by Roy Jackson
Art and literature
Spotlight
You will find, if you haven’t already, that Nietzsche’s name will regularly crop up in literature, film and other media. He is eminently quotable, but, alas, he is still often misunderstood and it pays to have a better understanding of what he really meant.
Other than those already mentioned, such as Kazantzakis, Sartre and Camus, writers influenced by Nietzsche and who have also written about him include Thomas Mann (1875–1955), Hermann Hesse (1877–1962) and George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950).
• Thomas Mann was particularly interested in Nietzsche’s views on the connection between sickness and creativity, which comes across especially in his novel The Magic Mountain. Like Nietzsche, Mann argued that disease should not be seen in a wholly negative way, because life and great creativity can come out of illness.
• Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf portrays the Nietzschean loner, the ‘beast’ or ‘genius’ in the character of Harry Haller who feels out of place in the world of ‘everybody’. Hesse lived in Basel for a time, partly because he saw it as the town of Nietzsche.
• Shaw’s play Man and Superman comes directly from Nietzsche’s ideas on the Superman.
Other famous writers influenced by Nietzsche include André Malraux (1901–76), André Gide (1869–1951) and Knut Hamsun (1859–1952), while Nietzschean themes crop up among the beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg (1926–97) and Gary Snyder (1930–).
The Jewish American painter Mark Rothko (1903–70) was especially influenced by The Birth of Tragedy. Rothko believed that the mission of art was to address the need for modern man to be redeemed from the horrors of life through myth. Rothko regarded himself as a mythmaker, as is evident from the titles of so many of his paintings: Antigone, Oedipus, The Sacrifice of Iphigenia, The Furies, Altar of Orpheus and so on.
Many other thinkers, philosophers and psychologists have been influenced by the ideas and the philosophy of Nietzsche:
• In Russia, the Symbolists – who proclaimed art to be the new religion and the Superman to be the artist – adopted Nietzsche’s philosophy.
• Nietzsche’s future-oriented philosophy, of man as a bridge to a higher man, influenced revolutionary thinkers such as Trotsky.
• The psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) thought highly of Nietzsche, as did Carl Jung (1875–1961).
• The Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler (1870–1937) founded a school of ‘individual psychology’ where the emphasis on power dynamics is rooted in the philosophy of Nietzsche.
• American novelist, philosopher and playwright Ayn Rand (1905–82) was likewise inspired by the writings of Nietzsche.
Nietzsche, no doubt, will continue to influence new generations on a variety of different levels, whether due to his artistic style, the fact that a reader can pick on one profound sentence and write a novel around it, or due to his philosophy specifically, which has outlived the man and his age and is as applicable to today’s society as it was to Nietzsche’s time and the horrors that engulfed Europe in the twentieth century.
Key ideas
Absurdism: a term common in existential philosophy and referring to the seeming conflict between our search for meaning in the world with our actual experience as lacking in any value
Analytic: the tradition in philosophy that emphasizes the importance of language in our understanding of the world
Logical positivism: an expression of the analytic tradition in philosophy that argues that statements are meaningless if they cannot be verified
Symbolism: a late nineteenth-century movement in art with its origins in France, Russia and Belgium
Things to remember
• Nietzsche always considered himself a ‘good European’ rather than a German.
• His sister Elisabeth promoted Nietzsche as the philosopher of National Socialism. Because of his ‘links’ with Nazism, Nietzsche was largely neglected after the Second World War.
• Serious study of Nietzsche did not occur until the 1960s.
• In particular, Nietzsche is often presented as a precursor of French existentialism.
• The writings of the French philosopher Michel Foucault are also influenced by Nietzsche.
• The importance of language, which Nietzsche stressed, became a dominant theme in philosophy in Britain and America in what is known as analytic philosophy.
• Nietzsche has had an impact on such diverse writers as Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse and George Bernard Shaw.
• To this day, Nietzsche’s influence can be seen in literature, media and other arts, as well as in twenty-first-century philosophy.
Fact-check
1 Which one of the following is not a reason why Nietzsche is associated with Hitler?
a Elisabeth Nietzsche’s encouragement
b Nietzsche’s association with the Wagners
c Friedrich Nietzsche’s own support for National Socialism
d Nietzsche’s views on the Volk
2 Which French writer was influenced by Nietzsche’s Dionysian philosophy?
a Jean Genet
b Georges Bataille
c Françoise Sagan
d Marcel Proust
3 Which one of the following novels did Jean-Paul Sartre write?
a Nausea
b Sickness unto Death
c Despair
d Sick and Tired
4 Which one of the following novels did Albert Camus write?
a Nausea
b The Outsider
c The Absurd
d The Invisible Man
5 What is the name of Albert Camus’s famous philosophical essay on absurdity?
a ‘The Myth of the Absurd’
b ‘The Myth of Dionysus’
c ‘The Myth of Camus’
d ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’
