original tune now finds a corresponding dream.So the melody is primary and universal.Thus can be subject to multiple objectifications in multiple lyrics.Furthermore, according to the naive idea of ​​the folk, the melody is the most important and necessary factor.The melody automatically generates poetry, and it is constantly being metabolized.This is proved to be the case with the movement form of folk songs-a phenomenon that I used to be puzzled by, but I finally found the following explanation.Anyone who studies a collection of folk songs on this principle (for example, "The Magic Flute of the Child") will find countless examples of how the ever-growing tunes spread picturesque sparks all around them, colorful and ever-changing, like The sky is full of hype, showing a kind of power that the epic poems with long streams of water do not have at all. From the perspective of epics, the uneven and uneven picture scenes of lyric poems are not worth paying attention to. The age of Ter-pander Thus the solemn epic reciter of the Apollo sacrifice pronounced its guilt.

Thus, in the creation of folk songs, we see language strained to the extreme to imitate music.From Archilochus onwards, therefore, begins a new world of lyric poetry, fundamentally opposed to that of Homer.In this way, we have pointed out the relationship between poetry and music, words and sounds: words, scenes, concepts, now find a musical expression, and feel the power of music.In this sense, we can distinguish two main currents in the history of the Greek national language, according to whether their language imitates the realm of phenomena and imagination, or imitates the realm of music.You have only to study the differences in color, syntax, and vocabulary between the languages ​​of Homer and Pindar to understand the significance of this contrast.Indeed, it is evident that the flutes of the Olympian mysteries must have resounded through Greece in the period between Homer and Pindar, and even in the time of Aristotle, when music It can also be soul-stirring and intoxicating, and in its primitive stage of development, it has indeed inspired all poetic expressions of people at that time to imitate it.I call your attention to a phenomenon that is common today and that our aesthetics rejects.We can often realize that a Beethoven symphony makes every listener have to use metaphors to describe it, even if the various scenes produced by a movement are structurally frantic and even full of contradictions.Searching hard to comment on such a structure, but ignoring a phenomenon that is really worth explaining. Today's aesthetics can do everything in this.Yes, even if the poet of music uses images to illustrate his production, for example, he titles a certain symphony "Pastoral Symphony", or calls one of the movements "Scene by the Stream" and the other "Scene by the Stream". Villagers gather together."These names, too, are nothing but symbolic titles derived from the music—perhaps not referring to the object the music imitates—these titles tell us nothing about the content of the music of intoxication.In fact, compared with other kinds of painting titles, they have no unique value.Now, we are going to let this music go through the process of image explosion to those people who are full of vitality and rich in language creativity.In order to speculate how movement-style folk songs are formed, and how all language expressiveness is inspired by the new principle of "imitative music".

If, therefore, we might consider lyric poetry as the radiance of mimetic music shining through images and concepts, we ask: "In what form does music appear in the mirror of symbols and concepts?" It appears as will (Schopen Hua refers to will), that is, as the opposite of aesthetic, purely contemplative, willless mood.Here, however, we must discriminate as strictly as possible between the concepts of essence and appearance.For music by its very nature can never be will, and if it were will it would be entirely excluded from the sphere of art, since will is a non-aesthetic factor in itself; will.For, in order to express musical phenomena in images, the lyric poet needs all the stirrings of passion, from whispers to howls.Under the urge to express music with dream symbols, he has to regard all nature, including himself, as only the eternal will, desire, longing.However, when he uses images to explain music, he himself is always in a dream of quiet contemplation like a calm sea without waves, although the surrounding things he observes through the medium of music are chaotic.Indeed, when he sees himself through the medium of music, he feels as if there is an unsatisfied passion in his image.His aspirations, longings, moans, and laughter seem to be symbols, and he can use them to clarify music.Such is the phenomenon of the lyric poet; as dream genius he illuminates music through the image of the will, but he himself is completely freed from the will's desire and becomes the penetrating eye.

In what has been said above, we insist that lyric poetry depends on the spirit of music, just as music has independent sovereignty, does not need to rely on concepts, but only tolerates them as companions.All that lyric poetry can express is contained in the vast generality and universal validity of music, which compels the poet to use metaphors.Language, therefore, can never do justice to the world symbolism of music, since only music can symbolize the primordial contradiction and primordial pain at the center of the One, and so it can symbolize the realm beyond and before all phenomena.On the contrary, all phenomena are rather symbols to music; therefore, since language is the expressive tool and symbol of phenomena, it cannot reveal the depths of music in any way. At the same time, all the beautiful words of lyric poetry can not make us feel the deepest meaning of music more deeply.