Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (German: Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen), also translated as Thus Spake Zarathustra, is a work of philosophical fiction written by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche between 1883 and 1885. The protagonist is nominally the historical Zoroaster, but, besides a handful of sentences, Nietzsche is not concerned with a specific resemblance. Much of the book consists of discourses by Zarathustra on a wide variety of subjects, most of which end with the refrain, "Thus spoke Zarathustra." The character of Zarathustra first appeared in Nietzsche's earlier book The Gay Science (at 342, which closely resembles 1 of "Zarathustra's Prologue" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra).
Nietzsche has suggested that his Zarathustra is a tragedy, a parody, a polemic, and the culmination of the German language. It was his favorite of his own books. He was aware, however, that readers might not understand it. This is possibly why he subtitled it A Book for All and None. However, as with the content as a whole, the subtitle has baffled many critics, and there is no consensus.
thus spoke zarathustra a book for all and none
Nietzsche was born into, and largely remained within, the Bildungsbürgertum, a sort of highly cultivated middleclass.[2] By the time he was a teenager, he had been writing music and poetry.[3][4] His aunt Rosalie gave him a biography of Alexander von Humboldt for his 15th birthday, and reading this inspired a love of learning "for its own sake".[5] The schools he attended, the books he read, and his general milieu fostered and inculcated his interests in Bildung, or self-development, a concept at least tangential to many in Zarathustra, and he worked extremely hard. He became an outstanding philologist almost accidentally, and he renounced his ideas about being an artist. As a philologist he became particularly sensitive to the transmissions and modifications of ideas,[6] which also bears relevance into Zarathustra. Nietzsche's growing distaste toward philology, however, was yoked with his growing taste toward philosophy. As a student, this yoke was his work with Diogenes Laertius. Even with that work he strongly opposed received opinion. With subsequent and properly philosophical work he continued to oppose received opinion.[7] His books leading up to Zarathustra have been described as nihilistic destruction.[7] Such nihilistic destruction combined with his increasing isolation and the rejection of his marriage proposals (to Lou Andreas-Salomé) devastated him.[7] While he was working on Zarathustra he was walking very much.[7] The imagery of his walks mingled with his physical and emotional and intellectual pains and his prior decades of hard work. What "erupted" was Thus Spoke Zarathustra.[7]
A few weeks after meeting this idea, he paraphrased in a notebook something written by Friedrich von Hellwald about Zarathustra.[9] This paraphrase was developed into the beginning of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.[9]
In January 1884 Nietzsche had finished the third part and thought the book finished.[9] But by November he expected a fourth part to be finished by January.[9] He also mentioned a fifth and sixth part leading to Zarathustra's death, "or else he will give me no peace".[10] But after the fourth part was finished he called it "a fourth (and last) part of Zarathustra, a kind of sublime finale, which is not at all meant for the public".[10]
Nietzsche included some brief writings on eternal recurrence in his earlier book The Gay Science. Zarathustra also appeared in that book. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the eternal recurrence is, according to Nietzsche, the "fundamental idea of the work".[16]
The length of paragraphs and the punctuation and the repetitions all enhance the musicality.[9]The title is Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Much of the book is what Zarathustra said. What Zarathustra says
The style of the book, along with its ambiguity and paradoxical nature, has helped its eventual enthusiastic reception by the reading public, but has frustrated academic attempts at analysis (as Nietzsche may have intended). Thus Spoke Zarathustra remained unpopular as a topic for scholars (especially those in the Anglo-American analytic tradition) until the latter half of the 20th century brought widespread interest in Nietzsche and his unconventional style.[22]
The critic Harold Bloom criticized Thus Spoke Zarathustra in The Western Canon (1994), calling the book "a gorgeous disaster" and "unreadable."[23] Other commentators have suggested that Nietzsche's style is intentionally ironic for much of the book.
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None" was a book by Friedrich Nietzsche. It is described in the preface of "Ecce Homo" with the phrase "among my writings my "Zarathustra" stands to my mind by itself", indicating its status as his magnum opus.
In Part IV, Zarathustra assembles in his cave a number of men who approximate, but who do not quite attain the position of the overman. There, they enjoy a feast and a number of songs. The book ends with Zarathustra joyfully embracing the eternal recurrence, and the thought that "all joy wants deep, wants deep eternity."
Written in a passionate, quasi-biblical style, Thus Spake Zarathustra is daring in form and filled with provocative, thought-provoking concepts. Today, the work is regarded as a forerunner of modern existentialist thought, a book that has provoked and stimulated students of philosophy and literature for more than 100 years.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None is a book written during the 1880s by the German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche. Hard to categorise, the work is a treatise on philosophy, a masterly work of literature, in parts a collection of poetry and in others a parody of and amendment to the Bible. Consisting largely of speeches by the book's hero, prophet Zarathustra, the work's content extends across a mass of styles and subject matter. Nietzsche himself described the work as "the deepest ever written".
Described by Nietzsche himself as "The Deepest Ever Written", the book is a dense and esoteric treatise on philosophy and morality, featuring as protagonist a fictionalized Zarathustra. A central irony of the text is that the style of the Bible is used by Nietzsche to present ideas of his which fundamentally oppose Judaeo-Christian morality and tradition.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra was conceived while Nietzsche was writing 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 feet (1,800 m). 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 Forster.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, also translated as Thus Spake Zarathustra, is a work of philosophical fiction written by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche between 1883 and 1885. The protagonist is nominally the historical Zarathustra, but, besides a handful of sentences, Nietzsche is not concerned with a specific resemblance. Much of the book purports to be what Zarathustra said, and it repeats the refrain, "Thus spoke Zarathustra."
Zarathustra himself first appeared in Nietzsche's earlier book The Gay Science. Nietzsche has suggested that his Zarathustra is a tragedy and a parody and a polemic and the culmination of the German language. It was his favorite of his own books. He was aware, however, that readers might not understand it. This is possibly why he subtitled it A Book for All and None. However, as with the content as a whole, the subtitle has baffled many critics, and there is no consensus.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (German: Also sprach Zarathustra, sometimes translated Thus Spake Zarathustra), subtitled A Book for All and None (Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen), is a written work by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, composed in four parts between 1883 and 1885. Much of the work deals with ideas such as the "eternal recurrence of the same", the parable on the "death of God", and the "prophecy" of the Overman, which were first introduced in The Gay Science.Described by Nietzsche himself as "the deepest ever written", the book is a dense and esoteric treatise on philosophy and morality, featuring as protagonist a fictionalized Zarathustra. A central irony of the text is that the style of the Bible is used by Nietzsche to present ideas of his which fundamentally oppose Judaeo-Christian morality and tradition.
The nineteenth century was the century of great philosophical diversity giving birth to various schools of thought standing in opposition- pragmatism against idealism, positivism against irrationalism, conservatism against liberalism. Although most of the pioneering thinkers of the nineteenth century had conflicting views under the prevailing concepts and to their contemporaries, one thing which united these eccentric personalities was their religious beliefs. Similar to Hegel, Kierkegaard, Schelling, and many other thinkers in the history of time, Nietzsche embarked on the familiar road to study the nature of God as he began his theological studies at the University of Bonn. It is indeed bewildering to see the faith of young Nietzsche immediately being thwarted as he ventured into the influential and radical works of Strauss and Feuerbach and discredited the teachings of Christianity leading him towards his dangerous doctrines of nihilism and death of God discussed profusely in the book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 2ff7e9595c
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