Young Nietzsche: Becoming a Genius

..persuasive ...[Pietsch] has illuminated

Copyright © 1991 by Carl PIetsch

All rights reseIVed. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher. The Free Press A Division of Macmillan, Inc. 866 Third Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10022 Maxwell Macmillan Canada; Inc. 1200 Eglinton Avenue East Suite 200 Don Mills, Ontario M3C 3N1 Macmillan, Inc. is part of the Maxwell Communication Group of Companies. First Free Press Paperback Edition 1992 Printed in the United States of America printing number 1 2 3 4

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6 7 8 9 10

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

PIetsch, Carl.

Young Nietzsche: becoming a genius p.

cm.

/

Carl PIetsch.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0--02-925042-0 1. Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844 -1900-Contributions in notion of genius. B3318.G46P57

2. Genius.

I. Title.

1991

193-dc20 [B]

91-11612 CIP

For Laura

Contents Preface and Ackrwwledgments ONE A Genealogy of Genius TWO The Birth of a Genius? THREE Without a Father FOUR Learning to Learn

IX

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17 31 46

FIVE A Student of Genius

63

SIX Emulating Geniuses

103

SEVEN First Works

126

EIGHT Struggle for Autonomy

159

NINE Redefining Genius

205

Notes

219

SU(!gt!Stinns for Further ReLu1ing

249

Index

253

Preface and Acknowledgments, !

was first attracted to Friedrich N ietzsche as an u ndergraduate at

Brigham Young University. He represented a radical indepen­ dence of thought to me, and I wrote my senior honors paper on what then seemed the most provocative of his ideas. As a graduate student in intellectual history at the University of Chicago, I de­ cided to write my dissertation about Nietzche as well. By that time, the fog of adolescent enthusiasm had cleared somewhat, and the categories of psychoanalysis came naturally to hand as a means of explaining his unusual manner of thinking. Fortunately, Profes­ sor William McNeill, my adviser, countenanced and even en­ couraged my interest in psychobiography. The psychoanalytic focus of the dissertation also led me to a rewarding association with D r. George Moraitis of the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Chicago, who helped me to appreciate my own psychological in­ volvement with Nietzsche as well asto avoid some of the pitfalls of historical diagnosis. I became dissatisfied with my psychoanalytic treatment of Nietzsche's life as I realized that it did not suffice to illuminate the conjuncture of his ideas. Nietzsche had carefully constructed both his life and his works as monuments of creativity and had cast him­ self in the role of the genius. I began to explore the theory of ge­ nius, which had become, in the nineteenth century, a veritable ideology, a vehicle for conveying the grand aspirations of unusual individuals to the culture at large. Many writers and artists em­ ployed it, both to marshal their own energies and to construct themselves and their oeuvres to fit this new archetype of creative life, thus making themselves recognizable to the public. The question of how Nietzsche became a genius, or how he con­ structed himself as a genius, linked what I knew about his unique personality to the cultural category of genius, a socially con­ structed role. Nietzsche learned about it from widely revered exam-

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Preface and A cknowledgments

pIes like Goethe and Schiller. With his need for fatherly mentors, he fastened his attention upon these men and emulated them. And after an extended apprenticeship to Schopenhauer and Wagner, he assumed the mantle of genius for himself. With this understand. i � g of Nietzsche's development, I was in a position to write a quite dI ferent book. In fact, I found that the complementary relation­ ShIp of personal psychology and the culture of genius provides a strategy for investigating many other great and unique creative fig­ ures. I had a research agenda that went far beyond Nietzsche. I have a great many friends and colleagues to thank for their confidence in me and my gradually developing project, and for their friendship. Thanks first to my far-flung friends who believed that I could bring this to fruition; to former colleagues in the De­ partment of History at the University of North Carolina; in the De­ partment of German at the University of Pittsburgh; and in the Departments of History at Appalachian State University and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington; and finally to my cur­ r� nt colleagues at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. In the years SInce I began to write this book, I have incurred many oth er debts too personal to mention here, but no less gratefully remembered. For her sustaining confidence I am particularly grateful to Joyce Seltzer at The Free Press. Without her encouragement during the last several years, this book might not have been published. Without her intellectual advice and editorial criticism, it would be much less satisfactory than it is. To my daughter Laura, who can hardly know how much she has helped with the book, I dedicate it.

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ONE

A Genealogy of Genius •

son of a Prot­ riedrich Wilh elm Nietz sche was born in 1 844, the the boy to be­ cted expe ly estan t pasto r, whos e conservative fami pe where Euro a into � ome a pastor too. But Fried rich was also born roma ntic hero es By� on, G oethe, Mozart, Rous seau, and ot her Weim ar from all loom ed as large as kings . Peop le h(i d flock ed to s, and by the time over Europe to pay hom age to Goethe as a geniu nal hero of G er­ Nietz sche was a boy Goet he h ad beco me the natio � in 1 850, but many. The idea of genius was hard ly a centu ry"ol, like Goet he and among many educ ated peop le creative hero es kings as figures and ymen clerg Schil ler had already repla ced both sche' s first Nietz g youn of veneration. Goethe would be one of the with an al­ he heroe s, and the cult of geniu s woul d prov ide N ietzsc ternative vocat ion to that of the pastorate. the pro­ The" idea of genius emerged from the Enlightenm ent, Even as ry. centu h teent gressive intell ectua l move ment of the eigh , they ution radical writers prepared the way for democ ratic revol roma ntic were also settin g the stage for the nineteen th century's in A meric a heroe s, and its cult of geniu s. All across Euro pe and s. Bour ­ order eged comm oners were taking the place of the privil de­ they as geois intellectuals creat ed new roles for them selves patro ns, clared their indep enden ce from cleric al caree rs and noble own and claim ed the right to reform societ y accor ding to their

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YOUNG NIETZSCHE

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lights. They presented themselves as representatives of the middle classes generally, and even called themselves the "party of human· ity." But soon the idea emerged that they constituted an aristocracy of i? tellect. That would become one of the bases of the theory of genIus. Voltaire's career il ustr� tes ho� the intellectual assumed a sig­ . nIficant new role and Identi ty dUri ng the course of the eighteenth ce ntury. Born a bourgeois as Franc; ois Arouet in 1 694, by 1 725 V ol­ . taIre had conquered Paris with his plays and added the aristocratic "de Voltaire" to his name. The nobility took umbrage at his inso­ lence, had Voltaire beaten, arrested, and sent to the Bastille, and eventually had him exiled from France. But V oltaire remained an iconoclast, and another half-century of strictly literary combat made him rich and famous. The public bought his writings, and such royal patrons as Frederick the Great of Prussia and Catherine of Russia entreated him to attend them at their courts. When V ol­ taire died in 1 778, he was vindicated precisely by his writing. I He had broken the rule of deference to aristocracy and to institutional religion, a rule that men of letters had obeyed for centuries. And he had established the intellectual as an independent force in West­ ern society. Voltaire became a model for others. A century later he would also be one of Nietzsche' s heroes. But, even in V oltaire' s own time, a whole generation of emancipated thinkers and writers-the philo­ sophes-venerated him in France. These rationalist critics of the a ristocratic social order placed great faith in knowledge and educ a­ . tIon. Under the leadership of Denis Did erot they produced The Grand Encyclopedia ( 1 75 1 - 1 772). The first such compendium of knowledge, the Encyclopedia was not merely a reference work open­ ing hitherto obscure and often secret knowledge to the public; it was also the repository of every subversive opinion of the eigh­ teenth century. It met with repression from both the Catholic Church and the French monarchy. Diderot and some of his collab­ o rators were arrested for the opinions expressed in it; later vol­ u� es were banned and had to be printed in Holland; and shI� ments of th � book were impounded. Nevertheless, the Encyclo­ pedza was finanCia lly successful, and the views expressed in it be­ came the ideological foundation of the Revolution of 1 789.2 For the first time, perhaps, the pen wa s proving mightier than the sword.

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A Genealogy of Genius

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ues were pub lish ing the Encyclope­ Wh ile Diderot and his coll eag single­ radical man in a mor e li.bera l cou ntry dia in France , a far less guage. Sam uel the first Dictionary of the Englzsh Lan h dedly wrote had bee� ove rish ed poe t and essayist, but he . J nso n was an imp rite hIS erW und ld wou field ster Che d Lor ain cert led to b elie ve that a d by . After he had bee n repeatedly rebuffe efforts on a dict ion ary ther ano d' s doo r, however, J ohn son fou nd servants at Che sterfiel to adseveral boo ksel lers who were WI'11'Ing sou rce of supp ortmon ey, with a view to pro filu' ng from even .? vance him the nec essa ry ry I na zctzo D·· at gre son com ple ted the tu al sale s. But whe n J ohn that Che ster field had t.ake.n cred It 1 754, he was surprised to learn tly creation of his work. J ohn son IndI gnan for having supp orted the sterfield, poi ntin? out that he . h� d not pen ned a letter to Lord Che iary while workIng on the Dzctzonary, bee n the grea t man's ben efic mm end atio n to sell it now that the and he did. not need his reco on, my Lor d, one who look s with work was fi nish ed. "Is not a patr er, and , whe n he for life in the wat ,, unc oncer n on a man struggli ng 3 rs him with help ? Thi s became th e h as reached grou nd, encu mbe ce from literary patronage. defi ni tive declaration of inde pen den ency clop edis ts, and oth­ The succ ess of V olta ire, J ohn son, the for boo ks and idea� that wou ld ers proved that there was a market of patrons and cleri cal care ers. m ake inte llect uals inde pen den t ided the basi s for a new inte l­ And this fina ncia l inde pen den ce prov genr es of thought- an d r ep­ lectu al inde pen den ce, and even for new created (or recreated) resentation. Eighteenth- century writers y, genres that perm itted autobiography, the nove l, and biograph als in ent!!� ly new ways. the pub lic to thin k abou t grea t individu resu lts. Thinking in terms ofgeni us was one of the ed not only to great edcrib The read ing pub lic of the time subs ies as well , espe ciall y in ucational works but to nove ls and biograph the details ?f � iddl e Engl and. Biography and the novel dignified re the pubh c In ways class life, and put bour geoi s indi vidu als befo been represen ted pre­ in which only the privileged orders had man, the imp ressi on vious ly. When the indi vidu al was a creative rttuelJohnson (179 1 ), for could be dramatic. J ame s Bosw ell' s Life ofSa is one of the first in­ exam ple, beca me tremendously pop ular . It us for the publ ic min d. stances in whic h a biography defined a geni and conv ersa tion al­ wit a It gave such a livel y portrait ofJohn son as of his interlocutors­ ist-with an intel ligen ce far surp assin g th at this biograph y than that John son is better remembered today for

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YOUNG NIETZSCHE

for his own writings. For Johnson did not portray himself as a ge­ nius, and the term in its modern sense did not appear in his dictio­ nary. Among all the novels and biographies of the late eighteenth century, the works ofJean :J acques Rousseau andJohann Wolfgang Goethe were perhaps the most important in forming the ideal of the life of genius. They focused more p articularly upon the interior life of the young artist and intellectual. Rousseau's Julie, Dr the new Heloise (176 1 ), and Goethe' s SDrrDws 'Of the YDung Werther (1 774) were highly romantic stories of artistic young men, prototypes of the ro­ mantic hero and misunderstood genius, great in imagination and sensitivity but frustrated in love. Werther was translated into every European language and had such a profound impact that it actu­ ally provoked a wave of suicides in imitation of its hero. Immensely popular with middle- class readers, these novels were the first mod­ ern best-sellers. In some vague but profound way they also contrib­ uted to the reeducation of European sensibility, turning attention from the aristocrat to the artist and his noble soul. Both Goethe and Rousseau addressed the subject of education in virtually all of their works, returning again and again to the ques­ tion of how to nurture and d evelop one's own self. Theirs was no longer the critical education of the philDsDphes, who wanted to liber­ ate the middle classes from the shackles of tradition and supersti­ tion by conveying maximum knowledge. It was rather an education of sensibility, and a liberation of the innate talents and abilities in individuals. In his Emile, Rousseau eschewed discipline and rote learning and advocated drawing out what was already present in the child. And Goethe, with his Wilhelm Meister novels, gave the term Bildung (education) the new sense of developing unique po­ tential rather than learning what other people had to teach. Curiously enough this romantic view of education returned at­ tention to birth and innate qualities. The aristocrats of the old re­ gime had placed their confidence in noble blood; romantic writers invested theirs in innate talent. As if to illustrate how their own innate talent emerged, Goethe and Rousseau wrote autobiogra­ phies as well. Rousseau's CDnfessiDns, and Goethe's Out 'Of My Life (Aus meinem Leben, or Dichtung und Wahrheit, as it is often called), pointed to the uniqueness and organic development of the creative personality.4 Rousseau announced in the opening passage of his CDnfessiDns that, once God had made him, He br oke the mold.5 For his part, Goethe was fond of biological metaphors for the life of the

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A Genealogy of Genius

d gradu ally into its foreordain ed arti st that, like a flowe r, opene ?voked a mirati� n of th roman­ glory. The se autobiographi.es pr and hIS creatIve gen.lus. apart tic literary hero while settIng hl � . . ry men. By dIStIn guIshI ng ge­ ordIna of ed talent most the even m fro rather than education, the niu s as inherent, the produ ct of birth extraordinary new model of au tobio graphies set in motion an ent. hu man exce llenc e and achi evem nth century a new unders tandninetee the of By the beginn in g in Europ e and � meric a. ing of human greatness ha develo pe . ty of all . the edu cablh Based initial l y upon educa tIon and a faIth In ed upon a very few men, a theory of genius had emerg ed that focuss s was a new aristo c­ individu als born to lead creative lives. Geniu p�es in their quest philDsD the than racy in a much more literal sens tenme nt had Enhgh The for legitim ate social status had Intende d. s and had created the social space for the ninete enth- century geniu pedia. The offered one of its first definitions in The Grand EncyclD actually Byron and , Goethe au, great romantic heroes like Rousse lived and ed, provid stepped onto the stage that that social space or were, They out the role of the creative individual as genius . seemed to have been, born to create. The differen ce between genius and talent was categorical. O nly a genius could create, and his creations were so remarkable that contemporaries could not recognize them immed iately. As one of Nietz sche' s later mentors put it,

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Talent is able to achieve what is beyond other people's capacity to

achieve, yet not to achieve what is beyond their capacity of apprehe n­ sion; therefore it at once finds its apprecia tors. The'ach ievemen t of genius, on the other hand, transcends not only others' capacity of achievement, but also their capacity of apprehen sion; therefore they do not become immedia tely aware of it. Talent is like the marksma n ho hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marks­ man who hits a target . . . which others cannot even see.6

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The works of those who were deemed geniuses seemed so different f rom the work of their contemporaries that it was easy to believe they had been born for their tasks. The genius became the demi­ god of the nineteen th century, and the belief arose that "a genius is born, not made." Genius was thus defined by qualities not formerly ascribed to humans at all, but reserved for God. The romantic generation rev-

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olutionized aesthetic theory by making the artist a creator. It rede­ fined the artist as the maker of completely new objects, not just the imitator of God's creations that he had been for centuries. Works of art ceased to be mirrors of nature and became independent sources of insight and illumination.7 The genius-artist was credited with imagination, origin�lity, and creativity-terms and qualities that at the turn of the nineteenth century were as new as the con­ cept of the genius itself.8 Ascribing such qualities to the genius cul­ minated in the belief that the genius could create ex nihilo, out of nothing, as God had supposedly done, or at the very least out of his own soul. The capacity to create was, however, accompanied by psycho­ logical stress and social isolation, at least in the popular imagina­ tion. The genius seemed obsessed, and burdened by a responsibility to create. Insanity was associated with genius as well, and there were enough unbalanced and suicidal creators to con­ firm this prejudice. Even Goethe suffered from morbid tendencies, evident in The Sorrows of the Young Werther. Goethe, however, over­ came his depression. But another hero of Nietzsche's youth, the poet Friedrich Holderlin, lost his mind in 1 806 at the age of 36, and lived on in an asylum until 1 843. Holderlin was considered an "un­ healthy" influence on young people, and when as a schoolboy Nietzsche wrote an essay praising Holderlin's poetry, he was repri­ manded.9 Society was uncomfortable with such unpredictable members. The association of genius with insanity was largely de­ fensive: the imputation of insanity served to protect society against the unexpected and often unwanted eruptions of genius. It was a time when many harmless creative people were incarcerated in asy­ lums by their relatives and physicians, simply for fear of the un­ usual. Even when geniuses were not suspected of insanity, they were often perceived to be maladapted and never very conforming to s?cial conventions. By 1 850 it was apparent that the bourgeois pub­ he could not keep up either in taste or progressive conviction with the innovations of the avant-garde in art or philosophy. The natu­ ral partnership struck in the late eighteenth century between such public men as lawyers and the gentry on the one hand, and artists and intellectuals on the other, did not survive the triumph of the bourgeoisie; it degenerated into mutual hostility. The middle classes had become complacent, and in their view, the artists and intellectuals were becoming progressively more shrill and anti10

A Genealogy of Genius

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social. The ideology of genius encouraged creative heroes to follow their own natural paths of develop ment, paths that most often ran ainst the grain of convention al bourgeois society. Geniuses as composer Hector Berlioz, the � sparate as the flamboyant French you ng Richard Wagner, and the revolutio nary Ka�l Marx were clas­ sified as "bohemi an" in the 1 840s, both for theIr works and for their life-style. As the genius was becoming alienated from a self-satisfie d middle class, he became a law unto himself. A romantic artist like Ber­ lioz thou ght he was better qualified to know the virtues of his own music than the middle-class audience who only wanted to hear something familiar. He was contemptu ous of the public and would n ot be deterred from following either his musi(all agenda or his outrageously egotistical life-style. Marx, too, was schooled in the romantic mythology, and found his mission in a similarly defiant stru ggle against the theory of the new ruling class. His project was to critique the whole bourgeois system, but an integral part of the project was to explain the resistance of the bourgeoisie to innova­ tion of any sort. He showed that the bourgeoisie had been a pro­ gressive force only as long as they were in revolutionary opposition to the old aristocratic regime. Now that they in turn had become the dominant class, the bourgeoisie could be relied upon to oppose every artistic or intellectual provocation of the avant-garde, just as they opposed the economic interests of the working classes. Genius was a provocation to middle-class complacency. But the provocation was not limited to challenges to the social position of the middle classes, as Marx's logic might suggest._The figure of the genius was well calculated to incite many kinds of anxiety and am­ bivalence. Different in dress and habits, perhaps even psycho­ pathic, driven to create regardless of the consequences, the genius seemed strangely motivated and highly unpredictable. What is more, the genius seemed to create by magic. Mozart, for instance, wrote down whole symphonies out of his head without revising a single note. Goethe too awoke mornings with complete poems in mind. And geniuses did not perform such feats just once, but regu­ larly throughout long careers. It seemed as if they did not have time in a single life-time to create all that they were capable of. To ordi­ nary people, such men were either demi-gods or devils; perhaps like Faust, they had contracted with the powers of evil to get their god-like gifts. In either case they were disturbing. The genius had become a formidable figure, towering over his

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YOUNG NIETZSCHE

contemporaries and inspiring both admiration and resentment. With his power to create ex nihilo, the genius had become a kind of "unmoved mover," in Aristotle's terminology, forcing his contem­ poraries to orient themselves to his creations. This was a function that had formerly been assigned to God, who had presumably cre­ ated heaven and earth and given direction to all life. But now there emerged a pantheon of artists and thinkers who had evidently cre­ ated the world of thought and perception from within which nine­ teenth-century people apprehended life. For many educated people, God was retreating to the wings, and the genius was taking his place at the center of the stage. Thus the genius emerged as the focus of something approaching a secular religion-ironically, since the invention of the genius in the late eighteenth century was a function of an emancipation from traditional religion. Most edu­ cated people still needed powerful yet recognizable heroes to pro­ vide authoritative direction. In a democratic century, this need could only inspire ambiva­ lence. The awed respect that the public paid to the genius was diffi­ cult to reconcile with the rights of popular sovereignty everywhere asserted by the middle classes. The contradiction was more often implicit than recognized by contemporaries, but it was quite evi­ dent in Napoleon's case. The great admiration that people across Europe felt for the military genius who tamed the French Revolu­ tion and humiliated the crowned heads of Europe was matched only by their resentment of the dictatorial nature that Napoleon revealed as he crowned himself Emperor of France and subjugated other European nations. Once the hero of creative people through­ out the continent, once the very embodiment of individual initia­ tive, he earned the ire of men as far apart as Beethoven and Francisco Goya for becoming a tyrant. 1 2 The public seems to have envied not only the creative powers of the genius, but also his corresponding freedom from social con­ vention and even his willful behavior. At the same time, the public disapproved of precisely the thing it admired, and often perceived depravity and immorality in the genius. Thus, what the genius in­ spired most of all was ambivalence. Great admiration could quickly be transformed into bitter disappointment and rejection, as when Beethoven angrily struck Napoleon's name from the title page of his Third Symphony and renamed it "the Heroic Symphony."13 Perhaps this profound ambivalence lies at the root of the idea that the genius is always "ahead of his time," for in spite of the most

A Genealogy of Genius

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edly found it difficu lt profound admiration, contemporaries repeat terms. Psycholog­ rial accept geniuses on their own often dictato ult to approach allY at least, the geniu s had becom e more diffic some of us find it as than the kings of the old regime. Even now, the genius as Moses difficult to look directly upon the creativity of . ing bush burn did to look upo n God in the This ambivalence was naturally reflected in biography, which as a ��ans as became a primary mean s of propagating geniu s, well . or cnt�C1sm. of policing the pantheon of genius through eulogy ed In the The genre of multi-volumed "lives and works" was invent Lytton as But s. lize geniu nineteenth centu ry to monu menta ize trivial to Strachey noted, the welter of biog:ap� ic det�il tended . Ing the creative achievements of genIUS . And In a speech accept the the Goethe Prize in 1 930, Freud worried that "even the best and of riddle the upon light any fulle st" biographies could "not throw ga­ d investi detaile the miraculous gift that makes an artist." Such tions inevitably uncover disapp ointing moments in the life of a great man, and even the most lau �atory biographies entail oe� ipal rivalry and tend to bring the genIUS down to human proportIons. Nevertheless Freud conclu ded that educated people must "put up" with biography, because ambivalence about the great is inescapably human:

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Our attitude to fathers and teachers is, after all, an amb ivalent one since our reverence for them regularly conceals a compone nt of hos­ tile rebellion . This is a psycholo gical fatality; it cannot be altered with­ out forcible suppressi on of the truth and is boun
Freud emphasized the undercurrent of emotional hostility to­ wards genius, rather than the admiration of genius. Disappoi nt­ ment had diverted many people's attention from the greatness of a Goethe or a Napoleon . The very difficulty of the musical composi­ tions of Berlioz and Wagner disappointed nineteenth -century con­ certgoers and occasionally brought bedlam to concert halls. But the tendency to denigrate geniuses was (and is) only a compensa­ tion for the often excessive worship of creative heroes. Such extrav­ agant admiration seemed incongruou s and even embarrassi ng to some people, who found it easy, for example, to ridicule the syco­ phantic admirers who gathered in Bayreuth to worship at the altar

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YOUNG NIETZSCHE

of Wagner's genius. However, awe and admiration have been the dominant attitudes toward genius and underlie every disappoi nt­ ment. Genius worship thus entailed the desire to experien ce som e measure of the genius's creativity. Listening to the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, or Wagner, reading the works of Rousseau or Goethe, afforded (and still affords) the vicarious exhilaratio n of creativity. And it helped the citizens of the nineteenth century be­ come more aware of their own creative resources . (In fact much of the art and philosoph y of that century was about creativity.) People found it inspiring even to read biographies of geniuses, and biog­ raphy became a genre in which potent "ego ideals"- perso nal models suitable for emulation-were realized and circulated . In the middle classes particularly, the subjects of biograph ies ofte n became the heroes of young men and women deciding upon their own ambitions . Thus biography became a genre not only for bring­ ing demi-gods down to human proportio n, but for enlarging the experience of educated people. And genius became a self-propa­ gating ideology. Genius begat genius, and even ordinary people could identify with the creative lives of their heroes. In this sense at least, genius was democratic. When Nietzsche was a boy in the 1 850s, every young man with talent and access to a good education could wonder if he was a ge­ nius. Nietzsche was inevitably exposed to Goethe, Beethoven, and other cult-figures at an early age. But his family of Protestant pas­ tors had its own tradition. Not only were the boy's father and two grandfathers parsons, but most of his other known ancestors as well. It probably never occurred to the Nietzsches that Friedrich might discover in himself an ambition to genius that would carry him away from the study of theology or the vocation of pastor, even though the Lutheran pastorate was the intellectual elite of Protes­ tant Germany. Being born the first son in such a family practically guaranteed that Friedrich would receive a university education . As he grew older and his educational horizons expanded, his expo­ sure to genius in the intellectual and popular culture became ever broader. When Friedrich was barely five years old, family tragedy struck when his father, Pastor Ludwig Nietzsche, died. His mother Franziska would never remarry, so Friedrich grew up in a house­ hold that consisted of his mother and sister, two paternal aunts, his grandmother, and several maids, but no men. Throughout his early

A Genealogy of Genius

I e, Nie tzsche would be rfi

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unusually attracted to father figures, older to crave guidance if not precisely affecseemed he m�ro f m whom . .uon. The fathers of Wilhelm Pinder and Gustav Krug, two of hIS . I d I ·Iterary Interest . a� d b oyho od friends, first inspired ? is mUSlCa an Fehx caII ed his atten tion to such genIuses of the day as Goethe and . an I d ·It·bl mUSIC to e susceptI remain would e Nietzsch n. Mendelssoh s the to attachment early His mentors. fatherly to as eratu re as well . . n WIt · c ater h s 'I lasClnatio Nietzsche elder Pinder and Krug prefigure Schopenhauer and Wagner in the most remark�ble way. Nietzsche went mainly to private school until 1 858, when at the age of fourteen he was awarded a free place at the famous boarding scho ol of Schulpforta. There it was remarked that he was an ear­ nest, sickly boy, a hard worker, and ul �imate!y an excellent scholar. No one noticed whether he was a genIus. PrIvately he wrote poetry and compo sed music, and he wrote a short autobio�aphy that he entitl ed Out ofMy Life, in imitation of Goethe. Yet he dId not record any intentio n of becoming either a poet or a musician. By the time he graduate d from Schulpforta, however, he had. thor�)l� ghly �as­ tered Greek and Latin and was already engaged In OrIgInal phIlological research. As he passed his final examinations, one of his teachers remarked that he was the best student of philology that Schulpforta had seen in a generation. He seemed a budding scholar, but nothing more. His record at school suggests that he possessed considerable native intelligence, good discipline, and ambition. Predictably, Nietzsche enrolled at the university as a student of theology. Within a year, however, he told his mot��r that he did not believe in God, and declared he would not become a pastor. He found a fatherly mentor in Professor Friedrich Ritschl, a philolo­ gist. A skillful and productive student, Nietzsche became Ritschl's favorite pupil. In fact the fatherless Nietzsche and the childless Ritschl became mutually involved in the roles of surrogate father and son. Ritschl thought well enough of Nietzsche's seminar papers to publish several of them in the journal that he edited-an ex­ tremely unusual distinction. Nietzsche was highly motivated by this nurturance and for a time he felt certain that he was destined for a career in philology. Just as Nietzsche was gaining recognition in philology, how­ ever, he discovered the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, who became another paternal mentor, and Nietzsche's interest in phi­ losophy began to rival his interest in the classics. Nietzsche was

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struck by the ethical dimension of Schopenhauer's philosophy, and his life took on new meaning and direction as a result. H e was unable, however, to resolve his conflicting feelings toward his two teachers, or to decide between the two fields of study before he was invited to apply for the job of professor of classical philology at the University of Basel. Ritschl recommended him extravagantly, and he was given the job, even without writing a thesis. At twenty-four Nietzsche seemed destined for a brilliant career in philology. Nietzsche was still trying to clarify his ambitions as he took up his duties at Basel and came into the orbit of Richard Wagner, who was also living in Switzerland. Wagner was an extravagant person­ ality, an acclaimed genius with truly grandiose pretensions who fas­ cinated Nietzsche more than any of his earlier heroes. Since Wagner professed to be a disciple of Schopenhaue r as well, Nietzsche was able to merge his idealization of the one with his per· sonal fascination for the other. Wagner, furthermore, was eager to have Nietzsche as his disciple. He was not at all reluctant to direct Nietzsche's career, and encouraged Nietzsche to orient his philo­ logical writing to problems of contemporary culture. The fruit of this intense relationship was Nietzsche's first book, The Birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music. From 1 870 to 1 876 Wagner was the primary influence in Nietzsche's life, and Nietzsche's emotional de­ pendence upon Wagner became profound. He subordinated him­ self to the composer in the most abject fashion. Nevertheless, this servitude was apparently an essential step in Nietzsche's creative development. Nietzsche had been exposed to the culture of genius since early childhood, admiring Goethe, Holderlin, and others as heroes. Then, in Schopenhauer, Nietzsche found an explicit theory of ge­ nius as well as a philosophical hero whose accomplishm ents of­ fered him a starting point for his own creative life's work. But these men were distant idols who lived in books. Wagner was a tangible presence who would activate Nietzsche's affinity with genius and give him a personal connection to it. Wagner's personal magnetism led Nietzsche into the magic circle of genius, a field of forces in which he saw Wagner's creativity drawing to itself great talents working to realize the master's works, the love of an adoring and self-effacing wife, sycophantic hangers-on , great expense, publicity and scandal, and true popular adulation. Thus in his relationship with Wagner, the whole phenomeno n of genius was crystallized in the most personal way. Nietzsche had finally found an approach-

A Genealogy of Genius

whom he could learn the role and then able m odel of genius !ro� It. playIng visu alize himself from the moment he N·Ie tzsche' s intelle ctual persona changed . . dry, WrItten In th e Trage of ' Birth came under Wagner s influence. The enthusia sm, reveals that he had already fi1r s t flush of his Wagnerian e ambitious ly. The book' s speculativ more write and begu n to think . S an t h precocIou a rather er philosoph a of work nature b etrays the . . . f; . It was so speculatIve, so InnovatIve, In act, 1 0lo gy professor. ph'l Iy ' and VICIOUS " that Nietzsche was suddenly isolated as a ph 1' l 0IOgiSt ttacked for his lack of professio nalism. The Birth of Tragedy pro­ a k es the question about Nietzsche as an emerging genius: How he manage to go so far and so audaciously beyond the limits of his professional training, even in his first book? . By his mid-twenties Nietzsche had already become a creatIve force who knew how to think and express things that no one could have taught him-no t Friedrich Ritschl, not Schopenhauer, and certainly not Wagner. Trying to please Wagner, however, Nietzsche had synthesized his knowledge of the ancient Greeks with an ethi­ cal impulse derived from Schopenhauer. In the process he had cre­ ated an original interpretation of ancient Greek culture. He had apparently devised-or taught himself-his own way of learning, a method that would permit him to continue to extend his ideas and the range of his thinking throughout his life. This is characteristic of genius. Nietzsche ' s deep admiratjon for his "fathers" and es� e. dally his desire to please Wagner were the catalysts of thIS creative leap. Wagner kept Nietzsche in thrall for another fou! years after the publication of The Birth of Tragedy. Nietzsche remained in the role of disciple and even permitted Wagner to dictate what he should write and publish. His own susceptibility to fatherly mentors and Wagner's tyrannical nature conspired together. And the culture of genius, which exalted such men as Wagner out of all proportion, foresaw just such feudal relationships. Thus Nietzsche did not be­ come a fully independent creator until after his definitive break with Wagner at the first Festival of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungen in Bayreuth in 1 876. But in that period he learned a great deal more about the role of the genius from Wagner's example: in par­ ticular, the absolute egotism of the genius, which did not come at all naturally to Nietzsche. It was this role, that Nietzsche learned from Wagner, that fitted him to his creative mission. It permitted him to complete his transformation from a provincial son of a Lu-

��d

�,

13

14

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

theran pastor and sometime professor of philology into a worl d­ renowned nihilist philosopher. When Nietzsche did finally clarify his own creative mission, it turned out to be "the transvaluation of all values-die Umwertung aller Werte," overturning culture itself. He undermined the episte­ mology, metaphysics, morality, science, and the very logic of West­ ern thought. He attempted to discredit nearly every ideal and heroic figure, starting with Socrates, whose influence he had al­ ready decried in The Birth of Tragedy, but extending even to his own genius-mentors: Schopenhauer, and especially Wagner. Nietzsche's attack was unusually radical, insofar as he eschewed any systematic alternatives to the idols he toppled. He aspired to abolish truth itself. Yet his strategy was not mere iconoclasm. It was an oddly affirmative sort of nihilism, entailing cheerful truthful­ ness about the absence of objective truth. Nietzsche proposed to affirm life after the death of God, when life could have no intrinsic meaning. He attempted to impose values where none were to be found, and preached a gospel of loving one's fate (amorfati). It was a form of moral life without the reassurance of truth or morality. This was perhaps the most drastic assault upon Western thinking that had ever been mounted. It carried to an extreme a certain crit­ ical tendency that is inherent in Western thought, but its effect was to undermine the entire tradition for the first time. The radical and unanticipated nature of Nietzsche's attack highlights the ques­ tion of how he, in particular, came to make it. Nietzsche exerted himself at every stage of his life in order to become what he was. His youth was a struggle against his family's determination that he become a pastor. But Nietzsche's rebellion against family and religion did not free him for a life of hedonism. Quite the contrary, his life turned out to be one of almost monastic austerity and perseverance, primarily because he retained a deep and very spiritual need for a calling in life. With a strong sense of the "protestant ethic" he worked hard in school and throughout his early years to fulfill his potential. Tothe end of his life, he con­ tinued to describe his work as "a mission" -Nietzsche did not be­ come the radical thinker easily. More was required, however, than intelligence and dedication. These qualities made Nietzsche a professor at an early age. And if he had been more certain that his calling was philology, he might have had a rewarding life as a scholar and professor in Basel, like his colleague, the great historian Jacob Burckhardt, writing great

A Genealogy of Genius

15

revolution in his life. But Nietzsche w �s books withou t any further lacked Burckhardt s nger man than Burckhardt, and . a· mu ch you . . world. Further,. Nletzsche was Stl'11'In fatuI ronIc dI'stanCe from the ied by Schop �nhauer and ated with the power of genius as exemphf s for hIm to trans­ impetu e Wagner. Their examples provided t� n. form and transcend himself once agaI the popular definition of to well m confor not does Nietzsche tood it. Rather, his ca­ unders century nth the genius as the ninetee be learned and nurto has that role reer suggests that genius is a genius not only from h'IS read'lng, tured. Nietzsche learned about . s 0f h ·IS but from his extended discipleship to tw� 0f th e genIuse time. Havi ng lost his own father so early, hIS youth and early man­ hood were consumed by a search for a surrogate father, and when , he apprenticed himself to he found Schop enhauer and Wagner them and reformed himself as much as possible in their image. Nie t;sche's early career thus reveals something about the role of ge nius that is not so apparent in the lives of other creative individ­ uals, namely, that it must be learned. Geniu s as a culturally defined role did not even exist before the mid-eighteenth century. It is specific to the modern era that an ex­ tniordinarily gifted individual can hope to be an economically self­ sufficient specialist. The modern genius is quite distinct from the so-called Renaissance Man, who was not far removed from a crafts­ man and had to perform a variety of services for his patron. A ge­ nius must by definition have a mission unique to himself, defined by and for himself. Instead of serving others, he must become com­ pletely dedicated to himself as well as to his calling-or�mbition. The role is psychologically rigorous, in open conflict with the social mores of modern society that require cooperation and reciprocity from, most people. Absolute egotism does not come naturally. It must be learned. Nietzsche learned it in a painful and well-docu­ mented way. Others have undoubtedly learned the role of the ge­ nius too, but without the humiliating apprenticeship that Nietzsche underwent with Wagner, and privately enough for it not to become apparent to their contemporaries. Nietzsche's life demonstrates that genius is not born, but made, and by a process far less magical than the romantic ideology of ge­ nius may make it seem. Like every other creative individual, he had to make his life in the world as he found it. Karl Marx wrote, "Men make their own history, but notjust as they wish; not under circum­ stances of their own choosing, but under the given and inherited

16

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

circumstances that directly confront them." 1 6 It could be a descrip­ tion of genius. Nietzsche created himself in rebellion against the circumstances of his birth. But he was also the beneficiary of those circumstances. Nietzsche had to overcome the narrow expectations of his fam­ ily and reject the religious and ethical values that he had inherited before he could even imagine himself as a philosopher. But he also inherited a sense of duty and calling. He absorbed the nineteenth­ century assumption that mastery of the classical languages and ini­ tiation into historical methods of thinking were prerequisites of intellectual excellence and accomplishment. Perhaps most impor­ tantly, he learned the theory of genius, and oriented himself per­ sonally to genius in the figures of Schopenhauer and Wagner. And finally, rebelling against his mentors too, he created himself as a genius. Making himself a genius, he made his own history.

TW O

The Birth of a Genius? •

he philosopher Nietzsche was born in the village parsonage of

TRocken (near Liitzen) in the Prussian part of Saxony on the

fifteenth of October, 1 844. The child's father, the pastor Karl Lud­ wig Nietzsche, had been in the village little more than a year. He had formerly been a tutor at the ducal court at Altenberg, where he had come to the attention of the 'new Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV (r. 1840-1861). The king personally had Ludwig ap­ pointed to the pastorate at Rocken, an appointlgent that greatly improved Ludwig Ni�tzsche's finances and social status. It enabled him to gather his widowed mother and his two sisters into a house­ hold of their own; and it not only put him in a position to marry­ it virtually obliged him to marry. As the new pastor visited the other parsonages in his district, making the acquaintance of his fellow-ministers and their families, he was also looking for a wife. Ludwig soon found himself attracted to Franziska Oehler, one of the daughters of Pastor David Oehler in the neighboring village of Pobles. A few months later the couple were married on Ludwig's birthday, in October 1 843, and Franziska joined the Nietzsche household. Franziska Oehler was only eighteen years old; Ludwig was thirty.l Our Nietzsche was their first child, born just a year after their marriage, and, as fate would have it, on the birthday of the king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV. It

18

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

was for this reason, as well as because of the monarch's patronage of Ludwig Nietzsche, that the child was named Friedrich Wilhelm.2 Nietzsche's parents were dissimilar in many respects and came from quite different families, but his genealogy is remarkably ho­ mogeneous in at least one respect. Max Oehler, a cousin of Nietzsche who collected the genealogy, indicates that more than twenty percent of the ninety-six male ancestors known to him were pastors, most of the rest being merchants or officials, thus Burger, rather than farmers. Furthermore, Oehler notes a tendency of Nietzsche's ancestors to move from the upper middle class, or Burgertum, into the Lutheran ministry on both the paternal and ma­ ternal sides. Thus, in the several generations immediately prior to Friedrich's birth, virtually all of his relatives occupied parsonages.3 This made Nietzsche an example of why the Lutheran pastorate was considered the genealogical source of Germany's intelli­ gentsia. In fact, the ministry, or Pfarrerstand, was almost a caste. The best minds in Germany were selected from all classes by rigorous examination. Trained for the pastorate at the university, they be­ came the educated elite of the country. And they tended to inter­ marry, forming a sub-society within German society at large.4 Genealogical explanations of intellectual brilliance and cre­ ativity are always after-the-fact, and never very satisfying. However, we cannot reject the hereditary explanation of Nietzsche's bril­ liance, because it is, after all, a version of the theory of the genius according to which genius consists of inborn ability-a notion that has prevailed in all Western countries since the eighteenth century. Unfortunately, we cannot know precisely what part biological he­ redity played in Friedrich Nietzsche's abilities. But even if we admit that Nietzsche was the beneficiary of an unusual degree of native intelligence, this did not make him a genius. His intelligence might have developed in many different ways other than the path it ulti­ mately took. Hereditary intelligence is not the only explanatory hypothesis that can be drawn from the genealogy. It is important, for example, that Nietzsche was born into an educated elite sufficiently distinct and self-conscious to be called a Stand or estate. The Lutheran pas­ tors were the German mandarins of the nineteenth century.5 To be born into such an exclusively ministerial family as Nietzsche's was to inherit social status, educational privilege, and a responsibility to carry on the tradition. Whatever genetic advantages and liabili­ ties his ancestors may have bequeathed to him, they also willed him

The Birth of a Genius?

19

great expectations. A t the minimum h e should go to the university, study theology, and become a pastor. It might also be hoped that he would rise to a high position in the clergy, perhaps even fulfilling the promise of his father by becoming the official preacher at the prussian court. Certainly these aspirations were set before him. Karl Ludwig Nietzsche's own father-Friedrich Nietzsche's grandfather-had been dead for years by the time Friedrich was born in 1 844. He was Friedrich August Ludwig Nietzsche, born in 1 782, himself the son of an important Lutheran bureaucrat. By the age of twenty-eight, he had earned his masters degree in theology and had already been appointed independent pastor in the town ofWollmirstadt, where he remained for twenty years. He proved to be a prolific writer on both pastoral and theological subjects. His publications and faithful service to his congregation eventually led to promotion to the office of chief pastor in the city of Eilburg and superintendent of the pastors in the surrounding area. Shortly after this move his wife died, leaving him with seven children. But he soon married the widow of another important clergyman, twenty-two years his junior. This marriage yielded three more chil­ dren. Late in his life Friedrich August Nietzsche's theological writ­ ings were again recognized and he was awarded a doctorate by the university at Konigsberg.6 His writings have naturally been men­ tioned by many Nietzsche biographers as genealogical omens of his grandson's career. 7 But he had another, indirect influence upon his grandson's life. At his death at the age of seventy in 1826 he left his forty-eight-year-old wife a widow for the se<::o nd time, with three dependent children (including the twelve-year-old future pastor Ludwig, father of Friedrich).8 She lived on until 1 856, play­ ing a prominent role in Friedrich's early childhood. Karl Ludwig Nietzsche lived only half as long as his father, but his life bore the stamp of his father's biography in several respects. Ludwig grew up in a family securely embedded in the elite of the provincial bureaucracy: his father was a clerical superintendent, one grandfather an archdeacon, and so on� They were loyal ser­ vants of the conservative aristocratic order and highly conscious of their responsibility in maintaining religion and order in Lutheran society. When his father died, the twelve-year-old Ludwig, now the only male in the family, took his new role and responsibility very seriously, working hard to please his mother and to prepare him­ self for his profession. At an early age he was placed in a position

20

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

to imagine himself the head of the household and to assume the re­ sponsibilities of his social class. At the same time, however, he was deprived of an important source of experience that could have tem­ pered his concern with his future roles-the constant comparison that an adolescent boy makes between himself and his father. Perhaps partly as a result of this pressure to follow in his departed father's footsteps, Ludwig was for the rest of his life a rigidly earnest man. The report summarizing Ludwig Nietzsche's performance in the Gymnasium and a letter of recommendation written by one of his professors as he completed his university studies are verita­ ble catalogues of the virtues of the educated middle class, or Bildungsbiirgertum. At school, he had earned the love and respect of his teachers by being punctual, obedient, industrious, and persistent; and his love of order and untiring zeal for duty were exenlp lary. I n the u n iversity he was reportedly a perfect student-industrious, pious, earnest, and modest; he had also won the annual preaching contest. His practice sermons were meticu­ lously prepared and elaborately presented. This record apparently earned him the position of tutor at the ducal court. And when he came to the attention of the Prussian King a few years later, moral earnestness, correct manners, and fastidious personal presentation were his most salient characteristics. Friedrich Wilhelm IV was im­ pressed.9 In his position as pastor at Rocken, Karl Ludwig carried on his meticulous personal presentation. Especially noted were his fine dress and stilted preaching. When Ludwig visited the Oehlers in Pobles before the wedding, Franziska was impressed that his clothes were of "a fineness which one only wore at court." Of course Ludwig had lived at the provincial court as a tutor, and his daughter recorded that some people thought he might reach the position of Hofprediger or court preacher in Berlin, probably be­ cause of his acquaintance with Friedrich Wilhelm IV. lO But what­ ever his aspirations for the future, his fancy attire was out of place in Rocken and must have put a distance between himself and his rural congregation. His supervisor approved of his work as a pas­ tor, calling it praiseworthy in every respect, emphasizing that he was energetic and hard-working; but he noted that Ludwig's preaching was excessively ornamented . Besides being the very model of a loyal, conservative pastor, Ludwig was apparently dan­ dified and histrionic. Perhaps even by nineteenth-c entury stan­ dards he took himself and his responsibili ties too seriously.

The Birth ofa Genius?

21

Lu dwig's wife Franziska, o n the other hand, grew up i n a free and vigorous family environment, the sixth of eleven children. The O ehlers seem to have been Christian in belief, but profane in char­ acter. l l Franziska's father David Oehler had a hard youth as the or­ ph aned son of a weaver. But his quick intelligence was noticed and he managed to get an education and become pastor of the little village of Pobles. He courted and married Johanna Hahn, appar­ ently the wealthiest girl in his home town. Her ancestors comprised a richly endowed family which had resided in the region as long as anyone could remember; her father had extensive possessions of his own as well as lands in fief from the king. When Johanna mar­ ried David Oehler, her father gave her a coach, a coachman, a cook, and other servants-a rather unusual dowry for a simple pastor's bride, to say nothing of an orphaned weaver's son. To his granddaughter Elisabeth, writing long after Pastor Oehler's professional and marital successes had become matters of fact, David Oehler seemed a cheery and intelligent man. He was one of an old style of easygoing pastors who didn't find anything at all wrong with riding in the hunt (with a mounted servant behind him to carry his guns), or playing an occasional game of cards. Al­ though Pastor Oehler was neither musician nor poet, his house was filled with music, his children recited poetry, and the family consti­ tuted its own theater troupe with more than enough actors for most purposes. He loved to have people about him and seems to have succeeded in maintaining a house full of guests. He had time left over to be enterprising, however, and his parsonage was a real farm in competition with his neighbors and parishinl1ers. In short, he was a man of great'energy who not only knew how to work, but how to enjoy the fruits of his labor. 1 2 His wife Johanna, coming from a comparatively wealthy back­ ground, was nonetheless a "genuinely healthy German Hausfrau." She did not worry overmuch about her children; in fact, her grand­ daughter Elisabeth Nietzsche had the impression that she had raised them rather callously. Yet she had nursed all of her eleven children herself and was extremely indulgent with her grandchil­ dren. The difference probably was the size of the families:Johanna had so many children and such a large household that she must have been something of a manager, letting the children raise each other as much as possible; the contrast with the way in which Franziska was to raise her children, Friedrich and Elisabeth, could not have been greater. At any rate, none ofJohanna's children had

22

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

the difficulty cutting their apron strings that Ludwig Nietzsche did. It seems that the Oehlers had a life-style almost opposite that of the Nietzsches: they had health, energy, a zest for life in all of its as­ pects, and a tendency not to take things too seriously.13 Franziska Oehler's problem was how to fit into the Nietzsche family. Before the wedding both families had doubts about the out­ come. Pastor Oehler forecast the solution on an awkward occasion when Ludwig's mother made an unannounced visit. She was nearly knocked off her feet by Franziska's hearty embrace and obviously unsettled by the lack of formality in the Oehler home. The pastor commented that Frau Nietzsche would have to make herself the gardener of this wild young plant when Franziska moved into her household; only then would Franziska become the dignified wife that Ludwig required. 1 4 And after the marriage, Frau Nietzsche was in a position to play just the role that Franziska's father had sug­ gested, for Ludwig modeled the family on his adolescent home, with his mother in charge and all major departments of domestic responsibility delegated to his sisters, Rosalie and Augusta. Franziska was the only youth in the family where even her husband was twelve years her senior. She had little to do and no authority in a family whose roles had long been defined; only as her own chil­ dren arrived did she acquire a domain of her own. As her daughter Elisabeth later described the division of labor in the family, tend­ ing the children appears to be the only responsibility granted to Franziska. 1 5 It seemed to Franziska's own brothers and sisters that she had quickly adapted to her new family, becoming "horribly courteous and cultivated almost overnight." But she herself preserved a mem­ ory of the traumatic adjustment. Especially difficult were her rela­ tionships with the other women, particularly with her temperamental sister-in-law Rosalie, who was constantly giving her orders. Ludwig's response on the occasions when Franziska defended herself from the other women was to withdraw to his study, where he stayed, de­ nying himself food, drink, and conversation until harmony was fully restored. 1 6 Although Franziska may have been brought into line by such behavior, she seems also to have preserved her own inner balance. She was usually able to observe her earnest new fam­ ily with a sense of humor quite foreign to them, as in the record she made in her diary of her husband's sudden enthusiasm for patent medicine. He wanted to cure the family even when they were not sick, she thought; she would not submit to his cure, for she was sure

The Birth of a Genius?

23

that she could cure herself quicker with water in the event that she really fell ill. Perhaps her own family background gave her strength to maintain her sense of self in spite of a rigorous outward adapta'1 tion to her new laml y. 17 There is no evidence that the difference in family background or eve n Franziska's awkward position in the household led to open conflict between the two spouses. In fact, what one can learn from h er letters indicates that Franziska grew into a dutiful wife and m other in the Nietzsche household, much as her father had pre­ dicted she might. Yet we know that the burden of adaptation was up on her rather than upon the Nietzsches. And since she bore her first child, Friedrich, in the first year of her marriage, and her sec­ ond, Elisabeth, only a year and a half later, she could hardly have avoided communicating this stress to her children. Her nephew Adalbert Oehler, who obviously saw the marriage from the Oehler perspective, was aware of her awkward position but admired her personal resources . Like countless other women, Franziska ac­ cepted the whole responsibility for making the best of an awkward marriage, at considerable cost to herself. She dedicated her whole energy to adapting to the expectations of her husband and his fam­ ily. Trying to become an obedient wife and daughter-in-law was a multiple challenge for this once carefree girl. She had not only to adapt to a new and austere family in which her freedom, responsi­ bility, and authority were curtailed, but she had to do without the easy companionship of her brothers and sisters. She had no friends in Rocken. And she assumed the role of mothec�lmost immedi­ ately. It is not hard to imagine how she would devote-herself to her children. They were the only work and responsibility left to her after family authority had been parceled out among her mother­ and sisters-in-law. Her children were also her only diversion. Thus the organization of the household and differences in family back­ ground set the stage for an otherwise strong and secure young mother to depend inordinately upon her babies for her sense of well-being. This must have been especially so with her first-born son Friedrich. One can imagine two possible psychological effects: Franziska's intense concern with Friedrich might have stimulated in the child an overweening preoccupation with himself, or it might have made his rivalry with his father for his mother's attentions all the more poignant. And while nothing more definite can be said about these Co

IS

24

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

hypotheses than about the boy's hereditary intelligence, both consistent with his behavior in later life. Given her mother's record of having nursed all of her el children, and her own attitudes about personal health, we may sume that Franziska nursed her own children; yet we do not how long or how enthusiastically she did so. Her children's pers alities did not notably demonstrate that sense of trust which Erikson suggested should be the result of successful breast feed and weaning. 1 9 Perhaps the children had traumatic experiences subsequent stages of development. If toilet training was difficult, would probably have been on account of their Aunt Augusta, was in charge of house-cleaning and preoccu pied with cleanli But Friedrich was not notably acquisitive or possessive; quite contrary, he accumulated almost nothing but his own writings.20 Ludwig was rapturous at the birth of his son. But his passion order and hints in family memoirs lead one to suspect that avoided his children, just as he avoided the conflicts between women of the household. His primary desire in respect to his c · na:�lIlle dren was probably that they be kept quiet. It is difficult to n him playing with them or occupying himself with the day" problems of their development. That Ludwig may have avoided children is plausible in view of Franziska's exclusive devotion them. But nothing definite can be said about how Friedrich treated in early childhood beyond the family structure and a_ sphere reconstructed here.21 An autobiography of about thirty pages, that Friedrich when he was fourteen, reveals what seemed salient to him then, reflects his feelings about those events when he was still young.22 One of the first problems of Friedrich's childhood im tant enough to stick in the family's memory (and signifi enough for him to record) was that he had been slow in learning speak. As an adolescent, Friedrich wrote that this was a tradi · that he was loath to hear, still less believe.23 Yet, apparently, he h only learned to talk at age two and a half. His parents worri about this and consulted a doctor. The doctor explained that it w a simple matter of the child having been spoiled, for since th were given to him virtually before he required them, he had no had to express his wishes. According to Elisabeth's account, this agnosis led to teasing, trying to make Friedrich say the word desirable things heldjust out of his reach.24 A suspicious part of story has it that his favorite object was a drawing of his

e

The Birth of a Genius?

25

Nietzsche, resulting in his first word being "Oma" a), in stead of "Mama;" it is an anecdote that speaks more '��:{jGr:anC1IJ]l of the dominant role of grandmother Nietzsche in that it does of the child. than UIU " "llOtlIS�J:I doctor's observation that Friedrich had been try oun r.The c of being over-attended) seems plausible sense the s'' �iled (in seems unlikely to delay the develop­ -attention · , 0ugh. But over or to distinguish between self and ent of a child's ability to speak who say that linguistically gifted children some are re he C:>ther. T late; if this were more than folklore, it would speak to often learn Friedrich was that hereditarily gifted.25 But the buttress the idea could hardly have understood the deliberate child old ear.two-y teasing, applied as a remedy g and for his inability to oldin hh wit have led to feelings of helplessness only and rage. could talk. This of youthful passage autobiography where he adIn the same tnits his lateness at learning to speak, Friedrich relates the family tradition that as a small child he was "a little bull-headed" (starrkiipfig). From the scantiness of the evidence it is impossible to ascertain whether this willfulness was an innate character trait, a phase (the terrible twos), or a reaction to difficulties in mastering a specific developmental challenge (such as toilet training). It might also have had to do with the arrival of siblings: his sister Elisabeth was born in 1 846 (when he was one and a half) and his brother Jo­ seph early in 1 848 (when he was three and a half). These changes in the shape of the family would naturally have been disturbing to a child whose mother had been so exclusively devoted to him. His , stubbornness might also have resulted from the deliJ?erate teasing to which he was subjected. For whatever reason, stubb"ornness is a prominent characteristic of the mature Nietzsche, evident even be­ fore th� first great caesura of his childhood. Friedrich was not quite five years old when his father died. This was/assuredly the most portentous psychological experience of his , early life and the first event of his childhood about which there is extensive evidence. When he was fourteen, he described his 'father's death.26 According to his account, the life of the family had been as a bright summer day until suddenly clouds mounted in the sky and a storm descended upon the family in the form of his father's sickness. The tempest began in September of 1 848 when his father fell ill. Ludwig Nietzsche apparently fell on the steps of the house and hit his head. He probably suffered a concussio n at this time, although he may already have been ill from another

1 �

26

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

cause.27 During the early months of his illness, he seemed to re­ cover for brief periods and periodically preached and gave confir­ mation lessons. But he was soon unable to function at all and died inJuly 1 849. Only rather late in its course was the illness diagnosed by a specialist from Leipzig to be "softening of the brain" (Gehirnerweichung). Then, according to the fourteen-year-old Friedrich, My father had to endure enormous pain, but the disease would not diminish; rather, it grew from day to day. Finally his sight was even extinguished and he had to endure the rest of his suffering in dark­ ness. His condition lasted until July 1 849; then approached his re­ lease. On the 26th he sank into a deep slumber and only occasionally awoke. H is last words were "Franzchen-Franzchen-come­ mother-hear-hear-Oh, God!" Then he went to sleep soft and blessed. . . . When I woke up in the morning I heard loud crying and sobbing all around me. My beloved mother came in with tears in her eyes and cried pitifully: "Oh, God, my good Ludwig is dead." The coming days were spent in tears and preparations for the burial. Oh God! I was a fatherless orphan, my mother a widow! . . . At 1 :00 P.M. the [funeral] celebration began with full ringing of the church bells. Oh, never will I get the sad sound of the bells out of my ears. . . . Through the church resounded the organ tones.28

The vague description of Ludwig Nietzsche's illness and the use of the term gemiithskrank in this and other accounts have given rise to the thought that Friedrich might have inherited a tendency to mental illness from his father. Even epilepsy has been suggested, the disease that the Italian physician Cesare Lombroso (1 8351 909) associated with genius.29 Such thoughts are curiously related to the genealogical explanations of his intelligence. The two ideas have even lent credence to each other, for it is commonly believed that genius is next to madness. Nonetheless, it seems unlikely that Nietzsche was hereditarily predisposed to madness. His father most probably died of more mundane causes-if not from the con­ cussion, then from a stroke or tumor.30 Also, it is commonly be­ lieved that Nietzsche's own ultimate madness was the result of tertiary syphilis. Although the cultural tendency to see madness in genius (and genius in madness) is present in Nietzsche's biography, it will be more rewarding to seek the psychological connection be­ tween Ludwig's death and his son's later life and behavior.31 Indeed all of Nietzsche's autobiographic writings explicitly

The Birth of a Genius?

27

and perman ent imstate that his father's early death made a deep a simple one. A not was him. But the impre ssion Pressio n upon and the arallel might be drawn between Friedrich's experience ther when Ludwig Nietzsche was still a �eath of Friedrich's grandfa father, Ludwig, was boy, but there is a great difference as well: the inte� nalize� the having nce, already on the thresho ld of adolesce ty of hIS fa­ authon al social values of his class through the person old. His ther; Friedrich, on the other hand, was not quite five years of the l oss was greater, for he was deprived of his father at the onset d childhoo of period the him, time when he might have emulated life of year fifth the ofte n termed latency by psychologists, between and puberty. On the other hand, he was still in that phase of his development where he was competing more or less consciou sly with his father for the affection s of his mother. In other words, he was still in a position to "win" the oedipal conflict. The timing of his father' s death was psychologically crucial for Friedri ch. Shortly after Ludwig Nietzsche's death, however, the shape of the Nietzsche family changed again, and in such a way as to permit later generati ons a deeper glimpse into Friedrich's feelings about his father just after the latter's death. Within several months of his father' s funeral, Friedrich seems to have dreamed a dream that echoed his memories of that event: Around that time I dreamed one night that I heard organ tones as at a funeral. As I saw what the cause seemed to be, a grave opened up sud­ denly and my father climbed out of it in his burial clothes. He hurried into the church and comes shortly out again with>a-ctJ. ild under h is arm. The grave opens, he climbs in and the cover sinks back onto the opening. At th� same time the organ tones fell silent and I awoke.32

On waking Friedrich must have told his terrifyin g dream to his mother. Ordinarily such a dream would have been represse d and forgotten as thoroughly as all other fantasies about the death of the father. But this dream was immediately "fulfilled ." For the very day after the dream, his little brother Joseph suddenly became ill with cramps and died in a matter of hours. According to Friedrich's ac­ count, "my dream was completely fulfilled. The little corpse was even laid in the arms of his father." Thus the dream became a fam­ ily curiosity instead of a frighteni ng childhoo d fantasy, and was remembered. The meaning of this dream is not so obvious as it may seem,

28

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

however. It is tempting to interpret it as an expressi on of the child's desire to see his little brother removed from the family scene too, as the only remaini ng male competitor. But the record of the dream is unspeci fic about the identity of the child fetched from the church into the grave by his father. The unexpected death of Friedrich's little brother Joseph is what determi ned that identity for later telling. The dream itself, furthermore, almost certainly had some less obvious meaning. It is evident that the funeral organ governs this dream, setting its oppressive tone with sacred music. The music may well represent the power of God and that unknow n world to which his father had gone, but it seems to be a threaten ing rather than a benefice nt power. Friedrich's father returns from the grave grotesquely attired, and in his hurry virtually snatches the child from the church. The church itself is less a sanctuary than a vortex, or a portal of the other world, surrounded by tombs. The father, returnin g from the church with the child, does not cradle the child in his two arms but carries him under one arm like stolen goods. This terrible and furtive act accompl ished, the grave closes, the power of the music recedes, and the dream ends.33 This reading of the dream suggests that, whereas Friedrich may have wished to have his father return, and may have wished to be reunited with his father and held in his arms, he was afraid that their reunion would be one in which his father would drag him off to the grave with him. He was afraid to go there even with his fa­ ther. Thus the dream seems to be about Friedrich's desire to be re­ united with his father, coupled with a fear of death and fear of his father's revenge. This fear of revenge may have been premise d upon the childish suspicio n that his wishes had caused his father's death. Friedrich must have been overwhelmed by the grief that his father's death caused among the women of his family. Their reac­ tion would have made him feel the insecurity and impoten ce that the women themselves were feeling. They were aware that they would have to leave the parsonage; their income and social stand­ ing had been at least partially taken from them. This would also have intensifi ed whatever sense of guilt he may have felt about the death of his father. Of course, guilt and a dream of father's revenge is only conceivable at this age when Friedrich's fantasie s of omnip­ otence were already balanced by an awareness that his father was (or had been) more powerfu l than he and capable of frustrating

The Birth ofa Genius?

29

su ch fantasies. If this interpretation is correct, it indicates that Friedrich began to pay very early for his "victorious" rivalry with hi s father. And it demonstrates that in such rivalry, winning may be lo sing. . D espoiled of two of its members and no longer entitled to the parso nage in Rocken, the Nietzs�he family had to move. They chose the city ofN aumburg for theIr new resIdence because Grand­ mother Nietzsche had friends there. Friedrich's mother Franziska decided to go with the Nietzsches, which practically entailed an­ other decision-not to remarry. Young, healthy, and attractive, she certainly could have remarried; and a look at her own and her husband's genealogies is enough to convince us that it would not have seemed socially improper. Nor was there a compelling finan­ cial reason for her to stay with the Nietzsches, unless of course her own family refused to receive her back. Franziska may have thought that she could dedicate herself more exclusively to her children if she remained in the Nietzsche household. Or perhaps she could not bring herself to deprive the Nietzsche ladies of a share of her husband's pension. What does seem odd is that she did not perceive the advantages to the chil­ dren of having another father, even a stepfather. Had she found the physical intimacy of married life distasteful? Or had she come to love Ludwig so deeply that she could not imagine intimacy with another man? Or was it simply that she had adapted to the Nietzsches so thoroughly that she followed their will in this too? It is impossible to know. Whatever her motive, she chose to move to N aumburg and raise her two remaining chil4!� n with the Nietzsches. Thus the first chapter of Friedrich Nietzsche's life came to a close in April 1 850, when he was five and a half. What can be concluded from this scant account of the first five years of Friedrich's life? Only in retrospect is this the childhood of a genius. It is noteworthy that none of the many eyes that have scanned the documents relevant to Nietzsche's early life have found any contemporary suggestions that he showed signs of ge­ nius. By heredity he may have been endoweQ with more than usual intelligence, perhaps even literary intelligence. But this was not yet manifest. By some combination of heredity, social background, and family circumstance, he seems also to have had a serious dispo­ sition and a large capacity for self-discipline. His formidable ances­ tors and the traditions of the Lutheran pastorate had prepared a family environment in which much would be expected of him. But

30

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

how he would employ his intelligence and sobriety, and how he would react to those expectations, was still wholly undetermined. Even at this early moment, however, a rudimentary psychologi­ cal matrix for Nietzsche's mature style of thought may already have been prepared. He was the first child, and now once again the only male child. As a consequence of this and of the fact that his mother was excluded from much of the other business of the household, he enjoyed an unusual degree of his mother's attention. He undoubt­ edly felt that he was a special child. He had also passed perilously near that vortex into which his father and baby brother had been sucked, and he had survived. So in addition to a sense of guilt and a fear of reprisal, he may also have gleaned a tenuous sense of in­ vulnerability and even immortality from the experience of death in his immediate family. He had learned that fatherly authority is vincible, a conviction coupled with the awareness that overturning authorities leads not to bliss but to loneliness. We should not conclude that Friedrich's experience of the death of his father-no matter how devastating it must have been for him as a five-year-old-determined the charac­ ter of his later thought and writing. Later events might have dimin­ ished its significance. Ifhis mother had remarried, for example, his attitudes toward authority might have turned out quite differently. But she did not. And later episodes in his biography seem actually to have enhanced the importance of his father's untimely death, and even permitted him to recreate the feelings associated with it. The most extravagant and consequential repetition of this child­ hood drama would arise in his extended encounter with Richard Wagner. The inopportune death of Ludwig Nietzsche did not dic­ tate the course of his son's later life, but it remained a crucial for­ mative experience.

TH REE

Without a Father •

rom her later vantage in the 1 890s, Friedrich's sister. Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche called the Naumburg of her chIldhoo d a sleepy town. But in 1 850 it made a great impressi on upon the two children arriving from Rocken. While Friedrich 's impressio ns are colored somewhat by the anti-urbafl sentimen t that pervades Ger­ man writing of the time, his recollections show that he was amazed at the size of the buildings, the labyrinth of streets, the numbers of people, and most of all by the fact that the people-w_��e often � nac­ quainted.1 Naumburg was a very different social world for hIm, a place where he 'Yas not the son of the most prominen t citizen, or even important at all. Naumburg had been chosen as the family's new home because several of Grandmother Nietzsche's friends lived there, and she would feel at home among them. N aumburg society was dominated by the Oberlandesgericht, the provincia l high court of justice. The most prominent families were those of the judges and counselors at the court. This dominanc e of civil servants and their families was largely responsib le for the social conservatism of the town, a con­ servatism that the N ietzsches shared, since this was also the circle of Grandmother Nietzsche 's acquaintances. From the point of view of the Nietzsches, N aumburg was a strictly religious, conservative, and monarchist town, a support to both throne and altar.2

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YOUNG NIETZSCHE

Grandmother Nietzsche and her daughters were also returning from the rural isolation of Rocken to the style of society in which they (and Friedrich's father) had been raised. For Friedrich's mother Franziska, however, the move to N aumburg with its formal­ ity and pretensions to national importance was another step away from her youth and family. Franziska and the two children occu­ pied the rooms in the rear of the house, excluded except at meal­ times from the front rooms and social intercourse. Franziska's position was even more awkward than it had been in Rocken. Hav­ ing chosen to follow the Nietzsches to Naumburg, she was a guest, in the most uncomfortable sense, dependent upon Grandmother Nietzsche and her daughters and obliged to adapt to their wishes. She was excluded from household responsibility as she had been in Rocken. She had only her children, whom she had to keep from disturbing the others. Even a part of the garden was denied her. Intimidated by the social scene in Naumburg, Franziska was depen­ dent upon her in-laws for cues about how to behave socially. Being a woman of slight education and limited intellectual interests, there was little left to her but the role of a servant.3 Franziska was only twenty-three years old when her husband died, and very attractive. She could certainly have remarried; her mother-in-law had remarried at thirty-one herself, which might have made it seem less improper. But Franziska's position in the h �usehold inhibited her from making the sort of friendships that mIght have led to a second marriage. Instead, she devoted herself wholly to her children, trying to make up for the loss of their fa­ ther. She could call God to witness that she had taken her motherly duties as the highest purpose of her being. Her nephew concluded that she suffered in this oppressive household situation, but that she made a virtue of adversity, dedicating herself that much more to her children. He recalled her jesting at this time about how she would still be carrying Friedrich to bed when he was an adult if he didn't learn to go by himself soon.4 �n spite of the attention Friedrich enjoyed from his mother, his . lIfe In N aumburg was governed by his grandmother. One of her best friends was Geheimriithin Pinder, whose son and son- i n-law b oth held important positions in the Oberlandesgericht, the provin­ . cI�1 court �f appeals; and she had two grandsons Friedrich's age, WIlhelm PInder and Gustav Krug. Wilhelm and Gustav were to be Friedrich's only real friends in the N aumburg years, and even after he went to Schulpforta. They were selected, however, by his grand-

Without a Father

33

began in the parlors where the older m other. The ir acquaintance stomed to meet, and develop ed in the family members were accu ers. eld . ed that chIl. dren of all soschools selected by their vInc con was he tzsc Nie ther mo Grand together, at least until the y wer e ten al ci classes sho uld go to sch ool hav e to be separated so that wou ld naturally . preparat.Ion for theI. � more reyearS old · Then they . begIn the upper-class chIldren cou ld assu med that the N Ietz sche s, sp o nsib le calli ngs. She naturally not on the basi s of wealth, but . lass, . P Inders , and Krugs wer e upper-c · eaucratic profeSS Ions ; th at IS, bur and on cati edu r thei of se cau be the that biirgertum. The idea was their membership in the Bildungs ld beco me fam iliar with the hildren of the upper classes shou tly the Pinders and Kruf?s ower-class view of the world. Apparen first went to the pub lIc h were of the same conv ictio n, for Friedric 5 tav. Gus school with Wil helm and not meet the expecThe boys' experien ce in public scho ol did ry, however. Not that the tations of Grandmother Nietzsche's theo al hab its of the lower-cla ss instructio n was defi cient, but the soci Gra ndm othe r Nietzsc�e boy s wer e inim ical to the disc ipline that aps also because of theIr and her frien ds wanted to cultivate. Perh s were unh app y, . and different backgrou nd, all three of the boy moved to a pnv ate e spent only one year there before they wer school . back on the year When the fourteen-year-old Friedrich look ed plai ned his .ow � diffi­ he had spent in pub lic scho ol, however, he e� recent arnval ln the culties without reference to social class or hIS begu n to show itse.lf city. He thought that his character had already ful as_ the other chIl ­ in the first grade: he was not as wild and play because he was so dren , and they teas ed him and made fun of him time of writing, on serious. This had continued right up until the rved that he had obse the eve of his departure for Schulpforta. He could give him self always sought solitude and felt best when he the "free tem ple of over to his thoughts und istur bed, espe ciall y in nature." ds, even with He acknowledged his difficulty in mak ing frien they were no n Gustav and Wilh elm. Onl y in their seco nd year, whe frien dshi p with longer in the pub lic scho ol, he wrote, coul d his thou �ht he � ad them begin to blos som .6 Loo king back, Friedr� ch e IS noth Ing ther e whIl been unu sually shy in the first grade. And his serio us­ ess, unu sual abou t that, Friedrich reports that his shyn year s of prithe ness , and his incli nati on to solitude pers isted into

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34

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

vate school when his frien dshi p with Wilhelm and Gustav had be­ com e clos e. He makes it clear that he cons idered thes ter of character and not of circumstance. He rega e traits a mat­ rded his reserve not simply as an app ropriate way to act after his father's death, but as a permanent effect of that event. He believed he had been trau­ matized. Perhaps indeed fam ily history and soci al circ umstance had a com plem entary imp act upon Friedrich's character. He �e�pon ded not only with shyn ess (of whic h he was aware), b� t by ngIdly adhering to rules. His sister reco rds that one day in hIS first year of school it was rain ing hard whe n it was time for Friedrich to come home. His mother was wait ing for him on the porch when all the other boys came racing past , but Friedrich was not amo ng th� m. When at last he came walk ing calm ly but purp ose­ fully alon g, hIS mot her shouted for him to run, but he just kep t . walk Ing untI. l he reached the hou se soak ed to the skin . His mother was outraged at the cond ition of his clothes and pred icted he woul � catch � terrible cold , but he was ready to cite the app ropriate rule : In leavIng school the boys were not to run wa�k, calm and well-mannered. Ano ther story or jum p, bu t to conc erns sweets, WhICh were forbidden him: he adamantly refu sed them even from adults who wer e will ing to cons pire to keep his indu lgen ce secret from his family.7 Nietzs�he's rigid adherence to social conventi ness, remaIned characteristic of him. Friends rem ons, like his shy­ arked at the adu lt Nietzsche's alm ost ostentatious formality and correctn ess. And peo ple who met him in the sum mer resorts of Switzerland wer e sur­ � rised at :he � ontrast between his radical phil osop hy and his phil is­ tIne beanng In sOciety. But his rigid obe dien ce was not the norm in t�e pub lic school, and his fanatical adherence to rule s, alon g with hIS shyness, really did give the other boys occasion to tease and m ?ck him . Tha t cou ld only hav e accentuated his feel ing of alie n­ atIon. Ano t�er characteristic that set Friedrich apar t was his abil ity to reCl. �e sC�Iptu�al passages and religious song s with great path os. Unl Ike hIS sen ousn ess and obe dien ce, his relig ious inte nsity was a:pparently respected by the othe r boys. It earn nIckname "little pastor." This nickname sugg ed Friedrich the ests that Friedrich was not merely depressed abo ut the loss of his father, but at­ tempted to imitate him even in his absence. Imi tating an abse nt father, however, can be mor e difficul t than dealing with even the mos t imp erfect one in the flesh.

Without a Father-

35

After his father's death, Friedrich's elders gave him an idealized picture of his father as pastor, a phantasm that he could only try to i. m itate in the abstract. The energy which he devoted to memori�­ been part of thIS Ing and reciting scriptures and hymns must have . ffort. Of course the abstract ideal was an Ina dequate gul' d e lor onduct, so he grasped at the rules provided �y his teach�rs. This . pulse to be a good boy, and a good son of hIS father, reInforced serious character. It marks the beginning of Friedrich's long search for the appropriate father figure, a quest that still engaged him when he encountered Richard Wagner twenty years later. Friedrich's backwardness at public school could be explained as easily by the social situation as b � his personality a�d his fath�r's . untimely death. And indeed, the pnvate school to whIch Fnednch, Wilhelm, and Gustav were sent for the next three years was a much more congenial environment. Dr. Weber, the proprietor of the school, gave exceptionally good lessons in religion. And Friedrich made his first enthusiastic contact with Greek and Latin under Weber's tutelage. The school was preparatory to the Naumburg Domgymnasium, the humanistic secondary school that the three boys would enter in 1 854. Here the young scholars were of a mor� uniform social background, and school was no longer a realm dI­ vorced from family life. Furthermore, Friedrich's school and fam­ ily life began to spill over into the homes of the Pinders and Krugs. As the boys became better friends in Weber's institute, they fre­ quently did their homework together under the guidance of one or the other boy's father.8 Association with his friends' fathers could onlyb� beneficial to the fatherless Friedrich. Counsellor Pinder, he noted, was gener­ ally a model husb�nd and father, who carried out his of�icial ?uties in serious fashion and was concerned about the beautIficatIon of N aumburg-cliche virtues of the middle-class bureaucrat. Friedrich recorded that Pinder was in the habit of reading Goethe and other authors aloud to his family, and that he was privileged to attend some of these family gatherings. Instead of being impatient to play with his friend Wilhelm, as many boys would have been, he sat still and nourished himself on the literature, and the image of a father who cultivated it. Something similar happened at Gustav Krug's house. Gustav's father was a lover of music, a personal ac­ quaintance of Felix Mendelssohn, and apparently N aumburg's ar­ biter of musical taste. The family had an excellent grand piano and all the virtuosi who visited N aumburg were received in their home.

