other people in other places. In combining the illusions and intoxications
of the different art forms, tragedy also combines and expresses their
characteristic kinds of truth.
It has been a great mistake, Nietzsche thinks (made by Aristotle,
among others), to look only at the Apollinian elements–notably the
plot, the characters, the illusion–and to ignore the significance of the
chorus. Ignoring the song and dance in favour of the plot and character
has been made that much easier, of course, because our principle way of
accessing Greek tragedy is through the surviving play texts, which pre-
serve details of the Apollinian elements but not the Dionysian. What the
Dionysian offers, with its intoxicated song and dance, is a kind of insight
into metaphysical reality. Wereally areall one being (‘Will’), not indi-
viduated beings with different goals; so the intoxicated, Dionysian mind
is (in a sense) confronted with an important truth, albeit one that it could
not express very coherently in words. Hence it is no surprise that the Dio-
nysian state of mind–intoxicated self-forgetting–has a certain dom-
inance over the dream-like, Apollinian illusion in Nietzsche’saccountof
Greek tragedy. This accords well with the centrality of the god Dionysus
to the festivals at which Greek tragedies were performed. The trouble is
that the truths revealed by intoxication are hard to bear: if you really came
to understand that everything apparently important to you is in fact com-
pletely insignificant, you might wish to give up on living. Hence,
Nietzsche suggests, the knowledge acquired by the Dionysian man is
repulsive to him. The function of the Apollinian illusion is to keep that
knowledge at a sufficient distance, such that it does not destroy him
completely:‘[Dionysian] knowledge kills action; action requires one to be
shrouded in a veil of [Apollinian] illusion’.^72
The Greek spectator, then, identifies primarily with the dancers in the
chorus, in their intoxication and self-forgetting. The veil of illusion pro-
vided by the plot and characters at the tragedy are sufficient to prevent
the participants (actors, chorus, spectators) from accepting the truths to
the extent that they end their existence. Although the horror, dissolution
and destruction presented on stage and felt by the tragic chorus arereally
a feature of all human existence, the illusion that they are primarily
happening to someone else–someone called‘Oedipus’or‘Agamemnon’–
is sufficient to make them bearable. The Apollinian illusion (in the con-
text of the overwhelmingly Dionysian tragedy) has the function, then, of
bringing the Greek as close as possible to the truth, without permitting
him to be consumed by it. It is a kind of heat shield, which enables him
to immerse himself that much deeper in thefire of truth.
Nietzsche’s account of ancient tragedy was mocked in its own day,
especially in philological circles. Certainly, he was willing to take inter-
pretative leaps that were not supported by the kind of historical evidence
Truth and illusion 69