The first reason is that, after his death, his sister took over his estate, and as she herself was a German nationalist and anti-semite (as was her prominent husband), she had a number of her brother's papers rewritten to support these execrable positions and then published them posthumously in his name. So, that being the case, how did he gain such an unfortunate reputation at all? Likewise, he spent much of his life railing against the foolishness of nationalism and bigotry-indeed, his famed falling out with the composer Wagner was over the increasingly nationalistic style of music the latter was producing. Contrary to his reputation, Nietzsche rejected nihilism outright-he thought that if the world does not provide your life with a clear meaning, it is up to you to go out and find one (or create one), not to wallow and whinge.
It would not have been unreasonable to give in to misery and bitterness under such conditions, but on those days when Nietzsche felt well enough to write, he would emerge from his room with renewed passion and vigor, taking long walks in the beauty of the countryside before returning home to labor in producing a philosophy not of misery, but of joy. These incidents would affect his health for the rest of his life, leaving him bedridden and in pain for hours or days at a time. Then, during his brief career in the cavalry, he tore several muscles in his side, and while serving as a medical orderly in the Franco-Prussian war, contracted a number of diseases. There probably are not many men who had more reason than Nietzsche to feel resentful and miserable: he grew up a sickly child, prone to severe headaches which often left him literally blind with pain. Today, Nietzsche tends to be thought of as a depressive nihilist, a man who believed in nothing, and an apologist for the atrocities of fascism-but no description could be further from the truth. There probably are not many men who had more reason than Nietzsche to feel resentful I can think of few instances where an author's reputation is more different from the reality of who he was, what he believed, and what he wrote-perhaps only Machiavelli has been as profoundly misunderstood by history. I can think of few instances where an author's reputation is more different from the reality of who he was, what he believed, and what he wrote-perhaps only Machiavelli has been as profoundly misunderstood by history. "One of the greatest books of a very great thinker." -Michael Tanner. If you enjoyed Beyond Good and Evil you might like Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, also available in Penguin Classics. Lawrence, Thomas Mann and Jean-Paul Sartre, was considerable. A powerfully original thinker, Nietzsche's influence on subsequent writers, such as George Bernard Shaw, D.H. He divorced himself from society until his final collapse in 1899 when he became insane. This edition includes a commentary on the text by the translator and Michael Tanner's introduction, which explains some of the more abstract passages in Beyond Good and Evil.įrederich Nietzsche (1844-1900) became the chair of classical philology at Basel University at the age of 24 until his bad health forced him to retire in 1879. With wit and energy, he turns from this critique to a philosophy that celebrates the present and demands that the individual imposes their own 'will to power' upon the world. Nietzsche demonstrates that the Christian world is steeped in a false piety and infected with a 'slave morality'. The work dramatically rejects the tradition of Western thought with its notions of truth and God, good and evil. Hollingdale with an introduction by Michael Tanner in Penguin Classics.īeyond Good and Evil confirmed Nietzsche's position as the towering European philosopher of his age. Nietzsche Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil is translated from the German by R.J.
Beyond Good and Evil confirmed Nietzsche's position as the towering European philosopher of his age. Hollingdale with an introduction by Michael Tanner in Penguin Classics. Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil is translated from the German by R.J.
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