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YOUNG NIETZSCHE

�ere agai� Fried�ic� was often in attendance.9 It marked the begin­

nIng of NIetzsche s lIfelong preoccupation with music. Friedrich chose to remember and record the fathers of his . fne � ds, and � ot their mothers, in his youthful autobiography. His . faSCInatIon wIth the elder Pinder and Krug suggests a yearning for father surrogates . His own father was remembered for his ability to . . fa ntaslze on the plano and write ornate sermons. The fathers of his . fnends were not pastors, of course, and in that respect his fascina­ tion ,:"ith their avocations also began to lead him away from the vocatIon set before him by his own family. A lifelong interest in literature and music was conceived in these encounters. Friedrich began to write poems and stories as well as to compose music while still in Weber's private school. His early themes were religious and sentimental. But quite apart from th � �ubstance, the process of creative self-expression in music and WrItIng gradually became very important to this child who was oth­ erwise s � inhibited � out expressing himself in aggressive play. . C ompOSItIOn and wntIng were a space in which he could express . hImself and test his capacities. There he could exert himself as he could not otherwise. In the soirees of the Pinder and Krug families, Friedrich was exposed to prominent literary and musical personalities such as Mendelssohn. His first awareness of the creative or bohemian life must have come from the visiting luminaries received in the homes of his friends. This was also the first occasion for him to think that he might grow up to be a musician or a writer. It was an awareness that permitted him to think affirmatively about the difference be­ twee � hims�lf and other boys. He devoted himself to poetry and the plano wIthout parental discipline or encouragement. By most . accounts he remaIned a rather ordinary pianist, and his writing �ould on.ly be apprec.i� ted years later. But from this early age, play­ � ng the plano and wntlng poetry were Friedrich's means of defin­ Ing and expressing himself. Friedrich chose the piano in part because his father was re­ puted to have played and improvised wonderfully on that instru­ ment. On the othe � hand, h � dedicated all of his preadolescent . poe � s and cOmpOSItIons to hIS mother, presenting them to her at ?hnstmas and on her birthdays. This is how he played out his fam­ Ily romance. As a result of imitating this fantasy of his father as a great pianist, he gained access to the much larger world of the arts and philosophy, where he would eventually become a true innova-

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Without a Father

37

elm and Gustav- in fact, thou sand s of boys tor h im self. Whi le Wilh ngsbiirgertum-had muc h the same expo sure to i n Germ any's Bildu rich apar t from his frien ds was a quality of the arts, what set Fried ic and literature were not mere ly the avoc a­ ambiti on. For him mus nts, or the conv entio nal things a child mus t ti ons of one of his pare to his unkn own father and to pater nal learn. They were links strength an d mastery. more impo rtant than This aspir ation was perh aps even ce in settin g him apart from his frien ds Frie dri ch's native intel ligen toward intel lectu al creativity. Ther e is and starting him on the path lled Gustav or Wilh elm in Web er's no evid ence that Fried rich exce intel ligen t and acco mpli shed sch ool. Both youn g men came from e careers, albei t in conventio nal fam ilie s and went on to impr essiv ed law and beca me an emin ent profes sions . Gustav Krug later studi followed his father as a pa­ prus sian civil servant like his father. He ber of the Wagner Society of tro n of the arts, bein g a foun ding mem tion for him too. Only Col ogne. But musi c rema ined an avoca father he had lost can ex­ Frie drich's search withi n hims elf for the s could teach him, to plain why he quickly went beyond what other his own musi c, and osing begi n improvisi ng on the piano , comp before he was four­ writing coun tless poem s and an autobiography exerc ises or expe ri­ teen. In Fried rich's case these were not mere elf in the absen ce of m�nt s; they were part of his quest to forge hims a mal e exemplar. father to One man who migh t have beco me a surrogate father Oehl er. Fried rich in a more conv entio nal way was his grand d , ? e pamp ered One migh t supp ose that the grand children woul ren to grow u p child for g and indu lged in Poble s, an idylli c settin summ er va­ spend in. And i n fact, both children were delig hted to se he foun d catio ns there. But in Friedrich's case it was not becau descr ibed the at­ the farm a great outdoor playgroun d. Instead he tractions of the farm in the most domestic terms. ruled in that house Just the genu ine German Gemuthlichkeit which y in love with the deepl fall us made and drew us back again and again study and prowl r's fathe grand in p hole-u place . Most of all I liked to greatest pleasu re. 10 around in the old books and paper s; that was my

Prowling in his grandfather's study may seem an unusual pleasure for a boy visiting his grandfather's farm, but it is characteristic of Friedrich. He enjoyed the gemiithlich family atmosphere of the

38

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

Oehler farm, which must have been a welcome change from the rigors of life with Grandmother Nietzsche. For Friedrich's mother, the visits to the farm offered another sort of opportunity. The farm was her parental home. When she was there she freely confided her worries to her father. She was concerned with the difficulty Friedrich had in making friends and how different he was from other children. She admitted that he was a .good and ob �dient child, beyond what one might expect of a boy hIS age, but thIS very behavior had an aura of obstinacy about it. Pastor Oehler seems to have reacted variously to Franziska's wor­ ries. For the most part, he played the jovial grandfather who en­ jo�ed his grandchildren too much to think about improving them. ElIsabeth gives him credit for being the first to recognize her brother's differentness as genius; and she reports that his reac­ tion to Franziska's worries was the simple counsel to let Friedrich's unique personality follow its own course to matu­ rity.Il According to Elisabeth's account, Friedrich's relationship to his grandfather during these summer vacations in Pobles con­ si �ted of long walks on which they conversed on adult topics.12 HIS grandfather tolerated and even encouraged Friedrich's seri­ ousness and precocity. Yet Grandfather Oehler also suggested on one occasion that Friedrich be placed in a home for orphaned boys, the renowned Franck'sche Stiftung in Halle Y This may have been due to the fame of the school or to Pastor Oehler's memories of his own youth as an orphan. But he may also ' bave worried about the effects of Friedrich growing up in the Nietzsche household, as stiff as it was, and in the exclusive company of women. It is interesting that the Franck'sche Stiftung should have been considered as a father­ surrogate for Friedrich. For while he did not go there, it repre­ sented a definite alternative to Schulpforta, where he did eventually go. Unlike Schulpforta, which was oriented to the classi­ cal languages and produced university students and teachers, the Franck'sche Stiftung was a Pietist institution that prided itself on i �s pra� ticality, turning orphans into either rather enlightened mis­ SIOnarIeS for the extra-Europ�a:Q. world, or the best pharmacists in Germany. Had he gone to Halle at this early age, he might have had a far different career. Friedrich found no single adult male whom he could emulate wholeheartedly, but he acted in many respects like a miniature adult. This, and his nickname "little pastor," were signs of his re-

Without a Father

39

iou s obeod. His pun ctil and tumble of childho . . tr.eat from the roughdev t s of res Inte · ary. otion to the mu sIcal and 1 Iter . dlen ce to rules ' hisfrie nds h·IS h and his serious conversatI ons WIt ntly the fathers of his all sym, pto ms of this retreat. He app are grandfather were self in some other way than in the usual give him . ng l·k needed to define othe I e a 1·Itt1 e ad u1 t actI s hap Per n. dre chil r ng amo e . and tak to h 1m. seeme d les s dangerousiou sly not a littl e adu lt, however; he was obv was Friedrich adults: a� d unw illin g to deal very. freely m.erely preoccu pied w�thpre nec essarIly Ity IS therefore not . eVI. WIth other children. HIS tualcoC 0f SIgn a capacity and certaIn1 y not dence of greater intellec y. Rat sym her it can be understood as a p­ reater emotional maturit ent search for his father, for con ­ om of his more profound and urg -a sear ch tha t late r became the trol, and for the meaning of his life cal achievement. . . mately very sub stance of his phi loso phiity bee n IntI e hav to ears app tual llec inte y earl s ich' dr Frie not sup pre ss his aggressive ener­ related to his inh ibition s. He didoth er children entirely. He merely gies altogether, nor did he avoid at he apparently wan ted to expressed him self intellectually. Wh ous childhood. Lacking avoid were the open battlefields of anonym disadvantage in . free play. He spontaneity, he was at a severegam es or gymnastICS, and he was showed little interest in physical play . But he did inve nt games not one to con coct schemes for such suited to his own capacities. , he develop ed an While he was shy about making new frie nds Glls.tav, ce�ente d by unusually fast frie nds hip with Wilhelm and paln s,whiCh are the family ties as well as tho se com mon joyse and were bou nd together as condition of true friendship . The thredric h treated Wilh.elm and though they were brothers; indeed Frieabethvery assertIvely, at­ Gustav much as he did his sister Elis ss �f the ili� s and the . fa� tempting to control them . The closene WIth FrIe drIch s keen ob­ common experiences in school, together the frie nds hip the qual­ servation of his friends' personalities, gave ship that allowed ity of a controlled experiment. It was a relantion usio n. or him to assert him self with out fear of rejectioone toexcl ch vyil�elm The first game Friedrich invented was ss, althwhi h hIS SIster and Gustav were allowed only limited acce in genoug der and years) Elisabeth (whom he regarded as his inferior f-life game in whi ch was nearly always involved. It was a model-oety. Friedrich's game children dev ise and con trol a miniature socig, a 14por celain squirrel was the domain of King Eichhorn. The Kin

�

40

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

two inches high and fitted out with a crown and his own red fur for a robe, was accompanied by all sorts of attendants and an army of tin soldiers. The court was the scene of cultural events taking place among monuments of Greek architecture constructed by Friedrich: concerts of music composed by him, plays written and directed by him, and even an art exhibit painted by him shortly after the visit to Naumburg of a traveling exhibition. There were military parades, with the tin soldiers perched on pieces of wood which Elisabeth was responsible for pushing past the King. (If any soldiers tipped over, the parade was considered a failure and she was sharply reprimanded.) Tin soldiers were of course played with by countless children of the German Bildungsbiirgertum, but Friedrich emphasized concerts and plays where others might have had wars, balls, or receptions. It is symptomatic that only one child could play King Eichhorn: Friedrich himself. Wilhelm and Gustav could see the set-up, but not particiRate in the manipula­ tion of the figures; and although Elisabeth could move the fig­ ures at Friedrich's direction, her role was really that of one more tin soldier-she helped him play, and he trained her for the role.I5 Elisabeth was Friedrich's first playmate. Their relationship was complicated by four years' difference in age. But the way in which he treated her is a model for many of his relationships to contem­ poraries in adolescence and early manhood. The word she later used to describe the role which he adopted toward her was that of an Erzieher. No preci�e equivalent exists in English, but the verb form, erziehen: to educate, train, raise, or bring up, indicates an amalgam of the roles of parent and teacher. Although he avoided Elisabeth at times because of the difference in age and gender,I 6 Friedrich seems to have become her Erzieher as a matter of course. He was interested in her not only as a helper and subordinate at play; he also had a deep-seated urge to mold and educate her. Elisabeth's own impression of his efforts to shape her behavior is remarkably positive. In her biography of him she wrote, My brother so frequently made it clear that he considered himself my

Erzieher that I must make note of it. He gave me the books which I

might read, oversaw my schoolwork, and was very concerned about the development (Bildung) of my mind (Geist) and character. And he showed so much natural tact that I still smile at the thought of how rightly he sensed what was appropriate for a little girl . I 7

Without a Father

41

If her later character is any indication, however, his influence was not salutary. Her adult relationship to him was a mixture of inc estuous attachment, complete with hystericaljealousy of the fe� women who entered his life, and ill-concealed resentment of hIS i ntellectual superiority. . to Apparently Friedrich was often sharp and condescendIng Elisabeth. She herself gives an example which seems hardly tactful, although she makes it seem harmless. Elisabeth had ch? se� a he­ roic passage of a poem to recite, but when she told Fnednch he simply laughed and told her she would look ridiculous by �ontrast to what she was reciting. That Elisabeth was cheerfully convlnced­ or represented herself to have been so-might speak for .her doci�­ ity, a characteristic which she did not possess .In later hfe. But It certainly indicates that Friedrich had authonty over her. Even when he had lost his sanity and she had come into possession of all his papers, she portrayed herself as his obedient little sister. As far as Friedrich's personality is concerned, the fact that he needed to mani pulate her is more important than the success he had or the positive impression she gave of it later. I.t is dif? cult �o avoid the thought that, in adopting the role of Ehsabeth s Erzzeher, he was playing at being his own father. . . . ,s Elisabeth's emphasis upon the dehberate nature of Fnednch attempts to guide her is emphatically corroborated by Friedrich's relationship to Wilhelm and Gustav. Friedrich was apparently their friend more for the sake of his idea of friendship than because of any spontaneous feeling for either of the two boys; and he always maintained an internal distance from them.I8 Frie.
42

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

more carefully than other children, he was able to capture a leader­ ship which boys more often assume by virtue of their spontaneity or physical prowess. It seems that the profound pedagogic dimen­ sion of Friedrich's later life and writing issued, at least partially, from this impulse to direct his childhood companions. Wilhelm Pinder's description of the role which Friedrich played in his early life provides a good picture of the pedagogic success Friedrich achieved with his friends. Wilhelm wrote an auto­ biographical sketch at the same time Friedrich wrote his; it was written at Friedrich's instigation, it seems, and naturally reflects Friedrich's thoughts. According to Wilhelm, Friedrich had experi­ enced much sorrow in his life, so that his character was essentially melancholic. He loved solitude� and was therefore more reflective than other boys, and his spirit (Geist) developed earlier. This was particularly evident in the games that the boys played, games that Friedrich either invented or provided with new rules and methods; Friedrich was the leader in play. Wilhelm described Friedrich as his model (Muster) in all things, even ascribing his own interest in music and literature to the influ­ ence of Friedrich (interests that Friedrich himself had acquired in the Pinder and Krug homes). Even when there was a disagreement between the two, for example over something which they were writ­ ing together, Wilhelm could always be persuaded that Friedrich was right. In exercising this influence Friedrich consciously consid­ ered every move he made; and when there was a disagreement, he was able to explain why he was right in doing what he did.19 Wilhelm's autobiography is remarkably deferential-a measure of the respect Friedrich could command. As with his sister, Friedrich appears to have been Wilhelm's leader and instructor. Friedrich's childhood authority was based upon self-control and intellectual leadership. Obviously such authority is easier to enforce in activities of an intellectual nature, such as writing and criticizing poems and musical compositions. In these activities one finds Friedrich prodding his friends even in letters he wrote while in Pobles on vacation. He wanted to know if Gustav had completed the arrangement of a piece of music he was working on and whether Wilhelm had been working on an essay he was supposed to write in Friedrich's absence.2o After his interest wandered from King Eichhorn and he be­ came more intimate with Wilhelm and Gustav, the game that Friedrich played most passionately was war. Like the King E ich-

43

Without a Father

model horn game, the basic content of the play with soldiers and . SOCIety rtresses was taken from the interests of the adult Prusslan lO . . c1 Imax .I whi ch the boys were growing up. The game foun d ItS · In t . e Crimean War when Friedrich was twelve years old. Taking the SIde of the more conservative Russian society, the . three built lortresses , first of building blocks and then outd oors. WIth d·1ft, an d ey even a water-filled model of Sebastopol harb or In w . h·tIChhe Ethast. 1 ace p taking In battles the analyze and late simu d ul co They read a good deal, and not only news rep ?rts of th� war, but books about warfare. They became great strategIsts, convInc� d that they could have saved the Russian armies and won the war If they had been in command. . about theIr . Perhaps there is something fundamentally PrUSSIan reading and reenacting these battles-thousan� s o� other ?erman boys must have been playing out these battl � s WIth un s?ldlers. But the way these three intellectualized the war IS so mu�h In harm? �y ith Friedrich's personality that it is hard not to beheve that thIS IS ne of those innovations in play that Wilhelm ascribed to Friedrich. According to Friedrich, each of them wrote little books which they called Kriegslisten. Everything they could find about tac­ tics and strategy was grist for their mills and they acquired a large knowledge of things military. They collected military books, too, until they decided to edit together a military dictionary or encyclopedia.21 Here again one may assume that Fnednch was more successful at asserting his leadership (controlling the play) than in the com­ petitive war games where Gustav was determiiied �not �l ",:ays to lose. It is not at all hard to imagine him organizing the dICtIOnary and apportioning definitions to be written by the others. It is diffi­ cult to imagine a better example of sublimating aggression .in p� ay than this writing about warfare. It demonstrates how Fnednch channeled his energies into the intellectual side of play. It is an in­ dication of the inclination of his personality: he found it expedient to develop certain skills at the expense of others. �t .presa�es not only an intellectual career (not necessarily as an ongInal thInker), but his meager social life, few adult friendships, and tortured attempts at intimacy. Of course the military dictionary/encyclopedia was never com· pleted, but another of Friedrich's authorial projects was. This was a solo effort, his autobiography. He wrote it in 1 858, just before he left N aumburg when he was fourteen years old. He entitled it .

&

�

&

:

,

•

•

44

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

rather grandly, Aus meinem Leben or From My Life, after Goethe's au­ tobiography. This title is another indication of his intellectual in­ clination, as well as a clear sign that he was modelling himself after Goethe and consciously aspiring to the creative role of the genius. His seriousness, his withdrawal from aggressive play, and his intel­ lectual activities were his way of channeling his energies toward an intellectually creative life. The fact that he linked himself to Goethe reveals not only that he thought of himself as a potentially great man, but that he thought of his creative potential as a traditional and acceptable thing. He had not yet internalized the feeling of alienation, as he would at Schulpforta. Nor had he learned to con­ ceal his creative tendencies. Friedrich's youthful autobiography was provoked by the award of a scholarship. After four years in N aumburg's Domgymnasium he was granted a free place at nearby Schulpforta, perhaps the most famous of all German boarding schools. The scholarship seems to have been offered to him as much for his status as an "or­ phan" whose clergyman-father had died, as for his accomplish­ ments as a scholar. For while he had had no great difficulty either in candidate Weber's private preparatory school or in the Domgymnasium, he had not really excelled in his schoolwork ei­ ther. But whatever the reason for the scholarship, Friedrich and his family could no longer refuse it as they had refused the invitation of the Franck'sche Stiftung. Schulpforta was the most famous hu­ manistic Gymnasium in Germany. Knowing that he would be separated from his family and friends and would have to submit to a strict discipline, he wrote his autobiography with some anxiety. He notes at the beginning that it is difficult to remember childhood, and that much already eluded him. He devotes many pages to recollections of his father, his father's death, and the family's move to Naumburg. This earlier separation seems to be the subtext, the event that he used subcon­ sciously to come to terms with the coming separation-his depar­ ture for Schulpforta. He wrote many letters to his relatives soliciting their anecdotes of his father; his autobiography was also to be a repository of their memories. Apparently filling out his knowledge of his childhood reassured him. He made a record of all his creative endeavors, including lists of his poems and composi­ tions according to the year he wrote them. He divided them into groups for criticism, and while he deprecated the earlier ones, he compared some of the later ones to Goethe's poems and Faust I.

Without a Father

45

Perhaps the most interesting feature of the autobiography is s his tated desire "to write a little book and then to read it myself."22 The autob iography itself was just that-a little book in which he could read about himself. If he was still distressed over the loss of his father, his autobiography would assuage his anxiety and calm him. It would remind him of his intimate friendship with Gustav and Wilhelm. And his record of creative accomplishments would serve as a benchmark against which to measure his future endeav­ ors. It is, in its youthful way, an exemplification of the largest proj­ ect of the genius: an attempt to create the world in which he would live.

F OU R

Learning to Learn •

F

riedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche entered the gates of Schulpforta in the autumn of 1 858, when he was fourteen years old. He would spend six years there at the expense of the state, having been awarded a "free place" or scholarship at the discretion of the city of Naumburg. This was a financial boon to his mother, who was thus relieved of paying tuition at Naumburg's Domgymnasium. For Friedrich himself, however, it was another major dislocation. Al­ though the school was only three miles from Naumburg, he would have to room and board there. He was moving from the househoJd comprised of his grandmother, aunts, mother, and sister to the all­ male environment of a "school-state," as Pforta was called. There he would live in the countryside among 1 80 boys and 1 2 male teachers, in a self-contained and economically self-sufficient insti­ tution where the values of antiquity and scholarship reigned su­ preme. The transition would be difficult. In the long run the rigorous instruction and intellectual elan ofSchulpforta would have a decisive intellectual and even psychological effect upon him. Schulpforta was the most venerable school in Germany. In the year prior to Nietzsche's birth the school had celebrated its four­ hundredth anniversary. It had been founded during the Reforma­ tion in a disbanded monastery-Monasterium Sanctae Mariae de Porta (hence the modern name)-that had already been an ad-

Learning to Learn

47

mired institution in the sixteenth century. It was a Cistercian clois­ ter established on the bank of the Saale River near N aumburg in 1 137A.D. With a Romanesque church, Gothic cloister and Renais­ sance accretions, the monastery had been an important cultural center for four centuries when, during the Reformation, the Prot­ estant Duke, Herzog Heinrich of Saxony, in 1 540 disbanded all of the monasteries in his domains. His son, Herzog Moritz, founded schools in three of these institutions, including Sancta Maria de porta, in 1 543. He endowed the schools with the lands and incomes of the former monasteries, making them financially self-sufficient. These were the so-called Furstenschulen (ducal schools), spon­ sored by the secular rulers of Saxony to provide teachers, Protes­ tant clergymen, and civil administrators for their principality. The curricula emphasized Greek and Latin as well as biblical and theo­ logical studies. They developed in the wake of a larger humanistic movement in German education that led gradually to the gymnas­ ial system of the nineteenth century. Schulpforta was the most fa­ vored of the three Saxon schools in reforms and investments made in the late eighteenth century, during the great enthusiasm for clas­ sical art and culture, and by the end of that century Pforta's excel­ lence was based upon unsurpassed training in the ancient languages. Then, when a substantial portion of Saxony was annexed to Prussia in 1 81 5 after the Napoleonic Wars, Schulpforta came under Prussianjurisdiction. The Prussian government viewed the acquisition of Schulpforta as an opportunity to train an elite corps of educators. And they were prepared to inve,st, money. So Schulpforta was reformed on the model of the Prussian cadet schools, except , that instead of training military officers, Schulpforta was to produce scholars and teachers. The Prussians added several teachers to the school's staff, enlarged the library to about 1 5,000 volumes, provided for instruction in science and mathematics, and purchased scientific apparatus, musical instru­ ments, and even an art collection for the school. Thus outfitted and staffed, Schulpforta became the most outstanding of the already elite humanistic Gymnasia. For while Pforta remained a shrine to the emulation of classical Greek culture and even enhanced her al­ ready leading role in the teaching of Greek and Latin, under Prus­ sian administration mathematics and science were seriously taught there too. It was a great privilege to attend Schulpforta, and, when

48

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

Friedrich was offered a free place, the family could not refuse. It would be a strenuous experience: long hours of study, strict disci­ pline, obligatory gymnastics and other sports for which Friedrich had neither love nor talent; and he would be thrown together with so many boys, with no separation of school from private life. All this would be difficult for him. But Grandfather Oehler, who had once been partial to the idea of sending Friedrich to the orphanage of the Franck'sche Stiftung in Halle, must have been pleased at the thought that the discipline and all-male environment of Schul­ pforta might correct the unfortunate effects of Friedrich's having been raised in a household of women. This disciplined environment bore with it certain cultural val­ ues. Like every other Gymnasium, Schulpforta represented classical ideals, particularly those of ancient Greece. There was also a vagu e allegiance to the idea of German unity, and to already classical Ger, man authors like Goethe and Schiller. But on balance the tone of the school was apolitical, anti-urban, and generally abstracted from the present. Modern history, for example, was conspicuously ab­ sent from the curriculum. The ambition of the humanistic Gymna­ sium was to mold noble character through the discipline of the ancient languages and exposure to great authors. And as an eco­ nomically and socially self-sufficient "school-state," sheltered be­ hind cloister walls on the banks of the Saale several miles from town, Schulpforta could hope to inculcate these values more thor­ oughly than other schools. It was the school's expressed intention to mold the personali­ ties as well as the minds of the students-to act in loco parentis. The school's reputation was one of astonishing success at preparing boys for a profession of scholarship. But upon the four-hundredth anniversary of the school in 1 843, the director asserted that this success in scholarship was secondary to assuring that the boys be­ come "whole men," the goal of humanistic education throughout Germany. According to the director, Schulpforta really could mold whole men because it had total influence over its boys. The unique thing about Schulpforta is that it is a self-contained school­ state in which the life of the individual is wholly absorbed. Their parents entrust [the young scholars] to their alma mater not only for instruction but for their moral development as well. The parents transfer all paren­ tal rights to the school, so that the scholars find in the totality of their education even more than a second father-house . . . 1

.

Learning to Learn

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Schulpforta's faculty and staff aimed to impress "the stamp of a cere tai n solid industriousness" upon the boys' character. They were jus­ tifiably proud ofPforta's success at infusing in each of its graduates the values of the German Bildungsbiirgertum distilled to their es­ sence. Classical scholarship was but the means to that end. In this way the school really sought to supersede the influence of the fam­ ily home, and to impress its own pedagogical personality upon the boys as parents naturally do.2 And indeed most of the graduates became teachers. Yet Pforta was not successful with every boy who entered, and Franziska Nietzsche had more than one occasion to fear for her son Friedrich. Schulpforta's academic standards were so high that Friedrich had to repeat a grade when he entered. The problem was not only academic. He suffered from disorientation in the new environ­ ment, his shyness, and the attendant difficulty of making friends­ the same problems he had had when the family moved to Naumburg. Separated from family and friends at Schulpforta, he felt he had been incarcerated, as indeed he had. Now he was cling­ ing to all that he had left behind in town. At first he wrote to his mother every day, stealing minutes from his exhausting schedule. In his first letter, written on the very day he arrived and before he had really got settled, Friedrich wrote, "Up to now I'm alright, but then, what is alright about a strange place?"3 All of the letters Friedrich wrote from Pforta, especially during his first year, have an insistent tone. Urgent requests to have things sent to him and frantic requests for visits and mail are the substance of the early letters. Friedrich must have received more visits from llis family than most of the other boys, however, since the Nietzsches lived so close that they could walk half-way to meet him in the village of Almrich nearly every Sunday. And his mother must have been constantly preparing and sending him packages, too, since nearly every letter presents a new list of demands. She also did his laundry each week. Since his wishes were thus fulfilled as generously as any of the boys could expect, his insistent tone is the more remarkable. His letters give a very strained impression, bordering on hysteria or tan­ trums.4 Friedrich's attempts to elicit communications from his friends Wilhelm Pinder and Gustav Krug are similarly insistent. But his friends did not respond as frequently as his mother did. At first his tactic was to get his mother to remind the boys that he was not hav-

50

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

ing much success making new friends at Pforta, and to solicit their ideas on the subject. Or he asked his mother to tell Wilhelm that he was about to receive a long letter and to brace himself for a fre­ quent correspondence. And then, having finally got a reply from Wilhelm at the beginning of November, he wrote back rather anx­ iously: "From now on, we want to write each other back and forth regularly and without interruptions. Tell Gustav this too." He added a Latin motto for their future correspondence: semper nostra manet amicitia, or "our friendship ever endures."5 But by the end of the month he discovered that he had forgotten Gustav's birthday, probably more to his own than to Gustav's dismay. As his own birthday and Christmas approached, however, he made big dis­ plays of his anticipation, frequently stating and revising his list of wishes in his letters to the two friends as well as to his family. Friedrich wrote very little about Schulpforta in his first year there. This in itself is remarkable in a boy who had so recently dem­ onstrated his inclination to memorialize his life in the autobiogra­ phy that he wrote before leaving for Pforta. And what he did write about school was not about particular fellow-students, but about his daily schedule, demonstrating a formidable degree of self­ absorption. Friedrich's letters display his rather pathetic need for attention from his mother and his friends. Could this needy adolescent boy be the same person as the Nietzsche who philosophized so heroi­ cally all alone in the Alps for years on end? Or was his exile to Pforta, like his separation from his father, another course of train­ ing in the psychological rigors of individual existence, a foretaste of his later alienation from his contemporaries and his century? Perhaps the value of these desperate letters is to show how dearly he bought his solitude, and how precarious was his independence of his contemporaries. By Christmas of his first year at Pforta Friedrich seems to have reconciled himself to losing contact with Gustav, but he resumed his didactic-intellectual exchange with Wilhelm, sending him poems and assigning him topics for themes. They were to criticize each other's work without reserve.6 By summer he was writing less frequently, although his uncle still made fun of him for writing so many letters. He seemed finally to be settling into life at Schulpforta. Before summer vacation, he wrote to Wilhelm that he actually enjoyed being at Pforta at times; at least it was easier to bear when the weather was good. 7

Learning to Learn

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After summer vacation, however, homesickness again began in ne ear st. Already in August (the beginning of his second academic year) he wondered in a letter to his mother how he was going to make it to Christmas. And in the same month he must have had a session with his tutor, the theology teacher Robert Buddensieg, whi ch led to his jotting down the following lines in his diary: Against homesickness (according to Professor Buddensieg):

( 1 ) If we want to learn anything worthwhile, we cannot always stay home.

(2 ) The beloved parents do not want that; therefore we bow to the will of our parents.

(3) Our beloved are in God's hand, we are always accompanied by their thoughts.

(4) If we work industriously, sad thoughts disappear. (5) If all of that does not help, then pray to God.s

For Friedrich, these remedies were but small comfort and could hardly replace the family and friends he left behind in N aumburg. He missed his mother and comfortable home. And as his sister noted, he needed someone to whom he could entrust his serious thoughts, or perhaps someone over whom he could exercise his in­ tellectual authority. The boys at Pforta were for the most part hard­ working, intelligent, and seldom willing to be manipulated. Friedrich did not remain permanently in crisis at Schulpforta, however. Toward the end of his second year there, or perhaps at the beginning of his third year, he made several friends, including Paul Deussen and Cad von Gersdorff. And in the summer vacation after his second year at Schulpforta, Friedrich finally succeeded in formalizing his relationship with his two Naumburg friends in a literary and musical fraternity that they called the Germania. Both of these developments suggest that he ultimately came to terms with this situation. OnJuly 25, 1 860, Friedrich, Wilhelm, and Gustav took a hike to the top of a nearby mountain and swore allegiance to each other and to the goals of their fraternity. Friedrich recorded these goals a few years later in his Basel lectures on "The Future of our Educa­ tional Institutions": the Germania was to be an organization which would obligate each of the friends to produce some creative piece each month-either poetry, scholarship, or music. These they would circulate, and then criticize each other's products with "un-

52

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

bounded openness."10 This is one of the contexts in which com­ mentators on Nietzsche's adolescence frequently use the words altklug (old for his years) and schulmeisterisch (schoolmasterly) to de­ scribe his conduct toward his fellows. The idea for the Germania was formed when Friedrich and Wilhelm were on a vacation trip in the summer of 1 860, visiting Friedrich's uncle and hiking in the Harz mountains. At first the two envisioned a literary society, but back in Naumburg they invited Gustav to join them and added music to their agenda. It was Gustav who got the Germania to subscribe to the Zeitschriftfur Musik, a pe­ riodical that was already espousing the works of Richard Wagner in 1 860. It was also Gustav who acquired the piano score of Tristan und Isolde, thus procuring Friedrich's first and rather difficult enCOun­ ter with Wagner's music. From the outset the Germania was dedicated to the art and cre­ ativity of its members, rather than to Wissenschaft, ahd open to con­ temporary art at that. For two years the boys actually did exchange their creative efforts and discuss them regularly. Friedrich's output was voluminous. Thus it seems that for him the Germania was much more than an opportunity to exercise intellectual leader­ ship. At first, at least, it was a refuge from the classical and philolog­ ical preoccupations ofSchulpforta, an opportunity for Friedrich to indulge his creative impulses. But strangely enough, it was also Friedrich who led his friends back onto the terrain of scholarship and eventually drove them out of active participation in the frater­ nity. In the course of the meetings and correspondence of the Ger­ mania, Friedrich conceived the plan of treating all the classical ma­ terials dealing with the Prometheus legend in a Pforta-scholarly way. He meant for the three to jointly collect, criticize, and comment upon all the sources of the Prometheus legend. This is the first ap­ pearance in Nietzsche's writings of his interest in Prometheus, the lonely benefactor of mankind. There is much evidence in his mature writings that he identified with Prometheus. But having been at­ tracted to Prometheus at Pforta, he rather ironically made a project for the Germania out of it. Since Friedrich's classical education had now carried him far beyond the others, he had another occasion to commandeer his friends much in the fashion he had in planning the military encyclopedia.ll And when the Germania died in its third year for lack of participation from Gustav and Wilhelm, Friedrich's .over­ bearing attitude toward them was largely responsible.

Learning to Learn

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Friedri ch's approach to his contemporaries remained much His intellectual th e same in Pforta as it had been in Naumburg. have been more difficult to exercise at Pforta, 1eadershi p may . where other authorities-the real schoolmasters-were so much In according evidence. Other boys found little to object to in him, andremarking generally only respect, with him to hi s sister, treated th at he seemed to them "a little too serious and introverted." 12 But here again he did eventually develop two friendships in which, once more, he was the senior partner by virtue of intellectual auth ority. Friedrich's correspondence with Paul Deussen and Carl von Gersdorff would not suggest-neither then nor later-that his friendships with them at Pforta had any of the vaunted boys' school affection about it. Like Friedrich, Paul Deussen was a pastor's son and a diligent and perhaps over-serious young man. In 1 861 the twO were confirmed together in the Lutheran church at Pforta. But they also shared growing doubts about Christianity and a gradually dawning awareness that they would not be pastors like their fa­ thers. Deussen must have been a gifted student of philology too, for he later became a prominent professor of Sanskrit-indeed, he was one of the founders of Indic studies in Germany. Yet, though they had a· great deal in common, they never became very intimate friends; rather, Deussen remained Friedrich's admirer and under­ study. This is most apparent in the way that Friedrich later intro­ duced Deussen to Schopenhauer, but the relationship had this character from the start. Carl von Gersdorff, on the other hand, was the. ��on of an East Prussian noble, a member of the gentry. His description of how he was drawn to Friedrich and became his friend may stand for the way nearly anyone who wanted to remain Nietzsche's friend would have to approach him. The two were in the same German class under the literary historian Koberstein. According to Gersdorff, As an Untersekunder [in his fourth-to-Iast year at the Gymnasium] Nietzsche had written an independent literary historical essay about the Ermanarich saga and handed it in to Koberstein. He [Koberstein] was immensely pleased with it and full of praise for the learning, in­ sight, logic, and stylistic maturity of his pupil. S ince Koberstein, who was usually rather silent at the dinner table, had expressed himself so enthusiastically to me, I found occasion to make Nietzsche's acquaint­ ance. At the beginning of the year I had already noticed that

54

YOUNG NIETZSCHE Nietzsche was intellectually far beyond his fellow students, and got the impression that he would do something great. He was attractive too for his natural sense of decorum . . . . But since I could not spend as much time with N ietzsche as I would have liked, about a year-and-a­ half elapsed before we actually became friends . . . . Music was not the least of what finally brought us together. Every evening between seven and eight we got together in the music room. I doubt that even Bee­ thoven could improvize more affectingly on the piano, for example, when there was a storm in the sky.I 3

Gersdorffs attitude was one of simple admiration. He was fasci­ nated with Friedrich's talents and he educated himself in part by emulating his friend. He never criticized him. The remarks of one of Friedrich's teachers are also interesting. Otto Benndorf taught two years at Pforta and constructed a mu, seum of plaster casts of classical statues which the students were invited to visit on Sunday after church. Friedrich apparently went regularly. According to Benndorf, Friedrich stood out from the others for his knowledge and understanding of these figures. Benndorf wrote too that Friedrich was "a quiet, reflective, intro­ verted man of not too strong a constitution."14 Friedrich's health, which Benndorf mentioned as weak, was an­ other problem that seemed to threaten his success at S chulpforta. His record shows that he went to the infirmary with alarming regu­ larity, all the more alarming since one had to be convincingly sick in order to get to the infirmary at Pforta; otherwise, one got no other remedy than more school work. His most frequently men­ tioned complaints were vague: "rheumatism" and Katarrh, which might have been colds. Friedrich's most prominent symptom, how­ ever, was severe headaches, a problem that would plague him all his life. On at least two occasions in 1 861 and 1 862 he was sent home for extended convalescence, as noted in the infirmary jour. nal by both his tutor, Dr. Buddensieg, and the school physician, Dr. Zimmerman. According to the doctor, Friedrich was a small but powerfully built boy who stared conspicuously, with an apparently wild or threatening gaze. He suffered from wandering headaches and shortsightedness. The doctor also recorded that Friedrich's fa­ ther had died of "softening of the brain" and that "the son is of the age at which his father was already ill," an odd but ominous refer­ ence to his father's supposed mental illness and untimely death."15 These medical reports are interesting, since head and eye pain

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are the problems from which the adult Nietzsche was also to suffer. few' years before he had been taken to Jena to the university clinic to have his eyes examined, and it was found that his head­ aches stemmed from overstrain on his 6 one strong eye, but no reme­ dial measures were undertaken.I And while he was already wearing eyeglasses at S chulpforta, they did not seem to help against the headaches. It is, however, particularly interesting that Friedrich should ve a h told doctor Zimmerman about his father's death and espe­ cially that he was of an age at which his father was already sick {which of course he was not}. He apparently associated his suffer­ ing with his father's, and feared that he was fated to die in the same fashion. These associations remind us of Friedrich's dream of his fa­ ther returning from the grave to take revenge. They raise the question of whether his headaches might not have been psychosomatic. In fact, however, neither ill health, shyness, nor introversion ever seriously threatened Friedrich's academic success at the school. He was an excellent pupil and spent much of his time at Pforta as "Primus, " the first boy in his class. He was best at the major subjects of Greek, Latin, and German literature and composition. He seems to have worked hard at these, but to have neglected minor subjects like geography and history, saving his time and en­ ergy for his other interests; for he was not wholly absorbed by his schoolwork P As far as extra-curric1J.lar activities are concerned, Friedrich was accepted as a member of the choir in August 1 859, at the beginning of his second year. In the same month he passed his obligatory swimming test. He was a reasonably good_s�immer and enjoyed the sport. He was fond of nature and enjoyed hiking dur­ ing the summer v�cation. What he liked about nature and hiking, however, was the opportunity for solitude. He hated school gym­ nastics. The omnipresence of masculine authority and academic disci­ pline at Schulpforta may, oddly enough, have contributed both to Friedrich's success at school and to his private cultivation of the arts. He felt the discipline immediately and appreciated it even in the days when he was so terribly homesick. In a letter to Wilhelm at the beginning of November 1 858, he wrote that life had been easier in the Domgymnasium, but really too free. In that respect he was glad to be away from there. That he evaluated the school's disci­ pline so highly as to bring it into balance against his loneliness was not an isolated insight. A

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A few years later, when Nietzsche reflected on the course of e d­ ucation which had led him to the professors hip in Basel, he re­ marked upon how Schulpforta had served as a substitute for hi s father. This of course was one of the explicit aims of the scho ol' s administration, but Nietzsche was aware of how much he real ly needed such a substitute, and yet what an incomplete father the school had been to him.

The mai n points of my education (Erziehung) have been left to me. My . father died all too early, and I was deprived of the rigorous and supe. rior leadership of a masculine intellect. When I went to Schul pforta as an �dolescent, I became acquainted with a mere surrogate of fatherly Erzzehung. . . . But that almost military compulsion which, since it aims at affecting the mass, treats individualit y coldly and superficiall y­ turned me in on myself again. I saved my private incl inations an d strivings from the uniform law, I lived a concealed cult of certain arts I occupied myself with a hypersensit ive addition to universal knowl edge and the pleasure of breaking a legalistic time schedule . . . . 19

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He escaped the school's order by privately engaging in literary and musical compositi on and by indulging his unorthodo x literary tastes. He felt himself driven on to greater satisfactio ns in a private and well-focus ed rebellion against that discipline . Precociou s and introverted as he was, he thrived academica lly on the discipline at Pforta. Nonethel ess, he understood that he needed to develop be­ yond what his teachers could offer him. Friedrich kept his "private" studies quite separate, as though he were protecting them from the watchful eye of the school. At Pforta he began reading Shakespea re, Byron, and Emerson, and they must have made a deep impressio n, since they remained important to him well into his career as an author. But he apparent ly felt no · need to discuss these writers with his schoolma tes. Most of his mu­ sical � ompositio ns were prepared for the Germania or as presents for hIS mother, as on her birthday., One project concerne d the tale of the legendary Ostrogothic hero Ermanarich and occupied him from 1 860 to 1 864-his last four years at Pforta. He did research in the sources of late antiquity , wrote poems, pieces of an opera, a play, and finally a critical-hi storical treatise on Ermanari ch. Aside from impressiv e persisten ce with a single subject, this enduring in­ terest displays how the young Nietzsche could alternately apply his dual talents-the academic -philolog ical and the artistic-creative-

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to the same problems. But perhaps the best view of Friedrich' s sep­ aratin g,s chool studies from his deeper interests may be had on the o ne o ccasion when he revealed to his German teacher his enthusi­ asm for a then unrecognized and completely unappreciated Ger­ man writer, Friedrich Holderlin. It is of course noteworthy that, as a seventeen-year-old (it was octob er 1 861 ), Friedrich had discovered and understood Holderlin and his "Hyperion" at all. But he chose to write a Ger­ man theme on Holderlin in the form of a letter to a friend, recom­ mending this author to the recipient-a rhetorical strategy that indi cate d his confidence in his judgment, and brought the reader (h is teacher) to the level of an ill-informed contemporary. Further­ more , he praised and defended precisely those characteristics of H olderlin's writing that offended the German literary establish­ ment; for example, psychological alienation, and disdain for the crabbed philistinism of the educated German middle class. O f course Friedrich's enthusiasm was due in part t o his having found ' in Holderlin a kindred spirit. By defending Holderlin he was de­ fending the sort of writer he himself would soon become. His enco­ mium was not mere enthusiasm, but a careful and logical evaluation. It was so well done, in fact, that the disapproving teacher could not give him less than an A - , although he appended a note that Friedrich should find himself a "healthier, clearer, more German writer" for a model.20 Friedrich's reaction to this is as interesting as the incident it­ self. He recognized the teacher's limitations without apparent anger. The episode reinforced his decision to sepc:t�ate his private ' studies from his school work, without alienating him from his teachers or the school. He continued to respect them, their knowl­ edge, their philological skills, and their authority. But he recog­ nized that in certain important respects. he was already beyond them. Friedrich was able to continue to work patiently in philology and the other required disciplines at Schulpforta, with one brief lapse, while developing his other interests privately, almost secretly. During 1 862-63, Friedrich went through a crise de conscience which seems on the surface to have been a reaction against school discipline. He became involved in making a mockery of teachers and even tried to intimidate his friend Paul Deussen, threatening to report him to the other boys for studying too hard. He turned his back on boys who really shared his interests, and took up with reb­ els like Guido Meyer, whom Deussen described as "handsome, con-

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genial, and witty, a great drawer of caricatures . . . , but at etern al war with teachers and school discipline."21 For six weeks Friedri ch and his new friend refused to speak to Deussen for being a Spieser, a " nerd" in today's terminology, and in any case for being too dil i­ gent and obedient. During this time Friedrich indulged in conspic­ uous delinquency, which culminated in his getting caught drunk in the railroad station. Several of his accomplices in these escapades, including Guido Meyer, were expelled from school. Friedrich was trying to prove that he was "one of the boys," as if, by joining in their rowdiness, he could show the others that he was not really a Spieser. But he was soon his old self again, worki ng hard in preparation for the all important Abitur examinations. In a long and humble letter to his mother after the incident of drunke n­ ness, he made all the appropriate bows in recognition of the trust which he had betrayed, and concluded with these lines: "I scarcely need to assure you further how I am going to pull myself together, as all will now depend upon that" (the preparation for the Abitur­ ium).22 Paul Deussen, who had suffered rejection during Friedrich,s crisis, had another simpler explanation for Friedrich's return to his former self: he was a very private boy who got no real satisfaction from the pranks of the others.23 This spell of delinquency has been termed Friedrich's puberty crisis. An ineffectual rebellion against authority, it seems also to have been a short-lived protest against the serious person he himself was. Logically enough, in his last years at Pforta Friedrich did begin to question the values of his family and social class. The young , Nietzsche seems neither to have been interested in girls nor involved in an affectionate relationship with any of his classmates,' "as was common in boarding schools of the time." Friedrich's "pu;' berty crisis" was worked out wholly on the spiritual level.24 The pOe;, etry which he wrote in this period bears witness to this spiritual crisis, for example this stanza from 1 862: I know not what I love, I have neither peace nor rest, I know not what to believe, what life am I living, why?25

By themselves such lines might not mean much. Adolescent poetri is notorious for pendular shifts of emotion. But Friedrich was gen­ uinely confused. He was divided against himself in his separation'

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of his academic studies from his private artistic ones. He had no idea what profession he would follow. And he had grown increas­ ingly critical of Christianity. He had not spent much energy being obsessed about his lack of belief, as adolescents sometimes do, but he must have known that it might alienate him from his family. In fact, his critical attitude led to several disagreements with his rn oth er.26 He might well have wondered about his identity. Friedrich's fantasy life must have been rich at this time, so it is u nfortu nate that most of his fictional writing was destroyed by him or his sister. It is all the more disappointing since the autobio­ graphi cal material that Friedrich left in this period of his life is sp ar se and offers nothing like that record of fan tasy and sel f­ observation that he compiled shortly before going to Pforta. One fragment was preserved by a schoolmate, however, and found its way into Stefan Zweig's autograph collection. It is part of an initial chapter of a projected novel called "Euphorion." The narrator is a Faustian figure who in gaining knowledge has grown tired of him­ self. His only remaining desire is to find his Doppelganger (double) in order to be able to dissect his own brain! He feels better suited to the subterranean life of the worm ("a wandering question mark," he calls it), than to vegetate longer under the blue sky. As a preface to his memoirs, which were apparently to make up the body of the novel, he gives this account of his present situation: Across from me lives a nun whom I visit from time to time to enj oy her modesty. I am intimately familiar with her, from head to toe, more intimately than with my own self. She u sed to b�, a nun, lean and hungry-I was a doctor and saw to it that she quickl " grew fat. Her brother lives with her in common law marriage; he was too fat for me and I made him' thin-as a corpse. He will die soon, which pleases me, si �ce I will dissect him. Beforehand, however, I plan to write down my memoirs . . . . But who will read them? My Doppelganger . . 27

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Euphorion is fascinated by his other self, not surprising in view of Friedrich's concern with his identity at this time, as well as with sen­ suality, death and sex, incest and sacrilege-as many u nmention­ able subjects as one might mention in such a short passage. Unfortunately, there is no way of telling if these were the themes of his other fictional works or if this is not a representative fantasy. It is tempting to infer from their destruction, however, that the other writings were also somehow obscene.

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This fantasy does bear a certain resemblance to Friedrich's ear­ lier idea of writing a little book-a book which also turned out to be an autobiography-and reading it himself. But the fantasy of a Doppelganger is significantly different from that of reflecting di­ rectly upon oneself. Quite aside from the obviously provocative content which is calculated to shock the reader, this is an exhibi­ tionist fantasy: to see and dissect his Doppelganger, and to have his Doppelganger read his memoirs. This is a narcissistic fantasy, but it does not suggest so much a fear of fragmentation as a simple desire for the stimulating attention of kindred spirits. Or perhaps the de­ sire to know that his fantasies were not abnormal and that other boys shared them. It may also reflect Friedrich's need for approval from his fellow students at Pforta. The more practical consideration was preparation for the Abiturium, the final examination of the Gymnasium years that would determine his eligibility for the university; and of course the question of a profession, which also occupied him in the 1 863-64 school year. He did indeed pull himself together after the drunken incident. In his last year he wrote what amounted to an honors the­ sis on the Megarian tyrant Theognis, an essay that later served as the basis of one of his first publications. Moreover, he prepared himself so well in the classics that, when he finally took the exam in August of 1 864, he received an "extraordinary" commendation in Greek. Friedrich seems to have neglected �athematics in his final year. Not that he was unmathematical. He had scored excellent marks in mathematics before, but his borderline grade in that sub­ j ect on the Abiturium endangered his entrance into the university. The mathematics professor was initially unwilling to pass Friedrich, but apparently yielded when one of the philologists asked whether he wanted to fail the most gifted student that Schulpforta had had in his memory. The fact that Friedrich gradu­ ated that year thus reflects the much higher value accorded to suc� cess in the classical languages at the humanistic Gymnasium. Friedrich graduated from Schulpforta when he was almost twenty, a year behind his N aumburg friends Wilhelm and Gustav, who were already at the university. He had not made up the year that he had lost when he entered the elite school. He was recog­ nized by his teachers as a most adept student of classical languages, the greatest in recent memory; yet they had seen little or nothing of his creative work. This did not distress Friedrich. He knew his own

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cap abi lities, and life seemed to b e carrying him along fast enough. Un aware that he had narrowly escaped failure in the Abiturium, he worri ed more about his own uncertainty concerning what he sh ould study at the university and what career he should prepare hi m self for. The obvious choice was a scholarly theological career. And the most radical alternative was the possibil ity of becoming a musician or a c omposer. His mother would not have understood his th ou gh ts of a musical or literary career at all. She had very little appreci ation for his creative proclivities, and no notion of the fact th at he was already in some respects beyond his teachers. Her only de sires were for him to be well-mannered and obedient to his teachers and to get good grades so that he would be assured of a pl ace in the university to study theology. To her it seemed obvious th at he should become a pastor like his father. To his teachers, on the other hand, it must have seemed obvious that he would make an excellent teacher or even professor of philology. But Friedrich was not ready to commit himself to either of these alternatives. Having desires that conflicted with his mother's or his teachers' ex­ pectations was less of a problem than the simple diversity of his own interests. Just thinking about a career seemed to make his decision more difficult.28 In a letter to his mother he allowed that the decision would not make itself. The most important consideration was to choose an area in which he could hope to produce something "whole." This was of course an allusion to the ide,!1 of humanistic education-not to spe(2ialize. And such hopes mighi"be deceptive. How easy it would be to allow himself to be influenced by momen­ tary interests, family tradition, or the desires of his loved ones. O n the other hand, h e was i n the uncomfortable position o f having quite a number of interests of his own. If he studied them all he might become a learned man, but hardly end up with a profession; some of them would have to go, "but which should be the unlucky ones to be thrown overboard? Perhaps precisely my Lieblingskinder,"29 the creative talents with which he might do something great. He re­ sisted committing himself to a part of himself; he wanted to preserve all of his interests and disdained the life of a learned or professional man (a Gelehrter) as opposed to a cultured (Gebildeter) man. Friedrich stuck nonetheless to theology until he had already matriculated in the university of Bonn in the autumn of 1 864. His claim, written several years later, that he had definitively chosen

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philology in this last year at Pforta seems only to mean that he ha d decided against a creative career. But even that was a claim that he made largely to defend or reinforce his decisio n to be a philolo g is t at Basel rather than a philoso pher. Sticking to theology was o nly the most provisional solution , marking time during the last year at Schulpforta while continu ing to placate his mother. This preserv ed for a while longer his conform ity to family traditio n, to his fathe r's image, his mother 's wishes, and his own sense of duty. He was n ot yet ready to make radical departures that all could see.

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fter passing his Abitur examination at Pforta in August 1 864, Friedrich spent a few weeks with his classmate Paul Deussen. First Paul came to stay with the Nietzsches in Naumburg, and then the two boys traveled West to stay with Deussen's family on the Rhine. The trip permitted each of them to see another part of Ger­ many before entering the university; it was customary. From Deussen's home they proceeded to Bonn where both would attend -the university. When the two high school graduates arrived i n B o n n together in October 1 864, ,they entered once again upon a new life. Now it was to be the famous academic freedom of the German university, a drastic change from the fierce discipline of Schulpforta. In the nineteenth century academic freedom did not mean the right to speak and write as one chose; it meant the right of a professor to teach whatever he chose (regardless of his specialty), and the right of a student to register for whatever courses he wished, attend them pr not, and to live where and how he chose.1 Students were sud­ denly presumed to be responsible adults. The release from supervi­ sion was thought to be necessary to the further development of young men who had absorbed classical values sufficiently to earn the Abitur from a humanistic Gymnasium. Student years were as­ sumed to be a romantic idyll of freedom from restraint when youth

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would blossom into manhood. But freedom posed its own prob­ lems for Nietzsche, who had profited so much from the discipline of Pforta. Wilhelm Pinder and Gustav Krug had already matriculated at the University in Heidelberg. They had written to him about their experiences while Friedrich was still at Pforta. Both remarked on the wonderful change from the "penal" existence of the Domgymnasium. They told him not to let the pressure of prep ar­ ing for the Abitur discourage him. Living in Heidelberg, the two cousins had been introduced to a varied circle of friends and hoped that Friedrich would join them.2 He wrote back, however, that he would not be coming to Heidelberg and that they should not press him for reasons; from Bonn he could visit them.3 In going to Bonn, he was following the example of many other graduates of Schulpforta, attending a university where two of Germany's great­ est professors of philology were teaching: Otto Jahn (also an alum­ nus of Pforta) and Friedrich Ritschl. And in Bonn he would be with his devoted friend Deussen, an important consideration since Friedrich was anxious about living so far away from home. Perhaps he was also reluctant to assume the role of novice vis-a-vis his friends from Naumburg, who now had the advantage of a whole year's experience at the university. Gustav advised Friedrich not to join a fraternity. He said it would waste his time and energy and limit his choice of friends. Nonetheless, one of Friedrich's first acts as a new student was to join the Burschenschaft "Franconia." This fraternity, like many oth­ ers, was composed of boys from a particular region of Germany.' But Nietzsche's decision entailed obligatory beer drinking and or� ' ganized rowdiness too, and brings to mind his brief spasm of delinquency at Schulpforta. On both occasions he sought out a banal fOrD;! of conviviality that seems foreign to his serious character. It ' betr�ys some momentary confusion about his goals. But it was not illog i cal: belonging to a fraternity, then as now, meant having ready-made friends and connections, and belonging. It did not pre­ clude his intellectual agenda. To a shy boy in a new place far from home, such a social niche must have seemed attractive. Interest­ ingly enough, Nietzsche had the approval of his mother and his guardian: they agreed that a fraternity would be good for Friedrich, as a home away from home. And he might learn to be more socia­ ble. By the time he graduated from Schulpforta, Friedrich had a

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conscious sense of having missed the experience of "society." He had never been gregarious, but only now began to recognize his social inadequacy. While he was still a student he described how he had felt when he arrived in Bonn as a graduate of Schulpforta-as­ tonished at how well taught he was, but how poorly prepared for the world. He had thought a great deal, he wrote, but lacked the finesse to utter his thoughts appropriately. He had still not experi­ enced anything of the "civilizing influence of women." And al­ though he had thought he understood life from his studies, everything about society in Bonn seemed foreign to him.4 Apparently he had been thinking about this even before he ar­ in Bonn and joined the fraternity. While visiting the Deussen ved ri family, his letters to his mother and sister were full of the girls and women he had met and what he imagined were his social obliga­ tions to them. He felt attracted to Paul's sister, Marie Deussen, who he said reminded him of his own sister Elisabeth. He was awed by Frau Deussen and embarrassed at not finding her the appropriate birthday gift and having to attend her party empty-handed; he thought it would be nice if his own mother would send Frau Deussen a Christmas gift. To Elisabeth he wrote that he expected her to send him letters about all the "dances and other affairs" to which she was invited, things of which he knew nothing but had to learn. After his arrival in Bonn, Nietzsche filled his letters with the names of professors to whose homes he had been invited to tea (with obligatory theological conversation), and the names of frater­ nity brothers with whom he had done picturesqlie things, such as taking a walk along the fire-lit Rhine at night during the wine har­ vest, and attendi:o.g concerts and theater assiduously, not only in Bonn but in Cologne as well.5 The walk on the Rhine does sound romantic, and he undoubtedly enjoyed the music and theater. But his taste was neither progressive nor very discriminating, and these letters reporting his attempts at social life give an impression of adolescent awkwardness and forced interest. He was not naturally gregarious and struggled to fulfill a role he did not really like. According to Paul Deussen, who j oined the Franconia Burschenschaft along with Nietzsche, neither of them felt very com­ fortable in the Franconia, despite the fact that it was a relatively tame fraternity, that it did not entail mandatory duelling, and that many of its members were graduates of Schulpforta. Although Nietzsche's duties in the Franconia were congenial to him-editing

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the fraternity newsletter, writing songs, and serving as a general ex­ pert on things cultural6-he aspired to more than that. He wanted to be gay, lively, and dashing, a flotter Student. Apparently to gain the admiration of his fraternity brothers, Nietzsche sought out an acquaintance in a rival fraternity for a "friendly duel." He got a scar on his nose for his trouble, which Deussen thought looked handsome.7 He also participated regularly in the more common­ place drinking. Nietzsche did write poems and compose a considerable num­ ber of songs during his year in Bonn, so he did not entirely aban­ don his creative hobbies in his quest for social acceptance. But he did not present his poems to anyone, or report on them in his let­ ters to friends. Nietzsche's efforts to be a dashing member of the Franconi a were not very successful. One of his fraternity brothers later re­ corded that Nietzsche had not given a very j ovial impression; he seemed unable to loosen Up.8 And in fact, Nietzsche never did have a sense of humor in social situations; his wit was reserved for his writing, or was so ironical as to seem unpleasant. He knew that his fellows were only partially convinced by his efforts to be one of them. He wrote his mother that, while he was not disliked, he was best known for being satirical and mocking. He was often unhappy, too moody, and frequently bothersome to himself and to others.9 He wanted very much to be liked but recognized that he was nei­ ther successful nor happy doing what it took to be well liked by other members. Nietzsche was disappointed in himself, but he found reasons to be disappointed in the Franconia too. Politically he was in the "aristocratic" opposition to the fraternity's decision to change its colors from white, red, and gold to the "democratic" black, red, and gold, which represented national unification. (Black, red, and gold have been the German national colors since 1 870, except under the Nazis.) While he was for German unification, he was against the phrase in the Eisenacher Burschenbund's constitution that demanded unification "on a popular basis." He also objected to the clause that no longer required strict sexual abstinence of frater­ nity members. It was apparently no secret to Nietzsche that frater­ nity brothers "who wanted to sin went secretly to Cologne," and that disturbed him. His fastidiousness about it was obvious to his brothers and they remembered it years later. 1 o Paul Deussen related an occasion on which Nietzsche was taken .

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a brothel in Cologne _ He was so taken by h is frate rnity brothers to himself from the hypnoti zing gaze of ab ack that he could only free "the only living thing in the piano, the wo m en by going to the play until he felt free to leave. ro om ," as he apparently put it, to Nietzsche was a man co m menti ng upon this, Deussen wrote that that did not imply that he wh o had never touched a woman. But e's closest compan ion Nietzsch As men. young was affec tionate with position to know that good at Pforta an d in Bonn, Deussen was in a hidden. In the same vein, an­ his frie nd's sexual drives were deeply later noted that oth er of Nietzsche's fellow students at Bonn and woman, man e complet a be to him to N ietzsche had seemed l l body. oddly coupled together inside a single Many scholars have nonethel ess taken precisely the incident re­ did visit prosti­ p orted by Deussen as an indicatio n that Nietzsche his ultimate to leading them, from syphilis tutes and contract 1 it seems un­ h Althoug 2 illn ess and mental collapse in 1 888-89. likely, we will never know whether Nietzsche actually engaged in sex with one of the prostitutes he met in Cologne , or whether the experience quickened his desire so that he went voluntar ily to a brothel later. But Deussen' s account suggests that Nietzsch e's al­ ready prudish feelings were reinforced by this experien ce. His at­ tem pt to have the principle of chastity reinstated in the Francon ia natu rally failed, and this, along with his political defeat over the colors, contributed to his disillusio nment. His rejection of frater­ nity life after one year would be phrased in very conservative terms.l:� Throughout the first semester Nietzsche 's moth�r had written him letters of encouragement, urging him to study, an.d remindin g him of his father. He, however, had been spending so much money on fraternity acti�ities that he had too little to pay for his courses. His fraternity, distasteful as it was, did serve to distract him from the pretense of preparing for a profession he knew he could not practice. By the end of the first semester, when he went to N aum­ burg for Easter vacation, he had decided that he could not con· tinue in theology. He had resolved his doubt� and decided that he was no longer a Christian. He even refused to attend Easter services with his mother and sister, which hurt Franziska Nietzsche very deeply. It robbed her of the ideal she had been trying to realize in all the years of dedication to this child, son of her husband. And from this time forward, she often seemed unable to appreciate her son's remarkable achieveme nts, not understand ing why they were

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worth striving for. For Friedrich, this decision to abandon theology after one semester was an important step toward self-definition. He changed his major to philology, began to orient himself to a more serious interest in his studies, and prepared to abandon the frater­ nity and transfer to another university. Classical philology was the almost inescapably logical alterna­ tive for Nietzsche. It was a secular subject and a secure route to a respectable position as teacher in the Gymnasium or perhaps even the university. Although it was a disappointment to his mother, changing his major to philology was hardly a radical thing to do: he was not electing to become a bohemian poet or composer. Further­ more, the basis of classical philology was knowing the classical lan­ guages. Schulpforta had given Nietzsche the best training in Latin and Greek that was available anywhere, and he had been Pforta's best pupil in those subjects. He had worked hard at the ancient lan­ guag� s, and he was extremely apt. When he transferred to Leipzig for hIS second year at the university, the year he had wasted in Bonn had not put him at a disadvantage vis-a-vis other students. During the last months of Nietzsche's stay in Bonn, something interesting was transpiring in the world of classical philology. Two of Germany' s most famous philology professors, Otto Jahn and Friedrich Ritschl, became enlbroiled in a bitter personal feud that polarized the philological community there. Nietzsche wrote his mother that only the theologians could take any satisfaction from this dispute, since they alone could rejoice at dissension in the ranks of the "humanists." 14 Clearly changing his maj or to philology me�nt more to Nietzsche than simply exchanging one quite conser­ vatIve career for another. It was the formal admission that he had rejected one world-view and adopted another. He was now a hu­ manist rather than a believer. Nietzsche had a high regard for both Ritschl and Jahn. Friedrich Ritschl was the editor of one of Germany's most pre�ti­ gious philological journals, Das Rheinische Museum fur Philologie. He �as re ?�wned for the strictness of his method and for the painstak­ Ing edItIons he had made of Roman authors. Ritschl, who believed in single-minded dedication, had already advised Nietzsche to de­ vote himself to philology rather than divide his attention between theology and philology. On the other hand, Nietzsche admired Otto Jahn, who was not merely a philologist but already the author of a great biography of Mozart that is still read today.Jahn's combi­ nation of interests matched Nietzsche' s rather well. N onethe-

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less, Nietzsche chose to study with Ritschl at Leipzig. Perhaps it was au ste rity that led him to follow Ritschl rather thanJahn, for Ritschl re pre sented exclusive dedication to philology. By the time he was back in Naumburg for summer vacation, he h ad made a definite decision to quit the Burschenschaft too. He h oped there would come a time when his year in Bonn would seem a necessary phase in his development, but for the moment he could not help feeling he had wasted it entirely. Not only had he failed to do anything significant academically, he had neglected his poetry and musical composition, and even violated his (new) rule not to waste himself on people foreign to his spirit after he had recog­ nized them as such. When he arrived in Leipzig for the fall semes: ter, he would write a curt letter of resignation to the Franconia in Bonn, observing condescendingly that he hoped the fraternity would soon outgrow the stage it was passing through. I S But it remained difficult for him to communicate with his mother about why he could no longer study theology, would never become a clergyman, and did not even believe in God. It was so difficult that they stopped mentioning it. It was Elisabeth who wrote Friedrich after his vacation, reproaching him for having spo­ ken against Christianity at home. He answered her, contrasting his humanistic position to the religious one: Is it the most important thing to arrive at that particular view of God, the world, and reconciliat ion that makes us feel most comfortable? I s n o t the true inquirer totally indifferent t o what the result o f h i s i n ­ quir ies may be? For when w e inquire, are w e seekiirg,f<;>r rest, peace, happiness? No, onlyfor truth, even though it be in the highest degree ugly and repell�nt. . . . Here the ways divide: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and happiness, then believe; if you wish to be a disciple of truth, then inquire.16

This defense of impartial inquiry against the claims of religious be­ lief is hardly original. It had, however, implications far beyond Nietzsche's rejection of theology and a career in the ministry. From the time Nietzsche put theology and the fantasies that he had associated with fraternity life behind him, his inquiry would be into himself. Instead of trying to become aflotter Student, which he now felt he could never be, he set about finding out who he really was. Thereafter he was never to turn from the pursuit of his true self, no matter how unpleasant the search might become. It is from

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this point in his life that the intellectual quest that he was later to use as the subtitle of his autobiographical Ecce Homo dates: "How one becomes what one is." He accepted the fact that he could not fulfill the expectations of others, but would have to come to terms with himself and what fate had decreed for him. From this time on he was tacitly living by the motto, amorjati, loving his fate.17 .

.

Nietzsche arrived in Leipzig in October 1 865 anxious to begin studying philology in earnest. To his own surprise he registered on the same day that Goethe had entered the university there one hun­ dred years earlier. His letter of resignation from the fraternity in Bonn was the first he posted from his new lodgings. And when the university opened for classes, he was well received: as Professor Ritschl entered the hall to give his inaugural lecture, he recognize d Nietzsche and several other students from Bonn and called them together for a chat before he began his address. This was the first of many recognitions during his years in Leipzig-probably the hap­ piest time of his life. While he experienced some tension in these years, it is fair to say that in no other period was his social environ­ ment so hospitable, nor was he so comfortably integrated. I II After being welcomed by Ritschl, Nietzsche's first and most de­ cisive encounter in Leipzig was with Arthur Schopenhauer ( 1 7881 860), the idealist philosopher, rival of Hegel. N ietzsche had taken a room in the house of a book dealer, and there in his landlord's bookstore he ran across a used copy of The World as Will and Repre­ sentation, Schopenhauer's great work.19 He was fascinated with the first few pages that he read. H'e bought the book immediately, took it straight to his room, and began to study it as if it were sacred scripture. He later wrote of this experience: "I belong among the readers of Schopenhauer who, after reading one page of him, know that they will read every page, and listen to every word that he ever said. 1 trusted him immediately."20 He wrote at the time that reading Schopenhauer was like look­ ing into a mirror where the world, life, and his own temperament were horribly magnified. It was, he wrote, "like being stared at by the great and impartial eye of art." He felt he had been stripped psychologically naked. Schopenhauer's was a bleak philosophy, but the feeling it provoked in Nietzsche was not depression. It was a strangely calm feeling of disillusionment coupled with a renewed desire to become his best self. Reading Schopenhauer provoked a searching self-examination; Nietzsche suddenly felt a tremendous

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hunger for self-knowledge. H e reproached himself anew for his fri­ volity in Bonn, and he recorded many other self-accusations in a diary that he kept exclusively for this purpose. He subjected him­ self to a personal inquisition complete with an ascetic sleep and work schedule calculated to reform his spirit. He hoped that a heal­ i ng tran sformation would result from his dedication to the new master. He acquired a kind of moral ambition to be an excellent person, which fit well with his predisposition and Lutheran up­ bringing. Nonetheless, this was a personal crisis that he had not an­ ticipated. Although he had come to Leipzig already determined to reform and work hard at his studies, his experience reading schopenhauer had many of the marks of a religious conversion. Soon after renouncing Christianity, he became a disciple of Sch openhauer .2 1 Schopenhauer's pessimistic philosophy appealed to Nietzsche as an antidote to his unfortunate year in Bonn. He was impressed by what he called the philosopher's "philosophical seriousness." i Later, in Schopenhauer as Educator ( 1 874), Nietzsche recorded that he had been attracted to Schopenhauer's "honesty, his cheerfulness[!], ir -- \ and his steadfastness,"22 all attributes, of character andnot of \ thought. Nietzsche scarcely reported on Schopenhauer's ideas in his letters, and in Schopenhauer as Educator not at all. His matur� phi­ losophy would be diametrically opposed to Schopenhauer's nega­ tive conclusions about the will. Whatever N ietzsche learned by wrestling with Schopenhauer's philosophy, he was enthralled by Schopenhauer's personality, or the personality that he attributed to him. Discipleship soon' became apostleship, however, as N ietzsche's interest in Schopenhauer became the focus of his friendships. He quickly converted Carl von Gersdorff, his friend from S chulpforta who had now transferred to Leipzig from the University of Berlin, and Hermann Mushacke, another dissatisfied member of the Fran­ conia who had moved from Bonn to Leipzig with Nietzsche. These two were the only students he knew when he arrived in Leipzig, and they shared his distaste for fraternity life. (Paul Deussen remained in Bonn, still studying theology. Nietzsche did not initiate him into Schopenhauer's philosophy until several years later; but when Deussen did read Schopenhauer he became one of the phi­ losopher's most faithful and energetic followers, eventually found­ ing the German Schopenhauer Society.)23 Several other converts were made in Leipzig, and the group might have become a

t

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Schopenhauer circle, comparable to the Germania, and Nietzsche might have played his wonted role of intellectual leader there. He soon became involved, however, in another, larger group of stu­ dents among whom he would have an even greater opportunity for leadership. In the same first few weeks in Leipzig, the time when he was discovering Schopenhauer, Nietzsche was a party to the founding of the Leipzig Philologischer Verein. Professor Ritschl proposed the idea to four students who he had invited for an evening at his home. The professor laid out his suggestion that the students form a club for the independent presentation and criticism of their own philological studies. His idea was to foster individual initiative in the study of the classics and to bring his students closer to the ac­ tual practice of professional philology. It was not long before the chosen four called other promising students together in a small res­ taurant and founded their Verein, the Leipzig Philological Society.24 This was a powerful incentive to Nietzsche. Schulpforta had prepared him well in philology, and his disillusion in the fraternity had already determined him to turn all his energy to his studies. But the Philological Society tapped another motive: he loved to lead a small but structured group of young men in intellectual pur­ suits. The Philological Society resembled the Germania, and Nietzsche's role in it was comparable.25 At first there was no formal organization, so the only way a student could distinguish himself was to present a paper. Nietzsche took up the challenge immedi­ ately and was the second to contribute: he presented his investiga­ tion of "The Latest Edition of the Theognidea," a revised and expanded version of his essay on Theognis written at Schulpforta. Nietzsche's first presentation was a great success and had a powerfu l effect upon him: After overcoming my initial shyness I was able to express myself force­ fully and with emphasis and had such success that my friends ex­ pressed greatest respect for what. they had heard. Astonishingly elated, I came home deep in the night and sat right down at my desk to write bitter words in the book of observations [the Schopenhauer­ ian notebook] and suppress the enj oyed pride from the tablet of my consciousness.26

He was resolved to maintain the sober self-critical stance , that would permit him to continue to learn from his discipleship to

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S ch ope nhauer, but at the same time he was highly stimulated by his su ccess. From this moment in January 1 866, philology was no longer merely a discipline or an alternative to theology; now he could really invest himself in philology, and excel in it. He had become a sort of flotter Stw1ent in spite of himself, enjoying in the Philological Society not only the comradeship and respect of his fellows that he had sought in the Burschenschajt, but an opportunity to exercise intellectual leader­ ship. The Philological Society was a safe harbor from his dissatisfaction with himself. For a time at least, his enthusiasm for Schopenhauer rein­ forced his enthusiasm for philology. The commanding impression that Nietzsche made with his Theognis paper at the Philological Society gave him the courage to submit a finely copied version of it to Professor Ritschl. Several days later, Ritschl told Nietzsche that he had never seen such a fin­ ished piece of work produced by a student in his third semester at the university-so strict was the method and so sure the composi­ tion. He went on to suggest that Nietzsche work the essay up into a small book; he promised his own help in acquiring the necessary materials for collation. This was more encouragement than Nietzsche could have imagined. "For some time I went about under a spell," he wrote; "it was the time I was born as a philologist."27 In each of his first four semesters at Leipzig, Nietzsche contrib­ uted a lecture in the Philological Society with a success similar to that he had attained with the Theognis paper. Several-including the first one on Theognis-were published in Ritschl's j ournal, Das Rheinische Museum fur Philologie. (The book that Ritschl proposed Nietzsche write was never realized, inasmuch as Rit�<=hl discovered that another scholarwas already at work on the project.) These lec­ tures, along wit:p. the authoritative criticism that he undoubtedly delivered on the lectures of others, made him the leader of the So­ ciety in the second year-he was elected president in his third se­ mester at Leipzig_ His presidential address opening the spring semester of 1 867 has a somewhat moralistic tone, gently reproach­ ing his fellows for being inadequately prepared to criticize the pa­ pers presented to them, and pressing them to exercise an ethical influence upon their fellow students in philology who were not members of the Society and not dedicated to hard work in scien­ tific philology.2H His schoolmasterly attitude was moderate, how­ ever, and apparently did not offend. He was a success not only as a philological scholar but as president of the Philological Society as well.

