"The book provides an overview of related scholarly literature; discusses Nietzsche's aesthetic theory in The Birth of Tragedy; recounts the composition of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and offers an interpretation of the "aesthetic gospel" in this centeal work. A concluding chapter explores the continuities in aesthetic theory from Leucippus to Ernst Cassirer. By demonstrating the constitutive function of the aesthetics of Weimar classicism in his philosophy, this book opens up a fresh and original perspective on reading Nietzsche."--BOOK JACKET.
Nietzsche's love affair with the theater was among the most profound and prolonged intellectual engagements of his life, but his transformational role in the history of the modern stage has yet to be explored. In this pathbreaking account, David Kornhaber vividly shows how Nietzsche reimagined the theatrical event as a site of philosophical invention that is at once ancestor, antagonist, and handmaiden to the discipline of philosophy itself. August Strindberg, George Bernard Shaw, and Eugene O'Neill— seminal figures in the modern drama's evolution and avowed Nietzscheans all—came away from their encounters with Nietzsche's writings with an impassioned belief in the philosophical potential of the live theatrical event, coupled with a reestimation of the dramatist's power to shape that event in collaboration with the actor. In these playwrights' reactions to and adaptations of Nietzsche's radical rethinking of the stage lay the beginnings of a new direction in modern theater and dramatic literature.
Wide-ranging essays making up the first major study of Nietzsche and the classical tradition in a quarter of a century. This volume collects a wide-ranging set of essays examining Friedrich Nietzsche's engagement with antiquity in all its aspects. It investigates Nietzsche's reaction and response to the concept of "classicism," with particular reference to his work on Greek culture as a philologist in Basel and later as a philosopher of modernity, and to his reception of German classicism in all his texts. The book should be of interest to students of ancient history and classics, philosophy, comparative literature, and Germanistik. Taken together, these papers suggest that classicism is both a more significant, and a more contested, concept for Nietzsche than is often realized, and it demonstratesthe need for a return to a close attention to the intellectual-historical context in terms of which Nietzsche saw himself operating. An awareness of the rich variety of academic backgrounds, methodologies, and techniques of reading evinced in these chapters is perhaps the only way for the contemporary scholar to come to grips with what classicism meant for Nietzsche, and hence what Nietzsche means for us today. The book is divided into five sections -- The Classical Greeks; Pre-Socratics and Pythagoreans, Cynics and Stoics; Nietzsche and the Platonic Tradition; Contestations; and German Classicism -- and constitutes the first major study of Nietzsche and the classical tradition in a quarter of a century. Contributors: Jessica N. Berry, Benjamin Biebuyck, Danny Praet and Isabelle Vanden Poel, Paul Bishop, R. Bracht Branham, Thomas Brobjer, David Campbell, Alan Cardew, Roy Elveton, Christian Emden, Simon Gillham, John Hamilton, Mark Hammond, Albert Henrichs, Dirk t.D. Held, David F. Horkott, Dylan Jaggard, Fiona Jenkins, Anthony K. Jensen, Laurence Lampert, Nicholas Martin, Thomas A. Meyer, Burkhard Meyer-Sickendiek, John S. Moore, Neville Morley, David N. McNeill, James I. Porter, Martin A. Ruehl, Herman Siemens, Barry Stocker, Friedrich Ulfers and Mark Daniel Cohen, and Peter Yates. Paul Bishop is William Jacks Chair of Modern Languages at the University of Glasgow.
An advanced introduction for students and a re-orientation for Nietzsche scholars and intellectual historians on the development of his thought and the aesthetic construction of his identity as a philosopher. Nietzsche looms over modern literature and thought; according to Gottfried Benn, "everything my generation discussed, thought through innerly; one could say: suffered; or one could even say: took to the point of exhaustion -- allof it had already been said . . . by Nietzsche; all the rest was just exegesis." Nietzsche's influence on intellectual life today is arguably as great; witness the various societies, journals, and websites and the steady stream ofpapers, collections, and monographs. This Companion offers new essays from the best Nietzsche scholars, emphasizing the interrelatedness of his life and thought, eschewing a superficial biographical method but taking seriously his claim that great philosophy is "the self-confession of its author and a kind of unintended and unremarked memoir." Each essay examines a major work by Nietzsche; together, they offer an advanced introduction for students of German Studies, philosophy, and comparative literature as well as for the lay reader. Re-establishing the links between Nietzsche's philosophical texts and their biographical background, the volume alerts Nietzschescholars and intellectual historians to the internal development of his thought and the aesthetic construction of his identity as a philosopher. Contributors: Ruth Abbey, Keith Ansell-Pearson, Rebecca Bamford, Paul Bishop, Thomas H. Brobjer, Daniel W. Conway, Adrian Del Caro, Carol Diethe, Michael Allen Gillespie and Keegan F. Callanan, Laurence Lampert, Duncan Large, Martin Liebscher, Martine Prange, Alan D. Schrift. Paul Bishop is William Jacks Chair of Modern Languages at the University of Glasgow.
Imagination is a complex and ambiguous culture-making power, which, while central to politics, is a rather marginal concept in contemporary political theory. By drawing on works of modern and contemporary Continental political philosophers, this book addresses how imagination can be both a source of freedom and domination in liberal-democratic politics, and argues for a benign public employment of images and narratives in a global world of diverse cultures. The challenge is not to keep contemporary politics clear of images, but to better distinguish between benign and malign uses of creativity in the public realm. This distinction is important because the language employed by the participants in the complex cultural dialogue that characterizes modern plural societies is constituted by metaphors and myths, which form their perceptions and sensibilities. The embedment of communicative practices in a society’s imaginary brings an ambivalent psychological and emotional potential into democratic politics. Modern liberal-democracies can shift the public employment of imagination either in a direction that increases the autonomous capacity of individuals to engage culture and language in a creative and interactive manner in the construction of their identities, or in a direction that increases fascination with images and myths and, consequently, the escapist desire to pull these out of the living dialogue with others. Turning the public work of creativity in the first direction requires a conscious change in the modern social imaginary. This can be achieved through the aesthetic cultivation of an ethical productive imagination: both analogical and explorative, both empathic and reflective. While capable of creatively giving utopian impetus to politics, this imagination would also stir the individuals’ responsiveness to the particularity of others and to their capacity to be equal and free partners in the making of a common world. An important avenue in achieving this objective in modern liberal-democracies will be provided by the capacity of literary works to open up public spaces of dialogue. There the renewal of the metaphors and myths that frame individual and collective identities in a society can have transformative effects that increase the individuals’ ability for cross cultural understanding.
