Keywords Nietzsche's Dionysian spirit will to survive
Nietzsche, as a famous German philosopher and aesthetician, is also a musician. Nietzsche received a good music education in his youth, and he personally created some music works. Nietzsche himself admitted that he was "an old musician after all, and had no other comfort except music." Nietzsche's thought of music aesthetics accounts for a large proportion in his philosophical thought system, so it is of great significance for us to sort out and study his music aesthetics.
First, the background of Nietzsche's musical aesthetic thought
From the background of Nietzsche's life at that time, during the period of capitalism going to monopoly, many middle and small bourgeois people were forced to go bankrupt, and people of insight could not find their personal future and hope in the face of the reality of cross-flow of human desires, so the dependence on rationality and science in the traditional sense did not lead people to get rid of the social and personal crisis. Therefore, people's pessimism is growing day by day. In this case, Nietzsche distributed a declaration to traditional beliefs and concepts.
Nietzsche's love for music and composition dates back to his early friendship with Wagner, a famous German composer. The romantic feelings projected in his music gave birth to Nietzsche's early tragic spirit. One of the reasons why Wagner's music aesthetics is so famous is that they have a unanimous view on Schopenhauer's philosophical thought. Nietzsche's early thoughts inherited Schopenhauer's voluntarism philosophy. It is believed that the origin of the world is blind and not dominated by the law of reason. All people's actions come from the will to survive, and people's will to survive is obtained through intuition rather than rationality.
However, as a philosopher, poet and musician with a rebellious spirit, Nietzsche, after reassessing all values in his later period, mercilessly criticized and abandoned Wagner's romantic nature for his degraded life and destructive will, or Schopenhauer's negative and pessimistic philosophy of will and appearance. Based on his inner experience in music, he studied the tragic art of ancient Greece, and put forward the idea that the original art originated from the duality of Dionysus and Apollo. As soon as his thought was introduced, it led to a major turning point in the history of music aesthetics: the romantic music culture changed to the modernist music culture. It is the so-called "from the Greek spirit of deifying life, both the appearance and the will are affirmed by Apollo and Dionysus." However, Nietzsche attributed the essence of Dionysian state to the unity of the most internal foundation between man and the world. He believed that "under the mysterious cheers of Dionysian, the charm of individualization vanished, and the road leading to the mother of existence and the core of all things was opened." Therefore, Dionysian spirit is highly respected and valued by him in artistic aesthetics.
second, Nietzsche's musical aesthetic thought: the will to power and the Dionysian spirit
Nietzsche's self-transcendence transcends himself in the past, Rousseau, Schopenhauer and Wagner. New factors arise in Nietzsche's thought. He believes that music should return to Dionysus, the god of wine in the pre-Socratic era. The beauty of music should come from poetic life publicity and full enthusiasm, and should come from classical harmony and tranquility. Nietzsche's criticism and opposition to the musicians' orientation of the times at that time and to the abstract, decadent and empty gorgeous music thoughts were unprecedented.
it's not that Nietzsche can't see the technological innovation and thinking transformation in the transition from classicism to romanticism, but that he re-evaluated the value orientation of music from a higher cultural perspective. Nietzsche's subjective aesthetic is a phenomenon related to people, in which the decisive factor is the state of people's own rights and will. Art is "on the one hand, exuberant physical vitality is injected into the image world and the will world, on the other hand, it is induced by the image and will of promoting a high life;" It is the upsurge of the sense of life and the stimulation of the sense of life. " Music is the masterpiece of Dionysian spirit. It is in the strong impulse of life dominated by the will of rights that art gains the power of form, which means that artists should be givers. It is emphasized that beauty is the supreme thing only with abundant vitality, strong expression of the will to win, and skillful reconciliation of conflicts. The reason why Wagner's music is called romantic pessimism is that on the one hand, it lacks the ability to control emotional impulses, on the other hand, it blindly falls into the pursuit of formal beauty, which leads to excessive pursuit of exquisite details.
In terms of artistic aesthetics, Nietzsche, in his book The Birth of Tragedy, cleared away the concepts remaining in art, leaving two sources: Apollo and Dionysus. He thinks that "Apollo state, Dionysus state. Art itself, like a kind of natural power, manifests itself in man through these two states and dominates him whether he likes it or not. These two States are also manifested in daily life, but they are weaker: in dreams and in drunkenness. Dreams release the power of vision, association and poetry, and drunkenness releases the power of posture, passion, singing and dancing. " It can be said that at the level of the world, Dionysus is related to the essence of the world, and Apollo is related to phenomena. On the creative level, music is the art of Dionysus, while plastic arts is the art of Apollo. And the final position of Apollo is still attached to Dionysus.
Therefore, Dionysian spirit is the soul and essence of art.. So what is Dionysian spirit? The most typical of Dionysian art is music. He believes that music is the highest form of art. Nietzsche believes that in the grand music system of Beethoven and Wagner, the revival and growth of German Dionysian spirit have been seen. The Dionysian spirit came from the disintegration of all the solid and hostile barriers that had been established between people, and the world was integrated. In the drunkenness of Dionysus, the art of music melted all the pain of individualization of life, and the world became a harmonious, beautiful and happy picture. In addition, drunkenness is very important as the nature of music, and the spirit of Apollo and Dionysus can be attributed to drunkenness. Among them, Apollo is just the drunkenness of eyes, and Dionysus is the drunkenness of emotions. The combination of the drunkenness of Apollo and Dionysus produced a tragedy as a musical spirit.
Third, the evaluation of Nietzsche's music aesthetics
It is worthy of recognition that Nietzsche tried to arouse the Germans to regain the courage to face reality and life with the Dionysian spirit of Greek tragedy. He affirmed the world and life with a positive attitude through the promotion of art. However, the deficiency is that it rebukes rationality, holds high the banner of irrationality, and divides the beauty of music and even the whole art into the primitive impulse of human beings. It is biased to completely deny that art should express human society.
References:
[1] Zhou Guoping. A detailed discussion on Nietzsche's aesthetics [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, p. 17.
[2] Nietzsche. The birth of tragedy [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai People's Publishing House, p. 25.
[3] Zhou Guoping. Selected Works of Nietzsche's Aesthetics [M]