尼采和本雅明都認識到"悲悼劇"和"悲劇"是兩種完全不同的戲劇門類,卻對悲悼劇的特征和意義作出了完全相反的判斷。在尼采心中,"悲悼劇"是對悲劇的失敗模仿;而在本雅明看來,悲悼劇有其獨特的特征和意義。兩位思想家觀點的差別體現為他們對"起源"概念的不同理解。尼采將悲劇的"起源"看作一種整合日神和酒神精神的努力,本雅明則將悲悼劇的"起源"呈現為分裂完整主權者形象的努力。但在蘇格拉底問題上,本雅明接續了尼采的看法,將蘇格拉底看作悲劇墮落的象征和悲悼劇的開端,從而重建了悲劇和悲悼劇的關系。

While Friedrich Nietzsche and Walter Benjamin both acknowledged that tragedy and trauerspiel are two different genres, they had contrasting elucidation of the characteristics and significances of trauerspiel. According to Nietzsche, trauerspiel was an unsuccessful mimesis of tragedy. However; Benjamin saw in trauerspiel a kind of special value. This difference was a result of their different understandings of the concept of ursprung. Nietzsche considered ursprung as an attempt to integrate Apollonian and Dionysian spirits, while Benjamin presented the structure of ursprung as a destructing force against monolithic sovereignty. Despite this contradiction, Benjamin accpetedNietzsche’s view and took Socrates as a symbol of the decadence of tragedy and the beginning of trauerspiel, thus reconstructing the lineage between tragedy and trauerspiel.