Music, Lyric and Metaphor: Nietzsche’s Early Philosophy of Language

Picasso’s Nietzsche. AI art

“Language, as the organ and symbol of phenomena, cannot at all disclose the innermost essence of music.”— The Birth of Tragedy, §6

“Truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are.”
— “On Truth and Lies”

Introduction

In the brief span between 1870 and 1873, Friedrich Nietzsche published The Birth of Tragedy (BT) and drafted “On Truth and Lies in an Extra‑Moral Sense” (OTL). Although scholars often separate the first as aesthetic speculation and the second as epistemological critique, both texts weave a single theory of language. Nietzsche contends that speech is neither transparent medium nor faithful mirror; it is an imaginative veneer that tames primordial tumult. The Birth of Tragedy dramatizes this dynamic through the mythic antagonism of Dionysus and Apollo, while “On Truth and Lies” dissects the same movement with surgical analysis of metaphor, concept, and convention. Taken together, they reveal an early, unified vision: language does not transmit truth—it invents a world in which “truth” can be staged.

Mythic‑Aesthetic Genealogy in The Birth of Tragedy

Section 6 of BT places the birth of lyric poetry in music. Citing Schiller’s letter about a musical mood that precedes poetic ideas, Nietzsche locates artistic genesis in a “vague, tonal sensation” that mirrors Dionysian self‑dissolution. Folk‑song, Nietzsche writes, is “the musical mirror of the world, the original melody” from which words later crystallize (Nietzsche, 1999/1872, p. 52). Melody, therefore, is “primary and universal,” generating poetic images “by an ever‑recurring process.” In this schema, Dionysian music erupts first, dissolving individuality in rhythm and tone; Apollonian vision follows, fashioning discrete pictures that give the surge a stable outline.

Yet the hierarchy remains unmistakable: language trails music. Indeed, “language … cannot disclose the innermost essence of music” (Nietzsche, 1999/1872, p. 55). Speech imitates sound the way a shadow imitates flame—cool, flattened, and belated. Lyric expression is thus a surface: a lucid dream that simultaneously records and restrains the deeper, intoxicating current.

Critical‑Genealogical Theory in “On Truth and Lies”

Two years later Nietzsche restates the argument in analytical prose. “What is a word?” he asks. “The image of a nerve stimulus in sounds” (Nietzsche, 1873/1989, p. 83). Experience first strikes the senses, becomes a mental picture—first metaphor—and then congeals into a vocal sign—second metaphor. Concepts form when society forgets each picture’s singular origin and begins “equating what is unequal.” Truth, therefore, is “a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms” ossified by habitual use (p. 84).

Where BT invoked Apollo’s clarifying rays, OTL names abstraction’s “cool breath.” Where BT lamented language’s incapacity to voice music, OTL exposes the illusion that words ever captured reality. Both diagnose an identical split: vibrant impulse versus regulating schema.

Convergence: One Vision, Two Registers

Thus, Nietzsche’s early philosophy of language is fully formed yet voiced in dual idioms. The mythic drama paints the process in vivid gods and melodies; the critical essay strips the paint, revealing rhetorical scaffolding beneath. Either way, language emerges as a necessary fiction—an elegant façade enabling communal life while veiling the abyss beneath perception.

Conclusion

Nietzsche’s first publications already display the philosophical architecture that will underpin The Gay Science and Beyond Good and Evil: language invents order, it does not unveil it. The Birth of Tragedy unveils this by showing music’s generative primacy and assigning Apollo the role of sculptor. “On Truth and Lies” confirms it by tracing the ladder from stimulus to worn‑out coin, demonstrating that every “truth” is a petrified trope. In both registers, Nietzsche teaches that humanity dwells behind a mask—not because we are deceitful, but because a mask is the only medium through which chaos can be approached, shaped, and—momentarily—endured.

Notes

1. All translations follow Kaufmann (1999) for BT and Breazeale (1989) for OTL unless otherwise specified.
2. Page numbers refer to the Vintage edition of BT and the Cambridge collection Early Greek Philosophy and Other Essays.

References

Breazeale, D. (Trans.). (1989). On truth and lies in a non‑moral sense. In F. Nietzsche, Early Greek philosophy and other essays (pp. 79–97). Cambridge University Press. (Original essay written 1873)

Kaufmann, W. (Trans.). (1999). The birth of tragedy. Vintage. (Original work published 1872)