Dionysian-Dithyrambs

The Dionysian dithyramb are a cycle of poems by Friedrich Nietzsche and his last, the pressure designated by him work. The 1889 completed collection appeared in 1892 as an annex of the fourth part of his philosophical poetry Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

With the title later for the collection found, only seemingly tautological, Nietzsche refers to the God of the affirmation of life and the eternal return Dionysus, celebrating themselves in these songs.

The cycle consists of nine Dithyramben in free verse, three of which were published in 1885 in the first edition of Zarathustra, and have been revised for the new collection.

Formation

In the summer of 1888 Nietzsche prepared the cycle and took it back to older fragments that were originated in 1881.

First, he put together some unpublished fragments and used this material to write five poems that the six songs of Zarathustra formed in 1883 together with the written work of Last Will, which he led in a preliminary stage of the prologue to Ecce homo. The other three songs he took the last part of his Zarathustra and edited it.

Background

Nietzsche's poems can be found in all major periods of his life and mark the beginning and the end of his work history. His first literary attempts are poems, his last work, a cycle of poems. Many of his verses, which his fame as a poet today, he was not free to print, so they were not published until later, often with some modifications.

Apart from the Idylls from Messina, Nietzsche published only for architectural reasons poems to emphasize in his prose works, Artis Table Light or to reduce a voltage.

In ancient Greece, the dithyramb was a stormy - avid, first strophic minor, then free rhythmic paean to the wine god Dionysus, whose nickname dithyramb was a cult song that was sung to flute music by the choir and danced to.

The origins of the dithyramb be suspected in Asia Minor. After this form had become the generally high pitched price seal for other heroes and deities, it was generally a pre- rendered in frenzied ecstasy poem whose tone increased, exceeding the anthem. Opposite this ancient model avoid the poems Nietzsche the exalted style position and have a declamatory, sometimes strained pathos. Only in the later reworked version of Ariadne's Lament, a reference to Dionysus is visible.

In a later painted note Nietzsche characterized the lyrics as the songs of Zarathustra, which he zusang himself to endure his loneliness.

One would misunderstand the role of individual songs, if it saw only as illustrations of abstract thoughts. In connection with the main work, his Zarathustra, the cycle can be understood as part of a philosophical reorientation, in which its expression as well as the expressive symbolism in his language increased. Metaphorical expressions such as " lamb milk benevolence ", " Truth madness " or "Cat wantonness " that are piling up in his prose, and especially the Zarathustra, can be found in the language of the dithyramb.

Significance and reception

With Nietzsche's name and his poetry is connected. His first literary attempts are poems, his last work, a cycle of poems. Occasionally he was considering issuing a separate book of poems, a plan which he, to the dithyramb, did not implement.

Nietzsche is considered a master of style, - his style made ​​epoch. He appears as a teacher of German, Hofmannsthal, in his infamous speech writings, spoke of him as the " intellectual conscience of the nation ". His prose itself is brilliant, virtuoso playing, in many places it slides off to the Lyric, is sound lyrical.

The importance of his work, however, is not determined by the poetry. The poetic work plays a complementary supporting role.

Many of his verses, which his fame as a poet today, he was not free to print, so they were not published until later, often with some modifications.

The Dithyramben mark the transition into the dark realm of the disease, the " madness ". While he was still working on the manuscript, he already sent his madness List. Against this background, it is evident that he no longer wrote the dithyramb in the days of his waking life, but she collected and undertook some changes. One should this last work thus not regarded as poetic transfiguration and see the proximity to the Ecce Homo, a work that is already marked with its often overwrought tone and arrogant view of oneself from pathological aspects.

After the assessment Erich Friedrich Nietzsche wrote Podachs here no Dithyramben in real and prätendierten of its flavor. The actual Dithyramben, promptings of the orgiastic excited singer, you have to " put forward in wild orgies in honor of Dionysus, while Nietzsche with the " sobriety of the great artists ... to individual steepen and lines of his zarathustrisch - Dionysian songs " worked " until he had reached desired conciseness ... "

For Giorgio Colli Nietzsche the poet is none other than the philosopher. Although more difficult the lack of conceptual understanding of his poetry; who appreciate the glowing bright vehemence and intuitive moments, could venture on this work, however, also. The images of his poetry and the many bitter, ironic, haunting and dreamlike elements would provide an impressive material.

However, there ermangele to the poems Nietzsche's " sufficient definition in form and content ," the " way as frayed all sides as" Cast after. As regards the formal mastery, one gains the impression that Nietzsche had not used all his skills. In the improvised material we discover not - as is Nietzsche - "the great struggle for abstraction. "