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The social and academic success that Nietzsche enjoyed in the Philological Society was balanced by the sobering influence of Schopenhauer and the ethic of self-control. He showed no signs of arrogance. He did, however, begin to enjoy the society of his pro­ fessor. He saw Ritschl in his office twice a week at noon; the profes­ sor spoke freely on everything from university politics to his own idiosyncrasies as a scholar. 29 Nietzsche also became a frequent guest in the Ritschl home, and became friendly with Frau Ritschl as well, discussing music and theater with her as much as he did phi­ lology with her husband. In spite of his intimacy with Ritschl and his dedication to phi­ lology, Nietzsche in his first two years at Leipzig did not fill a single course-notebook, nor hear a single course of lectures through to the end. He explained this anomalous situation with the observa­ tion that he had been more interested in how his professors taught than in what they taught. He tried always to put himself in the place of the professor, to understand what the professor was trying to accomplish and how he did it. He hoped to learn quickly whatever there was to be learned from any professor, and later, when he had to give his own courses, he could gather materials together accord­ ing to his own system.30 Not even Ritschl was sufficiently interesting to keep Nietzsche in attendance to the end of the semester. Nietzsche already felt himself beyond the status of a student. Having completed his student apprenticeship, he was now looking about for a professorial model. This was not an arrogant or unreal­ istic attitude; very few students can publish what they write in their third semester at the university. His observations on several profes­ sors suggest that he was studying their personalities as much as their methods. His sketches of Wilhelm Dindorf and Konstantin Tischendorf, Leipzig's legendary paleographer, are both rather psychological. He noted that Dindorf was an "unethical pessimis,t" (in pointed contrast to Schopenhauer), a cynical entrepreneur wh o would exploit colleague and student alike in his effort to sell text­ books. Tischendorf was a far more attractive old man, a charming and romantic figure, but naively and inexhaustibly vain. His wealth of philological anecdotes made it difficult to decide whether to en­ title his courses "paleography" or "Tischendorfs memories and anecdotes." According to Nietzsche, there was absolutely no method to be learned from Tischendorf-only a contradictory per­ sonality to observe. Yet Tischendorfs was the course he attended most regularly, which suggests that Nietzsche's interest in how his

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profes sors taught did not refer to philological method so much as to p ers onal style.3) He was considering his professors as models or men tors . Dindorf and Tischendorf failed the test; he would not m odel himself upon them. Nietzsche's attitude toward his professors and the discipline of phil ology was, as he put it, a "philosophical" one. When he became a professor himself, he wrote, he hoped not merely to teach philol­ o gy and convey the classical ideals to his students, but to awaken sufficie nt self-awareness in them to permit each of them to recreate the discipline for himself. With the help of Schopenhauer-and not of his own professors-Nietzsche had developed a philosophy of life: life may be inherently chaotic and meaningless, but one can impose meaning upon it. (This view, a revision of Schopenhauer' s theory of the meaninglessness of individual life, is a characteristic ten et of Nietzsche's mature philosophy.) His practical task, as he understood it then, was to choose some field commensurate with his abilities and create order and meaning there. This would in­ volve not merely his philological training and talents, but his whole personality.32 This view of life is what justified Nietzsche in think­ ing that he was beyond his professors in certain respects. Even his judg'ment of Professor Ritschl was critical. He thought that Ritschl was complacent in regard to the larger questions of life. The professor not only held himself aloof from philosophy but ac­ tively discouraged his students from ,b ecoming interested in it. And Ritschl was limited by the fact that he overestimated the discipline of philology as it was actually practiced; he saw no need for a fun­ damental reform of specialized scholarship.33·' As critical as Nietzsche was of Ritschl, however, his complaints about his profes­ sor reflect an impatience that sons often feel toward their older and less vigorous fathers. Ritschl and Schopenhauer both assumed aspects of father for Nietzsche in these years; only it was Schopenhauer who would have the more enduring paternal influ­ ence upon him. Perhaps Ritschl knew that his attempts to discourage Nietzsche from becoming absorbed in philosophy were failing. To enti<;e Nietzsche into more philological work, Ritschl deliberately pro­ posed a prize essay competition on the ancient historian of philos­ ophy, Diogenes Laertius. Ritschl knew that it was a topic Nietzsche had already explored in a paper read before the Philological Soci­ ety .34 The result was another philological triumph for Nietzsche/15 but no deeper commitment to philology. Philosophy, as he under-

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stood it, remained more important to him than philological schol­ arship. He had already complained to Gersdorff that he f� lt forced to wear a mask of scholarship that separated hIm from Schopenhauer and philosophy.36 This attitude did not change with subsequent philological successes. So Nietzsche's intellectual life was soon as divided in Leipzig as it had been at Schul pforta. At Pforta he had divided his energy be­ tween schoolwork and his "secret" cultivation of music and poetry. In Leipzig he pursued parallel studies in philology and philosophy. Professor Ritschl frowned on his commitment to Schopenhauer and thought that reading philosophy would only distract him from his chosen profession. It did indeed stimulate his emerging ten­ dency to regard philology as a lifeless and rather mechanical pur­ suit. Curiously, it was precisely as Nietzsche emerged as a creative philologist in practice that he began to define philology as a disci­ pline devoid of creativity.37 Nietzsche's growing disdain for philology went against the grain of mid-nineteenth-century German culture, where t� e c� lti­ vation of Greek and Latin literature was still seen as the anImatIng force of middle-class education. But the study of the classics had changed. Under the impact of Winckelmann' s art historical stud­ ies in the eighteenth century, broad exposure to Greek culture was understood to ennoble the individual and make him more fully human. By the mid-nineteenth century, study of the ancient litera­ tures had already become highly specialized. The idea that schol­ arly-classical education was arid and divorced from life began to take shape as a result of the professionalization of philology and its perceived irrelevance to the concerns of modern life. Nietzsche would help articulate this idea with such early writings as The Birth of Tragedy ( 1 872), and "On the Uses and D isadvantages of History for Life" ( 1 874). In these books he is recognizably the first in nearly half a century to return to the older way of approaching the Greeks. But as a student in Leipzig, Nietzsche felt that he had to conceal his devotion to Schopenhauer and philosophy, much as he had hidden his fondness for Holderlin at Pforta. This was the par­ tially repressed side of Nietzsche's intellectual life. It was here that his creative energy was pent up against the time when he would burst the conventions of philology and philosophy alike to become an original thinker in his own right. It is characteristic of Nietzsche that this division of his interests was echoed by a division of his personal loyalty to Schopenhauer

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an d Ritschl. Nietzsche was constantly comparing the two men and hi s choice of a career seems to have depended as much upon the ou tcome of this compariso n as it did upon his own suitability for ph ilo sophy or philology. The comparis on was skewed by the fact that he had Ritschl before him day after day, while Schopenh auer was an abstractio n who inhabited only his books. But the very fact th at Schopenhauer was an abstraction may have made Nietzsche 's re markable idealizati on of the philosoph er possible. He was free to fan tasize Schopenhauer into a hero of extraordinary proportio ns. By contrast, Ritschl was immediat ely exposed to Nietzsche 's critical ob servation and was conseque ntly never so thoroughly idealized by him. Ritschl was right to think that Nietzsche 's intense devotion to Schopenhauer might distract him from a promisin g career in classical philology. Nietzsche 's deeper attachment to Schopenh auer seems in turn to indicate that he needed a more comprehe nsive (but also mallea. ble) personal model than simply a Doktorvater. Nietzsche 's devotion to Schopenh auer satisfied importan t psycholog ical as well as intel­ lectual needs. Indeed, his idealizati on of Schopenhauer seems to have given him, for several years at least, a psycholog ical equilib. rium that he had not possessed in Bonn, and permitted him to de­ velop his professio nal mastery of classical philology even as he looked beyond it.38 While Ritschl offered a professio n, Schopenhauer held out the discipline of philosophy, by which Nietzsche understo od not aca­ demic philosophy or its history, which he might learn as a profes­ sion, but the method of seeking wisdom- philo,s ?phy in the classical sense. Philosop hy in this sense is a whole life's endeavor , not merely a pr�fessio n. The adult Nietzsche would practice his philosop hic vocation as exclusive ly as anyone possibly could, to the complete exclusion of intimacy or any diversion whatsoever. Furthermore, while the professio n of philology that Ritschl represented was more concrete , Nietzsche justifiab ly felt that he had already mastered it. He did not scorn it; he was prepared to prac tice it in his own "philoso phical" way, in the spirit of Scho penhauer. But his own mastery made it difficult for him to con tinue to idealize Ritschl, even as a model of this professio n. He had already begun to think of Ritschl as a colleague rather than a master. Philosop hy, on the other hand, was an enormou s territory where he still felt naive and in need of guidance . And S chop enhauer seerned to be a most trustworthy guide.

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Nietzsche was as happy, productive, and gregarious as ever in his life at this time. The only thing missing from this picture was romance; and there is not a single mention of an interest in women in these years in Leipzig-neither of sex, nor women in general, nor of a particular woman. Was this due to unconscious repression, a traumatic reaction to the death of his father at that stage of his psychosexual development when he was competing with his father for the affection of his mother? Was it latent homosexuality? Or was it simply an unusual degree of narcissistic preoccupation with himself that prevented him from expressing erotic feelings? In the end he was happy enough without romance. He did have a close friend, however, and this may be the best evidence of his happines s and fulfillment in these years. It was in his second year in Leipzig, 1 866-67, that he discovered a unique friendship with Erwin Rohde, a student who he had known for a while but with whom he became friendly only grad­ ually. Rohde was also a member of the Philological Society. He was Nietzsche's equal in philology and his superior in modern lan­ guages. But these academic commonalities were not the basis of their friendship. Nietzsche later wrote that in his experience most friendships are based upon superficial common interests and are often a source of deep disappointment when the more fundamen­ tal differences finally wrench young people apart; by contrast, he and Rohde disagreed on all the superficial things and yet found harmony in the revelation of their deeper feelings.39 This was an accurate description of Nietzsche's experience to date, since most of his friendships had depended upon his friends being pliant and acquiescent in his plans. Nietzsche's friendship with Paul Deussen is a good example. When, after the year they had spent in Bonn, Deussen did not drop theology or take up philology as Nietzsche had done, Nietzsche badgered him with insulting let­ ters. Both of them were disappointed. With Rohde, N ietzscli'e seems not to have felt the need to play the schoolmaster. The two of them could argue incessantly and yet spend every day together dur­ ing the spring of 1 867. When school was out they went hiking to­ gether in the Bavarian Forest.4o Both Nietzsche and Rohde reported in separate letters to other friends that they had been drawn together by Schopenhauer and not by classical philology, although that was their common major.41 Possibly the sense of integration that Nietzsche gained from his idealization of Schopenhauer, and his success at the university in

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Lei pzig, permitted him for the first time to take leave of his Erzieher role and engage in friendship on equal terms. Nietzsche' s friend­ ship with Rohde represents the greatest intimacy he had enjoyed si nce leaving home to attend Schulpforta. Unfortunately, the two were separated soon after their friendship deepened. •

In 1 865-66, as he wrote the philological essays that would soon be pu blished in Das Rheinische Museumfur Philologie, Nietzsche actu­ ally had little left to learn about philology, except details about par­ ticular authors and texts. He already knew how to do philology. While Ritschl could encourage Nietzsche and promote his career, he could not teach him very much. Yet Nietzsche was still eager to learn: philosophy was what he studied; and Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Albert Lange became his teachers. Nietzsche admired Schopenhauer for being a passionate phi­ losopher who nevertheless scorned professional philosophy.42 He was a creative thinker, not merely a scholar, and he had never been a university professor. He took the meaning of life itself, and not just a few arcane texts, as his field of inquiry. Nietzsche recognized Schopenhauer as a genius from the start. Lange, whom he discov­ ered somewhat later, he never idealized in this way. But through repeated readings of Lange's book Nietzsche learned more about the history of philosophy than he did from any other source. While Nietzsche never met either Schopenhauer or Lange, he studied them intensively. He may have learned philosophy more profoundly by reading Schopenhauer and Lange because he en­ tered so thoroughly into their ways of thinking. Fr0I)). The World as Will and Representation he learned Schopenhauer' s system, and about the consequential thinking required by systematic philoso­ phy. He got an orientation in the history of philosophy, and a glimpse of Indian thought. And since Schopenhauer's philosophy was largely a rethinking of certain Kantian positions, he learned , something about Kant along with Schopenhauer's penetrating cri­ tique of him. It was a kind of philosophical apprenticeship with Schopenhauer. From Lange's two large volumes on The History of Materialism, he gleaned an education in the history of philosophy. Nietzsche had read Schopenhauer's World as Will and Represen­ tation in October 1 865 and was immediately converted. He de­ clared himself an "ethical pessimist" at that time. At first he subscribed to the whole system; it suited his psychological frame of mind as he mourned the year he had wasted in Bonn. But within

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the year he privately began to doubt important parts of the system, such as Schopenhauer's negative evaluation of the will. Nonethe­ less, he maintained a personal allegiance to the philosopher long after he had begun to question his system. Schopenhauer's impact upon Nietzsche's thinking remained decisive. Several of the most basic ideas in Nietzsche's life-affirming philosophy are versions of ideas that preoccupied Schopenhauer: the view that what we can know of the world is only appearance, and the conviction that the will is the most fundamental reality. Schopenhauer himself started from Kant, enthusiastically ap­ proving the negative side of Kant's critique of pure reason. He be­ lieved that Kant's demonstration of the limited capacity of human reason to know the world was the decisive break in modern philos­ ophy, the most fundamental development in philosophy since Plato. Kant had finally "undeceived" the human mind of its naive realism and literal-mindedness. Schopenhauer's philosophical project begins with an exploration of how we represent the world to ourselves; showing that our perceptions are no more than repre­ sentations ( Vorstellungen) of the world, not the world itself. This is the subject of the first book of his major work, The World as Will and Representation.43 It is the first of a knotted series of propositions that comprise Schopenhauer's idealist and world-denying philosophy. Paradoxically, Schopenhauer's idealist skepticism about our ability to apprehend reality became one of the cornerstones of Nietzsche's philosophical affirmation of appearances and the will. One of Nietzsche's most frequently restated propositions is pre­ cisely that there are only appearances. He would deny the opposi­ tion of appearance and reality by collapsing them. In The Twilight of the Idols he asserted that reality is appearance, ascribing the idea to Heraclitus: "The 'apparent' world is the only one; the 'real world' has simply been lied to US."44 In Nietzsche's hands this doctrine led to different conclusions than it did in Schopenhauer's. For Nietzsche it served as the basis of the view that all knowledge is in­ terpretation-his "perspectivism."�5 For Schopenhauer, the fact that our knowledge is restricted to our own representations of the world led to the conclusion that we would be wiser not to hope for satisfaction in the illusory world we represent to ourselves. Nietzsche, in contrast, affirmed the will and human striving in the most radical way. But the different philosophic uses to which they put the idea of appearance should not obscure the fact that this position, so very basic to Nietzsche's thinking, fits squarely in the

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trad ition o f German idealism, i n a very particular genealogy­ Kant: S chopenhauer: Nietzsche. Even Nietzsche's understanding of the will derives from sch o penhauer. In the second book of The World as Will and Repre­ sen tation Schopenhauer departed so drastically from Kant as to ope n a whole new domain of philosophy.46 He declared that man is not merely a perceiving (representing) being, but even more funda­ mentally a willing being, that all perceiving is ultimately in the ser­ vice of willing. This too is found in Nietzsche's mature thought, again in a very prominent position. "The will to power" is a direct descendant of Schopenhauer's thinking about the will, and one that owes little or nothing to Kant or the rest of the occidental tra­ dition of philosophy. Completely rejecting Kant's discussion of "things-in-themselves," Schopenhauer identified the will as the one "thing-in-itself," the only metaphysical reality whatsoever. Schopenhauer elaborated the notion of the will largely in response to his reading of Eastern (Indian) philosophy, and, as an after­ thought, showed that the same problem was present in Christianity , and other world religions.47 Nietzsche's originality lay in his posi­ tive evaluation of the will, and the extreme license that he allowed for it in the doctrine of the will to power. But it was definitely fol­ lowing Schopenhauer that he too understood the will as the funda­ mental reality of the universe. The rest of Schopenhauer's philosophy, what is presented in books three and four of The World as Will and Representation, and what Nietzsche soon rejected, initially impressed him too. It is only in the second half of his major work that Schop'enllauer enters upon the ethical implications of his view of the human subject as a willing and repr�senting being. He explains why the representa­ tions of different individuals can never coincide on the most im­ portant matters, and how the divergent practical interests of individual wills lead them into conflict. This is the problem for . ' which his theory of willing not to will is the solution. Here, and in all his writings, Schopenhauer recognized a distinction between the egotistic "interested" knowledge of individuated, practical rea­ son, fated to frustration, and a much rarer, disinterested knowl­ edge that sees beyond the war of individual wills. The latter objective knowledge is the exclusive terrain of the genius. It is wis­ dom , and leads to renunciation of the "interested" will, to quies­ cen ce in life. This did not convince Nietzsche for long, perhaps because he

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was soon to experience the force of Richard Wagner's very per. sonal will in his own life. But he recognized Schopenhauer's view as a serious attempt to solve a basic problem of life. It spoke directly to the concerns of Nietzsche's extended adolescence, for he was still struggling with his own ambition, distrustful of socially accepted ca. reer goals, and wary of devoting himself completely to philology. Schopenhauer suggested to Nietzsche that it was possible to face the paradoxes and compromises of existence squarely, come to terms with them, and even respond creatively to them. This earnest engage. ment of actual problems of life was precisely what Nietzsche found missing in everything else that he read. Schopenhauer may not have solved the problem to Nietzsche's satisfaction, but as Nietzsche saw it, by spending his life as an unrecognized prophet, Schopenhauer had sacrificed his life to his philosophy. More than anything else, this drew Nietzsche to Schopenhauer. Nietzsche encountered Lange's book, Die Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart ("The History of Materi. alism and Critique of Its Present Significance") in the summer of 1 866, about a year after he had become a disciple of Scho­ penhauer.48 He found Lange's work to be a goldmine of informa­ tion that would permit him to enlarge the basic philosophic view that he had developed reading Schopenhauer. In effect Lange gave Nietzsche the history of philosophy in a single, provocative pack­ age. Like Schopenhauer, Lange was a neo-Kantian, but his empha, sis was different: although he wrote his history of materialism as a history of a delusion, he was much more at ease with modern soci­ ety and scientific thought, and he accepted scientific methods of investigation. Ultimately this made Lange's ideas more useful to Nietzsche than Schopenhauer's proved to be. Lange was an origi­ nal thinker too, but an unpretentious one. Making no effort to per. ' form the role of the genius, he was actually surprised that his magnum opus was received as something more than a tract for the times. When Nietzsche first read The History of Materialism in 1 866, he immediately appreciated that Lange was an indispensable com. plement to Kant and Schopenhauer, a congenial source of infor. mation and novel insights on every imaginable subject, organized as a critical review of all the maj or Western philosophical posi­ tion,s, including Kant's. In all, N ietzsche' s reading of Lange supported his S cho� , penhauerian epistemology. In a letter he wrote to Gersdorff, Nietzsche quoted Lange's conclusions:

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( l ) The sensory world is the product of our [biological] organiza­ tion. (2) Our visible (bodily) organs are like all other parts of the world of appearances, images of unknown objects. (3) Our real organization remains as unknown to us as the truly ex­ ternal objects.49

auer's Nietzsche understood Lange to support Kant's and Schopenh as carried skepti cism. The idealist critique of what we can know, biolog­ the from radically diverges uer, out by Kant and Schopenha gave Lange But Darwin. icall y materialist anthropology of actually Nietzs che a crucial hint as to how the two doctrines could be co mbine d and could reinforce each other. Accepting the biolog­ will. ical b asis of human perceptio n and will, Lange legitimate d the did, auer Schopenh as He did not favor the renunciati on of the will but app roved the human struggle for mastery of the environme nt. Here was a seed of Nietzsche 's will to power. Kant was the critical turning point in Lange's history of philos­ oph y,just as he was in Schopenhauer's work. Lange's large chapter on Kant informed Nietzsche better on that philosoph er than Scho penhauer had. (It is not clear whether Nietzsche ever read Kant systematically himself.) Later movements are also covered in The History of Materialism, such as English political economy and Darwinian thought, subjects that Nietzsche was never able to read in the original because of his deteriorating eyesight. As Nietzsche' s only source for these essential subjects, Lange was a s important as Schopenhauer in Nietzsche' s philosoph ic educ�tion. Nietzsche made some unqualified statements about Lange aCthe time. In a letter to a fellow student he called The History of Materialism "the most important philosoph ical work of recent decades." He could praise it for pages. All he needed was "Kant, Schopenha uer, and this book of Lange's."5o Two years later, in a letter to Gersdorff, Nietzsche made an even more extensive claim for Lange, indicating precisely how Nietzsche would use his book. If you want to inform yourself thoroughly about the materialist move­ ment of our time, about the natural sciences with their Darwinist the­ ories, their cosmic systems, their camera obscura, and so on, and again about ethical materialism, Manchester theory [i.e., political economy], etc., then I cannot recommend anything more excellent .

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YOUNG NIETZSCHE than The History ofMaterialism, by Friedr. Alb. Lange (Iserlohn 1 866), a book that gives infinitely more than the title promises, a real treasu re !) l of a book that you can read over and over again: •

In fact, Nietzsche continued to rely upon Lange's History, and cited a myriad examples from it in his later works, long after he had ceased to read Schopenhauer at all. 52 After writing this letter to Gersdorff, however, Nietzsche never again mentioned Lange's name in his correspondence. Perhaps Nietzsche did not realize how his reliance upon Lange grew as his interest in Schopenhauer faded. Or he may have been embarrassed that he relied upo n Lange for his knowledge of philosophical positions that he could not read in the original. But it is also true that Lange's big and care· fully studied book was strictly a source of information and provoc· ative ideas for Nietzsche; Lange himself was never the person al inspiration that Schopenhauer was. Schopenhauer was more than an intellectual mentor. Nietzsche learned the role of the heroic·philosophical personality from him, the role of the genius. As he wrote a few years later in a little book entitled Schopenhauer als Erzieher ( l 874)-"Schopenhauer as Educa· tor," one of the Untimely Meditations-Schopenhauer became his adoptive parent and life model.53 Nietzsche had by then spent sev� eral years in admiring devotion to Schopenhauer (since 1 865), and Wagner (since 1 869). He thought he could explain from his own experience how culture serves a potentially creative individual by providing models like Schopenhauer and Wagner. Following their examples had helped him to become himself, his best self. Culture. had not held out for acquisition talents that he did not already pOSe sess, like "artificial limbs, wax noses, or spectacles." It offered great examples, educators and formative teachers [who] reveal . . . to you what the true basic material of your being is, something in itself ineducable and in any case hard to realize, bound and paralyzed: your educators can only be your liberators.54

According to Nietzsche, culture provides what in loosely Freud· ian terms are called "ego ideals." As he put it, "only he who has given his heart to some great man receives the first consecration of culture;"55 only after submitting to some teacher can a young per· son become creative in his own right. To Nietzsche, giving himself

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to a great man meant identifying with that man in fantasy and em· ulating him like a son emulates a father . It is true that I only found a book [not Schopenhauer himself], and that was a great lack. But I made all the more effort to see beyond the book and to picture the man whose great testament I had to read, the man who promised to make only those his heirs who wished to be and were capable of being more thanjust his readers: namely, his sons and pUpl'1 S.56

The effort " to picture the man" is a work of fantasy, a young man's attempt to reach beyond himself, to bring himself to the point where he could move creatively and independently among other great men. Having lost his real father at such an early age, Nietzsche, now faced with the necessity of defining himself as a man and choosing a profession, was desperate for a fatherly pre· ceptor. Schopenhauer was the first model worthy of his complete dedi cation. Schopenhauer was a precocious philosopher himself. He pub· lished his first book in 1 8 1 3 at the age of twenty· five, On the Fourfold Root ofSufficient Reason. This earned Schopenhauer the doctorate in philosophy; and it presaged the entire system of philosophy that he presented to the world in 1 8 1 9 in his maj or work, The World as Will and Representation, when he was a mere thirty·one years old. Then, In 1836, he published a small book On the Will in Nature, buttressing his philosophy with corroborations drawn from the natural scien­ tific research of his day. And in 1 84 1 The Two FU'lidamftntal Problems of Ethics appeared. Although all of these books were ignored, he continued to writ�, publishing a second volume of The World as Will and Representation in 1 844; it consisted of essays that filled in gaps and enlarged upon aspects of the original edition. In 1 85 1 he pub­ lished another two-volume work entitled Parerga and Paralipomena, a Greek title roughly translated as "after-thoughts and asides;" these were essays elaborating his system still further. An astonish­ ing characteristic ofSchopenhauer's oeuvre is that he never found it nece ssary to revise the system of thought that he had devised in his twenties. With absolute self-confidence, he simply enlarged and elab orated upon his own basic ideas. Throughout his career as an author, Schopenhauer remained unc on nected with universities or the philosophical establishment, and largely unrecognized in German literary magazines.

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Schopenhauer took a perverse pleasure in this lack of recognition. In caustic prefaces, he mocked his rivals, "the university philoso­ phers," and the shallow public that admired them. He anticipated that the time would come, however, when select and worthy read­ ers would discover him. This attitude derived from the nineteenth­ century myth of the unrecognized genius, and the systematic consistency of Schopenhauer's works is almost a caricature of the inherent unity that was supposed to characterize the works of a ge­ nius.57 Schopenhauer understood himself as an unrecognized ge­ nius. He self-consciously lived this belief and propagated it in his n prefaces. Like many other artists and thinkers of the century, he !.if modeled his life upon the assumption of his unrecognized geniu s, both to marshall his own energies for the enormous creative task that he set himself, and to make himself ultimately recognizable as � a genius. He too lived an autobiographical life. Schopenhauer did not remain permanently unrecognized, however. When an English author discovered the Parerga and Paralipomena, Schopenhauer finally received a favorable review . This was the work of John Oxenford, the translator of Goethe' s writings, who published several essays on Schopenhauer in the Westminster Review. 58 Oxenford's essays were soon translated into German and republished in the Vossische Zeitung. This led to a sud· den surge of interest in Schopenhauer's works in Germany, which he could still enjoy before his death in 1 860. So when Nietzsche discovered The World as Will and Representa­ tion in 1 865, the philosopher was no longer unknown. In fact, he was · · well known as a kind of martyr to his philosophy, as an unrecognized genius who had persevered with remarkable consequence in elaborat­ ing an uncongenial but truthful system of philosophy without any in· . tercourse with his contemporaries. His philosophy came complete not only with those prefaces in which Schopenhauer advertised h�m· self as an unrecognized genius, but with a carefully elaborated theory of the genius as part of its contents. And since he had long been un, ' recognized, every reader could now imagine himself to be one of the select readers that Schopenhauer had foreseen, one of those who had discovered and could appreciate the hero. This is an interesting con� ceit that has functioned in the reception of many other thinkers, in� eluding Nietzsche himself. It may have enhanced Nietzsche's feeling for Schopenhauer. For while Schopenhauer was now quite popular , Nietzsche could still conceive of his interest in the philosopher as kind of conspiracy.

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Schopenhauer's theory of the genius is one of the most impor­ tan t sources of Friedrich Nietzsche's thinking about himself as a creative person and about the genius in general. Friedrich had know n about genius when he wrote his autobiography at age four· teen, casting himself in the role of Goethe, and he assimilated more in the ensuing years. But Schopenhauer was the first person whom he i den tified as his educator in genius. Nietzsche naturally paid particu lar attention not only to Schopenhauer' s example, but to the se ctions of Schopenhauer's works in which he treats the subject of genius. For a time Schopenhauer's theory of genius became Nietzsche's. When he met Richard Wagner in November 1 868, Nietzsche would write to one of his friends that Wagner was the very incarnation of what Schopenhauer had written on the genius.59 Schopenhauer understood the genius to possess a detached and contemplative view of the world. In contrast to the vast major­ ity of mankind, the genius has objective knowledge, which for Schopenhauer meant direct apprehension of the nature of things, the (Platonic) Ideas. This type of understanding is possible only as the result of an inborn surplus of intellect, beyond what would be necessary to complement the will in practical life. This is a great anomaly because, in the ordinary mortal, the will preoccupies the intellect. Ordinary people, according to Schopenhauer, necessarily per­ ceive the world from egotistic points of view, each governed by his particular will and its practical, purposive interests. This is what Schopenhauer (and after him Nietzsche) referred to in ,Latin as the principium individuationzs-the principle of individuation: human beings are alienated from each other in their very perception of the world by their conflicting wills. They seldom if ever transcend the purposive striving of daily existence, and can therefore never see the world disinterestedly, but only in terms of utility. The ge­ nius, however, has intellect to spare. As Schopenhauer wrote in one place, if an ordinary person is composed of one-third intellect and two-thirds will, the genius is two·thirds intellect. As a result the genius may be less practical and perhaps more unhappy. But his surfeit of intellect permits him to apprehend the world unencum­ bered by his will, i.e., by his practical purposes and interests. What distinguishes the genius, therefore, is a quality of percep­ tio n quite lacking in others, even in the most talented. It may give rise to works of art or philosophy, but such works do not make the

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geniu s. As Schop enhauer wrote of the artist in the first editio n o

The World as Will and Representation,

The Artist lets us peer into the world through his eyes. That h e ha these eyes, that he knows the essential in things which lies outsi de a relatio ns, is the gift of genius and is inborn ; but that he is able to le nd us this gift, to let us see with his eyes, is acquired, and is the tech nica side of art. 60

The techn ical side of art, what Schop enhauer elsewher� calls m im icry, is not restricted to the geniu s. Unlik e the innate perce p tive capacity of the geniu s, it can be learn ed; and it can be put to other purpo ses than communica ting such perce ption s, name ly, in mak ing palatable copie s of what is already comm onpla ce. For S chope nha� er, it is not the work of art produ ced by a geniu s that distin guish es him most funda ment ally, but his capac ity to see the world in its essen ce. Thus Schop enhauer characterizes the differ­ ence between the genius and the merel y talented with a sim· " [The man of] talent is like the marksman who hits a target that others canno t reach; [the] geniu s is like the mark sman who hits a target . . . [the] others canno t even see." The mark that the genius sees (and hits) is of no imme diate practical utility . It is objec ti know ledge . And as he surveys it, the geniu s is not a willin g individ­ ual, but the pure, will-le ss, knowing subj ect. But he may in his works. show it to the rest of mank ind, and thus alter everything . Schop enhauer's thoughts on the geniu s includ e many other tions comm on to ninet eenth -century writin g on geniu s. For exam" pIe, he subsc ribed to the cliche that "geni us is next to madn ess."�l And he assum ed that the geniu s would not only be initia lly un: �ecogn izable: but would find himse lf oppo sed by his conte mporar� I �S. If these Ideas were the comm on intell ectual prope rty of .' .. nIneteenth century, Schop enhau er's expla natio n was his own. It lay preci sely in the excess of intell ect. The geniu s is less comp etent than the ordinary perso n in the practical affairs of life becau se his will is defici ent or overwhelmed by his intell ect. Schop enhau er un� derstood this imbal ance to be physi ologi cal, and simila r to the im­ balan ce that produces madn ess. Furthermore, the objec tive know ledge that the genius has of the (Plato nic) Ideas is not directly releva nt to day-to-day life. His direc t appre hensi on of the nature of thing s gives his know ledge a timel ess quali ty incom patib le with the

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trivin gs of his contemporaries, who are so full of momentary pur­ His very insight estranges him from his fellows.62 P Wh ile Nietzsche undoubtedly heard these characteristics ascrib ed to the genius by other sources, S chopenhauer gave them a hil os ophically coherent and psychologically cogent explanation. l th ou gh he was not so bold as to begin thinking of himself as a fully formed genius, he did take Schopenhauer' s understanding of genius to explain certain of his own worries about himself. In par­ ticu lar, the concern about sanity that he had expressed to Dr. Zimmerman at Schulpforta, a concern that apparently stemmed from his father's alleged insanity; the sense of alienation that he felt among his fellow students and fraternity brothers in the Fran­ conia; and his preoccupation and indecision about which of his in­ terests and talents he should abandon as he tried to make a decision about a career. And if he ever wondered about his lack of interest in women, Schopenhauer explained that too. While Schopenhauer did not solve any of these problems for N ietzsche, he seemed to suggest that they were understandable in a young man in whom the intellect predominated over the will. This must have been reassuring. s o se.

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At the end of September 1 867, Nietzsche was surprised to learn that he had been found physically fit to serve in the army, in spite of his extreme nearsightedness. He quickly tried to arrange to serve his year in a university city, and made a trip to Berlin for the pur­ pose. His effort failed, however, and he was condemned to the mounted artillery in N aumburg. Nietzsche spent a year in Naumburg as a reservist in the mounted artillery. He worried about being away from the univer­ sity. Living at home was no longer the consolation it would have been just a year or two earlier. In letters to his friends he com­ plained of loneliness and boredom. In a particularly poignant let­ ter to Erwin Rohde he imagined that Rohde could see him cleaning the stalls, brushing down his horse, riding, and so on; and when he turned around in the saddle he thought he could see Rohde riding right behind him.63 Rohde had been more than a fellow student with similar interests; he was someone "whose seriousness about life was the same as my own, who evaluated things and people with approximately the same standard as I, and whose whole being fi­ nally has a strengthening effect upon me." The separation was painful. Nietzsche wrote that he had not fully appreciated

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Schopenhauer until then. He sought consolation reading a few pages of the Parerga.64 The military deprived Nietzsche not only of Rohde' s compan­ ionship but of the considerable gratification he had got from his philological activity in Leipzig. To compensate, perhaps, one of the projects he set himself for this year away from the university was to organize and edit a Festschrift for Ritschl, a collection of scholarly essays by the already scattered members of the Philological Socie ty . Nietzsche was pleased when Rohde finished and submitted his paper, but by the beginning of May 1 868 it was clear that the other contributors were too busy, taking their state examinations, accept­ ing jobs as schoolteachers, getting married-all too preoccupied with their personal lives.65 This provoked Nietzsche to bitter criti­ cism of philology and philologists. The very philological project in which he invested himself while away from Leipzig was contribut­ ing to his disillusion. Nietzsche complained that there was far too little true enthusi­ asm (Begeisterung) among young philologists, students and instructors alike. Most were morally stunted as a result of senseles s memorizing while neglecting their spiritual development, and the few who were more than mnemonic drudges were vain and arro­ gant. Even Jakob Bernays, the most brilliant young philologist in ' Nietzsche's estimation, indulged his vanity intemperately.66 Nietzsche could see no one who was capable of both a philosophi� cal view of his discipline and an ethical attitude toward life, taking : both of these adjectives in their Schopenhauerian sense. He fanta�i, sized that he and Rohde would dedicate their careers to combating this situation. Not that they would change the climate-.- , Schopenhauer had taught them better than to expect success. They, would merely do their part so that a few young philologists might,' be "born with the necessary skepticism, free from pedantry and the i overestimation of their discipline, and as true promoters of hu� manistic studies." "Soyons de notre siecle," he wrote. "Let' s be citizens;,! of our own century" would be their motto, flatly contradicting the'·, ethos of professional philology.67 The two friends would thus leaven the philological profession with philosophy�, ; Schopenhauer's. Nietzsche did not relish this task; rather, he reo garded it as an ethical obligation, a duty. As a philologist he was anxious to give his own writing a more, explicit philosophical orientation. After he finished a few of the philological tasks he already had pending, he hoped to turn to writ-,\

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ing a book about Greek literary history from a Schopenhauerian p oint of view. He even managed to make a considerable number of notes on the subject, notes that indicate he had already decided th at the historicist ambition of Ranke and others to understand " h oW it really was," or "wie es eigentlich gewesen," was misconceived. Literary history, he recognized, had always been written in the ser­ vice of contemporary philosophical needs; his ambition was to re­ veal the malaise of a positivistic generation that thought it had no such n eeds (nor any such philosophy).68 As it happened, Nietzsche only made notes for this project; but it was in this spirit that he wrote The Birth of Tragedy a few years later. Another fantasy that Nietzsche shared with Rohde was the idea of working and studying in Paris, "the capital of civilization."69 This idea contained the desire to do something relevant, in particular studying modern science; but it also showed an inclination to bohemianism, and frustration with the expected and acceptable ca­ reer choices. It was an excellent plan, and it would be interesting to speculate on how Nietzsche' s career would have turned out, had he gone to Paris. He was still planning the move when he returned to Leipzig in the fall of 1 868; only the call to the professorship i n Basel finally killed the plan. B y that time, however, the trip had come to represent an abandonment of philology for further study , in the natural sciences-a complete change of career. Nietzsche' s fantasies were punctured in March of 1 868, when after five months of military service he accidentally fell off his horse.7o Suddenly he found himself in bed with broken ribs and torn muscles in his chest. His wound became infec�ed and festered for months until he was finally remanded to a mili tary-sanatorium for the month ofJuly; his year of military service expired before he could get back into the saddle. As unpleasant as this ordeal was, it did give Nietzsche time to sift through his papers. Whereas most of what he had done while in training had been speculative and fanci­ ful, he was now faced with the necessity of doing something con­ crete. As a result, his ambivalence about philology became more pronounced. Much of the philological work that he did after his accident was drudgery. He spent a good deal of time making an index for the first twenty years of Ritschl's Das Rheinische Museumfiir Philologie. It was a mindless task, and he despised it; doing it only out of loyalty to "father Ritschl," as he called him in a letter to Rohde. Then he revised several of his own Leipzig papers for publication in the

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samejournal. Sometimes he could convince himself that these pap ers were permeated by a Schopenhauerian pessimism and that they led toward a truly philosophical philology. At other times, however, he was depressed that he had not the time to improve them by making his philosophical position more explicit and prominent; and yet he was only too glad to get rid of them by sending them off for Rits chl to publish. At the end of the year he complained that his publi ca­ tions distressed him: wasn't it a mistake to publish such stu ff, largely false, insignificant, immaturely expressed? This regret, partIy the result of Nietzsche's deepened capacity for self-criticis m, also reflects his growing impatience with the genre of scholarly writing, and deep displeasure at his own involvement in it.71 His most persistent concern after his accident was the prosp ect of writing a thesis. He would have to write one if he was to avoid taking the Staatsexamen and becoming a school teacher, and that was out of the question. He was contemptuou s of philology stu ­ dents whose professional ambition was no higher than to get a se­ cure job and marry. But by now he had nearly as much disdain for the idea of writing a thesis as he did for the Staatsexamen. He advised Rohde not to use the paper he, Rohde, had prepared for the Ritsch l Festschrift, as a thesis: it was far too good for that purpose. Rather, he should choose a subject at random, insignificant, boring, com: mensurate with the requirement; with that the convention of a dis­ sertation would be admirably fulfilled.72 To Paul Deussen, who had by now seen the error of his ways and changed from theology to philology, Nietzsche wrote several schoolmasterly letters on Deussen's pretentious dissertation plans; he instructed Paul to think of himself as a factory worker and his professor as the employer: he should do any job assigned to him, no matter how trivial, and above all not expect to express himself creatively. He himself, he wrote, was beyond that. He was thor­ oughly disillusione d with the whole genre of philological writi ng. He was planning instead to write a philosophical dissertation on "the concept of the organic since Kant."73 Nietzsche declared his interest in a philosophical dissertation to Rohde as well, but admit­ ted that it was a rather impractical idea; instead he would write a dissertation on the mythic competition between Homer and Hesiod, incorporating his Schopenhau erian view of literary his­ tory.74 He proposed this to Ritschl too and it eventually became the subject of his inaugural lecture at Basel. But he never did write a thesis.

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Instead of writing a dissertation, Nietzsche busied himself with sch openhauer. He propagandized for Schopenhauer, even making a co nvert of a Naumburg pastor. He thought of putting himself in con tact with prominent S chopenhauerians like Friedrich Sp ie lhagen, Eugen Diihring, and Julius Frauenstadt. To Gersdorff he su ggested that they get their "philosophical friends together," as if to organize a Schopenhauer Verein.75 At the same time, Nietzsche felt a growing ambivalence. Schopenhauer had made philology seem trivial, and Nietzsche was anxious to give his philological publicatio�s the saving grace of a philosophical point of view drawn from Schopenhauer. He might even have written about Schopenhauer himself. But when Nietzsche sat down to write about Sch openhauer, he found himself quite critical. Nietzsche believed the value ofSchopenhauer's contribution to philosophy depended upon the viability of the concept of "will" that he employed to solve Kant's problem of metaphysics. "The wil i ," Nietzsche now noted, was open to a number of "decisive ob­ jections;" unfortunately he did not spell them out. But Nietzsche apparently saw that he would have to affirm the will rather than renounce and suppress it, as Schopenhauer advocated. Perhaps this was also the first inkling that he would have to oppose meta­ physics itself. But there can be no doubt that Nietzsche concluded at this point that Schopenhauer's solution to the problem of meta­ physics had failed.76 Nietzsche nevertheless reconciled himself to continued loyalty and devotion to Schopenhauer. For while Schopenhauer was phil­ osophically wrong, he was a genius, and an invalu-al:>l � ethical preceptor. Nietzsche's alP-bivalence about Schopenhauer explains why he did not abandon philology for a dissertation on "the concept of the organic since Kant." Such a project would have involved him in a public critique of his ideal. What is odd is that his notes suggesting a comprehensive negation of Schopenhauer's system of thought have no precedent in his correspondence, not even with Rohde. Schopenhauer was his master, his "first love," the ideal after whom he refashioned his intellect, and yet suddenly he was in a position to mount a frontal, intellectual attack upon him. It is as if he had innocently applied his intellectual skills to his master, and before he realized what he had done, had laid the master' s system in ruins. Paul Deussen sensed that Nietzsche was no longer in agreement with Schopenhauer, at just the time he was catching up and becom-

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ing a disciple of Schopenhauer himself. Deussen suggested that Nietzsche write a critique of the philosopher, only to be brusquely r�buffed. ��th the r�mark tha� one does not refute a Weltanschauung WIth lOgIC. And NIetzsche dId not actually make this attack up Schopenhauer in print until many years later. He was still holdinong back his criticism when he wrote "Schopenhauer as Educator" in 1 874. This peculiar situation is understandable as a functi on Nietzsche's p�ychological attach ment to Schop enhauer. Havinofg chosen the phIlosopher for a father figure, he naturally discover conflicting feelings for him. The natural ground upon which etod criticize him was intellectual, and Nietzsche's intelle ctual obj ec. tions to Schop enhauer's concep t of the will may have been wel founded. But Nietzsche was not so impetu ous as to throw off hisl· discip leship to Schop enhauer altogether, simply becau se he dis· agreed with him intellectually. His refusal to reject Schop enhau at this point demonstrates again that with Schopenhauer he waers worki ng through unresolved feelings about his father. He was also redefi ning himself-becoming a philosopher in the steadfastly honest sense in which he understood Schop enhauer to have been philos opher. He was becoming someone who could philos ophizea as Schopenhauer did, rather than simply someone who accep ted Schopenhauer's conclusions. This is what a prospective genius must do-reach the level of the genius who has been his model, and then overcome or go be­ y� nd � im. He must transcend his model in order to becom e a ge­ nIUS hImself. In 1 868 Nietzsche was just beginn ing to realize that he would have to do this; and his reluctance to take this step shows in his letter to Deussen, rejecting the idea of a critique of Schoo penhauer's ideas. ••

On his way to the sanatorium in July 1 868, Nietzs che passed t�rough Leipzig and visited a number of friend s, includ ing the RItschls . The high point of his trip, he wrote, was conversatio n and playing the piano with Frau Ritschl. He notified his family and Rohde that she was now his intimate Freundin, a term that almost connotes "girl friend" here. 78 What they played together was Wagner, about whose music Nietzsche still had serious reserv tions. But now he began to speak of Schopenhauer and Wagner ina­ the same breath. Frau Ritschl also inspired him with a desire to

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nter more actively into the social life of Leipzig; his entree would e Frau Brockhaus, sister of Richard Wagner, and Sophie Rits chl's best friend. There is an oedipal dimension to this seu do- romantic enthusiasm for the wife of his Doktorvater. And is aspiration to an exciting social life again seems rather unrealis­ tic given his formal demeanor. But these unexpressed hopes and feeli n gs seem to have temporarily reconciled his ambivalences, bringing him back to Leipzig and philology with enthusiasm and a fresh disposition. Nietzsche returned to Leipzig in the autumn of 1 868 to a new style of life, definitely not the life of a student. He referred to him­ self in his letters as "Leipzig's future Privatdozent" and even signed hi s name with "Dr." although he had not begun to write the doc­ toral dissertation. He took a room with the prominent Leipzig fam­ ily of Karl Biedermann, who was a natio �al �olitician, hi.storian, and editor, as well as a professor at the unIversIty. There NIetzsche could expect to meet many of Leipzig's important people. He met the editor of the Literarisches Centralblatt and began to contribute articles to it. And he got himself appointed theater critic for the Deu tsche allgemeine Zeitung (Biedermann, his landlord, was the editor of that periodical). He attended the theater and concerts reg­ ularly, often in the company of Frau Ritschl (but apparently never with a woman his own age), and took a close interest in theatrical personalities such as the actress Hedwig Raabe, and Heinrich Laube, the new director of Leipzig's Gewandhaus theater. He went to teas, suppers, and parties, avidly meeting important people. He was eager to enter creative circles, and apparently �ager to enter upon a creative life of his own, even ifhe was unsure precisely what he would create. Nietzsche's le tters to friends, describing these activities, also changed. In listing all the things he was doing, and mentioning all the people he met (and even those he could have met had he cho­ sen to make the effort), he seems to have lost all modesty. 79 He shows no empathic awareness of how his friends might feel reading such letters, nor does he seem to consider th(:lt his style of life and sense of importance conflicted with his discipleship to Schopenhauer. This aggressive self-affirmation in his correspon­ dence paralleled his aggressive new social life. Unaccompanied by any new creative achievement, however, Nietzsche's changed atti­ tude about himself seems more of a prelude than the realization of a new creative self.

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It is hard to know how long Nietzsche could have maintain ed this pace in Leipzig, since other things happened even faster. B e fore a single semester of his renewed student life could pass, he had met RI.�hard Wagner and been appointed professor of classical phi­ lology In Basel. These fateful events marked his life as much as any others.

Nietzsche was won over to Wagner and his mus ic in the mon ths before he actually met the com poser. While he had been fami l with Wagner's mus ic since Gustav Krug had introduce d him iar to it in the Germania, until October 1 866 he had opp osed it as mod ern and cac�phonous. Then, playing piano excerpts from The Valkyrie, he realIzed that he had "very mixed feeli ngs," and wrot Gersdorff that "the great beau ties and virtues [of this mus e to ic] are balanced by equally great uglin ess and weakness es."8o He was ambivale nt about Wagner when he played the pian o score still Meistersinger with Frau Ritschl in the summer of 1 868. But histo The est mus t have been active, since it was he who introduced her inter� to the m� sic. Between that event and his return to Leipzig in Octo NIetzsche read Otto Jahn 's Essays on Music, inclu ding the oneber, Wagner,8l and reported to Rohde: "One has to have a certa on thusiasm to do such a man [as Wagner] justice; Jahn has an in en� tive resistance to him , however, and seems to listen with half-instinc­ ears .': Ni �tzsche nonetheless admits that he agrees withJahn closed acterIZatIon of Wagner as the foremos t represen tative of a 's char­ modern �endency i� music to drag all modes of artistic expression toge Into confusIon. And yet Nietzsche is amazed at the range of Wag ther talent, which may even permit the composer to transcend ner's dilettan" tism i? his quest for the Gesamtkunstwerk. Furthermore he fault for blIndness to Wagner's "ethical" personality: the energy, sJahn and truthfulness that Wagner shared with Schopenhauer.82 vital ity, In this muc h more positive frame of min Nietzsche attended a conce�t of Wagnerian mus ic in Leipzig on dOcto ber 27. The pro­ gram Included the overtures to Tristan and Isolde and The Meis tersin- . ger. Under the immediate impression of this mus icon the same day-he wrote again to Rohde:

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I cann ot brin g it over my heart to reac t to this musi c with a cool criti­ cal mind. My every fiber, every nerv e vibra tes to this mus ic. And I have hardly ever had such a lastin g feeli ng of release as upon liste ning . to thIS overture [to The Meistersinger]. 83

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So it was perhaps The Meistersinger that finall.y. won N.ietz� che over Image he to Wag'nerian music, adding to the very pOSItiVe ethIcal ' . 'T'he Mezstersznger had of Wagner's personality. And It was aI eady at brought him face to face with Wagner, for it had been The eistersinger that he had played with Frau Ritschl. November 1 868, Wagner came secretly to Leipzig to .sitInhisearly sister Otilie Brockhaus, wife of the orientalist Professor ermann Brockhaus and Sophie Ritschl's best friend. Frau Ritschl as invited to meet him at her friend's home. In the course of the vening Wagner played piano excerpts fro� The .z:teistersinge�. Frau Ritschl told him that she was already famIlIar WIth the musIC and had played it with a young student, whom Wagn�r immediatel� d� .. manded to meet. So Nietzsche was invited to dInner and an IntI­ mate evening with the composer on November 8. As the day progressed he was in a state of ne:vous �nticipation. and got into a fight with a tailor who had promIsed hIm a ne� SUIt for the oc�a­ sion. First the suit was not ready. Then, when It was finally delIv­ ered to him half an hour before he was expected by the Brockhauses, the messenger demanded immediate payment, which the student was unable to make. With Nietzsche trying to put the suit on and the tailor's helper trying to take it back, it was ripped and Nietzsche had to go in his old suit. But the evening went wonderfully anyway. Wagner was in an expansive mood. He not only played hIS. music on the piano before and after dinner, he read humorous pas­ sages from his autobiography, spoke about his youth in Leipzig (using the Leipzig dialect to great effect), and made gr� at fun of the music directors who were (incompetently) attempting to perform his music. Wagn�r overwhelmed Nietzsche with the great vigor of his personality. But he also conversed intimately with Nietzsch� about Schopenhauer and how deeply indebted he was to the phI­ losopher, giving him the feeling that they had a good deal in com­ mon. Before the evening was over Wagner had invited Nietzsche to visit him in Tribschen (near Lucerne, Switzerland) where he was then living, so that they could "make music and philosophy to­ gether." And in the meantime he charged Nietzsche with the re­ sponsibility of instructing the Brockhaus family in Wagnerian music.84 This was one of the most exhilarating experiences of Nietzsche's life, comparable only to his discovery ofSchopenhauer in the used-book store, and his success with his first paper before

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the Philological Society. In fact, in terms reminiscent of his descrip_ tion of reading S chopenhauer, he wrote to Rohde that meetin g Wagner had been a kind of self.discovery. He wrote that Wagner was "the most perfect illustration of what Schopenhauer call ed genius: yes, the similarity in all details is so great that it leaps to thea . ' enthusiasm for the gen iu eye. "85 A n d he qUIC kl y merged hIS Wagner with h i s idealization of S chope nhauer. L i ke S c ho penhauer, Wagner was an older man, potentially a comprehensive model for Nietzsche's life endeavors. (Wagner, incidentally, was ex­ a� tly the age Nietzsche' � real fath er would have been.)86 The o nly . dIfference was that by vIrtue of hIS personal accessibility, Wagner was a � ore co ? crete and scrutable ideal than Schopenhauer had . b �en, gIvIng NIetzsche a realistic opportunity to compare himself wIth the ideal. He immediately began to read Wagner's books, in­ . cludIng the ponderous Opera and Drama, and in January 1 869 he of a Wagnet�aveled to Dresden to hear his first full performance . nan opera, Die Meistersinger.

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Nietzsch � mig t never have had a convenient opportunity to visit Wagner I � SWItz�rlan , ut, as it happened, there was an opening for a classIcal phIlologIst In the Swiss city-state of Basel. At the time that Nietzsche was meeting Wagner in Leipzig, Kiessling, a young professor of classical philology, resigned from Basel's university ' . an d Gymnaszum (called the Paedagogium in Basel). Professor . WIlhelm Vi scher-Bilfi nger, president of the Erziehungsrath and a . . . . classIcal phIlologIst hImself, wrote to six of his trusted friends at German universities, soliciting recommendations of worthy young scholars. Many young men were recommended, and F. Nietzsche was mentioned by more than one of Vischer-B ilfinger' s corre­ spondents, but it was Ritschl's letters that secured the j ob for Nietzsche. Ritschl had already written about Nietzsche in a letter to Profes­ sor Kies �ling, who was also a former Ritschl student. (Kiessling had . asked RItschl for advIce about who would be a suitable replace­ ment, and specifically about Nietzsche, whose articles he had read i� Das Rheinische Museumfur Philologie.) Now, in answering Vischer� BIlfi ? ger on D �cember 9, 1 868, Ritschl sent him a copy of his letter . to KIesslIng, wIth an explanation. Ritschl had written that if the B �sel au horities could see beyond the formal difficulty of . NIetzsche s not havIng been granted a doctorate which no author. ities had ever done, they would have a perfect r placement. Warn-

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' ng that neither Kiessling nor any of Ritschl's other students (who nc lu dedJakob Bernays) should take offense, he proceeded to give th is categorical judgmen t of Nietzsche:

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A s many young scholars as I have seen developing under my supervi­ sion in the last 39 years, I have never known a young man, never tried to advance the career of anyone in my discipline, who so early and so young was as mature as this Nietzsche.

Ritschl goes on in the letter to note that Nietzsche had written his es­ says, by now published in Das Rheinische Museum, in his second and third years at the university, and that he was the first student from who m he had ever accepted articles for publication. He continues, it-I prop hecy that he will stand I f he l ives long- and may God grant s. He is now twen ty-four years in the front rank of German philo logist in body and spirit , well built, old, strong, vigorous, healthy, valia nt addit ion he has an enviable and made to impr ess similar natures. In publi c. He is the objec t of abilit y to speak clearly and persu asive ly in to be) of the whol e philo ­ admi ratio n and the leader (with out want ing the time when they will logical world of Leipz ig, who can hardly await I am descr ibing a kind of hear him as their doce nt. You will say that st and appro achab le be­ "phe nome non;" well, he is that, and mode repu tation [on my opin ion sides. . . . I woul d stake my entire acade mic in Base l] woul d turn out hapthat appo intin g Nietz sche to the post . pily.s7

le for the fact that it This remarkable letter is even more remarkab ' b for Nietzsche . thejo Was not written in the hope of actually getting s woul d be able to Governed by a tone of regret that no authoritie ul letter to a former see beyond the lack of a doctorate, it is a wistf Vischer-Bi lfing er student, belat edly used as his answer to Professor ssful appl icatio n. succe in Base l. It was, however, the begin ning of a Professor Her­ Visch er-Bi lfinger also received a letter from s artic les and mann U sener in Bonn . U sener had read Nietzsche' author, even had been suffic iently impressed to recommend their er-Bi lfinger Visch So though he hims elf had never met Nietz sche. further abou t wrote to Ritschl on January 5, 1 869, inqu iring lfinger for his Nietzsch e. In answer, Ritsc hl first prais ed Visch er-Bi rtatio n, not­ willingne ss even to consi der his pupi l witho ut a disse ook bure au­ overl to as d ing that no one else woul d be so enlightene cand idate . l cratic custo m in the inter est of a truly excep tiona

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Ritschl answered questions that the Basel professor had appare ntly asked: ( l ) that Nietzsche would be willing to teach six hours at the Paedagogium; (2) that he would be satisfied with the compensation and working conditions offered at Basel; and (3) that he was n ot such a Prussian that he could not adapt to Swiss political and s ocial life and custom. Ritschl obviously intended to show that Nietzsche would accept the job if offered it. He wrote that Nietzsche was an unpolitical person, not a Prussian nationalist; he characterized his pupil as an unselfconscious liberal. He noted that Nietzsche's con. centration had been in Greek literary history, with special empha. sis upon philosophical texts, but that if teaching in any other area should be required of him, Nietzsche would master the material quickly and profitably. He concluded his recommendation with the thought that Nietzsche would "be able to do everything that he wants to do."88 With this letter, Nietzsche's appointment had practically been secured. Nietzsche himself still had to write a letter (February 1, 1 869), explaining his willingness to accept the job if it were offered to him, to propose what he might teach, and give a brief (and not very personal) autobiography.89 Then Vischer·Bilfinger had to con. vince his fellows in the Erziehungsrath, as well as the mayor and gov. erning council of the city of Basel, that Friedrich Nietzsche was the right man for the job. On January 29 Vischer-Bilfinger formally recommended to the mayor that Nietzsche be hired to replace Kiessling.90 This was routinely approved on February 1 0, 1 869. The official letter of appointment was written to Nietzsche on the twelfth.91 The rest followed quickly. Nietzsche at first thought that he would revise his work on Diogenes Laertius as a doctoral thesis. But that proved unnecessary. On March 23 the University of Leipzig conferred a doctorate upon him in recognition of his publications in Das Rheinische Museum. Then, after some deliberation, Nietzsche decided to give up his Prussian citizenship so that he would be in­ dependent of Prussian military service in the event of a war. His application to be relieved of his citizenship was approved on April 1 7, 1 869. (By not maintaining constant residence in Switzerland or anywhere else, he never secured Swiss or any other citizenship, but remained stateless for the rest of his life.) After a leisurely trip from N aumburg by way of Cologne, Bonn, Heidelberg (where he wrote his inaugural lecture on Homer and Hesiod in his hotel room), and · Baden-Baden (where he attended another performance of

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Wagner's Meistersinger), he arrived i n Basel o n April 1 9. H e would b egin �eaching in May. It was an unparalleled appointme nt. Quite aside from the econom ic security and enhanced social status that he would get as a university professor, it was an honor to have been hired in this ex­ traordinary manner. Franziska and Elisabeth Nietzsche reacted with great-and from Friedrich's point of view, excessive- enthusi­ asm . A job was one thing his mother could appreciate. (While Nietzsche had confided the possibility of the appointme nt to Erwin Rohde in advance, he kept the negotiations a secret from his family until the very end.) Rohde wrote him an extremely sensitive letter of encouragemen t and indeed of condolence , for he knew that Nietzsche was not as enthusiastic about his appointme nt as virtu­ ally any other philology student would have been. He knew how mu ch it would hurt Nietzsche to give up his plan to study in Paris. And all his more diffuse ambitions in music, literature, and even philosophy would have to be subordinated to the demands of his j ob. Nietzsche's deep sense of responsibil ity would not have per­ mitted him to accept thejob and consciously neglect the profession of philology. The time for recriminatio n against philology seemed to have passed. Nietzsche was no longer a philology student thinking of be­ com ing a philosopher or a natural scientist. He was a professor of philology, a philologist by profession. So in March of 1 869 he wrote a painfully honest reflection on how he had become one. Nietzsche begins with the thought that it is generally interesting to know how one becomes a philologist these days; after all, in the late nineteenth century there are many mor<e vital and wor­ thy disciplines that one might study. There are those who are at­ tracted to philology by the prospect of a secure job; those who are sent into philology unresistingly, like lambs to the slaughter, , by their own philology teachers; there are those who are born to teach, but not necessarily philology; and finally, "there is a small community who glory in the aesthetic pleasures of the world of Greek [artistic] forms, and an even smaller one for whom the ideas of the ancient thinkers have not yet been thought through to the end." Surprisingly, Nietzsche does not count himself among the lat­ ter. He knows that he is not any one of these exclusively. Having let himself be led into philology by his teachers, from Schulpforta to Leipzig, and done so in order to escape from theology and the pas-

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torat�' he s� sp�cts t�at he is not a "spec ificall y philo logical na. . �ure, , but a phIlologIst by resIgn ation ." He can only conclude th

. at . In becom ing a p h·l1 0 I OgiSt he has given up art and philosophy. He feels that he has abandoned his creative self and resigned him self . schaft or schol to Wzssen arship without a true "caIH ng."92 It was a depre ssing note on which to begin a profe ssion a l reer. No wonder that later, in The Birth of Tragedy and in his ca. other books , he had so much energy for revenge upon schol arship .

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ietzsche arrived in Basel by train on April 1 9, 1 869, several weeks before he would begin teaching. Twenty-four years old, he already wore a moustache, although it was still a modest one. No dandy, he dressed in a black suit without any pretence, and wore small, oval-shaped spectacles. He was unremarkable in appearance, except that he gave the impression of staring. Nietzsche moved into a small apartment in the new street, "Am Schiitzengraben." It was at the edge of the city where the old forti­ fications had recently been leveled to make room for urban expan. sion. It was a splendid location, a mere ten-minute walk from the university and remarkably similar to that of his mother's home on the edge of Naumburg. It also gave Nietzsche immediate access to the gardens and fields outside the city. Nietzsche now made walk­ ing his principal form of exercise and relaxation, a custom he kept for the rest of his life. Looking northward into Germany and France, furthermore, he had a view of both the Black Forest and the Vosges Mountains. Nonetheless, he would orient himself toward Switzerland, particularly toward Lucerne, where Richard Wagner was living.

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Nietzsche had grown so critical of classical philology that he was ready to abandon it even before he left Leipzig, so it is surpris-

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ing to find that he was such an energetic and even optimistic philol­ ogist when he arrived in Basel. He proved to be an excellent teacher who won praise for his work both at the University of Basel and in the Paedagogium (a Gymnasium or high school). He lived modestly and continued to research, write, and publish in philol­ ogy for several years. He certainly did not scorn his profession or act the part of an arrogant genius in Basel. Only the furor caused by the publication of The Birth of Tragedy in 1 872 made him real ize how far beyond the bounds of professional philology his thinking had carried him, and he was not entirely pleased by that. Nietzsche's inaugural lecture, "Homer and Classical Philol­ ogy," delivered in Basel on May 28, 1 869, is actually an apology for the discipline of professional philology.l Nietzsche attacked the view-exemplified by quotations drawn from Goethe and Schil­ ler-that philology had drained the life from the aesthetic ideals of the past by treating them scientifically rather than imaginatively.2 Nietzsche on the contrary argued that phil o logy deserved credit for recovering and revivifying Hellenic aesthetic and cultural ideals. And he referred not to that great amateurJ.]. Winckelmann, whose studies of ancient art had stimulated Goethe and Schiller, but to the founder of professional philology, Friedrich August Wolf, and the tradition of scholarly German philology inspired by him in the · nineteenth century.3 It may seem curious that he should have ar� gued this way when he had been writing in precisely the opposite vein only weeks before, but in now putting a good face on philol­ ogy he was apparently trying to convince himself as much as his auditors that the profession was still a worthy endeavor. In "Homer and Classical Philology" Nietzsche reviews the ques� tion of Homer's authorship of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Homer's," authorship had first been disputed in a serious philological way by Wolf, and the question had served as a focus of philological study ever since. So Nietzsche could treat it as an example of how profes­ sional philology had gradually "bridged the gap between the ideal of Antiquity-which is perhaps only the most beautiful bloom of German love-longing for the south-and the real antiquity."4 The ' ! view of the poetic genius Homer that had prevailed before Wolf was so unrealistic, according to Nietzsche, that "Homer" was noth7 , ing but an empty name. Professional philology, by showing how various hands must have been involved in the creation of different episodes, had made the great poems and even their anonymous au­ thors more accessible. But philologists had gone too far in the

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other direction, he thought, ascribing nearly everything to tradi­ tion and nothing to genius; they had made the poems seem nothing more than the result of stories passed from one untutored gene�a­ tion to another. Nietzsche argued, however, that one cannot dISense with the genius of the individual poets who wrote the pisodes, and he concluded somewhat dramatically that there was a geniU S who put the pieces all together to make the great poemsonly his name was not Homer.5 The discipline of classical philology had gone dIrectly agaInst the main stream of nineteenth-century thinking on the question of H omer' S originality. It had denied the role of the genius, the con­ cep t that otherwise dominated European thinking about creativity in the arts and sciences. Nietzsche's inaugural lecture focuses clearly upon the genius and the necessary role of a creative individ­ ual. It demonstrates how preoccupied Nietzsche was with the ge­ niu s theme, even before he became so familiar with Richard Wagner. But Nietzsche's lecture displays his. ambivalen �e in u �ex­ p ected ways. Since his conclusion goes agaInst the. graIn of nIne­ teenth-century philological research on Homer, It threatens to undermine his declared purpose of defending philology. The lec­ ture is not actually a philological essay at all, since the inferences about the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey are drawn without any reference to the texts themselves, nor is it a critical history of philo­ logical contributions to the Homeric question. Rather, it is a the ?­ retical essay on creativity, a disquisition on how the HomerIC poems must have been written. Even in defending philology, Nietzsche avoided practicing it. The most paradoxical aspect of Nietzsche's inaugural lecture, however, is his concluding plea for gratitude, a plea that he makes "not in our name-for we are but atoms-but in the name of phi1010gy."6 Here, in an apparently conventional gesture of modesty, Nietzsche ascribes the creative work of philology to the group and to the tradition of the discipline, rather than to himself (or anyone else) as an individual. What he argues for the creators of the Home­ ric poems apparently does not pertain to philologists. It is as if he could not admit that philologists could be creative, or as ifhe could not admit himself to be the individual author of a novel interpreta­ tion of the Homeric question. This casual remark turns out to be the most critical passage in the inaugural lecture, for it reveals Nietzsche's own predicament: while he believed in the theory of the genius, he could not yet apply it to himself.

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For several years Nie tzsc he had bee n penhauer as an exemplary gen ius; emulati pre occupi ed by S choo ng Sch ope nhauer, h e ob. viou sly aspired to be or bec om e a gen ius him self. He also wanted t o �e a good philol?gist, especial� y now that he had accepted the job In Bas el. But whIle he was actIng as a profess ion al phi lolo gist h e evidently cou ld not beli eve in his own creativity. As mu ch as he wanted to affirm the profess ion al pos itio n he had accepted, hi s deeper beli ef that phi lology was an unc reative endeavor shOWed through. It was with this ambivalence abo ut him self and his profes. sion that Nietzsche ann oun ced him self to the intellectual worl d of Basel. Luckily, Basel was a qui et and unp rete ntio us pla ce for Nie tzsche to work out his ambivalence. The Swi ss federation was loosely knit, and the goals of the liberal Revolu tion of 1 848 had bee n largely realized there while they wer e repressed in the rest of Eur ope . It has bee n suggested that livin g in Switzerland per mitted Nie tzsche to escape German nation alis m to bec om e "on e of the first Europeans of modern stam p." The Franco ·Pru ssia n War would drag him briefly back into the Pru sor of phi lology in Basel, Nie tzsche did ssia n orb it. But as profes. not have to rep rese nt Ger. man Wissenschajt to the world, as he wou ld have bee n exp ecte d to, do if he had bee n teaching in Berlin. As a result of a reorganization of Swiss canton s in 1 833 , how­ ever, the city of Basel had bee n shorn of its pro vin ce and thus much of its tax base. For several decades it see med doubtfu l whether the city cou ld continue to sup port its venera ble university, whi ch had been in continu ous operation since 146 0. As the city tried to econ. om ize, many profess ors had to teach at the Paedagogium in addi. . tion to lecturing at the university; Nie tzsche was b y n o mea ns the onl y one with such a con tract. You ng pro pro mo ted at Bas el, either, even when they fess ors cou ld seld om be had proven their worth, Those from outside Switzerland tended to move back to better po. sitio ns in Germany after a few years. Nie tzsc respect, staying in Basel until 1 879 , whe he was unu sual in this n ill health forced him to retire. It might have been difficul t for Nie tzsche to get ano ther job after the pub lication of The Birth oj Trag edy, but he made no atte mp t to find one . He stayed there so long, it see ms, primarily bec aus e his am biti on was not fixe d upo n a career of pro motion s in the univer. sity world. He was preoccupi ed with the con stru ctio n of him self as an intellectual, perhaps as a gen ius, and with the pur suit of his ideas in wri ting . But this was a pri vat e preoccupation , con sist ent

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dedication to his for the. time being at least with his conscientious . w ork at the university and the Paed agoglum. In addition to the six hours of Greek and Latin that he taught at the. P aedagogium, Nietzsche regularly taught seven hours at the rsl' ty. In his first semester, he gave two lecture courses and a u nive . ar at the university. The range of subjects he treate d .In th ese semIn . cou rse s is extremely broad, from Hesiod an� the pre-SocratIc p h. 1-' losophers among early Greek writers to LatIn epIgraphy a.nd C �cero . S 0 me of his lectures were naturally devoted to subjects In h ' h he had particular interest; for example, Aeschyi us and ear1y r k philosophy. But for the most part the subjec�s were se1ecte? to fit the needs of Basel's students, and ac� ordlng to ho� hIS cou rses would fit into the curriculum alongsIde those of hIS col· leagues. . Several testimonials exist to the excellence ofN Ietzsch e' s teac h . . apIng. During the first several years-until The Birth. oj Tragedy . d th d-he was a popular teacher both at the unIverSIty an . e are pe . . 11 f h ' Paedagogium. His authority as a teacher derIved p �rtIa y :om IS knowledge; the students too were aware that for hIS age NIetzsche had an awesome command of the ancient languages and texts. But his youth also brought him close to them, and they could feel that he understood their difficulties. He was not aloof. Students worked hard for him, and his colleagues appreciated the fact. As one col· . They league later wrote, "His students loved and respected hIm. saw that he could empathize with their you th, a? d they under�tood . . . that no shroud of dusty scholarship had dlmlnls�: d hIS own Intel· lectual youth or vigor." 8 In contrast to his immediate success WIth students, NIetzsche had to contend with the initial disfavor of his two immediate col­ leagues when he arrived in Basel. For different reasons both of them had opposed his appointment. Professo� F. D. Gerlach was seventy-six years old when Nietzsche was appoInted. He had been professor of Latin at Basel since 1 820, and had � een off� nded once before by the appointment of a young man (NIetzsche s predece �­ sor Kiessling) trained by Ritschl in more modern methods of phI­ lology. Gerlach raged against Vischer·Bilfinger and seems never to have spoken a civil word to Nietzsche. The younger of the two col­ leagues, ]. A. Mahly, was disappointed because he h �d hoped to be . promoted himself from his duties in the Paedagoglum to the Job that Nietzsche got at the university. Unl �ke G:erlach, however, he was courteous to Nietzsche when he arrIved In Basel, and fou nd

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found Nietzsche to be an agreeable colleague. Mahly left an inter­ esting memoir of Nietzsche during these first years in Basel. H e contrasted Nietzsche's warmth and politeness with the resentful at­ titude of Gerlach, and he praised the tolerance and attention that Nietzsche showed to everyone he met_ However, one of Mahly' s most interesting remarks concerns the difference between the per­ sonable Nietzsche that he knew from conversation and the Nietzsche who wrote books. If one had got used to N ietzsche's manner and tone of conversation, his friendly interest in the views and opinions of others, even those far inferior to him, . . . one could only be astonished, if not horrified, at the metamorphosis that this gentle and harmless person underwent as an author . . . . [Except in his writings], N ietzsche was a thoroughly inoffensive person and enjoyed the sympathy of all the colleagues who knew him.9

Nietzsche's agreeable disposition, his serious application to scholarshi p, and his devotion to teaching were recognized by the authorities as well. They wanted to keep him in Basel badly enough to promote him and raise his salary. He had been appointed in 1 869 with a salary of 3000 Swiss Francs. In April 1 870 he was pro­ moted to "ordentlicher Professor," or professor with tenure, on the basis of having received his doctorate, and having been a good diligent teacher. A year and a half later, in October 1 87 1 , he was · granted a raise of 500 Francs for excellence in teaching, and with: grateful acknowledgement of the fact that Nietzsche had declined, "an advantageous offer." Through an accident of family connections, Nietzsche had been offered a position as princely tutor. Princess Alexandra von Altenburg was one of the three princesses who had been tutored by Nietzsche's father, Ludwig Nietzsche, before he assumed the pas­ torate in Rocken. She was to visit Basel in August 1 869. Nietzsche's mother wrote to tell him of the impending visit. She instructed him to meet the princess at the railway station with flowers. He did that, · . conducted her to her hotel with her retainers, spent the eve with her, and even accompanied her to Triebschen to visit Wagner; He must have been a charming host, for he was eventu�lly a job as tutor to the princess's children. He reported this offer to the Basel authorities, who, not wanting to lose him, raised his salary to Swiss Fr. 3500 per annum. (Nietzsche's salary was raised to Swi

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Emulating Geniuses Fr.

