Thus Spoke Zarathustra

"Also sprach Zarathustra" redirects here. For other uses, see Also sprach Zarathustra (disambiguation).

File:Zarathustra.gif

The cover for the first part of the first edition.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (German Also Sprach Zarathustra) is an 1883 work by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, known most widely for the declaration "God is dead" and its introduction of Nietzsche's theory of the eternal return. The book as a whole is difficult to categorize; a dense and esoteric treatise on philosophy, particularly a sneering parody of the Bible, it consists largely of a fictionalized Zarathustra's rhetoric, but also encompasses passages of poetry.

Purported by Nietzsche himself to be "the deepest ever written," the work can be inaccessible when attempts to interpret it through formal literary logic are made [1].

Background

The book's English title varies depending on translation. The titles of the widely cited Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale translations are "Thus Spoke Zarathustra", but the work is also well known as "Thus Spake Zarathustra", used in Thomas Common's translation. The original German title is "Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen", which translates literally in modern English as "So Zarathustra Spoke: A Book For All and None".

Thus Spake Zarathustra was conceived by Nietzsche while he was writing his book, The Gay Science; he made a small note, reading "6,000 feet beyond man and time", as evidence of this. More specifically, this note related to the concept of the Eternal Recurrence, which is, by Nietzsche's admission, the central idea of Zarathustra; this idea occurred to him by a 'pyramidal block of stone' on the shores of Lake Silvaplana in the Upper Engadine, a high alpine region whose valley floor is at 6,000 ft. Nietzsche planned to write the book in three parts over several years. He wrote that the ideas for Zarathustra first came to him while walking on two roads surrounding Rapallo, according to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche in the introduction of Common's translation of the book.

While developing the general outlook of the book, he subsequently decided that he would write an extra three parts; ultimately, however, he composed only the fourth part, which is viewed to constitute an intermezzo.

Nietzsche commented in Ecce Homo that for the completion of each part: "Ten days sufficed; in no case, neither for the first nor for the third and last, did I require more" (trans. Kaufmann). The first three parts were first published separately, and were subsequently published in a single volume in 1887. The fourth part remained private after Nietzsche wrote it in 1885; a scant forty copies were all that were printed, apart from seven others that were distributed to Nietzsche's close friends. In March 1892, the four parts were finally reprinted as a single volume. Since then, the version most commonly produced has included all four parts.

The original text contains a great degree of word-play. An example of this exists in the use of the words "over" or "super" and the word "down": for instance, in the terms "superman" or "overman", "overgoing", "downgoing", and "self-overcoming".

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler The book chronicles fictitious travels and pedagogy of Zarathustra (Avestan: Zaraθuštra), usually known in English as Zoroaster, the Persian prophet and founder of Zoroastrianism. Nietzsche is clearly portraying a "new" or "different" Zarathustra, one who turns traditional morality on its head. He goes on to characterize "what the name of Zarathustra means in my mouth, the mouth of the first immoralist:"

[F]or what constitutes the tremendous historical uniqueness of that Persian is just the opposite of this. Zarathustra was the first to consider the fight of good and evil the very wheel in the machinery of things: the transposition of morality into the metaphysical realm, as a force, cause, and end in itself, is his work. ... Zarathustra created this most calamitous error, morality; consequently, he must also be the first to recognize it. ... His doctrine, and his alone, posits truthfulness as the highest virtue; this means the opposite of the cowardice of the “idealist” who flees from reality….—Am I understood?— The self-overcoming of morality, out of truthfulness; the self-overcoming of the moralist, into his opposite—into me—that is what the name of Zarathustra means in my mouth.

— trans. Walter Kaufmann, Ecce Homo, Why I Am a Destiny, sec. 3'

Zarathustra has a simple plot, narrated sporadically throughout the text. It possesses a unique experimental style, one that is, for instance, evident in newly invented "dithyrambs" narrated or sung by Zarathustra. Likewise, the separate Dionysus Dithyrambs [2], written in autumn, 1888, were printed with the full volume, in 1892, as the corollaries of Zarathustra's "abundance".

Some speculate that Nietzsche intended to write about final acts of creation and destruction brought about by Zarathustra. However, the book lacks a finale to match that description; its actual ending focuses more on Zarathustra recognizing his legacy is beginning to perpetuate, and consequently choosing to leave the higher men to their own devices in carrying his legacy forth.

Zarathustra also contains the famous dictum "God is dead", which had appeared earlier in The Gay Science. However, in his autobiography Nietzsche states that the book's true underlying concept is discussed within "the penultimate section of the fourth [part]" (Ecce Homo, Kaufmann), namely, "The Drunken Song". It is Zarathustra's vision of the Eternal Recurrence of the Same Events.

