Chapter 26 The Birth of Tragedy Chapter Twelve

birth of tragedy Chapter Twelve Let's pause for a moment before pointing out the name of this other viewer.Recall the impressions made above of some incongruous and unfathomable elements in the tragic nature of Aeschylus.Consider our own amazement at the tragic chorus and the tragic hero, both of which seemed to us out of harmony with our habits, and even with our traditions—until we rediscovered that this duality was the essence of Greek tragedy. The root and essence of the art is the expression of the two intertwined artistic impulses of the Oneiroi type and the Dionysian type. Exclude from tragedy this primitive, omnipotent Dionysian element, and establish a new pure element in non-drunken art, morality, and world outlook:—this is Euripides, who is now clearly revealed to us. His tendency.

In his later years, Euripides himself, in a mythological play, vigorously posed to his contemporaries the question of the value and significance of this tendency.Does Dionysian culture have any value in existence?Should it be uprooted from Greek soil by violence?The poet tells us: If possible, it must be uprooted; but Dionysus is too stubborn, and his wisest opponents, like Pantheus in "The Dionysian Companion", are also unconsciously fascinated by him, Later, he went to his own doom in confusion.The judgment of the old prophets Kadmua and Tiresia seems to have been that of the old poet: that even the considerations of the wisest men cannot overthrow the ancient folk traditions, and this constant The cult of Dionysus spread, in fact, had better adopt at least some diplomatic prudence with such miraculous powers, though Dionysus was often liable to fly into a rage at such indifferent salutes, and turn the diplomatic envoy into a dragon. , just like what happened to Cadmus in the play.This is what the poet tells us.He lived for a long time, defying Dionysus with heroic vigor, and at last glorified his adversary, and ended his career by suicide, like a man dazzled to avoid the terrible, re-emergence. The dizziness was unbearable, and instead he stumbled from the tower and fell to the ground.This tragedy "Bacchanal's Companion" is a protest against the practice of his inclination, but oh, his inclination has been put into practice!The astonishing thing happens: when the poet is about to withdraw, his inclinations have triumphed.Dionysus has been expelled from the stage of tragedy, and a magic power, through the mouthpiece of Euripides, repels him.For even Euripides was, in a sense, but a figure in disguise, and the god who spoke through him was not Dionysus, nor Oneiroi, but a brand new spirit called Socrates. end.This is a new opposition.The opposition of the Dionysian tendency to the Socratic tendency, on which the Greek tragic art smashed to pieces.Now, Euripides tried in vain to comfort us with his regrets.Of what use are the laments of the vandals to us, when the great temple is in ruins?Even if he admits that this is the most magnificent temple, what is the use?Even if generations of art critics punished Euripides by turning him into a dragon, who would be satisfied with such pitiful compensation?

Let us now examine this Socratic tendency further.Euripides fought with it as a weapon and defeated the tragedy of Aeschylus. The Euripides project, so far as its highest ideals were concerned, was to base opera only on the basis of non-Dionysian tendencies; what was its purpose, we ask, then?Let me ask, if opera is not born from the womb of music in the mysterious twilight of the Dionysus festival, what other forms of opera are there?Only epic dramas.But in the realm of epic dream art, of course, the effect of tragedy cannot be achieved.For the tragic effect is incompatible with the subject matter of epic deeds.Indeed, I can say that Goethe could not have written the suicide of the idyllic character at the end of the fifth act with tragic effect in his play "Nausgaya".Great is the expressive power of the dream epic, which, by virtue of the pleasure of illusion and the relief of illusion, can make the most terrible things become illusions before our eyes.But the epic drama poet, like the epic reciter, cannot fully integrate with the scene in the poem; he always holds a calm and indifferent attitude of watching the scene in front of him with cold eyes.In the same way, the actor of an epic drama is at bottom a reciter; the passion of his inner dream is in all his actions, so he is not quite an actor.

What, then, is the relationship of Euripides' drama to the ideal of dream drama?Just as the reciters of the younger generation are to the serious reciters of the old age.In Plato's "Ian", a young reciter talked about his feelings: "When I talk about sad things, my eyes are filled with tears; when I talk about terrible things, my hair stands on end, and my heart Throbbing." Here we no longer see the epic's fascination with illusion, nor the indifferent coolness of a real actor, which, at the height of its performance, often becomes an illusion and the pleasure of an illusion.Euripides is one of those palpitating actors: a Socratic thinker in his plans; an emotional actor in his execution.He is also a pure artist, both in planning and in execution.Therefore, the drama of Euripides is something that is both hot and cold, it can be frozen and burned; it cannot achieve the effect of a dream epic, but on the other hand it removes as much as possible the components of drunken emotions.In order to be effective, therefore, it must employ a new stimulus which is outside the domain of the particular artistic impulses of the Oneiroi and Dionysian types.These new stimuli are the replacement of dream contemplation with calm wonder, and the intoxication of intoxication with fiery enthusiasm. Moreover, these thoughts and enthusiasm are extremely faithfully imitated, and they are by no means permeated with an artistic atmosphere.

