Literary Form and Midlife Crisis in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.24310/EstudiosNIETen.vi16.10816Keywords:
fictional form, music, Bildungsroman, midlifeAbstract
The relative disinterest in Thus Spoke Zarathustra among philosophical scholars of Nietzsche reflects a failure to recognize what the literary form contributes to its philosophical message. The choice of extended fictional form for Zarathustra enables Nietzsche to explore his ideas about the possibilities of living a meaningful life in the contemporary Western world, where nihilism in the wake of the death of God is beginning to dawn. Thus
Spoke Zarathustra also illuminates aspects of Nietzsche’s own understanding of his philosophical project, a conception that contrasts with the dominant contemporary orientation. I draw out some of these aspects by focusing on four unusual features of Zarathustra: 1) its cartoon-like approach to characters and action; 2) its disguised first-person presentation and the resulting positioning of the reader; 3) its «musical» features; and 4) its oddity as a Bildungsroman of middle life.
Downloads
Metrics
References
Acampora, R. and Christa Davis Acampora, A Nietzschean Bestiary: Animality Beyond Docile and Brutal, ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
Allison, D., “Who Is Zarathustra’s Nietzsche?” New Nietzsche Studies 6-7 (2005-2006), pp. 1-11.
Allison, D., «Who Is Zarathustra’s Nietzsche?», New Nietzsche Studies 6-7 (2005-2006).
Bennholdt-Thomsen, Anke, Nietzsches “Also Sprach Zarathustra” als Literarisches Phanomen. Rev. ed. Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1974.
Gooding-Williams, Robert, Zarathustra’s Dionysian Modernism, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
Graham Parkes, Graham, «Explanatory Notes,» en Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Graham Parkes, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 305:
Higgins, Kathleen M, «Zarathustra’s Midlife Crisis: A Response to Gooding-Williams», en Journal of Nietzsche Studies 34 (2007), pp. 47-56.
Higgins, Kathleen M., “‘On the Genealogy of Morals’ Nietzsche's Gift," en Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality: Essays on Nietzsche's “Genealogy of Morals,” ed. Richard Schacht Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Higgins, Katlen, «The Whip Recalled», Journal of Nietzsche Studies 12 (1996), 1-18
Higgins, Katlen. Zaratustra, Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2010.
Jung, C. G., Nietzsche's “Zarathustra,” ed. James L. Jarrett, Bollingen Series ,Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Lampert, Lurence, Nietzsche's Teaching: An Interpretation of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
Loeb, Paul, The Death of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010, p. 207.
Nietzsche, F., Obras Completas, I-IV (OC ). Director ed. Diego Sánchez Meca. Madrid: Tecnos, 2011-2016
Nietzsche, F., Correspondencia I-VI. (CO). Director ed. Luis E. de Santiago Guervós. Madrid : Trotta, 2005- 2012.
Nietzsche, F., Fragmentos Póstumos I-IV (FP). Director ed. Diego Sánchez Meca. Madrid: Tecnos, 2006-2010.
Seung, T.K., Nietzsche’s Epic of the Soul: “Thus Spoke Zarathustra”, Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2005, pp. 237-359.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
![Creative Commons License](http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/4.0/88x31.png)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
As of issue 21 (2021) this journal is published only in open access (diamond route).
From that number 21, like the previous numbers published in NIETZSCHE STUDIES, they are subject to the Creative Commons Acknowledgment-NoComercia-ShareIgual 4.0 license, the full text of which can be consulted at <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0 >
It is the responsibility of the authors to obtain the necessary permissions of the images that are subject to copyright.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Copyright generates two different rights: moral rights and patrimonial rights that EJFB recognizes and respects. Moral rights are those relating to the recognition of the authorship. They are rights of a personal nature that are perpetual, inalienable, unseizable and imprescriptible as consequence of the indivisible union of the author and his/her work.
Patrimonial rights are those that can be derived from the reproduction, distribution, adaptation or communication of the work, among others.