How long does it take to read The Birth of Tragedy?
The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche takes about 3 hours 47 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 47 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1872. 206 pages, about 56,650 words.
8 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 6 hours 18 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 47 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 22 minutes |
The page count is the median across 62 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
A compelling argument for the necessity for art in life, Nietzsche's first book is fuelled by his enthusiasms for Greek tragedy, for the philosophy of Schopenhauer and for the music of Wagner, to whom this work was dedicated. Nietzsche outlined a distinction between its two central forces: the Apolline, representing beauty and order, and the Dionysiac, a primal or ecstatic reaction to the sublime. He believed the combination of these states produced the highest forms of music and tragic drama, which not only reveal the truth about suffering in life, but also provide a consolation for it. Impassioned and exhilarating in its conviction, The Birth of Tragedy has become a key text in European culture and in literary criticism.
Subjects: Aesthetics, The Tragic, History and criticism, Music, Greek drama (Tragedy), Tragedy