6 What is the name of Henri Bergson’s work that mentions Nietzsche?
a The Two Sources of Morality and Religion
b The Two Gods of Apollo and Dionysus
c The Two Sources of Faith and Knowledge
d The Two Realities of Birth and Death
7 Who wrote Zorba the Greek?
a Andreas Karkavitsas
b Panos Koutrouboussis
c Nikos Kazantzakis
d Menis Koumandareas
8 What is the theology that Thomas Altizer is particularly renowned for?
a The Death of Morals Theology
b The Death of God Theology
c The Death of Nietzsche Theology
d The Death of the Church Theology
9 Which one of the following writers was not influenced by Nietzsche?
a Thomas Mann
b Hermann Hesse
c Charles Dickens
d George Bernard Shaw
10 Which one of the following painters was influenced by Nietzsche’s philosophy?
a Leonardo da Vinci
b Caravaggio
c Raphael
d Mark Rothko
Dig deeper
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (London: Penguin, 2005)
Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf (London: Penguin Modern Classics, 2001)
Aaron Ridley, Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Nietzsche on Art (London: Routledge, 2007)
Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea (London: Penguin, 2000)
Nietzsche’s writings: abbreviations and translations used
AC: Twilight of the Idols and the Anti-Christ, trans. by R.J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin, 1990)
BGE: Beyond Good and Evil, trans. by Marion Faber (Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 2008)
BT: The Birth of Tragedy, trans. by Shaun Whiteside (London: Penguin, 1993)
EH: Ecce Homo, trans. by R.J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin, 1992)
GM: On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. by Douglas Smith (Oxford: Oxford World’s Classics, 2008)
GS: The Gay Science, trans. by Walter Kaufmann (London: Random House, 1991)
GSt: ‘The Greek State’, in vol. 2 of The Com
plete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. O. Levy, trans. by M.A. Mügge (London: T.A. Foulis, 1911)
HAH: Human, All Too Human, trans. by Marion Faber (London: Penguin, 1994)
TI: Twilight of the Idols and the Anti-Christ, trans. by R.J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin, 1990)
TSZ: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. by R.J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin, 1974)
UM: Untimely Meditations, trans. by R.J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: CUP, 1997)
WP: The Will to Power, trans. by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale (London: Random House, 1973)
Timeline of important events in Nietzsche’s life
1844 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche born on 15 October in Röcken, a small village near Lützen.
1849 Death of Nietzsche’s father on 30 July, diagnosed as softening of the brain.
1850 Nietzsche’s brother, Ludwig Joseph, dies on 9 January. The family relocates to Naumburg in early April.
1856 Nietzsche writes his first philosophical essay, ‘On the Origin of Evil’.
1858 In October he is accepted into the Pforta school.
1862 Together with a few friends, he founds the literary club ‘Germania’.
1864 In October he begins studying theological and classical philology in Bonn.
1865 Leaves Bonn and moves to Leipzig to study philology. He has given up on theology. In October he discovers Schopenhauer.
1868 Becomes friends with Wagner.
1869 Appointed to the University of Basel.
1870 Military service as a medic. He falls ill with dysentery and diphtheria.
1872 The Birth of Tragedy is published. It is rejected by scholars.
1876 Becomes friends with Rée and attends the first Bayreuth Festival. He makes his mind up to break with Wagner.
1879 Resigns from university teaching and starts his nomadic life.
1881 His first visit to Sils-Maria. Has his great ‘inspiration’ and writes of eternal recurrence.
1882 Proposes marriage to Lou Salomé twice.
1883 Death of Wagner on 13 February.
1885 Nietzsche’s sister marries Bernhard Förster in May.
1889 Nietzsche breaks down and never recovers from mental illness.
1900 Dies on 25 August.
Answers
CHAPTER 1
1 c
2 a
3 d
4 a
5 a
6 d
7 a
8 c
9 a
10 b
CHAPTER 2
1 d
2 c
3 b
4 c
5 a
6 b
7 d
8 c
9 b
10 a
CHAPTER 3
1 c
2 a
3 b
4 c
5 a
6 c
7 a
8 b
9 b
10 d
CHAPTER 4
1 b
2 a
3 c
4 b
5 a
6 c
7 d
8 b
9 a
10 c
CHAPTER 5
1 c
2 b
3 a
4 a
5 b
6 d
7 d
8 a
9 b
10 b
CHAPTER 6
1 c
2 b
3 c
4 a
5 b
6 b
7 c
8 d
9 a
10 d
CHAPTER 7
1 b
2 c
3 a
4 b
5 c
6 d
7 a
8 a
9 c
10 d
CHAPTER 8
1 a
2 b
3 a
4 c
5 d
6 b
7 c
8 b
CHAPTER 9
1 c
2 d
3 a
4 a
5 c
6 a
7 c
8 b
CHAPTER 10
1 b
2 d
3 b
4 a
5 c
6 a
7 d
8 c
CHAPTER 11
1 c
2 b
3 a
4 b
5 d
6 a
7 c
8 b
9 c
10 d
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Hodder & Stoughton. An Hachette UK company.
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