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Goethian form (evolution): *
Comparison between Natural Science and Naturphilosophie
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Zarathustra (utterances of): *
The prophet (Nietzsche) strolled "over the great bridge" where at once "cripples and beggars surrounded him". A hunchback offers Zarathustra the opportunity to "heal the blind and make the lame walk." Zarathustra refuses’ he rejects pity because he believes that the victims become what he calls "inverse cripples." For Nietzsche, the cripples and beggars who speak to Zarathustra only in terms of what they do not have, have become little more than the body pieces they lack.
Zarathustra also states "God is dead," avowing that traditional morality is no longer valid. The work is full of criticisms of Christianity, particularly Christian values of good and evil & a belief in an afterlife. However Nietzsche rejects nihilism; his intention is to show an alternative way to repressive moral codes to thereby avert nihilism. This brings us to the proposed "Trans valuation of All Values" concept (the new moral code). Men must create a new world of values; human beings are but a transition (bridge) between apes and the übermensch (superman), a self-mastered individual who has achieved his full power. The will to power is fundamental to human identity; all we do is an expression of self-realization that can sometimes take a form of a will to power. Another theme is the eternal recurrence, the possibility that all events in one's life will happen again and again, infinitely. In culmination, Zarathustra recognizing that his legacy is beginning to perpetuate, he chooses to leave the higher men to their own devices in carrying his legacy forth.
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Ghosts," (tragedy of): *
synopsis: Helen Alving is about to dedicate an orphanage built in memory of her late husband, Captain. She reveals to Pastor Manders her marriage was miserable as her husband was unfaithful. She is building the orphanage to use up her husband's wealth so that Oswald (their son) will inherit nothing. The pastor advises her to return to Alving which she does hoping she can reform him. She fails but stays with him to protect Oswald & avoid stigma. She discovers Oswald is suffering from syphilis that she believes he inherited from Alving; next she discovers he is in love with the maid Regina Engstrand, illegitimate daughter of Alving & therefore Oswald's half-sister. At the play’s conclusion the sibling relationship is exposed, Regina departs, leaving Oswald in anguish. He asks his mother to help him avoid the late stages of syphilis with a fatal morphine overdose. She agrees & the play ends with her confronting the decision of whether or not to euthanize her son.
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“Tristan": *
Wagner decided to dramatize the Tristan legend after his friend, Karl Ritter, attempted to do so. Ritter gave prominence to the lighter aspects of the romance. Wagner had discovered Schopenhauer in 1854 & this had a deep impact. He felt the tragic element of the story & decided to make this the overriding theme. In My Life (1911) he states he was in a "serious mood created by Schopenhauer, which was trying to find ecstatic expression. It was some such mood that inspired the conception of a Tristan und Isolde."
Schopenhauer's influence on Tristan und Isolde is most evident in the 2nd act in which the lovers meet & the 3rd act during which Tristan longs for release from the passions that torment him, raging against the daylight & frequently cries out for release from his desires. Wagner uses the metaphor of Day and Night in the second act to designate the realms inhabited by Tristan and Isolde. The Day is when the lovers are bound by the dictates of King Marke's court; they must hide their love, a realm of falsehood and unreality. The Night is when the lovers can be together, their desires openly expressed & reach fulfilment, a realm of oneness, truth & reality, only to be achieved on the deaths of the lovers. Wagner implicitly equates the realm of Day with Schopenhauer's concept of Phenomenon (representation) and the realm of Night with Schopenhauer's concept of Noumenon (the thing in itself). Schopenhauer dictates that the only way to achieve inner peace is to renounce his desires, a theme that Wagner explored fully in his last opera, Parsifal.
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Nietzsche's breach with Wagner: *
Friends.
Nietzsche met Wagner in Leipzig in 1868; he greatly admired both Wagner & his wife; while in Basel frequently visited Wagner at Lucerne. Wagner was then at work on the Ring operas & the great festival at Bayreuth that would soon premiere the 4 part cycle. He project needed publicity & financial support; many German intellectuals backed the project. Nietzsche entered into this with enthusiasm. In The Birth of Tragedy (Nietzsche’s first book, 1872) he ends with a rousing advocacy of Wagner's musical drama as a revival of Hellenic tragedy, praising Wagner for going beyond the analytic & dispassionate understanding of music. The book was panned by his colleagues at Basel & attacked by academics for its speculative approach; Wagner loyally came to Nietzsche's defence. Between 1873 and 1876 he wrote & published 4 long essays, all cultural critiques, challenging the developing German culture suggested by Schopenhauer & Wagner. One of these essays was Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (1876); effusive in its praise of Wagner, it investigates the music, drama and personality of the composer. Nietzsche had been unsure about whether to publish; ultimately it was included in Untimely Meditations (1876) & was well received by Wagner. However, the first draft had been somewhat critical of Wagner (surprising given their earlier friendship); Nietzsche’s attitude towards Wagner was already shifting; a friend, an enthusiastic Wagnerian helped him prepare a less contentious version.
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Disillusionment.
Shortly after its publication, Nietzsche visited Bayreuth for the opening of the Bayreuth Festival (the premier of the Ring cycle & inaugural use of the Festival Theatre). He was deeply disappointed, the banality of the shows and baseness of the public repelled him. He was also repelled by Wagner's championing of "German culture" (which Nietzsche felt a contradiction in terms) as well as the composers celebration of his fame among the German public. He saw the difference between Wagner's musical genius and the shabby pseudo-philosophy of the Wagnerian cult. After this Nietzsche began to distance himself from Wagner. The publication in 1878 of Human, All Too Human (aphorisms ranging from metaphysics, morality to religion), reflects both a new style and Nietzsche’s reaction against the pessimistic philosophy of Wagner and Schopenhauer. Nietzsche was disillusioned with Wagner the composer & the man.
Condemnation.
A decade later Nietzsche made his case against the famous composer. The Wagner Case (Subtitled "A Musician's Problem"), published 1888, was a critique of Wagner & announced Nietzsche's rupture with him; he condemned Wagner's endorsement of pan-Germanism, the Völkisch movement & anti-Semitism, as well as his rallying to Christianity. Wagner’s music no longer represented a "philosophical affect"; he insultingly compared him to Bizet. He argued Wagner was a symptom of a broader disease affecting Europe: nihilism. The work shows Nietzsche as a capable music-critic & provides the setting for some of his further reflections on the nature of art and its relationship to the future health of humanity. One of Nietzsche’s last works was Nietzsche contra Wagner (also published 1888); he pulled together excerpts from earlier works showing he consistently had the same thoughts about music, but had misapplied them to Wagner in the earliest works.