Culture, Tragedy and Pessimism in Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy

Abstract

In this essay I look at The Birth of Tragedy in order to explore two related issues. First, beginning with Nietzsche’s own later critical look back at the book, I argue that in lamenting both the influence of Schopenhauer, and the inclusion of an extended discussion of contemporary German culture, Nietzsche underplayed the interdependence of these elements and his analysis of tragedy and its significance in the book. Second, I argue that to understand Nietzsche's Schopenhauerian concept of tragedy we may begin from the perspective of the term's common usage, attending to phenomena often labelled tragic, and glimpsing what holds sway just beneath their surfaces. Ultimately, although Nietzsche's expressed understanding of tragedy in these early years drew heavily on Schopenhauerian pessimism, it nevertheless exceeded that influence.