• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

The Dissertation Committee for Irene Renate Price certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Nietzsche’s Zarathustra/Zarathustra as Abomination Committee: ________________________ Kathleen Higgins, Supervisor ________________________ Robert Solomon ________________________ Louis Mackey ________________________ Paul Woodruff ________________________ Gregory Pappas Nietzsche’s Zarathustra/Zarathustra as Abomination by Irene Renate Price, B.A, M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2004 For Melanie Acknowledgments I am indebted to a number of individuals without whose support, patience, good will, and encouragement this dissertation would not have been completed. I owe many thanks to my advisor, Kathleen Higgins, whose generosity, thoughtfulness, and never waning enthusiasm for the project were invaluable. I am grateful to Louis Mackey for taking an interest in the topic despite the fact that he considers Zarathustra “unreadable,” to Bob Solomon for his good will toward this undertaking and for generously giving of his time, to Gregory Pappas for his friendship, encouragement, and support over the years, as well as to Paul Woodruff for kindly agreeing to become involved with this project. I am also thankful for the many friends and family members who were at times more optimistic than I about my ability to see this process through. The greatest debt of gratitude, however, I owe to my husband, David, whose contributions are too comprehensive to enumerate here. Without his unwavering confidence, understanding, and willingness to sacrifice this endeavor would never have succeeded. To David and our daughter Melanie, therefore, both of whom have inspired me in many ways, I express my deepest affection. iv Table of Contents Chapter 1 Form Matters or: Matters of Form................................1 Chapter 2 Zarathustra the Godless...............................................42 Chapter 3 The Madman...............................................................79 Chapter 4 The Last Man............................................................103 Chapter 5 Corpses, Jesters, Gravediggers, and Swamps...........130 Chapter 6 Zarathustra’s Journey and/or Speeches.....................173 Chapter 7 Eternal Recurrence and Redemption.........................222 Bibliography......................................................................................288 Vita....................................................................................................293 v Chapter 1 Form Matters or: Matters of Form If one were to gauge Nietzsche’s own assessment of the philosophical significance of his respective works by means of the typical assortment of literature found at virtually any bookstore featuring a philosophy section, or any university library, one would undoubtedly draw the wrong inference. One generally finds several translations of most of Nietzsche’s writings, including Nachlass material, along with at least five times as many secondary works dealing either with Nietzsche’s writings, persona, or history. Of those secondary works, one or two–perhaps three, depending on the overall size of the selection–might deal with Thus Spoke Zarathustra.1 Though copies of Thus Spoke Zarathustra itself are usually plentiful, it is plainly evident just by looking at the available material, that Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s self-proclaimed masterpiece, is far from attracting the kind of scholarly attention its author thought it merited. “Among my writings, Nietzsche states, “my Zarathustra stands to my mind by itself. With that I have given mankind 1Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann, in The Portable Nietzsche (Penguin, 1954); hereafter referred to as Z, followed by part and section number. 1 the greatest present that has ever been made to it so far.“2 He predicts, further, that “some day institutions will be needed in which men live and teach as I conceive of living and teaching; it may even happen that a few chairs will be set aside for the interpretation of Zarathustra” (EH, “Good Books,” 1). The dearth of interest in what Nietzsche considered his most accomplished work is puzzling for more than one reason. Nietzsche is widely regarded as an extraordinarily gifted writer, who has an almost unparalleled ability among philosophers to engage a broad range of readers. Walter Kaufmann, the most prolific translator of Nietzsche’s works into English to date, writes: “Nietzsche is one of the few philosophers since Plato whom large numbers of intelligent people read for pleasure.”3 Given this talent, therefore, one must wonder why a greater proportion of his readers, particularly those whose professional interests center on his works, do not recognize “the art that has been squandered” (EH, “Good Books,” 4) on the work its author took to constitute the pinnacle of his literary and philosophical accomplishments. With notably few exceptions,4 the vast majority of 2Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, Preface, 4, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann, in Kaufmann, Basic Writings of Nietzsche (New York: Random House, 1992); hereafter referred to as EH, followed by abbreviated chapter title and section number. 3Basic Writings, Intro., ix. 4Among the exceptions are Kathleen Higgins’ Nietzsche’s Zarathustra (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1987), Anke Bennholdt-Thomsen’s Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra als Literarisches Phänomen (Frankfurt: Athenäum Verlag, 2 scholars, including those contemporary philosophers who are otherwise quite enchanted with Nietzsche’s writings, continue to avoid Zarathustra like an infectious disease. It is not that Zarathustra does not provide ample opportunity for study. As Robert Pippin remarks, “in the surprisingly small amount of literature devoted chiefly to Zarathustra, [there is] nothing close to a standard reading of the work’s intention, form, development, resolution, or lack of resolution. (In fact, there are not even standard disagreements.)”5 The lack of argument and debate concerning any of the issues Pippin mentions is, indeed, baffling. One should think it a modest challenge to generate controversy within the scholarly community, which ordinarily requires little in the way of prodding to be moved to disagreement. Zarathustra, however, cannot even manage to get a group of individuals known for their contentiousness to argue. Though quite remarkable in its own right, the lack of debate among Nietzsche scholars directly involving Zarathustra points toward an answer in our query concerning its marginal status: people, as Nietzsche 1974), Laurence Lampert’s Nietzsche’s Teaching: An Interpretation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986), and more recently, Robert Godding-Williams’ Zarathustra’s Dionysian Modernism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001). 5Robert B. Pippin, “Irony and Affirmation in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” ed. Michael Allen Gillespie and Tracy B. Strong, in Nietzsche’s New Seas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988) 45. 3 himself observes, have considerable trouble understanding this book. Strangely enough, Nietzsche was not only aware of the confounding character of this book, but did not find it problematic. Far from entertaining any doubt about its literary and philosophical accomplishments, he praises Zarathustra’s inaccessibility as a sign of its distinction: “how could I possibly wish to be read by those ‘moderns’ whom I know!” he remarks. “That today one doesn’t hear me and doesn’t accept my ideas is not only understandable, it even seems right to me . The time for me hasn’t come yet: some are born posthumously” (EH, “Good Books,” 1). Ironically, the fact that Zarathustra is cognitively opaque is one of the few issues about which Nietzsche scholars explicitly and unanimously agree. To my knowledge, there is no dissent concerning that point. Unfortunately, knowing that this work is opaque is helpful only on a superficial level. One must, it is true, have some idea what one is disagreeing about (or at least think that one does) in order to disagree. This, however, does not take us very far. In order to explain Zarathustra’s inaccessibility on a level that allows us to draw more substantial inferences concerning its intent or purpose, we need to ask why this book has on the whole defied rigorous philosophical analysis, especially since is not nonsensical per se. By gaining some insight into Nietzsche’s authorial strategy, in other words, we should be able to gather clues concerning his motives. He obviously had the ability to communicate his ideas more clearly, as evidenced by his other writings, which 4 suggests that Zarathustra’s opacity serves a distinct function or has a particular aim. The inaccessibility of the work’s cognitive content, however, is not the only characteristic in virtue of which it defies convention. Zarathustra’s fictional status, imagistic style, and frequent use of non-standard metaphors appear ill suited for the task of conveying substantive philosophical insights. Our sense of propriety also tends to be challenged by its protagonist, Zarathustra, who delivers a seemingly endless series of sermons in an offensive and confrontational tone of voice suggestive of a haughty, arrogant attitude highly unbecoming a critic of the Christian-Platonic tradition. As Kathleen Higgins notes,

Load more

  298

Copy Link