Apollo
Phoebus, the god of light
Form, measure, clarity, and the beautiful image.
Apollo: what does it mean in analytical psychology?
In Psychological Types (1921) Jung gave a chapter to the pair Nietzsche set out in The Birth of Tragedy: Apollo, the god of the dream-image, of measure and individual form, against Dionysus. Jung read them as two movements of the libido and set them beside his own types, while warning that the match was not simple.
Apollo is the light that distinguishes and separates; one-sided, it is the clarity that cannot bear what it has not shaped.
Apollo: where does it appear in myth and tradition?
Delphi and its sayings, “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess”; the Pythia; the lyre and the laurel; Apollo the healer, father of Asclepius; the sun.
In the Press’s Books
Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy (1872), opens with the two gods, and the pair runs through all his later work.
From the Sources
Nietzsche writes that the picture of Apollo must not lack the measured limitation, the freedom from wilder emotions and the philosophical calm of the sculptor-god, and that his eye must be 'sunlike'.
“…must not be wanting in the picture of Apollo: that measured limitation, that freedom from the wilder emotions, that philosophical calmness of the sculptor-god. His eye must be "sunlike," according to his origin”
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy or Hellenism and Pessimism, Section 1. Translated by Wm. A. Haussmann, Ph.D.; The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, edited by Dr Oscar Levy, Volume One; Edinburgh and London: T. N. Foulis, 1910 (Project Gutenberg eBook #51356). The text, read in part
Freese notes that in Homer, Aeschylus and Plato the sun-god Helios is kept distinct from Phoebus Apollo, and that the epithet Phoibos, usually taken as the brightness of the sun, may equally refer to the god's physical beauty or moral purity.
“…in Homer, Aeschylus and Plato, the sun-god Helios is distinctly separated from Phoebus Apollo; the constant epithet Φοῖβος, usually explained as the brightness of the sun, may equally well refer to his physical beauty or moral purity”
John Henry Freese, Encyclopædia Britannica, eleventh edition: Apollo, 'Apollo', on the theory of Apollo as a sun-god. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, as transcribed on Wikisource. The text, read in full
Each passage is quoted from the text named, which the press fetched and read, and was checked word for word against a fresh copy of it; the link opens that copy. Passages are given as printed, without the editors’ footnote numbers, and with words broken across lines joined.
Where to Read
- “The Apollinian and the Dionysian,” in Psychological Types, CW 6
- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy (1872)
Jung’s writings are cited by the volume of the Collected Works (CW), Bollingen Series / Princeton, 1953–79.
Related Symbols
In the Glossary: Apollo and dionysus.
Also among Gods and Adversaries
“Learn as much as you can about symbolism; then forget it all when you are analysing a dream.”
Cite This Entry
“Apollo.” In Symbols of the Psyche, the Symbolarium. The Thinking Press, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/symbolarium/psyche/apollo.
Symbols That Share Its Terms
Nearby in the alphabet: The Antichrist: The shadow of the redeemer, returning at the end of an age. The Ape: The human made animal, and the animal made human. The Apple: The fruit of knowledge, discord, and youth. The Ascent: Rising toward the light, and coming down again.