| Summary: | This article analyses the important role that the early reading of the book The birth of tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche played in two different periods in the works of Alfonso Reyes. In the first period, during the youth of the Mexican author, from 1906 to 1909, his work expresses a definite Dionysian impulse in tune with his reading of Nietzsche. In the second stage, in the mature and serene period after Reyes’ return to Mexico in 1939, the poet maintains a combative and agonistic resistance to excess. His work evolves from a Dionysian pathos to an agonistic ethos. The two antagonistic forces –the Apollonian and Dionysian spirits– which produced the Greek tragedy and were analysed by Nietzsche always accompanied Reyes’ reflections on classical culture.
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