So, now that we know in detail that Euripides tried unsuccessfully to base the theater solely on the dream element, and that his non-dream tendency regurgitated into a non-artistic naturalistic tendency, we shall now proceed to explore Euripides' The nature of Aussie's aesthetic Socraticism: his highest aesthetic principle is "knowledge is beauty", which is comparable to Socrates' maxim "knowledge is virtue".With this standard in hand, Euripides weighed all elements of opera—language, character, opera structure, chorus music—and corrected them according to this principle.We tend to think that Euripides' poems are more flawed and retrograde than those of Sophocles, and this is mostly the result of his in-depth critical process and bold judgment.The prologue of Euripides may serve as an illustration of the consequences of this rationalist approach.Nothing is more contrary to today's stage technique than the tragic prologue of Euripides.At the beginning of a play, there is always a character who comes on the stage from the newspaper, explaining the reason for the plot, what happened before, and even what will happen in the future in the development of the plot; modern dramatists must think this method is malicious. Unforgivably destroys the suspension effect.Yes, who will wait patiently for its realization when we know everything that is about to happen? --Besides, a prophetic dream always coincides with the fact that happened later, such a causal relationship is never exciting.Euripides, however, sees it from another angle entirely.His tragic effect is by no means dependent on epic suspense.By arousing your skeptical interest in matters of the present and the future, it depends rather on eloquent and lyrical scenes in which the passion and eloquence of the protagonists rise in mighty torrents.Everything is prepared for passion, not for drama: what is not prepared for passion is considered unworthy.However, the biggest obstacle preventing the audience from appreciating this scene is that the author has not explained a key point to the audience, or there is a disconnect in the cause and effect of the plot.Since the audience has to figure out what is the intention of this or that character, or what is the antecedent of the conflict between this or that tendency and intention, it is impossible for him to concentrate on the behavior and suffering of the protagonist, nor can he have a fearful relationship with the characters in the play. We share weal and woe.The tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, with the most ingenious artistic devices, place in the first few scenes, as if inadvertently, in the hands of the spectator the developmental clues necessary for an understanding of the action:—this is A trait so well known to the brilliant artist that it seems to obscure an essential formula and make it appear as if by accident.However, Euripides still believes that he sees that the audience is especially anxious to explain the cause and effect of the plot in the first few scenes, so he is bound to ignore the beauty of the poem and the passion of the plot.So Euripides puts a prelude to the action, telling it through the mouth of a trustworthy man: often a god.He seems to want to assure the audience of the plot in the play and dispel all doubts about the authenticity of the myth, just as Descartes could only appeal to the honesty of the gods to prove the authenticity of the empirical world.Euripides used this divine honesty again and again in the tragic finale, in order to assure the audience of the fate of the hero of the play; this is the task of the notorious Deuex ma china (Deuex ma china).It can be seen from this that the lyrical present of this opera, that is, the "tragedy" itself, is between the review of the epic and the prospect of the epic.

So Euripides, as a poet, is above all the echo of his own self-awareness, and it is this which gives him such a prominent place in the history of Greek art.As far as his critical creation activities are concerned, he must often feel that the opening sentence of Anazagora's work should be flexibly applied to opera: "In the beginning, everything was confused, and then reason appeared to establish order." Gora advocated voAua (rationality), and among philosophers he is like "everyone is drunk but I am sober".Euripides probably considered himself in the same position in relation to the rest of the tragic poets.As long as "reason", the sole ruler and arranger of all things, is still excluded from artistic activities, all things are always confused and in a state of chaos.Therefore, Euripides must act decisively, so he must criticize those drunken poets as the first sober.Sophocles had said that Aeschylus had done the right thing, albeit unintentionally, but Euripides certainly disagreed.On the contrary, he believed that Aeschylus did the wrong thing just because he did not intend to do it.In the same way, the wise Plato speaks mostly only ironically of the creative power of the poet, since it is an unconscious faculty; Before losing consciousness and forgetting rationality, there will be no creative ability.Euripides tried to point out to the world the antithesis of this "unconscious" poet, as Plato once pointed out; "Only knowledge is virtue".Therefore, we might as well think that Euripides is the poet of aesthetic Socraticism.However, Socrates is a second audience who does not understand the old tragedy.Thus disrespecting it, Euripides, in association with him, dared to be the herald of a new art.Since all old tragedies are smashed to pieces in this new art, aesthetic Socratism is a destructive principle; but since the struggle is directed at the hypnotic element in the old tragedies, we may as well Think of Socrates as the rival of Dionysus.He was the new Orpheus who rose up against Dionysus, and although he was destined to be torn to death by the Dionysian maids of the Athens court, he had to drive this powerful god away.When the God of Dionysus fled from the persecution of the Idonian king Lyourgus, he escaped by hiding in the depths of the ocean, that is to say, he dived into the mysterious torrent of mystery worship, which later The torrent gradually flooded the world.

① Euripides often used stage machinery to hang down a character pretending to be a fairy when the disputes in the plot were difficult to solve, just like the "god rescue" in old Chinese dramas.