Tag Archives: Apollo and Dionysus

Would “The Last Exorcism” Have Been Better Titled “The Last Atheist”?

I saw The Last Exorcism  this past weekend and, yes, it’s really good. And scary. And it’s also a bit of an ancient Greek morality play, which makes it philosophically interesting as well: what if a good-hearted cynic, an unbeliever of the Marjoe or Bill … Continue reading

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Thomas Jefferson’s Second Birth, and the Intersections of Apollo and Dionysus

  Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? (John 3:4 KJV) I love this portrait of Thomas Jefferson. In good Neoclassical … Continue reading

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The Apollonian Armored vs. Tarty Nude Dionysian Graces: A Lucas Cranach Painting from 1530

I think that Camille Paglia would like this painting—with its sheeny, armored Apollonian males and naughty nudie graces. These two males have paused, dangerously, in the pagan wilderness, and like Mars, are about to be relieved of their clothes by these clearly … Continue reading

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Apollo v. Dionysus: The First Paragraph of Friedrich Nietzche’s “The Birth of Tragedy”

Friedrich Nietzsche (first paragraph of The Birth of Tragedy):   We shall have gained much for the science of aesthetics, once we perceive not merely by logical inference, but with the immediate certainty of vision, that the continuous development of … Continue reading

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William Blake: Image of Firefighters

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