The Birth of Tragedy

"The Birth of Tragedy" subtitled as "Hellenism and Pessimism" is a work of dramatic theory which discusses the history of the tragic form and introduces an intellectual dichotomy between the Dionysian and the Apollonian. Nietzsche believed that in classical Athenian tragedy an art form that transcended the pessimism and nihilism of a fundamentally meaningless world.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher, poet, and Latin and Greek scholar whose work has exerted a profound influence on Western philosophy and modern intellectual history. Because of Nietzsche's evocative style and provocative ideas, his philosophy generates passionate reactions. His works remain controversial, due to varying interpretations and misinterpretations of his work. In the Western philosophy tradition, Nietzsche's writings have been described as the unique case of free revolutionary thought, that is, revolutionary in its structure and problems, although not tied to any revolutionary project.