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Nietzche contre Wagner – suivi d'annexes: Nouvelle édition 2019
'Richard Wagner is het grootste genie en de grootste mens van onze tijd'. aldus Friedrich Nietzsche in een brief uit het jaar 1869, toen hij nog geheel en al in de ban was van de muzikale was er oprecht van overtuigd dat alleen Wagner het versufte Duitsland nieuw leven in zou kunnen blazen door voor een culturele omwenteling te zorgen. Wagner op zijn beurt koesterde Nietzsche lange tijd, meer uit berekening dan uit genegenheid overigens, als het filosofische en literaire godsgeschenk dat zijn denkbeelden een schijn van wetenschappelijke legitimatie kon verschaffen.
Na de officiële opening van het pompeuze Festspielhaus in Bayreuth raakte Nietzsche diep ontgoocheld door de innerlijke leegte en zelfgenoegzame facades van de wagneriaanse spektakels. Vanaf dat moment begon hij Richard Wagner te vuur en te zwaard te bestrijden. Er is zelfs beweerd dat alles wat hij sindsdien geschreven heeft in feite als één langgerekte polemiek contra Wagner beschouwd zou moeten worden. Wagner heeft Nietzsche dodelijk beledigd en ten diepste in plaats van de man van de toekomst werd hij voor Nietzsche het symbool van de meest duistere en reactionaire krachten in de Duitse geest.
Voor deze heruitgave koos Hans Driessen alle geschriften van Nietzsche over Wagner, aangevuld met materiaal van wagneriaanse zijde, met name uit de dagboeken van diens vrouw Cosima. Het geheel onthult veel over Wagner, en nog veel meer over Nietzsche zelf. In zijn uiterst verhelderend nawoord geeft Driessen een scherp portret van de merkwaardige verhouding tussen Nietzsche en Wagner, die voor Nietzsches leven van doorslaggevende betekenis is geweest.
Is Wagner überhaupt een mens? Is hij niet eerder een ziekte? Hij maakt alles wat hij aanraakt ziek. Wagner heeft het effect van overmatig alcoholgebruik. Hij stompt af, hij ontregelt het maagslijm. - Friedrich Nietzsche
Na de officiële opening van het pompeuze Festspielhaus in Bayreuth raakte Nietzsche diep ontgoocheld door de innerlijke leegte en zelfgenoegzame facades van de wagneriaanse spektakels. Vanaf dat moment begon hij Richard Wagner te vuur en te zwaard te bestrijden. Er is zelfs beweerd dat alles wat hij sindsdien geschreven heeft in feite als één langgerekte polemiek contra Wagner beschouwd zou moeten worden. Wagner heeft Nietzsche dodelijk beledigd en ten diepste in plaats van de man van de toekomst werd hij voor Nietzsche het symbool van de meest duistere en reactionaire krachten in de Duitse geest.
Voor deze heruitgave koos Hans Driessen alle geschriften van Nietzsche over Wagner, aangevuld met materiaal van wagneriaanse zijde, met name uit de dagboeken van diens vrouw Cosima. Het geheel onthult veel over Wagner, en nog veel meer over Nietzsche zelf. In zijn uiterst verhelderend nawoord geeft Driessen een scherp portret van de merkwaardige verhouding tussen Nietzsche en Wagner, die voor Nietzsches leven van doorslaggevende betekenis is geweest.
Is Wagner überhaupt een mens? Is hij niet eerder een ziekte? Hij maakt alles wat hij aanraakt ziek. Wagner heeft het effect van overmatig alcoholgebruik. Hij stompt af, hij ontregelt het maagslijm. - Friedrich Nietzsche
551 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1887
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About the author
Friedrich Nietzsche
4,314 books25.5k followersFriedrich 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
May 16, 2022
7/10.
Nietzsche gives us the physiological point of view by which to judge ideas, art, and music. The question becomes: is this piece of art healthy for me? Does it strengthen my spirit? Does it enliven my soul? Or does it send me shuddering and break my impulse to dance? That is how we must judge art: physiologically.
Concert hall music is designed to cut off the natural impulse of dancing to heighten the experience of hearing. But, at a fundamental level, classical music holds the spiritual goal of dancing, of natural exuberance and the expression of joy, health, and confidence. The dance switches between a slow bounce and an excited fury: "on the counterplay of [a] cooler breeze that came from wariness and the warm breath of enthusiasm rested the magic of all goodmusic". The degeneration of music comes when it destroys the dancing impulse. Jagged melodies, un-square time signatures, ever-changing speeds, and an uneven structure destroy dancing. They confuse the mind and the legs. Chaos usurps order. One can detect this chaotic, uneven, blasphemous impulse in modern and Soviet orchestral music. Seeking to break from the "fetters" of order and evenness, the new music strives for perpetual, childlike novelty. By shunning the past and its ordered structure, this music destroys itself.
