Lyric poetry, often regarded as the epitome of subjectivity in the realm of artistic expression, emerges from the depths of the poet’s personal emotions. Hence, in the aesthetic landscape of the nineteenth-century Germany, it was excluded from the inventory of genuine art forms, all of which were deemed to be objective and disinterested. Associating lyric poetry with music in its origin and essence, Nietzsche extends his Schopenhauerian metaphysics of music to the lyric, making it a highly objective art reverberating from (...) the abyss of existence, the Ur-Eine, expressing its intrinsic self-contradictory and agonizing nature. A similar understanding of the creative process of poetic composition in the lyric, which this article aims to elucidate, can also be found in some of Rūmī’s ghazals and observations. These include a metaphysics of the unseen, a reunion through ecstasy and rapture, and a reflection and mirroring, initially through music and then through the lyric. (shrink)

This article aims to provide a minimal interpretation of the theme of aesthetic justification of life in Birth of Tragedy without relying on any substantial metaphysical claim about reality, presenting it rather as a practical and naturalistic response that is valuable and feasible regardless of one’s acceptance of Nietzsche’s metaphysical position, if he has any. According to this interpretation, the aesthetic justification of the Apolline and the Dionysiac metaphysical solace are originally instinctual remedies nature provides to address our naturally aroused (...) metaphysical need. The Apolline seeks to cultivate acceptance of suffering, liberating individuals from the burden of attempting to alter their human condition fundamentally. The Dionysiac treatment turns to metaphysical solace in the face of death, seeking to make the human encounter with death bearable by fostering a sense of unity with a higher whole or community and reconnecting individuals with nature and their animality. (shrink)