Dissonance and Eternal Recurrence

Nietzsche first introduces Zarathustra in #342 of The Gay Science, under the rubric, "The tragedy begins", thereby plainly signaling that he conceives Thus Spoke Zarathustra as a Tragedy.  Now, as has been previously discussed, essential to his concept of Tragedy, as presented in Birth of Tragedy, is the phenomenon of Dissonance.  Accordingly, the central event of Thus Spoke Zarathustra--the presentation of Eternal Recurrence--must be interpreted as exemplifying Dissonance.  However, the concept of Eternal Recurrence qua theory of Time, is regular and orderly, if not beautiful.  In contrast, the act of affirming of Eternal Recurrence, which requires countenancing all joy and all suffering equally, combines Pleasure and Pain in the way that Dissonance, according to Nietzsche, does.  So, contrary to many interpretations of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the centerpiece of the work is not the theory of Eternal Recurrence, but the affirmation of it, by the tragic hero of the drama.