Nietzsche

Contemporary philosophy

Nietzsche was a German philosopher of the nineteenth century (1844-1900). A professor of philology at the University of Basel, he published works such as The Twilight of the Idols, The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra... He attacked the underlying nihilism he detected in religion and morality. He befriended Wagner, but the two men soon fell out. In the last ten years of his life, he was plunged into a near-vegetative state following a descent into madness.

On this page dedicated to Nietzsche, discover summaries of his works, a bibliography, videos, a detailed biography, and a list of his major works.

The Works of Nietzsche Summarised on This Site

book cover

Twilight of the Idols

In this work, Nietzsche shows that at the root of morality and religion is an underlying nihilism that must be resisted.

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Bibliography

Here are the essential books if you wish to gain a better understanding of this author's thought:

Sedgwick, Peter R. (2009). Nietzsche: the key concepts. Routledge, Oxon, England: Routledge.
Porter, James I. (2000). The Invention of Dionysus: An Essay on The Birth of Tragedy. Stanford University Press.
Ratner-Rosenhagen, Jennifer (2011), American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gemes, Ken; May, Simon, eds. (2002). Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy. Oxford University Press.
Higgins, Kathleen (2000). What Nietzsche Really Said. University of Texas; Random House.

Biography: Life of Nietzsche

Youth

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was born in 1844 in Röcken, a village in the heart of Germany.

His father, a pastor, had studied theology like his grandfather before him, and was entrusted with the education of a member of the royal family.

He died from the effects of a head injury, and a year later Nietzsche's younger brother also died — Friedrich was just six years old.

The family left their home village and settled in the small town of Naumburg. Nietzsche intended to carry on the family tradition by entering the clergy. He learnt to play the piano.

At ten, he entered Naumburg grammar school, but proved so gifted that in 1858 he was sent to complete his education at Pforta, a boarding school reserved for the country's most talented pupils — among its former students was Fichte.

From an early age he kept a notebook recording details of his childhood. A tireless reader, he was hungry for knowledge, though he was not yet sure which field to pursue.

At seventeen, he discovered the works of Schiller and Hölderlin, and took to improvising at the piano in the evenings. He briefly considered abandoning theology to become a musician — a plan he soon dropped. His faith began to waver, and he started to suffer from headaches.

After graduating, he enrolled at the University of Bonn in 1864 to study philology.

He took part in student life despite his reserved nature, though he remained largely solitary. Despite his lack of enthusiasm for the subject, he worked with remarkable intensity.

He stayed only a year, following his professor Ritschl to the University of Leipzig. Ritschl was his mentor and regarded him as a genius in the making.

There, he discovered Schopenhauer — a philosopher who would have a profound effect on him — and met Wagner, an encounter that would greatly shape his thinking.

The Basel Professor

Photo of Friedrich Nietzsche — Photo of F. Nietzsche

On completing his studies, he was appointed professor of philology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, in 1869, at the age of twenty-four.

Over the following ten years, he developed his thinking through the study of Greek antiquity while engaging with the philosophical currents of his time.

He grew closer to Richard Wagner, of whom he was said to be a distant relative. In 1872, he published his first work, The Birth of Tragedy, which won Wagner's enthusiastic approval but damaged his standing among fellow philologists.

He served as a medical orderly during the Franco-Prussian War.

This period was marked by a series of setbacks.

He wrote the Untimely Meditations, which attracted no attention.

He sent one of his compositions to a conductor, who rejected it.

His former teacher Ritschl expressed disappointment that he had not established himself as a recognised professor of philology.

Most seriously, in 1875 he fell gravely ill: debilitating headaches that left him nearly blind, along with fatigue, bouts of paralysis and nausea — his circle was deeply worried.

These trials bred in Nietzsche a certain disenchantment. He began to turn a critical eye on morality and its hypocrisies, discussing this at length with his friend Paul Rée, who had himself written a book on the subject: The Origin of the Moral Sensations.

He wrote a short essay, Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, in which he began to distance himself from the composer. The break soon became final: when Nietzsche sent Wagner the manuscript of Human, All Too Human, he received no reply.

His health prevented him from fulfilling his teaching duties. In 1879, he resigned, but was granted a pension, which allowed him to travel in search of a climate more favourable to his recovery.

He travelled to Italy — Venice, Turin, Genoa — and to Nice, drawn by the Mediterranean climate.

The Philosopher on the Move

In Genoa, he wrote Dawn and attended a performance of Bizet's opera Carmen, which made a deep impression on him.

In 1882, he met Lou Salomé in Rome — a woman of remarkable intelligence who later became a close friend of both Freud and Rilke.

He travelled with her and Paul Rée to Switzerland, but relations between the three deteriorated and ended in a falling-out. Nietzsche, who had fallen in love with Lou Salomé, reportedly asked Rée to propose on his behalf — even though Rée was himself in love with her. His sister also played a damaging role, working to prevent the union.

He fell into a prolonged depression.

That same year, he heard of Wagner's death and wrote to his widow, despite their estrangement.

He completed The Gay Science.

He then embarked on a monumental project: the writing of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which occupied him from 1882 to 1885. It began in Rapallo, near Genoa, continued in Sils Maria, Switzerland, and concluded in the Nice region, in Èze and Menton.

The book sold only a hundred copies, yet he considered it the crowning work of his life.

Relations with his family were strained: already at odds with his mother, who accused him of "killing Christ", he broke with his sister over her and her husband's antisemitism.

From 1886 to 1888, as though sensing his approaching breakdown, he wrote at a feverish pace. In quick succession he produced no fewer than five major works: Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morality, Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist and Ecce Homo.

He was forty-four and beginning to receive recognition.

He drew up plans for a new work, The Will to Power, which was destined to remain unfinished.

The Descent into Madness

After a stay in Sils Maria, where his health deteriorated once more, he returned to Turin and suffered a complete breakdown: on 3 January 1889, he threw himself around the neck of a horse that was being flogged, burst into tears, and fell unconscious.

Back home, he was seized by delusions — imagining himself the successor of Napoleon, or an incarnation of Dionysus or Christ. He wrote incoherent letters to friends and strangers alike.

Committed to a psychiatric institution, he talked incessantly and sang constantly, then gradually fell silent. He appeared to have lost all memory of his former life, though certain events occasionally surfaced. One day he asked his sister: Didn't I write some beautiful books?

He then sank into a vegetative state and near-total silence until his death.

Whether his illness was the result of syphilis, a brain tumour, an inherited nervous condition or the dangerous drugs he had taken to relieve his headaches remains unknown.

Cared for first by his mother and then his sister, Nietzsche died in Weimar in 1900, unaware of the posthumous fame that awaited him.

Main Works

The Birth of Tragedy
Untimely Meditations
Human, All Too Human
Dawn
The Gay Science
Thus Spoke Zarathustra