This concept first occurred to Nietzsche while he was walking in Switzerland through the woods along the lake of Silvaplana (close to Surlei); he was inspired by the sight of a gigantic, towering, pyramidal rock. Before Zarathustra, Nietzsche had mentioned the concept in the fourth book of The Gay Science (e.g., sect. 341); this was the first public proclamation of the notion by him. Apart from its salient presence in Zarathustra, it is also echoed throughout Nietzsche's work. At any rate, it is by Zarathustra's transfiguration that he embraces eternity, that he at last ascertains "the supreme will to power". This inspiration finds its expression with Zarathustra's Roundelay, featured twice in the book, once near the story's close (trans. Thomas Common; Thus Spake Zarathustra):

O man! Take heed!
What saith deep midnight's voice indeed?
I slept my sleep—
From deepest dream I've woke and plead:—
The world is deep,
And deeper than the day could read.
Deep is its woe—
Joy—deeper still than grief can be:
Woe saith: Hence! Go!
But joys all want eternity—
Want deep profound eternity!

Another singular feature of Zarathustra, first presented in the prologue, is the designation of human beings as a transition between apes and the "Übermensch" (in English, either the "overman" or "superman"; or, superhuman or overhuman. English translators Thomas Common and R. J. Hollingdale use superman, while Kaufmann uses overman, and Parkes uses overhuman). The Übermensch is one of the many interconnecting, interdependent themes of the story, and is represented through several different metaphors. Examples include: the lightning that is portended by the silence and raindrops of a travelling storm cloud; or the sun's rise and culmination at its midday zenith; or a man traversing a rope stationed above an abyss, moving away from his uncultivated animality and towards the Übermensch.

The symbol of the Übermensch also alludes to Nietzsche's notions of "self-mastery", "self-cultivation", "self-direction", and "self-overcoming". Expostulating these concepts, Zarathustra declares:

I TEACH YOU THE SUPERMAN. Man is something that is to be surpassed. What have ye done to surpass man?

All beings hitherto have created something beyond themselves: and ye want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than surpass man?

What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame.

Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any of the apes.

Even the wisest among you is only a disharmony and hybrid of plant and phantom. But do I bid you become phantoms or plants?

Lo, I teach you the Superman!

The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman SHALL BE the meaning of the earth!

I conjure you, my brethren, REMAIN TRUE TO THE EARTH, and believe not those who speak unto you of superearthly hopes! Poisoners are they, whether they know it or not.

Despisers of life are they, decaying ones and poisoned ones themselves, of whom the earth is weary: so away with them!

— trans. Thomas Common, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Prologue, sec. 3'

The book embodies a number of innovative poetical and rhetorical methods of expression. It serves as a parallel and supplement to the various philosophical ideas present in Nietzsche's body of work. He has, however, said that among my writings my Zarathustra stands to my mind by itself (Ecce Homo, Preface, sec. 4, Kaufmann). Emphasizing its centrality and its status as his magnum opus, it is stated by Nietzsche that:

With [Thus Spake Zarathustra] I have given mankind the greatest present that has ever been made so far. This book, with a voice bridging centuries is not only the highest book there is, the book that is truly characterized by the air of the heights—the whole fact of man lies beneath it at a tremendous distance—it is also the deepest, born out of the innermost wealth of truth, an inexhaustible well to which no bucket descends without coming up again filled with gold and goodness.

— trans. Walter Kaufmann, Ecce Homo

Since, as stated, many of the book's ideas are also present in his other works, Zarathustra is seen to have served as a precursor to his later philosophical thought. With the book, Nietzsche embraced a distinct aesthetic assiduity. He later reformulated many of his ideas, in his book Beyond Good and Evil and various other writings that he composed thereafter. He continued to emphasize his philosophical concerns; generally, his intention was to show an alternative to repressive moral codes and to avert "nihilism" in all of its varied forms.

Other aspects of Thus Spake Zarathustra pertain to Nietzsche's proposed "Transvaluation of All Values". This incomplete project began with The Antichrist.

Themes

Nietzche injects myriad ideas into the book, but there are few recurring themes. The overman (Übermensch), a self-mastered individual who has achieved his full power, is an almost omnipresent idea in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Man as a race is merely a bridge between animals and the overman. Nietzsche also makes a point that the overman is not an end result for a person, but more the journey toward self-mastery.

The eternal recurrence, found elsewhere in Nietzsche's writing, is also mentioned here. The eternal recurrence is the idea that all events that have happened will happen again, infinitely many times. Such a reality can serve as the litmus test for an overman. Faced with the knowledge that he would repeat every action that he has taken, an overman would be elated as he has no regrets and loves life.

