Nietzsche, Artistic Intoxication, and the Overcoming of Nihilism: the Body as an Ontology of Practice

Apollonian categories tend to gradually cause in us a feeling of cultural suffocation that compels us to demand a Dionysian release. A synthesis between the two principles, Nietzsche believes, is particularly significant to artistic creativity, for whereas the Dionysian inaugurates the release of chaotic primeval, de-individualizing metaphysical forces, the Apollonian imposes codes on that frenzied release to make it a coherent and tolerable artistic expression.

What makes the dialectic tragic is not only the contest and its resolution but also the character of the whole process: its dominance by the Dionysian principle. The Dionysian principle expresses a “primordial unity” within which all categories dissolve in the fluxes of change, becoming, and suffering, for “in song and in dance man expresses himself as a member of a higher community; he has forgotten how to walk and speak and is on the way toward flying into the air, dancing” (Ibid). Allowed to run its course as a purely metaphysical and artistic principle, the Dionysian has a liberating, narcotic and joyful effect in the subject despite revealing the essence of life as change, instability, and pain because the subject loses its ability to judge when it finds itself in total communion, as if merging, with the primordial metaphysical unity that underlies existence. This may compel us to wonder about the true nature of the relationships between the tragic and the meaninglessness of existence: if the tragic merges the subject with the absurd realities of life, is it a worthy aim to embrace a tragic outlook on life if it condemns us to a meaningless form of existence? This question poses a serious challenge to Nietzsche if we can correctly assume that once it grasps life as

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