The Poetry of Friedrich Nietzsche

Rating:
Summary: First book ever on Nietzsche's poetry. A brilliant first!
Review: His is an extradinary book, especially for an American writingabout German poetry. Mr. Grundlehner should write it (poetry andliterature)--not write about it. He writes with style and grace, and his potential is there for the reader to behold. A must read. Even Nietzsche would be proud.

Rating:
Summary: Facts on poems and philosophy to match
Review: If you would like to read a book about Nietzsche and Columbus, POX / GENIUS, MADNESS AND THE MYSTERIES OF SYPHILIS by Deborah Hayden is more exciting than this one. The first chapter of that book is about Christopher Columbus, chapter 8 on Beethoven, chapter 12 on Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln, chapter 15 on Vincent van Gogh, chapter 16 on Friedrich Nietzsche, and chapter 20 on Adolf Hitler. Anyone who reads it is sure to be astounded at how close Columbus, Nietzsche, and Hitler could be considered as possessing symptoms of the same disease.

THE POETRY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE by Philip Grundlehner has a chapter on "New Lands," in which a poem about Columbus is a major topic. Nietzsche vaguely associated Columbus with sickness "In late November of 1881, for example, he wrote: `Here in Genoa I am proud and happy--quite a "Doria magnate"--Or a Columbus? . . . I need space--a great wide, unknown, unexplored world; otherwise I shall get sick of it all.' " (p. 120). Back in Germany on September 9, 1882, he wrote to Franz Overbeck, "Everything that lies before me is new, and it will not be long before I catch sight also of the terrifying face of my more distant life task." (p. 129). Two versions of the poem, "The New Columbus" from 1882 are translated on page 137, and the final three-stanza version of 1884 on page 138. Columbus sometimes had trouble walking, but it is not clear how much Nietzsche actually knew about how disabled he was when Nietzsche wrote:

Let us stand firm on our feet!
Never can we go back!
Look forward: from far away
One death, one fame, one happiness greet us! (p. 138).

One of the early versions of "The New Columbus" was sent to Lou "as part of a dedication of a copy of THE GAY SCIENCE `to my dear Lou.' " (p. 136). Each version starts with a warning. "Since the adventurer's fidelity must be to his spirit rather than to another person, a selfishness results that forbids any sharing relationship. Nietzsche identifies this characteristic as a part of the Genoese heritage when he states in THE GAY SCIENCE that the people of this area are `overgrown with magnificent, insatiable lust for possessions and spoils.' " (p. 139). Grundlehner thinks that the use of the plural "we" and "us" in the last stanza is meant to include Lou. "A probable explanation for this paradox lies in the confidence that Nietzsche gained in Lou Salome as an intimate who could accept the insecurities and dangers of the unknown and therefore participate in his vision." (p. 139). That interpretation is more gentle than the idea that Nietzsche would be bound in chains and brought back to Spain, as Columbus was in 1499, for exceeding his authority by executing Spaniards "for insurrection against Columbus's rule," as in the book, POX. The officially available information about the health of Columbus was not available "until de Ybarra compiled it in 1894, [which] allowed later syphilologists to see a pattern of syphilis in Columbus's history." (POX, p. 11). Whatever Nietzsche knew would have been by rumor, but the history of the Pox that was widely known included an epidemic in Naples, particularly among a French army which conquered it for a week in 1495, when the Pox became known as "Morbus Gallicus." (POX, p. 18).

Chapter 8 of THE POETRY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE is called "Poetry as Pretension." (pp. 147-165). The last line of the first stanza of "To Goethe" in the Appendix to THE GAY SCIENCE, as translated by Walter Kaufmann in 1974, was:

poetic pretension.

So it is not surprising to find the poem "To Goethe" discussed on pages 150-157. The surprise is that the translation is so literal that it does not retain the poetic quality of Nietzsche's German or Kaufmann's English. Instead,

is a poetic trick . . .

Walter Kaufmann might be assuming that anyone who had proceeded that far in THE GAY SCIENCE was familiar with all the terms that philosophers, poets, and great minds on the order of Goethe and Nietzsche could use without being misunderstood. My confusion was greatest on Kaufmann's use of the word, "ineluctable," where THE POETRY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE uses "deceitful" and, in its translation of the concluding "Chorus Mysticus" of Goethe's "Faust," "inaccessible." (p. 151). The best rhyme in the final stanza, of "the ruling force" with "the eternally fooling force" in Kaufmann, lacks "force" in THE POETRY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, and the other rhyme in that stanza disappears completely with the use of a literal "being and appearance" instead of "false and true." You might learn a lot from this book, but people who are more interested in poetry than philosophy might be able to maintain the common prejudice that philosophers do not make very good poets. But if you don't like to read much German, consider how likely it is that some of the German poetry in this book is top-notch, and can be compared to Goethe, as on pages 150-151.

