Homer Could Not Be Achilles: Nietzsche on Art, Distance, and Self-Deception

Achilles & Nietzsche. Archaic Greek style. AI-art

Introduction

Friedrich Nietzsche stands as a philosopher deeply attuned to the tensions that define human existence. Among these, the interplay between art and truth emerges as particularly fraught. For Nietzsche, artistic creation is a vital force, capable of transmuting suffering into form and chaos into symbol. Yet, this transformative power harbors a latent threat: the artist, in surrendering wholly to invention, risks conflating fiction with reality, becoming ensnared in self-deception. In his examination of the modern creator, Nietzsche cautions against the aesthetic danger wherein invention is mistaken for truth, leading the artist from conscious pretense to unconscious belief.

This article examines this fundamental tension within Nietzsche's aesthetics. Through five key facets of his thought, we explore how artistic will can turn against itself, evolving into dogma, personal myth, and ultimately, a form of blindness.

Fiction Transformed into Dogma

Nietzsche critiques the modern artist's perilous tendency to transition from conscious pretense to unconscious belief. In their zeal to shape the world, creators may become captives of their own symbols. When aesthetic invention is presented as revealed truth, it loses its playful character and assumes a solemn guise. Nietzsche articulates this concern:

"The artist must lie consciously, if he is to avoid becoming a believer."
— Beyond Good and Evil, §192

This warning targets those who, like Wagner, elevate art to the status of redemption. The danger lies not in artistic falsehood per se—since all creation entails a form of pretense—but in forgetting that one is engaging in fiction: “Truths are illusions which people have forgotten are illusions” he write in On Truth and Lies. Art then morphs into religion; the artist becomes a priest of his own cult. What began as symbolic vitality ossifies into dogma, and the work ceases to be a play of masks, becoming instead a distorted mirror of the ego.

Homer and Achilles: The Necessary Distance

This issue connects to another essential phenomenon for Nietzsche: the distance between creator and creation. Using the example of Homer and Achilles, Nietzsche suggests that artistic representation is only possible if the author is not consumed by the experience. In other words, Achilles could be forged by Homer only "on the condition that he had not lived it."¹

Art necessitates an aesthetic separation, a gap between experience and its transfiguration. If the poet confuses himself with his character, if there is no distancing, the possibility of sublimation vanishes. Autofiction, prevalent in modernity, becomes for Nietzsche a symptom of disorientation. It is not the lived pain that transforms into beauty, but the form—the art of narrating from the shore—that generates meaning. As he asserts:

"Only as an aesthetic phenomenon is existence and the world eternally justified."
— The Birth of Tragedy, §5

Will to Power vs. Will to Truth

At the center of this conflict lies a deeper confrontation between two fundamental forces of the human spirit. On one side, the will to power (Wille zur Macht), understood as creative affirmation, the impulse to transform, the capacity to impart meaning. On the other, the will to truth (Wille zur Wahrheit), the desire for certainty, the need to establish an objective criterion even when it destroys vital illusion.

Nietzsche identifies this struggle not only in artists but also in philosophers. He himself, in his endeavor to demystify, often recognizes being torn between these tendencies. In On the Genealogy of Morality, he confesses:

"We wanted the truth... and alas, we found that even the truth lies."

In this context, art can be a form of the will to power, but only if it retains its playful character, its awareness of fiction. When it becomes a means to impose absolute truths, it betrays its vital essence.

Wagner and the Genius Trap

Nietzsche's relationship with Richard Wagner exemplifies this process of self-deception. For years, the philosopher was seduced by the symbolic power of the German composer. In retrospect, he acknowledges that in moments of emotional vulnerability, he surrendered with near-blind faith to things that, from a distance, perhaps did not deserve such devotion: Wagner's music, Greek tragedy, German metaphysics. In Human, All Too Human, he candidly admits:

"I had to close my eyes knowingly, as an art of survival."

This confession becomes sharper in The Case of Wagner, where he ironically states:

"What do people love in Wagner? That he believes himself to be profound... and that he seems profound. — He who does not know how to help himself is grateful to the one who seems profound."
— The Case of Wagner, §1

Nietzsche thus uncovers in his own biography the mechanics of aesthetic self-deception. It is not merely about denouncing Wagner but recognizing in himself the danger of the artist who becomes intoxicated with his own rhetoric.

Zarathustra and the Purification of Art

The conflict culminates in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, where Nietzsche embodies the philosopher who dons the guise of a poet only to later shed that mask. In the chapter "Of Poets," Zarathustra expresses his disenchantment with the creator intoxicated by his own symbols:

"All of us are poets and liars."

But the true turning point arrives near the end when Zarathustra declares:

"Dead are all the gods: now we want the overman to live."
— Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part I, Section XXII

This penultimate verse functions as an ascetic prophecy. It is not a denial of art but its purification. Art can no longer serve as a substitute for religion or a refuge from truth. It must shed its redemptive dimension and reclaim its affirmative power. Instead of consoling, it must teach us to dance over the abyss.

Conclusion

In Nietzsche's thought, art is both salvation and threat. Its power lies in the creation of forms, but that power becomes dangerous when the artist forgets he is pretending. The creator who believes himself a genius, the poet who confuses himself with his character, ends up imprisoned by his own invention. The true challenge is to maintain distance, to uphold fiction without transforming it into dogma.

Nietzsche, with his provocative style and sharp lucidity, exposes himself to this dilemma. His critique of Wagner, his disenchantment with poetry, and his final bet on the overman are not renunciations of art but attempts to liberate it from the weight of solemn falsehood. For art to remain vital, it must remember that it is play, mask, dance... and never revealed truth.

References

• Nietzsche, Friedrich. Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by Judith Norman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy. Translated by Ronald Speirs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morality. Translated by Carol Diethe. Edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Case of Wagner. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. In The Portable Nietzsche, edited by Walter Kaufmann, 623–663. New York: Penguin Books, 1976.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. Human, All Too Human. Translated by R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translated by Graham Parkes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
• Nietzsche, Friedrich. “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense.” In The Nietzsche Reader, edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson and Duncan Large, 114–123. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2006.

Footnotes

1. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Ilusión y verdad del arte. Selección, traducción y prólogo de Miguel Catalán. Madrid: Casimiro Libros, 2013.