The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs

by Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm; Kaufmann, Walter

• ISBN13: 9780394719856
• ISBN10: 0394719859
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1974-01-12
• Publisher: Vintage

Summary

Nietzsche called The Gay Science "the most personal of all my books." It was here that he first proclaimed the death of God -- to which a large part of the book is devoted -- and his doctrine of the eternal recurrence. Walter Kaufmann's commentary, with its many quotations from previously untranslated letters, brings to life Nietzsche as a human being and illuminates his philosophy. The book contains some of Nietzsche's most sustained discussions of art and morality, knowledge and truth, the intellectual conscience and the origin of logic. Most of the book was written just before Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the last part five years later, after Beyond Good and Evil. We encounter Zarathustra in these pages as well as many of Nietzsche's most interesting philosophical ideas and the largest collection of his own poetry that he himself ever published. Walter Kaufmann's English versions of Nietzsche represent one of the major translation enterprises of our time. He is the first philosopher to have translated Nietzsche's major works, and never before has a single translator given us so much of Nietzsche.

Author Biography

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was born in Prussia in 1844. After the death of his father, a Lutheran minister, Nietzsche was raised from the age of five by his mother in a household of women. In 1869 he was appointed Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Basel, where he taught until 1879 when poor health forced him to retire. He never recovered from a nervous breakdown in 1889 and died eleven years later. Known for saying that “god is dead,” Nietzsche propounded his metaphysical construct of the superiority of the disciplined individual (superman) living in the present over traditional values derived from Christianity and its emphasis on heavenly rewards. His ideas were appropriated by the Fascists, who turned his theories into social realities that he had never intended.

Table of Contents

A Note on the Text	vi	(1)
Abbreviations	vii
Translator's Introduction	3	(29)
Nietzsche's Preface for the Second Edition	32	(7)
"Joke, Cunning, and Revenge": Prelude in German Rhymes	39	(2)
1. Invitation	41	(1)
2. My Happiness	41	(1)
3. Undaunted	41	(1)
4. Dialogue	41	(2)
5. To the Virtuous	43	(1)
6. Wordly Wisdom	43	(1)
7. Vademecum--Vadetecum	43	(1)
8. Shedding the Third Skin	43	(2)
9. My Roses	45	(1)
10. Scorn	45	(1)
11. The Proverb Speaks	45	(1)
12. To a Light-Lover	45	(2)
13. For Dancers	47	(1)
14. The Good Man	47	(1)
15. Rust	47	(1)
16. Up	47	(1)
17. The Maxim of the Brute	47	(1)
18. Narrow Souls	47	(1)
19. The Involuntary Seducer	47	(2)
20. For your Consideration	49	(1)
21. Against Airs	49	(1)
22. Man and Woman	49	(1)
23. Interpretation	49	(1)
24. Medicine for Pessimists	49	(1)
25. Request	49	(2)
26. My Hardness	51	(1)
27. The Wanderer	51	(1)
28. Consolation for Beginners	51	(2)
29. The Egoism of the Stars	53	(1)
30. The Neighbor	53	(1)
31. The Disguised Saint	53	(1)
32. The Unfree Man	53	(1)
33. The Solitary	53	(2)
34. Seneca et hoc genus omne	55	(1)
35. Ice	55	(1)
36. Juvenilia	55	(1)
37. Caution	55	(2)
38. The Pious Retort	57	(1)
39. In the Summer	57	(1)
40. Without Envy	57	(1)
41. Heraclitean	57	(2)