Rating:
Summary: Facts on poems and philosophy to match
Review: If you would like to read a book about Nietzsche and Columbus, POX / GENIUS, MADNESS AND THE MYSTERIES OF SYPHILIS by Deborah Hayden is more exciting than this one. The first chapter of that book is about Christopher Columbus, chapter 8 on Beethoven, chapter 12 on Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln, chapter 15 on Vincent van Gogh, chapter 16 on Friedrich Nietzsche, and chapter 20 on Adolf Hitler. Anyone who reads it is sure to be astounded at how close Columbus, Nietzsche, and Hitler could be considered as possessing symptoms of the same disease.

THE POETRY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE by Philip Grundlehner has a chapter on "New Lands," in which a poem about Columbus is a major topic. Nietzsche vaguely associated Columbus with sickness "In late November of 1881, for example, he wrote: `Here in Genoa I am proud and happy--quite a "Doria magnate"--Or a Columbus? . . . I need space--a great wide, unknown, unexplored world; otherwise I shall get sick of it all.' " (p. 120). Back in Germany on September 9, 1882, he wrote to Franz Overbeck, "Everything that lies before me is new, and it will not be long before I catch sight also of the terrifying face of my more distant life task." (p. 129). Two versions of the poem, "The New Columbus" from 1882 are translated on page 137, and the final three-stanza version of 1884 on page 138. Columbus sometimes had trouble walking, but it is not clear how much Nietzsche actually knew about how disabled he was when Nietzsche wrote:

Let us stand firm on our feet!
Never can we go back!
Look forward: from far away
One death, one fame, one happiness greet us! (p. 138).

One of the early versions of "The New Columbus" was sent to Lou "as part of a dedication of a copy of THE GAY SCIENCE `to my dear Lou.' " (p. 136). Each version starts with a warning. "Since the adventurer's fidelity must be to his spirit rather than to another person, a selfishness results that forbids any sharing relationship. Nietzsche identifies this characteristic as a part of the Genoese heritage when he states in THE GAY SCIENCE that the people of this area are `overgrown with magnificent, insatiable lust for possessions and spoils.' " (p. 139). Grundlehner thinks that the use of the plural "we" and "us" in the last stanza is meant to include Lou. "A probable explanation for this paradox lies in the confidence that Nietzsche gained in Lou Salome as an intimate who could accept the insecurities and dangers of the unknown and therefore participate in his vision." (p. 139). That interpretation is more gentle than the idea that Nietzsche would be bound in chains and brought back to Spain, as Columbus was in 1499, for exceeding his authority by executing Spaniards "for insurrection against Columbus's rule," as in the book, POX. The officially available information about the health of Columbus was not available "until de Ybarra compiled it in 1894, [which] allowed later syphilologists to see a pattern of syphilis in Columbus's history." (POX, p. 11). Whatever Nietzsche knew would have been by rumor, but the history of the Pox that was widely known included an epidemic in Naples, particularly among a French army which conquered it for a week in 1495, when the Pox became known as "Morbus Gallicus." (POX, p. 18).

Chapter 8 of THE POETRY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE is called "Poetry as Pretension." (pp. 147-165). The last line of the first stanza of "To Goethe" in the Appendix to THE GAY SCIENCE, as translated by Walter Kaufmann in 1974, was:

poetic pretension.

So it is not surprising to find the poem "To Goethe" discussed on pages 150-157. The surprise is that the translation is so literal that it does not retain the poetic quality of Nietzsche's German or Kaufmann's English. Instead,

is a poetic trick . . .

Walter Kaufmann might be assuming that anyone who had proceeded that far in THE GAY SCIENCE was familiar with all the terms that philosophers, poets, and great minds on the order of Goethe and Nietzsche could use without being misunderstood. My confusion was greatest on Kaufmann's use of the word, "ineluctable," where THE POETRY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE uses "deceitful" and, in its translation of the concluding "Chorus Mysticus" of Goethe's "Faust," "inaccessible." (p. 151). The best rhyme in the final stanza, of "the ruling force" with "the eternally fooling force" in Kaufmann, lacks "force" in THE POETRY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, and the other rhyme in that stanza disappears completely with the use of a literal "being and appearance" instead of "false and true." You might learn a lot from this book, but people who are more interested in poetry than philosophy might be able to maintain the common prejudice that philosophers do not make very good poets. But if you don't like to read much German, consider how likely it is that some of the German poetry in this book is top-notch, and can be compared to Goethe, as on pages 150-151.