The joyous necessity of the dream experience has been embodied by the Greeks in their Apollo: Apollo, the god of all plastic energies, is at the same time the soothsaying god. He, who (as the etymology of the name indicates) is the "shining one," the deity of light, is also ruler over the beautiful illusion of the inner world of fantasy. The higher truth, the perfection of these states in contrast to the incompletely intelligible everyday world, this deep consciousness of nature, healing and helping in sleep and dreams, is at the same time the symbolical analogue of the soothsaying faculty and of the arts generally, which make life possible and worth living. But we must also include in our image of Apollo that delicate boundary which the dream image must not overstep lest it have a pathological effect (in which case mere appearance would deceive us as if it were crude reality). We must keep in mind that measured restraint, that freedom from the wilder emotions, that calm of the sculptor god. His eye must be "sunlike," as befits his origin; even when it is angry and distempered it is still hallowed by beautiful illusion.
From Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, 1872 (English translation by Walter Kaufmann)
Descendant of:
MYTHOLOGY AND THE CLASSICAL WORLD
Texts with this theme:
- Lebenstraum, D 1A, D 39
- Kantate zur Namenfeier meines Vaters, D 80
- Amphiaraos, D 166
- Lebens-Melodien, D 395
- Uraniens Flucht, D 554
- Nach einem Gewitter, D 561
- Sonett (Apollo, lebet noch dein hold Verlangen), D 628
- Dithyrambe, D 47, D 801
- Der Triumph der Liebe, D 55, D 61, D 62, D 63, D 64, D 983A
- Zur Namensfeier des Herrn Andreas Siller, D 83
- Idens Nachtgesang, D 227
- Ständchen (Horch, horch, die Lerch), D 889
