Unpublished Fragments

by Friedrich Nietzsche, Adrian Del Caro (Translator & Afterword)

This volume of The Complete Works provides the first English translation of all Nietzsche's unpublished notes from April 1885 to the summer of 1886, the period in which he wrote his breakthrough philosophical books Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality . Keen to reinvent himself after Thus Spoke Zarathustra , the philosopher used these unpublished notes to chart his search for a new philosophical voice. The notebooks contain copious drafts of book titles; critical retrospection on his earlier projects; a critique of the feminine; prophetic commentary on Germany; and forays into metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, and language. They also reveal his deep concern for Europe and its future and a burgeoning presence of the Dionysian. We learn what Nietzsche was reading and from whom he borrowed, and we find a considerable portion of notes and fragments from the non-book "Will to Power," though here they are unembellished and unmediated. Richly annotated and accompanied by a detailed translator's afterword, this landmark volume sheds light on the controversy surrounding the Nachlass of the 1880s.

Genres: Philosophy

616 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 2019

About the author

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture, who became one of the most influential of all modern thinkers. He began his career as a classical philologist before turning to philosophy. He became the youngest person to hold the Chair of Classical Philology at the University of Basel in 1869 at the age of 24, but resigned in 1879 due to health problems that plagued him most of his life; he completed much of his core writing in the following decade. In 1889, at age 44, he suffered a collapse and afterward a complete loss of his mental faculties, with paralysis and probably vascular dementia. He lived his remaining years in the care of his mother until her death in 1897 and then with his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. Nietzsche died in 1900, after experiencing pneumonia and multiple strokes.
Nietzsche's work spans philosophical polemics, poetry, cultural criticism, and fiction while displaying a fondness for aphorism and irony. Prominent elements of his philosophy include his radical critique of truth in favour of perspectivism; a genealogical critique of religion and Christian morality and a related theory of master–slave morality; the aesthetic affirmation of life in response to both the "death of God" and the profound crisis of nihilism; the notion of Apollonian and Dionysian forces; and a characterisation of the human subject as the expression of competing wills, collectively understood as the will to power. He also developed influential concepts such as the Übermensch and his doctrine of eternal return. In his later work, he became increasingly preoccupied with the creative powers of the individual to overcome cultural and moral mores in pursuit of new values and aesthetic health. His body of work touched a wide range of topics, including art, philology, history, music, religion, tragedy, culture, and science, and drew inspiration from Greek tragedy as well as figures such as Zoroaster, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Richard Wagner, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
After his death, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth became the curator and editor of his manuscripts. She edited his unpublished writings to fit her German ultranationalist ideology, often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism. 20th-century scholars such as Walter Kaufmann, R.J. Hollingdale, and Georges Bataille defended Nietzsche against this interpretation, and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available. Nietzsche's thought enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1960s and his ideas have since had a profound impact on 20th- and early 21st-century thinkers across philosophy—especially in schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism—as well as art, literature, music, poetry, politics, and popular culture.

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was bedtime reading over a long period. Nietzsche has been one of my culture heroes through the years, and I can recollect giving a seminar to a group of Roman Catholics who had never heard a positive word about him. One can understand that, given his treatment of Christianity. Nonetheless, I did survive an extensive grilling and managed to open some eyes and ears his visions.

These notes are background to important writings and offer a view of a trenchant mind in search of a voice to match. The fertility and range of thought reflected here are inspirational, even for someone who has been in awe for years. I certainly would, however, strongly recommend going to the texts which arose out of these speculations, Beyond Good and Evil and The Genealogy of Morality.

Incidentally, Stanford UP would appreciate your support; they are publishing a nineteen-volume collection of Nietzsche's works translated directly from the Colli-Montinari standard edition (de Gruyter). If you don't want the complete set, you'll not get better/completer translations of the major texts in any other edition.

[diderot · Rating 5 out of 5]

is this really the infamous 'will to power?'
typically dangerous thoughts from nietzsche's notebooks, but really, nothing more harmless than playing with literary style--transitioning from the poetic to the prosaic......all the while going deeper in abstracted thought. nazis BTFO!!!! interesting to finish this book on VE Day.

enjoyed this one more than most of the other notebooks published by SUP with the exception, perhaps, of the earliest notebooks. wow--i've actually finished the nietzsche corpus in english!