I read The Birth Of Tragedy By Friedrich Nietzsche as part of the preparation for the Greek Theatre night course in Southampton University. The course has been postponed due to a shortage of students, so I am wondering whether it was worth it. I suppose its my first exposure to aesthetics in Philosophy.

The Birth of Tragedy tells us we should follow the example of the ancient Greeks and have a good mix of the Dionysian and Appollonian (the passionate and logical in us) and poses the theory that the culture went down hill when the Greeks exalted the rational traits of Philosophy too much (aka they listed to Socrates too much). Its is all a bit too overly romanticised and idyllic for my liking. Its a good job the book is quite short! Nietzsche is particularly pithy and I can see how he could be misunderstood. I found him more tiresome and he could have been more brief!

PEL have a good discussion of it on

http://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2015/07/04/topic-119-nietzsche/