42. Principle of the Overly Refined	59	(1)
43. Admonition	59	(1)
44. The Thorough Who Get to the Bottom of Things	59	(1)
45. Forever	59	(2)
46. Judgments of the Weary	61	(1)
47. Decline	61	(1)
48. Against the Laws	61	(1)
49. The Sage Speaks	61	(2)
50. Lost His Head	63	(1)
51. Pious Wishes	63	(1)
52. Writing with One's Feet	63	(1)
53. Human, All Too Human: A Book	63	(1)
54. To My Reader	63	(2)
55. Realistic Painters	65	(1)
56. Poet's Vanity	65	(1)
57. Choosy Taste	65	(1)
58. A Crooked Nose	65	(1)
59. The Pen is Stubborn	65	(2)
60. Higher Men	67	(1)
61. The Skeptic Speaks	67	(1)
62. Ecce Homo	67	(2)
63. Star Morals	69	(2)
BOOK ONE	71	(48)
1. The teachers of the purpose of existence	73	(3)
2. The intellectual conscience	76	(1)
3. Noble and common	77	(2)
4. What preserves the species	79	(1)
5. Unconditional duties	80	(1)
6. Loss of dignity	81	(1)
7. Something for the industrious	81	(1)
8. Unconscious virtues	82	(1)
9. Our eruptions	83	(1)
10. A kind of atavism	84	(1)
11. Consciousness	84	(1)
12. On the aim of science	85	(1)
13. On the doctrine of the feeling of power	86	(2)
14. The things people call love	88	(1)
15. From a distance	89	(1)
16. Over the footbridge	90	(1)
17. Finding motives for our poverty	90	(1)
18. The pride of classical antiquity	91	(1)
19. Evil	91	(1)
20. The dignity of folly	92	(1)
21. To the teachers of selfishness	92	(3)
22. L'ordre du jour pour le roi	95	(1)
23. The signs of corruption	96	(2)
24. Diverse dissatisfaction	98	(2)
25. Not predestined for knowledge	100	(1)
26. What is life?	100	(1)
27. The man of renunciation	100	(1)
28. To be harmful with what is best in us	101	(1)
29. Add lies	101	(1)
30. The comedy played by the famous	102	(1)
31. Trade and nobility	102	(1)
32. Undesirable disciples	103	(1)
33. Outside the lecture hall	104	(1)
34. Historia abscondita	104	(1)
35. Heresy and witchcraft	104	(1)
36. Last words	105	(1)
37. Owing to three errors	105	(1)
38. The explosive ones	106	(1)
39. Changed taste	106	(1)
40. On the lack of noble manners	107	(1)
41. Against remorse	108	(1)
42. Work and boredom	108	(1)
43. What laws betray	109	(1)
44. Supposed motives	109	(1)
45. Epicurus	110	(1)
46. Our amazement	111	(1)
47. On the suppression of the passions	112	(1)
48. Knowledge of misery	112	(2)
49. Magnanimity and related matters	114	(1)
50. The argument of growing solitude	114	(1)
51. Truthfulness	115	(1)
52. What others know about us	115	(1)
53. Where the good begins	115	(1)
54. The consciousness of appearance	116	(1)
55. The ultimate noblemindedness	117	(1)
56. The craving for suffering	117	(2)
BOOK TWO	119	(46)
57. To the realists	121	(1)
58. Only as creators!	121	(1)
59. We artists	122	(1)
60. Women and their action at a distance	123	(1)
61. In honor of friendship	124	(1)
62. Love	124	(1)
63. Woman in music	124	(1)
64. Skeptics	125	(1)
65. Devotion	125	(1)
66. The strength of the weak	125	(1)
67. Simulating--oneself	125	(1)
68. Will and willingness	126	(1)
69. Capacity for revenge	126	(1)
70. Women who master the masters	127	(1)
71. On female chastity	127	(1)
72. Mothers	128	(1)
73. Holy cruelty	129	(1)
74. Failures	129	(1)
75. The third sex	130	(1)
76. The greatest danger	130	(1)
77. The animal with a good conscience	131	(1)
78. What should win our gratitude	132	(1)
79. The attraction of imperfection	133	(1)
80. Art and nature	134	(2)
81. Greek taste	136	(1)
82. Esprit as un-Greek	136	(1)
83. Translations	136	(2)
84. On the origin of poetry	138	(3)
85. The good and the beautiful	141	(1)
86. Of the theater	141	(1)
