Apollo and Dionysus were children of Zeus. Apollo was the god of the sun, replacing Helios ( the other major sun god ) in popularity. He became the god of music, poetry, light and medicine. He became a patron of logic, rational thinking, and order. Dionysus ( or Bacchus, as he was later known to the Romans ) was the god of wine, fertility, and religious infatuation. He became a patron of passion, theatre and revelations.
long after the olympic religion had faded away, Apollo and Dionysus were used as metaphors to understand ourselves. Friedrich Nietzsche, the famed intellectual whose main contribution is remembered as his reflections on Nihilism, used the idea of Apollonian and Dionysian "Kunsttriebe" or "artistic impulses". He thought of dramatic arts as a combination of both impulses. Nietzsche was enraptured by the figure of Dionysus; there as an oddity to this relationship, given that Nietzsche is famed in popular culture for the pessimistic statement that Nihilism seems to give. This should be a reminder that both Nietzsche and Dionysus are incredibly complex figures, whose significance is hard to pinpoint.
Dionysus has always been a paradoxic figure. The god was supposedly born twice, once to a mortal woman, and once to a god. Dionysus also has contrasting significance in the greek cosmological mythos. He is the god of passion and ecstasy and wine; however, he is known as well as being a "suffering and dying god". Dionysus was a feared deity. He became a symbol of madness. Whenever he appears, he provokes urgency and terror that in many myths drive people insane.
However, Dionysus is much more complex than a madness inducing god. Well, the infatuation and ecstasy remain, but they provoke different reactions. Creativity, overwhelming joy, liberating fulfillment. This duality is what defines the god himself. He is the contrast between the tragic and the good of life. From this realization, Nietzsche coins the term: the"Dionysian affirmation of life". The idea behind the term is the acceptance of all facts of life, which are necessary. Nietzsche referred to this acceptance as "Dionysian" because it captured the good, the bad, the happy, and the sad. Like the god himself, the acceptance was paradoxical. This Dionysian affirmation, this acceptance and celebration of reality as it is, is what Nietzsche called Amor fati.
Amor fati will be explored in my next entry.
Best wishes,
Atlas.
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