What is Apollonian, really?
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JCS (
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February 2nd, 2007
I hear people describe all sorts of disparate situations as Apollonian. I get that Apollo is the sun god, the god of lightness, etc. Basically, how would people describe Apollonian? Maybe give some examples of Apollonian situations/atrtibutes,etc? Thanks.
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For more background, I ask because I heard someone use it to mean "formal." Why is the sun god formal?
I'm just cruising through, so this is going to be very brief. Ruth Benedict, famous groundbreaking anthroplogist at Columbia University, published a book in 1934 called "Patterns of Culture" in which she coined the terms Appollonian and Dionysiun to describe types of cultures. Oh, ok. From the intro:
Since the thirties the psychoanlysts have looked for many explanations of complex civilized behavior in the tabus and drvies of primitive man. Dr. Benedict was one of the first anthropologists to implement these theories with technical data. She visualizes culture as an integrated whole, applying to groups the psychological concepts usually reserved for individuals
In this book she compares thee cultures dominated by one ruling motization. The Zuni Inidans of New Mexico are Apollonian in their sobriety and moderation, their love of ritual and the effacement of the individual before society. The Kwakiutls of Vancouver Island are in almost direct antithesis to the Zuni with their Dionysian preference for individual rivalry and ecstasies....
it goes
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kind of like blue state red state?
BTW that was from the "about the book" not the intro...if that's brief, I'd hate to see what verbose looks like
My understanding is that Apollo was the leader of the Muses, and the god of music and poetry (extremely formal and ordered art forms). The god of the sun is Helios, not Apollo, although I think sometimes Apollo was associated with Helios. So, Apollo represents the artistic beauty of proportion and discipline, which would explain why one might use "Apollonian" to mean formal. Alternately Dionysus is the god who represents escape through alcohol, orgies, and creative ecstasies, so he would represent the informal and ecstatic side of the arts.
If you really want verbose, read Nietzsche in the juxtaposition of Apollonian and Dionysian. And if you want a more detailed sense of what occ meant by orgies, alcohol and creative ecstaties, try Euripides' THE BACCHAE.
*ecstasies*
The Roman equivalent of Dionysius was Bacchus; so think of Apollo (no Roman version) as the antithesis of the god of fermented grapes.
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