Black Sabbath and Philosophy: Mastering Reality by William Irwin

Author:William Irwin [Irwin, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781118397596
Amazon: 1118397592
Goodreads: 13839066
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2012-10-23T05:00:00+00:00

The Birth of Tragedy and the Birth of Heavy Metal

In 1872 (when he was at that dangerous age of twenty-seven17), Nietzsche published his first book: The Birth of Tragedy.18 People hated it. Scholars liked to think of the ancient Athenians as cultured and refined people who were decent and mannered while they created reve­rent plays for the stage. But Nietzsche argued that those plays had their origins in men drinking wine together and singing songs. The very idea that the theater could come from groups of drunken singers seemed preposterous to the stuffy German professors of 1872. But I think Nietzsche was right. The famous playwrights Aeschylus (525–456 BCE) and Sophocles (496–406 BCE) did something new by having actors who stepped out of the chorus and gave lines of ­dialogue. Actors were an innovation because the older form of theater was to simply have a chorus—which is a group of men singing and dancing in unison. In their plays, Aeschylus and Sophocles still included a ­chorus that sings and interacts with the actors on the stage. The ­chorus came first. Men singing together. Alcohol must have been involved because the ancient Athenian playwrights were competing for awards during the Dionysian Festival, and Dionysus is the ancient Greek god of intoxication.

Nietzsche argues in The Birth of Tragedy that a synthesis of the drinking together, the celebration of Dionysus, the influence of the ­visual plastic arts (painting and sculpture), and the terrifying images of Apollo made possible the wonderful ancient Athenian creation of tragic theater. Contemporary theorist Camille Paglia extends Nietzsche’s thesis beyond the Greeks in her book Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson.19 Paglia argues that a synthesis of Dionysus and Apollo can also be found in Shakespeare, Blake, Goethe, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, and others. In her Sex, Art, and American Culture, Paglia writes about Dionysus and Apollo in Hollywood movies, rock music, and drag queens.20 Personally, I think that Dionysus and Apollo were there with Black Sabbath at the birth of heavy metal.

Listening to a heavy metal album or attending a heavy metal ­concert or thrashing in a mosh pit or playing in a heavy metal band is ­participating in a modern, electronic Dionysian festival. Heavy metal is horrific: Black Sabbath lyrics deal with death, fear, magic, and more—yet this is what we love about the songs. Heavy metal is loud: it is easy to lose yourself in the sheer volume. And heavy metal is about bands: groups of people working together toward a common goal of pleasure. These are the characteristics of Dionysus and Apollo. So now let’s meet Dionysus. Later we’ll visit Apollo.

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