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Nietzsche and Comedy: Provocative Laughter Amidst a Tragic Philosophy Michael C Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Summer 2014 Nietzsche and Comedy: Provocative Laughter Amidst a Tragic Philosophy Michael C. Rudar Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Recommended Citation Rudar, M. (2014). Nietzsche and Comedy: Provocative Laughter Amidst a Tragic Philosophy (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1129 This Immediate Access is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NIETZSCHE AND COMEDY: PROVOCATIVE LAUGHTER AMIDST A TRAGIC PHILOSOPHY A Dissertation Submitted to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Michael Christian Rudar August 2014 i Copyright by M. C. Rudar 2014 ii NIETZSCHE AND COMEDY: PROVOCATIVE LAUGHTER AMIDST A TRAGIC PHILOSOPHY By Michael Christian Rudar Approved May 30, 2014 _________________________________ _________________________________ Dean James Swindal, PhD. Frederick Evans, PhD. Associate Professor of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) _________________________________ Bernard Freydberg, PhD. Professor of Philosophy (Committee Member) _________________________________ _________________________________ Dean James Swindal, PhD. Ronald Polansky, PhD. Dean, McAnulty Graduate School of Chair, Department of Philosophy Liberal Arts Professor of Philosophy iii ABSTRACT NIETZSCHE AND COMEDY: PROVOCATIVE LAUGHTER AMIDST A TRAGIC PHILOSOPHY By Michael Christian Rudar August 2014 Dissertation Supervised by Dr. James Swindal, Ph.D. Nietzsche is well known as the philosopher of the tragic view of life. Because we are part of the world of becoming the tragic view maintains that human beings are given over to certain limits that we cannot transcend. These include ourselves as finite beings, the recognition that noumenal knowledge is not possible and, because we are subject to the flux of existence, that life can be both painful and destructive. However, for Nietzsche the tragic view of life ought not result in humorless resignation and he appeals to ancient Greek tragedy to demonstrate how cheerfulness is possible in the face of pessimism. But Nietzsche is equally clear that comedy and laughter too are ways to embrace the truth of tragic wisdom. In this work which examines three key texts that span Nietzsche’s productive life—The Birth of Tragedy, The Gay Science, and Thus Spoke iv Zarathustra—I will argue that comedy and laughter are central to Nietzsche’s endeavor to surmount pessimism, bring intellectual honesty (Redlichkeit) to Wissenschaft, and appreciate appearance where we become witness to the wonder and folly of the human being. Far from being a heuristic device used simply as a tool, the provocative laughter found in Nietzsche’s texts is the affirmation of amor fati that says “yes” to life, multiplicity, perspective, and tragic wisdom so that we may counter Schopenhauerian resignation. It is part of an authentic response of a subject in affirming being here as part of the world of becoming and, “living in Schein as goal.” In the end I will demonstrate that Nietzsche’s use of comedy and laughter is a herald that when sounded urges us to recognize the limits we are all subject to in order to return us to the humble, but noble, earthbound beings that we are. Set amidst all the serious issues that Nietzsche’s writings detail—the death of God, nihilism as the terminal sickness of the West, the will to power, the eternal return—comedy and laughter resound in his thinking so as to yoke the excessiveness that often attempts to transcend our being human, all too human. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT My deepest gratitude to Dr. James Swindal for his wise insight and guidance, and Dr. Frederick Evans and Dr. Bernard Freydberg for their astute reading and incisive comments. vi NOTE ON TEXTS Because there are now numerous translations of Nietzsche’s texts into English, I will list not only the page number of the particular text I am referencing but also the aphorism and/or section number or the title of the aphorism if no number is given. The majority of my references are from the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge University Press) editions of Nietzsche’s works that are themselves based on the now standard editions of Nietzsche’s Werke edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.......................................................................................................................iv ACKNOWLEDGEMNTS..................................................................................................vi NOTE ON TEXTS............................................................................................................vii INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1 I. The Play of Philosophy and Comedy...................................................................1 II. Comedy, Laughter, and the History of Philosophy.............................................6 III. Taking the Stage: Nietzsche’s Set-Up.............................................................27 Chapter One: Nietzsche on Tragedy and Comedy—Two Masks/One God......................34 I. Nietzsche’s Tragic View of Life........................................................................34 II. Comedy as a Response to the Tragic View.......................................................45 III. The Threat to Dionysian Affirmation: A New Daimon..................................86 IV. Socrates, Aristophanes, and Plato’s Pillow...................................................101 V. Conclusion: From The Birth of Tragedy to The Gay Science.........................108 Chapter Two: The Gay Science or The Humorous Knowledge of Free Spirits...............114 I. Beginning, Inscription, Laughter......................................................................114 II. Becoming Interesting to Ourselves—Laughter and Perspective.....................130 III. The Fool’s Cap and the Play of Appearance.................................................155 IV. Conclusion: From The Gay Science to Thus Spoke Zarathustra...................172 Chapter Three: Thus Laughed Zarathustra......................................................................182 I. Zarathustra’s Laughing Call.............................................................................182 viii II. Zarathustra and the Costumed Drama.............................................................196 III. Lions, Laughter, Affirmation.........................................................................238 IV. Conclusion: Resenting Seriousness, Laughing at Ressentiment...................252 CONCLUSION: The Eternal Return of the Eternal Comedy of Existence.....................257 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................267 ix Introduction “Genuine honesty, assuming that this is our virtue and we cannot get rid of it, we free spirits – well then, we will want to work on it with all the love and malice at our disposal, and not get tired of ‘perfecting’ ourselves in our virtue, the only one we have left: may its glory come to rest like a gilded, blue evening glow of mockery over this aging culture and its dull and dismal seriousness!” ~Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil~ I. The Play of Philosophy and Comedy One might think it odd that comedy and philosophy share anything in common let alone be complimentary. The traditional image of philosophy and philosophers is one of deep thought by somber, pensive individuals who attempt to think through the greatest questions of humankind. This of course is true. Philosophy does attempt to give accounts of the most profound questions of human existence. Questions such as: What is the nature of reality? Are we free? How ought one live authentically? All of this lends a certain air of seriousness to philosophy that appears to efface anything comical or laughter provoking. Certainly this serious image of philosophy has held sway through the ages. However I argue that comedy and philosophy share a deep alliance even if not always apparent the same way philosophy and serious matters are aligned. More specifically, I argue that Friedrich Nietzsche understands, appreciates, and exploits this alliance between comedy and philosophy, an alliance that has until recently been almost 1 completely ignored. What then could possibly be the nature of philosophy and comedy? How do such apparently diverse phenomenon relate? If one had to distill a single qualifying characteristic of this relationship, it would be, to quote Bernard Freydberg, one of measure.1 Philosophy and comedy take each other’s measure. How so? Philosophy and philosophers appear to be paradigms of restraint and measure, heeding the ancient oracle of Delphi whose advice was moderation in all things. Philosophical wisdom was attained in part from the knowledge that the appropriate measure was needed to live a good life in the philosophical sense or even in everyday, pragmatic affairs. It helped one to deal wisely with any given circumstance, whether political, social, familial or
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