Nietzsche was influenced by Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860), who thought that the real world underlying everyday reality was composed of Will, best perceived by us in music. According to Nietzsche, tragedy as an art form was an invention of the ancient Greeks, before Socrates, in order to cope with the chaotic and sorrowful nature of their lives, and indeed of life itself. The tragic play was a rational and beautiful dramatic structure, created by Apollo, the god of reason, which allowed the audience to participate in the underlying, frenzied reality of disorder. This underlying disorder and merging of everything into an anguished but expressive drunken whole was what Nietzsche called the “Dionysian” element in Greek life. Thus, the Apollonian element of reason allowed the Dionysian element of disorder to emerge in the dramatic form of the tragedy, for the vicarious participation of the audience, who was represented by the chorus in the tragic play. In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), which was his doctoral dissertation, Nietzsche quoted the great tragic playwright, Sophocles: