classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24, but resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and probably vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900, after experiencing pneumonia and multiple strokes
After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism. 20th-century scholars such as Walter Kaufmann, R. J. Hollingdale, and Georges Bataille defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, poetry, politics, and popular culture.
Life
Youth (1844–1868)
Born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche[13] grew up in the town of Röcken (now part of Lützen), near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He was named after King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, who turned 49 on the day of Nietzsche's birth (Nietzsche later dropped his middle name Wilhelm).[14] Nietzsche's parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche (1813–1849), a Lutheran pastor[15] and former teacher; and Franziska Nietzsche (née Oehler) (1826–1897), married in 1843, the year before their son's birth. They had two other children: a daughter, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, born in 1846; and a second son, Ludwig Joseph, born in 1848. Nietzsche's father died from a brain disease in 1849, after a year of excruciating agony, when the boy was only four years old; Ludwig Joseph died six months later at age two.[16] The family then moved to Naumburg, where they lived with Nietzsche's maternal grandmother and his father's two unmarried sisters. After the death of Nietzsche's grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now Nietzsche-Haus, a museum and Nietzsche study centre.
Nietzsche attended a boys' school and then a private school, where he became friends with Gustav Krug and Wilhelm Pinder, all three of whom came from highly respected families. Academic records from one of the schools attended by Nietzsche noted that he excelled in Christian theology.[17]
In 1854, he began to attend the Domgymnasium in Naumburg. Because his father had worked for the state (as a pastor) the now-fatherless Nietzsche was offered a scholarship to study at the internationally recognised Schulpforta. The claim that Nietzsche was admitted on the strength of his academic competence has been debunked: his grades were not near the top of the class.[18] He studied there from 1858 to 1864, becoming friends with Paul Deussen and Carl von Gersdorff (1844–1904), who later became a jurist. He also found time to work on poems and musical compositions. Nietzsche led "Germania", a music and literature club, during his summers in Naumburg.[16] At Schulpforta, Nietzsche received an important grounding in languages—Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and French—so as to be able to read important primary sources;[19] he also experienced for the first time being away from his family life in a small-town conservative environment. His end-of-semester exams in March 1864 showed a 1 in Religion and German; a 2a in Greek and Latin; a 2b in French, History, and Physics; and a "lackluster" 3in Hebrew and Mathematics.[20]
Nietzsche was an amateur composer.[21] He composed several works for voice, piano, and violin beginning in 1858 at the Schulpforta in Naumburg when he started to work on musical compositions. Richard Wagner was dismissive of Nietzsche's music, allegedly mocking a birthday gift of a piano composition sent by Nietzsche in 1871 to Wagner's wife Cosima. German conductor and pianist Hans von Bülow also described another of Nietzsche's pieces as "the most undelightful and the most anti-musical draft on musical paper that I have faced in a long time".[22]
While at Schulpforta, Nietzsche pursued subjects that were considered unbecoming. He became acquainted with the work of the then almost-unknown poet
After graduation in September 1864,[26] Nietzsche began studying theology and classical philology at the University of Bonn in the hope of becoming a minister. For a short time, he and Deussen became members of the BurschenschaftFrankonia. After one semester (and to the anger of his mother), he stopped his theological studies and lost his faith.[27] As early as his 1862 essay "Fate and History", Nietzsche had argued that historical research had discredited the central teachings of Christianity,[28] but David Strauss's Life of Jesus also seems to have had a profound effect on the young man.[27] In addition, Ludwig Feuerbach's The Essence of Christianity influenced young Nietzsche with its argument that people created God, and not the other way around.[29] In June 1865, at the age of 20, Nietzsche wrote to his sister Elisabeth, who was deeply religious, a letter regarding his loss of faith. This letter contains the following statement:
Hence the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire....[30]
Nietzsche subsequently concentrated on studying philology under Professor
University of Leipzig in 1865.[31] There he became close friends with his fellow student Erwin Rohde
. Nietzsche's first philological publications appeared soon after.
