Proto-Literary Texts and the Otherness of Art: On Schiller's Aesthetic Letters, his Preface to Die Braut von Messina, and Nietzsche's Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik

Abstract

Schiller's and Nietzsche's aesthetic theories are considered as projects that set out to challenge the political structures of their times. The article explores the terms in which they do so by, respectively, proposing a new historical anthropology and a new psychology with reference to ancient Greek society. Schiller's 'play drive' is said to enable a higher form of freedom and judgement, the modern chorus is meant to help restore the judgement of the public as an interacting community. Nietzsche's so termed basic 'art drives' of the Apollonian and the Dionysian, supposed to be at work in Wagner's music, are advanced in the text for a new foundation of the political state. Both authors are criticized for their exalted projects but have introduced terms whose analytical potential for contemporary culture still holds promise. It is shown how the two authors operated within a long-term development of demythologization and remythologization in the European history of ideas.