In the brilliant and unsettling fragment �Homer�s Contest,?found among Nietzsche�s unpublished writings after his death in 1900, the philosopher returns to obsessive themes originally explored in his first book, The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music (1872): namely, that contrary to the reigning morality of his time�a Protestant-Christian morality, at least officially�it is not �natural?not to fight; it is not �natural?not to fight to the death, in the service of allowing �hatred [to] flow forth fully? indeed, a �noble culture?is one that, like the ancient Greek culture, arises from �the altar of the expiation of murder.?br />
Far from being barbaric, the stylized Greek, or Homeric, contest gives, in Nietzsche�s view, a crucial ritualistic form to mankind�s most murderous instincts, in this way containing the horror of anarchic violence: not brutality per se but the brutality of chaos is the true horror of humankind. In the Homeric world�the world of stylized art�we encounter �artistic deception?of a kind that renders such horror bearable. But
what do we behold when, no longer led and protected by the hand of Homer, we stride back into the pre-Homeric world? Only night and terror and an imagination accustomed to the horrible. What kind of earthly existence do these revolting, terrible theogonic myths reflect? A life ruled only by the children of Night: strife, lust, deceit, old age, and death.
For the rest of this review of the book go to:
Far from being barbaric, the stylized Greek, or Homeric, contest gives, in Nietzsche�s view, a crucial ritualistic form to mankind�s most murderous instincts, in this way containing the horror of anarchic violence: not brutality per se but the brutality of chaos is the true horror of humankind. In the Homeric world�the world of stylized art�we encounter �artistic deception?of a kind that renders such horror bearable. But
what do we behold when, no longer led and protected by the hand of Homer, we stride back into the pre-Homeric world? Only night and terror and an imagination accustomed to the horrible. What kind of earthly existence do these revolting, terrible theogonic myths reflect? A life ruled only by the children of Night: strife, lust, deceit, old age, and death.
For the rest of this review of the book go to:
Comment