Kant's anti-materialistic philosophy, the rise of European Materialism, Europe's increased concern with science, Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and the general rebellion against tradition and authority intrigued Nietzsche greatly. Nietzsche would ultimately argue the impossibility of an evolutionary explanation of the human aesthetic sense.[32]
In 1867, Nietzsche signed up for one year of
tore two muscles in his left side, leaving him exhausted and unable to walk for months.[33][34] Consequently, he turned his attention to his studies again, completing them in 1868. Nietzsche also met Richard Wagner for the first time later that year.[35]
Professor at Basel (1869–1879)
In 1869, with Ritschl's support, Nietzsche received an offer to become a professor of
honorary doctorate by Leipzig University in March 1869, again with Ritschl's support.[36]
Despite his offer coming at a time when he was considering giving up philology for science, he accepted.[37] To this day, Nietzsche is still among the youngest of the tenured Classics professors on record.[38]
Nietzsche's 1870 projected
Diogenes Laërtius.[39] Though never submitted, it was later published as a Gratulationsschrift ('congratulatory publication') in Basel.[40][i]
Before moving to Basel, Nietzsche renounced his Prussian citizenship: for the rest of his life he remained officially
Nevertheless, Nietzsche served in the Prussian forces during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) as a medical orderly. In his short time in the military, he experienced much and witnessed the traumatic effects of battle. He also contracted diphtheria and dysentery.[43]Walter Kaufmann speculates that he also contracted syphilis at a brothel along with his other infections at this time.[44][45] On returning to Basel in 1870, Nietzsche observed the establishment of the German Empire and Otto von Bismarck's subsequent policies as an outsider and with a degree of scepticism regarding their genuineness. His inaugural lecture at the university was "Homer and Classical Philology". Nietzsche also met Franz Overbeck, a professor of theology who remained his friend throughout his life. Afrikan Spir, a little-known Russian philosopher responsible for the 1873 Thought and Reality and Nietzsche's colleague, the historian Jacob Burckhardt, whose lectures Nietzsche frequently attended, began to exercise significant influence on him.[46]
Nietzsche had already met Richard Wagner in Leipzig in 1868 and later Wagner's wife, Cosima. Nietzsche admired both greatly and during his time at Basel frequently visited Wagner's house in Tribschen in Lucerne. The Wagners brought Nietzsche into their most intimate circle—including Franz Liszt, of whom Nietzsche colloquially described: "Liszt or the art of running after women!"[47] Nietzsche enjoyed the attention he gave to the beginning of the Bayreuth Festival. In 1870, he gave Cosima Wagner the manuscript of "The Genesis of the Tragic Idea" as a birthday gift. In 1872, Nietzsche published his first book, The Birth of Tragedy. However, his colleagues within his field, including Ritschl, expressed little enthusiasm for the work in which Nietzsche eschewed the classical philologic method in favour of a more speculative approach. In his polemicPhilology of the Future, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff damped the book's reception and increased its notoriety. In response, Rohde (then a professor in Kiel) and Wagner came to Nietzsche's defence. Nietzsche remarked freely about the isolation he felt within the philological community and attempted unsuccessfully to transfer to a position in philosophy at Basel.
In 1873, Nietzsche began to accumulate notes that would be posthumously published as Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks. Between 1873 and 1876, he published four separate long essays: "David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer", "On the Use and Abuse of History for Life", "Schopenhauer as Educator", and "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth". These four later appeared in a collected edition under the title Untimely Meditations. The essays shared the orientation of a cultural critique, challenging the developing German culture suggested by Schopenhauer and Wagner. During this time in the circle of the Wagners, he met Malwida von Meysenbug and Hans von Bülow. He also began a friendship with Paul Rée who, in 1876, influenced him into dismissing the pessimism in his early writings. However, he was deeply disappointed by the Bayreuth Festival of 1876, where the banality of the shows and baseness of the public repelled him. He was also alienated by Wagner's championing of "German culture", which Nietzsche felt a contradiction in terms, as well as by Wagner's celebration of his fame among the German public. All this contributed to his subsequent decision to distance himself from Wagner.
