Apollo and Socrates

Abstract Classical tragedy was made possible, Nietzsche claims, through a proper balance between the Dionysian and Apollonian principles; and what killed it off was Socratic rationalism. This essay asks about the relation between Apollo and Socrates. Was tragedy killed off, as some have suggested, by a hypertrophy of (one aspect of) the Apollonian, as personified in the figure of Socrates? Or is the Socratic principle entirely separate from the first two, to be set beside them as a third? The cases for and against each of these suggestions are canvassed with as much ingenuity as I can muster, and some of the considerations offered along the way are not, I think, uninteresting. The conclusion, however, is that Nietzsche simply doesn’t tell us enough, consistently enough, to settle the question either way.