Abstract: 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 accpeted Nietzsche'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.

Key words: tragedy; trauerspiel, ursprung, Socrates, irony