Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk and Nietzsche’s Vision of Ancient Greek Theatre

Chapter 3 deals with ‘Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk and Nietzsche’s Vision of Ancient Greek Theatre’ with regard to the emergence of a new image of ancient Greece that would rival the Winckelmannian image from that point on. Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk is described as an attempt not to return to ancient Greece but to revive ancient Greek theatre by taking into account the conditions of the modern world, as Nietzsche similarly interpreted it in his treatise The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music (1872). The truly revolutionary aspects of the image of Greece as developed in this treatise are examined. While Winckelmann only considered the Apollonian side of Greek culture and art, Nietzsche complemented it by focusing on its Dionysian side, thus opening up an absolutely novel approach to Greek tragedy for the future.