The will to power is the ability humans strive toward in life. Contrasted with living for procreation, pleasure, or happiness, the will to power is the summary of all man's struggle against his surrounding environment as well as his reason for living in it.

Copious criticisms of Christianity can be found in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in particular Christian values of good and evil and its purported lie of an afterlife. Nietzche sees the complacency of Christian values as fetters to the achievement of overman as well as on the human spirit. Contrasting sharply with Christianity, Nietzche praises lust, selfishness, while reproaching the rewarded concepts of pity and love for neighbors.

Style

Nietzsche is considered unique among philosophers by some scholars for what is widely regarded as the remarkable power and effectiveness of his rhetorical style — particularly as manifested in Zarathustra. The indigestible "heaviness" long associated with German-language philosophy is eschewed, with puns and paradoxes abounding, and aphoristic brevity characteristic of parable and even poetry are in his rhetoric. The end result is a manner of writing which, being "pitched half-way between metaphor and literal statement", is "something quite extraordinary".

His work has been described as "half philosophic, half poetic"; the fact that it can thus manage to convince the reader emotionally as well as intellectually is one reason for its appeal among many — but it also means that the theory behind the metaphors is never fully or clearly written out, inviting the reader alone to interpret the text.

One problem inevitably caused by this is that the boundaries of his thinking are not easily discerned: for example, many people not only feel that Nietzsche's term "Übermensch" conjures up the "pure Aryan" of Hitlerian doctrine, but further assume that it must have been accompanied by the complementary lesser human or sub-human "Untermensch" — whereas the latter term is in fact a creation of Nazi racial ideology.

Another vulnerability entailed by Nietzsche's style is that nuances and shades of meaning are very easily lost — and all too easily gained — in translation. Here the Übermensch is a case in point: the equivalent "Superman" found in dictionaries and in the translations by Thomas Common and R.J. Hollingdale may create an unfortunate association with the heroic comic-character "Superman."

The translations of Zarathustra also differ according to the sentiments of the translators for the English language. For instance, the Thomas Common translation, widely available, favors a more biblical approach. As a partial consequence, that is, these claims are not limited to its biblical, archaic features, some have claimed it is inaccurate and/or possesses Nazi distortions by Nietzsche's sister. By contrast, the current and much more critical translations, titled Thus Spake Zarathustra, separately by R.J. Hollingdale and Walter Kaufmann, who also contested the inaccuracies of Common's translation, are considered, in various circles, to convey more accurately the minutiae of the German text than Thus Spake Zarathustra. In these translations the work is rendered in a far more familiar, less archaic, style of language.

A newer translation, published in 2005 and translated by Graham Parkes, conveys the work in a distant, subdued, lyrical, musical and reverential style. Parkes stated in his preface to the book that it was his intention to improve the musical quality of the book. This translation lacks the energy and forceful excited vigour present in the Thomas Common translation, a translation wherein the priority was to convey the tone of the book and to preserve it successfully in the English rendition.

Regardless of the translations, it is illuminating to think of "Über" in relationship to the development of the individual subject. The "Übermensch" is the being that overcomes the "great nausea" associated with nihilism; that overcomes that most "abysmal" realization of the eternal return. He is the being that "sails over morality", and that dances over gravity (the "spirit of gravity" is Zarathustra's devil and archenemy). He is a "harvester" and a "celebrant" who endlessly affirms his existence, thereby becoming the transfigurer of his consciousness and life, aesthetically. He is initially a destructive force, excising and annihilating the insidious "truths" of the herd, and consequently reclaiming the chaos from which pure creativity is born. It is this creative force exemplified by the Übermensch that justifies suffering without displacing it in some "afterworld".

See also

• Hymn to Life
• Immaculate perception
• Last Man
• Nietzsche Music Project
• The Will to Power
• Political fiction
• Also sprach Zarathustra (Richard Strauss)
• Symphony No. 3 (Mahler)
• Helene von Druskowitz

References

• Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Friedrich Nietzsche; translated and with a preface by Walter Kaufmann (New York, Modern Library, 1995, ISBN
• Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is by Friedrich Nietzsche; translated and with a preface by Walter Kaufmann
• Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist by Walter Kaufmann, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1974, ISBN 0-691-01983-5

External links

• Project Gutenberg's etext of Thus Spake Zarathustra, translated by Thomas Common
• Project Gutenberg's etext of Also Sprach Zarathustra (the German original)
• Oil paintings to the book created by the artist Lena Hades
• Thus spake Zarathustra—an article.
• Thus Spake Zarathustra Free mp3 audio downloads Narrated by Michael Scott of ThoughtAudio.com
• Study Guide for Zarathustra