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4000 in January 1 872, again, apparently, in recognition of his having declined an offer of employment, this time at the University of Greifswald.) Nietzsche reported all of these events to his mother and to Professor Ritschl without noticeable enthusiasm. Again, it seem s he was not particularly impressed with himself as a professor. In spite of his success as a professor, Nietzsche did not make a l rea friendship in Basel until he had been there a whole year. In his isolation, his correspondence with Deussen once more became warm, and he wrote frequently to Gersdorff. But he missed the companionship of equals that he enjoyed with Rohde most of all. Rohde visited him in June 1 870 for two weeks. They hiked in the mountains, visited Jacob Burckhardt at his home outside of Basel, and spent a couple of days with the Wagners in Triebschen. Rohde was similarly impressed by Wagner, and the friends parted with re­ newed fervor in their intellectual-ideological partisanship. (They would remain friends for several years more-Rohde would de­ fend Nietzsche in the controversy over The Birth of Tragedy. But when Nietzsche's published works became progressively more ex­ treme in the 1 880s, Rohde could no longer support his friend.) Nonetheless, after a year in Basel, Nietzsche was still without a real friend in Basel. And this he would only ren ledy by chance. Just before Rohde's visit in the summer of 1 870, Nietzsche was introduced to Franz Overbeck. Overbeck came to Basel to assume the post of professor of theology, specializing in historical criticism of the New Testament. It seems that the same Professor Vi scher, Bilfinger who had arranged for Nietzsche's appp}ntment was re­ sponsible for Overbeck's; and he arranged lodgings" for Overbeck in the building where Nietzsche lived. Overbeck was'seven years older than Nietzsche and came from amuch more cosmopolitan family background. He was born in S t. 'Petersburg, Russia, the son of a German-English merchant and his French wife. He grew up speaking French and English at home and Russian in public. He was eleven years old and studying in Paris when the February Revolution broke out in 1 848; he could remem­ ber singing laMarseillaise in the school choir during that time. Later he was sent to Dresden where he completed his secondary educa­ tion at the famous Kreuzschule. He studied theology at Leipzig and Gottingen; and like Nietzsche, Deussen, and many others, he grad­ ually lost his faith. But his dawning disbelief in Christianity did not become the existential crisis that it was for Nietzsche, nor did it

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compel him to abandon the study of theology; he became, for aB practical purposes, a philologist who studied the New Testament, but he got his degree in theology nonetheless. In Basel he publicly disavowed Christianity but continued as professor of New Tes ta­ ment theology. So Overbeck shared a good deal with Nietzsche b e­ sides living in the same dwelling-notably, similar philological training and a consequential atheism. But they did not become the ideological soul mates that Nietzsche and Rohde were, nor was their friendship empowered by the psychological forces that drew · Nietzsche to Wagner. Franz Overbeck was probably not someone that Nietzsche would have sought out. But once they were thrown together in common lodgings, Nietzsche learned the value of his friendsh ip . The two men lived in the same house until Overbeck married in 1873. By that time they had been addressing each other with the famil­ iar pronoun du for two years, signifying considerable intimacy. Their daily association in these years formed the basis of lifelong trust be­ tween them. Even after Overbeck ceased to sympathize with Nietzsche's philosophy in the mid-1 880s, he remained Nietzsche's faithful correspondent and friend. He mediated with the Basel au-. thorities in regard to Nietzsche's pension, and after Nietzsche left Basel in 1879 and broke with his family in the 1880s, the Overbecks were the only home or family he had. When Nietzsche collapsed in· Turin in January 1889, it was Franz Overbeck who went to get him and bring him back to Basel. Overbeck's loyalty to Nietzsche says a great deal about Overbeck. Nietzsche was a very critical and even in- . tolerant person. He knew the formalities that permit one to deal po­ litely with acquaintances and professional associates, but he lacked the consideration and social skills that make friendships last. He was lucky to have found a lifelong friend in Franz Overbeck. Although their friendship did not contribute in any material way to Nietzsche's thinking or writing, it was a rare human sympathy th�t would accompany Nietzsche to the end of his life. •

•

Nietzsche had been in Basel little more than a year when France and Prussia went to war in July 1 870. Nietzsche was noLa particularly close observer of either German or international poli­ tics. Only eighteen months earlier Professor Ritschl had written that "Nietzsche is certainly not a political person. He has, by and large, a sympathy for the growing power of Germany, but has little love for Prussiandom as I do."10

Emulating Geniuses

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Friedrich had even renounced his Prussian citizenship upon tak­ ing up his post as professor, precisely in order to avoid being called away from his teaching responsibilities to serve in the Prussian mil­ itary. But now, when war was actually declared, he felt that he must serve-either as a soldier or a medical orderly. His sense of duty must have derived from a romantic patriotism learned in child­ hood from his family and at school. Not even the Wagners, who were critical of militarism, could dissuade him from volunteering. Nietzsche's relationship to the state had not yet been subjected to the same critical examination that had led him to repudiate Chris­ tianity. Nietzsche applied for a leave of absence. It was granted by the Basel authorities on the condition that he not enlist as a combat soldier. In the interest of Swiss neutrality, they could only permit him to serve as a medic. So on August 1 2, 1 870, Nietzsche left Basel for Erlangen where he took a course in first aid and the care of battle casualties. In ten days he was on his way to the front. On Au­ gust 29 he reached Strasbourg, where the German army had laid siege to the city. Then he was sent on to Nancy and the environs of Metz where heavy fighting was taking place. As he traveled through . France he was horrified by the ravaged countryside and human car­ nage. His patriotic enthusiasm was extinguished by the empathy he felt for French and German soldiers alike. Schopenhauer was again his consolation. In Metz he was assigned to accompany a trainload of wounded soldiers back to Karlsruhe. He arrived there very sick himself, with dysentery and diphtheria. After a brief period of hos. pitalization in Karlsruhe, he was released to recupe:rate at home in Naumburg on September 14. Brief as Nietzsche' s experience of the Franco-Prussian War was, it tested him severely, both physically and emotionally. For the first time as an adult he saw death and asked himself about the meaning of his own life. What he had read in Schopenhauer had to be thought through again. His own creative work became more urgent than ever. During the month he spent in Naumburg his ideas devel­ oped rapidly. In Basel he had already written several essays about tragedy, but it was at this time in Naumburg that he formulated the plan to write a long essay or a book on the history of Attic tragedy.u After a month of recuperation in Naumburg, Nietzsche went back to Basel in October to teach. His health was shaken, his patri­ otism chastened, and his devotion to Schopenhauer strengthened. He was ready to make changes. Sitting in on the lectures ofJakob

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

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Burckhardt, he was exposed for the first time to a careful critique of the modern state. A letter to Gersdorff on November 7, 1 8 70, reveals that he heard Burckhardt's lecture on "Historical Great­ ness," and other lectures that were later published in Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen.12 Burckhardt was also a devotee of Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche's experience of the war had pre­ pared him to agree with these lectures. From that point on, throughout his life, Nietzsche remained a severe critic of Prussian militarism, and of statism generally. Having been exposed to the real world in its most violent and wrenching manifestation, Nietzsche was more impatient than ever with his philological profession. During the winter semester after his military experience, he thought he saw an opportunity for a change. When Basel's professor of philosophy resigned to take an· other position, Nietzsche decided to apply for thejob. It was winter (January 1871) and he was ill again with headaches and general de· bility. In a truly remarkable letter to Professor Vischer-Bilfinger, Nietzsche conceded that his health had forced him to consider giv­ ing up his position. It had seemed that teaching did not agree with his nature, for by the middle of every semester he was exhausted and in ill health. What really plagued him, however, was that as a professor of philology he was forced to neglect his true calling, phi: losophy. He would like to take over the professorship of philoso- · phy. He was competent for the job, he argued. Only the accident that he had not been exposed to a "truly exciting philosophy pro· ' fessor," he said, had prevented him from studying philosophy in the first place. He had been teaching seminars on philosophical topics already, and he could point to articles like his work on Diog­ enes Laertius that showed him to be a historian of philosophy as well as a philologist. Nietzsche was not content to ask the authorities to accommo� date his personal desire to change disciplines. He also suggest�d that, once they had awarded him the professorship of philosophy� they should make his friend Erwin Rohde the new professor of phi­ lology. He affirmed Rohde's excellent qualifications for the job, but added that he could hardly say how much the presence of his best friend would enrich his own existence in Basel. All in all, it was ' an audacious and indeed presumptuous request, even in the city of Basel. But it expressed a need that Nietzsche felt very ur; gently. Nietzsche had begun to realize-at least in his worst mo� ments-that his health was going to be an enduring obstacle. He IS

Emulating Geniuses

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s en sed his own mortality, and this enhanced the urgency of his cre­ ative �mpulse. Perhaps he thought that Vischer-Bilfinger would p erform another miracle, as he had in appointing him professor in the first place. Of course the professor did not honor Nietzsche's request. In fact, he seems not even to have entertained it seriously, treating it rather with discreet silence-no record of an answer is to be found in the Basel archives. Nietzsche remained a professor of philology. H e would find no easy escape from this discipline that had once served him as an escape from theology and saved him from a career as a pastor. He would have to settle his account with philology more creatively, in his book, The Birth of Tragedy. After his experience in the Franco·Prussian War, his failure to get the position in philosophy and bring Rohde to Basel depressed Nietzsche. Aside from Overbeck, he had made no other real friends in Basel. He did, however, make the acquaintance of several older professors. Wilhelm Vischer-Bilfinger, who had been responsible for his appointment, became a fatherly protector once he arrived in Basel. But neither the older man ' s favorable disposition nor the fact that Vischer·Bilfinger was also a philologist seems to have over­ come the deference that Nietzsche was wont to show him. Perhaps it was because the professor did not have the intellectual magne­ tism of a creative thinker that Nietzsche was drawn to other older men.].]. Bachofen and]acob Burckhardt were older men with un­ usual ideas that interested Nietzsche very much. He socialized in , the homes of the Vischer-Bilfingers and the Bachofens and ex­ changed ideas with Burckhardt. He did not really make friends . , with any of them, although he reached the threshold�bf friendship with Burckhardt. ].]. Bachofen was fifty-four years old when Nietzsche arrived in Basel in 1 869. He was a private scholar of Roman Law who had al­ ready published his major works, including Das Mutterrecht ( 1 861), which argued for a primitive matriarchy as the predecessor of all other human societies. The opposition of the Apollonian and Dionysian that figures so prominently in The Birth of Tragedy is something that Bachofen had used prominendy in his works, and Nietzsche was undoubtedly exposed to this. But Nietzsche's use of these terms is so original that it cannot be said that he took them from Bachofen or anyone else. Nietzsche seems to have learned more from Bachofen' s concentration upon the myths of the an· cients, and from his absolutely innovative treatment of Roman cuI·

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ture as a coherent system. 1 4 One of the reasons that The Birth of Tragedy seems so contemporary is that it treats Attic tragedy as a cultural artifact in which the whole culture is refracted. S o Nietzsche's first book benefited considerably from his exposure to these aspects of Bachofen's writings. Nonetheless, a mutual ex­ change of ideas between the two men never arose, and whatever attraction Nietzsche felt toward Bachofen was frustrated by the older man's reclusive nature. Jacob Burckhardt, however, was still open to the influence of the younger man's ideas. He was already famous for his Cicerone (1 855) and Culture of the Renaissance in Italy (1 860), as well as other books. But Burckhardt was a modest and ironic man, who re­ mained capable of learning from unlikely teachers. He was im­ pressed by Nietzsche' s inaugural lecture, and when Nietzsc he gave several other public lectures on Greek topics during his first years in Basel, Burckhardt was always in the audience. O nly in late 1 870 do the two mention each other in their correspo n­ dence, Nietzsche enthusiastically,I5 Burckhardt with characteris­ tic modesty and understatement. 1 6 Both of them indicated to friends that Schopenhauer was the principal topic of their conver� sations. But the two men stimulated each other creatively as well. Burckhardt began to think seriously for the first time about lecturing on Greek cultural history. This led ultimately to Burckhardt's enormous Greek Cultural History, a book that describe� the Greeks very much as Nietzsche did in The Birth of Tragedy, as a troubled, striving, willful people, not as the classical German writ­ ers had described them, as tranquil and idealistic.1 7 In turn, Nietzsche attended Burckhardt's lectures, and absorbed not only his critique of modern politics, but his ironical view of history gen�. erally. 1 8 Commenting on these lectures, Nietzsche said: "For the first time I am enjoying a lecture course; they are the sort of lec­ tures that I myself could give if I were older." 1 9 This intellectual ex� change between Nietzsche and Burckhardt was very successful for . several years, finding its apogee in 1 872 when Burckhardt gave hiS, first lectures on Greek . cultural history and Nietzsche published The Birth of Tragedy. And although the two drifted apart after that, Burckhardt never lost his curiosity about Nietzsche's writings, and Nietzsche never ceased to be curious about Burckhardt's opinion of them. Burckhardt's irony with respect to himself frustrated . Nietzsche's apparent desire to idealize him. Their relationship was

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in sharp contrast to Nietzsche's hyperbolic relationship with Rich­ ard Wagner. Nietzsche's immediate inclination was to idealize each of these older men. But whereas Wagner responded by encourag­ ing and even exploiting this impulse in Nietzsche, �urck? ardt sought to frustrate it.20 Wagner was undoubtedly a chansmatIc fig­ ure, outspoken, and apparently self-confident in the extreme, yet always in need of praise and devoted disciples. Burckhardt, on the other hand, was a profoundly withdrawn and ironic man, no less critical of his contemporaries than was Wagner; for his own work, however, he was more in need of distance from his contemporaries than of their slightest acknowledgment. While both were immedi­ ately taken with Nietzsche, they were attracted to very different as� p ects of the younger man; Wagner found a glorious reflection of himself in Nietzsche's devotion to him, whereas Burckhardt, from the day of Nietzsche's inaugural lecture on the Homeric question, saw in Nietzsche an original and independently thinking colleague with whom he might profitably exchange ideas, without necessarily becoming personally involved.21 Nietzsche's approach to both Bachofen and Burckhardt dem­ onstrates that he was pursuing intellectual discipleship in his rela­ tionships with older men. He was certainly not arrogating to himself the role of the genius in dealing with them. Nor was he psy­ cholo gically inclined to sycophancy, as some observers of his rela­ tionship with Wagner have concluded. He was interested in ideas and in developing his own capacity to express them. His approach was through father figures-mature men, already accomplished in the world of ideas. He attempted to attach himsel:( to them, in the perhaps unconscious belief that their abilities would become his own. Richard Wagner was the only one who welcomed his desire, and what ensued' was one of the most florid instances of master­ disciple relationship. That dramatic encounter should nonetheless be understood as part of a broader pattern of interest in older men, a pattern that shows Nietzsche to be more balanced than he came to seem with Wagner. Nietzsche was attracted to a series of older men, all readers of Schopenhauer, all deeply disillusioned in the rationalism, faith in progress, and general complacency of the nineteenth century, all enormously creative, . . . and all geniuses. ••

Nietzsche's appointment to the University of Basel brought him unexpectedly close to Richard Wagner, whom he had met in Leipzig in November 1 868. The composer had been living at

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Triebschen, on Lake Lucerne, Switzerland, since 1 866. When the two men first met, Wagner had invited Nietzsche to visit him. N ow he paid his first hesitant visit to Wagner on the morning of May 1 5, 1 869, less than a month after arriving in Basel. The gardener, who found Nietzsche wandering around the house, apparently thou ght he was another tourist; he informed Nietzsche that "the master" could not be disturbed. Nietzsche asked to leave his calling card. Wagner reportedly asked whether this professor was the Nietzsche , the one he had met in Leipzig. As it was, he requested Nietzsche to return for lunch the following Monday.22 This was to be the first of many visits and the beginning of a fascinating relationship that would be the most important emotional encounter of Nietzsche's life. On that Monday Wagner again impressed Nietzsche as a "wastefully rich and great spirit, an energetic character and a be­ witchingly lovely man," as he wrote to Erwin Rohde.23 From this time until the Wagners moved to Bayreuth three years later, Nietzsche was invited to Triebschen far more often than he could come. Nonetheless, he visited the Wagners there more than twenty­ · five times in all.24 Throughout that time of close associatio n, Wagner's expansive personality held Nietzsche's undiminished fas­ cination_ It was Nietzsche's only experience with an artistic genius" and Wagner would show him every facet of the romantic tempera­ ment. The geographic distance between Lucerne and Basel-a train ride of several hours25-did allow Nietzsche a certain perspec� tive when he was not actually in Wagner's presence, but a vision of the imperious Wagner summoning a timid but admiring young Nietzsche to the center of the composer's world might be the leit­ motif of their relationship in these years. It was unequal from the, first. The letters that Nietzsche exchanged with Wagner and Cosima display the emotional tenor of their relationship better than aQY other source.26 All of Nietzsche's letters are carefully composed and literary, always deferential and rarely spontaneous. Wagner's, on the other hand, are vigorous and familiar; they all seem to be prod­ ucts of the moment. Wagner was as quick to express his displeasure with Nietzsche as his satisfaction. He addressed Nietzsche as his friend, advised him freely about his work, and was obviously irri· tated when Nietzsche could not come to Triebschen or seemed to act too independently. As Wagner's secretary, Cosima also wrote to Nietzsche communicating Wagner's wishes and airing her own

Emulating Geniuses

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th ou ghts . Both Wagner's and Cosima's letters to Nietzsche are sp rink}e d with the most mundane requests-to buy Christmas pres­ en ts, for example, or to convey messages to Wagner's printer and pub lisher in Basel. Nietzsche restricted himself to praising Wagner an d his works, often extravagantly. He made no requests and gave no advice. And instead of reciprocating Wagner's familiar saluta­ tion, Nietzsche addressed him as his verehrter or verehrtester Meister (most honored master), or in one case as Pater Seraphice (angelic fa­ ther), alluding to the last scene of Goethe's Faust. 27 In retrospect it seems that Nietzsche wanted and indeed ede ne d to idealize such a great genius as Wagner. He needed to make himself a disciple. And yet, Wagner's coarse jokes and his il­ licit relationship with Cosima von Biilow were imperfections that disturbed the still moralistic Nietzsche even at first. There was fur­ thermore a trace of resentment beneath the surface of Nietzsche's humility and filial admiration even in their early correspondence. Th is was not unjustified, inasmuch as Wagner frequently imposed upon the younger man, distracting him from his own responsibili­ ties. In one of the first letters, Nietzsche professed his reverence for Wagner and for Schopenhauer-his tutelary deities-in terms drawn from Schopenhauer's theory of genius. But he went on to write that he made this profession proudly, for it is the lot of the Igenius to be recognized at first by only a few. These few can con­ sider themselves especially fortunate to have seen the light of the genius when the masses were still lost in the fog of ignorance. But . these few enlightened ones reach their appreciatiop of the genius only after a struggle with the prejudices of others aild even resis­ tance within themselves. So when they finally win their way through to the genius they have earned a right of conquest over him.28

There is an undercurrent of urgency and frustration in Nietzsche's assertion of his right to Wagner's attention. Perhaps he felt that he was not getting enough of it from the composer, or that what he was getting was not the right kind. Unconsciously identify­ ing Wagner as a father figure, Nietzsche may have felt that Wagner shou ld have been helping him with his career, instead of enlisting his effort to support the Wagnerian cause. The lives of these two great men necessarily appear as chapters in each other's biographies-Nietzsche naturally occupying a s maller chapter in Wagner's life than Wagner does in Nietzsche's.

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There is, however, a tendency for any biographer of a creative' ure to diminish the stature of those who are ancillary. W�O"n-=-' biographers have tended to write Nietzsche off as a distinctly original thinker who happened to write one good book while was intimate with Wagner. They go so far as to suggest that ever is good about The Birth of Tragedy was due to Wagner's influ. ence upon Nietzsche.29 And Nietzsche's own biographers have inclined to depict Wagner as an unscrupulo us exploiter. In retro. spect, however, we ought to acknowledge that both Nietzsche and Wagner were great creative individuals, geniuses both. As demanding as Wagner was, he was not the villain Nietzsche's life, not even unintentionally. The two men were so dif ferent that no one would have accused Nietzsche of having emu. lated Wagner; at least he did not become very much like Wagner. Nietzsche lived a private and relatively uneventful life. Wagner's life is an enormous story, filled to overflowing with dramatic en counters, personal crises, love affairs, outbursts of temper, finan. cial disasters, peregrinations, narrow escapes, great plans disappointments, artistic triumphs, adulation, insults, vicious cri . cism, etc. In one crucial way alone could Wagner serve as a m for Nietzsche: the incredible bounty of Wagner's imaginatio "wastefully rich," as Nietzsche put it-was what attracted Nie to Wagner. Nietzsche had yet to stretch his own imagination , or to fo late any large creative project. But Wagner's imagination se constantly to outstrip his capacity to realize his projects. Indeed seemed as if no single individual could realize all the projects Wagner conceived. And yet he was driven to realize them, and did so with the help of the many talented individuals whom he listed in his cause. Wagner's unpleasant temperament, especial his unscrupulo us eagerness to use other people for his own poses, may have been his response to the urgency of the dem;:lp.cls that his own imagination placed upon him. These were dema that few people ever have to deal with.30 For Nietzsche, just to Wagner grapple with them was inspiration enough to com pens for the great differences between them. Nietzsche already felt ative impulses, without knowing how to deal with them. No could have told him, but Wagner seemed to show him. Nietzsche and Wagner were radically different creators as Aside from the fact that Wagner was a musician and Nietzsche ul mately a philosopher, the personal exigencies of their creative li ...

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W re very different. Wagner required large and sumptuously deco· a ed quarters and servants; Nietzsche preferred to live by himself While �In a r�oming house or a . pension his whole adult. life. . ' maIntaIne d d d an con· e, d l ItU so an qUIet, peace, needed N'etzsche gre· exceptionally ta�t w ith only a handful of people, Wagner was friends and admirers, garious. He needed a large circle of devoted hostile critics; he even and correspondents, of network f1ung ra fa in constant tur­ was life his and attention, of deal great a eeded oi1 as a result. Amazingly, the turmoil did not seriously distract him from his work; he thrived upon it. As far as their respective oeuvres are concerned, Nietzsche's was to be a work of criticism and, in a particular sense, of destruction. Wagner built enormous edifices, both figuratively in The Ring of the Nibelungen and literally in his Festival Theater in Bayreuth. Wagner wrote the libretti as well as the music to all of his operas, and in addition-almo st as an avocation-he published a greater volume of prose than Nietzsche did in his lifetime, designed to revolution­ ize everything connected with his art, from composing to conducting. Wagner was a genius whose creative ambitions were matched only by the great sacrifices that he expected from his followers. The women in his life were to provide motherly attention and sympa­ thy for his troubles, real and imagined. He treated his two wives, Minna and Cosima, rather callously, but he required absolute devo­ tion (and nluch patience) from them; their attentions formed an emotional matrix prerequisite to his creative life but not, in /Cosima's case at least, directly involved in it. From the younger ' married women he loved-Jessie Laussot, Mathilde von Wesendonck, andJudith Mendes-Gautier, for example-he appar­ ently desired solace and admiration more than sex, although he was by no means averse to that. He sometimes needed the anguish 9f being in love-particularly, it seems, the impossible love for a 'married woman-to sustain his creativity. Wagner expected the young men in his life to provide more tangible signs of their devotion. They represen,ted the sons he had not been given by Minna. They might be royal patrons like Ludwig II of Bavaria, great conductors and singers like Hans von Bulow and Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld, or writers like Nietzsche; but Wagner treated them all as his tools and sometimes worse. The pre­ miere of Tristan and Isolde in Munich in June 1 865 is exemplary. Ludwig of Bavaria was paying for the production in spite of enor-

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mous opposition from his middle-class subjects, even as W and Cosima blatantly lied to him by denying that they were an affair. Hans von Bulow was conducting the performance, hav studied the score to the point where he knew it better than W agner although von Bulow's wife hadjust borne Wagner a child in Ap ril� The tenor Ludwig Schnorr, who was already ill, poured so mu ch energy into the part of Tristan that he actually died a few days afte� the production, from an illness exacerbated by exhau stion. Wagner was bewitching to many creative young men, not ju st to Nietzsche. But he was also an extremely egocentric and deman ding man, who would exact the last bit of energy from his disciple s and never hesitate to exploit their weaknesses. Nietzsche strained eagerly to please Wagner for years, from 1 869 until the decline of their friendship in 1 876. Wagner nee surrogate sons like Nietzsche to help him realize his grandiose aes­ thetic ambitions; but Nietzsche needed a father to help him orga­ nize his creative energies. Wagner became the model genius to Nietzsche, as Schopenhauer had been before him, creating music and writing his autobiography before Nietzsche's very eyes. At a deep and probably unconscious level, Nietzsche was studying Wagner as a model of creativity. It might have been a very frus ing and even deadly situation for Nietzsche: attempting to learn be creative by emulating an irascible father who wanted to preemp his son's creative energies for his own purposes. But this seems to have been just the psychological frustration that Nietzsche needed to overcome in order to discover himself as a creative individual. The oedipal aspect of Nietzsche's relationship to Wagner made complete by Cosima. His prudish sensibilities were at first offended by the Wagner-Cosima affair. The fact that Cosima w Wagner's mistress was still being concealed in 1 869 in deference to the sensibilities of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. For five years, out idealism and admiration for Wagner's music and person, Lud had managed to believe the couple's lies about their relationship; but it was widely known that Cosima had already borne two Wagner's children (Isolde in April 1 865, and Eva in February 1 867). It would have been impossible for Nietzsche to mistake the situation. When he first visited Triebschen, Cosima was quite preg. nant with the third of Wagner's children, the boy who would be born on June 6, 1 869, and named Siegfried.3] If that was not enough, there were Wagner's coarse jokes, which frequeQtly in­ volved Cosima.

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Emulating Geniuses

It i s difficult to imagine circum stances more likely to bring surface: on the Nietzsche's oedipa l feelings about Wagner to the of a man preation idealiz rapt ne hand, Nietzsche's spontaneous, and Lu ?�ig r Wagne rd isely old enough to be h � s father (Richa Wagner S In­ Nietzsche were both born In 1 8 1 3); and on the other, illicit affair with the young volvement at that very momen t in an r did his best to inten­ Wagne And s. wife of anothe r of his disciple ed was born, �e Siegfri r � sify and exploit these feelings when, aft go�father and see to hIS suggested that Nietzsche become the boy � 2 he was not un­ education after Wagner would be gone:� NIetzsc his as well. become might Cosima aware of the implication that own. Born in her of Cosima has a rather interesting life story Liszt and 1 83 7, the second of three illegitimate children of Franz parents . Marie d'Agoult , Cosima was raised apart from both of her s von Princes the s, mistres later Both her mother and her father's passed have to seem Wittgenstei n, had literary ambitio ns that they of on to Cosima. All the photographs of Cosima make her seem one A the homelies t of women , but she was generally admire d by men. have to seems she , woman d reserve at tall, dignified , and somewh had a certain authority in social situatio ns. Cosima was undoub t­ edly a strong and capable person herself. But her ambitio n, per­ hap s because of a sense of inadequacy stemmi ng from her illegitimacy and emotio nally deprived childho od, was to discover and foster the genius of a great man. As it happen ed, Cosima looked for her men in her father's field of music. She was in part still seeking the love of her neglectful par­ ent. First she chose Hans von Bulow, who was a ,devotee of the mu sic of both Liszt and Wagner; but Biilow was a d epresse d and self-doubting man, and although a great conductor, he proved to be an inadequate composer-he was a perform er but not a creator. When this became apparent, Cosima too became unhappy. How could she promote the career of a man who did not believe in him­ !self? So she fixed upon her husban d's hero, Richard Wagner. She seems to have considered Wagner as an alternative to her husban d even at the time she first met him, when she visited Zurich with Hans in 1 857 during their honeym oon. But the two only gradually became acquainted, with Cosima the more reticen t of the two, ap­ parently aware of the instabil ity of Wagner's emotio nal alle­ gia nces. Cosima became Wagner's mistress in 1 863, after waiting nearly six years for his interest to awaken and develop . She planned to

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have not just an affair with Wagner, but to be his permanent indispensable companion. Yet she did not insist upon marriage. Since it would have revealed the truth about her affair with Wagn er to Ludwig II, and thus have endangered the king's patronage Wagner, she did not find it convenient to divorce Bulow until 1870; Even before she moved in to live permanently with Wagner in Triebschen in 1868, Cosima had made herself the composer' s sec­ retary, agent, and general manager. And after they began to live together she managed the household as well. Wagner did not stray from her bed until 1 876, when he had a brief but very emotional affair withJudith Mendes-Gautier at the first Bayreuth festival. And although Judith proved to be an enduring erotic fantasy for Wagner, and the prime stimulus of his work on Parsifal, Cosim a re; mained the indispensable emotional stay in Wagner' s life. Cosi was almost pathologically devoted to Wagner, serving him and liv ing vicariously through him. She was as peculiar in her devotion he was in his need for it. But both of them were happier, b reconciled to the world, and more productive as a result of marriage.33 Because of his own immense admiration of Wagner, N ietzs immediately found himself in a partnership with Cosima to help Wagner finish The Ring and to further the cause of Wagner's music generally. When Nietzsche first met her in Triebschen in 1 869, was already slavishly devoted to Wagner. In her letters to Wagner' disciples, including Nietzsche, she referred to him as "the master," and never let it appear that there could be friendship with her ex­ cept it be based upon devotion to Wagner.34 Cosima did all could to enhance Nietzsche's sacrifices. She was the one to mundane demands upon his time (but perhaps only because was in charge of the mundane side of the Wagnerian househol and she participated energetically in Wagner's effort to Nietzsche relate his scholarly essays to Wagner's work; she even un dertook to tell him how to revise them. Nietzsche gradually became very attached to Cosima. He 1 wrote that he found Cosima to be the most charming woman he: had met in his life.35 His admiration was deep, genuine, and 1 0 lasting, although not apparently sexual, at least not consciously so His family romance with Cosima was restricted to loyalty and tured sympathy whenever Wagner mistreated her. Even later, when the Wagners had moved to, Bayreuth and Nietzsche had to rely solely upon Cosima's letters for communication from Wagner, his C

Emulating Geniuses

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creative fig­ principal interest remained focused upon the magical, of 1 888, the document e remarkabl the ure of Wagner himself. Even and "Ariadne" as love note that Nietzsche addressed to Cosima with his rivalry signed "Dionysos ," may be more an artifact of Cosima. for desire amorous genuinely of than Wagner Each of the three individuals involved in this family romance n. derived something different from their association in Triebsche genius, Cosima had always wanted to be the supportive wife of a and he r desire was finally realized. Now she could finally devote herself wholly to the man she worshipp ed. Wagner had finallywo n Cosima to his side. She gave him his son Siegfried and served him as secre tary and amanuens is as well. When Nietzsche appeared, Wagner gained a capable friend who would come to visit and ex­ change ideas whenever Wagner needed company or stimulation . For Wagner this was a time of intense creativity and relative seclu­ sion after the tempestuous time in Munich. He still needed atten­ tion, of course, but in Triebschen he found that the ministratio ns of these two extraordinarily devoted people made up for the adula­ tion of his fans. For whatever else they did to serve him, Cosima and Nietzsche mirrored Wagner's grandiose sense of himself and his works. For Nietzsche, however, the Triebschen period was hardly an idyll . Rather, it was an extremely strenuous period of testing him­ self against Wagner's requirements of him. He would write his first book amid frequent visits to Triebsche n and in constant anxiety about whether his work would please Wagner. For Nietzsche this was a time of aspiration, vulnerability, and testing. �� trying as this was for him, it was non.etheles s constructive. Nietzscne-w as under­ going an apprentice ship to a genius, a rite of passage toward his own creativity. It made his later work possible. The psychological relationship among the three is revealed with greater clarity in what they accomplished in the Triebschen iyears. Cosima had begun her voluminou s Tagebiicher or Diaries on January 1 , 1 869. This was a private text, not intended for publica­ tion in her lifetime. It was to be a documentation, for posterity, of the life of Wagner. In it she recorded her observation s of the master's activities, who his visitors were, what he said in conversa­ tion, what he read and what he had to say about it; she recorded the weather, Wagner's moods, and even his diet. With her Tagebiicher Cosima was performin g a peculiar labor of love, an intellectual ver­ sion of "a woman's work.,,36 Cosima was also writing down

1 24

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Wagner's autobiography, Mein Leben-"My Life"-as he spoke aloud to her.37 Cosima's role in both of these projects was limi ted that of curator of Wagner's image. For his part, Wagner was at last working on the final act of opera Siegfried, after a hiatus of ten years during which he had ten Tristan and Isolde and The Meistersinger. For this olympian he needed nothing so much as isolation. However, in the first yea that Nietzsche knew him in Triebschen, Wagner was also prepari his centennial essay on Beethoven.38 And, for that proj Wagner's conversations with the young professor who had rea Schopenhauer so carefully were very useful. Nietzsche's contribu tions were taken without acknowledgment too. Wagner exper enced his disciples as extensions of himself and expected them t serve him willingly, and without need of thanks or recognition . Wagner's third project of that year was Mein Leben, the autob ography he was dictating to Cosima. Wagner assumed that visi to Triebschen would be entertained by hearing him read excerp aloud from his autobiography-in-process. In Nietzsche's case was no miscalculation, but Wagner could not resist the temp to make Nietzsche part of the enterprise too. He began him segments of the manuscript to proofread and see through printer's office in Basel. Nietzsche did this willingly at first, p haps even avidly, although it cost him valuable time away from own work. After a while, however, perhaps in conversation or in letter that has been lost, he let Wagner know that this was becom ' a burden.39 For, as Nietzsche wrote to his former pro� Friedrich Ritschl, there was really only one thing that he lacked Basel: time for his own writing.40 In addition to his courses, Nietzsche had prepared several 0 inal public lectures on ancient Greek topics that he hoped woul be of broad interest to educated people. These lectures were in spired by his preoccupation with Schopenhauer and Wagner; in· deed they were his attempt to realize a kind of philosoph ' writing about the ancient Greeks, as an alternative to the profe sional philological writing that he had already come to detest i Leipzig. It was an ambition he had conceived before ever encoun tering Wagner. But having submitted to Wagner's psychological au thority, he was extremely dependent upon the composer judgment. Wagner at first objected to the form of the essays, arguing tha they were too scholarly. He thought that Nietzsche was deferring t

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g conclu­ academic public, and restraining himself from drawin proble. ms, namely the difficulties a� SIOn s relevant to contem porary art.41 In . the main, however, Wagner fo� nd facing Wagner's own stimul ating that he was forced to rethin k N ietzsche's ideas so he's mo �e tho�oug� Schopenhauer under the influence of Nietzscthe new Ideas. In hIS used He pher. philoso understandin g of theBeethoven.42 In spite 0f being ' th e senIor partcentennial essay on ctual debt intelle an withou � ner in the ir dialogue, Wagner was not r he knew It or not, was already to N ietzsche. And Nietzsche, whethe e impuls es of one of the most in a po sition to influence the creativ century. th en . . of self-willed geniuses of the ninete In . It was not until two years later, 1 872, after the pubhcation granted Nietzsche the rec­ The Birth of Tragedy, that Wagne r briefly bo? k ���rav�­ o gnition he so deeply desired.43 Wag�;� praised the a In hIS CosIm to next nght was gaudy and told Nietzsche that he . first. the heart. This is what Nietzsche had desIred from way than he and No SQ oner had Wagner blessed him in this Nietzs che Cosima moved far away from Basel to Bayreuth, wheretime their that From l ently. o infrequ " c u d visit them only very cru­ been had 2 869-7 1 friendship began to decline. But the years Wagne cial for Nietzsche. Living in closest association with geniusr,. Nietzsche learned to measure himself against an authentic che .Their a,gonistic relatio nship was the matrix in which Nietzsdisstruggle to please Wagner, Nietzsche . wrote his first book. In his covered his own creativity and learned many of the psychological characteristics of genius : audacity, narcis sism, and single- minde d­ ness. Eventually he would be able to practice these virtues of ge­ nius. His relationship with Wagner was therefore immen sely r. . beneficial to him;' more so, ultimately, than it was to Wagne It is striking, however, that neither Nietzsche nor Wagner had a very/realistic appraisal of the other at this time. Each was a phan­ tasm for the other. Nietzsche's Wagner was a benevo lent father who eventually disapp ointed him by being extremely egotistical. Wagner's Nietzsche was a loyal and obedie nt son who turned out to be a rebellious thinker who eventually went his own way. Each was pursuing a psychological necessity that overrode the nicetie s of friendship and precluded true intimacy. •

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f f\1uszc In 1 87 � dId he emerge as a brilli ant writer and cious thInk�r. The Bzrth of Tragedy was a dramatic departureauda from the norm In Greek studi es. The author refused to study the past its own sake, as all philologists were supposed to do. Instead for he at� temp t� d to c orrect on his own age by comparing it to a cruci al mo­ . nt Greek ment In ancIe cultural history. Nietzsche' s book was there!ore a complete and comprehensive repudiatiofirst n of the rever­ . ent hlstor� cal culture of his time. The author was only twenty-six. The Bzrth of dy had several preli minary versi ons and re� . s a son: ewhaTrage maIn t disjointed book. It began as a series of essays on a constellatIon of cultural questions that Nietzsche conn with t:agedy, and it developed slowly, out of a painful struggleected to do tIce to � chopenhauer, Wagner, and his own original ideas. jus­ For s? me wnters, such confl icts among i ntellectual and personal loyal: . , and in later tIes �ardly anse years they woul d not afflic sche. But In 1 870 and 1871, �hen Nietzsche wrote this bookt, Nietz he simp ly . could not dIsentangle Ideas from personalities. The exam ples of Sch ��enhauer and Wagner ha? � nspired him and sharpened his am? Itlon. These two men-theIr Ideas and writings, and above all theIr personal courage in oppo sing the hackneyed optim ism of the l Cl C

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nineteenth century-represented the very essence of intellectual cre ath;ity to Nietzsche. Anything he might have written at this time wo ul d have been permeated with them. The Birth of Tragedy had its beginnings in two lectures that N ietzsche gave in Basel during the first few weeks of 1 870, on "Greek Music-Drama" and "Socrates and Tragedy}n Manuscripts of those lectures show that, from the first, Nietzsche wanted to write about "the Greek spirit," and certainly not about a narrowly conceived or professionally defined philological topic. Tragedy was already the focus of his interest. Socrates was already the vil­ lain. And Nietzsche was already drawing the connection between ancient tragedy, Schopenhauer's philosophy, and Wagner's op­ eras. This was more than merely infusing "philosophical serious­ ness" into his otherwise unexceptionable philological work, as he had wanted to do since Leipzig. In tragedy, he was taking on a project that no classical philologist of his day would have dared to treat as a whole. Finally, he was violating all the canons of his­ toricism by relating Attic tragedy to modern German culture, using Schopenhauer and Wagner as his principal points of reference. Nietzsche wrote to Rohde that his lecture on Socrates had "in­ cited terror and incomprehension" in his audience in Basel. No one in Basel expected Socrates to be portrayed as the villain of Western Civilization. But the lectures were probably not written with the Basel public in mind. Nietzsche had at least one eye on an audience in Triebschen, where Cosima was reading his lectures aloud to Wagner. The master approved so enthusiastically that Nietzsche wrote in the same letter to Rohde that the lectures had strengthened his ties with his Triebschen friends, iheWagners.2 Wagner began to urge Nietzsche to pursue his ideas on tragedy in a book.3 He encouraged Nietzsche both because Nietzsche's lec­ tures were very much in his own interest, and because he intuitively appreciated that Nietzsche was now thinking creatively, and not just as a professional philologist. He was sufficiently impressed with Nietzsche's understanding of Schopenhauer and his thinking about Greek tragedy to use Nietzsche's ideas in his own writings.4 Wagner advised Nietzsche "not to touch on such incredible views in short essays, but to concentrate on a larger and more compre­ hensive work on this subject." And a few days later he urged Nietzsche in another letter that he must "now . . . show what philol­ ogy is for, and help me bring about the grand 'renaissance."'5 Wagner encouraged Nietzsche to think ambitiously and to join

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him as a partner in his crusade against modern culture as he under. st.ood it. And, without imagining that this would be a partnership of equals, Nietzsche was very flattered. It was, therefore, particu. larly with Wagner's encouragement that Nietzsche decided to write a book about tragedy and everything else that preoccupied him at this time. One thing that hampered Nietzsche in carrying out this design was that he still regarded Wagner's music-dramas as a theoretical enigma. He was not sure how to apply Schopenhauer's aesthetic in which music was defined as the most metaphysical of the arts : to Wagner's work.6 Wagner might have been an enigma to anyone in 1 870. He had definitely outgrown his theory, expressed in OPera and Drama (1 85 1 ), that the poetry and drama of his operas were of equal importance with the music. That verbose justification of the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art) did not even apply to Tristan and Isolde (1 859), in which he had ruthlessly subordinated lyrics to music. And now Wagner was trying to come up with a new theory that would explain his more recent compositions, and yet not ap­ pear to contradict his earlier theory. Rereading Schopenhauer and discussing aesthetics with Nietzsche led to his anniversary essay on Beethoven (1 870). This, while not nearly so prolix, was perhaps more confused than Opera and Drama. So Nietzsche had to make his own sense of Wagner's work ifhe was to treat Greek tragedy in a Wagne.' rian manner. 7 It was a delicate task, since Nietzsche might easily ' appear to be lecturing Wagner on his own creations. One consequence is that Nietzsche guarded his thoughts on music and modern culture from Wagner. He was much quicker to show his friends in Triebschen his lectures dealing with ancient Greece. In the summer of 1 870, Nietzsche wrote another essay con· ! soli dating his views and organizing them for the first time in the , rubric of forces that he began to call the "Apollonian" and "Dionysian." This lecture, entitled "The Dionysian WeltanschalJ' ung," was divided into four parts; only the fourth dealt directly with music.8 Significantly, when Nietzsche sent the essay to Cosima as a Christmas present at the end of the year, he sent only the first . three parts, thus shielding his developing ideas on music from the Wagners.9 Nietzsche's secrecy may seem cowardly. And it is surprising in view of Nietzsche's lifelong passion for honesty about the most painful insights. His behavior can nonetheless be understood within the context of his discipleship to Schopenhauer and

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Wagner, which was the psychological matrix of his eme.rgi � g cre­ rsors to susta in his con­ tiv ity. He was still relying upon these precu ing. He had. no� quit� writ his to d ence and lend their authority . own creative Intelh ­ his t accep r ched the point wher e he could himse of think �ce as a self-sufficient authority. He did notnotyethave been able tolf t s a .geniu s. And, more practically, he migh er's well-k nown wrath Wagn red incur write his book at all if he had before he fin ish ed it. ve powBut while Nietzsche was not yet confident of his creati Birth of Tragedy by the time ers he had all the seminal ideas for The o-Pru ssian War he ieft Basel for his brief involvemen t in the Franc a," "Socrates -Dram Music essays on "The Greek 1'n Augus t 1 870. His ' h "Th e B lrt d an " , uung and Tragedy," "The Dionysian Weltanscha had er ed. And in February Wagn of the Tragic Idea" were all realiz r than more essays . already encouraged him to write a book rathe have an outlin e not did By the summer of 1 870, however, he still red healt h shatte for one. It was the exper ience of war and his own abou� tra?edy. that gave Nietzsche the final impetus to start on a book This is noteworthy becau se the heroic status of the genIu s IS ap­ overcome in parently enhan ced in propo rtion to the adversity of the ge­ ology order to create. This, of cours e, is part of the myth thing nius. But close observation of a geniu s often reveals some pro­ more interesting still: adversity adds urgency to the creative lity morta of sense acute the cess . In Nietzsche's case in particular, War ssian o-Pru Franc that he gained from his participation in the stimu lated his creative ambit ion and provoked him to get to work immediately on what would be his first book . Nietzsche started work on The Birth of Tragedy as s'oo n as he re­ ed turned to Basel for his military convalescen ce. Initially he plann ns sectio n the book to cover what eventually becam e the first fiftee ­ or chapters-the portio n that deals with Attic tragedy and Socra . tes, and only indirectly and by implication with the modern world c­ unne it made have This plan had an obvio us advantage: it would essary for Niet�sche to engage in a direc t discu ssion of Wa�ner' s music. But even these first fifteen sections went through a senes of versions that betray indec ision and elaborate cautio n on Nietzsche's part.lO As a consequence of this curio us textual history, The Birth of Tragedy falls readily into two parts. The partition is obviously due to the guarded manner in which Nietzsche wrote it. And it had the effect of perm itting Nietzsche to do justice to his own insigh t with-

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out offe ndin g his mentor. But in the proc Nietzsch e produ ce an uneven and awkwardly structured book. ess Spe cific ally, the last te chapters have often been characterized as an unfortun ate and ev� . embarrasslng addendum to an otherwise remarkably orig inal book. The first part of The Birth of Tragedy readily con form wh ? ne expected of a book in 187 1 . These fifteen chapters cans to be re Independently. They constitute an inge nious and fully coh er e n t ar gume � t about the h istory o� ancient Greek tragedy, its birt . h . ou . to the spln t of DIonysIan musIC, and its death at the hand . of So cr a . ratIona1 Ism. · The first part even contains a perfectly understan tIe dabl implicit critique of the nineteenth century. There is a com plet en ess t these fifteen chapters that seems to justify the wish of man y com men. tators on this book: that Nietzsche had stopped there. ��e last ten chapters are less easily characterized. A vari ety of exp lIcItly con t�mporary con cerns predomi nate : the cult ural stag. nancy of the nIneteenth century, and the poss ible rena issan ce of tragedy in German phil osophy and in Wagner's mus ic. The se las t ten chapters are less coherent than the first fifteen, and hard ly ele� gant. Nonetheless, they mark an imp ortant in Nie tzsche' s de. velopmen �. �hey constitute his first foraystepinto con tem porary cultural cntI. CIsm. And the fact that he had related his ject to contemporary prob lem s was precisely what mosanc ient sub. about his book. Nie tzsche's incl usio n of him self in the t elated him � of the book constituted an innovation of an order diffsecond pa t any of his original ideas about the Greeks. In these two eren t from last ten c?apters are a better sign of Nietzsche's late respects the r writing than the fi:st fIfteen. He had made a transition not only from to phIl osophy, but from scholarship to a unique genr phil ology e of autobio� . graphically generated cultural criti cism . At �he beginni ng of �he Birth of Tragedy Nie tzsche reco . es of perc gnizes two pnn CIpl eption and representation: the Apo llinian and the Dionysian. And he baldly states that "the con tinu ous devel. opm ent of art is bound up with [this] duality� just as pro d�pen ds upo n the duality of the sexes, involving perp creati n WIth only periodically intervening reco ncil iatio ns." etual strife th.e two prin cipl es, of course, after the Greek god 12 He named Dl onysos, who he calls "the two art deities of the Gres Apo llo and eks. " And it � ay seem quit e corr ect for a classical phil ologist to interpre t an� CIen t Gre ek tragedy in ancient Gre ek aesthetic term Nie tzsche these categories-Apo llini an and Dionysian-s. But for stricted to Greek art or even to art. Instead, he asserts are not re� that they are

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The contents of Nietzsche's two categories, furthermore, far n a tr scend the ancient Greeks' understanding of the two gods. In Nietzsche's hand, Apollo and Dionysos are symbols for two system· tically opposed sets of characteristics devised by Nietzsche him· e l f. The Apollonian is the principle of clearly deli�eate � imag� s, . ermanence, optimism, individuation, and ratIonahty. It IS a stnv­ ng for clarity, especially the visual clar�ty of for� and outline, ?ut clarity in every other sense as well. NIetzsche hkens Ap �l � onla� erception to the visual distinctness of dreams, and he afflhates It ith the arts of sculpture, painting, and narrative poetry. The Dionysian, on the other hand, he associates with music, e �pecially melody. It is the principle of flux, impermanence, suffenng, and pessimism. Passage of time is basic to the Dionysian, w� ich. ca� only be depicted in (shapeless) temporal metaphors. NegatIng IndI· viduation, the Dionysian entails feelings of empathy and even identity with the other. Most importantly, it is an irrational force, impulsive, wild, and instinctive. So while Nietzsche affiliates Schopenhauer's concept of the "idea" or "representation" with Apollo, he associates Dionysos with the " �ill." : 4 . According to Nietzsche, the ApollonIan VISIon of the world IS. responsible for the constant formulation and reformulation �f the forms of knowledge and rationality that order our everyday hfe. It also serves to conceal the underlying Dionysian reality from us. Knowledge and rationality may vary from epoch t6-egoch and cuI· ture to culture. But cu l ture itself is predicated upon the Apollon· ian mode of perception. Without its simplifying influence, organized life would be impossible. Nonetheless, the knowledge that results from the Apollonian perception is ultimately illusory­ a necessary illusion, but illusion nonetheless. Dionysian perception, on the other hand, is momentary, excep­ tional, and counter·intuitive. It is dangerous to any structure of ra­ tionality. It contains the death wish and every other destruct.ive instinct as well as the life instinct. It is the maelstrom of every Im­ pulse caught in the flux of time, the enemy of all that is fixed and ordered. Dionysian perception yields a terrifying understanding of existence that humankind does well to conceal from itself in every­ day life. Yet, since all is governed by time, coming into existence

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and pass ing away, the Dio nys �an is the mor ound of the ' two modes �f perceptI. on. A�cord lng to Nietzsche e,prof the nysi an can only .be Ignored at the pnce of cultural sterility and Dio ultimately, ex ' .tInc tIon . For whe eas � t�e �pollon ian view of things is the bas is o knowledge, the DIo nYSIan IS the font ofw isdo m.15 I of The Birth oJ Tragedy repudiates the historic ist co .SionPart mpu . own term . Its to study the past In s. Dev ising his own terms a dl con cepts of �nalysis to reevaluate Socrates, tragedy, ratio nalis ' and so on, NIetzsche began a unique phil osop hica l proj ect. This however, was not merely a courageous move perm ittin g him to sa; much that was new about anci ent Greek art and thought. It wa . . s al so a �evere cntlque �f h'IS own education and professio n. Wri tin g The Bzrth oj Tra�edy, N Ietz� che crossed a spir itual and intellect ual Ru b i. con to set hImself agaInst all his teachers and muc h of the trad i ti on of Western thought. Just prio r to pub lication, Nietzsche acknowledged that Th Birth oj Tragedy would probably offe nd the phil olog ists. "I avee . g, " he b� en very d ann wrote to Rohde, caut ioni ng even his hbes t fnend a�out the last part. He must have known that the . bo ok would rUIn hIS career in scholarship and mak his life in Basel ve difficult. But it had long been his desire to distaence him self . from p I . professio 1 o1 o� as It was b eln ' prac ICed ' by � hIS � nal colle ague s. And his . atIng hIm anXIety over alIen self from his profession was largely bal. anced by the pleasure that he now anticipated from Wag ner's ap. p �oval . On the eve of the pub licat ion of The Birt h oj Trag hIm self was more enthusiastic about Wagner and his mus edy, he ic than ever b�fore-more inclined than ever to see himself as Wagner' s diSciple. . lated �Ietzsche was Insu from the disapproval of professional philolo. �IStS and the world at large by his almost exclusive interest in the reac� tlon of his master. This insulation seems to have permitted Nietzsche to ?epart much more radically from the conv enti ons of professional phIlology than he otherwise might have done. N.ietzsche's emerging original ity was of a novel type. He . thIn becam . ker by an ong tnal writing a critique of the tendencies in his owne age, education, and experience that (he eved) threatened to eclipse his own creativity. These tendenciesbeli redu in Nietzsche's mind to science, scholarship, and specialization-sced ome very general . s Inde . ed. tend�ncle Taken together, Nietzsche thought that they constItu �ed a c� ltural disease affli ctin g the teenth century. Of course, SInce NIetzsche had been trained as anine clas l phil ologist it was natural for him to disp lace the cultural tendsica enci es that stuiti .

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fied him in 1 87 1 into the ancient context of his academic studies, and to attack them there. But it is noteworthy that Nietzsche did not simply veer away from philology to write Wagnerian music or Schopenhauerian philosophy. He created out of his insight into what fettered him personally. The Birth oj Tragedy is a reflexive work, largely a reflection upon Nietzsche's own experience. Consequently, The Birth of Tragedy is not a typical work of nine­ teenth-century genius. It is a dissection and critique, not a discur­ sive revelation of a new world such as we usually find in the poetry, fiction, music, painting, and even the systematic philosophy of the century. Nietzsche was content to know that he had written a philo­ sophical book. He did not think that he had written a work of ge­ nius. Indeed he would have acknowledged that his book was in tended to assist another who was one of the classic geniuses of the century: to anchor the plausibility of Wagner's project in a new understanding of Greek tragedy. So, logically enough, even as the author of The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche did not recognize himself as a genius. However, it is precisely this book that first convinces us that he was a genius. The problem is that what Nietzsche was doing was original in a yet unrecognizable way. Innovation is only "original" if it is recog­ nized by others and understood as a new departure that other sim­ ilar efforts can follow. Before that could happen, Nietzsche would have to admit to himself that he had begun something new and build upon it himself. Then, with other writings, he would have to teach his readers to see that it was a new departure as well. Unbeknownst even to himself, Nietzsche was becoming a differ­ ent type of genius. His achievement was to be one·of �riticism, un­ masking, deconstruction, demolition, and nihilism. As an attack upon Socratism ancient and modern, The Birth of Tragedy's is Nietzsche's first salvo in a lifelong assault upon complacent ratio­ nality and the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. This is reo , flected in the style and logic of the book. It is not spontaneous, as one might expect of a naive genius, but closely argued and highly self-conscious. Nor is it a work of novelty; rather it is critical and paradoxical, making the modern cult of rationality and knowledge seem undirected and pointless. Deflating the most prized achieve­ ments of its time, it is a work of provocation, setting a precedent for a style of creativity that would become characteristic of modernism after the turn of the century. But since Nietzsche himself had been initiated into the academic culture of knowledge for its own sake, it

YOUN G NIETZSCHE

is also a work of self-overco ming, a quality that he later toute d one 0fh'IS most sal lent. ' Analyzing and sloughing offh is own e du a . . Ca tIon, NIetzsche wrote reflexively in The Birth of Tragedy, and i t be came one of the first works of senti mental geniu s. Nietzsche referred to his study of ancie nt tragedy (in fiftee n cha� ters of the boo�) as "an elaborate historical the first exampl e . valuable pnmanly because It permitted him to illum inate the pr ," ' ent. 16 The h Iston ' �al l � sson t�at NIetzsche drew from that port es the book was qUIte sImple: If we want to revitalize our cultu io n of re w shou ld cons ider what sapped the vitality of ancie nt Gree k cult� r e H is history of Attic tragedy indicated that ')ust as tragedy peri . wIth the evanescence of the spiri t of musi c, it is only from this sh � spirit that I. � can be reborn."17 Resuscitating the spirit of musi c, givin g a new hfe to tragedy and thus revitalizing modern cultu re-thi s is what interested Nietzsche, much more than the history of Attic tragedy itself. Nietzsche's prom otion of the rebirth of tragedy poin ts obvi ­ o� sly to Wagner and his geniu s: it was from Wagner's musi c th at NIetzsche hoped a new age of tragedy might develop. But the sec­ ond part of the book also refers to Nietzsche's own creat ive aCco m� plishment. Nietzsche had assigned hims elf a role in the rena issan ce o� tragedy-one quite different from Wagner's creat ive role. NIetzsche is fundamentally a critic here. As the author of The Birth of. Tra�edy, he is situated in the present, cutting through layers of hlstoncal knowledge to reveal the tragic philo sophy. He puts him­ self forward as an intellectual rather than as an artist. But in later portion of the book he is a novel sort of critic and intel the lectual ; who reveals hims elf in perso n, discu ssing hims elf as the promoter of a tragic interpretation of modern history: .

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It may be well to disclo se the origin of this insigh t [into the declin e of ancie nt tragedy] by consi derin g the analo gous phen omen a of our own time; we must enter into the midst of those struggles, which .': . are being waged in the highe st spheres of our conte mporary world between insati able optim istic know ledge and the tragic need of art. l s

This passage serves not only to shift the reader's attention from the historical to the contemporary world, but to advance Nietz sche's contentio � that th � past is always studied for conte mpor ary rea. sons. And In refernng to the origins of his insight, Nietzsche subtly draws our attention to hims elf as author. He provokes us to ask,

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"Who is this man, and how did he discover this?" Implicitly he an­ sw ers that he had learned all of this from his own personal strug' les at the nexus of art and science or scholarsh Ip. . . . hIS later wntIngs) of all (and book this in g Nie tzsche's discoverie s vations of his own were indeed the results of introspection-exca . . he ' s ' experie nce. But the autobiographical dImensIon 0f. N. letzsc . I ater · king is less obvious in The Birth of Tragedy than It. IS In . th In rks . Nietzsche was not yet ready openly to declare hlmse If an Inlectual hero, or to render himself as the primary subject of his writing. Furthermore, the prominen ce of Wagner obscures the rn any autobiographical comments that he does make.. Nonetheles s,. ' an d It the autobiographical theme of Nietzsche' s discourse IS b aSIc, prefigures his mature style of thinking. . . In The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche charactenzes hImself as the heir of Schopenhauer and Wagner, but in � aying d� f�ren�e �o them, he says nothing that would diminish hIS own onglnahty In writing The Birth of Tragedy. In fact, Nietzsche makes a grand sum­ mary claim for himself:

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Having recognized this extraordinary contrast [between the Apollon­ ian and D ionysian] I felt a strong need to appro �ch the essence � f Greek tragedy and, with it, the profoundes t revelatIOn of the HellenIc genius; for at last I thought that I possessed a charm to enable m �-:- far beyond the phraseology of our usual aesthetics- to represent VIVIdly to my mind the fundamenta l problem of tragedy; whereb� I was granted such a surprising and unusual in � ight into t e HellenIc . cha�. acter that it necessarily seemed to me as If our classIcal·He llenic SCI­ ence that bears itself so proudly had thus far contr�ved to subsist mainly on shadow plays and externaI s.

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These are the words of a creative person so delighted-and not a little surprised at what he has accomplished-that he is impelle� to remark upon it. He employs no false modesty, but no exaggeratIo n either. Presented with the rudiments of a solution to a fundamental problem of aesthetics in the works of Schope.nha� er, Wagne:r' and others Nietzsche had solved that p roblem wIth hIS elaboratIon of the A � ollonian/Dionysian opposition . Armed with th�s under· standing, he was drawn to tragedy, and thus to the aesthetIc core of Greek culture and character. He solved the riddle of tragedy that had remained obscure to all practitioners of the current aesthetics.

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And in solving that riddle, he gained such insight the Hellenic character that the whole science of philology paledinto by comp arison. Certainly Nietzsche was claiming a degree of origi nalit hims elf. And while he was honoring Schopenhauer and Wag y for ner by acknowledging that they were his forerunners, he was also crea a genealogy of genius for hims elf. He did not men tion- as Wa ting might have preferred-that he had attended Schu lpforta, thatgner had studied with Friedrich Ritschl in Leipzig, or in any other he place himself in the tradition of philo logical research. Rathe way chose to rank himself in an order of creators: Scho penhar, he Wagner, Nietzsche. Far from dimi nishi ng his creativity, this quieuer, tly initiated a story of Nietzsche as a geniu s. Nietzsche 's men tioni ng the discoveries that led him to write T he Birth of Tragedy was an unusual step for an author to take in 18 70 Friedrich Ritschl got the impressio n that Nietzsche was suffer . from megalomania. (This was only the first of many such accuing tions .) But for Nietzsche this autobiographical com men tary sa· perfectly consequential. Having determined as a stud ent that was liter· ary history is necessarily written from contemp orary motives, was only appropriate for him to acknowledge the contemp ora it situation that made this particular book necessary-the conflict ry tween the imperial ambitions of science and scholarship and the be· for tragic art. He had experienced this in the most excruciatinglyneed per· ' sonal way. So that including himself in his analysis as a representative of art, a follower of Schopenhauer and Wagner, was logical. In effect Nietzsche inscribed his claims to origi y in the very book that he put forward as original.20 He did not,nalit how , claim to have made novel interpretations of particular trageever dies, to have contributed to philo logical meth od, although he mightorwell have done so. Rather, he made a series of other claims that revea ' l him to be the philo sopher of art, of the tragic sense of life, and of a Dionysian world view. In the last ten chapters of The Birth of Tragedy zsche makes the following claims: (1) That he had explained theNiet mean of the chorus in Greek tragedy as it had never before been expling aine d. (2) That he had for the first time inferred the origi ns of myth in musi c. (3) That he had expl aine d the reac tion of the audience to tragedy for the first time. (4) That he had shown the work of tragedy to be aesthetic play, not ethical purgation. (5) Thating had demon· strated the sterility of philo logy and historicism ashethey were cur· rently practiced. And finally, (6) that he had shown that the world

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to original· I.. tself was only to beJ' ustified aesthetically. These . 0f . the claims ' lnterpretatIon nge from particular achievements In ti tragedy to one of the most general philosophical statements imaginable. . . ?f Nietzsche not only gave the first explanation of the onglns of the . chorus In tragedy in the Dionysian chorus and the meaning . expenenc cathartic the explained also � th at classical tragedy; he h audience has in a tragedy on the basis of his understandlng of chorus.21 His understanding ?f the tragi� chorus led fu:ther. ore m to his first major philosophlcal concluslon: ex�ressed In th� famous dictum that the world was only to be .JustIfied aesthetl' lly 22 Here Nietzsche made a strictly philosophlcal advance upon �h�penhauer. For Schopenhauer had understood .the will to be the basic metaphysical reality-not some realm of ldeal or fixed reality, but the chaotic surgings of will that reduced the phenome· naI world to the status of mere appearance. Anyone who . .under· tood this as Schopenhauer did necessarily became a pesslmlst-an �ethical pessimist," as Schopenhauer termed hi� self. B:u t Nietzsche did not acquiesce in Schopenhauer's preachlng of reslg· nation and the denial of the will. . Philosophically, Nietzsche began with Sc�openhaue�, s conVlC' tion about the metaphysical reality of the wtll and the lm �erm�· nence of all. But through his understanding of the audlence s identification with the chorus and the Dionysian comfort p�o· duced by it, he showed that the Greeks (�nd a�y other people wl.th a tragic sense of life) could adm� t the Dl onys? an nature of reahty . �ly ln ted the sense of and yet be cheerful and vital. Thls essentIa ��= . Schopenhauer's philosophy. Instead ofreslgn.at� on, Nletzsche pro· motes a heroic cheerfulness and exuberant wtlhng. Hence the glo· rious achievements of the Greeks. This, for Nietzsche, was an even more important result than the specifically philological results of his study of tragedy. . The Bzrth ' ofTragedy, By contrast with his own accomplishment In Nietzsche thought that recent generations of Germans had learned little from the Greeks. After acknowledging the noble .efforts �f then Goethe, Schiller, and Winckelmann, he indic�tes that Slnce time the attempt has become "incomprehenslb�y f�ebler and fee· bler., ,23 As a result, even serious people were lnchn�d to doubt whether anyone could advance beyond what the classlcal German writers had accomplished. And those who make their living from classical studies-the professors of philology-"have learned best

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to come to terms with the Greeks easily and in good time, often by �keptically abando ning the Helleni c ideal and comple tely pervert_ Ing the true purpose of antiquarian studies ."24 Here Nietzs vents his spleen upon his profession, effectively disavowi ng chhies membership in it: Whoever in these circles has not complet ely exhausted himself in his endeavor to be a dependa ble corrector of old texts or a linguist ic m i. croscop ist who apes natural history is probabl y trying to assim ilate Greek �ntiquity 'historic ally,' along with other antiquiti es, at any rate accordIn g to the method and with the supercil ious airs of our pre sen t cultured historiography.25

�ith the phrase, "assimilating Greek antiquity 'historically, ' ,) NIetzsche alluded to the historic ist dictum that the past must be understood in its own terms, withou t referen ce to the present. Ob viously Nietzsche felt contem pt for contem porary philological at­­ tempts to appreciate ancient Greek culture. But Goethe and Schiller had not fully understood the Greeks either. In fact, Nietzsche argues that not even the Greeks them­ selves had understood tragedy concep tually. As if to make his claim to originality as f�rcefully as possible, immed iately upon stating that he had explaIned the chorus of tragedy for the first time, he' declares: "We must admit that the meanin g of the tragic myth set forth above never became clear in transparent concep ts to the Greek poets, not to speak of the Greek philosophers."26 Socrates and Plato had waged war against tragedy, while Aristotle had mis. understood it. And the tragedians, while they understood their metier implici tly, could not have explained its theory. So Nietzsche had not only surpassed the contem ptible philologists of the nine. teenth century, he had explained something that neither the great German writers nor the ancient Greeks themselves had understood. , Nietzsche thought of himself as a philoso pher an'd . Clearly thInker as he wrote The Birth of Tragedy. He did not imagine himself a tragedian or an artist. That was the role of Wagner, whom he com­ pared to Aeschylus. But another figure appears in the second part of the book, as if to illuminate Nietzsche's self-con ception : the mu. I S ocrates. 27 N Ietzsche sIca ' hoped that Wagner's music dramas would usher in a new era of tragedy and tragic awaren ess, but an" era that would be essentially differe nt from the period of Hellenic history in which Attic tragedy flourished. The rebirth of tragedy

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in would only come as a result of the realization that scien�e had failedge. . claim to solve all problems and master the world WIth knowled eri this realization dawned there would arise "a new form of culture h we would have to use the symbol of the �usic-prac�icing Soc­ ' for whic ,, 8 rates. 2 What would distinguish this modern tragIc culture IS a degree of self-consciousness unknown to the ancient Greeks. The new Socrates would be a very different philosoph er from Trag­ the one indicated by Nietzsche in the first part of The Birth ofwhom in man the as , edy. The original, according to Nietzsche � " the faith in the explicabi lity of nature and In knowledge as a pancea" had first come to light. But the music-practicing Socrates ou ld necessarily have recognized the error of this faith and have turned to art-and not to just any art but to the Dionysian art of mu sic. Presumably, he would not take up musical compositi on as his metier-no more than Nietzsche had renounced writing about the Greeks when he disavowed historicism and the credo of profes­ sional philology. Rather, the music-practicing Socrates would philosophize as a Dionysian man infected with the spirit of music. Nietzsche does not explicitly claim this role of musical Socrates for himself. But it is not difficult to see, and has often been noticed, that Nietzsche 's allusions to the emergence of an "artistic Socrates" and a "music·practicing Socrates" are references to himself.29 What � has not been noticed, apparently, is that this is an important clue to Nietzsche 's identity as a thinker and a writer�Dion��!�;:,p..!I1!.Q'§' ,\ opher is a Socrate � W�h£!s.s.een,Q�X:�.��,,§,2�E��,£!, !!!,.:.T1iIS. I S the role V thar:l'rrerzS'"c1le�prays in The Birth of Tragedy. Only In thIS persona could Nietzsche explain the meaning of the chorus and the tragic myth. He raises what the Greeks understood intuitiv.ely to such a level of self·consciousness that it becomes the basis of a philosophy. Nietzsche was Socratic in his reasoned rejection of knowledge as the panacea. He developed this stance until it beca�e � char�c. teristic style of thought. His later works are more sophlstIcat� d In style and more ingenious in argument. But they are not at varIance with Nietzsche' s initial philosophical conclusion s. Thus the autho­ rial identity that Nietzsche would develop in his later books is that of the music-practicing·Socrates. For Nietzsche would ever be a Dionysian philosopher: not an artist, but a self·consci ous and re­ flexive philosopher who subordinated science to artistic insight.

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Nietzsche had sent the first copies of The Birth of Tragedy to Triebschen with a humble letter inJanuary 1 872. He regretted the

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degree to which he had occupied Wagner's attention during the preparation of the book, and only hoped that he had correctly in­ terpreted what Wagner had said to him.30 This was no feigned def­ erence or false modesty. It seems rather that Nietzsche w as suffering from the letdown that often follows the successful com­ pletion of a major creative project-metaphorically called post­ partum depression. And since Wagner's creative force was still what oriented Nietzsche's, he still needed Wagner's approval. Bu t if Nietzsche momentarily feared that Wagner would be less than en­ thusiastic about his book, he was quite wrong. When Wagner first received his copy of The Birth of Tragedy, he read it feverishly. He burst into praise. Wagner did not often praise the creations of others; in fact, merely to have other people's cre­ ations brought to his attention usually irritated him. But this book was something altogether different from the futile efforts of some of his admirers and even the more disturbing works of obvious ri� vals. Naturally, Wagner was immensely gnitified by the role h� had been assigned in the book: the German Aeschylus. The narcissistic satisfaction he took in this is characteristic, and quite evident in his first hasty note to Nietzsche, penned on January 5 just after receiv� ing the advanced-copy: "A more beautiful book I have never readl Everything is wonderful!. . . . To Cosima I said, you come right after her, and after that no one else until Lenbach, who has just painted a fascinating picture of me!"3 1 In effect, all three-Cosima, Nietzsche, and Franz Lenbach, the painter from Munich-had been painting pictures of Wagner: Cosima in her transcription of the autobiography, Mein Leben, Nietzsche in The Birth of Tragedy, and Lenbach in his portrait. Wagner was almost childlike in the narcis­ sistic pleasure he took in such attentions; he loved to have talented people literally depict him to himself. Wagner's initial reaction raised Nietzsche's spirits somewhat. In a letter to his friend Gersdorff, Nietzsche quoted happily from Wagner's note and said that some of it was so moving that he could not repeat it.32 What he could not repeat, apparently, was the thought that he had been given the place next to Cosima in Wagner' s heart. But that was not all the praise that Nietzsche would get from Wagner, because narcissistic gratification was not all that Wagner would get from reading Nietzsche's book. After reading it once quickly, Wagner and Cosima read The Birth of Tragedy again-separately in the morning, and aloud to each other in the evening. The composer was no less pleased by

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As one o f Wagner's biographers th is much more careful reading. ed at Trieb schen , and Wagner ha s written, "Great enth usiasm reign or's affec tion in a way that ted young auth OW retur ned the talen nterest. He was happy, he said, to have ent beyond mere self-i , , So, less than a week after his first ec­ lived to read the book . 33 again on Janu ary 1 0, tatic note, Wag ner wrote to Nietz sche most symp athet ic ore thoughtful ly and at greater length. It is a letter.34 tion to Apparently Nietzsche was ill and had decli ned an invita t the abou m usias enth visi t Triebschen in the first flush of Wagner's afflic ted him since his book. It was a recurrence of whatever had he was worr ied military duty in France. Wagner in his letter said t his state of mind . He abou t Nietzsche's healt h, but even more abou bouts of depressio n dic and Cosim a had noticed Nietzsche' s perio saw that, now that The over his profe ssion al pred icam ent. And they ed even more desp on­ Birth of Tragedy had appeared, Nietzsche seem "Frie nd! Wha t I dent. He wanted Nietzsche to get himself together. ce." And at the uran reass say is not to be waved off with a laughing end of the letter:

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How I would like to dispel your ill humor. But how should I begin? Would my boundless praise suffice? I doubt it, and that depresses me too. Nonetheless, I can do no other than give you my boundless praise. Please accept it as a friend, even if it does not suffice!35

of what This was Wagner at his very best: firm abou t the seriousne ss plete ly he perceives to be Nietzsche' s perio dic depressio iis, bl:lt co� and tIve senSI most the be supportive of his frien d. In fact, this may e. empathic mom ent in all of Wagner's corre spon denc in The Wagner focused directly upon the creativity that he saw rstoo d his . Birth of Tragedy, as if to make sure that Nietzsche unde gmen t owled ackn an ly mere praise of the book correctly: it was not a rec­ but , book the of the important place he himself occu pied in con­ his ognition of Nietzsche' s own geniu s. After first describing cern abou t Nietzsche, he remarks with pretended surpr ise:

comp arison whatever. And now you publi sh this work, which has no upon you is reduc ed Every influe nce that anyone migh t have had your book from all pract ically to nothi ng: what most distin gu ishes profo und origin ality reother s is the perfect certa inty with which a veals itself in it.36

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Wagner was the first to assert Nietzsche's originality, sugges ti n that Nietzsche too was a genius . And he did so at precise ly the ti m when Nietzsc he's major professor, Friedrich Ritsch l, was sugg ing, also for the first time, that Nietzsche was crazy. Nietzsche esm hi self was quite unable to think of himsel f as a genius , althoug hh had become aware of his creativity. It required Wagner, who w as a recognized genius , to name Nietzsche one. Wagner attempted to legitimate the originality of The Bir Of Tragedy to the author himself-to help him admit his own creathtiv powers to himself. Surely this is empathy. To this end he went on e his letter to show Nietzsche that he had learned from The Birth in Of Tragedy too. This, from a man who understood and advertised hi m self as a genius-which Wagner certainly did-was the ultim ate compl iment. Only another genius can influen ce a gen iu s Nietzsche's essays and conversation had indeed influen ced Wagn er in his writing of Beethoven (18 7 0) and The Destiny of Opera (187 ); 1 and now Wagner acknowledged the influen ce of Nietzs che's boo k on his music . Reading The Birth of Traged,y, Wagner wrote, gave him such a charge of enthusiasm for his own work that he had resum ed compo sition on the last act of Siegfried. He read in it after breakfast in order to get into the right spirit for compo sition. Cosima, curiou sly enoug h, was not so quick to praise N ietzsch� . Perhaps she was a little jealou s of Wagner's first wave of enthus i. asm for Nietzsche, but her attitude too soon gave way to fervid praise . When she finally wrote about the book in a letter to Nietzsche on January 18, it was quite unlike her usual chatty reo ports on doings at Triebschen.37 Echoi ng Wagner's own promo tion of Nietzs che to the rank of genius , she first noted that Nietzsche "had exorcised spirits in this book that I thought only obeyed our master [WagnerJ."38 Comin g from Cosim a, this was almos t more reo markable praise than Wagner's own. Cosim a had often treated Nietzsche as a Wagnerian lackey; but now he was sudde nly compa. rable to " the master." The most interesting passage of Cosim a's letter contai ns an idea that she had undoubtedly discussed with Wagner: I have read your work as piece of literature, repres enting the most profou nd proble ms . And I cannot separate myself from the book any more than the master can, because it gives me answer to all the uncon, scious questio ns of my soul. You can imagin e how your mentio n of Tristan and Isolde affected me: I have experi enced the annihi latio,n

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through music and the salvation through drama-just as you describe it�more powerfully in this work than in any other, b ut I have never . been able explain [my own reaction] . �o you have clarified for me the , most powerful impression of my life:�J

Perhaps unwittingly, the Wagners were indicating that Nietzsche was not only a genius : but a g� nius of a particul.ar type: the "poetic Socrates" intimated In The Bzrth of Tragedy by NIetzsche . 1 e h IID · seIf. He understood and explicated the works 0 f artists l'k Wagner (and Aeschylus), who c :eated ,:ithout fully understan. d'Ing the impli cations of their creatIons. NIetzsche had made clear to Co sima, Wagner's consort (and perhaps to Wagner as .w�ll), �he steries of Wagner's art. This was not inaccurate. But It Imphed even larger powers of insight and unmasking that, with mu.ch greater hindsight, we now know constituted Nietzsche's �reat gI�t. Thus Cosima's characterization of Nietzsche resembles Nlet�sche s own first approximation of the distinction betwe � n the naIve . ge­ nius-here exemplified by Wagner-and the sentimental genIUS, Nietzsche. But in the early months of 1 8 7 1 , this may have seemed like faint praise to Nietzsche, who in his dour mood must now have thought that to be a Socrates of any sort was to be damned. . Had Nietzsche been ready for their praise, and had he not sull n eeded Wagner as a fatherly protector and guaranto : of the valu.e of his own originality, he might hav� struck out o.n hIS own a� thIS point. He might have left the university to make hIS wa� as an Ind � ­ pendent writer. And the painfully unfriendly receptI ? n that hIS book received among philologists might have affect �? �l1 m less. But he was still dependent upon Wagner. And he was neither sure of his originality nor ready to contemplate leaving his posi �ion at the university. So he' remained very vulnerable to the reaction of the philological community. . . . Wlt� almost � nanlmous The Birth of Tragedy was in fact receIved hostility by academic philologists. The book was I�tend�d In part �s a provocation of the historicist ideology of the phIlol?g�cal estabhs� . mente Nevertheless, Nietzsche was hurt by the pubhc sIlence of phI' lologists, by the adverse reaction of Friedrich �it� chl, .and by an outrageously venomous attack leveled against hIm In pr� nt. Ritschl had received a complimentary copy of The Bzrth 0fTra�­ edy directly from the publisher. Upon perusing it, he wrote In hIS diary that it was "an inspired waste of energy."4() But he did not reo . spond to the book until Nietzsche wrote hIm a cunous letter on

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January 30 requestin� his opinion. Begin� ing in a rather indig_ nant, formal tone, NIetzsche expressed hIS "astonishment" that Ritschl had not written him at least a note. He declared that his b.ook demanded anything but silence, that it was a "manifesto" desIgne� to b�eathe new hope into the discipline of philology. Bu t then In closIng he returned to the familiar tone that had been com­ m.on bet�een them, assuring his professor that he knew that Ritschl w �shed hIm well. It seems an almost schizophrenic letter, in which NIetzsche first arrogantly asserts his dignity as a creative au thor and then returns to the humble role of student. Again Ritschl mad� a note in his diary: "Amazing letter from Nietzsche-megalom a_ nia." This is the first time that anyone made this suggestion ab ou t Nietzsche. And it is significant that it came in conjunction with N.iet�sche's first genuinely original work. In the popular mind ge­ nIUS IS next to madness; and between them Ritschl and Wagner ex­ p�essed b? th ter� s of this adage. Ritschrwas of course reacting to NIetzsche s self-Importance, something that must have seemed completely inappropriate in a classical philologist. The scholar was supposed to efface himself in his effort to represent the past as it had act� ally been. And here was Ritschl's own student audaciou sly suggestIng that he could renew the whole profession with one very speculative book. Ritschl responded to Nietzscne nonetheless, and his letter was admirably forthright. He wrote that he could not give a detailed opinion of �ietzsche's book, inasmuch as he felt himself incompe­ tent for the Job. He was too old to change his basic orientation to life and scholarship. He was fully committed to the historicist � ode of tho.ught, and he could never find salvation in a philosoph­ �cal system lIke Schopenhauer's. As a historicist, he could not imag­ Ine what the "suicide" of tragedy might mean. Nor could he see how the progressive individuation of Western man was an unfortu­ nate development. He clearly recognized himself in the "Alexan, drian man" that Nietzsche satirized in The Birth of Tragedy, and noted that Nietzsche could hardly expect such people to trade in their rational knowledge for phantasies of salvation to be found in contemporary art; that is, in Wagner's operas. In all these remarks Ritschl openly stated his disagreements with Nietzsche, but added that they were based upon a cursory review of the book. At his age he had not the time nor the energy to delve into Schopenhauer's philosophy, which seemed to be prerequisite to a fuller under-

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he humbly confessed his in­ standing of The Birth of Tragedy.y, And even in his youth. abiIity to appreciate philo soph sche' s hope, expressed in his letNietz to Ritschl objected finally education of philo l �gists. Wou�d ter, to provide a new basis for the find nothI ng more In ot the great mass of young people se scien ce (Wissenschaft)? ietzsche' s views than an excuse to despi more than he advances Does he not really encou rage dilettantism an old pedagogue, he ts of th e cause of art? These are the doub "master of mere a of states , that do not relegate him to the status angry. And while the aging note cards ." It was Ritschl's turn to beamen ities, �t is c�ear that this professor went on to close with a few hIS calhng, not only yed betra had was his final judgm ent: Nietzsche tion of West ern ratradi as a philologist, but as an educator in the tionalism. nt, had Ritschl had to admi t that Nietzsche, his prize studeted judg­ istica soph more a is turned out to be a subversive. This two hl's Ritsc But niac. ment than simply labeling him a megaloma upon the tradition views are really one: for him, Nietzsche' s attackntia. Nor is Ritsc hl's of Western rationalism was a species of deme of Tragedy incom­ asse ssment of the Nietzsche who wrote The Birth geniu s. That patible with Wagner's recognition of him as aNietzsche' s deNietzsche was a subversive is recognized today by tractors and disci ples alike. Nietzsche may have hoped for a frien dlier reactionws from Ritschl, but he never supposed that he would get good revie w, from how­ other philo logists. He did want at least one friendly revie frien his ever. So before the book even appeared he sugge�ted to Rohded Rohde that he write a review, an "elevated advertisem ent." jour­ was anxious to help, but his first attempt was rejected byt.the sec­ His alblat Centr nal for which it 'was inten ded, the Literarische days few a ond appeared in the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung only Gersdorff, before he received word from Nietzsche' S other frien d, g philo lo­ of an extensive attack upon The Birth of Tragedy by a youn orffs gist in Berli n. This was Ulric h von Wilamowitz-Moellend e).43 booklet entitled Zukunjtsphilologie (The Philology of the Futurorff, Rohde now felt obliged to reply to Wilamowitz-Moellend To which he did in the form of an open letter to Richard Wagner.44 dis­ he which in this Wagner added an open letter to Nietzsche cussed the lamentable state of the German philologic al profes­d sion.45 Finally, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff added a seconall installment to his Philology of the Future. These publications

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brought Nietzsche a degree of inte llec tual notoriety, but na enough they did him more harm than goo d in the world of ph ogy. Non etheless they dem ons trateif any dem ons tratio n n� cessary how radi ally inc om pat ible the orig ina li ty :� . NIe tzsche s boo k was wIth hIS scholarly profess ion in 187 2. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-M oell end orff was an am biti ous . p h'l1 0I OgI' St, an arIs tocrat who had defied his fam ily to bec you n ome scholar. He too had studied at Schulpfort a. He had bee n there dUr . Ing N �' etzsc he ' s last years and so the two were at leas t sup erfi ciaU acquaInted. He was as wel � trai�ed as Nietzsche, and he would g on to a truly great career In phI lOlogy. In fact, by hist oric is t stan d�rd � , he would bec om e the greatest phi lolo wIth Innumerable pub lica tion s to his cred gist of his generatio n it. But his career as a author began somewhat disreputably with this inte mp erate and very personal a ttack upo n Nie tzsche and The Birth o Tragedy_ Mo s . of hIS. twenty-eIg ht page essay is taken up with ma lici ous satire com me ntin g upo n the many errors of fact and interpretation tha� he professed to find in the boo k. But , fun cused Nietzsche of betraying the creed damentally, he too ac­ of historic ism , the belief that the cultural creations of the past should be stud ied in their own terms, unc ontaminated by contem porary interests. And he called upo n Nietzsche to resign his pro fess orsh ip in Bas el: it was frau dul ent of him to masquerade as a pra ctit ion er of the science of phi lolo gy. It was easy for Rohde to show that Wil amo witz -Mo elle ndorff made many errors of his own in the cou rse of his diatribe. An d any. one cou ld see that the pam phl et was in very bad taste. But Wilamowitz-Moellendorffs bas ic the sis, that Nie tzsc he had betrayed the creed of historic ism , was exa ctly what Ritschl had said in his letter. Nie tzsche him self said as much in his letter to Ritschl when he ann oun ced that the book was a "ma nifesto. " In fact, he had renounced historic ism whi le he was still a stud ent in Leipzig; After readi �g Sch ope nhauer, but before he ever met Wagner, he had recognIzed that every hum an activity is info rme d by the inter­ ests of t e actors. And he began then to app ly this insight to his . �bservatlon of hIm self and his fell ow phi lologists. Now he had pub­ lIshed a book that flaunted his contem porary con cerns and called upon the authority of several nin etee nth -cen tury gen iuses to settle anc ien t Greek issu es.46 One profess or of phi lology declared . that anyone who pub­ lIsh ed such a boo k was profess ionally dea d. And in fact, one of the

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of The Birth o Tragedy was consequences of the negative reception . suddenly found hImself bereft of students,. overietzsche a N t 01 g he had become so notorious that students of philology were . ' 47 To say the I east, N letzsc he was In warned to stay away from Basel. . . . . . a delicate position profeSSIonally, In spIte of �IS .r�cent promo.tl0n to. te nured professor. He might be seen as a lIablhty at the U nlverSlty 0f Basel . His application to exchange hIS POSItIon as. prolessor f hilology for one in philosophy had already been rejected. And i out the backing ofRitschl, he would find it difficult to make his way as a philologist anywhere else. . Nietzsche was more depressed than encouraged by the pu hca­ . of his book and the reactions to it. Even Wagner's enthUSIasm Uon . wa S not sufficient to neutralize the negative reactIon 0 f the . ph 1' l 0. I ogists. Nonetheless, Nietzsche offered to aban?on the unIVerSIty d dedicate his whole energy to the WagnerIan cause. It was a mptom of Nietzsche's desperation, and Wagner was suitably hor­ rified. He rejected the idea out of hand. Wagner had ne;er been averse to the sacrifices of his other disciples, but he reahzed that Nietzsche needed to pursue his own development. There was al �o self-interest in his reaction. He knew the prestige of a professor In Germany well enough, and he wanted to have one in his ca� p even if he was notorious among his colleagues. He felt that N Ietzsc e would be of more use to him right where he was, as professor In Basel.48 So there was never any question of Nietzsche accompany­ ing the Wagners when they left Triebschen in the e arly S prin� of . . 1872. He would stay behind in Basel and his professIonal IsolatIon would be exacerbated by loneliness. . The Wagners moved to Bayreuth only a few weeks after he , publication of The Birth o Tragedy. For Wa�ner: of course, mOVIng . to Bayreuth meant opening the final campaI?n In hIS war to refo� m German culture. Triebschen had been a delIghtful and productIve interlude. Still supported by the Bavarian King, Ludwig II, he had worked as well as he ever had, finishing Die Meistersinger and many other projects and advancing The Ring o the Nibelungen decisively. He had won Cosima and started his family there. Generally speak­ ing, in the Triebschen years ( 1 866-72) Wagner had recouped his forces for the final struggle against the operatic world. For Nietzsche, however, Triebschen had been a time and a place where he often had Wagner' s exclusive attention. I � Bat reuth Nietzsche would be one of many disciples, and many In thIS crowd were no more than sycophants. For Bayreuth was not to be a

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refuge but the social center of the Wagnerian move ment, an d

the Festspielhaus and Wagner's home Wahnfried were to be monu ments.

to which all Wagnerians woul d make regular pilgrimag Nietzsche was boun d to be disap pointed and even disgu e; So sted o n those few occas ions when he actually visite d Bayreuth. Wagner's move marked the begin ning of the end of Nietz sche' s Wagnerian perio d. At the time this was not apparent to either of them. When the cornerstone of the Festival Theater was cerem ously laid in May of 1872, Nietzsche was invited to Bayre oni. u turned out to be a dismal, rainy day, but Nietzsche had the th. It h of ridin g in the first carriage, right besid e Wagner as they rolleonor the hill to the solem n dedicatory cerem ony. This marked the d up ap ex of their friend ship. .

