Abstract

Despite the widespread influence of Nietzsche’s iconoclastic works on twentieth-century intellectual and literary culture, there has been a surprising lack of academic focus on the parallels between his philosophical trajectory and the anthropological literature on the mysterious god Dionysus. The striking correlations between ancient Dionysian worship with Nietzsche’s oeuvre revalorise the celebration of ecstasy. In Twilight of the Idols, he states that the Dionysian is “beyond pity and terror, to realize in oneself the eternal joy of becoming.” By elucidating some of the mysteries surrounding this enigmatic god, this article aims to re-establish the central importance of Dionysus in Nietzsche’s work, and to suggest that if we are to understand Nietzsche at all, we must first undertake an anthropological reading of Dionysus.