Dissonance as Symbol

Birth of Tragedy is the resultant of three main influences on Nietzsche--Wagner's innovative use of Dissonance, Philology, and Schopenhauer's Metaphysical theory.  Accordingly, he casts his concept of Dissonance in terms of that theory, i. e. as symbolizing that Life is essentially suffering.  Later in his career, he recognizes that that Pessimism is as much an interpretation as is the Rational-Theological Optimism that it challenges, but without similarly revising his concept of Dissonance, at least not explicitly.  One possible revision conceives the admixture of pleasurable and painful effects of Dissonance as symbolizing plainly evident variability--Nature is sometimes calm, sometimes tempestuous, with neither fundamental, just as human affairs are sometimes fortunate, sometimes tragically strifeful, with neither fundamental.  Thus, Dissonance can remain a symbol of human existence, but also of the one-sidedness of prominent Metaphysical theories.