Tragedy and Affirmation

Abstract

<p>This thesis offers an interpretation of a passage from section 18 of Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy. In the passage, Nietzsche makes two puzzling claims which have generated interest in the recent secondary literature: (1) he says that the effect of tragedy is an illusion, and (2) he equates tragic culture with Buddhism. Some commentators have argued that these two claims contradict the book's central theses. I canvass two such readings: Maudemarie Clark's "standard interpretation" and Paul de Man's "postmodernist interpretation." I examine and reject both readings on the grounds that they fail to interpret some of Nietzsche's key terminology correctly. In opposition to these interpretations, I then formulate a more positive reading of section 18 which establishes that both claims are actually consistent with the rest of the text.</p>