87. Of the vanity of artists	142	(2)
88. Being serious about truth	144	(1)
89. Now and formerly	144	(1)
90. Lights and shadows	144	(1)
91. Caution	145	(1)
92. Prose and poetry	145	(1)
93. But why do you write?	146	(1)
94. Growth after death	146	(2)
95. Chamfort	148	(1)
96. Two speakers	149	(1)
97. Of the garrulousness of writers	150	(1)
98. In praise of Shakespeare	150	(2)
99. Schopenhauer's followers	152	(4)
100. Learning to pay homage	156	(1)
101. Voltaire	157	(1)
102. A remark for philologists	157	(1)
103. Of German music	158	(2)
104. Of the sound of the German language	160	(2)
105. The Germans as artists	162	(1)
106. Music as an advocate	162	(1)
107. Our ultimate gratitude to art	163	(2)
BOOK THREE	165	(56)
108. New struggles	167	(1)
109. Let us beware	167	(2)
110. Origin of knowledge	169	(2)
111. Origin of the logical	171	(1)
112. Cause and effect	172	(1)
113. On the doctrine of poisons	173	(1)
114. How far the moral sphere extends	173	(1)
115. The four errors	174	(1)
116. Herd instinct	174	(1)
117. Herd remorse	175	(1)
118. Benevolence	175	(1)
119. No altruism!	176	(1)
120. Health of the soul	176	(1)
121. Life no argument	177	(1)
122. Moral skepticism in Christianity	178	(1)
123. Knowledge as more than a mere means	178	(2)
124. In the horizon of the infinite	180	(1)
125. The madman	181	(1)
126. Mystical explanations	182	(1)
127. Aftereffects of the most ancient religiosity	183	(1)
128. The value of prayer	184	(1)
129. The conditions for God	185	(1)
130. A dangerous resolve	185	(1)
131. Christianity and suicide	185	(1)
132. Against Christianity	186	(1)
133. Principle	186	(1)
134. Pessimists as victims	186	(1)
135. Origin of sin	187	(1)
136. The chosen people	188	(1)
137. Speaking in a parable	189	(1)
138. Christ's error	189	(1)
139. The color of the passions	189	(1)
140. Too Jewish	190	(1)
141. Too Oriental	190	(1)
142. Frankincense	191	(1)
143. The greatest advantage of polytheism	191	(1)
144. Religious wars	192	(1)
145. Danger for vegetarians	193	(1)
146. German hopes	193	(1)
147. Question and answer	194	(1)
148. Where reformations occur	194	(1)
149. The failure of reformations	194	(2)
150. On the critique of saints	196	(1)
151. Of the origin of religion	196	(1)
152. The greatest change	196	(1)
153. Homo poeta	197	(1)
154. Different types of dangerous lives	197	(1)
155. What we lack	198	(1)
156. Who is most influential	198	(1)
157. Mentiri	198	(1)
158. An inconvenient trait	198	(1)
159. Every virtue has its age	198	(1)
160. Dealing with virtues	199	(1)
161. To those who love the age	199	(1)
162. Egoism	199	(1)
163. After a great victory	199	(1)
164. Those who seek rest	199	(1)
165. The happiness of those who have renounced something	199	(1)
166. Always in our own company	200	(1)
167. Misanthropy and love	200	(1)
168. Of a sick man	200	(1)
169. Open enemies	201	(1)
170. With the crowd	201	(1)
171. Fame	201	(1)
172. Spoiling the taste	201	(1)
173. Being profound and seeming profound	201	(1)
174. Apart	202	(1)
175. Of eloquence	202	(1)
176. Pity	202	(1)
177. On "the educational establishment"	202	(1)
178. On moral enlightenment	203	(1)
179. Thoughts	203	(1)
180. A good age for free spirits	203	(1)
181. Following and walking ahead	203	(1)
182. In solitude	203	(1)
183. The music of the best future	203	(1)
184. Justice	204	(1)
185. Poor	204	(1)
186. Bad conscience	204	(1)
187. Offensive presentation	204	(1)
188. Work	204	(1)
189. The thinker	205	(1)
190. Against those who praise	205	(1)
191. Against many a defense	205	(1)
192. The good-natured	205	(1)
