Friedrich Nietzsche s The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music, published in 1872, is not only the first major work of the most provocative voice in modern philosophy but also the most important study of Greek tragedy since Aristotle s Poetics. In this remarkable essay Nietzsche announces his aggressive challenge to many of the most cherished philosophical assumptions of his own time, re-evaluates the development of classical Greek culture, and establishes aesthetic concepts which have had a decisive influence on modern discussions of art.The Greeks, Nietzsche argues, were in the period of their greatest achievements thoroughly pessimistic but found in artistic creativity the only possible justification for existence. As a result of this development they produced Greek tragedy, the noblest affirmation of human life. The later development of Greek culture, particularly the influence of Socrates and Euripides, was not, as so many modern classicists have maintained, the high point of Greek achievement, but a significant decline, the onset of a sickness from which the world is still suffering (a significant symptom of which is our preoccupation with morality, especially Christian morality and our faith in scientific scholarship).Central to Nietzsche s discussion is his analysis of the development of Greek tragedy as the result of the inherent tension between and ultimate reconciliation of two conflicting artistic impulses, the Apollonian and the Dionysian (corresponding to