With the publication in 1878 of Human, All Too Human (a book of aphorisms ranging from metaphysics to morality to religion), a new style of Nietzsche's work became clear, highly influenced by Afrikan Spir's Thought and Reality[48] and reacting against the pessimistic philosophy of Wagner and Schopenhauer. Nietzsche's friendship with Deussen and Rohde cooled as well. In 1879, after a significant decline in health, Nietzsche had to resign his position at Basel and was pensioned.[15] Since his childhood, various disruptive illnesses had plagued him, including moments of shortsightedness that left him nearly blind, migraine headaches, and violent indigestion. The 1868 riding accident and diseases in 1870 may have aggravated these persistent conditions, which continued to affect him through his years at Basel, forcing him to take longer and longer holidays until regular work became impractical.
Independent philosopher (1879–1888)
Living on his pension from Basel along with aid from friends, Nietzsche travelled frequently to find climates more conducive to his health. He lived until 1889 as an independent author in different cities. He spent many summers in
Sils Maria near St. Moritz in Switzerland, and many of his winters in the Italian cities of Genoa, Rapallo, and Turin and the French city of Nice. In 1881, when France occupied Tunisia, he planned to travel to Tunis to view Europe from the outside but later abandoned that idea, probably for health reasons.[49] Nietzsche occasionally returned to Naumburg to visit his family, and, especially during this time, he and his sister Elisabeth
had repeated periods of conflict and reconciliation.
While in Genoa, Nietzsche's failing eyesight prompted him to explore the use of typewriters as a means of continuing to write. He is known to have tried using the Hansen Writing Ball, a contemporary typewriter device. In the end, a past student of his, Peter Gast, became a private secretary to Nietzsche. In 1876, Gast transcribed the crabbed, nearly illegible handwriting of Nietzsche's first time with Richard Wagner in Bayreuth.[50] He subsequently transcribed and proofread the galleys for almost all of Nietzsche's work. On at least one occasion, on 23 February 1880, the usually poor Gast received 200 marks from their mutual friend, Paul Rée.[51] Gast was one of the very few friends Nietzsche allowed to criticise him. In responding most enthusiastically to Also Sprach Zarathustra ("Thus Spoke Zarathustra"), Gast did feel it necessary to point out that what were described as "superfluous" people were in fact quite necessary. He went on to list the number of people Epicurus, for example, had to rely on to supply his simple diet of goat cheese.[52]
To the end of his life, Gast and Overbeck remained consistently faithful friends. Malwida von Meysenbug remained like a motherly patron even outside the Wagner circle. Soon Nietzsche made contact with the music-critic Carl Fuchs. Nietzsche stood at the beginning of his most productive period. Beginning with Human, All Too Human in 1878, Nietzsche published one book or major section of a book each year until 1888, his last year of writing; that year, he completed five.
Salomé's mother took her to Rome when Salomé was 21. At a literary salon in the city, Salomé became acquainted with Paul Rée. Rée proposed marriage to her, but she, instead, proposed that they should live and study together as "brother and sister", along with another man for company, where they would establish an academic commune.[54] Rée accepted the idea and suggested that they be joined by his friend Nietzsche. The two met Nietzsche in Rome in April 1882, and Nietzsche is believed to have instantly fallen in love with Salomé, as Rée had done. Nietzsche asked Rée to propose marriage to Salomé, which she rejected. She had been interested in Nietzsche as a friend, but not as a husband.[54] Nietzsche nonetheless was content to join with Rée and Salomé touring through Switzerland and Italy together, planning their commune. The three travelled with Salomé's mother through Italy and considered where they would set up their "Winterplan" commune. They intended to set up their commune in an abandoned monastery, but no suitable location was found. On 13 May, in Lucerne, when Nietzsche was alone with Salomé, he earnestly proposed marriage to her again, which she rejected. He nonetheless was happy to continue with the plans for an academic commune.[54] After discovering the relationship, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became determined to get Nietzsche away from the "immoral woman".[55] Nietzsche and Salomé spent the summer together in Tautenburg in Thuringia, often with Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth as a chaperone. Salomé reports that he asked her to marry him on three separate occasions and that she refused, though the reliability of her reports of events is questionable.[56] Arriving in Leipzig (Germany) in October, Salomé and Rée separated from Nietzsche after a falling-out between Nietzsche and Salomé, in which Salomé believed that Nietzsche was desperately in love with her.
