The Birth of The Birth of Tragedy 61arship is more of a hindrance, Nietzsche argued, because its ideal of
clarity can only impair our receptivity to darker forces: "all growth and
evolution in the sphere of art must take place in the depths of night"
(1,516; GMD).
Nietzsche wanted to lead his readers straight into this night. He
depicted the ecstasies and excesses of agitated, frenzied crowds, com-
paring them to the Saint Vitus dances in the Middle Ages, which some
scholars dismissively label a "folk epidemic" (1,521; GMD). Evidence
that their negative assessment is misguided lies in antiquity, where this
so-called folk epidemic of Dionysian excess gave rise to Greek drama
and endowed it with authority. Nietzsche declared that it was the mis-
fortune of modern arts "not to have flowed from such a mysterious
source" (1,521). But how do excess and ecstasy result in tragedy on the
stage? Nietzsche outlined the individual phases of the process. The indi-
vidual loses any consciousness of his individuality when seized by this
frenzy; he disappears into the excited crowd of revelers and blends with
it. Individuals excite one another once they blend into the aroused
group, which shares a set of visions and images. The "Dionysian revel-
ers" believe that they are seeing and experiencing as one. Then, however,
and every time the moment of awakening from this frenzy arrives anew,
each person falls back into his isolation. This is the difficult and risky
transition to sobriety, a transition that demands a ritual accompaniment
and support. The performance of a tragedy at the conclusion of the
Dionysian festivals is this very ritual of transition from the collective
frenzy into the everyday life of the city. Attic drama, Nietzsche
explained, was made possible only because "some of this Dionysian nat-
ural vitality" was preserved on the stage of the theater.
Which aspects of Dionysian natural vitality were retained? The ritual
play stages both integration into collective experience and isolation.
There are the protagonists on the stage, and there is the chorus. When
the individual in the tragedy meets his doom, he is doing penance for
the guilt of being an individual. It is the chorus that will oudive the indi-
vidual, which is why the protagonists onstage appear as though they