But what is the cause of this musical sickness? Is it the decrepit ideas of modern artists? Of social currents and economic waves? Three times no! Once again, it is derived from physiology — specifically, physiological degeneration. In other words, artists and other cultural leaders were once strong, but now they are becoming naturally feeble. They are gathering genetic mutations caused after being born in the plentiful environment of the industrial revolution. Nearly all babies survive, which means that the weak, the deviant, and the sick survive. These go on to reproduce and have children that are ever more weak, deviant, and sick (due to the lack of a harsh environment). Together, this causes a deviation from the evolutionary norm — a deviation from heterosexuality, from mental stability, from physical health, from a hardy mentality regarding struggle, and even from natural beauty.
So these artists propagate themselves and derived from their sickly nature are sickly works. Healthy art only comes through healthy physiology: the penultimate mistake of conservatives. Degeneration will continue until spiritual and physical collapse, at which point the healthy and the strong will be selected again (as they will be the only ones who can survive).
Such is the macrosphere of our culture. But what about the microsphere? What about our own lives? We have a task, we have a duty. Those noble enough to feel the weight of greatness on their shoulders know it. Our self-overcoming must be done, or we will forever live in the shadow of our potential. "For every attempt we make to dodge or escape it, for every premature resignation, for every acceptance of equality with those among whom we do not belong, for every activity . . . which distracts us from our main cause" we become sick. Sick with our weakness. Sick with our ease, our spiritual flabbiness. "No!" we must say to weakness. Atone we must, especially for the easing of our burden. One choice remains in the future "if we want to return to health": "we must assume a heavier burden than we ever carried before".
And so we climb mountains with burdens on our backs. Without burdens, what is there? What but natural degeneration, a decline to the lowest possible potential of your being? And so we must take external and internal burdens on our shoulders. Carry them upwards we must! We carry suffering on our shoulders — with a purpose. We push through our laziness to become strong. We push through our boredom to sharpen our mind. We push through our fear to do what we dream of. We push through our Skinnerian conditioning to search for the truth. We push through our immediate desires to stop, think, and will upwards. And by pushing through we rise! Climbing our mountain one step after another, we cultivate ourselves: bring ourselves out of the soil and yield fruit. Beauty: the sweet fruit. Strength: the hardy fruit. Courage: the unextinguishable fruit. Knowledge: the eyesight-enhancing fruit.
But for those without fruit, I say: Till your soil! Plant your seeds! Water your saplings! Nourish them day by day! One day, a large tree shall grow — standing strong, stretching out wide, confident in its stance. "What a tree!" bystanders gasp in awe. Awe: the proper reaction to the rare, the noble, and the strong. Awe creates admiration, admiration creates followers, and followers aim themselves towards that which is awed. Thus shall you look upwards, aiming at the heights of man, uniting dream and day, bridging beast and übermensch!
Nietzsche gives us the physiological point of view by which to judge ideas, art, and music. The question becomes: is this piece of art healthy for me? Does it strengthen my spirit? Does it enliven my soul? Or does it send me shuddering and break my impulse to dance? That is how we must judge art: physiologically.
Concert hall music is designed to cut off the natural impulse of dancing to heighten the experience of hearing. But, at a fundamental level, classical music holds the spiritual goal of dancing, of natural exuberance and the expression of joy, health, and confidence. The dance switches between a slow bounce and an excited fury: "on the counterplay of [a] cooler breeze that came from wariness and the warm breath of enthusiasm rested the magic of all goodmusic". The degeneration of music comes when it destroys the dancing impulse. Jagged melodies, un-square time signatures, ever-changing speeds, and an uneven structure destroy dancing. They confuse the mind and the legs. Chaos usurps order. One can detect this chaotic, uneven, blasphemous impulse in modern and Soviet orchestral music. Seeking to break from the "fetters" of order and evenness, the new music strives for perpetual, childlike novelty. By shunning the past and its ordered structure, this music destroys itself.
But what is the cause of this musical sickness? Is it the decrepit ideas of modern artists? Of social currents and economic waves? Three times no! Once again, it is derived from physiology — specifically, physiological degeneration. In other words, artists and other cultural leaders were once strong, but now they are becoming naturally feeble. They are gathering genetic mutations caused after being born in the plentiful environment of the industrial revolution. Nearly all babies survive, which means that the weak, the deviant, and the sick survive. These go on to reproduce and have children that are ever more weak, deviant, and sick (due to the lack of a harsh environment). Together, this causes a deviation from the evolutionary norm — a deviation from heterosexuality, from mental stability, from physical health, from a hardy mentality regarding struggle, and even from natural beauty.
So these artists propagate themselves and derived from their sickly nature are sickly works. Healthy art only comes through healthy physiology: the penultimate mistake of conservatives. Degeneration will continue until spiritual and physical collapse, at which point the healthy and the strong will be selected again (as they will be the only ones who can survive).
Such is the macrosphere of our culture. But what about the microsphere? What about our own lives? We have a task, we have a duty. Those noble enough to feel the weight of greatness on their shoulders know it. Our self-overcoming must be done, or we will forever live in the shadow of our potential. "For every attempt we make to dodge or escape it, for every premature resignation, for every acceptance of equality with those among whom we do not belong, for every activity . . . which distracts us from our main cause" we become sick. Sick with our weakness. Sick with our ease, our spiritual flabbiness. "No!" we must say to weakness. Atone we must, especially for the easing of our burden. One choice remains in the future "if we want to return to health": "we must assume a heavier burden than we ever carried before".
And so we climb mountains with burdens on our backs. Without burdens, what is there? What but natural degeneration, a decline to the lowest possible potential of your being? And so we must take external and internal burdens on our shoulders. Carry them upwards we must! We carry suffering on our shoulders — with a purpose. We push through our laziness to become strong. We push through our boredom to sharpen our mind. We push through our fear to do what we dream of. We push through our Skinnerian conditioning to search for the truth. We push through our immediate desires to stop, think, and will upwards. And by pushing through we rise! Climbing our mountain one step after another, we cultivate ourselves: bring ourselves out of the soil and yield fruit. Beauty: the sweet fruit. Strength: the hardy fruit. Courage: the unextinguishable fruit. Knowledge: the eyesight-enhancing fruit.
But for those without fruit, I say: Till your soil! Plant your seeds! Water your saplings! Nourish them day by day! One day, a large tree shall grow — standing strong, stretching out wide, confident in its stance. "What a tree!" bystanders gasp in awe. Awe: the proper reaction to the rare, the noble, and the strong. Awe creates admiration, admiration creates followers, and followers aim themselves towards that which is awed. Thus shall you look upwards, aiming at the heights of man, uniting dream and day, bridging beast and übermensch!
August 23, 2020
Um testemunho doloroso sobre o fim de uma amizade. Nietzsche escreveu este triste ensaio quando lhe restava ainda alguma lucidez, antes do trágico abraço ao cavalo de Turim que anunciaria o fim de um dos mais lúcidos filósofos de sempre. A revelação da inevitável separação impera. Wagner compunha como e para os deuses, mas era capaz de falar, muito tranquilamente, da tortura e morte dos seus semelhantes durante as refeições. Ser capaz da beleza e da crueldade. A história desta tragédia pessoal acompanhou Nietzsche até ao fim. Um livro muito bonito, onde a parcialidade de um amigo magoado torna tudo mais verdadeiro, mais humano.
March 5, 2023
doamne ajuta nietzsche
January 21, 2016
"No, we are disgusted with this bad taste, this will to truth, this search after truth “at all costs;” this madness of adolescence, “the love of truth;” we are now too experienced, too serious, too joyful, too scorched, too profound for that.… We no longer believe that truth remains truth when it is unveiled,—we have lived enough to understand this.… To-day it seems to us good form not to strip everything naked, not to be present at all things, not to desire to “know” all. “Tout comprendre c'est tout mépriser.”… “Is it true,” a little girl once asked her mother, “that the beloved Father is everywhere?—I think it quite improper,”—a hint to philosophers.… The shame with which Nature has concealed herself behind riddles and enigmas should be held in higher esteem. Perhaps truth is a woman who has reasons for not revealing her reasons?… Perhaps her name, to use a Greek word is Baubo?—Oh these Greeks, they understood the art of living! For this it is needful to halt bravely at the surface, at the fold, at the skin, to worship appearance, and to believe in forms, tones, words, and the whole Olympus of appearance! These Greeks were superficial—from profundity.… And are we not returning to precisely the same thing, we dare devils of intellect who have scaled the highest and most dangerous pinnacles of present thought, in order to look around us from that height, in order to look down from that height? Are we not precisely in this respect—Greeks? Worshipers of form, of tones, of words? Precisely on that account—artists?"
April 28, 2018
In this short essay, Nietzsche attacks his old friend, the musician Richard Wagner. In order to do this, he simply compiled sections from his older works and revised them a bit to give them flow in this piece. Having already read all of those older works, this one was a bit of a bore for me. I also think Nietzsche's revisions to these sections actually made them harder to read and less enjoyable.
Overall, this was still a good read because, as a Nietzsche fanatic, I received another insight into the Wagner cult. This book is not without fresh ideas, either. In one section Nietzsche casually (typical for him) throws this out there: "Aesthetics are just applied physiology." I had to stop reading and chew on that one for days. An entire work could be written on just that one idea, yet Nietzsche just tossed it out there in one line.
As a writer and philosopher, he was so overflowing with ideas that he didn't even need to expound the one that blew my mind. Five words! I had to pause for them.
Overall, this was still a good read because, as a Nietzsche fanatic, I received another insight into the Wagner cult. This book is not without fresh ideas, either. In one section Nietzsche casually (typical for him) throws this out there: "Aesthetics are just applied physiology." I had to stop reading and chew on that one for days. An entire work could be written on just that one idea, yet Nietzsche just tossed it out there in one line.
As a writer and philosopher, he was so overflowing with ideas that he didn't even need to expound the one that blew my mind. Five words! I had to pause for them.
January 30, 2014
One of the most embarrassing polemics I've ever read.
May 5, 2018
This is a pamphlet collection of Nietzsche's passages on Richard Wagner. Nietzsche made the collection himself from his own books
Gay Science
,
Human, All-Too Human
,
The Wanderer and His Shadow
,
Beyond Good and Evil
, and
Genealogy of Morals
.
These excerpts record how Nietzsche distanced himself from Wagner. Composed near the end of his career, it is also an expression of Nietzsche's most fundamental convictions. As Nietzsche claims in the Preface: when the passages are "read one after another, they will leave no doubt either about Richard Wagner or about myself: we are antipodes." (page 662 from The Portable Nietzsche)
As a first approximation, we can interpret Nietzsche's disagreement with Wagner with respect to Hegel's distinction (in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Art ) between classical and romantic art. While Nietzsche champions the art that is imbued with vitality and that is an active constituent of the world of meaning, Wagner's art is "sick", reflective, and overwhelmed by uneven expression. In this sense, Nietzsche's Wagner-critique can be situated within his reaction against the Romantic movement in general.
According to Nietzsche, the Romantic movement grows out of the soil of decadence and sickness. This is manifest, not through sufferings, but through the lack of it, through the urge to make life easier, to mild and mediocre. For Nietzsche, this is the taste of the unartistic mass, and its major problem is boredom. Because the mass is bored in enjoyment, it now craves for exaggeration, overabundance and excessiveness. Romanticism (and especially Wagner's music) meets this demand by appealing unregulatedly to the senses and by subjecting the music and the drama to the "pose". The result is that the aesthetic activity of the audience is disturbed, so that they can only "swim and float" in chaotic feelings.
To be sure, Nietzsche admits that Romanticism is a great movement. But it is a "swan song", that which emerges when a culture is at its decline. Though we can still admire Wagner, we have to be aware that his music is a witness, not a role model.
It is not quite clear why Nietzsche has to base his distaste for Wagner on these reasons. After all, it could be due to Wagner's anti-Semitism, his conversion to Christianity, or the fact that he appeals to the mass. The difference in style - the criterion Nietzsche seems to set in order to distinguish himself from Wagner - does not tell much: levity is sometimes cheerfulness, self-assurance and the ability to dance, sometimes mediocrity, hedonism and the inability to carry burden; ponderance is sometimes seriousness and more endurance, sometimes contrived sorrow and artificial pessimism. The decisive moment is rather the intensity of life: does the art come from a strong spirit or a weary one? But, when Nietzsche imposes this criterion on Wagner's works, he may be inventing some gap in it that is not understandable to Wagner himself. What if "Dionysian tragedy" and "Romantic pessimism" were in Wagner the same thing? (After all, these two categories were never his own.) And then who is Nietzsche to decide how much vitality is involved in the works?
Anyway, Nietzsche's message is clear. Art is art because of vitality, tout court. Strangely, this reverberates Hegel's controversial claim about the "end" of art: art can no longer enjoy supreme vitality in an age of reflection; it is no longer sacrosanct to a people, but instead has become superfluous "culture" or "expression".
