subject: The Apollonian and Dionysian Struggle Within the Human Personality PART THREE [print this page] The Apollonian and Dionysian Struggle Within the Human Personality PART THREE
The Apollonian and Dionysian Struggle Within the Human Personality
PART THREE
Norman W Wilson, PhD
German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm, born in 1844, wrote critical texts on a wide variety of subjects including religion, philosophy, and contemporary culture. It is in this latter area that he wrote his The Birth of Tragedy in which he tackles the question of artisitc control.
Nietzsche defends his contention of a reconciliation of the Apollonian and Dionysian forces for the early Greeks by claiming that a living sense of horror brought about that change. He suggests a metaphysical miracle is responsible. In this case, art. Jung counters this by reminding us that Nietzsche has a pronounced tenacity for rendering art in a mediating and redeeming role. In essence, Nietzsche is claiming a redemptive significance for artistic nature itself and for that nature's capacity for creation and expression.
Even though Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (born 1875) devotes much of his time to exploring dreams and establishing his analytical psychology, he lays claim to an avid intrest in literature and the arts.
He challenges this by suggesting Nietzsche forgets that in the struggle between Apollo and Dionysus and in their ultimate reconciliation, the problem is [for the Greeks] never an aesthetic one, but is essentially a religious problem. The Dionysian satyr festival functions as a kind of totem feast involving a regressive identification with mystical ancestors or directly with the totem animal. Jung claims the adoption of the view that the antagonism between Apollo and Dionysus is purely a question of conflicting artistic impulses shifts the problem to the aesthetic sphere in a way that is both historically and materially unjustified.