193. Kant's joke	205	(1)
194. The "openhearted"	206	(1)
195. Laughable	206	(1)
196. Limits of our hearing	206	(1)
197. Better watch out!	206	(1)
198. Chagrin of the proud	206	(1)
199. Liberality	206	(1)
200. Laughter	207	(1)
201. Applause	207	(1)
202. A squanderer	207	(1)
203. Hic niger est	207	(1)
204. Beggars and courtesy	207	(1)
205. Need	207	(1)
206. When it rains	208	(1)
207. The envious	208	(1)
208. Great man	208	(1)
209. One way of asking for reasons	208	(1)
210. Moderation in industriousness	208	(1)
211. Secret enemies	208	(1)
212. Not to be deceived	209	(1)
213. The way to happiness	209	(1)
214. Faith makes blessed	209	(1)
215. Ideal and material	209	(1)
216. Danger in the voice	210	(1)
217. Cause and effect	210	(1)
218. My antipathy	210	(1)
219. The purpose of punishment	210	(1)
220. Sacrifice	210	(1)
221. Consideration	210	(1)
222. Poet and liar	210	(1)
223. Vicarious senses	211	(1)
224. Animals as critics	211	(1)
225. The natural	211	(1)
226. Mistrust and style	211	(1)
227. Bad reasoning, bad shot	211	(1)
228. Against mediators	212	(1)
229. Obstinacy and faithfulness	212	(1)
230. Dearth of silence	212	(1)
231. The "thorough"	212	(1)
232. Dreams	212	(1)
233. The most dangerous point of view	212	(1)
234. A musician's comfort	213	(1)
235. Spirit and character	213	(1)
236. To move the crowd	213	(1)
237. Polite	213	(1)
238. Without envy	213	(1)
239. Joyless	214	(1)
240. At the sea	214	(1)
241. Work and artist	214	(1)
242. Suum cuique	214	(1)
243. Origin of "good" and "bad"	214	(1)
244. Thoughts and words	215	(1)
245. Praise by choice	215	(1)
246. Mathematics	215	(1)
247. Habit	215	(1)
248. Books	215	(1)
249. The sigh of the search for knowledge	215	(1)
250. Guilt	216	(1)
251. Misunderstood sufferers	216	(1)
252. Better a debtor	216	(1)
253. Always at home	216	(1)
254. Against embarrassment	216	(1)
255. Imitators	216	(1)
256. Skin-coveredness	217	(1)
257. From experience	217	(1)
258. The denial of chance	217	(1)
259. From paradise	218	(1)
260. Multiplication table	218	(1)
261. Originality	218	(1)
262. Sub specie aeterni	218	(1)
263. Without vanity	218	(1)
264. What we do	219	(1)
265. Ultimate skepsis	219	(1)
266. Where cruelty is needed	219	(1)
267. With a great goal	219	(1)
268. What makes one heroic?	219	(1)
269. In what do you believe?	219	(1)
270. What does your conscience say?	219	(1)
271. Where are your greatest dangers?	220	(1)
272. What do you love in others?	220	(1)
273. Whom do you call bad?	220	(1)
274. What do you consider most humane?	220	(1)
275. What is the seal of liberation?	220	(1)
BOOK FOUR: Sanctus Januarius	221	(56)
276. For the new year	223	(1)
277. Personal providence	223	(1)
278. The thought of death	224	(1)
279. Star friendship	225	(1)
280. Architecture for the search for knowledge	226	(1)
281. Knowing how to end	227	(1)
282. Gait	227	(1)
283. Preparatory human beings	228	(1)
284. Faith in oneself	229	(1)
285. Excelsior	229	(1)
286. Interruption	230	(1)
287. Delight in blindness	230	(1)
288. Elevated moods	231	(1)
289. Embark!	231	(1)
290. One thing is needful	232	(1)
291. Genoa	233	(1)
292. To those who preach morals	234	(1)
293. Our air	235	(1)
294. Against the slanderers of nature	236	(1)
295. Brief habits	236	(2)
296. A firm reputation	238	(1)
297. The ability to contradict	239	(1)
298. Sigh	239	(1)
299. What one should learn from artists	239	(1)
300. Preludes of science	240	(1)
301. The fancy of the contemplatives	241	(1)
302. The danger of the happiest	242	(1)
303. Two who are happy	243	(1)
304. By doing we forego	244	(1)