While the three spent a number of weeks together in Leipzig in October 1882, the following month Rée and Salomé left Nietzsche, leaving for Stibbe (today Zdbowo in Poland)[57] without any plans to meet again. Nietzsche soon fell into a period of mental anguish, although he continued to write to Rée, stating "We shall see one another from time to time, won't we?"[58] In later recriminations, Nietzsche would blame on separate occasions the failure in his attempts to woo Salomé on Salomé, Rée, and on the intrigues of his sister (who had written letters to the families of Salomé and Rée to disrupt the plans for the commune). Nietzsche wrote of the affair in 1883, that he now felt "genuine hatred for my sister".[58]
Amidst renewed bouts of illness, living in near-isolation after a falling out with his mother and sister regarding Salomé, Nietzsche fled to Rapallo, where he wrote the first part of Also Sprach Zarathustra in only ten days.
By 1882, Nietzsche was taking huge doses of opium and continued to have trouble sleeping.[59] In 1883, while staying in Nice, he was writing out his own prescriptions for the sedative chloral hydrate, signing them "Dr. Nietzsche".[60]
He turned away from the influence of
Schopenhauer, and after he severed his social ties with Wagner, Nietzsche had few remaining friends. Now, with the new style of Zarathustra, his work became even more alienating, and the market received it only to the degree required by politeness. Nietzsche recognised this and maintained his solitude, though he often complained. His books remained largely unsold. In 1885, he printed only 40 copies of the fourth part of Zarathustra and distributed a fraction of them among close friends, including Helene von Druskowitz
.
In 1883, he tried and failed to obtain a lecturing post at the
University of Leipzig. According to a letter he wrote to Peter Gast, this was due to his "attitude towards Christianity and the concept of God".[61]
In 1886, Nietzsche broke with his publisher Ernst Schmeitzner, disgusted by his antisemitic opinions. Nietzsche saw his own writings as "completely buried and in this anti-Semitic dump" of Schmeitzner—associating the publisher with a movement that should be "utterly rejected with cold contempt by every sensible mind".[62] He then printed Beyond Good and Evil at his own expense. He also acquired the publication rights for his earlier works and over the next year issued second editions of The Birth of Tragedy, Human, All Too Human, Daybreak, and of The Gay Science with new prefaces placing the body of his work in a more coherent perspective. Thereafter, he saw his work as completed for a time and hoped that soon a readership would develop. In fact, interest in Nietzsche's thought did increase at this time, if rather slowly and imperceptibly to him. During these years Nietzsche met Meta von Salis, Carl Spitteler, and Gottfried Keller.
In 1886, his sister Elisabeth married the antisemite Bernhard Förster and travelled to Paraguay to found Nueva Germania, a "Germanic" colony.[63][64] Through correspondence, Nietzsche's relationship with Elisabeth continued through cycles of conflict and reconciliation, but they met again only after his collapse. He continued to have frequent and painful attacks of illness, which made prolonged work impossible.
In 1887, Nietzsche wrote the polemic
read Kierkegaard, to which Nietzsche replied that he would come to Copenhagen
and read Kierkegaard with him. However, before fulfilling this promise, Nietzsche slipped too far into illness. At the beginning of 1888, Brandes delivered in Copenhagen one of the first lectures on Nietzsche's philosophy.
His health improved and he spent the summer in high spirits. In the autumn of 1888, his writings and letters began to reveal a higher estimation of his own status and "fate". He overestimated the increasing response to his writings, however, especially to the recent polemic,
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O'Flaherty, James C., Sellner, Timothy F., Helm, Robert M., Studies in Nietzsche and the Judaeo-Christian Tradition (University of North Carolina Press) 1985
von Vacano, Diego (2007). The Art of Power: Machiavelli, Nietzsche and the Making of Aesthetic Political Theory. Lanham, MD:
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Waite, Geoff. (1996), Nietzsche's Corps/e: Aesthetics, Prophecy, Politics, or, The Spectacular Technoculture of Everyday Life, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Wallis, Glenn. (2024), "Nietzsche NOW! The Great Immoralist on the Vital Issues of Our Time," New York City: Warbler Press.