The present master's thesis puts forward the problem that occurs in Nietzsche's
philosophical debut The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, in which the author returns
to the art of the ancient Greeks, based on the inherent dualities of the Apollonian and Dionysian.
Nietzsche saw them as two fundamental creative drives, that are closely intertwined and
complete their synthesis in the Attic tragedy.
In the second part of the thesis, the paper applies Nietzsche’s philosophy on Hesse's work
Demian. Drawing from Greek mythology and Nietzsche’s philosophy, I set myself to present
the novel Demian as an attempt to re-actualize Nietzsche’s heritage and an example of nihilistic
philosophy as understood by its creator. I start from the hypothesis that Apollonian and
Dionysian drive interact with each other and the pursuit of their synthesis is seen as the highest
ideal.
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