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Imm ediately after publ ishin g The Birth of Tragedy, Nietz sche launched a series of publi c lectures in Basel "On the Fu ture of Ou r Educational Institution s," in which he attacked the allege dly sad state of German education .49 He intended to reveal the prob lems the Gymnasium in particular by recou nting a fictio naliz ed narra of t of his own adole scent experienc e. But when he held the first i,ve ture on January 16, the staid citize ns of Basel must have been lee. ap. palle d. The autobiographical elem ent was thinly veiled and. embarrassingly melodramatic. Attendance drop ped off after the first lecture. And yet Nietzsche went on in February and March to� give four more of the six lectures he had plann ed, each more teo dious than the last. He never delivered the sixth.50 The lectures turned out to be an exposition of the naive or roo mantic ideology of the geniu s. The basic ideas are spok en by an aged geniu s·phi losopher to a younger comp anion , but overh eard by two ideal istic students, who learn that their own educ ation at th� Gymnasium had been debased. The philo soph er strongly resembles Scho penhauer in his world·view, but his critique of the Gymn asium is very much that of Richard Wagner. The students are Nietz sche and a comp anion . What the students overhear is a disco urse on the boundary between the genius and non·genius . They are a conse rva. tive and even defen sive reassertion of the naive theory of the ge. nius against the claim s of popu lar education . The old philo sopher's fundamental comp laint is that "the rights of the geniu s" have been demo cratized in the nin,et eenth century.51 He chastises his comp anion and former pupi l for fancy. ing hims elf an indep ende nt thinker. Teac hing at a Gymnasium , the

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man ought to have recognized his true mission in sifting . . the mas ses of individuals in the school, se�rchI ng f�r genlus. I n· . . from teachIng, ImagInIng that he stead of that he had withdrawn . . . h·1m self might become creatIve lIke hIS master, th e p h'l 1 osopher. . . f h o t e tImes: every· to the philosopher, was a sIgn according Th is, . one was cultivating their imagination and hopIng to find that they toO had been born to create. The consequences were an expanded . edu cational system, a vulgar tolerance lor In d"IVI d ua l'Ity, an. d a tern· . ble lack of intellectual discipline-altogether a superfi1Cla1 , "Jour· culture. The humanistic Gymnasium had been expanded, 1 . ic" naI'st ' th e democratized, and debased by nineteenth-century matenal Ism, rian values of productivity, commerce, and profit. ; he ita til u Gymnasium's original goals had been betray� d and abandoned. 5 The Gymnasium remained the centerpIece of German educa­ tion, nevertheless, and suffered no loss of pr� s�ige. It w�s much more important than the university in determInIng what It meant to be an educated person in nineteenth-century Germany. The cul­ tural elite of that society was distinguished from the rest of the P? P­ ulation primarily by their Gymnasial education. If the Gymnaszum had been corrupted, then the contention that true culture or Bildung had fallen into neglect followed logically.53 . Bismarck's Germany was not notably democratIc, and the Gym­ nasium was no more democratic than society at large. By more re­ cent standards the school was authoritarian in its organization and antidemocratic in its educational content. It has even been alleged that the humanistic Gymnasial education, based on the study of . Greek, failed to prepare Germans for democracy;,-54 I t" �as th e very archetype of an elite school. Conservativ�s saw the Gymna;,zum as � bas· . tion of the social order. Yet Nietzsche, In the VOIce of the phIloso· pher," attacked the Gymnasium for being altoge�her too democratic. This was a genuinely reactionary view, whIch suggested that an­ other grave danger lurked behind this "democratic" e?u � ational system, a danger that threatened its middle·class bene� clanes most particularly: the working classes might get the same I�ea: nam�ly . that "education is merely a means to matenal prospenty, , and In­ sist upon the same rights as the middle classes. They might demand universal education and even access to the Gymnaszum.55 It would have been tactless to defame the Gymnasium in any city in Germany, but it was especially so in Basel, where the quality of . education was being maintained at great sacrifice, now. that the CIty . had been shorn of its hinterland and much of Its tax base.56 A nd In ' C

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fact the citizens of Basel could be as proud as any in Germany of the quality of education that they were providing to the you th of their city. Yet Professor Nietz�che seemed determined to discre d'1t it with his lectures.57 If Nietzsche had to attack the Gymnasium, one might have ex­ pected him to focus upon the specialization and preprofess io nal. ism t�at h�d crept into the ?ymnasium in the nineteenth cen tlJ ry, . especIally In the field of phIlology. That was a topic that he had already addressed in his correspondence and journals, and o ne that would continue to concern him throughout his life. And it Was a critique that contemporaries like Jacob Burckhardt could appre­ ciate. But what Nietzsche decried even more energetically was the latitude supposedly being given to personal development, individ. uality, and originality. This was an attack that hardly anyone bu t a thoroughly tyrannical artist like Wagner could appreciate, some. one who-as Nietzsche would soon recognize-could acknowle dge no other individuality but his own. Among. the middle class of the nineteenth century, individuality was very widely subscribed to in­ deed; it was perhaps the central myth (in the creative sense of the word) of the century; and a twenty-eight year old professor was un­ likely to shake many people's faith in its reality or importance. Nev­ ertheless, Nietzsche insisted that individuality was the exclusive prerogative of the genius and not to be propagated at school. An educated bourgeois himself, even Nietzsche cherished the ideal of individuality and personal development. He had imbibe d · it at every stage of his education: from his father, in the Pinder and Krug homes, and especially during his years at the Gymnasium. Nietzsche, like Winckelmann and a host of other German students of the ancient Greeks, saw the goal of education in the develop­ ment of a "whole" or autonomously creative individual. He ad­ mired its realization in his mentors, Schopenhauer and Wagner. And even as he suppressed his individuality in his devotion to his masters, he cherished the ideal. He had aspired to become a cre. ative individual since before he wrote his first autobiographic sketch at the age of fourteen. The only thing that distinguished Nietzsche's view of individuality in these lectures was that he now emphasized that only an infinitesimal minority of any generation is capable and worthy of such development. Most of his contempo- ( raries thought that individuality was something that ought to em­ bellish the careers of as many young middle-class males as possible. It is of course easier to appreciate the attitude of Nietzsche' s ;)

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s somewhat compl acent, than the atti­ cO n temporaries, even i f i t i m may well de of Nietzsche himse lf. The quality of indivi dualis Nietzsche ve b een diluted in the process of its popul arizati on, as nonethetrend secula ful power a � urges one to believe. But it was able, afford le, possIb e of the self had becom less. The cultiva tion that d realiz_e people . Nietzsche a d desirable for more and more a duality was his­ e whole compl ex of values associated with indivi n of the mid­ rical product of the increa singly domin ant positio iatin repud of � the wh� le d e class in modern society. But instead the mId­ WIth had grown up idea of self-co nsciou s individuality that simply reverted. to dle class in the previous century and a half, he y, that only the genIus the most selective understanding of it, namel of them. h enoug is a true individual, and there are few Nor was this a self-serving move. Every evidence suggests that as he wrote Nietzsche excluded himse lf from the category of genius g his quittin of ng thinki even and ssed these lectures. He was depre ner Wa the to ies ? �afi profe ssorship in order to devote all his energ phIlo­ hIS d cause. This was the moment when Nietzsche had burne of Music, logical bridge s with The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit uth Bayre to moved er Wagn when and when Ritschl disown ed him, ever than more now was leaving Nietzsche alone in B�sel. Nietzsche dependent upon his image of Wagner as his mentor and master. So Wagner, and not he himself, was the solitary genius Nietzsche had in mind; Wagner's individuality (and Schop enhau er's) was what Nietzsche sought to exalt. Both men had become disillu sioned with democracy and conceived a hatr�d for "publi c opinio n." Follow ing Wagner, Nietzsche regarded journ alism as a symp­ tom of the popular enthu siasm for the self and individuality. It was a product of the middle class for the middle class, and the purport­ edly low quality ofjourn alistic writin g was a produ ct of t�e dem�c ­ ratized Gymnasium. The Gymnasium no longer prepa red ItS pupIls for culture or even scholarship, but only forjourn alism.58 The word journalism appears on nearly every page of the lectures "On the Future of Our Educational Institu tions," always dripp ing with dis­ dain, as ifjourn alism were an affron t to public �oral s. Public opin­ ion, as integral a part of popul ar sovereignty as journ alism, is similarly scorned. But disdai n for journ alism and public opinio n was hardly an original attitude in the Secon d Reich. It was a shibbo ­ leth of reactionaries, employed to denigrate any "unqu alified" opinion, especially liberal views on politic s and public life in the new Germany.

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understands a variety of literarY . By journalism, . fromNietzsche h t e use �f supposedly barbarous neologisms cnmes rangIng . of unquahfied to the expressIon opinions on cultural matte Here is one of the greatest experimenters with the German I an: guage, a writer who playfully created new words and expression s throughout his life, carping fastidiously about neologisms. As [, u.nquaIified �pinions, that is just what Nietzsche's fellow Philol � ?IStS we�e .saYIng about The Birth of Tragedy. His own book was called Jou �nahstIc more than once by traditional philologists. His great achIevement was to have overcome his academic training and learned to think originally about subjects that he had not bee taught. And yet this is what he seems to scorn in the lectures the Fu.tu �e of OU.r Educa,tional Institutions." They are implicitly a repudIatIon of NIetzsche s own accomplishment. Much of the explanation of this curious contradiction lies in Nietzsche's slavish devotion to Wagner. The neologisms that he condemns are ones to which Wagner took particular exception and the unqualified opinions Nietzsche had in mind were un: �oubtedly reviews of Wagner. In fact, the lectures are so Wagne­ nan that one can legitimately wonder if these are Nietzsche's ideas at all. But Nietzsche's exalted view of Wagner, this direct adoption of Wagner's attitudes in important matters, and his deprecation of himself, were an integral part of his own intellectual development. He was Wagner's disciple_ The conclusion of the last lecture that Nietzsche actually gave is a _represen �ation of the genius imposing order upon such people as hIm �elf. WIth a? ordinary conductor, an orchestra is nothing but a, comIcal collectIon of fools playing a variety of instruments out of tune and out of time_ But when a musical genius (like Wagner, who had also �ormulated new standards of orchestral conducting) stands up In front of them, they are transformed: "It is as if this genius entered by an instantaneous transmigration of soul into all . of these savages, and now only a single inspired eye looked out of them."59 Suddenly the orchestra plays wonderfully, even without further rehearsal. Nietzsche's simile promotes the naive and magi- , cal the�ry of genius that had been the common parlance of the early nIneteenth century. The genius-conductor has an aesthetic . Midas-touch. No amount of training or practice could enable musicians to play the music of the muses. They are like the masses in society who ' can only participate in an ennobling national cause when they ate

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ary political geniu s. As the masses are led and directed by a visiongeniu s is born to direct them . Thus born to be directed, the al distin ction that the theory of ge­ Nie tzsche reasserted the radic d, separating the geniu s from the merely nius had always maintaine al distinction was less plaus ible than tale nted. But this hierarchic ry there was more resistance ever, since in the nineteenthioncentu the "grea t leade r" or than ever to the subordinat of talen t to genius. t of ge­ Nie tzsche explained this resistance and the resentmen antip ­ the s: geniu of ideology niu s by reviving another cliche of theunrec s. geniu ognized creative athY of contemporaries to the often who While it had once been the patro ns and politi cal autho rities e­ Wagn the of view the (in now fail ed to appre ciate true creat ors, who on opini c publi rian Nietz sche) it was the journ alists and perse cutin g the ge­ pro mote d cultu ral steril ity by scorn ing and not made ," and niu s. But the geniu s was still the demi god, "born Scho oling had l. schoo in e certai nly not traine d or taught to creat ar as it produ ced jour­ noth ing to do with creativity, excep t insof nali sts and critic s to oppo se it. Nietzsche's lectures are as much a restatement of the naive ide­ asium. They are ology of the genius as they are a critique of the Gymnsion in the ge­ xpres not direc ted again st indiv idual ity or self-e to cul­ nius, but only again st attem pts to intro duce the mass esfor ture, critic al think ing and self-expres sion. Educationction inthea mas ses shoul d apparently consi st of elem entary instruhing more context of discip line and respe ct for autho rity. Anyt ragin g encou violates "the natural hierarchy of . . . intell ect," by O ­ the masse s to think for them selve s when they Sh ltld be recon ciled to follow and obey. "Let me repeat," Nietz sche states near the end of the fifth lecture:

everything that one All educa tion begin s with the very oppos ite of s with obedi ence, begin currently prizes as "acad emic freedo m." It sually applie d to u word with subor dinati on, with breed ing (Zucht, a it). And just tbarke (Diens anima ls rather than huma ns), with servitude s: there leader their need as the great leaders need follow ers, so the led sort of a even on, positi reigns in the order of intelle ct a mutual predis preestablished harmo ny.fio

The geniuses and the masses are born for their respective roles. The common people are not without cultural value in this

scheme. Nietzsche suggests that the peo ple pos sess and untutored "rel igious instinct" that underlies the unc on sc i the fou nda tion of pop ular myth, mo rality,j usti all culture. It ce, lan guage , so on. The masses must be kept in their "he alth state" precisely in order to sustain culture. And all y unc o nscio attempts to II cate them beyond a t�ad � tend not onl y to violate nat ural hier . .hzatIon but to endanger cIvI , and even the genius as wel l. The aurnchy t' tored and uncritical state of the peo ple is the necessa ry matrix U the emergence of a gen ius:

We kno w what they are after, thes e peo ple who wan t to interru p t that bles sed healthy slee p of the peo ple. They are con stan tly calli ng t them, "Aw ke! Bec ome c�n scio us! Be sma rt!" We kno w what � they ar [really] trymg to acco mpl Ish whe n they pret end to be satis fyin g a tre­ end ous dem and for educatio n. With this extraordinar � y mul ti p li ca_ . tIOn of scho ols (Bzld ungsanstalten) and the con sequ ent crea tio n of self- con sc ious cor s of teache rs, these peo ple are figh ting again � . st the . natural hIerarchy m the emp Ire of the inte llect , dest royi ng the roo ts of the high est and nob lest powers of culture that break forth fro . m the u � c � nscIOus ness of the peo ple. The se forces [the pow ers of cul ture ans mg from the unconsc ious ness of the peo ple] have as thei r moth; erly purpose the birth, care, and edu cati on of the gen ius. Onl y in the sin:i le f the mot he can we com preh end the imp � or� tance and the oblI gatI On that gen � ume pop ular culture or educati on has in regard to the gen ius. The actual orig in of the gen ius lies not in pop ular cult ure; the gen ius has only a met aph ysic al sour ce, and metaphysical hom e. But that a gen ius actually app ears , that he rises, right out of a peo ple, that he refl ects the com plet e pict ure of all the stre ? gths of h is particular nati on, that he reveals the high est purpose . of hIS people m the symboli c bein g of an indi vidu al and in his eter nal ", work-thus link ing his nati on to the eternal, and rele asin g it from the eph eme r l sphere of the mom entary-all of this the gen ius � can do, but only If he has been nou rish ed and has matured in the mot herly lap of his peo ple' s culture. Wit hout this protective and war ming h� me, on th other han d, the gen ius wou ld never unfo ld his win gs � for hIS eternal flIgh t, but gradually slin k away sadly, as ifhe had been sent out of an unfruitfu l land into a win tery exil e. 6 1

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For Nietzsche, a genius is a kin of national property. The masses exist for the genius, and the dgen ius is the jus tification of civilization itself. Since according to this theory the of the masses wou ld preclude the enlergence of enl ightenment that it should be avoided. The unc ons cious culturegenius, he urges of the masses is>

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genius. va1U able only insofar as it provides a matrix for the . N'Ie tzs che flatly states: "Our goal cannot be th e education 0 f th e individuals, those men masses(, but only the cultivation of selected . works. "62 " h o are equipped for great and lastIng W This was an aristocratic (and distinctly male) theory of culture cast and education. Most of the writers of the nineteenth century . ' . the theory of the genius as a liberal one, and �mplo'yed. I � to IegItIa te the authority of talented and accomphshed IndIvIduals re­ rdle ss of their class origins. This "natural" aristocracy of talent g d ability was contrasted to the aristocracy of birth that had ruled ro pe for centuries. It made way for what Napoleon called "cars open to talent." It was a part of the more general movement popular (that is, non-aristocratic) control of public affairs_ A� sheti c and intellectual radicalism seemed to parallel and even reIn­ classes. �J.orce the revolutionary political ferment of the middle ' WIt. h one anCul tural and political revolutionaries felt soli danty other. .. Then, in the early nineteenth century, after the bourgeOISIe had clearly become the century's dominant class a.n? th� appar�nt with rul ers of the future, artists and intellectuals grew dISIllUSIoned the new arbiters of power. They realized that while the members of the middle class had the time and money to patronize culture, they were materialistic and haphazardly educated. The bourgeoisie was not often interested in progressive art. And its taste proved to be quite conservative. Hence the invention ? f "Boh� mia" and eventu­ ally the term "avant-garde" for the truly InnovatIVe cultural forces of the nineteenth century; and hence the scorn of the avant-garde for the "philistine" middle class.63 " . t:d by Like many other artists, Richard Wagner felt unappreCl � . the public of his time, and he expressed his scorn for the phIhstIne members of the middle class the clearest terms. In 1 848 Wagner had been a revolutionary, but now he had become an anti­ democratic traditionalist. Many artists turned in the same direc­ tion as a direct result of the failure of the middle classes to appreciate their creations. Now aesthetic radi�alism often resulted in contempt for popular taste and, by extenSIon, for popular gov­ ernment, education, and so on. Wagner and others drew the con­ clusion that democracy had not been a very good idea after �ll. . As Wagner's disciple, Nietzsche adopted the composer s a�tI­ tude without much hesitation. Although his contempt for the mId­ dle class was distinctly secondhand, he carried this attitude to a

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logical conclusion. As long as the scorn of artists like Wagner was . · the conservatism and tastelessness of the bou r d agaInst d Irecte . . . geolsle, It see �ed progressive. But Nietzsche was honest and p erhaps maladroIt e � ough to reveal the deeply aristocratic prem is e of the theory 0: genIus. He revealed that what had long appeared to be a revolutIonary and democratic ideology was really an eli ti st and perhaps even reactionary one. This was one reason why h'IS public lectures proved so unpopular in Base1.64 The lectures "On the Future of Our Educational Institutio ns" came to embarrass Nietzsche himself, even before he finished th series. They constitute a work that Nietzsche never published, e:e ? completed, but they have nonetheless an important place in hIS Intell �ctual develo � ment. In t�em Nietzsche worked throu gh� to the pOInt of absurdIty-the naIve theory of the genius that had dominated the past century. He demonstrated-especially to him� self-that the naive idea of the genius was untenable. This is why the lectures were never completed, even if Nietzsche was not fully aware of the reason at the time. Having distilled the idea of the ge­ nius in his tale of the orchestra, he could not go on. � ietzsche was developing in a paradoxical way: becoming pro­ ductIvely creative through a diScipleship that entailed at least tem­ porary self-effacement. His diScipleship to Wagner was drawn out o:er a period of years, during which he learned the role of the ge­ . nIUS �rom hI � �ento � and gradually focused his creative energies' on hIS own lIfe s proJect. Submission to the master was the more evident consequence of the diScipleship. Less obviously, Nietzsche w�s learning the :ole of the genius from Wagner, preparing uncon­ SCIously for the tIme when he would assert his own genius. But genius �s more than a role, and Nietzsche had been training ' . hlmse�f as a wnter and a thinker well before he even met Wagner. . of Tragedy as a Wagnerian disciple, he So whIle he wrote The Bzrth expressed his own thinking with techniques he had acquired inde­ pendently of Wagner. Since the received theory of the genius had no place for technique and how it is learned, the very fact that he had become Wagner's disciple seemed to demonstrate that he was not predestined to be a genius or a leader, but one of the led. The theory discounted his accomplishments and relegated him to the. role of 'Yagner's helper. And he accepted that role as long as he" could, WIth only momentary lapses. But, once he had written The Birth of Tragedy, some part of him knew that this was far more than a Wagnerian tract. He had become creative, using his natural �n_ r' _

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atio n, his auto-didactic train ing in dowment, his historical educ iples hip to Scho pe �hauer and Wagner. ph il o sqphy, and his disc ry of a genI us born to create. In This experience did not fit the theo ory. fact it con tradicted that the graphical" thinker. It was by now obio "aut an Nie tzsche was expe �ience in �rder to. unde �­ his practi ce to reflect upon his own osophize by Intro spec tIon . ThIS habI t stand the world, and to phil that ideo lo ?y �f .the �eniu s. t�at was spawned in him by precisely n the self a� d Indlvldual �ty. ? Ivlng pla ced so muc h emp hasi s upo y the tItle of Goe the s Dzchtung his fourteen-year-ol d's auto biograph evid ence of that. Lon g before mee ting und Wahrheit is an early upo n his life stor y, not Wagner, Nietzsche had begun to refle ct Mein Leben, but to lear n merely to tell it for othe rs as Wagner did in Future of Our Educatio nal fro m it hims elf. The lectu res "On the nerian character and their Insti tutio ns," desp ite their slavish Wag a refle ction . What he failure as lectures and as fiction, were such tely, was that the naiv e thelearned, but coul d not digest imm edia . ory of the genius did not make sens e. mos t ObVI ­ Nietzsche appears in the narrative of the lectures heard a phil osopher ously as a stud ent who , year s prev iously, over . But in fact his per­ say som e reactionary thin gs abou t education ly represented by rate sona at the mom ent of writing is more accu her. Just as the com ­ osop phil the the nameless young com pani on of off�red to re­ panion had withdrawn from teaching, Nietzsche now Just as the And ner. sign his post in Basel in orde r to wor k for Wag or­ ner Wag ing, philo sopher reproved the young teacher for leav e imp ortantly, dered Nietzsche back into the academic fray. MQr hg him self (at nciii reco iled Nietzsch e's disc iples hip ·to Wagner enta a born ge­ tor.2.crea least temporarily) to the idea that he was not a the role isely nius-but a worker, a servant of geni us_ This is prec penhauer and that the phil osopher-who seems to represen t Scho This can hard ly Wagner- assigns to his com pani on in the lectu res. pani on is the com the be an accid ent. Nor can it be an accid ent that zsch e's per­ only figu re in the lectu res who has no anal ogue in Niet sonal life- exce pt Nietzsche himself. lectures. An Nietzsche has therefore at least two pers onas in the in a dream rs acte char in teresting feature of dreams is that all of the mer. If drea may som etim es be understo od as facets of the eniu s and Nietzsche is the student who overheard the phil osopher-g asies of the companion who is reproved by the geni us for his fant d in indepe ndence, perhaps the future Nietzsche is also to be foun

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the philosoph er himself. In The Birth o Tragedy Nietzsche had go n e beyond Schopenhauer, and he had always been more of a phi lo so_ pher than Wagner. Even when Nietzsche is putting the thoughtS f chopenhauer and Wagner into the mouth of the philosopher, h IS . IS the au th ona · I VOIce · rulIng the text. In effect, Nietzsche de i cts . h mself most superficially as the eavesdrop ping student; mor si ­ nlfi �ntly ?ut perhaps unawares, as the reproved compan ion re ­ onClII�g hImself to ot b ing a genius; and quite unconsciou sl as th phIlosopher-genIus hImself. It is a repressed desire finding Ised exp e sion in the text. In an overdetermined autobiograp . Ical text, thIS IS not so much contradictory as it is complete The lectu res "On the Future of Our Educational Insti �utio n s" . . are an autoblogr phlcal text of a genius in the making. Although they are among NIetzsche's least original works, they are reveal . They show that N ietzsch e was not born a genius, bu t th · . herculean effort was requIred for him to get beyond his disci ple� . S IP to Wagner, even after he had written at least one work of e­ . nlUS. In 1872 NIetzsche still had to win his independ ence fr m . Wagner In order to create freely. And Wagner himself was by no means the only obstacle.

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y 1 872, with Nietzsche still in Basel and Wagner in Bayreuth, the careers of the two men began to veer apart. While Nietzsche wasju st setting out on his career, trying to decide what to write as a seque l to The Birth o Tragedy, Wagner's career had reached its final station in Bayreu th, where he would remai n for the final decade of his life. Excep t for the late opera Parsifal, Wagner's work of compo sition was compl ete; he hqd only to realize the produ ction of the Ring cycle in the Festival Theater, to be built presently with the help of Ludwig II. While Wagner consol idated his achievement, Nietzsche sought the very direction of his career. Nietzsche and Wagner seemed nevertheless to be on the best of terms in May 1 872, when Nietzsche made the first of what were to be only five visits to Bayreuth. On the twenty-secon d, when Wagner celebrated his fifty-n inth birthday, the composer's closest friend s and discip les assem bled in Bayreuth. Wagner conducted a select group of music ians from all over Germ any in a festive perfor­ mance of Beethoven's Ninth Symph ony. l Later the whole party rode up the hill for the groundbreaking ceremony where the cornerstone of the Festival Theater was laid. Among Wagner's guests, Nietzsche seems to have been the most fa­ vored, being chose n to ride with Wagner and his family to the

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building site . This was a joyous eve nt, for Nietzsche as well as fa Wagner. r The favor that Wagner showed Nie tzsche see me d to confi wh �t Wagner h d written in his lett ers to Nie tzsc he after the pu � catIon of The Bzrth of Tragedy: Nietzsc he am ong Wagner ' s d"ISCIP I es, he should was not only the foremost also be Siegfried 's godfathe Wagner explained that there was suc r2 h a difference in age betwe . . en h·Imse If an d hIS son that a fam ily "m ember" seemed to be misSI' . n an d SIn · ce N Ietz ' sch e was alre ady like a son to Wagner, he was thg' . logIcal one to take over Siegfr ied 's educat ion after Wagner Wae gon e. W·Ith th'IS ap arent com plim ent , however, Wagner may als s p have provoked NIetzsche to think of him self taking Wagner�o pla ce:� s

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Nie tzsche was actually more com for table in Basel now that th Wagners were in Bayreuth. In order to plan his own career auton mo usl�, he needed a certain dis tan ce fro m the com poser's over. . whelm Ing Infl uen ce. Perhaps withou t realizing the cau se, he felt fre e to work on a projec t without con sul tIn g Wagner. In Octob er 187 2, Nietzsche wrote Wagner one of the most tranquil and spo nta ­ neo us letters of their entire corres pon den ce. Among' other thi ngs, . N'Ietzsch e cautIoned that Wagner mig ht have to wait qui te a while b�fore !te cou ld exp ect another wor k like The Birth of Tragedy from � Im. HIS own development demanded tI ? n, he rote. In an answer which anything but hasty publica. ,; was NIetzsche s calm self-assertion, Wagne alm ost as remarkable r gracefully accepted this. It must have see me d to Nietzsche tha t he could con . . sonally IntI mate WIt. h Wagner, even if their cre tinu e to be per­ ative paths shou ld diverge. Relations between the two men seem never to have been better.4 By t�e end of the year, ho ev r, the first sign of difficu lty ap­ . ",: � peared In a letter from CosIm a.') It IS a warm and chatty letter unt il the end, where there is a curt warnin g to Nietzsche, adv isin g him to �emain "true" to the Wagners and not to let him self be seduced In �o a posture of independence. It seems as though Cosim a's letter� . wntIng had bee n interrupted by Wa gner, and he had ins tructed �er to give Nie tzsche that me ssage; and she, obeying, was left witll lIttle else to say. , As Nietzsche had no pla ns to be unt rue to Wa gne r, he was not perturbed. H ?wever, when he was I inv mas and dec ded to spe nd the hol ited to Bayreuth for Christ� iday in N aumburg with his . mo ther and sIster Ins tead, he really incurred Wagner's wrath. Un.

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aware of this, he sent Cosima a present o f his "F�ve Prefaces to Five Unwritten Books."6 It was February before CosIma acknowledg�d tha t she had received the gift. She explained that she had no � wntn to thank him because Wagner had been angry about hIS not ming to Bayreuth, and about the manne� in whi�h he had an· nounced it.7 But by now, Cosima reassured hIm h�ppIly, when they s oke of Nietzsche they spoke warmly, and so NIetzsche need no p . . , 1m. 8 longer worry abou t Wagner s opInIon 0 f h' . . Cosima's reassurance must have dIsturbed NIetzsche even

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more than her silence. Shortly after receiving her letter, Nietzsche wrote his friend Gersdorff that he had honestly not known that Wagner had been upset; indeed, he wondered why ?"ersdorff, who had been in Bayreuth for Christmas, had not told hIm. Yet he real· . �ed that he unwittingly gave Wagner cause for displeasure often enough. As often as he had tried to discover the reason for th'IS: h e did not understand it. He was absolutely loyal to Wagner: " I Just cannot think how anyone could be truer to Wagner in all the main things, or more deeply devoted-if I could just imagine i �, I ,:ouI.d be it even more." But then he protested that he had to maIntaIn hIS independence in certain minor matters, precisely in order to be . able to maintain this devotion in every higher sense. He felt It a hygienic necessity, as he put it, to avoid too-f�equent p�rsonal con­ tact with Wagner. His work on his own projects requIred that he quarantine himself from the composer.9 Gersdorff advised Nietzsche to visit the Wagners bnefly on hIS way to and from N aumburg.lO Nietzsche accepted this suggestion, and in 1 873 he visited Bayreuth in both April and October. The first of these visits afforded an opportunity for areQ�ezvous with his friend Erwin Rohde, who enjoyed his semester vacation at the same time and also went to Bayreuth. The presence of his friend and fellow philologist suggested that Nietzsche ' should take along his new manuscript, which he had mentioned in several letters to Rohde that winter. 1 1 The preparation of this opusculum, as he called "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks,"12 had been one of �he chief preoccupations keeping him from visiting Bayreuth at � hnst. mas. Nietzsche had written it without informiQg Wagner, takIng ad­ vantage of the distance between Basel and Bayre� th. Becaus� it was completely his own, unlike The Birth of Tragedy, It was very Impor­ tant to Nietzsche. "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks" is much more pedagogical than either The Birth of Tragedy or the other fragments •

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t�at Nietzsche wr? te after the appearance of his first book. It grew . dIrectly out of NIetzsche's lectures in Basel , which were now' In . creasIngly devoted to philosophic textsY It is an essay in the h'�s tory of philosophy, dedicated to the project of Bildung in the most traditional and didactic sense of the word. Nietzsche focuses upon the personal inclinations and cen tral . Ideas of Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and An� . axagoras, but the In �roductory chapters make plain that he planned to . deal sequentIally WIth the whole " 'republic of creative minds ' fr Thal� s to Socrates."l4 The book was to be. therefore. a didacti � in t ductIon to early Greek philosophy, something that might interest laymen and be used by students. Perhaps Nietzsche wanted to dem­ onstrate his professional competence as a teacher of philoso ph . since he still �oped to trade his professorship of philology at Bas ; . f�r one In p hIlosophy. Although it is rather prosaic by comparison . of Tragedy, "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of wIth The Bzrth the . Gree k s" IS a remarkably concise, lively, and thoroughly partisan . . dIScussIon of pre-Socratic philosophy. As Nietzsche wrote in his preface, _

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My attempt to tell the story of the older Greek philosophers is distin­ guish: d rom similar attempts by its brevity. This has been attained by mentIOnIng, for each of the philosophers, but a very small number of doctrines. It is distingu ished, in other words, by its incomplete-' ness. But I h�ve selecte th e doctri nes which sound most clearly ?� the personalIty of the IndIvIdual philosopher, whereas the com· plete enumeration of all the tran smitted doctrines, as it is the custom of the ordinary handbooks to give, has bu t one sure result: the complete silencing of personality. That is why those reports are ! so dull. The only th ing of interest in a refuted system is the per· sonal element. This alone is forever irrefutable.15

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Nietzsche's fasc�inat� on wi th the personal element in philoso­ . phy �as apparent In hIS earlIer gravitation to Schopenhauer. At that tIme he want� d a philosophy with a personality, a quest at . least partIally motIvated by his search for a paternal model. But now he sublimated his own personal search for the cultural ben­ e � t of his prospective readers, assuming that they too needed ge­ nIus- � entors. He noted that we may judge people who mean · nothIng to us purely by their aims; but it is different with those ' we admire: I

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, but love them for the ways and Ofte n we disapprove of their aims hical systems are who lly true only for m eans of their striv ing. Phil osop one eque nt phil osophers they usua lly seem their foun ders . For all subs rs, erro ate ends , in any ca.se, they are great mist ake . . . . Take n as ultim y ever of ve d. Thu s, man y peop le dIsa ppro an d henc e to be repu diate , hand ther s not the�rs . . . . On t e � ph iloso pher , beca use his g� al . sys­ such In vidu ais wIll also take JOY wh oever takes joy in great mdi ly erro neou s. They alwa ys have one plete tems, even if they are com al mO od, and colo r. The y can be used in controvertible poin t, a,pe rson , her. 16 to gain an image of the phil osop

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admirable phil o � op�er was , constructing a powerfu l image of an e important than JudglI� g the in Nietzsche'S experie nce, far mor em wou ld pro ve false In any value of a phil osop hic system. The syst to define truth, cou ld be emucase. But the phil osopher, struggli ng lated nonetheless. eks," Nietzsche'S In "Ph ilosophy in the Tragic Age of the Gre novel view of the history � f focus upo n the personal unfolds into a of each pre-Soc�atic hilo soph y. He notes the personal disp osit ion each as func tIon s of hilo sopher, and he a� alyzes th� sali� nt ideas ­ cho them and the psy of the per son al mot Ives that Insp Ired . � ietzsche converts philosophical con sequ ence s entailed in them of dIsp arate fragments these dim figures from mysterious authors es. In his han d� they be­ into starkly individual phil osophical hero P � ato and hIS succes­ come geni uses of even greater stature than tzsche, beca.u.se of sors. Heraclitus in particular stands out for NIe and mutabIhty of ce the hon esty with whi ch he stud ied the transien , . httle thingsP . on .In thIS Nietzsche centers his phil osop hical discusSI nd the Eleatic phi­ book upon the alternatives posed by Heraclitus � app ars as the us � losophers, Parm enid es and Anaxagoras. HeraclIt ate real­ ultIm the and , nces eara app ge, chan defender of mutability, "exi stence" . as o �­ ity of what phil osophers call "bec oming" and e, Herachtus dId posed to "being" and "essence." According to Ni�tzsch d, more real worl l Idea without the metaphysical comforts of another, Nietzsche �ought than this apparent one. For precisely this reason, ard NIetzsche him to be the more profound thinker. From this time onw stan� .himself as a would always sustain this Heraclitan thesis and unde: hCItly as an al­ disciple of Heraclitus. And Heraclitus would figure Imp eon. IS panth ternative to Schopenhauer and Wagner in Nietzsche's and Anaxagoras Nietzsche fully appreciated that Parm enid es

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had refuted any phil osop hical influ ence that Heracli tus might h�ve ha� in the next two thousand years. 1 9 Even as he disagreed Wlt thelr Ystem, he c�u ld praise them as mentors to the entire . . tr� ItIO n ? Western phI loso phy. They created a phi loso phi cal ma� tnx that � Imp ly erased Heraclitus from the history of phi losoph a� d dom �nated Western phil osop hy virtuall y unchallenged u nt N Ie �zsche s Own mom ent in the nineteenth cent ury. Denying the ' ObV IOUS eVI. � ence of the sens es, they argu ed the imp ossi bil ity of . change and Impermanence. TheIrs was a metaphysical phil osoph of "b elng ' , " esse nce , �n d eternIty ' . It wou ld hardly be an exagger Y a_ t�. on to say that they Invented Western met aphysics. Their con clu­ SIon s b�came the bas is of all later form s of idea . esse ntIa lIsm , from Plato onwards. Nietzsche underst lism and ood the tri­ ump h of the Eleatic phil osophers to be the disaster of Western phi­ lo �oph y. But although he felt their acco mpl ishm crIme, he w�s more c�n erned with their phil ent was their great osop hical gen ius and � agon than WIth the valIdIty of the resulting system. Est blis hing his own phil sop hical pos itio n in relation ship to � . �erac��Itus and the Eleatlcs, NIetzsche was also beginning to resolve hIS a�tItudes to�ard his modern men tors . He had long kno wn that he d �sagree? WIth Sch ope nhauer on the mos t imp ortant philo­ sophIcal pOIn ts. And now he was beginn ing to distance himself �rom ��gner a?d his romantic ideology as well. Still, he persiste d . In adm lnn g theIr personal herolsm .Jus t as he admired Parmenides and Anaxagoras, Nietzsche wanted to che rish Sch ope nhauer and Wag?er as fa�her1y mentors even as he reje cted and Ideals. NIetzsche believed that "the only their phi losophies thing of interest in a refuted system is the personal elem ent. " He might have written the same of an outgrown mentor. Beyond that , of course, Nie tzsche had fou nd a more enduring men tor in Her acli tus. Not surprisingly "Ph ilosoph y in the Tragic Age of the Greeks" , . : fou nd IItt �e favo: WIth Wagner. Nietzsche took his manuscript to Bayreuth In Apnl 1873 with the inte ntio n of sho win g it to Wagner a�d Rohde.20 R?hde' reaction is unk now n,21 but the com poser � faIle� t? appreCIate eIther the accessib ility or the pole mical intent of thIS lIttle book. He missed any reference to to be typical academic work, unrelated to him self and found it con tem p�rary cultural pro blem s.22 Wagner's ill-humo r mus t have bee n form idable for as ' soo n as N ietzsc�e ret rned t Basel he wro te Wagner an abj�ct let­ � ? �er of apo lo�, 2 an� ImmedIately dropped the proj ect. He began Instead to wnte a dIfferent essay on the liberal theologian D: F.

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Strau ss, a subject that Wagner had directly proposed to him in Bayreuth. . . In 'his letter, Nietzsche humbly acknowledged the JustIce of Wagner's dissatisfaction with him. This must have been unbearable to Wagner, he wrote. Every moment with Wagner was a revelation of things he had never considered, and he wished to absorb them all; unfortunately, he was a slow learner. Nietzsche further con­ fessed that he had indeed wished for some independence, but now he saw that he had wished in vain. It made him sadder and sadder, he wrote, that he seemed incapable of helping in the Wagnerian cause. And he pleaded with Wagner to accept him as a pupil, though not a very intelligent one.24 The whole episode ��em � to. i!: lustrate Nietzsche's earlier judgement that he had a hygIenIC need to avoid too-frequent contact with Wagner. N ow that he was back in Basel his one hope, he continued in this remarkable letter, was to entertain Wagner with his projected attack upon D. F. Strauss.25 This was the little book that he was now writing instead of finishing "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks." He announced the project to Rohde as well, but in other terms: only in a "holy rage" against Strauss had he been able to dispel the ill-humor in which he had returned to B �se1.26 Obviously Nietzsche was not writing about Strauss for purely Intellectual rea­ sons. He had no intrinsic interest in attacking this man. He was sim­ ply venting anger. "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks" therefore re­ mained a manuscript during Nietzsche's lifetime, so it cannot be known whether Nietzsche would have published it as a small book, or as part of a larger philosophical work that he seems to have en­ visioned at this time. ' The larger project is often referred to as Nietzsche's Philosophenbuch or Philosopher's Book, a title mentioned in his notebooks and correspondence.27 The significance of the work is that it is the first that Nietzsche wrote independently of Wagner, but that Wagner was able to discourage him from finishing it, and manipulate him into writing a very uncharacteristic attack upon Strauss.

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David Friedrich Strauss was a free-thinking theological writer, famous as the author of the secular and historicist Life ofJesus, first published in 1 835, when the author was a young man.28 In that book Strauss gave a thoroughly unmiraculous account of the life of Jesus, and explained the mythical Jesus as the product of the needs

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of ancientJews and early Christians forjust such a mythical hero . It was a brave and remarkable book in its time. For writing as a thinker on such a central religious question so early in the teenth century, Strauss was quickly dismissed from his university post and never regained an official position. Discriminated agai nst throughout his life, Strauss maintained a dignified critical attitud� toward the philistinism of his contemporaries. He was someone whom Nietzsche might have admired. Indeed reading The Life of Jesus had been the catalyst of Nietzsche's decisive break with C hris. tianity in 1 865, when he dropped theology as a major and began studying for a career in philology under Strauss's influence.29 Strauss had offended Wagner by criticizing him for having per. suaded Ludwig II to dismiss a rival composer.30 So when Strau ss's book The Old Faith and the New appeared in 1 872,31 Wagner saw an opportunity for revenge. The book was largely a restatement of' views Strauss had held for forty years, the work of an old man who no longer wrote as vigorously as he had iIi 1 835. When Nietzsche visited Bayreuth in April 1 873, he found Wagner ranting about Strauss and demanding that Nietzsche attack Strauss instead of praising Heraclitus in his tedious academic essay. Nietzsche must not have defended Strauss very vigorously, for he let himself be persuaded to write a satiric essay on Strauss. The incident is un· flattering to both men: to Wagner because he used Nietzsche as his tool in settling a trivial score with Strauss, and to Nietzsche because , he complied. Back in Basel it was a matter of days before Nietzsche com· pleted a first draft of David Strauss, the Confessor and the Author.32 It was a vicious and personal attack, deriding Strauss's style even more recklessly than his ideas. It is as if Nietzsche had taken a les· son from his own critic, Wilamowitz·Moellendorf. It is a weak de· fense of Nietzsche to suggest that his essay brilliantly ridicules Strauss as a representative of the superficiality and philistinism of German culture in the 1 870s.33 Such ridicule was cheap even then. What is more, the essay failed to advance Nietzsche's own thinking. It pales into insignificance in Nietzsche's oeuvre, even by compari· son with the didactic "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks." When Strauss died a few months after the essay was published, it was said that Nietzsche's satire had killed him. Nietzsche himself was deeply troubled by this. He must have had a bad conscience about letting Wagner's rage provoke him to this intemperate per­ sonal attack. In a letter to Gersdorff, Nietzsche expressed the hope .

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he mi sfortu ne to see his work before the d ha t no a d h auss r St t a th M died. and his puzzled reactIon IS ay ess e's sch etz ' N1 see 'd z d auss ' Str t Bu also noteworthy: •

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Th e on ly thi ng I o the n they hang you . uart q nd a dra ey t t � Firs psychological ll OW [Nietzsche] is the t ou ab g StIn ere Int find . a per son wh ose pat h Int o such a rage with . get can e on ow h t' pO In e of thi s paS SIO nat e h a­ tiv mo ' l rea the ef , b n In ' , d on e ha s never cro sse .35 tred

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. is that thi s attack served to ven t , l S u r ;:eef �i�� ��� � i; :C�pr:ov�1�e�t::�����r :oer�: ��:t� � . t ly, on Greek ph ilo sophyab ress it more straightforward � x to le � e be d � ha e sch etz ess Ni gner him self. And the ay Wa s a1n ag d e ect d1r en be ve ha t migh. or. . rega1ned h'1m Wagner' s fav praise. NIetzsche ed ew ren h wit s aus Str vid Da to d e t c Wagner rea that Nietzsche was the only6 onSoe d Go to ore sw er gn Wa t tha d rte o rep t h Wa ner] wanted.3 [of his disci ples] ,:"h ot:ene:U t��; an: l e1o;ed disciple. An d Nietzsc�e ,:as . ag�ln e wa s so far restored that he ha d the he ad Wagner s faIth In �letzsch. Nietzsche the task of writing a prodaof �e Wa�� ���=� ��� uld distribu te throu ghou� Germany-; i t tf projected F.estival Theater � aYi::� o the of nt me tise :: ���; ns. Th�� t intended to eli cit co ntrib� ti�tlO ��:�:�h��S" �ou;Jit were Wagner-to bestow an 0bl 19a n up , an h�n �r. the essay on in y ntl aga rav ext so l wil aV1n? done Wagner's ind d desire for creative ependewrnce Strau ss, NIetzsche fel t a renedweRo if he would no t lik e to ite from the master. � o h� aske . B hdeohde was now unwil lin g to be ­ the prodam�tion In h1s . ste �a�� �himselfP Nietzsche ha d to do : eu th be fore his second visit of come more 1nvolv�d w1th ayr to t f dra hIS t sen the job He r��. ecte d by the s � t te� d ase ph sly � ou mp po his 1 873 . I �on ically, too stn en t. leaders of the Wagner So ciety for. be Ing O �t� e� � ��ri;� ��:' When Nietzsche we nt to Bayreh �sthessina�� s did no t discuss with the Wagners � c taking shape in as ide tage of History for Life. N or d id :�: ��: m ptin g to establish his in. his ph ilo sophIcal note b 00ks.

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depe nden ce once again, and protecting his creative work from Wagner's view. Apparently he coul d only main tain his creative in. dep �nde � ce by work ing secretly, with out informing the Wagners of hIS proJe cts. But now -in this med itation on histo rical cultu re__ Nietzsche had foun d a proj ect that mattered to him, a proj ect that �ust might also int�rest Wagner. Thus he stilI hope d to please (an d I�StruCt) Wagner, If only he could get the essay writt en and pu b. IIshed before Wagner had an opportunity to criticize it. Perhaps he felt that pleas ing Wagner with an inde pend ent work woul d co n. firm his creative capacities. Real sons often cherish such hope Con tinuin g the series of Untimely Meditations may have s. m eant p � stponing work on the Philosophenbuch; but, more probably, NIetzsche had already abandoned this as an integrated project. He loaded his philosophical notebooks with a variety of still inchoate in. tellectual projects and aspirations that would require years of devel. opment before he could work them out into a whol e list of later books. What Nietzsche lacked more than anything else at this time was a dear sense of himself as a philosopher. So even witho ut the dis. turb ing influence of Wagner's demands, the PhilosOPhe nbuch would probably never have been realized as a single work. . In fact, ':Vagner's critique of Nietzsche's acad emic style of writ. Ing was havIng a salutary effect: Nietzsche wrote his On the Uses �nd Disadvan�a�e of History for Life for intellectualsessay at large. As the tItle suggests, It IS a critique of histo ricis m in the largest sen se. In t�e lat� nine�eenth entury the bourgeoi sie indu � lged in recapit. ulatl ng hIstory In archItecture, cloth ing, furniture, gard ens, music, novels, and even religiosity. Perhaps this wave of nosta lgia compen. sated for the rapid large·scale economic and social chan ges they en. dured. In Germany in particular-where such men as Leop Ranke ?a� developed history into a rigorous academic old von discipline, and Helnnch von Treitschke was making history into a nationalistic fetish-historical studies attained immense prestige.39 Unti l Nietzsche wrote his essay, it was universally assumed that every advance in his. torical science was an unmitigated boon to civilizatio n. Nietzsche's perfectly novel view was that "the historical and the unhis. torical are equally necessary for the health of an individual, a peop le and a culture."40 �en historical knowledge was so high ly regarded, . �Ietzs che found It necessary to urge that the unhistorical, or the capac. . Ity to forget, was the more essential of the two: as an antidote to the surfe it of historicism. For only in the unselfconsciou s present could one act creatively: I

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All acting requires forgetting, as not o � ly lig t but a so d�rkness is required for l ife by all organisms . . . . It IS possIble to l Ive wIth �lmost no memories, even to live happily, as the animal sho� s; but wI thout . forgetting it is quite impossible to liv� at � ll. Or, to s�y It more slm �ly . . zn' yet: there is a degree of insomnia, of rumzna�zon, �f hzstorzcal sense whzch jures every living thing andfinally destroys zt, be zt a man, a people, or a cul·

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In excess, historical knowledge-and even personal �emories­ are debilitating. This, accordin g to Nietzsche, was the dIsease. of the nineteenth century. Looking backward instead of forward, hIS con· temporaries had lost their capacity to ac � in .the. prese � t and form the future to their will. They had lost theIr vltahty. ThIS was a pre· lim inary definition of decadence. . . . On the Uses and Disadvantage of Hzstory for Life IS largely �evoted to clarifyin g the psychological and cultural symptom s o.f thIS de �a. dence , particularly the excess of knowledge, and especIally of hIS' torical knowledge. Nietzsche thought that modern man had lost touch with his instincts and no longer acted spontaneously; he had become a self·cons cious spectator of his own actions. Modern man behaved as a latecomer who could find nothing �o .do ?ut carry on accumulating knowledge with ever greater specIahzatI.o � . He. was, according to Nietzsche, an epigo �� and t? e�ef�re a cynIc, � n spIte of his apparent optimism and uncntIcal faIth In progress. . . Nietzsche looked beneath the s,"uface of obvious matenah sm that was the target of most other critics b� bourgeoi s society. He attacked the nineteenth century's quest for knowle<;ige: � e s �w that history, scholarship, science, and the quest �or. k�Q�ledge In g.en. eral-pursuits that are seldom termed m�tenahstIc :-were all � �th. out a culturally qetermined purpose. As In econ�mIcs and pohtIcs, there was only a vague aspiratio n for "more." NI � tzsche �as one of the very first to appreciate that all of the dynam � sm of hIS century was undirected. There was no higher goal. The dIfferenc e �e �wee.n Nietzsche and other critics of nineteenth·century matenah sm IS that he diagnosed the historical culture of his tim � �s . a s�mptom .of the grave illness and decadence of West�tn CIVIhzatI on,. whIle many of his contemporaries were awed by hIstory a�d expenen ce ? the accumulation of historical knowledge as an antIdote to maten· alism. Nietzsche 's critique of the nineteenth century's un d'Irecte.d quest for knowledge was particularly acute because he focused hIS

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

attack specifically upon historical knowledge. He had of COu rse been trained as a philologist, and was therefore in the broadest sense a historian. Personal experience, however, had taught him that his professional training threatened his creativity. Thu s the obsession with historical knowledge that he had experienced in the philological profession led him to question the sanctity of knowl­ edge more generally. He concluded, with surprising alacrity for highly educated young man, that knowledge is useful only insofar as it serves life; it should not be esteemed for its own sake. Carried to extremes, the pursuit of knowledge is deadly. According to Nietzsche in On the Uses and Disadvantage ofHistory for Life, nineteenth-century Europeans and Germans in particu lar were so obsessed with knowledge that creativity had become nearly impossible. And their efforts to cultivate an historical awareness of ancient Greek culture, and to inculcate Greek values in schoolboys, showed up the great difference between themselves and the Greeks. For the ancient Greeks were heedless of the foreign sources of their own culture. They cheerfully absorbed influences from abroad without doubting their own superiority. They were too preoccupied with the art and culture they were creating to care about knowledge for its own sake. The modern Germans, in con­ trast, were slavishly devoted to the past, and particularly to the Greeks. They revered such pieces of the past as they could gather, and had no unifying artistic style or spirit of their own. They were more concerned with collecting than with creating. Nietzsche felt that he was living in a museum-century. People were reading historical novels, living and working in historical re­ vival architecture, and educating their children in ancient lan­ guages, all without any sense of purpose other than to venerate the past. He argued that the most fundamental threat to the spontane­ ity, vitality, and creativity of the nineteenth century was the wor­ ship of knowledge for its own sake. And he buttressed his argument with quotations from commonly accepted geniuses like Goethe, who had said that he hated everything that merely instructed him without directly quickening his creative function. Like his friend Jacob Burckhardt and many of their educated contemporaries, Nietzsche believed that creative action is possible only for individuals. The Hegelian idea that the state might be creative was an anathema to Nietzsche. Only an individual genius like Goethe, Schopenhauer, or Wagner could rescue even the general culture of the nineteenth century from its decadence. For Nietzsche the most dangera

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d culture wa� th�t it, an n tio uca ed l ica tor his of ce quen se n nd . ous co ed to suffocat e Iu d stifle creativity. To hIS mIman ht rea. ten the "humanls� t�IC,� edsuacnation purveyed in the Ger premncIse' Iyum thre tene t extI. � . h imagination and creatI. vIt. y b y � � �o In��:he mines of history to collect and Gy asi etIc er en g . ��letzsche argued that genius must at all sendin H or � edyou thIS, at n. .Since classify. presnfierved from the ef£ects of modern educatio . IUS costs b e as wonderIng . , whether he might not be a gen hlmseIf e sch tz . dependence he felt fro. m Wagner), e Ni. � to the degree f In rtIon o p ro (In p questlo. f particularly personal interest and Impor�. . this was a Uses :n� Disadvantage of History is autobiogra�hlcal In On the . . te of the relatively abstract issue that It treatsd. pi S , In cter ra . � a historical education himself, an ha c I d e pp tra en be d ha he zsc . ue . t publI· cly While he blames his Niet tIq cn to y nit t � po op e h t ed � grasp . g hIS. cre t . . . he notes that only his expetIn inhlb � . � ���hiS insight into the ill effects education for Ilo . logIst perr�lltte h rience. as .a .ph . On cient Greeks dealt witive an ' the OW . h Ing ow kn ly Clsm n sto hi of oul h demonstrate the comparat their h istorical antece ?ent� � . � h: S Nietz sche atte mpted to free sterility of modernhishISretO�eClS� m the excess of historical educa­ him self a�d then gh hiS� tO:�c��knowledge. Th is slightly paradox­ thr. ou tion pre. cIsely reflexive style of the . f PI e m exa ly ear an IS n tio ua SIt ical th oif Tragch more th an ·n 'The Bir Ing'. Mu Nietzsche's mature th·WI�k·eco . ose wh mI.ng the critical gentoius creativitoriy,ginanal-d edy, N iet zsc he wa� no eat. s of exposIng the thr . ity would consIst ing a new version : ge o ure nat the :� � :: eal : rev in ly ate im ult was an un�sually ay In ce ese p l na � rso pe e's sch etz . �In vlew f ts precedent -in The Birth of Ni . e ' eve "subje. cti. ve" gestur .d ,thant mo that hIS anst readers would tell him , Tragedy. He �re d·I.c �e unnatural, repulsive as. " � uite erverted,bin re­ tipathy for �lst�nClsmmi,:ssl a g so vehement e\eeli�g·" Ascri an and. downnght lmper as a g'bestu as ifh e were re f se If- I·mport ceaction to h·IS read �rs w lsun rar . tempo ies, an unders �ood b �his conedit laying claim to �eIng �l tzsche to g ve. hi self cr linforgs""dabariountghis recognized genlus. NIe my fee come forward wit? a natudralf rde�c�InIpgfIO� of u ed cator to his age.fasHh­e � � historical educationen, ahIS� Ins . ence and lght Int �iS. own exp, ofericou claimed to have. tak h·IS co, nte rse ' is wh at nes. That .I fr ioned a correctlVe for tzs he, . mphora ok written indepena genius does. So Nie �Imp ;.�i:ly :O Imast kebohis first claim to the , dently of Wagner, seems status of a gen ius. 0

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The autobiographical dimension of the essay points to Niet�sche's own creati�e authority. and to his. need for autonomy and Independence. WhIle Wagner IS not mentIoned, he is one ofits foci. Of course Wagner had insisted that Nietzsche remain in the role of professor of philology. His motive was that Nietzsche would be of greater use to him in the university, for in late nineteenth­ century Germany a university professor of classical philology had . more authority than a free-lance intellectual could ever have. In his anxiety to keep his disciple at the university, Wagner was moti­ vated by precisely that excessive esteem for historical studies that Nietzsche attacked. So in this critique of historicism Nietzsche was struggling to demonstrate his independence, not only of his educa­ tion, but of Richard Wagner as well. When On the Uses and Disadvantage of History was published in February 1 874, it aroused Wagner's ire in much the same way his work on "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks" had done. The new work, however, was no academic treatise, although Wagner denounced it as such; and it did address the contemporary state of culture. It broached the agenda that Nietzsche had set 01lt for the Philosophenbuch. It is a much more significant work than Nietzsche's critique of Strauss, being a general critique of histori- ' cism, rather than a personal attack upon one historicist. And it has proved to be the most enduring of the Untimely Meditations, read as much today as The Birth of Tragedy. Had Wagner been thinking of Nietzsche's creative development, he might have been cheered by the publication of this second Untimely Meditation. But Wagner was congenitally shortsighted when it came to the creations of his disci­ ples, and he failed utterly to appreciate the virtues of this one. Wagner's negative reaction to The Uses and Disadvantage of His­ tory might be explained by the composer's preference for reflec­ tions upon his own greatness and attacks upon his enemies; he was not very interested in Nietzsche's ideas. Cosima complained in a letter that Nietzsche' s new essay was too abstract, and that he would not find a single enemy for a work in which he flailed about so in­ discriminately-as if to say that finding enemies was the main point. She also used the occasion to suggest that it would be better for Nietzsche to refrain from such passionate polemics-:-as if the attack upon Strauss had not been passionatel He should, she thought, become a little more philistine himself, get married, relax, and write more deliberately. If he would do these things, such in­ temperate writings as this might be turned into something really:

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ng Nietzsche this ironic advice, she was only good. Of course, ,in givitIm . r s sen ents.42 . . g letter, the presrelaying Wagnetzsc thIS condescendIn Just as Nie he received Throughout reuth. mount over his next visit to Bay . sure began to1 874 1 h·ICh he d·d w tzsche scarcely wrote a le�ter I.nIty . the spring of slyNie (usu doubts about hIS abIl to goerthe-­ t simultaneou expresslth)hisand nev :�y on3 Geraccosdoruntff,ofwhohisseheaattitude washisnowgreagovt deserneiredtoentIg?rely by the Ies S .4 d. sugan ied, ice that Nie tzsche get mar: ly a tfIP Wagners, repeated their adv for his health might be preCIseatened t�tot gested that the best curethe � ter. Gersdorf� even thre Bayreuth for a visit with e toMas t VISI not ld wou self if N ietzsche did not com Bayreuth, he hIm Base1.44 was comIng closer to ope n In the summer of 1 874 Nietzscs toheBay reu�h, �h�ch now symbol­ conflict with Wagner overashistovisit drop Nietzsche-hIs wIll" Ingness tod·d . d-to Wagner as well lze not 1 ner to sustain Wagner.4 Wag offo his own creative work in ordser' crea tive capacities, but instead. ofs­ fail to recognize his disciple ect1ons cherished their talents �s r�flIn . tering their productivity, hesure wtll r theI by �n �ss �o d their loyalty his own glory. And he mea him I� SIS­ hIS of t �is was at �he roo neglect their work to attendhe. For. ThIS gnIz , NIe tzsche reco ed tent invitations to Nie tzsc had professpart ral years that Wagner as a genius and impor ant edhanfor?isseve work. He had own � � . Wagner's cause was far moreed to gIve hIS dIrectIOn to own efforts said repeatedly that he wish agner ipli�� , and ?e hoped that �tzsc by submitting to Wagner's discduC tIVIty. As It turne� out, NIe he wou ld lead him to genuine pro issio n t� Wagne�, ah? ,Wagn�r was was incapable of complete subm entary Interest In NIetzsche s cre­ unable to sustain his own momisciple rela tionship was becoming ative work. The whole genius-d untenable. on, Schopenhauer as Educator, In his next Untimely Meditati great mentor while defining his­ Nietzsche memorialized his firsther 's powerfu l influence: Sch? independence of the philosop ShIp to Nietzsche, but the relatIOn penhauer was still imp ortantr muc y of nsit inte al tion of the emo with Wagner had taken ove prehcise he as even that reas on, that earlier relationship. For mer of ly1 874 ad­ also , Nie tzsche was worked on this essay in the sumence upon Wag . Inas�uch as he dressing his unresolved depend the composer ner , hIS general well as hoped to liberate him self from •

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preoccupation with the master-disciple relationship became a s text of this essay on Schopenhauer. The psychological parallel ub­ tween Nietzsche's relationships with Schopenhauer and Wagnbere­ was such that Schopenhauer Educator necessarily became-even if only unconsciously-a preliminary study for a declaratio n of re­ spectful independence from Wagner. In May 1874 Nietzsche wrote Wagner a curious birthday gre ing.46 It was Wagner's sixty-first birthday, and Nietzsche noted thetat­ the day also marked the fifth year since his own first visit Triebschen. Nietzsche wrote that since their first meeting Wagnetor had given his life new direction: as

It is an incomparable good fortune for one who has been feeling and . stu�bhng along on dark and foreign paths to be led gradually into the lIght, as you have done with me. I cannot therefore honor you in any other way than as a father. So I celebrate your birthday also as a celebration of my own birth.47

Nietzsche vowed to open a new calendar, measured in the five year periods that the Romans called lustra, and to celebrate a "lustra­ tion" in honor of Wagner's influence upon him-a festival of hope and rebirth. This parallels Nietzsche's celebration of Schopenhauer, whom he praises as a father and an educator. The essay suggests that Schopenhauer had educated Nietzsche for independence, and not for slavish devotion. Schopenhauer had helped Nietzsche discover his own unique abilities. Nietzsche obviously hoped that he would soon be able to thank Wagner for the same sort of fatherly assis­ tance. But he was still unsure of his ability to sustain his indepen­ dence of Wagner, and he had evidence that Wagner was ) � ninte�ested in fostering independence. The depth and complex­ Ity of.NIetzsche's attachment to Wagner is apparent in the birthday greetIng, where he merges their birthdays and measures both him­ sel� and Wagner by their relationship of master and disciple. And whIle he clearly meant this to praise Wagner, his letter remains a strange and solemn greeting. A sense of oppression clings to it.48 In the same letter Nietzsche went on to the already treacherous subject of a visit to Bayreuth, where he had been summoned to ' spend the summer.49 He had several projects in hand, he wrote; "Creativity has its obligations." Nietzsche was now pointing out that his own creativity iInposed obligations, preventing him from

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Nevertheless, he wrote, he would prob­ following Wagner's advice. summ � Signifi ca�tly, Nietzsche �id ably come sometime that Wagneer.5r Just what hIS current creatIve not specify in this letter to projects were. . he to Wagner had enliste d Gersdorff to help persuadee NIetzsc th. To him N �et�sc�� �plai.n�d that spend the summer in Bayreu ly Medztatwn. HIS wrItIng was he had first to finish his third Untime a sh�me if I should :uin it or going well, he wrote, "but it woul� �eHe not wa�t t� In,�errupt forget it," just to pay Wagner a VISIt.g nowdId except finIshIng. When his work: "I cannot think of anythinBasel unless Nietzsche went to visit Gersdorff threatened not to Bayreuth, Nietzsche responded testily: me to visit How ever did you get the idea, good friend, of forcing to go on Bayreuth with a threat? It almost looks as if I would not want year be­ my own. And yet I was there twice last year and twice the We both fore-travell ing from Basel and in my p itiful vacatio ns. think it know that Wagner's nature is very mistrustful. But I did not about the would be good to provok e his mistrus t. And finally: think to fulfill, lt fact that I have duties to myself, duties that are very difficu � c me. and with my poor health. Really, no one should try to l.orce

for their Nietzsche had admitted that Wagner might be to toblame r. Wagne sed addres difficulties. Of course the letter was not to able Later inJuly Nietzsche realized that he would be inishe d spend portion of his vacation in Bayreuth.53 .A.nd he had� �In Augusat.first He draft of his essay before he went to VISIt Wagne sending a final before ns would of course have to make some revisio ete draft version to his publisher in September, but writing a compl justice to was enough to ' convince him that he could todof ce e � Wagner Schopenhauer. Perhaps that gave him the courag wIth Wagner terms to come to once again. Now he could also hope to when in a similar, fourth Untimely Meditation. In any case, inationhetowent assert Bayreuth in August 1874, he went with a determ be­ his independence. In a more critical frame of mind dthahIS?- ever deown ce-an toleran r's fore, he was planning to test Wagne termination. ofJohannes Nietzsche had also become interested in the music che was to leave Brahms. InJuly 1874,just a few weeks before Nietzs own �usic in his of ts concer l severa for Bayreuth, Brahm s gave lookIng forbeen had che Basel, including his Triumphlied. Nietzs a

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ward to these concerts since April, studying the scores to prepare himself. When the time arrived, his "aesthetic conscience," as he termed it, was put to a difficult test.54 But he formed what he thought was an independent, favorable judgment of Brahms' music, and he took a copy of the Triumphlied with him when he went to Bayreuth. Nietzsche could hardly have been ignorant of Wagner's contempt for Brahms. Nevertheless, he forced a discus� sion. According to one account, he placed the red-bound Triumphlied on Wagner's piano and waited to see the master's reac­ tion. Wagner flew into a rage, as anyone might have predicted. Nietzsche himself, according to this account, maintained a caIin and dignified silence.55 This was the time when Nietzsche wrote of Wagner in his jour­ nal, "the tyrant admits no other individuality than his own." Obvi­ ously Wagner could not accept the existence of another musical genius_56 No wonder he could also not accept Nietzsche's creative impulses. In Bayreuth Nietzsche had deliberately tested Wagner's tolerance of his independent judgment, and Wagner's response had confirmed his fears. But while Nietzsche felt tyrannized by Wagner, this awareness was still overshadowed by the awe and grat­ itude that he felt for the composer. So he kept his impressions to himself. And by avoiding another visit to Bayreuth for almost two years, Nietzsche postponed the final break.57 Instead, he went back to Basel, and revised Schopenhauer as Educator. This work provides neither introduction, explanation, nor cri­ tique of Schopenhauer's philosophy. The lack of information is odd, but Nietzsche had a reason not to write a critique of Schopenhauer's philosophy. As he had stated several years earlier" one simply does not refute a moral exemplar. Nietzsche's concern was the formation of the intellectual and moral personality. model of education was the relationship of master and disciple, and Schopenhauer as Educator commemorates Schopenhauer's influ­ ence upon Nietzsche. It presents this relationship didactically, as a model of how one becomes a creative individual. Beyond what Nietzsche could deduce from Schopenhauer's books, he himself knew very little about Schopenhauer's life. So, as he freely admitted, he felt compelled "to . . . imagine the living man . . . who promised to make his heirs only those who would . . . be more than merely his readers, namely his sons and pupils."58 Schopenhauer had been a very personal fantasy for Nietzsche, and, he cast Schopenhauer in the role of surrogate father. Nietzsche's

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in a fa­ '�Schopenhauer" became everything that Nietzsche desired regard his need for a fa­ therly. educator. But Nietzsche did not a symptom of weakness or asy idiosyncr therly mentor as a personal his own discipleship put to in his personality, nor was he reluctant forward as an example. Nietzsche began his account of Schopenhauer's fatherly influbut that very ence with the romantic cliche that everyone is unique, youthful every "like few realize their individuality.59 He himself, and heard the inner soul," had recognized his own unique talents he discovered call to liberate himself from convention before he was not lazy though even d, floundere had he Schopenhauer. Yet was uncer� he Rather, conform. dissolute; nor was he tempted to how he and tain about which of his talents he should cultivate, he sustained could refrain from becoming a mere specialist. But hope: or

I believed that, when the time came, I would discover a philosopher to educate me, a true philosopher whom one could follow without any misgiving because one would have more faith in him than one had i n oneself. . . . That educating philosopher of whom I dreamed would, I came to think, not only uncover the central force [of an individual] , he would also know how to prevent its acting destructively on the other forces: his educational task would, it seemed to me, be to mould the whole man.

,,60

Nietzsche had found his philosopher and edll:�ator in Scho­ penhauer, and he was convinced that there was a gen:eral need for such genius-educators. Schopenhauer became Nietzsche's genius not merely because he wrote great books, but because he was a variously gifted man who had resisted the influence of his times and overcome the temp­ tation to indulge all his interests and dissipate his energies. Schopenhauer had fashioned himself as the "whole" and creative individual who could write such books. "Wholeness" was an obses­ sion with nineteenth-century German educators, a defensive re­ sponse to the explosion of knowledge and especially specialization. It was usually thought to be the desirable result of an education at humanistic Gymnasium. But Schopenhauer had somehow made himself "whole." Thus he could serve as a moral exemplar to others, who would in turn fashion their own whole and unique selves. He a

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was a genius to inspire other geniuses such as Wagner, and even perhaps Nietzsche himself. Nietzsche knew that he, like Schopenhauer, was born with intel­ ligence, talents, and personality. But like Schopenhauer, he saw ' that he had to form himself, with all his native capacities, into a individual. In a phrase that Nietzsche would later use creative . Iy, he had to "become who he was," and Schopenhau er's promInent example in this was crucial to him. This is the underlying message of Schopenhauer Educator. Putting forward such a perverse philos­ opher as Schopenhauer, rather than a more obviously benevolent figure and unproblematic character like Goethe, for example, im­ plied a new view of the creative personality. Nietzsche had quie�ly red�fined t�e �enius in this essay: Schopenhauer was a genIUS by vIrtue of hIS WIll, not his birth. He is an absolutely unique and separate individual; he contains within himself the possibility of revolutionizing the way we all see the world; �e is precocious, coming to his original vision at an early age; he �s not a scholar and d�es not achieve his insight through academIc study; he prepares hImself In. part through the stimula­ tion of another genius (Goethe); he is largely unrecognized by his contemporaries. But Nietzsche goes beyond these "naive" cliches about the genius being "born, not made," to show that Schopenhauer voluntarily created himself as a genius. Nietzsche's S �hopenhauer is therefore a self-conscious and "sentimental" ge­ nIUS. And thus, almost incidentally, Nietzsche added another god­ like quality to the definition of the genius. The idea that Schopenhauer willed his achievement constitutes not only a significant departure from the traditional theory of the genius; it is also a dramatic demonstration that Nietzsche did not now subscribe to Schopenhauer's philosophy. For Schopenhauer's own thinking issued into an almost Buddhistic negation of desire and the will. But Schopenhauer's life, in Nietzsche's view at least, was a continuous struggle in which the philosopher prevailed only by a monumental effort of will, first against his contemporaries, then against his mentors, and finally against himself. And Nietzsche, in order to strengthen his own will to overcome the chal� lenges that faced him, emulated a man who-he imagined-had al� ready found the strength to overcome them. . Wagner as well as Schopenhauer for his examples, . Citing asserts NIetzsche that "the genius must not fear to enter into the ' most hostile relationship with the existing forms and order if he as

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in er order and trut� that dwells with wants, , to bring to ligh tisthenothigh the to s o resp ely the appropnate . ? � vahim . 61 This hostilitycontempmer ies fail to app.reclate hIS Inno orar fa. ct that a genius'sly supposed. Rath US. mus t go on the er, the genI . · tIons, as common e fiIn ds h 1m, attacking the world In whIch hand ffensive from the first from with in, ?ecome y in this way can he attain a unity, of �elfex. Onl erageneratio n. This course, was an aImp an ample to anote'sherown to g rience was gradually reve 1·InIsely . tive that Nietzschming convexpe d that creative genius lay preC conhim . H e was beco ve hostince ility between oneself and one's in creating a producti temporaries. come the influence of the fewt, Scho penhauer had also to over icularly that of Immanuel Kanef. mentors he acknowledged, lypart Critique of Pure Reason-had whose critiques-particular e The itional hop of attaining truth in the trad fectively discredited eany who icts Schopenhauer as the only gone sense. And Nietzsch depptin ossibility of knowin "things took Kant seriously, acce haugerthewasimpdete rmined to reach a deeper as they are." But Schopen performed a criti que of Kant focu sing truth, and to do that he ying the will as the one phenomenon upon the human will. Stud Schopenhau er foun d that the will yze, that we can know and analress win we have of kno g t�e world i�­ produces the illusory imp ionrtur e for Scho penhauer s own phI­. self. That was the point of depa � cally different from that of Kan losophy, which was of course radi phI­ ure mat own se who e, zsch This departure was crucial fortheNiet . But wha� mat�ered mo�e to will n upo sed focu losophy is also tionship that he ImagIned obtameIned Nietzsche was the personal relanha uer, a disciple ofKa-nt, beca anf between the two men: Schope com master's system � original philosopher ' by overof thisingrelahis is a t�op� of hIS nsh thought. Nietzsche's depictionhauer. It wasti�In NIet .ip zsch e s vIew the own relationship to Scho pen genius must pass. second test that every creative hauer had to overcome with in himThe obstacle that Schopen d, and the third test facing every self is another that Nietzsche face zsche that Sch openhauer's natu­ genius. It seemed apparent to Niet he seemed to · have an almosty ral endowment was ambiguousgenius and sainthood. L �ke mannt equal capacity for philosophical"mi ented." H.is �chle:eme geniuses, Sch openhauer was hes-tal came thIS dlspanty and seemed to Nietzsche to be that creaover tive person. He determine� forged himself into an integratedhical gen ius and incorporated hIS to realize himself as a philosop

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inclination to saintliness in that ambition. He did not permit him­ self to be diverted by the disparity in his natural inclinations. This was precisely what Nietzsche himself had worried about-that lYe might be pulled apart by his talents and not realize himself as a whole and integrated individual. And the solution was also his own, to resolve his talents into a single project by an exercise of will. This is another very specific sense in which Schopenhauer, as a "sentimental genius," served Nietzsche as a moral exemplar. Nietzsche compares Schopenhauer's striving to realize his in. tellectual potential to the aspirations of a sinner for sainthood.. This, according to Nietzsche, is what every genius does: Every human being is accustomed to discovering in himself some lim· itation of his talent or of his moral will, which fills him with melan· choly and longing; and just as his feeling of sinfulness makes him long for the saint in him, so as an intellectual being he harbors a profound desire for the genius in him. This is the root of all true culture; and if I understand by this the longing of a man to be reborn as saint and genius, I know that one does not have to be a Buddhist to understand this myth.62

Once reborn, Schopenhauer is a Buddha of sorts, a Christ, and kind of savior, as well as a fatherly educator to those who follow him. This was no casual allusion on Nietzsche's part. In many other places in Schopenhauer as Educator Nietzsche refers to Schopenhauer and geniuses in general as "redemptive men." By their example in shaping themselves as integrated, creative individuals, they show the way to younger men. The idea of the genius as a (demi)god was a constituent element of the naive theory of genius that arose in the eighteenth century. In fact the genius-concept was introduced to replace the more lit· ) eral savior for the more or less secular class of intellectuals that emerged in that century-the philosophes. The naive and the roman· tic genius was hence a savior of originality, creativity, and culture in general, not of the individual soul. And while Nietzsche subscribed to all of this, he had something additional and more concrete in mind when he classified Schopenhauer as a "redemptive man." He was attempting to clarify the process by which a young man could be transformed from a commonplace individual into a genius. He was tentatively experi· menting with a theory of the genius as "made, not born." In l1is' own experience, getting to the point where he could make a cre·

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merely native intelligence, high as· tive contribution involved not · ; he had also needed a genIUS as a men irations, and diligent study an could s ating a geniu nd moral exemplar. Only through emul for airing limitation s and the own his from emed rede sp individual be . In this sense, as an objec t of emulation , osition of the world �ppopen mer. rede a Nietzsche as � sch hauer had served from contemporane. s by hIS and elf hims emed rede s, . The geniu n. genius preceding him, justifies his generatio the example of the the al worl d in whic h the next generat�on The genius creates ment n's geniu s. And this progreSSIon will live, including that generatio s history. History is a genealogy of ge· of genius is what constitute ds creative cultural figures such asn. niuses. Thus Nietzsche accor er importance than he does prime miSIg· . Schopenhauer much greatBism er great far ts gran he 3 and 6 arck, von Otto ce Prin like s ister sophy and art than he does to nificance to works of philoindu developments in finance and stry. .