305. Self-control	244	(1)
306. Stoics and Epicureans	245	(1)
307. In favor of criticism	245	(1)
308. The history of every day	246	(1)
309. From the seventh solitude	246	(1)
310. Will and wave	247	(2)
311. Refracted light	249	(1)
312. My dog	249	(1)
313. No image of torture	250	(1)
314. New domestic animals	250	(1)
315. On the last hour	250	(1)
316. Prophetic human beings	251	(1)
317. Looking back	252	(1)
318. Wisdom in pain	252	(1)
319. As interpreters of our experiences	253	(1)
320. Upon seeing each other again	254	(1)
321. New caution	254	(1)
322. Parable	254	(1)
323. Good luck in fate	255	(1)
324. In media vita	255	(1)
325. What belongs to greatness	255	(1)
326. The physicians of the soul and pain	256	(1)
327. Taking seriously	257	(1)
328. To harm stupidity	258	(1)
329. Leisure and idleness	258	(2)
330. Applause	260	(1)
331. Better deaf than deafened	260	(1)
332. The evil hour	261	(1)
333. The meaning of knowing	261	(1)
334. One must learn to love	262	(1)
335. Long live physics!	263	(4)
336. Nature's stinginess	267	(1)
337. The "humaneness" of the future	267	(2)
338. The will to suffer and those who feel pity	269	(2)
339. Vita femina	271	(1)
340. The dying Socrates	272	(1)
341. The greatest weight	273	(1)
342. Incipit tragoedia	274	(3)
BOOK FIVE: We Fearless Ones	277	(72)
343. The meaning of our cheerfulness	279	(1)
344. How we, too, are still pious	280	(3)
345. Morality as a problem	283	(2)
346. Our question mark	285	(2)
347. Believers and their need to believe	287	(3)
348. On the origin of scholars	290	(1)
349. Once more the origin of scholars	291	(1)
350. In honor of the homines religiosi	292	(1)
351. In honor of the priestly type	293	(2)
352. How morality is scarcely dispensable	295	(1)
353. On the origin of religions	296	(1)
354. On the "genius of the species"	297	(3)
355. The origin of our concept of "knowledge"	300	(2)
356. How things will become ever more "artistic" in Europe	302	(2)
357. On the old problem: "What is German?"	304	(6)
358. The peasant rebellion of the spirit	310	(4)
359. The revenge against the spirit and other ulterior motives of morality	314	(1)
360. Two kinds of causes that are often confounded	315	(1)
361. On the problem of the actor	316	(2)
362. Our faith that Europe will become more virile	318	(1)
363. How each sex has its own prejudice about love	318	(2)
364. The hermit speaks	320	(1)
365. The hermit speaks once more	321	(1)
366. Faced with a scholarly book	322	(2)
367. The first distinction to be made regarding works of art	324	(1)
368. The cynic speaks	324	(2)
369. Our side by side	326	(1)
370. What is romanticism?	327	(4)
371. We incomprehensible ones	331	(1)
372. Why we are no idealists	332	(2)
373. "Science" as a prejudice	334	(2)
374. Our new "infinite"	336	(1)
375. Why we look like Epicureans	337	(1)
376. Our slow periods	337	(1)
377. We who are homeless	338	(2)
378. "And become bright again"	340	(1)
379. The fool interrupts	341	(1)
380. "The wanderer" speaks	342	(1)
381. On the question of being understandable	343	(3)
382. The great health	346	(1)
383. Epilogue	347	(2)
Appendix: Songs of Prince Vogelfrei	349	(27)
To Goethe	351	(1)
The Poet's Call	351	(4)
In the South	355	(2)
Pious Beppa	357	(2)
The Mysterious Bark	359	(1)
Declaration of Love	359	(2)
Song of a Theocritical Goat-herd	361	(2)
"Souls that are unsure"	363	(1)
Fool in Despair	363	(2)
Rimus remedium	365	(4)
"My Happiness!"	369	(2)
Toward New Seas	371	(1)
Sils Maria	371	(2)
To the Mistral	373	(3)
Acknowledgments	376	(1)
Index	377