Thus Spoke Zarathustra A Book for Everyone and No One

by Nietzsche, Friedrich; Hollingdale, R. J.

• ISBN13: 9780140441185
• ISBN10: 0140441182
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1961-11-30
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

Nietzsche was one of the most revolutionary and subversive thinkers in Western philosophy, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra remains his most famous and influential work. It describes how the ancient Persian prophet Zarathustra descends from his solitude in the mountains to tell the world that God is dead and that the Superman, the human embodiment of divinity, is his successor. With blazing intensity and poetic brilliance, Nietzsche argues that the meaning of existence is not to be found in religious pieties or meek submission, but in an all-powerful life force: passionate, chaotic and free. R. J> Hollingdale's vibrant translation captures the dramatic force of Nietzsche's writing. His introduction offers a comprehensive chapter-by-chapter survey of the work, and there are also explanatory notes.

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.
R. J. Hollingdale has translated eleven of Nietzsche’s books and published two books about him. He has also translated works by, among others, Schopenhauer, Goethe, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Lichtenberg and Theodor Fontane, many of these for the Penguin Classics. He is Honorary President of the British Nietzsche Society, and was for the Australian academic year 1991 Visiting Fellow at Trinity College, Melbourne.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part One
Zarathustra's Prologue
Zarathustra's Discourses:
Of the Three Metamorphoses
Of the Chairs of Virtue
Of the Afterworldsmen
Of the Despisers of the Body
Of Joys and Passions
Of the Pale Criminal
Of Reading and Writing
Of the Tree on the Mountainside
Of the Preachers of Death
Of War and Warriors
Of the New Idol
Of the Flies of the Market-Place
Of Chastity
Of the Friend
Of the Thousand and One Goals
Of Love of One's Neighbour
Of the Way of the Creator
Of Old and Young Women
Of the Adder's Bite
Of Marriage and Children
Of Voluntary Death
Of the Bestowing Virtue
Part Two
The Child with the Mirror
On the Blissful Islands
Of the Compassionate
Of the Priests
Of the Virtuous
Of the Rabble
Of the Tarantulas
Of the Famous Philsophers
The Night Song
The Dance Song
The Funeral Song
Of Self-Overcoming
Of the Sublime Men
Of the Land of Culture
Of Immaculate Perception
Of Scholars
Of Poets
Of Great Events
The Prophet
Of Redemption
Of Manly Prudence
The Stillest Hour
Part Three
The Wanderer
Of the Vision and the Riddle
Of Involuntary Bliss
Before Sunrise
Of the Virtue That Makes Small
On the Mount of Olives
Of Passing By
Of the Apostates
The Home-Coming
Of the Three Evil Things
Of the Spirit of Gravity
Of Old and New Law-Tables
The Convalescent
Of the Great Longing
The Second Dance Song
The Seven Seals (or: The Song of Yes and Amen)
Part Four
The Honey Offering
The Cry of Distress
Conversation with the Kings
The Leech
The Sorcerer
Retired from Service
The Ugliest Man
The Voluntary Beggar
The Shadow
At Noontide
The Greeting
The Last Supper
Of the Higher Man
The Song of Melancholy
Of Science
Among the Daughters of the Desert
The Awakening
The Ass Festival
The Intoxicated Song
The Sign
Notes