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rd Wagner in Nietzsche wrote a fourth Untimely Meditationit, inRicha the summer of Bayreuth, but he only finish ed and publ ished a half between 1 876. There was therefore a hiatus of a year and ge ofHis tory vanta Disad and 1 874, when he publ ished both On the Uses fin�l Un· and h for Life and Schopenhauer Educator, and the fourt e hImself timely Meditation. In that time Nietzsche struggled to defin ied about his relationship with and his future as a writer-and worrthe on Wa.gner and �ade Wagner. Even as he contemplated ofessay ocraJIc Greek phIlo s· notes for it, he returned to the subject pre·S 1 873 when- - Wagner con· ophy, which he had neglected since Trag ic Age of the Greeks." demned his essay on "Philosophy in thetwo front s. He began again to think and write onwhat he wrot e on the Greeks Nietzsche would never publ ish at least one clue to his and philosophy at this time, but it provides Wisdom at Odds" (or "The intellectual development. "Science and , which he wrote in 1 875, om") Struggle Between Science and Wisd and the creative energy of is another return to questions of tragedy phica moment as well. the early Greeks.64 But it has an autobiograeditors lthou might be In one of the final fragments, which early sche wroteght as follows: a 4raft of an introduction to the work, Nietz as

when he stand s b e· Ther e undo ubted ly come s for every man an hour mana ge to live at one does "How asks: and fore himse lf with wond er

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all? Nevertheless one does live!" It is the hour when he begins to corn. prehend that he possesses an inventive facuIty similar to the kin d that h e admIres ' m p I ants, an mventiveness which twists and climbs u n tI' l . . . ' bl y gams a bIt of light for itself and a small earthly k ' 'C fiIna II y It .lOrCI dom a well, thus it�el creating i s p.ortion of delight from barren In one s own descnptIOns of one s hfe there is always a point like thOIS .. . . a pomt w here one IS amazed that the plant can continue to live an d the way it nevertheless sets to work with unflinching valor. Then the are careers, such as that of the thinker, in which the difficultie s have become enormously great. And when something' is related conc ern· . ' lng careers of thIS sort one must listen attentively, because from such cases one learns something concerning the possibilities of l ife. And 'us to hear about these possibilities leads to greater happiness n strength.65

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Thi� w�s Nietzsche's own situation: almost disabled by illness, yet begInnIng �o acknowledge his own inventiveness, launching a ca. r�er as a. thInker, he was twisting up to the'light through enormous d�fficultles that h.e could hardly define. The careers that inspired hIm and gave hIm strength were those of Schopenhauer and Wagner of c?urse, but now also those of the early Greek philoso­ phers, especIally Heraclitus. In "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks," Heraclitus even began to appear as an alternative to Wagner. Nietzsche was now beginning to realize that it was Wagner who was blocking his light. In the years 1 874 to 1 876 Nietzsche's health deteriorated "to t�e �oi�� of determinin� his working capacity and the pattern of hIS l ��e. . �he symptoms Incl�?ed severe headaches, eye pain, nau- ' sea, colIc, and general debIlIty. Some of these complaints dated from early adolescence, others from his service as a medical or­ ) derly in the Franco-Prussian War. But in 1 875 they must have been aggra;ated by t?� mounting tension between his loyalty to Wagner and hIS own stnvIng for independence. Wor�y and ill health brought Nietzsche to the point of collapse . the In WInter of 1 875. He had to ask his sister to come to Basel to care for him, which she did that summer. But even with Elisabeth to run his household in Basel, Nietzsche found that he could not carry on with his teaching. OnJanuary 2, 1 876, he requested a substitute to take over his high school courses at the Paedagogium, and in Februar.y he. discontinued his lectures at the University as well. HaVIng Interrupted his teaching, Nietzsche decided to take a "cure." It was common for educated middle-class people to t�ke a

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intolerable . cure when an undiagnosed malady becamine Europ e, and undefined illnesses at large There were still many than cures gical acolo pharm less confident in doctors were much re­ nts patie their that they often recommended they are today. Soa moun for ry, scene tain-lake resort for a change of treat to a spa or to take ral baths, or long walks in the invig­ distraction, to rest, In themine er of 1875 Nietzsche had gone to orating mountain air. Foressumm where he was attended by a physi­ Steinabad in the Blackspecialt,diet and monitored his cure.67 Now, cian who prescribed a d to go indep endently to Lake Geneva wante in 1 876, Nietzsche seems to have been desperately seeking an es­ simply to hike. He cape-from his illnes s, hisjob, and his frustrating relationship with Wagner. friendly letter Nietzsche was already planning this trip whenouta his woes to his ted him to pour from Carl von Gersdorffprompletter 876: 1 ry anua in mid:J friend in an almo st incoherent

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After ever more frequent attacks, it came to a literal collapse, I could no longer doubt that I am suffering from a serious brain illness, and that my eyes and stomach have only suffered as a result of this central process. My father died at thirty-six from a brain infection, and it is possible that it will go even faster with me.6H

ed of his teaching at the He goes on to say that he has been reliev alone, and that he is Paedagogium, that he is subsisting on milk Geneva in March. He asks planning a retreat to the mountains nearletter to h,�mself, however, Gersdorff to keep the contents of the ers. Appa rently as an after­ and above all not to dJsturb the Wagnt like to come with him.69 thought, he wonders if Gersdorff migh his duties as Gersdorffwas indeed able to take a vacation from Geneva with him a military office r. So Nietz sche travel led to Lake . They sta­ in d behin in early March, leaving mother and sister reux, andBasel the altho tioned themselves in Veytaux, near Monttheir days hikingugh the in weather was cold and rainy, they spent this terribly distressed nearby mountain valleys, and talking.70 In of his own state of mind it is difficult to know precisely howd much orff. with preoccupations Nietzsche would have share whetherGersd could he Nietzsche must have discu ssed his doubts about gs of inade quacy feelin his as well as attend the Bayreuth Festival d his voice have not may he about writing an essay on Wagner. But hts thoug al critic disillusion with Wagner himself. For Nietzsche,

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about Wagner had always n accompanied by self-doubts _ He Was he wrote in his first letter tobeeGer sdo rff afte r his retu rn to Bas namely, spiritually sick."71 For his part, Gersdorff seems to el, " sick on the role of patient listener. He did not try to contradicthave or press false optimism upon him as he had on earlier occ Nietzsche asions.72 After three weeks of strenuous walking, Gersdorff left enna, where he planned to see a production of Wagner's for Vi Wagner himself wou ld be there to conduct, but there Lohengrin., ently not even any discussion between Nietzsche and was appar­ about Nietzsche's going to Vienna. Nietzsche had enj oyeGersdorff spite from his headaches and misery on this trip, but he d little re­ in Veytaux for another week. He hiked, visited Voltaire's stayed on at Ferney, and steeled himself for a visit to the city residence where he planned to visit the Kapellmeister Hugo von SenofgerGeneva, The final portion of Nietzsche's month-long cure-his . i Geneva-proved unexpectedly eventfu l.73 Senger was vis t to Wagnerian whom Nietzsche first met in Bayreuth. He also another admired The Birth oj Tragedy, and had called upo n Nie tzsc he in Bas el ear the year. Senger arranged his concert program so that lier in could hear some Berlioz during his visit. But quite unintentioNietzsche also introduced Nietzsche to the first woman to whom he nally, he pose marriage: Mathilde Trampedach. (The only other waswould pro. Salome, to whom Nietzsche proposed in 1 882. She too was Lou von with another man who was a friend of Nietzsche-Pau involved strikingly beautiful Mathilde was not quite twenty-three yeal Ree.) The and her younger sister were piano students of Senger. Andrs old. She the forty-year-old Senger was still married (to his seco although , nd wife, the mother of his two daughters), he and Mathilde were already Mathilde would eventually become Senger's third wife. intimate. Shortly after Nietzsc arrival, Senger brought him to visi t the two sisters at their penhe's sion . It cau ght Nie tzsc he' s atte ntio n Mathilde was able and anxious to enter into their conver that Shakespeare and certain English Romantic poe ts. After sation more brief encounters, all in less than a week's time, onl y two abruptly penned a proposal of marriage. He hoped Nietzsche would answer him, he wrote, by the following morning Mathilde left for Basel. As Mathilde described him, the shy scholabefore he ing under his dark green felt-lined parasol to protect his r-cower­ the light-cut a rather ridiculous figure. He had not ma eyes from tic impression on the gregarious and free-spirited youde a roman. So his proposal surprised her. And withou t realizing ng wom(in.� it-because on

1

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ever noticed the affection that existed between Mathilde and �:�er-Nietzsche also angered his woul.d.be friend. The whole ep' isode displays the social ineptitude of thIS awkward .man. With his career in Basel coming to an end, NIe�zsche would e hav had no income or social position to offer a WIfe. anywaynothing but his intellect. For )ust that reason, however, It IS. understandable that Nietzsche mIght make a desperate proposal of marriage at precisely this time. Nietzsche has a reputat�. on as a mI-. 'st but he had in the abstract contemplated marnage several :��'d�ring his years in Basel. The Wagners and Gersdorff h�d recommended it to him on the gTounds that it would settle hIm . . � g! 0 verb eck , down emotionally, and even improve hIS. wnt1 Rohde, Gersdorff, in fact all of Nietzsche's com� anlons were con­ templating marriage now, threatening to lea�e hI� the .only bache­ lor. He was, furthermore, aware that his relatlons� Ip with Wagner, Cosima, and the entourage at Bayreuth was cO�Ing to an end. So Nietzsche acknowledged the desirability of findIng a mate-prefer­ ably a wealthy one-who could organize his household, take c�re of him in his ill health, and even liberate him from the necessIty of continuing to teach. . were only too ratIonal, . Nietzsche's considerations of marnage however. He asked his sister and other friends if they could not find some eligible heiress for him to marry. Yet he seemed to lack any emotional, romantic, or sexual interest in.wo� en. Only on t�o occasions, when the figure of a particularly VIvaCIOUS w?man WIth intellectual aspirations penetrated his veil of sh�ness, .dld he actu­ ally become excited about a woman. And even thls_��C1tement may , not have been precisely romantic. Nietzsche reached out to Mathilde Trampedach as If. for salva­ tion from his fate, or simply toward a new beginning. He may even have seen a potential disciple in her, for she was i.ntel�ectually acute as well as personally attractive.74 But when the Ine�Itable but gra­ cious rejection came from Mathilde, Nietzsche rephed that he w�s embarrassed, and hoped she would not reme�be.r him only for thIS awkward incident.75 But then in a letter to hIS fnend Gersdorff he returned to treat the subject of marriage with what can only be called foolish pride: "We don't want to sully our characte� [with a conventional marriage]; ten thousand times rather remaIn alone forever-that's my solution to the problem now."76 He could no longer admit the genuine excitement he had felt a few days before. He did not even acknowledge that he had proposed. �

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Nietzsche, in fact, was better suited to the motherly attentions of older women than he was to romance, and he did establish two friendships with older women in the mid 1870s. Marie Baumgart. ner,17 the mother of one of his students, and the vaguely Wagnerian cosmopolite Malwida von Meysenbug,18 were both motherly confi­ dants to him. They did much to sustain Nietzsche in this time of illness and of approaching separation from Wagner. They gave him much of what he hoped to gain from a marriage.79 Nietzsche benefited enormously from the Geneva trip. Being away from Basel, hiking, talking out with Gersdorff his difficulties with the Wagner essay and his own self-doubt, seem to have done his spirit good. The measure of this is the fact that he was in a very positive frame of mind on his return to Basel. Apparently he re� solved to overcome-by force of will-his depression, cynicism, and self-doubt. He was in a decisive mood, ready to make a grand gesture: In the main I have realized this much: the only thing that all men rec­ ognize and respect is the high-minded deed. D on't for anything in the world take one step toward accommodation! One can only have gn�at success if one remains true to oneself. 80 .

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The first Bayreuth Festival was scheduled for August of 1876, a bare four months from the time Nietzsche returned from his cure in Switzerland.81 Wagner had finally completed composition on The Ring of the Nibelungen. And thanks to the financial assistance of King' Ludwig II of Bavaria, the Festival Theater in Bayreuth was· nearly complete as well, so Wagner's great work would finally be produced in its entirety, and in the circumstances envisioned by the artist. The Festival would mark the climax of Wagner's artistic Y career, and Richard Wagner in Bayreuth was to be Nietzsche's contri­ bution to the celebration. Nietzsche may also have hoped to resolve his discipleship to Wagner with this essay. He had been making notes for an essay about Wagner at least since 1874. Nietzsche's chief criticism of Wagner in his 1874 notebooks was that Wagner was fundamentally an actor and a dilettante. By calling him a dilettante he meant that in addition to composing music Wagner pretended to be a poet, a dramatist, and so on. According to Nietzsche's notes, "His music i� not worth much, nor is his poetry, nor is his plot, the dramaturgy is often mere rhetoric . . . . " Nietzsche complements these reserva-

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r's music, poetry, plot, 'ons with the acknowledgment that Wagne d� cided that Wagner had che Nietzs . �tc. all'do work together. Butof the arts he practIc ed. He was funda­ W s not a genius at any one d the "effect" of genius was a char. He : ntally an actor who create . in effect, to impe.rso.n��e �en�� s.82 H. IS' very latan whose talent was,critiqu e of the belIef In naIve genIus . . eXample constituted a centur y the term " actor" was an epIthe t In the late nineteenth t to be sc�ndalous by its :ery and a slur. Theatrical life was though company-lI ttle ature, and an actor was presumed unfit for polIte . To be an actor meant to dissimulate, to assume �ore than a whore or no character ?f one's. and discard identities, and to have littlenate, extravagant, Immod. passio own. To be an actor meant to beraIned . 3 ' he relerred .8' Wh en N Ietzsc est, and in most respects unrest s c:eatI�e Wagner's "actor nature," he meant to specif� Wagner tatIon s. conno ve negatI ersonality, but he did not exclude these conman a of that P Nietzs che saw that Wagner's immod esty was genius, nourished by VI'nced he was a genius. "The cult of the arrogance. � Ietzsch e Schopenhauer," emboldened Wagner in hiscult of the genIUS w�s a the that realized, perhaps for the first time, was symptom of the modern malaise, where . God dead and artIsts attempted to impersonate and replace hIm: m

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ageme nt or Wagner is a moder n man, incapa ble of derivin g encour is in the strength from a belief in God. He does not �elie: e t at he �Q!:>o ysafekee ping of a benevo lent being, hut,he belIeve s 1 0 hlmselL t ld .

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peo�le, �v­ And again, "He f!leasures the state, society, virtue, thefeels dIssatIs­ erything by the standard of his art; and whenever heche might have fied, he wishes the world would go under."87 Nietzs e a law unto becom has genius generalized: in modern culture the himself. ers is even less Nietzsche's characterization of Wagner's follow r's less ad­ flattering. All of them were attracted precisely by Wagne to attach ted motiva lly cynica were mirable qualities. Many of them . to began he that themselves to him because of the aura of genIUS acquire. ting as How did Wagner get his followers? Singers who beca� e interes pereffects, achIeve dramatic actors and found a brand-n ew chance to

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haps with an inferior voice. Musician s who were able to learn from the Master of performance . . . . Orchestral musicia ns who prev iou sl were bored. Musicians who intoxicated or bewitched the public in a rect manner and now learned the color-effects of the Wagnerian orche�. · tra. All sorts o f discontented people who hoped for personal gai n fro every coup. People who go into raptures over every kind of socal1 "progress." Those who were bored with all existing music and no found their nerves more powerful ly stirred. . . . Literary men with a sorts of reformist ambitions. Artists who admire his way of living inde. pendently.88

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This whole passage is full of scorn for Wagnerians and the side of �agner that the� found �ttractive. But its more poignant mean IS revealed only In what IS absent from the list, namely, anyoneinat­g tracted to Wagner by his tragic vision, or transformed and bled by his work in any way. More than scornfu l, Nietzsche feltenvenory­ much alone in his discipleship. . Nietzsche terms the lack of a receptive audience Wagner's pri­ mary difficulty.89 The problematic relationship of artist and lic was part of the romantic idea of the genius. But Nietzsche pub the point that the higher significance Wagner ascribed to artmakandes partIcularly to his own art, simply did not interest the public: '

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There is somethi ng comic in Wagner's inability to persuad e the Ger· mans to take the theater seriously . They remain cold and unmoved­ he gets worked up as though their salvation depende d on it. Nowa ays especial ly, the German s believe that they are engaged in more Importa nt matters. And someone who concern s himself so sol­ emnly with art strikes them as an amusing eccentri c.90

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Wagner had simply misjudged his contemporaries and there was ) no hope for the revolutionary transformation that Nietzsche had so ardently desired to see. This is a thoroughly damning view of Wagner, his followers, �nd the German public. It constitutes not only a burst of insight Into Wagner's often unpleasant character-which Nietzsche had strictly ignored in favor of his idealization of the composer-but also represents a spasm of disillusion in the most literal sense. Hav­ in� entertained unrealistic hopes, Nietzsche now felt hopeless. ThIs was the root of the "skepticism" and moral illness that he com­ plained of, and the psychological source of the virtual nerv<;>us breakdown that Nietzsche experienced at that time.

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So in the Spring of 1 876, when Nietzsche returned from Swit­ in Bayreuth, erland and finally began to write R ichard Wagner g much agonizin fitfully, wrote He e. challeng le �e facedhada formidab about g vacillatin still Tragedy, of in writing The Birth . as he simply not could whether he could publish what he was writing. He praise Wagner as .a moral rej ect the master's aesthetic "system" and hauer. NIetzsche Schopen on essay his in done had he as exempl ar, his work. But to and Wagner was now very critical of both the man to pra­ write a eulogy of Wagner for the first Festival he would have ise both. Could he manage this without simply suppressing the insi ghts that he had recorded in his notebooks? begIns Nietzsche's published paean to Wagner . expectantly two enough with the thought that "for an event to possess greatness accom­ things must come together: greatness of spirit in those who event The .' it.' rience exp who those in spirit of � pli sh it, and greatness . Yet obvIously FestIval, Bayreuth under consideration was the audi­ the with well Nietzsche hesitates to assure his readers that all is an ence for Wagner's art. Rather, he frets, "Whenever we see [such] ex­ event approaching we are overcome with the fear that those who the to only not pertains fear This perience it will be unworthy of it." audience: Even the deed of a man great in himself lacks greatness if it is brief and without resonance or effect; for at the moment he performed it he must have been in error as to its necessity at precisely that time: he failed to take correct aim and chance became master over h 1m. · 91

Failure to find resonance in an audience with "greatne ss of spirit" would ultimately mean lack of greatness in the artist-even in Wagner's case. Thus Nietzsche calls the greatness of Wagner's life­ work at least momentarily into question. Nietzsche may have questioned Wagner' s greatness only to re�ffirm it. From Schopenhauer he borrowed the metaphor of the artist aiming at a target; the philosopher had said that a genius could hit not only targets that others could not reach, but ones that others could not even see. Nietzsche uses this metaphor to explain both Wagner's achievement and the resistance to it: That a single individual could, in the course of an ave�age h� m � n lifespan, produce something altogether new may well excite the Indig­ nation of those who cleave to the gradualness of all evolution as

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though t� a kind of moral law: they themselves are slow and dem and slowness m others-and here they see someone moving very fast' d 0 not know how he does it, and are angry with him, For such an u n d er· as tha at ayreuth here were no warning signs, no transi tio n l ' tak mg �vents, nothmg mtermedlate; the long path t? the goal, and the goal , the first CIrcumnavigation Itself, ? one knew ut Wag�er. It IS of the globe In the domam of art,92

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This is typical of romantic descriptions of genius, saved from cliche only by Schopenhauer's metaphor, But while it reaffirms that Wagner was "a man great in himself," it does not suggest that �agner� s work enjoyed the resonance of a great and comprehend­ In,g audlen�e, In fact, Wagner's relationship to his public was, for N Ietz�ch,e, Inextricable from Nietzsche's understanding of himself as a dISCIple of Wagner, As a disciple, Nietzsche's identity was em­ bedded in his conception of Wagner's public, and vice versa, I� 1 876 Nie,tzsche was confronted by rapid growth in Wagner's pubhc, and hIS reaction was ambivalent, On the one hand Nietzsche seems to have wanted Wagner to remain unrecognized excep,t to a s� all and select coterie of followers, including himself espeCIally_ NIetzsche congratulates himself upon being one of the few who had believed in Wagner from the first moment he met ' h'1m.93 Wagner h Imselfhad said that his work would be appreciated on,IY, by /select few, Now in 1 876, as Wagner seemed finally to be galnI�g the acceptance of the German public at large, Nietzsche acts hke a child correcting an inconsistent parent: "but you said. . . ." In 1 872 he had been one of the few believers. He had ridden with �he family in �agner's carriage to the dedication. Now he pro­ tests Inwardly agaInst the throngs of superficial enthusiasts gather� ing around Wagner. On the other hand, Nietzsche was so deeply affected by Wagner that he expected Wagner's work to transform the whole generation f new followers and redeem it from superficiality and material­ �Ism. � � would have been delighted to share Wagner with a larger p� bh� If they too had been transformed by Wagner's influence, But thIS dId not appear to be happening, Nietzsche wondered why Wagner accepted the adulation of people who were not truly t?uched by his work? Earlier he had blamed the unreceptive pub­ hc. But now he was prepared to be disappointed in Wagner if the public was not magically transformed. While he was implicitly challenging Wagner's authority,

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ge­ ing the traditional practice of out Nietzsche was actually challeng phet with ted Wagner to go on being ay pro niu s, Nietzsche wancou � be tr�ns­ coul man ntry, unless all Ger hono; in his own d genIUS, nIze ely accepted myth of the unrecogries , was formed. But the wid a cui­ ppreciated by contempora innovato h ead of his time and una r recognize a radical ruse that enab led the public toeven :uraalgeni without fully understan�­ us and accept him as such as unappreCI­ unrecognized, mis� nderstood,beand in g his work. Beinggeni gnIzed by us. Thus a genIUS coul d recotion ated was a sign of nize t�e Indeed an important func oteof thIS having been unrecog dd.geni us, had always been to �rom ner, myth of the unrecognize Wag ng like thIS had happenedtoWIth recognition. Somethi but seemed unmusical all a very whose compositions hade.once gorized as Zukunjtsmusik, "the few, including Nietzsch Butt-garcate ic, they came gradually to music of the future" or avan nsdeofmus a misu nderstood genius who be understood as the innovatio e temporaries . Once that was mad was beyond most of his con Em­ d about music-even the German known, everyone who careng peror-wanted to be amo the connoisseurs who coul d understand. by but it was quite normal, and,ing Nietzsche was alarmed at this,perh aps even necessary. Hav the logic of modern culture, unappreciated genius, 'Yagnet r postured for so many years asg an �I­ the peop,le wh� fi�ally deCIded had very little role in selectincoul senS the that t InSIs ly SImp not d He . acknowledge him as such s ones keep their distance. Heit tive ones understand and the cras n art would finally g� t the attentioque could only be gratified that his pers s­ e imat legit a was it pective, deserved. But from Nietzsche's supe e m beco had al people , �ol­ , tion why so many unregeneratehis worrfici dIstI a , And thIS questIon enthusiastic about Wagner and cism ofk.Wag ner, crept into Richard lationof Nietzsche's earlier criti Wagner in Bayreuth. a work of devotion to Wagner. Nietzsche's essay is nevertheless ntic work. And only readers It has often been read as a sycos pha ner have noticed the sub­ privy to Nietzsche's critical note on Wag rs s upo n Wagner and the spectato tle aspersions that Nietzsche castrem ­ man e zsch Niet ains: How did in Bayreuth. Thus the question ner' of task the age to reconcile his insight into Wag s character with praising Wagner in this essay? inced himself-at least brieflyNietzsche seems to have conv characteristics that Wagner that Wagner's defects were youthful

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had since overcome.94 In R ichard Wagner in Bayreuth Nietzs c he asserts paradoxically that in Wagner's youth "he himself does no yet seem to be present at all." As a youth Wagner was governed b�t "a spirit of restlessness, of irritability, a nervous hastiness in seizi hold upon a hundred different things, a passionate delight in expnge­ riencing moods of almost pathological intensity, an abrupt transi­ tion from the most soulful quietude to noise and violenc Although these were characteristics that Nietzsche saw in Wagnee."r in the 1870s, since he did not know Wagner in his youth, in th published essay the real Wagner has emerged from these "riddles"e and attained his own character by the time he reaches maturity.95 The mature Wagner was by no means perfect, however. It only that the story of his life and the unfolding of his genius beginiss with his maturity. And this story is a tempestuous drama. In Nietzsche's words,

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As soon as [Wagner's] spiritual and moral maturity arrives, the dram a of his life also begins. And how different he looks now! His nature appears in a fearful way simplified, torn apart into two drives. . . . Below there rages the precipitate current of a vehement will which . . strives to reach up to the light through every runway, cave, and crev. ice, and desires power. .

This was potentially a tyrannical force, according to Nietzsche, that could easily have made Wagner "irritable and unjust." Especially if Wagner had not been granted success, his will might have filled him with a passionate hatred and made him blame the world for his failure[!]96 The other, opposing force that Nietzsche discerned in ' Wagner's character was Treue or loyalty. Nietzsche drew his evi­ dence for this not from Wagner's life-it was not particularly evi­ dent-but from his works. Acknowledging that the characters invented by a writer do not necessarily represent him, he urges that "a succession of figures upon whom he has patently bestowed his love does tell us at any rate something about the artist." He argues that Rienzi, the Dutchman, and Senta; Tannhauser and Elizabeth; Lohengrin and Elsa; Tristan, Kurwenal, Marke, and Isolde; Hans Sachs, Briinnhilde, and Wotan, all represent a growing current of selfless loyalty in Wagner. And Nietzsche writes that this loyalty is "the most personal and primal event that Wagner experiences

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within himself and reveres like a religious mystery, . . . displaying it in a hundred shapes."97 Loyalty is an interesting choice of a virtue to balance against Wagner's self-seeking and tyrannical force of will. As a theme it is often handled ambiguously, as in Tristan und Isolde, and it is cer­ tainly not the only theme of Wagner's works. It is, however, the theme of Nietzsche's relationship to Wagner. Wagner had been strangely (unnecessarily) concerned about Nietzsche's loyalty, and Nietzsche himself had tried to prove above all else that he was a disciple loyal to his master, willing to perform any service. At times it seems he was more loyal to Wagner than to himself. But now he was discovering the necessity of a higher loyalty, one to his own creative powers. Nietzsche even suggests that Wagner's followers should be so renewed as to become creators in their own right.98 Wagner might remain an example, but no longer an ideal. The struggle of loyalty depicted in Richard Wagner in Bayreuth is in some m easure autobiographical, as Nietzsche later intimated.99 In depicting Wagner's character as a struggle between his pas­ sionate will and the principle of loyalty, however, Nietzsche employed a conceit that he had devised for his essay on Scho­ penhauer: the genius in conflict with himself, creating himself by overcoming some aspect of himself. This device enabled him not only to make Wagner seem even greater for having tamed his tyran­ nical will, but to depict his life as a drama of romantic genius: It was in the relationship of these two profound forces . . . in the sur· render of the one to the other, that there lay the great necessity which had to be fulfilled if [Wagner] was to be whole and whoUY himself.lOo

Wholeness here refers of course to that unity or harmony of self that writers in the German tradition of Bildung assumed necessary for a creative life. But in Nietzsche's slightly revised version, nei­ ther Wagner nor Schopenhauer before him were born with harmo­ nious, whole personalities; they were profoundly divided men who had to overcome aspects of themselves to reach wholeness. The drama that Nietzsche purported to find in Wagner's inter­ nal struggle was a fiction that suited Nietzsche very well. It permit­ ted him to voice his reservations and yet praise Wagner in the inordinate fashion to which the master was accustomed. Yet, since the exemplary loyalty is drawn from Wagner's works rather than from his life, the effect is the opposite of the one he created in

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he praised Schopenhaue moral e�emplar and ignorewhdere the philosopher's works. In ;ic�:� Wagner zn Bayreuth Nie tzsche on ly ms to praise the master,,�s moral character; in fact his praise see is oted to the heroes · of. W agner ' s work s. "At 1 east Wagner's worksdevwer e worth my I'deaIIZ" a. . etrospect to flon , " he see ms In be say : ing , so tha t even in this spasm of loyal serVIce to Wagner, Nietzsche was det aching h'Imself from Wagner's person. It was by refocussing his expectations on Wagner's ' that NIe. tzsche overcame the skepti wo rks and th elr. reception pressed and paralyzed him in the winter and spring cism that d sequently NIetzsche provides a schematic histor of l875. Co:� relatlo' nsh'Ip WIt. h the public. At first Wagner identi y of Wagner's press�d an� sought to communicate his empathyfied with th suffenng directly-in Tannhiiuser and Lohengrin andfor the w �I��s ' there wa.s mUM tuaI Inc ' om pre hen sio n.1o l Bu t Wa gne r slou ghe off the . . . deSlre to domlna ' te the. audience and transform the worldd dir ect u�11y re�ognlzed that he alone; he began "to com ly. He grad. e to terms with � Imself ; and he gave upwas try ing to pro duc e wh at Nie tIvely calls "an immediate effect." Then he tzsche pejora. "th rough h'IS art only to hIm . n Tristan andbegan to spea·k2 ' self ' -I Then, renouncing "success" in the sense of commo Meistersinger 10 b�gan to look up�n the world "with more rec n popularity, he iled eyes, was seIzed less often WIth rage and disgust," and "reonc nou . And. as h e "qUIetIy pushed forward his greatest wo nced p ower". besld� score, something happened which made rk and laid Score ten:Jrzends were coming to tell him of a subterran him stop and lis. m�ny souls.': 103 In other words, as Wagner wroteean movement of The Ring oj the Nzbelungen with sup pos ed ind iffe ren ce to the pu blic began slowly to form itself. ' a true public Nietzsche seemed to suggest that, as the firs t Festival in Bayreuth approached, Wa gne r was jus t fin din g his tru e public It was a scheme in which Wagner fou nd his true pu blic in pro porti�n as he r�n�unced pop . , a correlative of the victory of loyalty over wIll In Wagner'sulapsyntycho logical life . Bo th of these develop. ments are wIs. hfu l projec ' tio ns he's mind' and they are perhaps what Nietzsche neededoftoNiebeltzsc iev t he was not com. pletely deluded about this. In fact, his wise.hfuBul des em�rgence of a pub lic for Wagner's work was int cription of the ag�Inst the vulgarity that he feared. 104 He seems conended to guard wntten a wIs. hful account, as if to instruct the audiensciously to haNe ce on how they

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should approach Wagner's art. His is a prescriptive celebration of the coming Festival. Nietzsche does not describe Bayreuth as the triumphant end of Wagner's race. It was only the beginning of what Nietzsche hoped would be the triumph of a tragic renewal of German culture.105 Bayreuth had been created, according to Nietzsche, because condi­ tions in the popular theater were not conducive to the proper pro­ duction of Wagner's works. According to Nietzsche, "There is only one hope and one guarantee for the future of humanity: it consists in the retention of the sense for the tragic. " And it was from Bayreuth that the sense of the tragic would again flow forth into the world.106 It would of course be a disaster if a complacent public assembled in Bayreuth, conscious only of having arrived. That would ev�scera�e Wagner's work. In a sense, Nietzsche's whole essay was wntten In fear of this, and in an attempt to prevent it, to prompt the public to greater awe and humility-so that they could be transformed by Wagner's art as Nietzsche had been. In the final section of Richard Wagner in Bayreuth it is quite ap­ parent that Nietzsche has been a?dre�sing himself to th�se who will attend the first Festival. He plaInly Instructs the pubbc that they have not arrived at the end of history. Nor is their reception of Wagner's saving work the culmination of anything. Bayreuth �s only a beginning. Wagner is the herald of another age. Even thIS select audience, expectant and anxious for their own transforma. even hon, they must b e overcome. 107 Two specially bound copies of Richard Wagner in Bayreuth ar­ rived at Wahnfried, the Wagners' home in Bayreuih" a"b outJuly 10, 1876-a "Festival Edition" in leather binding with gold lettering. Nietzsche's accompanying letter-only one to Cosima survives­ betrayed barely a hint of his anxiety about what he had published. He had wanted not only to prepare himself for the great events of the summer, he wrote, but to make a contribution to the Festival as well. He hoped only for the slightest sign of approval from the Wagners.I09 The Wagners were apparently impressed with the book, whether or not they found time to read it. And they responded as Nietzsche hoped. The Master wrote Nietzsche an enthusiastic but slightly ambiguous note, perhaps alluding to Nietzsche's infre­ quent attendance in Bayreuth: "Your book is astonishing! Where have you got to know me so well? N ow come soon and get accus.

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t�me� to the impressions [of The Ring]!" 1 1 0 And Cosima thanked hIm wIth an equally brief telegram, in a loftier tone, perhap s to su . tain a certain for�alit� that she had created between herself an� her .yout�ful admIrer: ,Now l owe to you, dear friend, my singfe�' exhIl�ration and r�freshment, aside from the mighty artistic im. pressions [of The Rzng]. May this suffice as my expression of graf. t de. "11 1 In th·Is exch ange-NIetzsche s letter and the two brief messages from the Wagners in Bayreuth-there is no ackno wledg. 1 12 ment of the ambivalence of Richard Wagner in Bayreuth. unli�ely that Wag�er coul� have found time to read . It see�s sbook NIetzsche In 1876. Ever SInce comIng to Bayreuth in 1872 , as' · f th·IS dream of producing The Ring ofthe Nibelunge ' the rea1·IzatIon in his �wn �e�tival Theater finally approached, the temp o o� Wagner s aCtivIty had grown progressively more frenetic. After completing The Ring in November 1874, just when he wished to turn his full attention to production, he was inundated with reo quests to give concerts. He had to accept many of these invitations just .to raise money for the theater, and to secure singers for the Festival productions. "His vogue as an opera composer had never been so great as it was now," writes his biographer Newman; and the managers of theaters throughout Germany positively de: m�n.ded th�t he co �e to their cities to conduct in return for per. mittIng theIr star sIngers to perform at Bayreuth in 1876.11 3 To Wagner this seemed like blackmail. More important tasks urgently required his attention. Wag�er was not only the author and composer of The Ring, and even desIgner of the theater; he had now to be impresario, pro. ', �ucer, director, and choreographer. He had to Scour Germany sIngers competent for the very demanding roles he had written. Even more importantly, he had to prepare them in Bayreuth, a fro � their homes, where he perceived they would lapse into baci habIts. He had to recruit and rehearse an orchestra as well. He �eeded to be in Bayreuth to supervise the last stages of construe. tIon and the furnishing of the Festival Theater. He even had to help organize the little town for the unprecedented number of visi who already began streaming into the city in the summer of 1875 whole year early-with many more expected for the first Festival in 1876. And many of the tourists were potential patrons and donors ' who hoped to be received at Wahnfried. They further distracted the Master from his preparations. An irascible man in the best times, Wagner was particularly preoccupied and irritable now. Bu U

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calendar and the theater virtually with the Festival actually onst the ing ex­ almo superhuman restraint in focusetic com plete, he showed aesth one goal of realizing the complete oser was im­ clu sively upon the so so envisioned.1I4 The comp pression he had long production that he could hardly stop to absorbed in the work ofs essay Nothing that Nietzsche migh t have worry about Nietzsche' rbed .him or even captured his attention have distu 1 1 , wri tten could ent. 5 for m ore than a mom he had dared much. He knew In Nietzsche' s own view, however,ism e of critic of Wagner woul d showt that a dangerous degreprais e. Nietzsche was as ambivalent abou through the exorbitant was about Wagner. And his equivo­ what he had written as he now ty abou t what he had done .116 He cations bear witness to his anxie fear of Wagner's reaction was was worried sick. But of course, his er's violent repudiation of his ear­ quite realistic, considering Wagn a premonition; or perhaps he already lier essays.1I7 Perhaps he had nue as Wagner's disciple. Of course it knew that he could not contis relat ip with Wagner that his had always been Nietzsche' heionsh ied about more even works had threatened. But now was"itworr is as if I had jeopardized than that: he wrote that with this essay mean that Nietzsche' s my very self." Read literally, thisbycantheonlyprosp ect of alienating sense of self was threatened d up with Wagn that it migh t Wagner.ll 8 His identity was so boun not Wagner'serdisci ple, who collapse if they separated. If he were would he be? insecure state of mind Nietzsche was thus in a dangerously val onJuly 2 4. To make when he arrived in Bayreuth for the Festi table 'fo,� ,the f!rst few matters worse, he was miserably uncomfor and his unpleasant days, complaining of ill health, the humidity ic headaches and nausea. And lodgings. He suffered from his chronalso at ease amid the preten­ as he might have predicted, he was illgathe for the event. tious crowd of Wagner-enthusiasts sociered ty, but this particular Nietzsche was never very comfortable in and his anxiety about the crowd, the importance of the occasion, create the worst possible book he had just published combined to tions at Wahnfried, with situation for him. He avoided the recepWagn er by remaining si­ the excep tion of one where he irritated lent and aloof. "alm ost regretted From Bayreuth he wrote to his sister that hetted, but he "didn't coming." He had been to one rehearsal, he admi first like it and had to leave."ll9 It was a rehearsal of the act of The

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an opera that Nietzsche had never heard. Elisabeth Nietzsche interpreted her brother's remark as evidence of his complete disillusion with Wagner and his work; 1 20 but si nce she enjoyed an early monopoly of her brother's le�ters and maQip_ ulated theIr. texts to serve her own purposes, thIS. Interpretation is suspect. The remark might also have been the expression of a sick and disoriented man who had not felt well at the rehearsal, or sim­ ply an indication that Nietzsche had been disappointed in that par� ticular rehearsal or the production more generally. 12 1 But it is possible that Elisabeth Nietzsche was right. Nietzsche may finally have realized his disillusion in Wagner and his music at this rehearsal. Nietzsche found some solace in Bayreuth with Malwida von Meysenbug, whose shady garden seemed to shield him from every­ thing he found unpleasant about the Festival atmosphere. Leaving most of his things at his own lodgings, he stayed at Malwida's while he waited for his sister to arrive, and his health improved for sev­ eral days. In that time he heard rehearsals of the whole of Twilight of the Gods, and remarked that "it is good to get used to this; now I am in my element." 1 22 This could be understood as a reversal of the earlier judgment. Or it could be a forthright acknowledgment of the difficulty of Wagner's new work, and an acceptance of the music as a challenging relief from Bayreuth society. Whichever the case, by August 1 , barely a week after his arrival, Nietzsche felt . worse again-he was suffering from headaches and exhaustion. In a letter written on that day, he notes that he had heard The Valkyrie in a darkened room to protect his eyes; but he makes comment on the opera. He simply wrote, "I yearn to be away from here. It is senseless for me to stay. I dread every one of these I evenings of art; and yet I don't stay away." 1 23 What is not clear i whether he would have enjoyed th�se evenings more if he had not felt ill; or whether the whole Bayreuth scene was contributing to his illness. Perhaps both! In any case, by August 1 , Nietzsche seemed to be finished with the Festival before it had really started: "I am sick. of it. I won't stay for the first performance. Somewhere else, any· where but here, where there is nothing but torture for me."124 Thus . he decided to leave Bayreuth and take another cure, this time at Klingbrunn in the nearby Bavarian mountains. While he was in Klingbrunn, he began to realize that he would not miss Wagner's company as much as he had feared. At least not the Wagner ofWahnfried and the Festival Theater, a Wagner sur· Twilight of the Gods,

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ms full of ons in large reception roo . rounded by wealthy patr the IongS mIS he would king and loud talk. Nor sJ1l0ke " drin h ot the er h and, ' of the operas. He would, �nyed waited performancesrieb te� s n, where he had enjo the Mas s the Wagner ofT sche mISS tive times. And he would re ate company in his mo st creastru ��mowe �f cted on the fatherly fi � hIS rful ideal that he had conseparat the er. But In rs gne Wa two e these he was beginning to W :n s recuperate. for perhap to ins nta . . nu�nd . He wou ld stay in the mou SIng thought, and then return to Basel WIth out paS ten days,Baheyreut h.125 through � at least rn to Bayreuth. He atten.desls In the event, he did retu er had The Ring of the Nibelungen as wel l. HIS � one full cycletooffind 10dgI�gs he one to use their tickets or the been unable hapany p.ly vered his health. Perh.aps he .sImdIS­ had reserved. Per srnhetoreco WIn gr s hIS hap . ? ? retu the Festival. Or per forced himself to him d, permIttIng �I� to min of e fram er illu sionmen t put rinofa calm this act in the drama of Wagner s hfe, return as an observe of the principals. rather than as oneved same reuth on August l�. On t�ehelm Nietzsche arri back in Bay WIl e) of Weimar, and KaIser at theI, day the Grossherzog (Grand Duk met arrived. The Grossher�ogw as. The the German Emperor, alsothe re was self hIm r gne and Kaiser by Wa , station by Franz Liszt, city be cely scar � ch, it was said, could for thesee a parade through the whi ­ KaI out set aths wre and s ner due to the vast numbers of, ban Ger out and great wealth from through ser. With royalty, nob ility atte nce, Nietzsche was . hardlym an many and Europe in henda ?re did nothing to mak� hImself ,important personage, andon the u occ y � Ied other hand, were full mI� noticeable. The Wagners, sts; no mat how soli citous they ht with their prominent gue dly have ter ght out guests who, h�e have felt, they could har theirsou receptio ns �nd the, pub lIce Nietzsche, stayed away fromvery solicito for N.Ietzsch� s nam hou ses. And they were not ima's diaries,us,and tzsche s c�rre­ never again appears in Cos er really resumed . NIe It seems possIble, spondence with Wagner nev and Wagner did not each other even probable, that Nietzsche reuth at the end of Ausee st. , again before Nietzsche left Bay no�ing about NIe�tzsc he s se�­ . Unfortunately we know almost his sIster and vutuall� a�l ofp hIS ond stay in Bayreuth. Inasmuch teas no rs to record hIS 1m :es­ friends were now there, he wro hislette presen.ce at any ga�henng, sions. Third parties do not record to the socIety of Mal wid a von and he seems to have kept strictly

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Meysenbug and his sister. In the absence of any direct eviden ce however, all commentators agree that Niet zsch e felt alien ated fr the social scene there, and disappointed, eventually at least, in o� production of The Ring. The only difference of opinion is over thhe appropriateness of his reaction . Some profess surprise t e Nietzsche's naivete: did he really expect the audience to be so tra at formed by the operas that they would refrain from visiting the lo ns taverns and showing off their finery at Wahnfried?1 26 Others foucal the Festival disappointing and the spectators uncommonly vnd gar.127 One of them was Wilhelm Murr, a Wagnerian who wroteul­ series of three articles for the Gartenlaube, the most widely circu­ lated periodical in Germany. The s satirizes the Bayreuth scene much as Nietzsche later did inserie Ecce Homo and other writ­ ings. 1 28 On August 27, Nietzsche left Bayreuth for Basel accompanied by Paul Ree-whom he already knew who would now become a close confidant-and the FrenchmanbutEdw Schure, whom he had only just met at the Festival, introducedard by Malwida. One con­ sequence of this long train ride is that the most extensive record of Nietzsche's state of mind at the end of the Festi was made by Schure. And although it was not written down, orval at not pub. lished for nineteen years, it seems to give an accurate least impr essio n at least of Nietzsche's attitude toward Wagner. Schure indicates that during the rehearsals and perf nces, Nietzsche seemed "sad and depressed. . . . In Wagner'sorma ence he was timid, embar­ rassed, almost invariably silent." 1 29 pres Wag ner, on the other hand, working with tremendous energy and was an expansive mood, so that Schure wondered if Nietzsche was injealo of Wagner, or perhaps disappointed in the contrast between theuscrea and the man, or merely censorious of the general vulgarity of tor the ic.! Whichever it was, "not a criticism escaped him, not a word publ of cen sure, but he showed the resigned ess of a beaten man. I still remember the air of lassitude andsadn lusionment with which he spoke of the Master's coming work ."disil In the train Nietzsche appar­ ently recounted how Wagner had told him of his plans for Parsifal, smiling indulgently "as if to say, 'See the illus ions Of these poets and musicians?' "130 Thus it seems that by the time left Bayreuth, Nietzsche had adopted, at the very least, an ironicalheattitu de toward Wagner. There had always been a strai jealousy in Nietzsche's admi­ ration for Wagner, or what mighnt of be called oedipal rivalry. Cer-

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tainly he was shocked as well. But this was not the first time Nietzsche had been shocked by Wagner, nor was he t�e only .one shocked by the contrast between the nobility of Wagner s creatIons and his egotistical behavior. Neither was he the only one to be ap­ palled by the vulgarity of the Ba�reu�h cr?wd. But the sad�ess th�t S chu re mentions repeatedly pOInts In sull another emouonal dI. · 1ousy . rection. This is more consistent with mournIng than WIth Jea or outrage. And indeed, Nietzsche mourned the Wagner he had idealized and depended upon; whether or not t�at had ever been a realistic image is irrelevant, for now he had lost It. He' mourned the intimacy they had shared at Triebsch en too, an InfImacy that Nietzsche finally realized they would ne�er recapture. And he so mourned that naive and childlike part of hImself. that had been . 1· tyrannlca Inimpressionable and so vulnerable to the someumes flu ences ofSchopenhauer and especially Wagner. Nietzsche's own later accounts sustain the view that he b�oke with Wagner, at least in his own mind, when he suddenly reahzed that he was opposed to everything that Wagner stood for.. In Ecce Homo, a book that he prepared for publication in 1 888, Nle�zsc� e dates his disillusionment with Wagner to the Bayreuth FestIval In 1876. That book is colored by the hindsight of a decade and the foresight of a man engaged in maki� g a my�h of himself. N one�he­ less, it is significant that this autobIographIcal work charactenz� s Nietzsche's break as a sudden awakening-as from a dream-In Bayreuth: .

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Wherever was I? There was nothing I recognized; J scarcely recog­ nized Wagner. In vain did I leaf through my e�or es. Trib schen-a . distant isle of the blessed: not a trace of any SImIlarIty. The Incompa­ rable days when the foundation stone [of the Festival Theater] was laid, the small group of people that had belonged . . . not a trac of any similarity. What had ha ened?-Wagner had been translated Into a German! The Wagnerian had become master over Wagner- Ger-

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Here Nietzsche seems to suggest that Wagner had changed com­ pletely as he progressed from a solitary and unrecogni�ed ge�ius, living in Swiss exile, to a cultural hero and German nauo�al Icon. But in using the metaphor of awakening from a dr� am, NIetzsche tacitly admits that he was only belatedly acknowledgIng what he ac-

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tually knew about Wagner all along. He, Nietzsche, had awakened from a hypnotic sleep. Wagner had made no secret of his German patriotism and anti'­ Semitism. But these were easy to overlook, Wagner was fi nally " ensco nced in Bayreuth amid throngs of hisuntil natio nalistic SUppOrt­ ers. Then he expressed his views even more stridently, and his state­ ments were amplified by his followers.132 It is true, Nietz did ta�e a sta�d wh�n it mattered most-"":hen Wagner wassche fin a beIng receIved wIth open arms by an antI-S emitic German publillyc, when people who knew and cared very little about his music made Wagner a champion of their chauvinism. Then Nietzsche's repudi­ ation of Wagner's ideology was important, and it became very ap­ parent in his next published writing. In Human, All Too Human, two volumes of aphorisms published in 1 878 and 1879 and dedicated to Volta Nietzsche suddenly wrote as a rationalist loyal to the Europeanire,Enlig ent of the eighteenth century. It is difficult to recognize thehtenm autho r of The Birth of Tragedy or the Untimely Meditations in this new work new Nietzsche was cosmopolitan, pro-French, and vehemently. Tohep­ posed to anti-S emitism. What is more, Nietzsche claims that he began to write this book during the Bayreuth Festiv or more pre­ cisely, in the days that he spent at the spa in Klingal,brun n, before returning to attend performances of The Ring. 133 In an expla nation of why he wrote Human, All Too Human as a cosmopolitan, Nietz sche claims that he only realized in Bayreuth that Wagner had becom e his polar opposite: it was during . . . the first Festival, [that] I said farewell to Wagner in my heart. . . . Since Wagner had moved to Germ any, he had con· desce nded step by step to every th ing I despi s e-ev en to anti· Semitism.134

It was not just Wagner's chauvinism and anti-S emitism that loomed in Nietzsche's mind, however. His turn tianity was perhaps even worse. In a later Preface to Humaton,Chris All Too Human (1 886), Nietzsche wrote that Wagner might to have triumphed at Bayreuth when, in 1876, he finally achieseem ved the popularity he had sought so long. But, Nietzsche argued, the Maste r had actually been defeated, and defeated precisely by his own effort s to gain recognition. For as he "sank down, helpless and broken, befor the Christian cross," he had at last surrendered all of the ideals heehad

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nature s arted with.135 Nietzsche referred not only to the religious . . Intersome�Imes he of W agner's next opera, Parsifal (which Nietzs<: reted as a cynical creation, a kind of operatIc pot-boIler), but to ' church-going' which even entailed signing his letters as OberhIS P . ' f the kirchenrat or deacon. In addition to all of the other pr�J � dlce � Germans, Wagner had indeed capitulated to Chnstlan pIety as well. . dIagnosed Nietzsche that betrayals and failures these of all For l. Wagner to explain his break with the composer, his most inter­ �ting statements indicate that he suddenly realized who he was �imself. He awoke to find that he had strayed from ?is own path of development and now he was impatient to resume It. 0

What reached a decision in me at that time [in Bayreuth] was not [merely] a break with Wagner: I noted a total aberration of my in­ stincts, of which particular blunders, whether Wagner or t e pr�fes­ sorship in Basel, were mere symptoms. I was overcome by zmpatzence with myself. I saw that it was high time f� r me to re� all and reflect o n . myself. A l l a t once it became clear t o m e m a ternfymg way how much time I had already wasted.136

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Awakening from the hypnotic sleep of his W.agnerian discip�eship, Nietzsche had a startling awareness of havIng neglected hIS own mission-"my task." And he realized that he would never accomplish it as a Wagnerian. . To "recall and reflect" upon himself, he had to repudIate Wagner, and to rid himself completely of Wagne�� s , influence .. He suddenly saw Wagnecas a seducer and a hypnotlst,'and reahzed that he had been powerfully affected: "Perhaps no one was more erizing. Nodangerously attached to-grown together with-Wagn . n'd. f It' ."137 e o r b happI body tried harder to resist it. Nobody was �S �nfatuatlon . ;;Ith He escaped. Again and again he wrote that �ll � Wagner had been a sickness; and he, ;eveled 1� hIS .recovery: My greatest experience was a reco:er� . . But �hIle. NIetzsche could glory in the fact of overcoming hIS dlsC1p.leshI� , hIS memo�y of how he felt after leaving Bayreuth and breakIng wIth Wagner IS far less triumphant: 0

As I proceeded alone I trembled; not long after, I was sick, and more than sick, namely, weary-weary from the inevitable disa� pointment about everything that is left to us modern men for enthusiasm, about

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the universally wasted ene rgy , work, hop e, youth, love -w ear fro na� sea at the wh � le idea listi c lie and pam per ing of the . con :C Ien C whI ch had here tnu mp hed onc e again over one of the bra vest [o�e Wagner]-weary, fina lly and . not leas t of all , from the gne . f aro use d b . . an Inex orabl e SUsp IcIO n that I was hen ceforth sen ten ced to mis truS more pro fou ndl y, to des pise more pro fou ndl y to b e mor� p ro fou ndl y alone than ever befo re. For I had had no b 0' d y ex cep t Rlchar Wagner. I38 .

ThiS waS th ti e of mo ing, necessary before Nie tzsche could actuaIIy begI�n h�IS own "taurn sk."

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ietzsche left Bayreuth disillusioned with Wagner, and certain somewhat depressed, he was also relieved. He was finally free to chart his own course. He had always ascribed extraordinary impor­ tance to his intellectual development, but he had been only too willing to surrender responsibility for it to his esteemed genius­ mentors. For years no one but Schopenhauer and Wagner had seemed competent to di"rect him. But now, in the depths of disillu­ sion, he had become his own master. Nietzsche was simultaneously becoming indepe�dent in an­ other sense as well. For in May of 1 876, well before he knew the outcome of the Bayreuth Festival or even of his own essay on Wagner, Nietzsche had applied for a year's leave of absence from his academic duties in Basel. He cited continuous illness and the need to recuperate his health as his primary reason. But he also noted his desire to visit Italy, to see the classical sites and to com­ plete his education; he wanted to make the trip that he might have made upon completion of his own studies, had he not been hired for the position in Basel so unexpectedly. Not wanting to lose Nietzsche entirely, the authorities in Basel granted him leave. After his return from the first Bayreuth Festival therefore, Nietzsche was free to travel. For a year at least, he was liberated not only from his

N that he would now have to make his way alone. Naturally

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tyrannical mentor Wagner, but the teaching responsibilities that had come to weigh so heavilyfrom upo n him. In September of 1 876 Nie tzsche gave up his lodgings in Basel and. r:duced his possessions to what would fit in a single large trunk: a mInImum of clothing, some essential books, and most importantly, the notebooks that he had filled with his Own writ, ing, ding the philosophical fragments that he had kept secret from theinclu Wag ners as he wrote the Untimely Meditations, and the notes he was now ma for Hurnam, All Too Human. He was setting out on what would king become a truly nomadic existence. For although he would returSoon Basel a year later and attempt to reestablish himself as a teacher then to he would not be capable of carrying on. Instead, he would travel re these few possessions until his ultimate collapse inJanuary 1889. Sowith trip to Italy was an essay in the life-style characteristic of the matthis Nietzsche. Here was a man who began in his late thirties to live oure meagre pension, with no ordinary responsibilities and no permann a residence, migrating back and forth, spending the summer in the Swient Alps, the winter in Italian cities like Genoa, staying always in a rent ss room, in boarding houses where he had no friends, always accom ed pa_ nied by his undefined illness. In early October Nietzsch Basel traveling first by train to Genoa, then by boat to Naples,e left and there to Sorrento, where he would spend the winter of 1 876-from 77 writing a draft of the first volume of Human, All Too Hum He was travelin g with a Swiss passport that belied his pecu liaran.civil s. He had given up his Prussian citizenship when he acceptedstatu emp ent in Basel, and since the Franco-Prussian War he had conceivloym ed a profoun d antip­ athy for the German nation. He would not willingly ma�y again. But he had not yet become a Swiss citizen,liveeithiner.Ger. By leavIng Basel for the second time since he arrived in 1869, he practic. ally abandoned all chance of becoming a Swiss citizen. He would have had to reside in Switzerland for eigh ecutive years before apply. ing for citizenship. He had left once tot cons e as a medical orderly with the Prussian military in 1870. And nowserv , with six years continuous res­ idence, he left again. In Swiss parlance, Nietzsch heimatlos stat less; and he would remain stateless throughoute was the of his life. Thus he was becoming a cosmopolitan in a very specialrest sens just the �ort of "rootless intellectual" that nationalists would soon bee,vilif ying In Germany and elsewhere. In Nietzsche's case "rootless no mere metaphor. He was debilitated by illness that he had" was little prospect of marrying, makso-

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ing new friendships, or finding an employment that migh� �ave iven him a new home. For a person with conventional am�ItIOnS, was desperate. But Nietzsche would no� be dIverted �hemsituation aspiration to establis� himsel� as : phIlosopher. As single his ro f of heart is to wIll one thIn? In fact he seems "purity wrote, he later to have relished the concentratio n and absolute Independer:ce that his pitiless existence forced upon hi� . H � �ould mak� a . vlftu � of deprivation and consciously base hIS wntIng upon hIS IsolatIon. One volume ofHuman, All Too Human he subtitled The Wanderer and His Shadow (1 880). All of Nietzsche's later �ooks ar� the work of a truly "solitary walker," a Rousseau-like genIUS so ahen��ed, or per­ haps so far in advance of his contemporaries, that his wn�Ing a�tual�y seems to be nothing so much as an extended conversatIo� WI� hIS own shadow-the only companion who could keep pace wIth hlI�.. Nietzsche arrived at this threshold by a confluence of �uahties and influences, all of which were necessary but no �e 0: whI�h were sufficient in themselves to make him a genius. NatIve IntellIgence, inherited from his Lutheran-pastor forebears, was but one ?fthese qualities. Of course there were no intelligence tests �hen N Ie�zs�he was a schoolboy, and so it is impossible to say anythIng quantItatIve or comparative about his intelligence. His record at school sug­ gests, however, that his gifts were for language �ather than mathe­ matics, and that is consistent with the observatIons of others who have studied the inherited intelligence of the sons of the German pastorate.l Nonetheless, even if it were 'possible to d:monst�ate that Nietzsche was specifically gifted for lIterary and phIlosophIcal brilliance, the contents of his achievement could �ardly have been determined by this endowment. Friedrich was also shy, self-absorbed, and introspectIve as a boy. These too are characteristics which might have been the prod­ ucts of inheritance, although he himself ascribed them to the mel­ ancholy fate of having lost his father at an ea�ly age. But what:ver the explanation, he became an unusually pnvate and self-relIant man. His family furthermore was unusually earnest, ev:n by Protes­ tant standards. Much would have been expected of NIetzsche as a child, whether his father had died young or not. And as h� was ?y no means a rebellious boy, he rose to the expectation s of hIS famIly and became an earnest, hard-working, and ambitious yo�ng man. This ambition, later diverted from clerical into philosophIc�1 chan­ nels, ultimately proved essential to his perseveran�: . In the iconoclastic mission that he devised for himself. But SenSItIVIty, self,

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reliance, diligence, and ambition are amorphou s even when added to intelligence do not make a geniusqualities, and �ore stru. ctured are the emotional and intellectual. as SOCIa ted WIth N·Ietzsche,s lifelong search for a fath tendenCI. es� was not. the only boy whose father died when he waser. Of course he the oedIpal s�ruggle, and none of the others turned outin the midst of v�ry foundatIons of Western Civilization in just the to assault th dId. But Nietzsche's life did c�me to focus so thorouway N ietz che . . them, re�elh thers-emulatIng . them, and ghly upo� fa� ng aga Inst ng beyond themthat we can. hardly dIscount the Freudian thoughgoit tha . penence c.aused hIm to search out and assume that he cou t thoIS ex. · a long senes of father-figures. Furthermore, this thoughld overcome the young .N �etzsche's predilection for fatherly mento t does r k defined. mISSIon to undermine the faith of his more rs to his s�7r­ and It· IS consI. �tent wI. �h both the imperious style of hisliteral fathers, and the grandIose attIt�de of his hero, Zarathustra. Bulater writings when taken together with his native intelligence and t again, even family back­ �ound, this psychological tendency would not hav e suf fice �hetzsche a creative author who could command the d to make tIon and punctuate the history of Western thought. world's atten­ The other essential ension of Nietzsche's forma tion is that he gre� up and was edudim cat ed in a cul tur e of gen ius . Ge . nius was pervas�ve In the Ideology of the nineteenth century, und . erw riting th.e unIve�sal dn;e for innovation in every field of end eav or. For NIetzsche In partIcular, gave cultural sign ificance, not onl y to his deep personal predisposit itio n tow ard fath ers , but to his inte lli­ gence and ambitio?� As an adolescent studying Goeth e, Ho lde rlin , and other great wnters and musicians �ffat? erly g�niuses in the world bey();nd, he learned the imp ortance family. And by imagin­ I �g hImself In the role of Goethe, he gavhis e an rnal structure to hIS .own e�ucation. Genius became a standardinte to aspIre, � kInd of abstract father-figure whom he couwhich he could as he �Ight have imitated his father. The concept ld imitate ' just gave NIetzsche a standard against which to measureof genius also not only at Schulp!orta but !n the university. He ult his teachers sured Professor RItschl agaInst it and fou nd him imately mea� when he c�me across Schopenhauer's book, The Worwanting. But ld as Will and Representatzo , and when he me � t Ric har d Wa gne r in person some­ what later, hIS by then deep appreciation of the rol enabled him to recognize these men as such, and toe of the genius adopt them as mentors for hIS. own creative development. /

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Prepared since early adolescence by a thorough indoctrination in the culture of genius, Nietzsche now made his struggle for iden­ tity and personal mission into a struggle for a personal relati?n­ ship to genius. First it was a struggle to learn the role of genIus from Schopenhauer and Wagner, who were for him the very em­ bodiments of it. For a time he behaved like the most slavish of dis­ ciples. Observers would hardly have guessed that he was destined to be a great creative figure himself. But later his quest resolved into a struggle for emancipation, as he began to sense the need to free himself for a mission of his own. The genius of others was once a beacon for Nietzsche, drawing him toward creativity; later the role of the genius became the channel for Nietzsche to veer away from his mentors and focus his intellect, ambition, and psychology in unique creative work of his own. From early adolescence, but extending through his lengthy discipleship with Wagner, Nietzsche therefore shaped himself to this culturally defined role. Ultimately it permitted him to turn both his gifts and his disabilities to cre­ ative advantage. As a provincial young man without a father, Nietzsche may have depended more than most great creators upon models of genius to help him reach the threshold of independent creative work. And for just that reason Nietzsche's early biography raises interesting questions about the very theory of genius that bore him up. For Nietzsche was obviously not born a genius. He became a genius. And the fact that he learned the role of the genius from a whole series of indi­ viduals from Goethe to Wagner, and shaped his own life to conform as much as possible to their examples, suggests either that Nietzsche was not a genius, or that the nineteenth-century theory.of genius was itself a skewed representation of the creative individual. . Nietzsche's early life-history makes plain that growing up in a culture of genius permitted this intelligent, ambitious, and hardworking individual, who happened also to be fixated upon fa­ thers, to organize his life for a single, extended creative project. It is true that Nietzsche's adult life was difficult, even with the creative purpose that he defined for himself. He had reason enough to curse his fate. Instead, fortified by the sense of mission that he got from assuming the mantle of genius, he enunciated the principle of loving one's fate (amorfati). This was appropriate, not only as a philosophical principle consistent with his other ideas, but as a psy­ chological consequence of having defined his life in terms of ge.

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niu had he not found Sch nhauer and Wagner, and . s.ortFor , mOre Imp antl�, had he n?t bee� ablope to dra w dee ply eno ugh � up on his understandIng of genIus to Identify these two me n as his me nto ,( h � would have ha� a muc� less satisfying existence . He wo uld c::� tainly no t have achIev thIS degree of psycholog ica l int egr ati o n Or accomplIs. hed any greed at work. Instea� of pu r uing a profound purpose, he wo uld probabl have remamed a d"� � ttan te, jus t as he fea red . He wo uld h�ve gone on playmg and composing mediocre very likel; p �ano, ,and �n. tIng scholarly philological article music for the s for journals like , RI.tschl s Rhe:nlS. che Museum. He would have contin mIxture of hIgh school and college Courses in Basel. ued teaChing a had no reason to over�ome ?is deb ili�ting illness He would have have ended up strugglIng WIth a marnage to wh . And he might pletely � nsuited. But he refused all of that and ich he was com­ somely Integrated personality, the Nietzsche whobecame an aWe­ well-kno�n attack upon truth and metaphysics. made the now � ecause In the role of the genius he fou nd both He cou ld do this I�terests and marshall his energies to a well-focusaedway to order his h �ense not to do the normal things that were expect mission, and a N Ie �zsch�, the role of genius had the psychologica ed of him . For l function of inte­ grating hIm for his creative responsibility. Nietzsche was not the only one whose creative life was inte­ grated by. learning and living out the role of gen ius . In fac t, his re­ �usal �f dIlettantism and insistence upon a uniqu e cre ativ e mi ssion IS typIcal of genius: It is a characteristic that dis tin gui shes nine­ teenth �century genIuses from the "Renaissance centunes. The . great difference is that Renai men" of earlier Leonardo or Michelangelo were at the beck andssance men like trons, great lords who requIr. ed a van. ety of tributecall of their pa. ented servants. So while Michelangelo thought s from their tal­ sculptor, the �?pe insisted that he paint, designof himself as a buildings, and . s, thereby dri even plan fortIflCation vin g the art ist . to contrast, .geniuses of the nineteenth century were distraction. By such arbItrary patronage. Berlioz, Marx, Hugo, relatively free of and the r�st worked o n unique creative projec Wagner, Darwin, ts that they them­ . usually conflic selves �efined, and whIch ted wit h the ideas and ex­ pectations of contemporaries. Ultimately these nin enth-century geniuses als o had tojus tify the�. r work to a patron,etenam ely , the pu bli c tha t would consume theIr art, read their works, or utilize their invention s. Berlioz had to

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create a new audience for his music, and even Marx had difficulty convincing the working class of the relev�nce of his ideas: �ore specific to their ultimate reputations, g�nIuses had to legIu� ate themselves to the public by demonst�ating that they had ,u �Ique missions that only they could accomphsh. In Schopenhauer s Imag­ e. ry, they had to show that they could hit targets of their own mak­ ng targets that no one else could even discern. Of course that �o�ld only become apparent after they had begun to do it. So they had to work alone and in the face of stiff opposition. To overcome the expectations of tradition and to refuse a normal life, t� perse­ vere on a path of non-conformity and apparently perverse Innova­ tion required a formidable degree of self-assurance. But as Nie;zsche's career demonstrates so clearly, they did not have to be born arrogant or self-assured-those qualities could ?e acquired_ The role of genius was a cultural category comprehensIble to every­ one, a role that could be learned, and a structure for the psycholog­ ical integrity required of a radical innovator. The role of the genius had to be learned from an exemplar or a mentor, but the process did not usually requi�e the yea�s of an­ guished discipleship that Nietzsche endured. VIctor Hugo s obser­ vation that he "would be Chateaubriand or nothing" suggests how he patterned his ambition after the older poet, witho� t a�y close personal association with Chateaubriand at all_ And It mIght be said that Marx took on the role of philosophical hero from Hegel, although he did not much respect Hegel's dialectic. of history. The important thing was to internalize a model of the In�ell�ctual cre­ ator in order to focus and discipline one's own energIes In an analogous manner. ' _' . Taking on the role of the genius had other consequ�nces .than just focusing the individual upon a mission an� marshalhng hIS e�­ ergies for it. Modern geniuses became recognIzable to the pubhc insofar as they conformed to a recognizable pattern. One of the essential traits was to be unappreciated at first. Schopenhauer h �d revelled in rejection, and then derived enhanced f�me from It. Wagner was controversial and his works were not Infrequently booed in concert halls, but that only confirmed that he was ahead of his time; the phrase "music of the future" became a b �nner for Wagner's music. Nietzsche himself would not be recognIzed untIl. after his creative life had ended in mental collapse. But because, from the moment he broke with Wagner, Nietzsche worked in ob­ sessive isolation on a project that virtually no one appreciated, he

YOUNG NIETZSCHE

was ultimately recognized as an unrecognized gen ius . Som . ewh at para d � xIc ' " I�l lack a 11 y, th en, InIt of rec ogn itio n had bec om e one the traIts that made a genIUS rec of ognizable to the pub lic. Ge niu ses who achieved fam e early in the ir careers were . al s o recognIze d by standard traits ass oci ate d with this rol e that beca m. e alm ost stereotypical in the nin ete ent h century. Un swe rvin g . . . d �� tIon to a mIs sIon , regardless of con seq ces like poverty, sca n d aI , �n d ostraCIs. m, was one rather meloduen ram atic trait. Sub lim e eg . . o tIsm , a boh em Ian hfe -sty le, and an inabili ty (or refu sal) to lead bourgeois life of respectabili ty, to "work for a livi ng, " or to sacr fice fo � wives and chi ldren, was another. The gen ius cou ld als o be recognIzed as a hero whose ext raordinary journey carried him f: away from the lives of ordinary peo ple ; and yet, conforming to a chetype, the heroic journey per mitted the gen ius to return . . to the com mu nIty WIt h the fru its of his creative mis sio n. The cum ul ativ e effe� t of these quite con sist ent traits was to con fus e the life . of a ��nlus WIth th p ogress of his works. An abstract and myth ica l hf� of th� gen IUS was und ers too d by gen ius and pub lic alik e . So gen Iuse s lIve d t eir live s i ant icip ation of their bio gra phe rs. . And th pu� hc saw bIography In the live s of gen ius es even as they were beI ng hved. The "autobiograp hical life " of the gen ius , as it ma y be cal e , was a syn the sis of all of the social and psy cho log ical cha . rac­ ten stlc s asc nb ed to gen ius . Th is my thic al life of a gen ius was a cul tural form of the nin e­ tee th century that performed two vital fun ctio ns. It permitted the genI � S to con cen tra e all of his life -force upo n a creative mis sion, and It m de the gen IUS recogn izab le to the pub lic. Th e gen ius was . . thus an Inst Itut Ion for the pro mo tion of inn ova tion in a cen tury that had come to ide ntify itse lf as a century of progress. Ear lier ep. och s and other cultures had ma naged inn ova tion in a variety of ays, b t t ey had always attemp ted to control it, eith er by def . in. Ing the Indlvld u ls who were authorized to ins titu te cha nge s, such as r lers and pn ests, or by res tric ting the imp etu s to innova te to partIcular sources like revelation fro m God. In this century that de. mande d p ogress, however, the theory of genius ope ned the pat . h of Inn o�atlo n to alm ost any one , or alm ost any ma n.2 The role of the g nIu s was the v hic le for an ind ivid ual to organize him . self for the ngors of creatIV Ity, and the myth of gen ius was the veh icle for the pub lic to recognize and rew ard the gen ius wit h adu lati on. Th is mythical life ·pattern ten ded , however, to obs cur e one im­ portant asp ect of creativity and gen ius alm ost com ple tely : how the . /

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genius became creative. According to the theory, the genius w s supposed to create ex nihilo, or at least out of the resources of hIS own personality, and certainly without help. H ,:as a,: tono ous , nd self· sufficient virtually an "unmoved mover, In Anstotle s ter· inology. This w s the kernel of the theory of the genius, which defined innovation as a property of individuals rather than a mat· ter of revelation or inspiration from God or the muses.3 This the· ory was quite functional in drawing public attentio to t e nusual . nature of the creative individuals we call genIuses, IdentIfyIng use· ful innovations, and rewarding geniuses by making them demigods of modern culture. However, it obscured the fact that even ge· niuses have to learn their role, not to mention their metier and its . traditions. The theory of genius, therefore, was quite unrealistic, at least insofar as it excluded the possibility of a genius being influenced, or learning the role of the genius from an exemplar or ment.a r. s obvious as this failing of the theory may seem u pon refl ction In the late twentieth century, it was quite logical. In the autoblogra� h. ical life of the genius, the theory carried with it a very effectIve mechanism for suppressing awareness of the indebtedness of ge· nius: In order to be recognized as a genius, even the greatest cre· ator had at least to appear not to have learned his role or metier from anyone else. And this role was so exalted that it inspired arro· gance and pretension on such a scale that ge � iuses were only too . willing to avoid the very appearance of beIng Influe ced, t? repu· diate their debts to their predecessors, to quarrel WIth theIr men· tors, and to conceal whatever they learned from others. It would otherwise seem to be an inexplicable coincidence_ . that so many great benefactors of humankind should have been so lac ing in gratitude to thei� own benefactors. But the theory of g� n us was such that a genius could be depended upon to conceal hIS Indebt· edness. On precisely this point, however, Nietzsche was atypical. His psychological need for a father· surrogate went o f r eyon the usual requirement of a model of genius that hIS dISCIpleshIp to Schopenhauer and particularly to Wagner las ed for year . In all . that time he naively refused to acknowledge hIS own ambItIOn to reach the status of genius himself, and deferred almost endlessly to his mentors. They became the focus of his agonized writing in The . Birth of Tragedy and The Untimely Meditations, an mentonng reo mained a theme of his later works, most espeCIally Thus Spake

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So Nietzsche did not conceal his debt to Schopenhauer and Wagner, and he remained occupied with Wagner even at the end of his career, when he wrote The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche contra Wagner (both 1 888), trying again and again to explain his re� lationship to the composer. It seems almost as if he had set out to illustrate the process of learning the role of genius. This all makes becoming a genius much more transparent in Nietzsche's life than it is in other instances. His example reveals a general but usually ob­ scure phenomenon. Nietzsche returned to the question of genius on a theoretical plane in The Gay Science (1882), where he introduced the persona of his alter-ego, Zarathustra. Zarathustra would become a personal focus for all of Nietzsche's work thereafter. This semi-religious character does not refer in any direct way to Schopenhauer, Wagner, or any other nineteenth-century genius. Nor did Zarathustra appear in Nietzsche's intellectual life until fully five years after Nietzsche's break with Wagner in 1 876. But the appear­ ance ofZarathustra does indicate the outcome of Nietzsche's strug- ' gle, - not only with his mentors, but with the whole theory of originality, creativity, and innovation associated with the idea of genius: With Zarathustra Nietzsche resolved his need for fatherly mentors and clarified his relationship to genius. The invention of the character Zarathustra terminated Nietzsche's search for the father who had deserted him as a child. Having spent much of his life searching for a father in teachers and mentors, he finally created a fictional surrogate. And as the creator of Zarathustra, he became uniquely independent of his former ob­ session-not only independent of his mentors, but free to revise the role of the genius as it applied to him. For Nietzsche crafted Zarathustra to be very different from Ritschl, Schopenhauer, and Wagner in one important respect-he did not want disciples. And at the same time that Nietzsche was inventing Zarathustra, he dis­ covered his own creativity to be so . liberating that he no longer needed to conform to the role of the genius as he had learned it. Nietzsche first proposed the possibility that a genius might do without disciples in The Gay Science. With that thought he took large step back from the idea that a genius must be confirmed by influence and discipleship, an element of the theory of genius that Nietzsche had reiterated in his essay, Richard Wagner in Bayreuth.In a typically paradoxical aphorism Nietzsche examined this idea: Zarathustra.

