In 1872 Nietzsche published ‘The Birth of Tragedy’ in which he traces the rise of tragedy from Greek origins. He sees tragedy as being based on sensual experience and the celebration of the terrors of reality. As such it is in opposition to a Socratic belief in the ability of logic to reveal all the mysteries of reality.
Nietzsche wrote: “The psychology of the orgiastic as an overflowing feeling of life and strength, where even pain still has the effect of a stimulus, gave me the key to the concept of tragic feeling”
Nietzsche saw the celebration of life and sensation, of every form, including and perhaps particularly the destructive as being typically Dionysian. There is no catharitc element to this belief though. He says it is:
“Not in order to be liberated from terror and pity, not in order to purge oneself of a dangerous affect by its vehement discharge — which is how Aristotle understood tragedy — but in order to celebrate oneself the eternal joy of becoming, beyond all terror and pity — that tragic joy included even joy in destruction.”
This thesis on tragedy is no singular, and Nietzsche sees tragedy as being about the meeting of this Dionysian type with an Apollonian type. The Apollonian principle search and creates increasingly ridged structures. The Dionysian principle looks to shatter this form, and inevitable and eventually will. The more rigid and solid the form, the more violent and explosive it’s destruction. This urge is inherent in the relationship between the two, to the point of being pathological, it is like a looping rhythm. Consider the patriarchal hierarchy of Lear, a social construct which provided clear and tight controls, a form highly resistant to change. The very strength of the structure is met with an equally violent eruption, which resonates throughout the play. As such tragedy is seen as a radical critique of human systems, products, ideals and structures.

As Professor Adrian Poole suggests Nietzsche sees tragedy as the necessary birth pangs of society, Schopenhauer sees it as death pangs. Nietzsche’s account is an explanation and justification of tragic events.