Nietzsche's Theory of Tragedy in the Plays of T. S. Eliot

Abstract

Nietzsche-a nineteenth-century philosopher passionately concerned with culture, myth, ritual, and Greek tragedy; Eliot-a twentieth-century philosophy student likewise devoted throughout his career to culture, myth, ritual, and Greek tragedy; yet Eliot hardly ever refers to in his published work. In one rare instance when he does so, in a review of a book about Nietzsche, rather than acknowledge indebtedness, he censures: Nietzsche is one of those writers whose philosophy evaporates when detached from its literary qualities, and whose literature owes its charm not alone to personality and wisdom of man, but to a claim to scientific truth. Then after pointedly dismissing Nietzsche's theories of war, knowledge, universe, and ethics, Eliot nevertheless concludes his review by regretting the omission of any account of Nietzsche's views on art,' suggesting at least some interest in Nietzsche's aesthetic theories. Most scholars would agree with Eliot that is far from scientific in his method, especially in The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche's first book, but in spite of its lack of evidence, hypothesis of The Birth of Tragedy proved so provocative that certain anthropologists, notably Frazer, Harrison, and Cornford, tried to substantiate it scientifically by documenting myths and rituals of various cultures. However much Eliot may discount Nietzsche's claim to scientific truth, he was clearly impressed by anthropologists who tried to prove that claim. That Eliot was stimulated by Frazer's The Golden Bough we know from notes to The Waste Land; that he was aware of Harrison's and Cornford's works on ritual and origins of tragedy we know from his reference in A Dialogue on Dramatic Poetry to the (extremely in-