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depe.nds up�n ambiguo,: s, ins?far asasitsur The passage is somewhat pnse. Bu t In or sImply h ether one read s A's "Son ';)".hisasowiron nIC example in Zarathustra, and the fact Nietzsche did fasbechioame Zarathust ject. . ety of hIS. ref�sal of imitators hero of wisdom mora'sdelpro van a on up ed a is ra Zarathust ed us, whose every inj�nctiod �Inisfouinvr ert torical figures includingsJes part.s Zarathustra (pu blI she ke Spa Thu k, boo s he' tzsc Nie in ms t� the tradI­ t the character conforon between 1 883 and 1 885o). inBuach Journey. of ievin? his wis.dom safro tional imago of the her journey Into a wllde�nes ssagemIS. whmaIchn­ renunciation and testing,Exacep t for the fact that hIS me t and sage , t. he emerges triumphansta � s. B� t h �s rds of all previous prophe ifestly perverse by the erpnda nlu ge or o her l ica typ a reted as . n t� lIfe �IS he could almost be int is no anl me or th tru � les. inherent conclusion that therel trait, nam dI e hav to l �Clples and , his refusa . echoed by one formaathustra asely cIP dis s ect a hero who rej . was a In designing Zar hIS t tha re awa s � wa he tzsc Nie n, ow ir the on off sends them n ex­ ius and a departure fro msaghISes ow variation on the theme ofitgen of �hUS in m�ny moc�-bib lic�l dpasof skeleto perience. He employedhe rec �ey apItulated It as a kIn , but quontin Spake Zarathustra, and g Preface to Ecce Homo (l8��' to his life and work in the in part from the earlier book): w

as e re­ -But what doe s he imself say, Is not Zarathustra a seducer? oslte of Opp the e to his soli tude? Pre cIse ly t rns again for the first tim other any or " sain t," "world-redeemer," everyth ing that any " sage," s he doe y onl t ld say in such a cas e.- No ] decadent [i.e ., gen ius wou different. spe ak differently, he also is Thu s I s, you too, go now , alo ne. "No w I go alo ne, my disc iple

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YOUNG NIETZSCHE You revere me; but what if your reverence tumbles one day? Be­ ware lest a statue slay you. You say that you believe in Zarathustra? But what matters / ' Zarathustra? And what matter all believers? Y o� had not yet sought yourselves; and you found me. Thus do all behevers; therefore all faith amounts to so little. Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you , have all denied me will I return to yoU. ,5

As Z.arathustra bids his followers lose him and find themselves (re­ versIng the terms of the injunction of Christ), he might seem to en­ coura�e their independence. Undoubtedly that is what Nietzsche had ':I�h�d Wagne� to do for him as a mentor in the early 1 8708. And If It IS not precIsely what a good father might do for his son it expresses the separation of father and son in a more constructive way than separ�tion by death or abandonment. So the monologue of Zarathustra IS auto-therapeutic. � ietzsche seeks to disorient anyone who would make him their genIus-mentor. The mediation of Zarathustra and this refusal of discipl�s is designed to prevent Nietzsche's philosophy from ever becomIng an orthodo�y, and to make his person almost impossible as a focus for a cult lIke the cults of genius that grew up around Wagner and other geniuses of the century. Nietzsche had reacted so thoroug�ly agains.t Wagne�'s e�ample that he reshaped his per­ sona to avoId becomIng a genIus In that sense. Thus Nietzsche put Z.arathustra between himself and the reader, and made Zarathustra vIrtually impossible to emulate.6 Apparently, Nietzsche wanted to break the genealogy of genius; he wanted to dissociate himself from a p�rticular aspect of genius that he associated with Wagner, but he dId not repudiate his creative experience or seek to mini­ mize his own importance. In Ecce Homo Nietzsche also described how ideas like the person of Zarathustra and eternal recurrence had come to him like a series of revelations, �tarting in Augu.st 1 881 while he walked along the �hore of Lake SIlvaplana, near SIls-Maria, where he was then spend­ � ng the summer.7 His greatest insights came to him without warn­ Ing, he wrot�, and his description typifies accounts that geniuses ha:e often gIven. of their inspirations. He felt compelled to distin­ guIsh the expenence from a religious one, and yet he acknowl­ e�ge� that, " �he concept .of revelation-in the sense that suddenly, wIth IndescrIbable certaInty and subtlety, something becomes visi-

Redefining Genius

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ths and t shakes one to the last dep ble, audible, somethingrelythades h times, he cribes the fac ts." At suches throws one down-me s involuntarilX in .th� higa reptortdegfroreem, wrote, "everything hapfeepen of freedom. 8 It IS lIke and yet in a gale of a n inling another world . someone who has bee te the t he of passive receptivity tha To further illustra ntsfeeofling ed inspiration , Nietzsche describ experienced in these momeled to one ustra part of Thus Spake Zarathwro the flood of thoughts thatter. In the cou te, he ks, rse of two wal during the foll owi ng win lly ecia esp occurred to me, and figures "the whole of Zarathustra er[Pahert]oveI rtoo k me ."9 Lik e reli gious Zarathustra as a type; rath n chosen as a Nietzsche felt he hadsenbeehim of many other epochsust, ra . And yet he med to have cho spokesperson. Zarath athsee athustra a was his ow n creatio n. Zarhe' leaves no dou bt that Zar yeaustr s part, of patient work on Nietzsc was the sudden result offatherrsand All ieve creative integration.rlin striving to emulate the and mentoach lde Ho and e rs, from Goeth of his models, teachers, , and Wagne o­ r, were his unw itting c?llab to Ritschl, Schopenhauer n ow hIS k from at Nietzsche brought bacwh rators. Zarathustra is whsen er fath his journey began en 1his heroic journey. In one sense 876 of n um se it began in the aut ntor. when died in 184 9. In another y, hav ing renounced his me ative ex eri­ Nietzsche set out for Italfar greate ut his cre p Nietzsche wrote in geniuser sdetofailhisabo o IS an Hom e Ecc y. tur cen er ence than did most othhis terms. works in quite grandiosetitle auto-interpretation of thelifemaand s of the d An refers to Jesus. The title itself, "be hol dI Write n," his ed h Good Book��" He term to hu­ sections include "Why presenSuc t that has ever been given"ent. But Zarathustra "the greatest �hieofveIt.� �nd he unembarrassed by his aIng manity .JO Obviously he waslog ically honest acco�n� along wIth the he strove to give 'a psychothe gen creating ex nzhzlo, eschewed the conceit ofhaps he ius l his de­ had been unable to concea desire for disciples. Per nhauer and his formative year�, : inown pendence upo n Schope ealed voluntWanl�gne concrete expen­ y hIS but in Ecce Homo he revs of all ages and cul tures have experienced. \ ence of what innovatorthe process of demysti fying genius . In that book, he began

Notes

ONE A Genealogy of Genius

, pp. ed. (Oxford: Basi l Blackwell, 1 976) 1 . Theodore Besterman, Voltaire, 3d 1 07-1 6, 569- 77. , pp. York : Oxford University Pres s, 1 972) 2. Arthur M. Wils on, Diderot (New 1800 775� 1 ent, Business of the Enlightenm 1 03-7 2, and Robert parn ton, The y Pres s, 1 979) . (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Universit York : Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, (New son John el Samu , Bate 3. W. Jackson 1 977) , pp. 240-60. biogIndividual: Selfand Circumstance in Auto 4. Karl ]. Weintraub, The Value of the Pres s, 1978 ). raphy (Chicago: University of Chicago s. ]. M. Coh en (New York : Peng uin, tran ns, fessio Con , sseau Rou ues 5. JeanJacq text. u's 1953 ), p. 1 7-first page of Rou ssea F. J. d as Will and Representation, trans. E. 6. Arthur Schopenhauer, The Worl . [1958]), 2:39 1 Payne, 2 vols. (New York: Dover, 1 966 Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical the and or Mirr The ms, Abra H. 7 . See M. Press, 1 9 53). y ersit Tradition (N ew York: Oxford Univ Words," Words and Idioms. Studies in antic Rom r 8. Logan Pearsall Smit h, "Fou n Miffl in, 1 925) , pp. 66-1 34. the English Lan�age (Bos ton: Houghto given , in the form of a letter to a frien d, is 9. A translation of Nietzsche's essay her Midd le­ stop Chri by s. tran & ed. sche, Nietz in the Selected Letters ofFriedrich Pres s, 1969 ), pp. 4-6. ton (Chicago: U niyersity of Chic ago ness (New York: E. P. Dutt on, 1989 ), pp. Mad A f o ry Histo l Socia er, 1 0 . See Roy Port 60"..:8 1 . s, bridge, MA: Harvard University Pres 1 1 . See D. Kern Holo man , Berlioz (Cam

1 989) . s, Against (New Have n: Yale University Pres 1 2. See Piete r Geyl , Napoleon, For and 1 949) , especially pp. 7-3 1 . 2, (New York: Schirmer, 1977 ), pp. 1 32-4 1 3. See Maynard Solo mon , Beethoven de. for a discu ssion of this complex episo York: Putn am, 1 9 1 8), v-vii . (New rians Victo ent Emin hey, 1 4. Lytton Strac lete Psychological Works (London: Comp the of 1 5. Sigm und Freud, Standard Edition Hogarth, 1 961), 2 1 :2 1 1 - 1 2 . rnaaire of Louis Bonaparte (New York: Inte 1 6. Karl Marx, The Eigh teenth Brum ed. revis tly sligh n tional Publishers, 1 963) , p. 1 5. Translatio

Notes

220

TWO The Birth of a Genius? 1 . A somewhat more detailed account of Nietzsche' s family backgrou nd and a

2.

3. 4.

5.

6. 7.

8.

9.

narrative of the events leading to the marriage of his parents may be found in Richard Blunck, Friedrich Nietzsche: Kindheit und Jugend (Munich: Rein.' hardt, 1 953), pp. 1 3-29. An even more extensive version (of the same ac. count) has been published by Curt Paul Janz in his Nietzsche: Biographie, 3 vols. (Munich: Hanser, 1 978-79), 1 . See also Adalbert Oehler, Nietzsches Mut. ter (Munich: Beck, 1 940), pp. 1 -37. At least one biographer has suggested that this was the source of a H{elong (ambivalent) preoccupation of Nietzsche with kingliness. Cf. Werner Ross Der' iingstliche Adler: Friedrich Nietzsches Leben (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanst� alt, 1 980), pp. 1 4-20. Max Oehler, Zur Ahnentafel Nietzsches (Weimar: n. p., 1 939). Ernst Kretschmer, Geniale Menschen (Berlin: Springer, 1 929), pp. 64-69; for another side of this, see Robert Minder, "Das Bild des Pfarrhauses in der deutschen Literatur, von Jean-Paul bis Gottfried Benn," Akademie der Wissen. schaften und der Literatur in Mainz, no. 4 ( 1 959), pp. 53-78. See also qehler, Ahnentafel, pp. 4-8. Kretschmer explains this circumstance by the numerical predominance of pastors among university-trained Germans, by the difficult examinations through which the best minds of all classes were selected for the ministry, and by the tendency of the class to intermarry. Citing Kretschmer' s book, Oehler even sought to show that the geographical sources of Nietzsche' s an· cestors contributed to the likelihood of his becoming a poetic and philo­ sophic genius. This, of course, is a rather vulgar Darwinian view. Had Oehler and Kretschmer been present in Rocken in 1 844 with their theories, the best they might have done would be to predict that the newborn child would be· come a pastor himself. Their prospects would not have been better a decade later, or even in 1 864 when Friedrich entered the university as a student of theology. This may imply a somewhat different view of the intellectual elite of Germany than the one elaborated by Fritz Ringer in The Decline of the German Marularins (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1 969), but the term is his. Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche, Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsches, 2 vols. (Leipzig: Naumann, 1 895), 1 :7-8. Blunck, Friedrich Nietzsche, pp. 2 1 -33, for example, or even R.J. Hollingdale, Nietzsche, the Man andHis Philosophy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1 965), p. 5. Friedrich August Nietzsche' s children by his first wife were all twenty-one years of age or older when their father died in 1 826, as their mother had died in 1 805. See Forster-Nietzsche, Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsches 1 :6. Both the report from the Gymnasium and the recommendation from the uni· versity professor are reproduced in Forster-Nietzsche, Das Leben Friedrich

Nietzsches 1 :3-4. 1 0. Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche, Derjunge Nietzsche (Leipzig: Kroner, 1 9 1 2), p. 10. 1 1 . Charles Andler, Friedrich Nietzsche, sa vie et sa pensee, 6 vols. (Paris: Bossard, 1 920-3 1 ), 2:38.

22 1

Notes

. ge Nietzsche, , sche, Das Leben Friedrich Nzetzsches 1 '. 1 2 , an d Der .J'un letz r-N 1 2 . Forste p. l l . �ly. bid ., p p. 1 3 and 1 2 respectiv zsche, p. 1 3 . I 3. 1 Nzet nge ju Der e, tzsch 1 4. Forster-Nie 1 5. Ibid., p. 1 7. 1 6. Ib id., pp. 1 7 - 1 8. Nietzsche, p. 29. . " to Friedrich 17 . Blu nck , Friedr'ich ers m th e "N achberichte lett 's e ' h letzs� N a isk , 1 8 . See Franz (eds. Wi lhe lm Ho pp e and he Ge�amtausg.abe'' Briefe tzsc -krz sch tori His e, sch in his Briejwechsel: Ni etz . umch: B eck, 1 938 -42 )'' or Karl S chlech ta) , 4 vols . (M rgI. O Co lli and Mazzino Mo ntm an' (Ber1"m. de , GIO . eds be, , sga tau Kritische Gesam O ehler, Nzetzsches Mutter. Gruyter, , 1 975) ' 1'. 1 . See also ' ty (N e York' Norton 1 9 50) . hildhood and Socz� �ry. But it is u nhelpful to com1 9. Erik Erikson, C om mon m sY ohist unc ot n is ity . ular childhood from an Circ 0. 2 . e by ?mferrmg a par'tl'cula r t's beh avior on the pen sate for lack 0 f eVldenc dul a the ' then expl am and s, trait er ract cha sic ba adul t's erred childhood. roach to bas is of the inf . h the scant kn owl edge ab ou t the Nietzsches' app .tIOn WIt ch'l1 dlar opu junc g p con In eadin . at r 21 sh ou Id n o te th one t, men elop dev d ch, chil eber, whi like the stages of as tho se 0f D . G . M . Schr such ayd e h t f 0 als nu . pro to'N aZl' sm- do not lead one any hood ma . p l'lCated m lm n . be e hav , � che tzs Nie . of wh a� Fri ed ric h's particular chi ldh oo d was like . ans on Advice to Mothers," Journal oj clo ser to an appreClatIOn , . to Hlston See Jay Mec hI'mg , "Advice rtions of hIS SIster s po t an lev e h t d an , � 6 course 9 (Fall 1 975): 45th was of Social History . - depen. s, wn. tten after his ult im ate b rea��own · Eli sabe m an hIe have rap b iog tion to a�d thU h rdl Y '1 n a posi younger than her brother, valuable primarily for are nts � ou � cc a r e . ldhoo of the family. dent memory of his earl y chl r m d heard from othe emb ers source. ha ' she s ne sto er h et tog . gather ing i mportant obIOgra h Y was h er m ost Friedrich's ow n you thful aut the a: an arly autobiographical e any of s a hy has rap iog autob 's ? . drich was published in Frie 22 . Le en rz� rzch Nietzsches Das of 1 ol. cy: v dia me sou rce- im , , bh. shed m 1 9 1 2 · . h. ' tzsche was pu orzsc " 1 895 and Der Junge Nze hes 1 ''27'' Nietzsche, Hzst zsc t ze N' h zc edr Frz en Leb s . M ette, Karl Schlechta, and 23. Forster,Nie tzsche, Da h 1m W,er ke, eds Ha ns Joa c ' kri tische Gesam tausgabe: . . Be ck , 1933-40) ' 1 :1 -.32. Carl Koch,. 5 vol s., (Mumch. hes 1 .27 . " edrich Nzetzsc t Das L�ben Fri 24. Forster-N Ietzsche, dren learnin g to talk late, bu chil l�uca11Y gl'fteod n ut abo h lore h folk � is ere fi this. 25 . T catIons th at mIght con rm . I have not foun d any pubh 1 : 1 -32 , esp eCl ally 4- 5 rke We abe g aus t sch krztzsche Gesam tzsche Nie wig ud at L th 26. Nietzsche, Histori orts rep . creden.ce to secon dh an d gstliche Adler, pp. 76 -83. 27. We rne r Ro ss gIV es Der iin . Cf ' ge. rna ma hIS . Werke 1 :4- 6. had been ill even befo�e, sa ch-krztzsche Ge1 ' ). It is 28. Nietzsche, Histor is ew York : Scr ibn er' S , 1 89 1 o n Ma The o, ros ete h the nin . en th2 9 . Ce sar e .Lo mb N l. etzs ch e was fami liar wit ther he w now k to le SSIb . of course IS someim pO . epl e s with enius. This Dr. Gutjahr, who an, cen tury myth tha t �ssoCl �ted . An � �aumb�rg physici ere, but who h ad thi ng that could be mhe�lted fam�' Iy after they moved th h tzsc Nle the d ate tre y � been epilep tic . Dr. apparentl dId cla Im th at Lu dwig had , che tzs Nie ig dw Lu n see never

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Notes

222

Gutjahr's motives and sources are unclear. But our Nietzsche seems to h e claimed epileptic fits for himself when he was in the clinic atJena after IS to fits as an adolescent, breakdown in 1 889. He said he had been subiect J . . . h owever, and smce, the detaIled Journal of the infirmary at Schulpfor'ta . ' ' mak es no mentIOn 0 f th IS, .It .IS apparently a fiction that Nietzsche had con- , cocted for himself in the interim. I suspect that all of this was made up retro. . had become apparent that Nietzsche was a genius h spectIveI y when It w'It obvious pathological tendencies. 30. �he first suggestions that Nietzsche had inherited mental illness were pub­ lIshed much later. See for example, P. J. Mobius, Nietzsche (Leipzig: J. A Barth, 1904). It is, however, fascinating that the whole problem of his father"s . . menta 1 1'11 ness owes Its eXIstence to imprecise diagnostic terminol°gY' Nietzsche refers to his father's Gemiithskrankheit and his sister alternatelY t0 . hung and Gehirnerschiitterung. The term "softening of the · Gehzrnerwezc ' h IS . b ram " seems to have had the ring of medical authority to it in 1 849, for an autopsy co �� r med th� di�?nosis to the satisfaction of Ludwig' s stepsister, . Kopj zst geoffnet worden, und es hat sich bestiitigt, dass er an wh � wrote : sezn einer

�

Gehzrnerwezchung gestorben ist, welche schon ein Viertel seines Kopfes eingenommen hatte. " Blunck, Friedrich Nietzsche, p. 32.

3 1 . Heredity and org�ni � illness ca� not be strictly separated from psychology, . but we are pnmanly mterested m the peculiarities of Nietzsche's character manifested while he was yet sane and writing books. It is almost too obvious that the death of his father would influence his outlook upon life ' and thus his writing. 32. Nietzsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke 1 :6. 33. Ibid. THREE Without a Father

1 . Nietzsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke 1 :7-8; Forster-Nietzsche' Derjunge Nietzsche, pp. 24-25. " 2. Forster. Nietzsche, Derjunge Nietzsche, pp. 25-27. 3. Oehler, Nietzsche's Mutter� pp. 44-5 1 . 4 . Ibid., pp. 53-54. 5. Forster-Nietzsche, Derjunge Nietzsche, pp. 27-28. The complexity of the Ger· man educational system is difficult to appreciate: although in the lower grades there was only one type of public school and the children of all classes could attend it together (if the parents did not choose to have their childr� n prepared for the Gymnasium privately), it was assumed by all that the chI � dren should be separated in the upper grades to prepare them for . dIfferent responsibilities. Not till after World War II was the unified theIr public school (Gesamtschule) seriously considered in Germany. This was not . even a promment feature of the various schemes for educational reform p� blished in the early twentieth century in Germany. Cf. Wolfgang Scheibe, Dze Rejo:mpiidagogische Bewegung, 1 900-1 932 (Weinheim: Beltz, 1969). 6. �ccordmg to the autobiography, it is only through "common joy and suffer· mg" that true friendship is made. Nietzsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke 1 :8.

Notes

223

9. 7. Forster-Nietzsche, Derjunge Nietzsche, pp. 28-2 Werke 1 :8-9; and Forsterabe: tausg Gesam che kritis rischHisto 8. Nietzsche, Nietzsche, Derjunge Nietzsche, p. 34. Werke 1 : 1 2- 1 5. 9. Nietzsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Wer'ke 1 :24; Richard Blun ck also abe: tausg Gesam che kritis risch10 . Nietzsche, Histo ichen Feste, Geburtstage, und hiiusl wrote, "Seine grossten Seligkeiten sind die Lieblingsworte ein sehr

ist eines seiner Weihnachten, und bis in seine jiinglingsjahre der dann bei dem kampfenden und f, Begrif ein keit, unjugendliches: Gemiithlich rich Nietzsche, p. 46. reifenden Manne nicht mehr vorkommt. " Fried 1 1 . Forster-Nietzsche, Derjunge Nietzsche, p. 33.

1 2. Ibid. , p. 38. Werke 1 :10-1 1 . 1 3. Nietzsche Historisch -kritische Gesamtausgabe: diose fantasies i n which chil­ gran of ns essio expr us obvio are 1 4. Such games about the values of a child's more dren act out godl ike roles . They often tell pt when one can observe parents than about the child's personality, exce variations and snags in the stream of play. 1 ; several literary works based 1 5. Forster-Nietzsche, Derjunge Nietzsche, pp. 50-5 are printed in Nietzsche, and upon the King Eichhorn game survive 21. Historisch-kritsche Gesamtausgabe: Werke 1 :320e with his sister from parties. hom walk to ed refus 1 6. For example, Friedrich Forster-Nietzsche, Derjunge Nietzsche, p. 30. 1 7. Ibid., pp. 48-49. 1 8. Blun ck, Friedrich Nietzsche, p. 43. sche, pp. 45-4 7. 1 9. Quoted in Forster-Nietzsche, Derjunge Nietz Werke 1 : 1 3- 1 4. abe: tausg Gesam che kritis risch20. Nietzsche, Histo 2 1 . Ibid., 1 :9-10 . 22. Ibid. , 1 : 1 1 . ,

FOU R Learning to Learn Zisterzien-Klosters Pforte (Leip zig: 1 . Robert Pahncke, Schulpforta: Geschichte des Koehler & Amelang, 1956) . work on this im,J)ortant institu2. There does not seem to be a good general s to be a reliable witne ss. Elisa ­ seem tion, but in this case Nietzsche's sister 82-8 3. For further general beth Forster-Nietzsche, Der Junge Nietzsche, pp. that Nietzsche was there, cf. comments on Pforta at almost the same time en (Leipzig: Koehler, 2d ed., Ulric h von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Erinnerung 1 928), pp. 62-6 3. Briefe 1 : 1 9; or Briefwechsel I, 1 : 1 6 3. Nietz sche , Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: (October 6 , 1 858). 1 (October 1 7-22 , 1 858). 4. For exam ple, Brieje 1 :24; or Briefwechsel I, 1 :2 (early November 1 858). 5 :24-2 1 5. Ibid. , Briefe 1 :27-2 8; or Briefwechsel I, uary, 1 859). -Febr (mid :48 1 I, sel 6. Ibid. , Briefe 1 :51; or Briefwech 1 859). e, -Jun (May :65 1 I, echsel Briefw or 7. Ibid. , Briefe 1 :67; e 1: 1 1 6. Werk abe: tausg Gesam che kritis rischHisto 8. Nietzsche, 9. 9. Forster-Nietzsche, Derjunge Nietzsche, pp. 88-8 ed. Karl Schle chta, 3 vols. en, Biind drei in e 1 0. Friedrich Nietzsche, Werk (Miin chen : Hanser, 1 966), 3:1 79.

224

Notes

1 1 . See Richard Blunck, Friedrich Nietzsche, . . pp. 67-6 8; Nietzsche( . . che I? � ch. krztzs esamta�gabe: Briefe 1 :61-6 3; or BriejWechse l I, I :59-6 1 AP ay, 1 � 59). Fo. ster.N Ietzsche, Derjunge Nietzsche, pp. 92-9 4. � tzsche, 1 2. F? rster-NIe Derjunge Nietzsche, p. 90. . 1 3. Cited mJa nz, Nietzsche 1 :96. 1 4. N�s �i� �agesblatt (September 2, 1 900) , cited by the edito rs in Niet zsch e, H�storzsch-kntzsche Gesamtausgabe: Briefe 1 :339. 1 5. NIetzsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Brief 1 ''340-4 1 . I t appears that ' the mfIr Friedrich s pen t ab out 1 50 days m . mary m his career at Schu l P forta. " . " 1 6. Fors �er-NIetz sche, Derjunge Nietzsche, pp. 68-6 9. 1 7. He dId not do well in mo�ern languages eithe r, but that may have been du e to lack of talent He never dId develop fluency in a modern langu g , n t ven a�ter years of reading French literature with dictio nary in hand or IV�m .?�� taly. 1 8. NIetzsche, Historisch·kritische Gesamtausgabe: � Brier e 1 '27-2 8', or BrZf!.JU/echsel 1" 1,1 :24-2 5. 1 9. Nietzsche Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke 5:252 -53. : 20. A tr nslatlOn of this "letter" is given in the Selected Letters of Friedrich NietZSche' ed. trans. by Christopher Middleton (Chicago: University of Ch Icag ' o Press, 1 969), pp. 4-6. 2 1 . Paul Deussen '.Erinneru�er: an rrze D. u ,1rzc . ' h N'zetzsche (Leipzig: . Brockhaus, 1901 ), . 5 . . rzsch22. NIetz sche, Hzsto kntzsche Gesamtausgabe: Briefe 1 .'209- 1 1 . , or BTZf!.JU/e . .f... . c Phsel. 1, 1 :236- 37 (April 1 6, 1863) . 23. Deus sen, Erinnerungen, pp. 6-9. 24. B �unck , Friedrich Nietzsche, pp. 85-89, 99. 25. NIetzsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke 2:68. Ich weis s nich t, was ich liebe ich hab' nicht Friede, nicht RUh'. ich weiss nicht, was ich glaube, was lebe ich noch, wozu? 26. B �unck, Friedrich Nietzsche, pp. 71 -72. 27. N � etzsche, Hi�tori�ch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke 5:70- 7 1 . 28. NIetzsche, Hzstorzsch-kritische Gesamtausg abe: Brier e 1 ' 2 1 1 - 1 2', or BTZf!.JU/ec 1" . ' .f... . hsel 1, 1 :238 (April 27, 1 863). 29. Ibid. , Briefe 1 :2 1 3; or BriejWechsel I, I :239- 40 (May 2, 1 863).

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;

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FIVE A Student of Genius 1 . Nietzsche, Werke in drei Banden 3:25 1 -63. 2. Nietzsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausuabe' . 0 . Briere hereafter g.Iven ' SImp I y as B ne ' [,e, 1 : 398 -40 � ; and Nietzsche, Briefwech 1" sel: kritis che Gesa mtaus abe . hereafte� gIv�n sImp ly �s Briefwechsel, 1, 1 :41 8-42 3 (May 19 & . 25, 1 864 3. IbId ., .Brzefe 1 .245; or BrzejWechsel 1, 1 :282 (June 12, 1864 ); and Briefe 1 '248. 49 , o BrzejWechsel 1, 1 :287 (July 4, 1 864). � 4. N Ietzsch.e, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke 5:254 . . 5. IbId. , Brzefe 1:261 -80; or BriejWechsel 1,2:3-22 (Oct ober' Novemb er, & D ecember, 1 864). 6. Ibid., Briefe 1 :272- 76; or BriejWechsel I, 2:1419.

f.

•

Notes

225

7. O. F. Scheuer, Friedrich Nietzsche als Student (Bonn: Albert Ahn, 1923), p. 1 7, and Paul Deussen, Erinnerungen and Friedrich Nietzsche (Leipzig: F. A. Brock· haus, 1 90 1), pp. 22-23. 8. Blunck, Friedrich Nietzsche, p. 107. 9. Nietzsche, Briefe 1 :301 ; or Briefwechsel 1,2:43 (February 1 8, 1 865). 10. Scheuer, Friedrich Nietzsche als Student, pp. 42-46. 1 1 . Scheuer, Nietzsche als Student, p. 47, and Martin Havenstein, Nietzsche als Erzieher· (Berlin: Havenstein, 1922), p. 1 1 3. 12. Deussen was prudish enough himself to put the thought in Latin: "mulier·em nunquam attigit, " in his Erinnerungen, p. 24. Cf. Blunck, Friedrich Nietzsche, p. 106. Most scholars, even many of those who would like to show that Nietzsche's later writings were not infected by mental illness, agree that Nietzsche probably (but not certainly) contracted syphilis while still a student. Cf. Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, 4th ed. (Princeton: Princeton U ni­ versity Press, 1974), p. 69. I think that the question remains in more doubt than the weight of scholarly opinion suggests, especially since Friedrich suf­ fered from most of his later symptoms, especially headaches, at the time he entered Schulpforta. 1 3. Scheuer, Nietzsche als Student, pp. 44-46. Early in his second semester in Bonn, Friedrich corresponded about fraternity life with his other friend from Pforta, Carl von Gersdorff. Gersdorffhad gone to the university at Gottingen where he joined a Korps, which involved him in considerably more distasteful activities, including obligatory dueling; he wrote that he was very unhappy and regarded the whole episode as nothing more than a test of character, to see if he could survive. In answer, Friedrich noted how much less brutal a Burschenschaft was than a Korps, but complained that the drinking and the herd mentality of his fraternity were bad enough. According to Friedrich, the only solution was to have a circle of a few friends among whom he could find consolation. (Nietzsche, Briefe 1 :31 1-12, or Briefwechsel 1,2:54-55 [to Gersdorff, May 25, 1 865]; and Briefe 1 :328-29, or Briefwechsel 1,2:70-71 [to W. Pinder,July 6, 1 865].) With this insight, it is surprising that Friedrich did not renounce his membership in the Franconia before he left Bonn. Paul Deussen resigned by the end of the first semester. But Friedrich's decision may have been delayed by the fact that his discomfort in the fraternity was bound up with his dissatisfaction with studying theqlogy. 1 4. Cf. Blunck, Der junge Nietzsche, pp. 1 1 1 - 1 3, 1 22, and Nietzsche, Briefe 1 :30607; or Briefwechsel 1,2:49 (May 3, 1 865). 1 5. Nietzsche, Ibid., Briefe 2:3-4; or Briefwechsel 1,2:79-81 (to H. Mushacke, Au­ gust 30, 1 865); and Briefe 2:12, or Briefwechsel, 1,2:88-89 (to the Franconia Burschenschaft, Bonn, October 20, 1 865). 1 6. Ibid., Briefe 1 :31 7-18, and Briefwechsel 1,2:60-61 (June 1 1 , 1865). 1 7. The mss. title page of Ecce Homo in Nietzsche's hand may be found in Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe, Vl,3:254. Amorfati-Iove of [one's] fate-is an idea that Nietzsche first explored in The Gay Science #276. 1 8. The most intimate source for this period is another brief autobiography that he wrote at the end of his second year in Leipzig, when his studies were in· terrupted by military service. Nietzsche, "Riickblick auf meine zwei Leipzi­ gerJahre," Historisch·kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke 3:291 -3 1 6.

.�1\

226

Notes

1 9 . Ibid., 3:297-98. Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, 4 Biicher, nebst einem Anhang der die Kritik der Kantischen Philosophie Enthiilt (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1 8 1 9) wa�

Schopenhauer's chief and only systematic work. Translated by E. F. Payne as The World as Will and Representation, 2 vols. (New York: Dover, 1966). 20. Nietzsche, Werke in drei Biinden 1:295, in English; in Nietzsche, Untimely Medi­ tations, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Cambridge University Press ' 1 983), p. 133. 2 1 . "Riickblick auf meine zwei Leipziger Jahre," Historisch-kritische Gesam. tausgabe: Werke 3:297-99; also in Werke in dT'ei Biinden 3:132-34. 22. Untimely Meditations, trans. R. J. Hollingdale with an Introduction by J. P. Stern (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 983), pp. 130-36, especially p. 1 36. 23. Paul Deussen had remained in Bonn, and, to Friedrich's disgust, was still majoring in theology. It seems to have been a year or even two before Friedrich undertook to initiate Deussen into Schopenhauer's philosophy. There was a rift in their friendship due perhaps both to Deussen's inability to break with theol­ ogy and to Friedrich's imperious manner with him. Cf. Deussen, Erinnerungen an Friedrich Nietzsche, pp. 38ff. 24. Ibid., 3:299. 25. Scheuer, Friedrich Nietzsche als Student, p. 63-64. 26. Nietzsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke 3:299. 27. Ibid., 3:299-300. 28. His lectures were (1) "Die letzte Redaction der Theognidea," (2) "Die biographischen Quellen des Suidas," (3) "Die Pinakes der aristotelischen Schriften," and (4) "Der Sangerkrieg auf Euboa." They are published in Nietzsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke 3:1 37-206, 2 1 2-26, 23044; his presidential address is in 3:227-29. 29. Ibid., 3:304-5. 30. Ibid., 3:296-97. 3 1 . Ibid., 3:305-9. 32. Ibid., 3:327. 33. Ibid., 3:305. 34. Before announcing this as the topic of public competition, Ritschl went so far as to ask Friedrich ifhe was still interested in it. Nietzsche, Briefe 2:106, or Briefwechsel, 1,2:182-83 (November 1 866) and Briefe 2: 1 1 8- 1 9, or Briefwechsel 1,2 : 1 96 Ganuary 1 6, 1 867). 35. Nietzsche's papers on Diogenes Laertius are "De Laertii Diogenis fontibus," "Analecta Laertiana," and "Beitrage zur Quellenkunde und Kritik des Laertius Diogenes", Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: WeT'ke 4:269ff. (includ­ ing many notes as well as the final products) and Werke: kritische

Gesamtausgabe 11,1 :75-245. 36. Nietzsche, Briefe 2:44-45, or Briefwechsel I, 2 : 1 2 1 (April 7, 1 866). 37. Neither Ritschl's or Friedrich's attitude was unique, however. Ritschl's preju­

dice against philosophy was common to many working philologists and his­ torians, stimulated perhaps by a mistrust of Hegelianism. The great German historian, Leopold von Ranke, for instance, believed that philosophy of this sort would corrupt a historian and distract him from the pursuit of the facts, of what had actually happened. Leopold von Ranke, The Secret of World His­ tory: Selected Writings on the Art and Science ofHistory, ed. & trans. Roger Wines

Notes

227

(New York: Fordham University Press, 1 98 1 ), and Georg G. Iggers, The Ger­ man Conception ofHistory: the National Tradition ofHistorical Thoughtfrom Herder to the Present (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan U niv. Press, 1 968).

38. Friedrich's relationship to Schopenhauer was one of comprehensive ideal­

ization. It resembled the transference relationship that arises between a pa­ tient and a psychoanalyst as much as anything else. So that once he had overcome the depression in which he had been when he discovered Schopenhauer, the heroic example of a personality totally dedicated to the pursuit of truth, no matter how unpleasant, became his model. Friedrich was free to pursue truth himself, and not merely Schopenhauer's truth. Perhaps Friedrich had begun the search when he abandoned Christianity, or even earlier, when he wrote his first autobiographical sketch at the age of four­ teen. But in Schopenhauer he found a model of systematic search for truth that coupled introspection with philosophy and greatly enlarged the scope of inquiry. 39. Nietzsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke 3:3 1 2-13. 40. Ibid.; see also Erwin Rohde's diary of their trip, 3:423-37. 4 1 . Nietzsche, Briefe 2:163, or Briefwechsel 1,2:238 (to Gersdorff, November 24,

1 867). 42. For Schopenhaue r's biography and an adulatory rendering of his philoso­ phy, see Arthur Hubscher, Denker gegen den Strom (Bonn: Bouvier, 1 973). On

the philosophy of Schopenhauer in English, see Patrick Gardiner,

43. 44. 45.

Schopenhauer (Baltimore: Penguin, 1963), D. W. Hamlyn, Schopenhauer (Lon­ don: Routlege & Kegan Paul, 1 980), and Bryan Magee, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer' (Oxford: Clarendon, 1 983). English translations of his works, cited below, are by E. F.]. Payne. They supersede the translation of The World Kegan as Will and Idea by R. B. Haldane and]. Kemp (London: Routledge and Paul, 1 883), although the latter still merits consultation. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, trans. E. F. J. Payne (Indian Hill, CO: Falcon's Wing Press, 1 958; reprinted, New York: Dover, 1966), 1: 1 -9 1 . Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, " 'Reason' in Philosophy," #2. Cf. Alexander Nehamas Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1 985), especially pp. 42-73. Schopenhauer, Th,e World as Will and Representation 1 :93- 1 65. "

46. 47. It has also been suggested that Schopenhauer was indebted to Fichte for his thinking on the will. Cf. Patrick Gardiner, Schopenhauer (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1 963), p. 1 4. 48. Friedrich Albert Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart, 2 vols. (Iserlohn: J. Baedeker, 1 866); a second edition ap­ peared in 1 873 (Vol. I) and 1 875 (Vol. II); and the second edition has been reprinted (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974). An English translation, The History of Materialism and Criticism of its present Importance, 3 vols. (London: Triibner, 1 879), was made by Ernest Chester Thomas. 49. Briefe 2:83 (end of August 1 866), and Briefwechsel 1,0:1 59-60. 50. Briefe 2: 108 (November 1 866), and Briefwechsel, 1,2: 1 84. His first mention of

Lange was several months earlier, in a letter to Gersdorff (end of August 1 866) Briefe 2:83, and Br iefWechsel I : 1 59-60 , quoted below.

228

Notes

5 1 . Briefe 2:1 82-83 (February 1 6, 1 868), and Briefwechsel l,2:257-58. 52. George G. � tack, Lange and �ietzsche (N ew York: de Gru yter, 1 983). This is a very extensIve book attemptmg to show that many if not most of Nietzsche' s �·d e�s a:e cloun d m · ru d·Ime�tar: form in Lange's History of Materialism. It is , mdlcatlve � f Stack s ent�usI�stlc attempt to demonstrate the importance of Lange to NIetzsche that, m usmg Friedrich's letter to Mushacke, he translates Jahrzehnten as "century" rather than "decades." 53. Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations, trans. R. J. Hollingdale with an Introdu ction by J. P. Stern (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 983), pp. 1 25-94. 54. Untimely Meditations, pp. 1 29-30. 55. Ibid., p. 1 63. 56. Ibid., p. 1 36. 57. Kierke��ard and Nietzsche himself were others who took pride in lack of recogmtI �n and predicted that they would become the mentors of a select and supenor reader. Cf. my essay, "The Self·sufficient Text in Nietzsche and Kierkegaard," Yale French Studies, no. 68 ( 1 984), pp. 1 60-88. 58. Oxenford, "Iconoclasm in German Philosophy," The Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review NS (April 1 853), pp. 388-407. 59. Nietzsche, Briefe 2:280 (to Rohde, December 9, 1 868), and Briefwechsel 1,2:352. 60. Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, 1:1 95. 6 1 . Ibid., 11:377. Schopenhauer also places his essay on madness immediately adjacent to his essay on genius in the second volume of The World . as Will and Representation. 62. Ibid., 11:363-398. Compare also Cesare Lombroso, The Man of Genius (Re. print New York: Garland, 1 984). 63. Nietzsche, Briefe, 2: 1 57-59; or Briefwechsel, 1,2:232-34 (November 3, 1 867). 64. Nietz�che, Briefe 2: 1 5� ; or Briefwechsel 1,2:233. Schopenhauer's Parerga und . phtlosophische Schriften (Berlin: Hayne, 1 852), 2 vols., con­ Pamlipomena, klezne sists of a great collection of aphorisms and essays on every imaginable topic, all seen from Schopenhauer's distinct philosophical point of view. The title (from Greek) may be freely translated as "afterthoughts and asides." 65. Nietzsche, Briefe 3:234-35, or Briefwechsel 1,3:238-41 (Rohde to Nietzsche, February 29, 1 868), Briefe 2:1 87-88, or Briefwechsel 1,2:62-63 (Nietzsche to Rohde, April 3, 1 868), Briefe 2:1 97-98, or Briefwechsel 1,2:272-274 (early May 1 868); and Briefe 2 :202-3, or Briefwechsel 1,2:277-278 (to S. Heynemann, May 9, 1 868). 66. Nietzsche, Briefe 2:208-9, or Briefwechsel 1,2:283-84 (to Deussen, June 2, 1 868), and Briefe 2:2 1 2, or Briefwechsel 1,2:287 (to Rohde, June 6, 1968). Bernays was the author of several articles on Aristotle's notion of catharsis that seem to have influenced Nietzsche in writing The Birth of Tragedy. See below, chapter 6. 67. Nietzsche, Briefe 2:200, or Briefwechsel 1,2:275 (early May 1 868). 68. Nietzsche, Briefe 2 : 1 80-8 1 , or Briefwechsel 1,2:255-56 (to Gersdorff, February 1 6, 1 868), Briefe 2: 1 73-74; or Briefwechsel l,2:1 48-49 (to Rohde, February 1 -3, 1 868), and Nietzsche, Histor'isch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke, 2 :329-3 1, "Einfliisse auf die literarhistorischen Studien." 69. The idea was Rohde's. Cf. his letter of February 29, 1 868 in Nietzsche, .

.1

Notes

229

Briefwechsel 1,3:233ff. For N ietzsche's response, see Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Briefe, 2:1 88-89, or Briefwechsel 1,2:264 (April 3, 1 868). 70. He wrote his first letter, reporting the accident, three weeks later: Briefe 2:1 85-86, or Briefwechsel l,2:261 -262 (to Rohde, April 3, 1 868). 3, 7 1 . Nietzsche, Briefe 2 : 1 57, or Briefwechsel 1,2:230-3 5 (to Rohde, Novembe r or 76, 1 : 2 fe Brie 868); 1 -3, 1 (February I,2:248 1 867); Briefe 2 : 1 73, or BriefwechseL Briefwechsel l,2:253-54 (to Mushacke, February 1 3, 1 868); and Briefe, 2:248, or Briefwechsel l,2:323-24 (to Rohde, Oct. 8, 1 868) [paraphrase from last cited]. 72. N ietzsche, Briefe 2:1 99-200, or Briefwechsel 1,2:274-75 (May 3, 1 868). 73. Nietzsche, Briefe 2:2 1 5, or Briefwechsel 1,2:290-9 1 (June 22, 1 868); Briefe 2:240, or Briefwechsel 1,2:3 1 5- 1 6 (September 1 868); Briefe 2: 1 94, or Briefwechsel 1,2:269 ([on the dissertation topic] April/May 1 868); and Briefe 2 : 1 54, or Briefwechsel l,2:328-2 9 (OctoberlNovember 1 868). 74. Nietzsche, Briefe 2 : 1 99, or Briefwechsel, 1,2:274-7 5 (May 3-4, 1 968). 75. Nietzsche, Briefe 2 : 1 83, or BriefwechseL I,2:258 (February 1 6, 1 868). 76. Nietzsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke 3:352-6 1 . 77. Ibid., Briefe 2 : 1 53-54, o r Briefwechsel, 1,2:228-2 9 (October/November 1 867. See also Brieje, 2:255-56, or Briefwechsel 1,2:328 (October 1 868). 78. Nietzsche , Briefe 2:220, or Briefwechsel 1,2:296 (July 1, 1 868); and Briefe 2:229, or Briefwechsel, 1,2:305 (August 6, 1 868). 79. See for example Nietzsche, Briefe 2:257, or Briejwechsel, 1,2:329-3 30 (to Deussen, October 1 868); and Briefe 2:258-60 , or Briefwechsel, 1,2:330-3 2 (to Rohde, October 27, 1 868). , Briejwechsel I,2: 1 74 (October 1 1 , 1 866). Nietzsche 80. 8 1 . ThisJahn was the same Pforta alumnus, professor of philology in Bonn, and Mozart biographer already mentioned. 82. Nietzsche, Briefwechsel I,2:322 (to Rohde, October 8, 1 868). 83. Ibid., 1,2:332 (to Rohde, October 27, 1 868). 84. Nietzsche, Briefe 2:265-69, or Briefwechsel 1,2:337-4 1 (to Rohde, November 9,

1 868). 85. Nietzsche , Briefe 2:280, or Briefwechsel 1,2:352 (to Rohde, December 9, 1 868). (This contains an important passage on Wagner as a genius.) 86. Richard Wagner and Ludwig Nietzsche were both born in 181 �. 87. Johannes Stroux, Nietzsckes Professur in Basel (Jena: Fromman n, 1925), pp. 3233. The whole story ofN ietzsche's appointm ent is narrated in the first half of this small book, which is itself largely a publicatio n of the letters concernin g Nietzsche's appointment and tenure at the University of Basel, letters that were found in the university archives in 1 923. 88. Stroux, Nietzsches Professur, pp. 34-37. Another passage in this letter is paren­ thetically interesting for the clear impressio n Ritschl gives of Friedrich 's per­ sonal presentation. Ritschl cautions Vischer, "Should you have the opportunity to speak with Nietzsche in the meantime, please do not let your opinion of him be determined by your very first impressio n. He has some­ thing like Odysseus about him, ponderous before he begins to speak, but then he speaks with powerful language-provocative, winning, convincin g." P. 36. 89. Stroux, Nietzsches professur, pp. 39-43 (letter and autobiography).

230

Notes

90. Ibid. , pp. 47-4 9. 9 1 . Ibid ., p. 50. 92. Nietzsche, Historisch-kritische GesamtaUS D'abe: Werke 5:25 0-52,' IX' 0 . drez. YYerke tn . . 49-5 0; trans. m . Ba··nden, 3.1 MId dleton, Selected Letters oifFriedrich Niet zs che, p. 46. SIX Emulating Geniuses 1 . Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe 2,1 :24769. 2. Ibid. , 2, 1 :252. 3. J. E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarshi p, vol. 3, The Eighteenth Centu ry in Germany and the Nineteenth Century in Euro pe and America (Cambridge'. C ambridge University Press, 1908 ), pp. 1 - 1 43. 4. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe 2, 1 :253. 5. Ibid. , 2,1 :266. 6. Ibid. , 2,1 :268. 7. Johannes Stroux, Nietzsches Professur in Basel (lena : From man n, 1 925) , . man. zes N Ietzsc ' he' s actIv ity as an instructor at the University of Base sum. l in an appendix, pp. 94- 1 0 1 . 8. From the memoir o f Nietzsche b y J . A . Mahly, quoted i n Curt Paul Janz, Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie (Mun ich: Hanser, 1978), 1 :3 1 3. 9. Ibid. 1 0. Cited in Stroux, Nietzsches Professur� pp. 35-3 6. 1 1 . J anz, Nietzsche 1 :389- 90. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe III,3 :243 -4 7. 1 2. Jacob Burck� ardt, w.eltgeschichtliche Betra chtungen (Berlin: Spem ann, 1905) ; trans. Rejlectzons on Hzstory (Indianapolis: Liber ty Class ics, 1979). 13. Stroux, Nietzsches Professur. 1 4. Bachofen was born in 1 8 1 5, two years after Nietzsche ' s father. He had been professor of Roman Law at the university in Base l, and member of the town' s . gover� mg council. He came from a wealthy fami ly and retired early . vote hImself to pnva te scho larsh ip. His argu men t that a univ ersa to de­ l matri­ arc� y must have been the predecessor of all other hum an socie ties denve? from vesti ga] moth er-ri ghts that he disco vere d in anci ent Rom an law. HIS contemp oraries did not appr eciat e his work . Only since abou t 1 920 has Bach ofen been regarded as one of the pion eers of cultu ral an­ thropology. 1 5. N �e�zsche, Historisch-kritische Gesamtausg abe: Briefe, 3:84; and Briefwechsel, kntzsche Ge�amtausgabe, II, I : 1 55(to Gers dorff, November 7, 1 870), on Burc�� ardt s �ectures on the study of histo ry: "Zum ersten Male habe ich

V�rgnugen an ezner Vorlesung, dafur ist sie auch derart, dass ich sie, wenn ich alter . , halten .. ware konnte. " 1 6. Edgar von Salin ,Jacob Burckhardt und Nietz sche (Base l: U

niversi tatsb iblio thek 1 �38), p. 54, (to Friedrich Preen, September 27, 1 870) : "Es lebt hier eine; semer [Schopenhauer' s] Glaubigen, mit welch em ich bisw eilen konversiere, so gut ich mich in seiner Sprache ausdrucken kann ." 1 7. J�cob �urckhardt, Griechische Kulturgesc hichte, ed. Rud olf Marx, 3 vols. (Leip­ ZIg: Kroner, 1 929). 1 8. Thes e were lectures that led to the book Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen. Cf.

Hayden White, Metahistory (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1 973), pp. 230ff 1 9. Nietzsche, Briefe 3:84, and Briefwechsel II, 1 : 1 55 (to Gersdorff� Nov. 7, 1 870). 20. Cf. Burckhardt's rather distant letter, written in response to Nietzsche's hav­ ing sent an exemplar of "Vom Nutzen und Nachteile der Historie fUr das Leben," in Edgar Salin, Burckhardt und Nietzsche, pp. 207-8; and Briefwechsel II,4:394-95. 2 1 . It was Burckhardt, therefore, who kept Nietzsche at a distance for personal reasons. And so neither the allegation that Burckhardt dismissed Nietzsche for his apostasy from the humanist creed, nor the insinuation that Nietzsche would have rejected Burckhardt for philosophical naivete has much force in explaining why the relationship did not develop into the sort of Sternenjreundschajt that Nietzsche had with Wagner. The fullest and least bi· ased account of the relationship between Nietzsche and Burckhardt can be found in Werner Kaegi, Jacob Burckhardt: eine Biographie (Basel: Schwabe, 1967 -82), especially 4:49-78 and 7:36-85. 22. This is the traditional version of Nietzsche's first visit to Triebschen, but it has been called into question byJanz, Nietzsche 1 :293-94. 23. Nietzsche, Brieje 3:325, Briefwechsel II, ] : 1 3 (May 29, 1 869); and Forster­ Nietzsche, DerJunge Nietzsche, pp. 246-48. 24. Janz, Die Brieje Friedrich Nietzsches (Zurich: Editio Academica, 1972), pp. 1 6271. 2 5 . Cf. Karl Baedeker, Switzerland, 4th ed . (Coblenz: Karl Baedeker, 1 869). 26. There are accounts by third parties describing their interaction in Triebschen, and Elisabeth Nietzsche wrote about them extensively too. Cos­ ima Wagner's diaries, Die Tagebucher, /. 1 869- 1 8 7 7, eds. Martin Gregor-Dellin and Dietrich Mack (Munich: Piper, 1976) are an important and reliable source. Elisabeth's commentary on the relationship in the early years may be found in Wagner und Nietzsche, pp. 23-32, but it must be read with caution. Other sources include the diary of Hans Richter, who was in Triebschen from September 7, 1 869 until April 1 9, 1 871, published in Otto Strobel, ed., Neue Urkunden zur Lebensgeschichte Richard Wagners, 1864-1 882 (Karlsruhe: Braun, 1939), pp. 1 63-66. 27. Nietzsche, Brieje 3:53-54, and Briefwechsel II, 1 : 1 22-23 (May 21 ,).870). In the last instance he signed himself as einer der seligen Knaben. 28. Nietzsche, Briefe 2:2/30; and Briefwechsel II,I :8 (May 22, 1 869). Nietzsche here is thinking in terms ofSchopenhauer' s theory ofthe genius. 29. Of course there are several very critical biographies of Wagner that often take Nietzsche's side on these matters; for example, Ernest Newman, The Life ofRichard Wagner, 4 vols. (New York: Knopf� 1 933-46), 4. 30. All but the most sycophantic biographers acknowledge the disparity be· tween the greatness of Wagner's creative genius and his personality. Ernest Newman' s The Life of Richard Wagner is not complete in the fourth volume that deals with the period that Wagner spent in Triebschen and Bayreuth. More satisfactory for this period are the briefer works of Robert Gutman, Richard Wagner, the Man, His Mind, and His Music (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1 968), and Martin Gregor-Dellin, Richard Wagner, His Life, His Work, His Century, trans. ]. M. Br'O wnjohn (New York: Harcourt BraceJovan-

232

Notes

ovich, 1983). See also Curt von Westernhagen, Wagner, a Biogra phy, 2 vol s. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978); Derek Watso n, Richard Wag_ ner, a Biograp�y (N ew York: Schirmer Book s, 1979) ; and Ronald Taylor, Rich­ ard Wagner, His Life, Art, and Though t (New York: Taplin ger, 1 979). All of these books contain evaluations of the Nietzsche-Wagner relatio nship. 3 ! . See Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner 4:1 53-73 , and Robert W. Gutman Richard Wagner; pp. 230-2 86. Gutma n's account is fuller. ' 32. Richard Wagners Briefe, 1 7:542, and Nietzsche, Briefw echsel 11,4:10 4 (October 24, 1872). See also Cosim a's Tagebucher 1 : 1 67. 33. There is now a surp isingly welI- alanced treatm ent of the relationsh ip by � � Geoffrey Skelton, Rzchard and Coszma Wagner; a Bzogra . Phy ofa Marria ton: Houghton Mifflin, 1982). The basic sources remain Wagne ge (Bos. r's "brown book," The Diary ofRichard Wagner; 1 865-1 882: the Brown Book, presented and annotated by Joachim Bergfeld, translated by George Bird (Lond on: Victor Gollancz, 1 980), and Cosim a Wagner's Tagebucher or Diaries , 1 869-, edited and annotated by Martin Gregor-Delli n and Dietrich Mack, translated with an in troduction by Geoffrey Skelton, 2 vols. (New York: Harco urt BraceJov­ . anovlch, 1978 [German edition, Munic h: Piper, 1976-7 7]). 34. Die Briefe Cosima Wagners und Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. E. Thierb ach, 2 vols;, 12th and 13th 'Jahresgaben der Gesellschaft der Freunde des Nietzs che-Archivs" (Weimar: 1940). The correspondence now app�ars in Nietzsche's Brief wechsel: kritische Gesamtausgabe.

35. Nietzsche, Briefiuechsel 111, 1 :5-6 (to Malwida von Meyse nbug,Jan 14, 1 880). 36. Her vast manu script was finally publis hed for essent ially schola rly reasons by biographers of Wagner only in the 1970s. 37. Richa rd Wagner, Mein Leben: erste authentische Veroffentlich ung (Muni ch: List, 1 963). 38. Richa�d Wagner, Beethoven (Leipz ig: Fritzsch, 1 870), and Gesammelte Schriften und Dzchtungen, 2d ed. (Leipzig: Fritzsch, 1888), 9:6 1 - 1 26. The influence of Nietzsche and SChopenhauer upon this essay is discussed by Gutman, Rich­ ard Wagner; pp. 294-9 6 and 3 1 8-22. See also Cosim a's Tagebucher' 1 : 1 92 and 1 :253ff. 39. Forster"Nietzsche, Wagner und Nietzsche, pp. 28-32 . 40. It is noteworthy that Friedrich's letters to Ritschl in the first year in Basel- in marked contrast to his letters to Triebschen-contain freque nt compl aints about his lack of time. For example, Briefe 3:42 and 3:54-5 5, and Briefwechsel 11, 1 : 1 10 (March 28, 1870) and 11, 1 : 1 23 (June 1 870). 4 ! . See, for examp le, Wagner's letter of February 4, 1 870, in Forster-Nietzsche, Wagner und Nietzsche, pp. 33-34 . 42. Richard Wagner, Beethoven (Leipzig: Fritsc h, 1870). 43. Forster-Nietzsche, Wagner und Nietzsche, p. 87. SEVEN First Works 1.

"Das Griechische Musikdrama," and "Socrates und die Tragodie" were given as lectures on January 18 and February 1, 1 870. They were published as the first two 'Jahresgaben del' Gesellschaft del' Freunde des Nietzsche. Archivs" (Leipzig: Hadl, 1927) and now appear in Nietzsche, Wer'ke: kritische

r

Notes

233

Gesamtausgabe, ed. Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (Berlin: de Gruyter,

1 967- ) 111,2:3-22 and 23-41 respectively. 2. Nietzsche, Briefe III:28, or Briefiuechsel 11,1 :95 (February 1 5, 1 870). 3. In early 1 870 Nietzsche alre'ady had the seminal ideas of The Birth of Trart.edy. What he did not have was a plan to write a book. However, there was httle prospect of publishing his lectures as essays, since no philological journal would have considered anything so speculative. Ritschl also encouraged Nietzsche to write a book, but he had not seen Nietzsche's lectures on Socrates and on tragedy; he had no idea of how am· bitiously, speculatively, and controversially Nietzsche was now thinking, or what sort of a book he would actually write. Ritschl merely suggested that Nietzsche should write something more unified than the articles published in Das Rheinische Museum fur Philologie, a monograph. Ritschl knew that if Nietzsche wrote a book.length treatment of a philological topic that dis· played the talents he had shown in his articles, he would immediately estab· lish himself as one of Germany's premier professors of philology. He would be able to have any job he wanted in a German university. Nietzsche, Briefwechsel ll,2:75-76 (Nov. 5, 1869). 4. Robert Gutman makes less of Nietzsche's influence on Wagner's essay in his Richard Wagner: the Man, His Mind and His Music (N ew York: Harcourt Brace . Jovanovich, 1 968), pp. 294-95 and 3 1 8-19. He does ackn �wledge th�Ir con­ versations on Schopenhauer to have:: been part of Wagner s prepar�tIo � fO.r writing Beethoven, but finds so little good about that boo � and so httl � m It that relates to Schopenhauer's thinking that there is nothmg left for him to credit to Nietzsche. 5. Nietzsche, Briefiuechsel II,2:1 37 (Wagner to Nietzsche, Feb. 4, 1 870) and II,2: 146 (Wagner to Nietzsche, Feb. 1 2, 1 870). 6. See Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Nietzsche's alle­ giance to Schopenhauer's view is documented in part by hi � w�ll . mar ked . l, copy of Eduard Hanslick's Yom musikalisch·Schiinen, 3d e �. (LeipZIg: Welg � 1 865). A general discussion of Nietzsche's musical aesthetiCS can be found m Frederick R. Love, Young Nietzsche and the Wagnerian Experience (New York: AMS, 1966). 7. As two recent students of The Birth of Traged,y have written, Nietzsche's task "was not simply to come to terms with Wagner's music and drama, but to reconcile his theory of it with his actual practice." M. S. Silk and]. P. Stern, Nietzsche on Traged,y (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1 981), p. 53. 8. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe III,2:45-69. 9. Under the title "Die Geburt des tragischen Gedankens," ibid., 111,2:71-9 1 . 1 0 . The chronologicallyfirst of these i s divided into fifteen chapters and resem­ bles the first part of what was ultimately published as The Birth of Traged,y, which also has fifteen chapters; but ten consecutive pflges of this work do not appear in The Birth of Tragedy, and the first part of The Birth of Tra�ed� con­ tains two passages amounting to fifteen pages which do not appear m it. .. This mss, along with a dedicatory epistle to Richard Wagner, was s�bmlt ted to the publisher Engelmann in April 1 87 1 under the title Muszk und Tragodie, but it was soon withdrawn. (Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe III,2:4269. Cf. Nietzsche, Briefe 3:1 20-2 1, or Briefwechsel 11, 1 : 193-94 [draft of a letter

234

Notes to Engelmann, April 20, 1 871]; Br'iefe 3:1 26, or Briefwechsel II, 1 :200 [to gelmann, June 1 871]; and Briefe 3:164-65, or Briefwechsel II, 1 :241 -42 Fritzsch, November 1 8, 1871 ].) The second, much shorter version, not divided into chapters, consists o f those parts of chapters 8- 1 5 of the first version that would appear unaltere d in The Birth of Tragedy; after the first version that would appear unaltered i n The Birth of Traged,y; after the first version was withdrawn from Engelm ann this second one was published privately under the title Socrates und di griechische Tragodie and found its way to the Wagners. (Nietzsche, SokrateS Und die griechische Tragiidie: ursp1"ungliche Fassung der Geburt der Tragodie aus dem Geiste der Musik, edited by H.J. Mette [Munich: Beck, 1 933]. Cf. Mette's pr f. .. ace and "Nachbericht," pp. 107-09. This version now appears also in ' Nietzsche's Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe III,2:93-132.) Then finally, at Wagner's suggestion, Nietzsche submitted a revised ver­ sion of the fifteen chapters ofMusik und Tragodie to Wagner's own publisher, E. W. Fritzsch in Leipzig, with a different dedication to Wagner. Nietzsche might have withdrawn the first version from Engelmann sim­ ply because the latter was slow about deciding to publish it, as some coJ.u­ mentators have suggested. (N ietzsche, Briefe 3: 1 26, or Br-iefwechsel II, 1 :200 [to Engelmann,June 1871 ].) But if Nietzsche had not had s-econd thoughts of his own, he should logically have submitted it unchanged to Fritzsch, as Wagner i? fact re� omme �ded. (Wagne.r had not actually seen it.) However, the long fIrst verSIOn carned the wornsome tendencies of the fourth part of "Die Dionysian Weltanschauung" even further, particularly in the pages that were never published at all; here Nietzsche disagreed squarely with Schopenhauer on the question of the will, and yet returned to the Schopenhauerian position with regard to music, which he placed "beyond" drama. Furthermore, in these unpublished pages, Nietzsche mentioned Wagner himself somewhat ambiguously. (Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe III,2:63-69.) Apparently he felt he could not publish that ver­ sion. What he published privately instead was the shorter second version, Socrates und die griechische Tragodie, which he was sure would not upset Wagner. Printing this truncated version of his work was the safest thing Nietzsche could have done as far as Wagner's opinion of him was concerned. It might have been entitled "The Death of Tragedy," since it dealt primarily with Eu· ripides, Socratism, and the debilitating effects of rationalism upon Attic tragedy. It left out his own account of the origins of tragedy as well as his explanation of how tragedy might be reborn in Germany. Thus he avoided any encroachment upon Wagner's views of the composer's own work. Once this was published, however, Nietzsche took courage once again. He revised the first fifteen chapters once more and sent them to Fritzsch. But then, while they were being set in type, Nietzsche surprisingly came up with ten more chapters, that became the last ten chapters of The Birth of Tragedy. It is not known exactly when he wrote these additional chapters. Whether Wagner pressured him to include an analysis of the contemporary scene is also uncertain. But, whatever their origin, Nietzsche had apparently shown these chapters to no one until he sent them to Fritzsch. Neither Rohde nor

;

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Notes

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the first edition the Wagners had seen them until all twenty-five �hap �ers o . hen m JanuTnebsc m arnved Music f o Spirit the f o Out Tragedy of of The Birth ary 1 872. s were not added 1 1 . Even S ilk and Stern, who argue that the las t ten chapter of the book that nt argume the of ry summa their in in haste, acknow ledge pp. 62-89, esp. , Tragedy on e Nietzsch part. second distinct a te they constitu p. 79. Kaufma nn, 12. N ietzsche, The Birth of Traged,y and the Case of Wagner, trans. Walter p. 33. 1 3. Ibid., p. 38. of the catego14. For a more extensive summary and critique of Nietzsch e's use e on Traged,y, Nietzsch Stern, and ilk S see ries "Apollin ian" and "Dionys ian," 6. 209-1 esp. pp. 1 66-85, and trans. Walter 1 5. Cf. Nietzsche, The Birth of Traged,y and The Case of Wagner, Kaufmann, pp. 33-34, 1 24-30, 1 39-43. 1 6. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner, p. 98. 1 7. 18. 19. 20.

Ibid., p. 99. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 1 00-1 0 1 . . . mventFreud made a similar move in using his analysis of his dream about e eX mplar y ing psychoanalysis-the "dream of I �ma's injectio n"-as th. , Freud , s article, my Cf. Dreams. f o tatzon Interpre The in tation interpre dream 'Specim en Dream,'" Partisan Review, 54,2(198 7):305-2 0. . e�plam� d �he 2 1 . Perhaps Nietzsche's proudest accomp lishmen t was to have , done JustIce chorus of Greek tragedy. In Chapte r 17 he claims that he had the chorus. " of g meanin ing astonish and e primitiv the to time first the for Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, p. 1 05. theory of In chapters 7 and 8 Nietzsche discounted Aristotle's politica l the­ ctator' p � al "ide l's Schlege W. A. as well as chorus " the "representative . undIffer­ ItS m ty humam nts represe chorus satyr the that showed he sis. And r derives a entiated, primitive state, "behind all civilizat ion." The spectato � fort of co a chorus, the with ing identify "metaphysical comfort" from mto the d looke, having of pain the for sates compen that Dionysi an wisdom ife. l al individu of quality ral epheme to have explained the effect of tragedy upon the N ietzsche also claimed ' spectator for the first time. Nietzsche, The Birth of Traged,y, p- 1 30. 22. Ibid., p .. 52. 23. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, p. 1 2 1 . 24. Ibid., p . 122. 2 5. Ibid., p. 1 22. 26. Ibid., p. 105. 27. Ibid., pp. 106 & 98. 28. Ibid., p. 106. self-portrait" of 29. Walter Kaufmann calls one of these passages an "idealiz ed 0). 1 te (footno 98 p. Tragedy, of Birth The e, Nietzsch the author. 30. Nietzsche, Briefe 3: 1 92-93, Briefwechsel II, 1 :271 -72 (January 2, 1 872). 3 1 . Nietzsche, Briefwechsel II,2:493 (January 5, 1 872). 32. Nietzsche, Briefe 3:193, Briefwechsel II, 1 :272-73 (January 10, 1 872).

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Notes

236 33.

34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

�regor-Dellin, Ric�ard Wa�.er� p. . 405. It

is interesting that Gregor Dellin gIV�S Wagner credIt for pralsmg NIetzsche's book, but he persists in the Wag nenan myth that everything original in the book was Wagner's-an id ea that . . . Wagner' he ld I ater m hIS lIfe, after he had become embittered ab out . NIetzsche's "betrayal" of him, but certainly not at this point. Nietzsche, Briefwechsel 11,2:503-5 (January 10, 1 872). Ibid., 11,2:505 (January 10, 1 872). Ibid., 11,2:504 (January 1 0 , 1 872). Ib id., 11,2:5 1 0 - 1 3 (Cosima Wagner to Nietzsche,January 1 8, 1 872). . NIetzsche, Briefwechsel 11,2:5 1 0. Ibid., 11,2:5 1 1 . ' . a"geistreiche Schwiemelei, " translated by Silk and Stern as "ingenious d ISSIp . tIon. " N'zetzsche on Tragedy, p. 92 . .Nietzsche's request for Ritschl's opinion is found in his BrieJe 3:20 1 -2, or Brz echsel 11, 1 :281 -82 (January 1 872); Ritschl's answer in Briefwechsel 1I, .541 -43 (Feb. 4, 1 872); and NIetzsche's comments on Ritschl's letter in B:zef� 3:2 1 4, or rzefwechsel 11, 1 :295 (to Rohde, February 1 872). Ritschl noted h�s dls pl�as�re ';Ith The Birth of Tragedy and his dismay at Nietzsche's request for . . hI� opmlon m hIS dIary, excerpted in the "Nachbericht," 3:461 under "619." NIetzsche, BrieJe 3:46 1 ("6 1 9"). S e, for example, Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: SImon & Schuster, 1 987). W ilamowitz-Moellendorff, Zukunjtsphilologie! eine Erwiderung auf Friedrich . Nzetzsches "Geburt der TragOdie" (Berlin: Borntrager, 1 872). This was later sup­ plemented by Z unftsfhilologie. Zweites Stuck, eine Erwiderung auf die � . Rettungsversuche fur Frzedrzch Nietzsches "Geburt der Trna-odie" (B errIn. -0 ' .. B orntrager, 1 873 ). The title is an ironical play on the phrase Zukunftsmusik that had b en applied to Wagner's music. These and the documents cited in th . followmg footnotes are all reprinted and may be consulted in Karlfried Grunder, ed., Der Streit um Nietzsche's "Geburt der Tragodie. " Die Schriften von E. Rohde, R. Wagn�r� U. von Wilamo itz-Moellend01ff ( Hildesheim: Olms, 1 969). . Sendschrezben eines Philologen an Richard Wagner (Lei pzig: R hde, Ajterphzlologze. Fntsc , 1 872 . C f. Walter Kaufmann's discussion of the significance of . . Rohde s title m hIS preface to The Birth of Tragedy, pp. 5-7. Wagner, "An Friedrich Ni etzsche," Norddeutsch� Allgemeine Zeitung (June 1 2, . 1 873), and Gesammelte ScMiften und Dichtungen 9:295-305. Rohde consequently found himself in an awkward position when he came to repudiate Wi lamowitz-Moellendorffs attack. Nietzsche (and Wagner too) . ould have lIked to have Rohde answer as a philologist in a philological Jo�rnal. But The Birth of Tragedy simply could not be defended as historicist phIlology. So Rohde published his response as an open letter to Wagner in a Journal favorable to the composer, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. He ade it clear that he too acknowledged Wagner as his culture-hero, . and praIsed NIetzsche for what he was doing to help the Wagnerian cause. B t that was o no interest to philologists, except perhaps by bringing Rohde . hImself mto dIsrepute along with his friend. All he could say on philological gr�unds was that Wilamowit -Moellendorff had made his own egregious , . phIlologIcal errors, and he pomted these out in comparably satiric fashion,

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237

Notes

e pages of comparable type besid and at even greater length (fifty of nse defe his in , ately ght). Unfortun Wila mow itz-Moellendorffs twenty-ei the level of the attacker. And he gave to self him red lowe de Roh e, Nietzsch ity for a rejoi nder . As a youthful rtun Wila mow itz-Moellendorff the oppo ly a job hims elf, however, he coul d hard . professional philo logis t in need of hIS so d; cree s ulou ridic a was histo ricis m join the main issue and expl ain that l. lpfu unhe was letter ix and often confusing Wagner who Odd ly enough, it was the usua lly prol s than ter humor and in far fewer word clarified the issue , with much grea brief is H it. ure obsc to ired de had requ Wilamowitz-M oelle ndorf and Roh he ALeutsc Nordd the of issue same the in letter to Nietzsche was published itz­ Wag ner bega n by citin g Wila mow 1gemeine Zeitung as Rohde's lette r. ical class of ose purp the about how it was Moe llendorffs conc ludin g phra ses any the eter nally valu able idea ls of Germ of h yout the in ll insti philo logy to ists d aske simp ly if this was what phil olog the anci ent cultures. And then he ed show he ies narr ation of the poss ibilit were actu ally doin g. In an amu sing h�rs teac e mo i�g g noth ing but train that professors of philology were doin ne but other phIl olog lsts' nlIke anyo for ing noth ing writ and , of philology icine, they apparently dId not med and theologians or professors of law to society at large. They suffered from deign to contribute anything useful nal deffootnotes, and excessive professio overspecialization, suffocation by erence to each other. that histo ricis m, according to Wagner, Phil ology was so encumbered by o ­ imp an had purpose. And yet they philo logis ts had lost all sight of their fIt bene the for e atur alize anci ent liter tant miss ion to fulfi ll, namely to actu n of ratio gene each for anew ant it relev of their contemporaries, to make lling the whole educated pub lic. Not fulfi for and ts, artis for le, peop g youn cul­ the for ble selves partially resp onsi their miss ion, they had made them ury. nineteenth cent tural stagnation of Germany in the lled r that he thought Nietzsche had fulfi clea e mad n lusio conc in Wagner a book ten writ had e zsch Niet s. ague colle this resp onsi bilit y like none of his on cru­ ner and othe r artis ts. It shed light on a vital topic of interest to Wag out the with it ten writ And Nietzsche had cial prob lems of mod ern cultu re. lly ob­ usua that lars scho r othe ns from clutt er of footnotes and quo tatio dged owle ackn licly pub He g. ndin ersta scured phil olog y from the pub lic und of rm refo a ire that Nietzsche wou ld insp Nietzsche's creativity and predicted ol­ phil true a be to out e He made Nietzsch German educational insti tutio ns. to The se remarks were well calculate� ist. olog phil a than e mor ogis t, and to lIc pub nced members of the educated draw the attention of the mos t adva ence influ h muc opin ion coul d not have Nietzsche's work. But Wagner' s upon philo logis tsember, fwechsel II,3:89-90 (to Wagner, Nov 47_ Nietzsche, Briefe 3:320 -2 1 , or Brie 1 872). 1 872) . hsel 11, 1 :276 (to Wag ner,Janu ary 24, 48. Niet zsch e, Briefe, 3: 1 96 or Briejwec 00. 1 98Nietzsche, pp. Cf. Forster-Nietzsche, WagneT und are slated into Eng lish. In German they tran been r neve have res 49. The lectu and 44; 33-2 itische Gesamtausgabe, III,2 : 1 accessible in Nietzsche, Werke: kr' 63. 75-2 Werke in dTei Biinden III: 1

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238

Notes

50. Werner Ross, Der iingstliche Adler: Friedrich Nietzsches Leben (Stuttgart.. D �utsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1 980), pp. 346-53. 5 1 . NIetzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtauso-abe III "2 : 1 58 and W.er'ke zn ' drez' Banden " 0 III : 1 90 . 52. The phil ? sopher and hi � companion agreed that nineteenth-century soc iety

was dommated by the mIddle classes and the doctrines of political eco In that milieu, more educ�tion meant more production and consu an � th �refore more happmess: the greatest good for the greatest nu mber �hIS mIght n�t be so ba�, the philosopher seemed to suggest, if all the addi: tI� nal educatmg were lImited to the trades and to occupational st d'les. NIetzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe III " 2 : 1 59 and Werke 'n drez' B�a'nden .