What is no less interesting about the book is that it attests Nietzsche's transition of attitude toward Wagner, which implies a model of authenticity. By taking sides against himself, Nietzsche finds the way to himself, "that hidden and masterful something for which we long do not have a name, until finally it proves itself to be" (677). The authentic self, so to speak, remains nameless until disclosed, but whenever disclosed appears to have always already been lurking there.
Another point that worths attention is that, at the end, Nietzsche wants to balance the project of disclosure with the perseverance of hiddenness. "We no longer believe that truth remains truth when the veils are withdrawn"; "we consider it a matter of decency not to wish to see everything naked, or to be present at everything, or to understand and 'know' everything." (682) When everything is brought present-at-hand (to borrow Heidegger's term), no secret remains and the truth must be plain and boring. The content of truth may remain, but the dynamicity is lost - but only the latter is what makes truth truth. Accordingly, Nietzsche advises us "to stop courageously at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore appearance, to believe in forms, tones, words, in the whole Olympus of appearance" (683). Knowing the secret, keeping it a secret, and presenting it as a secret: this is the most noble way of unconcealment. The appearance is divine; preserving its magic and wonder is precisely the destiny of art.
These excerpts record how Nietzsche distanced himself from Wagner. Composed near the end of his career, it is also an expression of Nietzsche's most fundamental convictions. As Nietzsche claims in the Preface: when the passages are "read one after another, they will leave no doubt either about Richard Wagner or about myself: we are antipodes." (page 662 from The Portable Nietzsche)
As a first approximation, we can interpret Nietzsche's disagreement with Wagner with respect to Hegel's distinction (in his Lectures on the Philosophy of Art ) between classical and romantic art. While Nietzsche champions the art that is imbued with vitality and that is an active constituent of the world of meaning, Wagner's art is "sick", reflective, and overwhelmed by uneven expression. In this sense, Nietzsche's Wagner-critique can be situated within his reaction against the Romantic movement in general.
According to Nietzsche, the Romantic movement grows out of the soil of decadence and sickness. This is manifest, not through sufferings, but through the lack of it, through the urge to make life easier, to mild and mediocre. For Nietzsche, this is the taste of the unartistic mass, and its major problem is boredom. Because the mass is bored in enjoyment, it now craves for exaggeration, overabundance and excessiveness. Romanticism (and especially Wagner's music) meets this demand by appealing unregulatedly to the senses and by subjecting the music and the drama to the "pose". The result is that the aesthetic activity of the audience is disturbed, so that they can only "swim and float" in chaotic feelings.
To be sure, Nietzsche admits that Romanticism is a great movement. But it is a "swan song", that which emerges when a culture is at its decline. Though we can still admire Wagner, we have to be aware that his music is a witness, not a role model.
It is not quite clear why Nietzsche has to base his distaste for Wagner on these reasons. After all, it could be due to Wagner's anti-Semitism, his conversion to Christianity, or the fact that he appeals to the mass. The difference in style - the criterion Nietzsche seems to set in order to distinguish himself from Wagner - does not tell much: levity is sometimes cheerfulness, self-assurance and the ability to dance, sometimes mediocrity, hedonism and the inability to carry burden; ponderance is sometimes seriousness and more endurance, sometimes contrived sorrow and artificial pessimism. The decisive moment is rather the intensity of life: does the art come from a strong spirit or a weary one? But, when Nietzsche imposes this criterion on Wagner's works, he may be inventing some gap in it that is not understandable to Wagner himself. What if "Dionysian tragedy" and "Romantic pessimism" were in Wagner the same thing? (After all, these two categories were never his own.) And then who is Nietzsche to decide how much vitality is involved in the works?
Anyway, Nietzsche's message is clear. Art is art because of vitality, tout court. Strangely, this reverberates Hegel's controversial claim about the "end" of art: art can no longer enjoy supreme vitality in an age of reflection; it is no longer sacrosanct to a people, but instead has become superfluous "culture" or "expression".
What is no less interesting about the book is that it attests Nietzsche's transition of attitude toward Wagner, which implies a model of authenticity. By taking sides against himself, Nietzsche finds the way to himself, "that hidden and masterful something for which we long do not have a name, until finally it proves itself to be" (677). The authentic self, so to speak, remains nameless until disclosed, but whenever disclosed appears to have always already been lurking there.