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III: 1 9 1 . 53. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe III " 2:209' and Werke in drez' Ba"nden III:233-34. 54. Se�, fO r exam � le, Mari lyn � utler, The T,yranny of Greece Over Germany (Cam­ . brldge.. Cambndge Umverslty Press, 1 935). Her book attempted to link the

. fa Ilme of educated Germans to resist Hitler to their humanistic educaf , 55. NIetzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe III,2: 1 60, and Werke in drei . . understandably, the working class has demanded adm'ISSIon III: 1 92. QUIte to . . . el'1 te educatIOnaI mstltut� ons. But at the time that Nietzsche gave his lectures the very, thoug� t of workmg-class youths entering the Gymnasium was consid­ ered so fantastIc and outrageous as to demonstrate ipsofacto the bankruptc , of nmeteenth-century attempts to broaden the base of the educational sys� tem. 56. See above, Chapter 6" pp. 5-6, 57. The Gymnasium offered a German analogue of what is called a liberal arts . . ' m educa t IOn AmerIca. The princi p al differences are that the G:ymnasium pro. . . . vI ded-and stIll does provlde-a rIgorous general education to selected pu­ . pIls at a younger age. While American teenagers attend high schools that attempt to educate them all equally, Germany has traditionally had a sepa­ r�te sc� ool-the Gymnasium-for those who will go on to attend the univer­ SIty. WI th the less academically gifted pupils attending trade schools, the , c uld present more advanced material and demand higher stan­ Gymnaszum � dards of achIevement from younger students than does the American high school. Lest we console ourselves with the thought that our educational sys­ tem wa� more democratic if not quite as excellent, we should remember that �t the tIme of Nietzsche's writing the American high school had not yet been mvented! �nd even today German students with the Abitur-the certificate of gr�duatIOn from the Gy�nasium-are generally as broadly educated as Amenc�n students graduatmg from college with a four-year baccalaureate �eg�ee: ,If not more so. (Of �ourse they still lack the specialized training in a major �eld that �tudents m both countries get in the university.) The dIfference IS the�ef?re more than elitism versus democracy. Ameri­ . can stu�en �s acq� Ire theIr lIberal education in college, along with their con­ centratIOn m maJ ? r and minor fields of study. There is necessarily a tension bet.ween the reqUIrements of a major field and courses in general education, ,;hlch are .often perceived-especially in the sciences-as needless distrac­ tIOns; and m fact, general education courses are often aimless. American stu-

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239

Notes

a requ irements by cho osin g amo ng den ts fulfi ll thei r general education rses cou se The s. have no prerequ isite large number of college courses that elated to other courses the student unr are they is, are not cumulative; that Ger­ mination beyo� d the course gra�e. may take, and do not lead to any exa be­ On catI edu t master theIr general man students, on the other hand, mus er (gen y n twe or �lly � age of nineteen fore they enter the university, by the on catI edu al nasz Gym The s). counterpart one year later than their American of all r cove that ns atio min exa l fina to is strictly cumulative in that it leads up s. uate grad one and determine whether the subjects one has take n at scho ol zed iali spec e mor for vide a fou ndation . Thus the Gymnasium attempts to pro ulate students agamst inoc to and law, or e icin med in e, training, for exampl mate profess ions . , , " den bec omi ng mere specialists in their ulti e 111,2 : 1 69, and Werke zn drez Ban sgab mtau Gesa sche kriti ke: Wer he, tzsc 58. Nie III:2 00. ke in drei Biinden mtausgabe III,2 :243 -44 , and Wer 59. Nie tzsche, Werke: kritische Gesa

111:263 . in drei Biinden mtausgabe III, 2:24 2 , and Werke 60. Nietzsche, Wer'ke: kritische Gesa 111:26 2. ke in drei Biinden mtausgabe I1I,2 :191 -92 , and Wer 6 1 . Nietzsche, Werke: kr'itische Gesa 111:2 1 8- 1 9. ke in drei Biinden Gesamtausgabe 111,2 : 1 90, and Wer 62. Nietzsche, Wer'ke: kritische III:2 1 8. ies of Bourgeois s: Culture, Politics, and the Boundar 63. Jerrold Seig el, Bohemian Pari ing, 1 986). Life, 1 830- 1 930 (N ew York: Vik sense k of a "natural" aristocracy, but the spea to 64. It had long been com mon the d, bloo of acy tocr aris it the

to discred of that expression had been sim ply er the aristocracy of bloo d was no long But e. regim en anci the ruling class of of s ber mem , artistic expression. In fact much of a threat to intellectual and rde t-ga avan ate reci ones who cou ld app the old aristocracy wer e often the art. of the bourgeoisie that threatened taste mon com art, while it was the rt reso by e ! is rgeo bou the from d ishe And the genius could only be distingu of acy tocr arIs circle of genius was an to the theory of separate birth. The of then there has always been a band e Sinc . lead peo ple born to create and ore far as es selv them � of e who conceiv progressive artists and intellectuals poli ticia ns. As if the non-aesthetIc do­ sive gres pro t mos he t , than progressive efin ition at this time . mai ns became non progressive by re-d

EIG HT Strugglefor Autonomy iften und of the event in his Gesammelte Schr 1 . See Wagner's description 1 :367 den Biin drei in ke description in Wer Dichtungen 9:32 2-44, Nietzsche'S 4. 0-6 4:35 ner Wag ard The Life oj Rich 434 , and New man 's account in 04 (Oc tobe r 24, 1 872 ). See Wagners 1 7:54 2; Briejwechsel II,4 :1 2. Die Briefe Richard

67.

also Cos ima Wag ner 's Tagebucher 1 :1 e. Freud tive individuals not infrequently issu 3. Thi s is a provocation that crea . is a good exam ple. Briefe Friedrich Nie tzsches an RIch e nnt eka unb ben "Sie d, gfel Ber 4. Joachim 8 1 , and ssenschaft 27 (1970), pp. 1 79ard Wagner," Ar'chiv fur Musikwi

�40

Notes

Briefwechsel II,3 :6 1-63 (Oc tober 15 1 872) ' Dze' Bnef . hard Wagners 1 7: . e Rzc 44, and Brie'jW �"echsel II , 4 '. 102 -6 (0 cto' b er ' 540 2 4 1872) 5. Th Ierbach , Die Br'ie'.Ie '{;e COszm , ' a U! . vvagners an Fne . dnch ' Nietzsche 2 .'43, and Briefwechsel lI , 4 .' 142 45 (D ecem ber 4, 1872). ,. 6. Nietz sche, Werke: kn�tzsc he Gesamtausgabe III ,2:2 . 45- 86. 7. Unfor tunately, Nietzsche's letter Naumburg instead of to Ba informing th. e Wagners th at he was goi ng to reuth for ChrIstmas was Bayreuth by Wagner's heirs later destroyed in a o ng WIt. h many other artifacts of the relation_ sh ip. 8. Thierbach, Die Brieje Cosima "WI ers an Frzedrzch Nietzsche 2:4 �r'iefwechsel lI,4:20 7 (Febru 4, and ary , B SIO n in his "Drei un bekann 1 2 1 3). ' S ee also JoachIm ergfeld's di scu ste B rIe : f·e N Ietzsches an C OSIm ' a Wagner," Maske und Kothurn. Vierteljahressc ,. hrijt filr Theaterwzsse nschajt 1 0 (19 64): 597-60 9. Nietzsche, Br"iefe 3:3 602. 6 1 and Brie�" jUJechsel I�,3: 131 -32 (M 1 0. Schlechta and Thierbac ' arch 2, 1 87 3). h , D'ze " e des Frezherrn C arl von Gersdorff 2:50 a� d Br"iefwechsel ll,4 :23 3-2 5 Bnef 51, 1 1 . NIe tzsche, Br"iefe 3:3 49 and (March 9' 1873). 3 '. 353 - 54, and Bnefwechs el ll,3: 1 2 1 (Jan. 31 , 1873), a� d 11,3: 1 24 (Feb. 2 1 , 1873). 12. NIetzsche, Werke: kritisc he Gesam troduction, by Marianne Co taus b 1I1,2:29�- 366_ T ranslated, with an in­ wan N t sche, PhzlosoPhy . zn the Tragic Age of the Greeks (�hicago: He nry Regnery, ' 196 2)_ 1 3, janz, Nzetzsche 1: 515 & 526 -29. . tzsc 14. NIe he, Werke: kritische Gesamta 'Ohe 1,�:303-4, and PhiloSOPhy in the Tragic Age f!/the Greeks, trans. Ma rianne C an (� hicago: Reg 1 5. Nietzsche, Werke: kritisc nery, 1962), p_ 34. . e 111,2:2 he Gesamtausgab 97, and PhilosoPhy in the Tra Age of the Greeks, p. 25_ gic 1 6. Nie tzsche' w rJ"4erke.' kn " zsc t ' h e Gesamtaus:g,'abe 111 , 2 . 2 95,. 96, and Phzlos ' oPhy in the ' Tragzc Age oj the Greeks, p. 24. 1 7. On Heraclitus cf. Nie tzsche "WI r'ke·' kntzsche Ges amtausgabe 1I1, 2:3 1 6ff., PhilosoPhy in the Tragic Aue and reeks, pp. 50ff 'J ;he 18 . Th�' s, fiurt' h ermore, is t>' of' the first formulation of' the . . pO SitI c�aIms and counterclaims On that has led to . about wheth er Ietz sch e brought an end to the hIstory of metaphysics ' Lon g after N I etzsc e disavo wed Wagner in his last book, Ecce Homo, wh ere' h . er pre, decessor: Heraclitus. Nieeviewe d h IS Own writings' h e ad mIt. te d on ly on e tzs tra ns. Walter Kaufmann (Ne che' On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo' w York : Random Hou se 19 . Cf. N Ietzs 196 9) p. 2 7 3. ' che, Werke: kritische Gesamtaus gabe 1I1 ,2:3 37ff., and Ph Tragi� Age of the Greeks, ilosoph,y in the pp. 79ff. 20. Cf. h IS letter to Gersd orff BnfJ.Je ' ' .(; 3:3 67, and Briefwechsel 11,3 :13 9 (April 5, 1873). 2 1 . Perhaps they d'Iscusse d it together after leavin g B . ayreuth, but before parting' at the raIlw ay station in Lichten £eI s th . . e next day' In any case, Ro wrItmg, an d his first letter hde delayed . o f th e Greeks." Cf. Briefw does not mentIon "Phil oso ph y m ' the Tra gic Ag e echsel II , 4 .' 253 - 55 (Rohd e to Nie tzsche, May 20, 1 873). 22. On �he who le episode , se e F C OSI ma Wagner, Tagebuc orster-N ietzsc he ' "WIagner und Nze' tzsche, pp. 1 52ff., her 1: anz, Nze. tzsche 1:5 30- 32. Pre wh at Wagner said abou t th 667 -69 : an dJ cisely . e manuscrIpt wIll appare ntly never be kno wn. , •

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23. Nietzsche's letter is to be found in Briefe 3:374-75 (April 1 8, 1 873), and Briefwechsel 11,3:144-45. By contrast, Wagner's first letter to N ietzsche, writ­ ten after receiving Nietzsche's apology, is calm and understanding; in fact he seems to encourage Nietzsche to pursue his independence. On the other hand Wagner does not mention "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks" and does indicate that he can hardly wait for Nietzsche's essay on Strauss. Cf. Briefwechsel 11,4:248 (Wagner to Nietzsche, April 30, 1 873). 24. Br'iefe 3:374-75, and Briefwechsel ll,3:144-45 (April I 8, 1 873). 25. Briefe 3:375, and Briefwechsel 11,3: 1 45. 26. Brieje 4:4-5, and Briefwechsel 11,3: 149-50 (May 5, 1 873). 27. Daniel Breazeale, "Introduction" to Philosoph,y and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche 's Notebooks oj the ear�y 1870s (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1979). These selections are some of the raw materials, according to Breazeale, of the projected Philosophenbuch. But he does not include "Philos­ ophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks." (In fact, Breazeale seems to acknowl­ edge this by not republishing "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks" in his edition of these early fragments.) His construction of the place that this manuscript had in Nietzsche's larger plan, based upon Nietzsche's let­ ters, is questionable. In fact, the letters he cites to indicate the existence of a larger book seem to me to refer to the manuscript of "Philosophy in the Tragic Age" itself, and to it alone. Cf. Breazeale, pp. xxii-xxvii. Breazeale suggests we should regard all of Nietzsche's unpublished work from this pe­ riod, including "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks," as preliminary drafts intended for inclusion in this Philosophenbuch. He suggests further that these fragments contain the basic ideas that Nietzsche developed in his later works, and that the fragments and notebooks are indispensable to under­ standing Nietzsche's philosophy. Breazeale is persuasive, but his argument makes more sense for the shorter, fragmentary, and experimental works like "On the Pathos of Truth" than for "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks." 28. David Friedrich Strauss, The Life ofJesus Critically Examined, trans. George Eliot, ed. with Introduction by Peter C. Hodgson (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1 972). In addition to Hodgson's Introduction, see H()rton Harris, David Friedrich Stmuss and His Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 973) for an account of Strauss's intellectual odyssey. 29. See above, pp. 6·7-68, andJanz, Nietzsche 1: 1 46. 30. That Wagner had been offended by Strauss is mentioned by J. P. Stern in his Introduction to Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Cam­ bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 983), p. xii. 3 1 . Strauss, Der Alte und der neue Glaube: ein Bekenntnis (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1 872). 32. Nietzsche, Werke: kr#ische Gesamtausgabe 111,1 : 1 53-238, and Untimely Medita­ tions, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1 983), pp. 1 -55. This was the first, but by no means ! the most interesting, of Nietzsche's Untimely Meditations, published in August 1 873. 33. Cf. Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, 4th ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1 974), pp. 1 34-4 1 . It has also been suggested that Nietzsche had a deeper motive: Nietzsche's later philosophy contains many important strands that appear in Strauss's writings, most par-

242

Notes

ticul arly the idea tha . th e living needs of t reli ou s. m yths are n ecessary ficti on s a pe op .N . . . . ' produced from by cnti ciZIng au tho rs with si Ie tzs.ch e freq.u entI Y worked ou t his own ideas . mil ar' VIe ws ThI Sio n of "D aVI' d Strau ss." Cf J " P S tern, ·I S rnay be the o ne p ositive d ' en . ntrodu ctio n to N iet ' �eduations, pp . xiii- xiv. zsche' s Un � zmely 34. N Ietzsche, Bri W. efe 4.'49 and Brzefw ' echsel II, 3: 1 99-2 also Cosima 00 (Fe bru a l I " rz. e ef an Friedrich Nietzsche 2: ' 1 � ); See II, 4:4 14 (March 49- 50, nd B 4 ) rze.; . � wechsel ' 35. J. p . S ter.n, Intro duc tio n to N Iet zsc he, ' Untime�y Meditatio added. . ns' p. XIV . Ital I. cs 36 . Wagner' s let . " ter In Fo rster.N Ie ' tzsch e W.agner. und tem ber 2 1 , 1 8 73); N . sche, pp . 1 62 zetz ": ietzs che's in Bri -63 (Se . .1 e� 7, 1873). See also Newm an, The L e ; � Bnefwechsel II, 3:1 6 1 (Sep te . 37 . r �e.;e 4: 1 7, an CJ.J zc ard Wagner' 4:403. d Bri sel II 3 '1 6 67 (N . Ietzsche to Ro hde, Oct �rzefwechsel II,4:329-efwech � � � 30 (Rohd o I etz . 1 8, 1 873),' 38 . M ah nru f an sch e, Oc t. 23 1 873). d'Ie D eutsch en " N Iet ' zsche, Werke:' kritische III, 2:385- 91 . ' Gesamtausgabe 39 . It was I. ncid entally in N ietzsche' s life f ee c (and oth ers) fi r� t m any to learn the hi : i u program s. retu rn hom e to 40 . N Iet ' zsche, Werke: kritisch e Gesamtaus:g be III �nd On the Advantage a ' 1 :2 48; Untimely Medita tions p 63 ' . ryfor L , tra tI On by Pe ter Preu nd Disadvanta:g oif Hzsto ns. ss ife with (In . In t�o duc.' dia nap � olis . ack ett 1 98 0) p f:act the whole . 10 . p assage IS I ta } " ' ' I ' CS added ' in . . italicized in the ongIn 4 1 . N Iet ' al. ' zs ch e, Werke'. kritzsc . he Gesamtausg abe III" 1 '2 46, U:ntz. and Preu ss, e? , On me�y Meditations, p. 62, the A dvantage and D isadva tage, p. 1 0 42 . Th Ier ' bach, Dze Bri , resp ectively � efe Cosima Wa ers . n zedrzch Nietzsche nd Ni etzsche, Briefw 2:48- 49 echsel II, 4: 2- 1 ( 43. .g., NI. etzs ch arch 20 an d Ap ril 20 an d 5 5- 5 8, e, Briefe 4'7 1 874) . 7, and Bnefw ' echsel II, 3:23 1 - 32 1 874). (to Ger� do rff J' une 1, 44. Schl echta and ' Th I' erb ach, Dz.e Briefe des and N Ie reih er F ' Car tzS l Von Gersdorffs 2:87 C? e, Briefwechsel II, 4:4 rn - 88' 80 (Ma 29 , 1 8 74). 45 . Wag.ner, s bI Y ographers E r.nest Newm an am o ng th need t0 h ave hIS. dis ' em, testify to Wag . cip ner' s h I' m COu rt. Newm an, les pu t asi de the own reative wo rk in o rder to p ay T he Life ojRichard . 46 . N Iet agner :292. zsche, Briefwechse . 28 - 30 . Also in B riefe," pp . 1 86-90 l II, 3'2 B ergfeld, "s Ie · ben un bek ann te 47 . N Ietz " �ch e, Briefwechsel II, 3:2 28. 48. ESpeCi ally in the p aragr h e to� ch e� on his ow m �tes th at he m igh aphs wh. n future and in tit have to g up hIS U nIversity Brzejwechsel II,3:2 p osi tion . N Iet 28 _29 ' zsch e' - zsche, Ibi 49 . N let d., II,4: 65'4-56 (Ap n.I 6, 1 874). 5 0. N ietzsch e, Ibi d. II 3'' 2 30 (May 20 , 1 8 74). 5 1 . Nietzsch e B 7 rie � 4'. 7 Gune 1, 1 874) ' 4'83 G '.Ie ' uly 4, 1 8 74), and 4:9 1 8 74), an d Briefw echsel II, 3:23 1 -32 ' 1 - 92 Guly 26 G u ne 1 , 1 874), an d II, 3:2 74), and II,3:2 46-47 Guly � 37- 38 Guly 4,' 26 1 874) . 5 2 . le tzs ch e, B ' riefe 4:83 and Br .efw ' � �chsel II,3 :23 7 -38. 53 . Ni etzs ch e, Br iefe 4'9 . 1 , an d Brzefwechsel II,3:246 Guly 26, 1 8 74).

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54. Nietzsche, Brieje 4:82, and Briefwechsel II, 3 :2 36 (June 1 4, 1 874) to Rohde. 55. Compare Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche, Nietzsche und Wagner. Cosima's ac­ count, which might be more accurate since it was contemporary, is vague. Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebiicher� 1 869- 1 877, 1 :8 42 -44. Nietzsche' s Swiss biog­ rapher concludes that this episode marks the turning point in Nietzsche's disillusion with Wagner.Janz, Nietzsche 1 :579 -8 1 and 584-86. 56. Stern, Introduction, Untime�y Meditations, pp. xxvii: "The tyrant who suppresses all individuality other than his own and his followers'. This is Wagner' s great danger: to refuse to accept Brahms, etc.; or the Jews." 57. Janz, Nietzsche 1:586. 58. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe III, 1 :346, and Untimely Meditations, p. 1 36. 59. Werke: kr#ische Gesamtausgabe III, I :332-37, and Nietzsche, Untimely Medita­ tions, p. 1 27-30. 60. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe III,1 :338, and Untimely Meditations, pp. 1 30-3 1 . 61. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe III, 1 :347, and Untimely Meditations, p. 1 37. 62. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe III, 1 :354, and Untimely Meditations, p. 1 42. 6 3 . Of course Bismarck was also recognized as a genius for accomplishing the unification of Germany. But Nietzsche found the Iron Chancellor repug­ nant as a person, and would hardly have admitted that he could have been the object of emulation or inspired others to creativity. Quite the contrary: Nietzsche thought that the Reich tended to inhibit creativity. 64. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1: 1 73-96; translated in Daniel Breazeale, Philosophy and Truth, pp. 1 27-46. In the same notebook Nietzsche wrote numerous adenda to the earlier unpublished manuscripts on the Greek topics. 65. Nietzsche, Wer-ke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, I : 1 9 1 -92; Breazeale, p. 143. 66. One editor of the Untimely Meditations notes that Nietzsche's diffi culties were "obviously psycho-psychosomatic," but he does not specify their psychologi­ cal source. J. P. Stern, "Introduction," Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Medita­ tions, p. viii. 67. Janz, Nietzsche 1:61 4-20. 68. Nietzsche, Briefe 4:25 1 -52, and Briefwechsel II,5: 1 32 (Jan. 1 8, 1 876). 69. N i/etzsche, Briefe 4:252; and Briefwechsel II,5: 1 3 1 -33, especially p. 1 33 (Jan. 1 8, 1 876). 70. Janz, Nietzsche 1:626-27. 7 1 . Nietzsche, Brieje 4:270, and Briefwechsel II, 5 : 1 52 (April 1 5, 1 876). 72. This seems clear from Gersdorffs letter of April 4, 1 876, soon after he left Nietzsche. Nietzsche, Briefwechsel II,6/i:305. 73. The whole episode is narrated inJanz, Nietzsche 1:628-32. 74. Janz, Nietzsche 1:631 -32: Simply surprised by Mathilde's high spirit and judgment and bedazzled by the relative freedom from inhibition in her youthful relationships with people, a spontaneity that Nietzsche himself lacked completely.

244

Notes

Here th ere s eem ed to open th e Pro . spect of freem inhib iti ons in re g him self fro m h lating to p eop l e. l is Own n the co mp any 0 f p�rso n he could th IS ' n aturally . feel him self being free 1 e d mto an u nbur p hcated futu re . . den ed and u n co . m· 75. N ie tzsche, B riife 4:27 2 an d B hs l 11,5 : 1 54 (A ril 76. Jan z, Nietzsche I 5, 1 87 6). 1:6 32; N etzsch Z � e;e 4 .2 70, and BneJw 1 876). ' echsel lI 5 .' 1 52 (Ap n' 1 1 5, . ' 7 7. n Sp Ite of m arriage and fam ily M an. e B au mgartn er be cam m teres te d in Nie e ro mantica tzsche . B ut N Ietz . . " ll sch e dId not appreCla Y Jea 1 ous of, his de ' te that she m votio n igh t be to C OSI " · ma Wagn er' nor m antIC mterest. d1'd. h e rec iprocate In sp ite of her fair! h er ro0 en suggest e�en have be en a IO ns, Ni etzs che m ware that s he lov ed ay n ot i . r 78. NI etzsche b eca me acquai nted wit . h M al von Meys enb ug thr Wag ners. She as ough the chap ero ne to Nata ",: li rzen (daughter of H erzen), but an m Alexander tell ectual herself an d th e auth or of trast to M ari e B au several books. In mgartn er, M aI WI'd a Co n. see ms to have h ad h er fn' en dsh ip wit an un derstan di ng h Nietzsch e that s . of qu red ' WIth N Ietzsch e's OW mo therly frien d � n: s he was a who would hIm as she could. 79. On N ietzsch e's rela tion shi p ese wom en, see an d 6 75-9 2. Janz, Nietzsche 1:64552 80. N ietzs che Br ' "R9 � 70, and Bri ' z ?fie 4"' 26 eJwec hsel 11,5: 8 1 . Newman , The 1 52 zifie o) zchard Wagner I V: 477_90 . 8 2. N Iet ' zsch e, Unti mely Meditations' p . xx , VI.' 83. I bid. , p p. xxvi -xxvii. . 84. I bid. , P . xXVI. N Ie ' tzsche rep eat edly n o tes th at Wag an d th at Wagne ner' S tal ent was histr . r's art spoke a "th io ni,c e atrIcal l anguage. . h IS ' notebooks to g " But he IS un will ing in ive Wagn er cre dit for bei ng' a great act " a born actor, or. He calls Wag but like G oethe, . ner as It were a pa m . han d s. " A' n d again ' ter WIt h out a pai nter 's . ' "If Goeth e Is ' a m Ispl aced p ain ter, S chill er ora to r, th en W agn a m isp laced r is a mI' Spl ace d . , . actor " Th IS ' mIg S ch ope nh au er, h t rem md ' . one further of whom Nietzsch e ch arac ' ' "S c h op tenzed m ' · tor " as havmg enhauer as Educa. to overcom e his d'I VI ded tale nts to N ietzsche adm ir create his p hilos ed ' all of' th ese " m . ophy. Is-talented'" I d'IV . th elr . talents; for lduals for overco him they were all ming "sen tim �tal po was un con Sciously ets. Perhap s N ietzs � preparing a wa to che ' r ehablhtate W agn cusatio ns. But in Y er fro m his own ac thes e notes h e fO un d onl y negative th m W ag'ner' s " grea t ' gs to say ab out histrio nic gift " S m . " ce It was mIsp "to fin d its outlet : laced in Wagn er in it failed the m ost dIrect w . ays ' to find that, [W v � Ice, and the nec agn , erJ lacks' stature , essary m odesty.'" 85. NIe tzsche, Untimely Meditations XV I. . Wo rthy of N ietzsch e's later � n ote is the fact w iting- eSpe i th at ce mo-was not m but by oste ntati arked by m odesty ous self- imp ortanc t a t e cou ld o n ly agn er, b ut which have learned fro m som e h ave mi sta c m ken lor 8 6. NIe tzsch e, IbI " egal om ania. ' d., p . XXV III. ' 87. Ibid., p. xxvi. 88. Ibid. , pp . X XVI' ' ... l -xXVU I. 89. Ib id., p. xxvi. "It is this [the ques tio n of an audie nc e] th at drIve ' s [Wagn erJ o n,

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90. 91. 92. 93.

245

to criticize the public, the state, society. Between the artist and the publ ic he posits the relationship of subj ect and object-quite naively." Ibid., p. xxvii. N ie tzsche, Werke: kr'itische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 :3-4; Untimely Meditations, p. 1 97. N ietzsche, Wer'ke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 :4; Untime�y Meditations, p. 1 98. Nietzsche, Wer'ke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 :3-5; Untimely Meditations, pp. 1 97 -98. Recalling Wagner's address at the dedication of the ground for the Festspielhaus in 1 872, Nietzsche quoted Wagner to the effect that there were only a select few who could appreciate his grand project. In a passage remi­ niscent of an even earlier letter of N ietzsche to Wagner (May 22, 1 869), he wrote, All to whom this bel ief is accorded should feel proud of the fact, whether they be few or many-for that is not accorded to everyone, neither to the whole of our age nor even to the Germ an peopl e as it stands at present, he told u s so himself in his dedicatory address of 22 May 1 872 . . . . "When I sought those who woul d sympathize with my p lans," he said then, "I had only you, the friends of my particular art, my most person al work and creation, to turn to: it was only fro m you that I could expect assistance."

94. N ietzsche in his notebooks rewrote his criticism to assert that Wagner was a dilettante as a youth: "Wagner's youth was the youth ofa many sided dilettante . . . " He even rewrote the note about Wagner's music, poetry, plot, and dra­ maturgy not being worth much; in the revised version, "his early music is not worth much . . . " The obvious implication is that Wagner was no longer a dilettante and that his music, poetry, and drama were no longer superficial. N ietzsche, Untime�y Meditations, pp. xxvi-xxvii. Italics added. J. P. Stern has also noted this in the introduction to Untimely Meditations, p. xxix. "Almost all the failings N ietzsche had ascribed to [Wagner] in the preliminary notes now figure as temptations resolutely overcome, trials strenuously undergone and since won." 95. N ietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 :7; Untimely Meditations, p. 200. 96. "Only a force wholly pure and free could direct this will on the pathway to the good and benevolent." Nietzsche, now transforming Wagner's theatrical character into a vIrtue, notes that it is only appropriate that the l ife of a great dramatist should be dramatic. N ietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, I :7-10; Untimely Meditations, pp. 200-2. Nietzsche's description of Wagner's "will" reaching up to the light is oddly reminiscent of Nietzsche's description of his own creative impul se in "The Struggle between Science and Wisdom" (Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 : 1 9 1 -92, and Breazeale, Philosophy and Tmth, p. 1 43). 97. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 :9- 1 1 ; Untime�y Meditations, pp. 202-3. 98. N ietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 :2 1 -23; Untimely Meditations, pp. 2 1 0-1 1 , and somewhat less clearly on pp. 244-54. 99. Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, p. 28 1 . 1 00. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, l : 1 1 ; Untimely Meditations, p . 203.

" ,/1

I ,

246

Notes

1 0 1 . Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 :46-50; Untimely Meditations, pp . 228-3 1 . 1 02. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 :50-5 1 ; Untimely Meditations, p. 232. 1 03. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 :52; Untimely Meditations, p. 233. 1 04. Some of his remarks about the audience in Bayreuth-which had of course not yet assembled-are fraught with double entendre, as "in Bayreuth the spectator too is worth seeing." Nietzsche, Werke, kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 :4-5; Untime�y Meditations, p. 1 98. 1 05. Rather, he asserts that "To us," the putative public, "Bayreuth signifies th� morning consecration on the day of battle." 1 06. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 :25; Untimely Meditations, p. 2 1 3. 1 07. Nietzsche, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe IV, 1 :78-82; Untimely Meditations, pp. 251 -54. 1 08. Brie.fwechsel II:5: 1 75 (to Ernst Schmeitzner, Nietzsche's publisher, July 1 4, 1 876). Nietzsche's advance letter to Schmeitzner in Leipzig requested that two copies be sent to Bayreuth, but that the package wait until he had for­ warded letters of dedication for inclusion in it. Only one letter has survived, if indeed there were two-the one to Cosima. Some authors suggest that the one to Wagner was later destroyed in Bayreuth; it is also possible that in his vacillation Nietzsche never actually wrote a final version to send to Wagner. 1 09. Ibid., II:5: 1 73-74 (to Cosima Wagner, earlyJuly, 1 876). 1 l 0. Ibid., II:6/1 :362-63. 1 1 1 . Ibid., II:611 :357. 1 1 2 . Of course, N ietzsche might have said something more in his letter to Wagner himself, if indeed he wrote a separate letter to Wagner. 1 1 3 . Newman, The Life ofRichard Wagner IV:458. 1 1 4. Newman, IV:438-90. 1 1 5. Wagner was perhaps unique among composers of opera in the intensity of his concern for the details of production. From the design of the sets and the gestures of each actor to the phrasing of the singers and the tempi of the orchestra, Wagner knew exactly what he wanted. "Wagner," writes Newman, was a far better conductor than any of his conductors, a far better actor than any of his actors, a far better singer than any of his singers in every­ thing but tone. Each of his characters, each of his situations, had been created by the simultaneous functioning within him of a composer's imagination, a dramatist's, a conductor's, a scenic designer's, a singer's, a mime's. IV:487. As a consequence, no one knew as well as Wagner himself how to carry out a part. And he felt compelled to coach all of the participants in every excruci­ ating detail. 1 1 6 . In drafts of his letters announcing "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" he admit­ ted he had no idea how Wagner would react. But everything else in those drafts indicates that he feared the worst. In one he intimated that the Wagners should not read it at all. In another he " shuddered to think what [he] had dared;" he just wanted to close his eyes and forget; and he hoped that Wagner would accept the essay "without recoiling." In yet another he

2 47

No tes

n ot e not about you, and d it as though it wer "rea ld u wo , agner W ho ped that . ' ' ,/:i" '..vechsel II ·5· '. ' 1 7 1 -73. gner mdlcate, h 0":written by me." BrzeJ . N le ' s draft-le tters to Wa che tzs m ts ncIstatemen . more blast of denu 1 1 7 . Several other . hIm th an f'ear of one for e tak s ard t a h IC ' "R was ever, that more t the publicatIo.n 0 f zsche was afral' d tha iet . N er r. th e agne tog W l a ' hIp atio n from d of their relations wou ld mean th e en th" u ayre B in ner Wag blished a th at, when I h ave pu has the co nse que nce nto qu esi ed call is "My writing aI ways ' lationships I'n my person a1. r e ' more any y t sa no new piece, so meth mg can y I , that espe cIa11y toda . eel f I ch mu w Ho Ho n. . . . II:5: 1 73. clearly." Briejwechsel th Nie tzsche, 25 Jul ���79 (to Eliszscabe � ��� �����: ������ und Wagner, p. 1 2 \, r_Nietzsche, Niet he

y, 1 87 6).

Elisaenergetic critic of 1 20 . Forste H e was an ear y and view 's ' ma a sa1 ew was N ns � . 1 2 1 . This is Ernest Elis abeth's fals ific atio . H �s as �au It u on cIty the ng vera shi e'S bli sch esta b eth N ietz � g her but even in . er t only m dlscred'ItIn ' th no el e, was ctIv he re cor ever, tary How u . . . m 0f s from B ayreu th · . tter le e' s ch zs ' t Ie N oped cn tICIS . Pro per datm. g 0f . . 1 rea dy well -devel ' ing N IetzSCh e' s. a miZ wman, IV.' 503 Ne u naware or Just m mi ers low fol IS f h' an d the vul gan ty 0 re atu n tor" "ac Janz, Nietzsche r's Wagne m an on this p o n t. . Janz fol lows New -7 506 II eCla esp 39, Y

i

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1:7 1 5. : 1 79 (J u 28 1 876). 1 22. Briejwechsel II:5 eth Nietzsche). gust , 1 8 6' to Eli sab 1 23. Ibid., II:5 : 1 8 1 (Au 1 24. Ibi d., II:5 : 1 8 1 . sabeth Nietzsch e). gust 6 , 1 876 ' to Eli 1 25. Ibi d., II:5 :1 82 (Au 5-2 7. 1 26. Ne wm an , IV :52 1:1 7-2 0 . tzsche 0-2 4. Nie . 1 27. Cf. Janz, z in h is Nietzsche 1:72 ted exte nSIve1 Y b Y Jan , cerp ex are cles arti 1 2 8. The man, IV: 531 . , 1 29. Quo ted in New man, IV:53 3. New n the Genealogy oj 1 30. Qu oted i 3 ' 32 1 ' trans. in On VI e b usga ta Gesam ke: krit ische ou se, 1 9 67), 1 3 1 . N ie tzsche, Wer ew ork: Random H Walter K aufm ann Morals / Ecce Homo, ed.

7

7

(N ' Y

p. 2 84. Wal ter Kaufm ann, , . paSSI. Oned 1 32 . In the words of gen ius, W agner s Im y el lon , a hen bsc at Tn ther peo­ As lon g as he lived d th e i nferiority of o of the Germ ans an tly igcen de be faith in the su periority aps . S, could perh French an d the J eW m pIre E an erm G PIe, esp eci ally th e new the ' th WI rms te to e ' er cam agn a clear stan d . nored; b ut wh en W y e th the time for ral cent�r m B l tu t cu grea a at Bayre uth . up wh an d set i self fro m N ie tzsche dIS SOCI a e and d an h at s wa symbolized. J Traged'llJ . h o.r he, The Bzrt w:agner, in N ie tzsc oj Case he T to ce k: Random H ouse, Kaufm ann, P refa Kaufmann (N ew Yor oj Wagner, ed. Walter �

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the Genealogy oj 1 9 67) , p. 1 49 . VI 3 32 2', trans. in On kritische Gesamtausgabe " ' ke: Wer he, tzsc N ie 1 33. Morals / Ecce Homo, p. 28 6 .

248

Notes

1 34. Nietzsche, Nietzsche contra Wagner- in Wer'ke: kritische Gesamtausgabe VI,3:4 29; trans. Walter Kaufman n, in The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Viking, 1 954),

pp. 675-76. 1 35. Nietzsch e, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe VI,3:429 -30; The Portable Nietzsche, po 676. 1 36. Nietzsch e, Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe VI,3:322 ; On the Genealogy of Morals / Ecce Homo, p. 286. 1 37. Nietzsch e, The Case of Wagner, in Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe VI,3:3; trans. in The Birth of Traged,y and the Case of Wagner, p. 1 55. 1 38. Nietzsche contra Wagner, in Werke: kr-itische Gesamtausgabe VI,3:430; trans. in . The Portable Nietzsche, p. 676. NINE

Redefining Genius

1 . Ernest Kretschmer, Geniale Menschen (Berlin: Springer, 1 929); and Robert Minde� , "Das B ild des Pfarrhauses in der deutsche n Literature von Jean. . Pa� l bIS Gottfned Benn," Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur

Maznz, Abhandlungen der Klasse Literatur, 4 ( 1 959):53- 78.

in

2 . The theory of gen ius w�s of co� rse no more gender neutral than the theory . 3. 4. 5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

1 0.

of popular sovereIgnty m the nmeteen th century, and it excluded women by definitio n. Tho �e who �heorized about genius apparen tly overlook ed the possibilit y that mnovatIo n may be a result of cooperat ion. The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufman n, pp. 2 1 6- 1 7. Ecce Homo, p. 220. Quotation from the last chapter of Thus spake Zarathustra, Part I. This view is consisten t with the interpretation of Nietzsch e put forward by Alexander Nehemas in his Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge, MA: Har. vard University Press, 1 985). Ecce Homo, trans. Walter Kaufma nn, pp. 295-309 . Ibid., pp. 300- 1 . Ibid., p . 298. Ecce Homo, p. 2 1 9.

Suggestions for Further Reading N in German in the Kritische Gesamtausgabe, edited by Giorgio

ietzsche's works and correspondence are most fully presented

Colli and Mazzino Montinari. The Briefwechsel (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1 975-84) is complete in 1 6 volumes, but the Werke (Berlin: de Gruy­ ter, 1 967-), unfortunately, are complete only from Vol. 2 onward. For the works of Nietzsche's youth (before 1 867), one must there­ fore consult the older, also incomplete edition, the Historisch­ kritische Gesamtausgabe, edited by Hans Joachim Mette, Karl Schlechta, and Carl Koch, 5 vols. (Munich: Beck, 1 933-40). (In the notes to this book, Briefwechsel and Werke refer, respectively, to the letters and works of the newer Kritische Gesamtausgabe; the works of the older edition are cited as Historisch-kritische Gesamtausgabe: Werke for the works, and the Briefe of that edition are cited alongside the Briefwechsel for readers who do not have access to the newer edi­ tion.) A handier German edition is the Werke in drei Biinde, edited by Karl Schlechta (Munich: Carl Hanser, 1 954-56). In English, most of Nietzsche's works are readily available in the fine translations of Walter Kaufmann published between 1 954 and 1 974, often containing several different works, for example, The Portable Nietzsche (New York: Viking, 1 954) and The Birth of Trag­ edy and the Case of Wagner (New York: Random House, 1 967). New and valuable translations of some of the less popular works that Kaufmann did not translate began to appea:t; in the 1 980s. Espe­ cially relevant to this book are the Untimely Meditations, edited by J. P. S tern and translated by R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cam­ bridge University Press, 1 983). Other translations of manuscript papers and lectures from Nietzsche's early career are available in Philosophy and Truth: Selec­ tionsfrom Nietzsche's Notebooks of the early 1870s, edited and translated

250

Suggestionsfor Further Reading

�

by Daniel Breazeale (Atlantic Highlands, N]: Humanities Pres 1 979), and Friedrich Nietzsche on Rhetoric and Language, edited an translated by Sander L. Gilman, Carole Blair, and David J. Parent (New York: Oxford University Press, 1 989). is also an excellent edition of Nietzsche's letters in En­ . There glIs�, Selected Letters of Friedri�h Nietzsch�, edited and translated by . Chnstopher MIddleton (ChIcago: UnIversity of Chicago Press, 1 969).

The fullest biography is really a reference work in three vol­ umes, by Curt Paul ]anz, Friedrich Nietzsche: Biographie (Munich: Han�er, 1 978- ?9). Handy biographies in English are by R. J . Hol�u�gdale, Nzetzsche, the Man and His Philosophy (Baton Rouge: L�uIsiana St�t� Un�versity Press, 1 965), and Ronald Hayman, Nzet-:sche: A Cntzcal Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1 980). . An Inter�stIn ? complement to Nietzsche's life and letters is Conver­ . satzons wzth Nzet-:sche, a Life in the Words of His Contemporaries, edited by Sander L. GIlman and translated by David]. Parent (New York­. Oxford University Press, 1 987). Long t�e �ost impor�ant book on Nietzsche in English, Walter K�ufmann s Nzetzsche: Phzlosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (Princeton: �nncet�n University P:ess, 1 9 �0) has been revised in many edi­ tIons. It IS a somewh �t bIogr�phic study of Nietzsche's thought. But the best rece� t book I� EnglI �h on Nietzsche's thought is Alexander �ehamas, Nzetzsche: Life as Lzterature (Cambridge: Harvard Univer­ SIty Pre�s, 1 985) : Also valuable as a sampling of French writing abou t � Ietzsche IS The New Nietzsche: Contemporary Styles ofInterpreta­ . edited by David B. Allison (New York: Delta [Dell], 1 977) . tlOn, •

The top ic of genius is only now becoming subject to historical stu�y, ha:Ing long been regarded primarily as a matter of research o � IntellIgence. A volume edited by Penelope Murray, Genius: The �zstory. ofan Idea (O �fo:d: Basil Blackwell, 1 989), is misleadingly en­ tItled, Inasmuch as It gIves not a history but a few interesting essays on fragments �f the history of genius. M. H. Abrams traces the rise of the �omantic theory of creativity, including the idea of genius, in The Mzrror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition

(New York: Oxford University Press, 1 953). Robert Currie discusses the portrayal of genius in nineteenth-century literature in Genius'. . An Ideology in Literature (N ew York: Schocken ' 1 974) . A J.eminiS t cn. tique of the romantic t?eory of genius is argued by Christine Battersby, Gender and Genzus: Towards a Feminist Aesthetics (BloomingC

•

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Suggestionsfor Further Reading

251

One chapter of Roy Por ter' s ton : Indiana Un iversity Press, 1 989 ).Dut ton, 1 989 ) is dedicated to Social His tory of Madness (New York: "M adness and Genius. " es, inc lud ing The Creative The re are several val uab le antholerogi Gh isel in (Berkeley: U niver­ Process, a Symposium, edited by Brewst and scie ntific creativity are sity of Cal ifornia Pre ss, 1 952 ). Artistic nce and Art, edi ted by the focus of The Concept of Creativity ine Scie Hague: Martinus Nij hoff, Den is Du tton and Michael Krausz (Th Creativity, readings fro m Scientific 1 98 1 ), and Scientific Genius and ich (New York: W. H. Fre em an, American, edited by Owen Gin ger 1 987 ). logical background to the Interesting material on the mytho y be found in Joseph Cam p­ modern enthusiasm for geniuses ma(Ne w Yor k: Bol lingen, 1 949) . bel l, The Hero with a Thousand FacesHistory (New York: John Day , And Sidney Hook, in The Hero i no in moder n history. her 1 943 ), discuss es the role of the of the personal side of A sophisticated psychoanalytic studyrgin g Goddess: The Creative creativity is Albert Rothenberg, ThedsEme (Chicago: University of Chi­ Process in Art, Science, and Other Fiel s of Leo n Braudy's boo k, The cago Press, 1 979 ). The later portion(Ne w York: Oxford University Frenzy of Renown: Fame and Its His tory much about the soPre ss, 1 986 ), dealing with modern fam e, reveal cial setting and motivation of genius.

I"

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Index Abiturium, 58, 60, 6 1

Academic freedom, 63, 1 53 Actor, the, 186-1 87 Aeschylus, 1 38, 143 Aesthetics, 1 35 Altklug ("old for his years"), 52 Anaxagoras, 1 62, 1 63, 1 64 Anti-Semitism, 202 Apollonian principle, 1 28, 1 30-132 ApollonianlDionysian principles, 1 1 3,

1 35

Aristocracy, 2 of intellect, 2 "natural," 1 55, 239 of talent, 1 55 Aristotle, 1 38, 2 1 3, 228 Arouet, Franc;ois. See Voltaire. Artist, the, 4-8, 86, 88, 1 89 relationship with public of, 1 88 Aus meinem Leben (Out of My Life or

Dichtung und Wahrheit ) (Goethe), 4

Aus meinem Leben (From My Life, Out of My Life) (NietzscI1e), 1 1 , 44 Autobi9graphy, 3-5 Avant-garde, the, 1 55 Bachofen, j. j , 1 1 3- 1 14, 230 Baumgartner, Marie, 1 86, 244 Beethoven (Wagner), 1 28, 1 42, 233 Being (essence) vs. becoming (exis tence), 1 63, 1 64 Berlioz, Hector, 7, 2 1 0 Bernays, jakob, 90, 99, 228 Berndorf, Otto, 54 Biedermann, Karl, 95 .

Bildung (education, development), 4, 40, 1 62, 193 Bildungsanstalten (multiplication of schools), 1 54 Bildungsburgertum (educated middle class), 20, 33, 37, 40 values of, 49 Biography, 3, 9, 10, 2 1 2 Birth of Traged,y out of the Spirit of Music, The (Nietzsche), 1 2- 1 4, 76, 9 1 , 1 02, 104, 1 06, 107, 1 09, 1 1 3, 1 1 4, 1 1 8, 1 25, 1 26, 1 33, 1 37, 1 38, 142, 1 43, 1 5 1 , 1 52, 1 56, 1 58, 171, 2 1 3, 228, 233-235, 236 autobiographical dimension of,

1 35, 1 36

beginnings of, 1 27 first part of, 1 30, 1 32, 1 34, 1 39 hostility toward, 143- 1 47 last part of, 1 30, 1 34, 1 36 Ritschl on, 1 43-�45 textual history of, 129 "Birth of the Tragic Idea, The" (lec­ ture) (Nietzsche), 129 "Bohemia," Bohemianism, Bohemians, 7, 9 1 , 1 55 Boswell, james, 3 Brahms, johannes, 1 75- 1 76 Breast feeding, 24 Breeding (Zucht ), 1 53 Brockhaus, Hermann, 97 Brockhaus, Otilie, 95, 97 Buddensieg, Professor Robert, 51, 54 Burckhardt, jacob, 14- 1 5, 109, 1 1 3,

1 1 4- 1 1 5, 1 50, 1 70, 231

lectures of, 1 1 2 Burgertum (upper middle class), 1 8

Burschenschaft, 64, 65-66, 69, 225

254 Case of Wagner� The (Nietzsche), 2 1 4 Catharsis, 228 Chesterfield, Lord, 3 Chorus, the, meaning of, 1 37- 1 39, 235 Cicerone (Burckhardt), 1 1 4 Classical ideals, 47-49 Classics, study of, 76 Confessions (Rousseau), 4 Conservatism, 3 1 Creativity, 6, l O, 1 05, l O6, 1 20, 1 27, 1 33, 1 4 1 , 1 70 , 1 7 1 , 1 74, 1 80, 209, 2 1 2, 2 1 4 Crime an War, 43

Cr'itique of Pure Reason, The (Kant), 1 79

Cultural critic ism, 1 30 Cultural models, 84 Culture, theory of, 1 55

Culture of the Renaissance in Italy (Burckhardt), 1 1 4 D'Agoult, Marie, 1 2 1 Darwin, Charles, 83, 2 1 0

David Strauss, the Confessor and the Author (Nietzsche), 1 66- 1 67

Deca denc e, 1 69, 1 70 Dem ocracy, 1 49, 1 51 , 1 55, 238 Destiny of Opera, The (Wagner), 1 42 Deus sen, Marie, 65 Deus sen, Paul , 5 1 , 53, 57-5 8, 63, 64, 65, 66-67 , 7 1 , 78, 92, 93-94 1 09 , l 22� 226

Dictionary of the English Language (John -

son), 3 Diderot, Denis, 2 Dindorf, Wilhelm, 74-75 Diogenes Laertius, 75, 226 Dion ysian prin ciple , 1 28, 1 30 - 1 32, 1 37, 1 39 "Dio nysia n Weltanschauung, The" (lecture) (Niet zsche ), 1 28, 1 29 Disc iplin e, 33, 44, 48 ' . 55 , 58, 63 , 64, 1 53 Niet zsche 's rebe llion against, 56, 57

Doppelganger (dou ble), 59-6 0 Diih rung , Eugen, 93

Ecce Homo (Nietzsche), 70, 200, 20 1 , 2 1 5-2 1 7, 240, 244

Index Education, 5, 76, 1 53-1 55, 1 76, 238 goal of, 1 50 humanistic, 47, 48, 60, 6 1 , 1 7 1 romantic view of, 4 Educational system German, 1 48, 1 49, 222 U.S., 238-239 "Ego ideals," lO, 84 Egotism, absolute, 1 5 �leatic philosophers, 1 63, 1 64 Emile (Rousseau), 4 Enlightenment, the, 1, 5, 202 Enthusiasm (Begeistemng), 90 Epilepsy, 26, 221 Erikson, Erik, 24 Erzieher, role of, 40, 4 1 , 79 Erziehung (education), 56 Essays on Music (Jahn), 96 "Ethica l pessim ist," 79, 1 37 "Euph orion " (Nietz sche), 59 Ex nihilo creation, 6, 8, 2 1 3, 2 1 7 Family romance, 1 22, 1 23 Father figures (surrogates), 1 1 , 35-38 , 94, 1 1 5, 1 76, 208, 2 1 3 . See also Ment ors. Faust, 7 Festschrift, 90, 92 Flotter Student, 66, 69 Franck'sche Stiftung, 38 Fran conia , 64, 65-6 6, 69, 225 Franc o-Pru ssian War, 106, 1 1 1 , 1 29 Fraternity, 5 1 , 64, 65, 67, 69, 70, 72, 225 Frauenstadt, Julius, 93 Freud, Sigmund, 9, 235 Frien dship , 33, 34, 39, 41, 50, 53-5 4, 78-7 9, 1 09- 1 1 0, 1 1 3, 222 Fiirstenschulen (ducal schoo ls), 47 Games, 39, 223

Gay Science, The (Nietzsche), 2 1 4 Gehirnerschiitterung, 222 Gehirnerweichung ("softening of the brain"), 26, 222

Geist (mind, spirit), 40, 42 Gemiithlichkeit, 37 Gemiithskrank(heit), 26, 222

Index Genius, 3-5, 1 0, 88, 94, 1 04, 1 52, 1 54, 1 79 characteristics (traits) of; 1 25, 2 1 2 i n conflict with himself, 1 93 cult of, 1 , 1 87, 2 1 6 culture of, 208, 209 definition of, 5, 1 5, 1 78 as (demi)god, 1 53, 1 80 emotional hostility toward, 9 God and, 5-6, 8 idea (ideology) of; 1 , 7, 1 0 a s inborn ability, 1 8 a s individual, 1 50- 1 5 1 and insanity (madness), 6 , 26, 88, 1 44, 228 as mentor (moral exemplar), 1 81 and middle classes, 7-9 modern, 1 5 myth of unrecognized, 86, 1 9 1 , 2 1 2 mythical life of, 2 1 2 mythology of; 1 29 naive theory of, 1 43, 1 48, 1 56, 1 80 in new version, 1 7 1 nineteenth-century, 2 10 rights of the, 1 48 role of, 1 5, 82, 84, l O5, 1 1 5, 1 56, 209, 2 1 0, 2 1 1 , 2 1 3, 2 1 4 romantic idea of, 1 88 as savior, 1 80 Schopenhauer's theory of, 86-89 sentimental, 1 43, 1 80 vs. talent, 5 tests of, 1 79 theory of, 2, 5, 1 2, 1 6,) 8, 1 05, 1 1 7, 1 5� 1 5� 1 7� 2 1 2�2 1 � 248 as transcending its model, 98 Genius worship, 10 Genius (master)-disciple relationship, 1 73, 1 74, 1 76, 1 79 Gerlach, Professor F. D ., 1 07, 1 08 German nationalism, 1 06 German unification (unity, idea of), 48, 66 Germania, the (fraternity), 5 1 , 72 Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), 96, 1 28 Gesamtschule, 222 God, and genius, 5-6, 8, 1 87, 2 1 3

255

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 1 , 4, 6, 7, 1 1 , 44, 70, 1 04, 1 37, 1 38, 1 70, 1 78, 208, 2 1 7 Grand En�yclopedia, The, 2, 5 Greek Cultural History (Burckhardt), 1 14 "Greek Music-Drama" (lecture) (Nietzsche), 1 27, 1 29 Greeks, ancient, 1 70, 1 8 1 Guilt, 29 Gymnasial system, 47 Gymnasium, 44, 48, 60, 1 48, 1 50- 1 5 1 , 1 53, 1 7 1 , 1 77, 238-239 as too democratic, 1 49 Hahn, Johanna (Friedrich's maternal grandmother), 2 1 Hegel, Georg, 2 1 1 Hegelian idea, Hegelianism, 1 70, 226 Heraclitus, 80, 1 62, 1 63, 1 64, 1 82, 240 Heroes, 1 0 excessive worship of; 9 need for, 8 romantic, 1 , 4, 5 Herzog, Heinrich, 47 Herzog, Moritz, 47 H istoricism, 1 46, 1 68, 1 7 1 , 237 H istory, 1 68, 1 69 as genealogy of geniuses, 1 8 1

History oj Materialism and Critique of Its Present Significance, The (Geschichte des Mater'ialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der ' Gegenwart, Die)

(Lange), 79, 82-84, 228 Holderlin, Friedrich, 6, 57, 76, 208, 217 "Homer and Classical Philology" (lec­ ture) (Nietzsche), 1 04 Homer's authorship, question of, 1 04-105 Homosexuality, 78 Hugo, Victor, 2 l O, 2 1 1 Human, All Too Human (Nietzsche), 202, 206, 207 "Humanists," 68 Idealism, German, 8 1 Indian thought, 7 9 , 8 1

, 'I !, '

I ! ,I

J I

256

Index

Individuality, 1 49, 1 50- 1 5 1 , 1 53, 1 57, 1 76, 1 77

Individuation, 1 3 1 , 1 44 Insanity. See Genius, and insanity (madness) Intellect, surfeit (excess) of, 87, 88 In tellectuals alienation from middle class of, 6 independence of, 1 -3 new roles of, 1 Intelligentsia, German, 1 8, 220

Loyalty (Tr'eue), 1 92 Ludwig II of Bavaria, 1 1 9, 1 20 Mahly, j. A., 1 07- 1 08 Marx, Karl, 7, 1 5, 2 1 0, 2 1 1 Masses, the, 1 52 - 1 55 Materialism, 82, 83, 1 49, 1 69 Meaninglessness, of individual life, 75 Mendes-Gautier, Judith, 1 1 9, 1 22 Mein Leben (My Life) (Wagner), 1 24, 1 40, 1 57

Meistersinger� The (opera) (Wagner), Jahn, Otto, 64, 68-69, 96, 229 Johnson, Samuel, 3, 4 Journalism, 1 51 - 1 52 Julie, or the new Heloise (Rousseau), 4 Kant, Imma nuel, 79, 80-83 , 93, 1 79 Kierkegaard, Soren, 228 King Eichhorn game, 39-40 Know ledge , 8 1 , 1 3 1 , 1 33, 1 39, 1 44, 1 70, 1 77

excess of, 1 69 historical, 1 68- 1 7 1 Korps, 225 Kriegslisten, 43 Krug, Gustav, 1 1 , 32-35, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43, 49-50, 5 1 , 52, 60, 64

relationship with Nietzsche, 41 Krug (senior), 1 1 , 36 Lange, Friedrich Albert, 79, 82-84 , 228

Latency, 27 Leadership, 42 intellectual, 52, 53, 72, 73 Lenbach, Franz, 1 40 Lieblingskinder, 6 1 Life ofJesus, The (Strauss), 1 65, 1 66 Life of Richard Wagner, The (Nietzsche), 23 1

Life of SamuelJohnson, The (Bosw ell), 3 Liszt, Franz, 1 2 1 Literary history, 9 1 , 92 Lohengrin (opera) (Wagner), 1 94 Lombroso, Cesare, 26 Loving one's fate (amor/ati), 1 4, 70, 209

96-98 , 1 24, 1 47, 1 94

Mend elssoh n, Felix, 1 1 , 35, 36 Mental illnes s, 26, 222 Mentors, 1 77, 208-2 1 1 , 2 1 3, 2 1 4, 2 1 6, 217

Metaphysics, 93, 1 64, 2 1 0 Meyer, Guido, 57-58 Michelangelo, 2 1 0 Middle classes, 2-4, 10, 149, 1 50, 1 5 1 , 1 55, 238

and genius, 7, 8 and view of intellectuals, 6 Militarism, I l l , 1 1 2 Mimicry, 88 Model-of-life games, 39 Modernism, 1 33 Mozart, 7 Murr, Wilhelm, 200 Mushacke, Hermann, 7 1 Muster' (model), 42 Mutterrecht, Das (Bachofen), 1 1 3 Napoleon, 8, 1 55 Neologisms, 1 52 Nietzsche, Augusta (Friedrich's aunt), 22, 24

Nietzsche, Elisabeth (Friedrich's sis­ ter), 2 1 , 23, 3 1 , 38, 39, 65, 69, 1 0 1 , 1 82, 1 98, 2 2 1 , 247

birth of, 25 relationship with Friedrich, 40-41 Nietzsche, Franziska (nee Oehler) (Friedrich's mother), 10, 1 7, 20, 38, 67, 1 0 1

ancestors of, 2 1 devotion to children of, 24, 32 position of, at Naumburg, 32

257

Index relationship with N ietzsche family, 22-23

and role of mother, 23-24 Nietzsche, Friedrich August Ludwig (Friedrich's grandfather), 1 9 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm and ambition, 37, 207 in army, 89, 9 1 attack o n Gymnasium by, 1 48- 1 5 1 , 1 53

attack on D. F. Strauss by, 1 65-1 67 attack on Western thinking by, 1 4 austere life of, 1 4 autobiography of, 24-26, 36, 43-45, 22 1 , 225

to Bayreuth, 1 59, 1 6 1 , 1 67, 1 74- 1 76, 1 97-200

birth of, 1 7 career, unsureness about, 59-62 character of, 33-34, 38, 39, 4 1 , 42, 44, 49, 55, 74

childhood of, 24-25, 30, 2 2 1 and Christianity, 59, 6 7 , 7 1 , 1 66, 202-203

citizenship of, 1 00, 1 1 1 , 206 and Cosima von Billow, 1 22 - 1 23 delinquency of, 58, 64 and dream about father's death, 2728, 55

early life of, 1 0 - 1 1 and epilepsy, 222 family of, 10, 1 7- 1 8, 23, 29 / fantasy life of, 59-60, 9 1 father figures (surrog:ates), attract­ ion to, 1 1 , 1 3, 35, 36-39, 56, 85, 94, 1 1�, 1 64, 208, 2 1 3, 2 1 4

father's death and, 1 0, 25-26, 30, 55, 207

in fraternity, 64-66, 67, 69, 225 and friendship, 33-34, 5 1 , 53-54, 78, 1 09- 1 1 0, 1 1 3

and games, 39-40, 42 and genius, 1 0, 1 2, 1 3, 1 5- 1 6, 1 051 06, 1 1 6, 1 23, 1 78

as genius, 1 33- 1 34, 1 36, 1 42 , 1 43, 1 45, 1 58, 1 7 1 , 209 in Germania, 5 1 -52

and grandfather Oehler, 37-38

health of, 54-55, 1 1 1 , 1 1 2, 1 29, 1 4 1 , 1 82 - 1 84, 1 97, 1 98, 206, 2 1 0

and historicism critique, 1 68- 1 72 and independence, struggle for, 1 60, 1 6 1 , 1 64, 1 67-1 68, 1 71 - 1 74, 1 82 inhibitions of, 39, 4 1

interest i n music and literature of, 1 1 , 35-37, 39, 66

on Lange, 82-84 and leave of absence from teaching, 205-206

lectures of, 1 24- 1 25, 1 27- 1 28, 1 48- 1 52

and marriage, 1 84-1 85 on the masses, 1 52 - 1 55 as medic in Franco-Prussian War, 1 1 1- 1 12

and megalomania, 244 and model, search for, 74-75, 77 native (hereditary) intelligence of, 1 8, 24, 29, 37, 207

at Naumburg, 3 1 -33 and oedipal relationships, 27, 95, 1 20, 1 2 1 , 200

and older women, 1 86 originality of, 1 32, 1 35-1 37, 1 42, 1 43

and philology, 62, 68-70, 72-73, 75-77, 79, 82, 90-92, 1 04- 1 05, 1 1 3, 1 32 - 1 33, 1 36, 1 38, 1 39, 1 44, 1 46 and philosophy, 1 1 2, 1 30, 1 62-1 63, 181 philosophy of, 7 1 , 75-77, 79-83, 1 79, 2 1 6, 241

and preoccupation with kingliness, 220

professorship, in Basel, 9 1 -92, 96, 98- 1 08, 229

relationship with sister Elisabeth, 40-41

Ritschl's judgment of, 99, 229 at school, 1 1 , 33-36 and Schopenhauer, 1 1 - 1 2, 70-7 1 ,

73-85, 86-89, 93, 94, 1 06, I l l , 1 1 2, 1 1 � 1 20, 1 7� 1 7� 227 at Schulpforta, 46, 49, 50, 51, 55-58, 60

I�

258

Index

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm (cont.) and sex, 66-67, 78 syphilis of, 26, 67, 225 and theology, 61, 62, 68-70, 225 and Triebschen years, 147-148 at university, 6 1 , 63, 65, 68, 70 and Wagner, 96-99, 1 1 5- 1 1 9, 1 201 2 1 , 1 23, 1 25, 1 27- 1 28, 1 42, 1 43, 1 5 1 , 1 52, 1 56-1 57, 1 60- 1 6 1 , 1 731 76, 1 8 1 , 183, 1 86- 1 92, 19� 200-203, 245, 247

Institutions" (lectures) (Nietz­ sche), 148, 1 5 1 , 1 52, 1 56- 1 58 "On t e Uses and Disadvantages of H Istory for Life" (Nietzsche) . , 76 ,

�

1 67-1 70, 1 8 1

as autobiographical, 1 7 1 , 1 72 On the Will in Nature (Schopenhau er) 85

Opera and Drama (Wagner), 98, 1 28 Overbeck, Franz, 109- 1 1 0 Oxenford, John, 86

women and girls, lack of interest in' 58, 65, 78, 89, 185

Nietzsche, Grandmother, 25, 29, 3 1 , 32-33, 38

Nietzsche, Joseph (Friedrich's brother), 25 death of, 27-28 Nietzsche, Pastor Karl Ludwig (Friedrich's father), 10, 1 7, 108, 1 2 1 and children, 24 illness and death of, 25-27, 28, 30 loss of his father, 1 9-20 as pastor, 1 7, 20 Nietzsche, Rosali e (Friedrich's aunt) ' 22

Nietzsche contra Wagner (Nietzsche) , . 214

Nietzsches, conservatism of, 3 1 Nihilism, 1 4 Novel, the, 3, 4

PaTerga and Paralipomena (after­ thoughts and asides) (Schopen­ hauer), 85, 86, 90, 228 Parmenides, 1 62, 1 63, 1 64 Parsifal (opera) (Wagner), 1 22 1 59 , '

203

"Party of humanity;" 2 Patriotism, 1 1 1 , 202 "Perspectivism," 80 Pf�rrers and (German ministry), 1 8 PhIlologIcal Society (Philologischer Verein), 72-73, 90 Philology, 68, 90-93, 1 0 1 , 104- 106 '

�

1 50, 237

Philosophenbuch (Philosopher'S Book) (Nietzsche), 1 65, 1 68, 1 72, 241 Philosophes, 2, 4, 5, 1 80 "P�ilosophical seriousness," 7 1 , 1 27 PhIlosophy, 75-77, 79, 8 1 , 93, 1 39, 145, 181, 226

Ober'landesgericht (provincial court of appeals), 3 1 , 32 Oedip al relationships, 27, 95, 1 20 ' 1 2 1 , 200

Oehler, Pastor David (Friedrich's ma­ ternal grandfather), 1 7, 2 1 ' 37 , 3� 48

Oehler, Max, 1 8, 220 Oehlers, as contrasted to Nietzsches ' 2 1 -22

Old Faith and the New, The (Strauss) ' 1 66

On the Fourfold Root of Sufficient Reason (Schopenhauer), 85 "On the Future of Our Educational

history of, 79, 82, 83, 1 62, 1 63 life-affirming, 80 personal element in, 1 62, 1 63 Schopenhauer's, 7 1 , 79-80, 85' 90 , 226

Western, 1 64 world-denying, 80 "Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks" (Nietzsche), 1 6 1 - 1 65, 1 66, 1 72, 182, 241

Pinder, Wilhelm, 11 32-35 37' 39, 40,

2

43, 49-50, 51, 5 , 60,

64

relationship with Nietzsche, 4 1 , 42 . Pmder (senior ), 1 1 , 32, 35, 36 Plato, 1 38 (Platonic) Ideas, 87, 88

'

259

Index Principium individuationis (principle of individuation), 87; see also Indi­ viduation Private school, 33, 35, 36 Prometheus, 52 Proto-Nazism, 221 Prussian cadet schools, 47 Prussian society, 43 Public opinion, 1 51 , 1 53 Public school, 33, 34, 222 Psychohistory, 22 1 Ranke, Leopold von, 1 68, 226 Rationalism, 1 30, 1 32, 1 45, 234 Rationality, 1 3 1 , 1 33 Reality, 80, 8 1 , 1 37 Reason, 80 Ree, Paul, 1 84, 200 Renaissance Man (men), 1 5, 2 1 0 Representations ( Vorstellungen), 80, 131

Revenge, fear o f father's, 2 8 Revolution o f 1 789, 2 Rheinische Museum fur Philologie, Das, 68, 73, 79, 9 1

Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (Nietzsche), 1 8 1 , 1 86, 1 89, 1 9 1 , 1 92, 1 94-19� 214 autobiographical element of, 1 93

Ring of the Nibelungen, The (Wagner), 1 1 9, 1 2 1 , 1 47, 1 59, 1 86, 1 94

Ritschl, Professor Friedrich, 1 1 , 1 2, 64, 68-70, 72-77, 79, 9 1; 98- 1 00, 1 36, 1 42-144, 1 46, 1 47, 1 5 1 , 208, 2 1 4, 2 1 7, 226, 233 ' on Nietzsche, 99, 229 Ritschl, Sofie, 94-95, 97 Rohde, Erwin, 78-79, 89-90, 92, 1 0 1 , 109, 1 1 2, 145, 1 46, 1 6 1 , 1 64, 1 67, 236-237 Rousseau, Jean:Jacques, 4

Sainthood, 1 79- 1 80 Schiller, Johann von, 1 04, 1 37, 1 38 Scholarship, 46, 48, 49, 52, 1 02, 1 32, 1 36, 1 69

mask of, 76 "School-state," 46, 48

Schopenpauer, Arthur, 1 1 , 1 2, 1 4- 1 6, 70-71 , 73-79, 1 1 1 - 1 13, 1 1 5, 1 35-137, 1 46, 1 58, 1 62- 1 64, 1 79, 1 82, 1 87, 2 1 3, 2 1 4, 2 1 7, books of, 85

83-85, 93-94, 97, 1 1 7, 1 20, 1 24-1 28, 1 48, 1 50, 1 5 1 , 1 57, 1 70, 1 73, 1 74, 1 761 89, 1 94, 208-2 1 1 , 234, 244

genius theory of, 86-89, 231 lack of recognition of, 86 philosophy of, 1 37, 1 44, 1 76, 1 78, 1 79

as "redemptive man," 1 80, 1 8 1 and the will, 80-81 , 83 Schopenhauer as Educator (Schopenhauer als Erzieher) (Nietzsche), 84, 1 73, 1 74, 1 76, 1 78, 1 80, 1 8 1 , 1 94, 244

Schreber, D. G. M., 22 1 Schulmeisterisch (schoolmasterly), 52 Schulpforta, 1 1 , 33, 38, 44, 76 academic standards of, 49 founding of, 46 intention of, 48-49 under Prussian jurisdiction, 47 as substitute father, 56 Schure, Edward, 200-20 1 Scienc� 1 32, 13� 1 39, 1 4� 1 69 "Science and Wisdom at Odds" ("The Struggle Between Science and Wisdom") (Nietzsche), 1 8 1 Servi tude (Dienstbarkeit ), 1 53 Siegfried (opera) (Wagner), 1 24, 1 42 Socrates, 1 4, 1 27, 1 29, 132, 1 38 "new," 1 39 "Socrates and Tragedy" (lecture) (Nietzsche), 1 27, 1 29 Sorrows of the Young Werther (Goethe), 4, 6

Specialization, 1 32, 1 50, 1 69, 1 77 Spielhagen, Friedrich, 93 Spieser ("nerd"), 58 Statism, 1 1 2 Strachey, Lytton, 9 Strauss, David Friedrich, 1 65-1 67, 241

Tagebucher (Diaries) (Cosima von Bii­ low), 1 23

Index

260 Talent, 1 80 definition of, 5 innate, 4 Tannhiiuser (opera) (Wagner), 1 94 Theognis, essay on, 72, 73 Thus Spake Zarathustra (N ietzsche), 2 1 3-2 1 7

Tischendorf, Konstantin, 74-75 Toilet training, 24 Tragedy, 1 26-1 28, 1 32, 1 36- 1 38, 1 44, 1 8 1 , 234, 235

Attic, 1 1 1 , 1 1 4, 1 27, 1 29 Greek, 1 30, 1 33 rebirth of, 1 34, 1 38 riddle of, 1 35- 1 36 Trampedach, Mathilde, 1 84, 1 85 Transference relationship, 227 Tristan and Isolde (opera) (Wagner), 96, 1 93, 1 94

Triumphlied (Brahms), 1 75- 1 76 Truth, 1 4, 69, 1 63, 1 79, 2 1 0, 227 Twilight of the Idols, The (Nietzsche), 80 Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics, The (Schopenhauer), 85 "Unmoved mover," 8, 2 1 3 Untimely Meditations (Nietzsche), 84, 1 68, 1 72, 1 73, 1 75, 1 8 1 , 206, 2 1 3

Usener, Professor Herman, 99

Valkyrie, The (opera) (Wagner), 96 Values, 1 4 Vischer-Bilfinger, Professor Wilhelm,

Von Meysenbug, Malwida, 1 86, 1 98200, 244

Salome, Lou, 1 84 Senger, Hugo, 1 84, 1 85 Treitschke, Heinrich, 1 68 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Ulrich, 1 45, 1 46 Von Wittgenstein, Princess, 1 2 1

Von Von Von Von

Wagner, Richard, 7, 1 1 - 1 6, 30, 35, 52, 82, 84, 87, 94-97, 1 09, 1 1 5-1 1 7, 1 2 1 , 1 22, 1 2� 1 2� 13� 1 3� 1 4� 148, 1 50, 1 52, 1 55, 1 56, 1 58, 1 60, 1 6 1 , 1 63-1 65, 1 67, 1 70, 1 72- 1 76, 1 78, 1 8 1 , 1 82, 1 84, 1 92, 1 96, 2082 1 1 , 2 1 3, 2 1 4, 2 1 6, 2 1 7, 229, 234, 236, 237 as actor, 244 as Aeschylus, 1 38, 1 40 and Bayreuth Festival, 1 96-197 and Birth of Tragedy, 140- 1 4 1 career of, 1 59 children of, 1 20 as creator, 1 1 8-1 1 9

encouragement to Nietzsche of, 1 27- 1 28

as enigma, 1 28 music of, 96 Nietzsche's critique of; 1 86- 1 89 Nietzsche's influence on, 1 42, 233 on Nietzsche's works, 1 64- 1 65, 1 67-1 68, 1 72 - 1 73

Von Bismarck, Prince Otto, 1 8 1 , 243 Von Biilow, Co s ima, 1 1 6, 1 1 7, 1 1 9,

projects of, 1 23 - 1 24 and publi� 1 90- 1 9 1 , 1 94- 1 95 and Triebschen years, 147 and women, 1 1 9 and young men, 1 1 9 - 1 20 Wagner's music, 1 29, 1 30, 1 32, 1 34,

1 20, 1 23-1 25, 1 40, 1 42, 1 47, 1 60, 1 61 , 1 72 background of, 1 2 1 - 1 22 Von Biilow, Hans, 1 1 9-1 2 1 Von Carolsfeld, Ludwig Schnorr, 1 1 9, 1 20 Von Gersdorff, Carl, 5 1 , 53-54, 7 1 , 109, 1 45, 1 6 1 , 1 73, 1 75, 1 83, 1 84, 225

Wanderer and His Shadow, The (Nietzsche), 207 War games, 42-43 Weltanschauung, 94 Weltgeschichtliche Betrachtungen (Burck­ hardt), 1 1 2, 230 Wholeness, 1 77, 1 93 Wilhelm Meister (Goethe), 4

98- 1 00, 1 1 3

Voltaire, 2 Von Altenburg, Princess Alexandra, 1 08

1 38

261

Index Will, the, 7 1 , 80-81 , 83, 93, 94, 1 3 1 , 1 37, 1 78, 1 79, 1 93, 234

intellect over, 89 "Will to power," 8 1 , 83 Willing, 8 1 , 1 37 Winckelmann, J. J., 1 04, 1 37, 1 50

Wissenschaft, 52, 1 02, 1 06, 1 45 Wolf, Friedrich August, 1 04

World as Will and Representation, The (Schopenhauer), 70, 79-8 1 , 85, 86, 88, 208

Zarathustra, 208, 2 1 4-2 1 6 ZeitschTift fUT Musik, 52 Zukunftsmusik ("music of the future"), 191

Zukunftsphilologie (The Philology of the Future) (Wilamowitz-Moellen­ dorff), 1 45

Praise for

"YOUNG NIETZSCHE "Provocative and ."

which a gifted but awkward philology student became one of the modern .world's most original thinkers ..." Deserves to be read ...by anyone interested in the dynamics of creative influence and achievement. - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times tt

"An imaginative and acute psychological, biographical, and historical analysis of a cultural construction - the idea of genius - that bears with originality and saliency on contemporary intellectual preoccupations. - Steven Marcus, Author of Freud and the Culture ifpsychoanalysis tt

"An intellectual achievement of great originality and psychological sophistication.PIetsch offers the reader the fruits of his long and creative journey into Nietzsche's world of ideas and humanity which have far­ reaching implications for intellectual history, human development and, above all, the understanding of creativity. tt

- George Moraitis, M.D. , Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis

"PIetsch's brilliant and compelling account shows how the young Friedrich Wilhelm, coming of age in a Europe saturated with. the ideology of genius, turned himself into 'Nietzsche. ' In a narrative both subtle and powerful, he offers us a Nietzsche w h o was, to use a much-abused term, a deconstructionist avant la lettre. - Peter Novick, Author of That Noble Dream tt

"To my knowledge, there is no study of Nietzsche like it. PIetsch's great virtue is being able to write a scholarly biography that is, in both argument and manner, completely accessible to the intelligent layman.Pletsche's account manages to be sympathetic yet objective, and he is unfailingly successful in rendering his subject intelligible.This is a rare achievement. tt

- Paul Robinson, Author of The Freudian Lift ISBN

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