Another point that worths attention is that, at the end, Nietzsche wants to balance the project of disclosure with the perseverance of hiddenness. "We no longer believe that truth remains truth when the veils are withdrawn"; "we consider it a matter of decency not to wish to see everything naked, or to be present at everything, or to understand and 'know' everything." (682) When everything is brought present-at-hand (to borrow Heidegger's term), no secret remains and the truth must be plain and boring. The content of truth may remain, but the dynamicity is lost - but only the latter is what makes truth truth. Accordingly, Nietzsche advises us "to stop courageously at the surface, the fold, the skin, to adore appearance, to believe in forms, tones, words, in the whole Olympus of appearance" (683). Knowing the secret, keeping it a secret, and presenting it as a secret: this is the most noble way of unconcealment. The appearance is divine; preserving its magic and wonder is precisely the destiny of art.
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April 30, 2022acho que Bizet foi o Kanye West do Nietzsche
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October 23, 2024muy enfadado está este hombre
December 7, 2018
The beginning reads very much as Nietzsche being elitist and essentially describing Wagner's music as for the masses. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the last half or so where he elucidates his sense of alienation from Wagner's conversion to Christianity and how he in general views life after suffering a tremendous loss. His nausea, what he describes as "courageous pessimism", was definitely relatable. Nietzsche spent most of his life being the smartest guy in the room and you can see in this work his choice to remain cheerful despite his deep sense of alienation from everyone around him.
September 7, 2014
Very sharp and highly entertaining.
September 10, 2025
Written after Nietzsche's first anti-Wagnerian essay The Case of Wagner, this work is even more vitriolic than the former. In Nietzsche contra Wagner, Nietzsche further sharpens his critique, framing Wagner’s later work as emblematic of cultural decline and moral decay. Wagner is no longer merely a flawed artist but a figure whose art threatens the values Nietzsche champions: vitality, self-overcoming, and affirmation of life. Nietzsche's argument extends beyond aesthetics into a philosophical denunciation: he positions Wagner as emblematic of weakness in art and culture, someone whose genius is corrupted by pathological tendencies, including a quasi-religious obsession with guilt, redemption, and moral didacticism.
How curious that the prophet of the Übermensch should leave us, here, with nothing more than a pamphlet of wounded pride !
How curious that the prophet of the Übermensch should leave us, here, with nothing more than a pamphlet of wounded pride !
July 5, 2018
Hoewel niet zo sterk geschreven als 'Der Fall Wagner' biedt 'Nietzsche contra Wagner' desondanks heel wat aanknopingspunten en verbindt deze tekst Nietzsches Wagnerkritiek ook sterker met zijn religiekritiek. Inhoudelijk misschien sterker dan 'Der Fall Wagner', maar met een stuk minder pit.
September 25, 2025
Better than the Case of Wagner since it’s just paragraphs from some of his previous more interesting books. Not really a book in itself because of that - just kinda like “remember when I said this?” A bit pointless but I did like the material.
November 12, 2019
Do yourself a favour and read Nietzsche's Wagner trilogy while listening to Wagner ;)
March 29, 2022
If anyone tells you Nietzsche was an antisemite read the first sentence of rhis work.
May 16, 2022
Aesthetic theory way before Frankfurt School
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October 14, 2024dude wrote an essay because we stopped being friends with a guy. that's commitment.
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August 3, 2025The dust sings when one stops naming it.
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December 21, 2025Ook filosofen zijn niet immuun voor players
October 21, 2025
Translation read: Anthony M. Ludovici’s
January 2, 2026
El resentimiento de Nietzsche hacia Wagner es casi irrisorio. No digo que Wagner no tuviera cosas a criticar, pero justamente se centra en aquello que para mí es más superfluo, pues no se centra en su política, sino en sus obras, que cuando se habían llevado bien le parecían magníficas. Leí en otro libro que Nietzsche estaba enfadado con Wagner porque este había compartido sus actividades onanistas, cosa que da a este libro una lectura aún más cómica teniendo en cuenta el berrinche del filósofo como respuesta.
2 estrellas.
2 estrellas.
May 31, 2016
"La tristeza de una implacable sospecha: la de estar ya condenado a desconfiar profundamente, a estar más profundamente “solo” que antes. Porque yo no tuve conmigo a nadie más que a Richard Wagner... Yo fui siempre condenado a tener a mi lado alemanes..."
January 9, 2020
i'm more of a castlevania wagner guy
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
December 19, 2012
witty. when Nietzsche is really bullying he is at his best
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