Author | Friedrich Nietzsche |
---|---|
Original title | Nietzsche contra Wagner |
Translator | Thomas Common, Walter Kaufmann |
Country | Germany |
Language | German |
Subject | Richard Wagner, antisemitism, philosophy of art |
Publication date | 1889 |
Media type | Paperback, hardcover |
Preceded by | Ecce Homo (1888) |
Followed by | The Will to Power (1901) |
Nietzsche contra Wagner; Out of the Files of a Psychologist is a critical essay by Friedrich Nietzsche, composed of selections he chose from among his earlier works. The selections are assembled in this essay in order to focus on Nietzsche's thoughts about the composer Richard Wagner. As he says in the preface, when the selections are read "one after the other they will leave no doubt either about Richard Wagner or about myself: we are antipodes." He also describes it as "an essay for psychologists, but not for Germans". [1] It was written in his last year of lucidity (1888–1889), and published by C. G. Naumann in Leipzig in 1889. [2] Nietzsche describes in this short work why he parted ways with his one-time idol and friend, Richard Wagner. Nietzsche attacks Wagner's views, expressing disappointment and frustration in Wagner's life choices (such as Nietzsche's mistaken belief that Wagner had converted to Christianity, perceived as a sign of weakness). Nietzsche evaluates Wagner's philosophy on tonality, music and art; he admires Wagner's power to emote and express himself, but largely disdains what the philosopher deems his religious biases. [3]
It is easy to suspect that Nietzsche's views must be motivated by a personal quarrel with Wagner. However, Nietzsche had nothing to gain by attacking Wagner, his motives were misunderstood by a public who were influenced by Nietzsche’s early admiration of Wagner, and who were now enthralled by Wagner’s genius. These essays would be hard to comprehend, and would be seen as the work of a disloyal fanatic. The attacks also at times, confusingly pause to express an affectionate appreciation for Wagner. [4]
According to Roger Hollinrake, it is reasonable to question Nietzsche’s qualifications to criticize a great musician on very specific musical topics. Nietzsche was a philosopher, and also a musician and composer, though of limited abilities. However gifts of analysis, and gifts of musicianship are not often both given to any one individual. Nietzsche had the broad combined perspective of a scholar, philosopher, historian and poet, abetted by his penetrating insight and an objectivity with a lack of musical bias. Nietzsche's attacks derive from the great importance he gives to art, and from his sense of the seriousness of the artist's duties, and from Nietzsche's fears for the state of culture in his era. [5]
The sections are as follows. Nietzsche’s sources, found among his works, are indicated in parentheses: [6]
Nietzsche explains that this book consists of selections from his previous writings. They show that he and Wagner are opposites. Nietzsche states that a reader of this book will conclude that it is for psychologists and not for Germans. He says that he has readers almost everywhere, in New York and in Europe, but not in Germany. [7]
(cf. The Gay Science , 87)
Nietzsche praises Wagner in a number of ways, saying that Wagner
is a master at finding tones in the realm of human suffering, depressed and tortured souls, at giving voice to even mute misery. None can equal him in the colors of late fall, in the indescribably moving happiness of the last, truly last, truly shortest joy.
Nietzsche continues, and then adds that Wagner's music has revealed "some very minute and microscopic aspects of the soul … indeed he is the master of the very minute. But he does not want to be that!" Nietzsche suggests with a metaphor that Wagner prefers to create large works: "His character prefers large walls and audacious frescoes." [8] [9]
(cf. The Gay Science, 368)
Nietzsche's objections to Wagner's music are physiological—as he listens to Wagner’s music his whole body feels discomfort: He does not breathe easily, his feet begin to rebel, as they do not find a desire to dance or march being satisfied. Wagner is seen as an actor, an “enthusiastic mimomaniac”, and his music is merely an opportunity for poses. Nietzsche suggests Wagner needs to be more honest with himself. [10]
(cf. Ecce Homo , Why I Am So Clever, 7)
Nietzsche wants music to be cheerful, profound, unique, wanton, tender, roguish, and graceful. These qualities are lacking in German music, except for the works of Bach, Handel, and also in Wagner's Siegfried Idyll. He praises Liszt, Chopin, Peter Gast, and Rossini, as well as all Venetian music. The Intermezzo ends with Nietzsche's poem “Venice.”
(cf. Human, All Too Human , II,134; The Wanderer and His Shadow, 165)
1. Nietzsche criticizes Wagner’s idea of "endless melody", which is an idea based on Wagner’s criticism of operas in which the melody exists especially in arias, and the arias are separated by less melodic filler. Wagner’s idea is that an entire opera should be instead a continuous or "endless" melody. Nietzsche's concern is that an opera that is all one "endless melody" has the effect similar to a person walking into the ocean, losing one’s footing, then surrendering to the elements, and being forced to tread water. The danger to music is "degeneration of rhythmic feeling" which would be unaccommodating to the element of dance in performance, and the supplanting of rhythm with chaos, which would result in an emphasis on mere "effect" — on posing. [11]
2. Nietzsche then suggests that Wagner feels that all music, to be effective, "must shake the listener to his very intestines," and that such effects are for idiots and the masses. [12] [13] [14]
(cf. Human All-Too-Human, II,171)
Nietzsche considers that historically, as cultures have developed, music is the last art form to appear — music appears as its culture has begun to fade. "All true, all original music is a swan song." He suggests that the music of his time, "has but a short life span ahead of it", for it arose from a culture that will soon sink and disappear. He speaks specifically of Wagner's music, which may find support and sudden glory, in that the current age was suffering much European warfare and turbulence. But, Nietzsche says, we should not be fooled. "The Germans themselves have no future." [15] [16]
(cf. The Gay Science, 370)
In this section Nietzsche states that Wagner and the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer are to Nietzsche antipodes — opposites. At one time, he and Wagner were not antipodes, but were close. They were very close when Nietzsche was writing his first book, The Birth of Tragedy , which he dedicated to Wagner, and which proclaimed Wagner’s music the modern rebirth. Nietzsche at times lived with Wagner and Wagner’s future wife Cosima, Nietzsche’s first book was in part developed out of long conversations with them both, while at the same time, under the same roof, Wagner was beginning to compose and develop the story of what would eventually become Wagner’s Ring Cycle . Nietzsche, who was fast becoming a notable academic lecturer, was in some danger of being completely eclipsed by the celebrated greatness of Wagner. His declaration of opposition to Wagner and Schopenhauer, represents Nietzsche’s journey towards his independence of mind and spirit and his individuation; a journey he describes in the preface to The Case of Wagner. [17] [18] [19]
Nietzsche considers that every art presupposes sufferers and suffering, and serves either a growing or declining life. And that there are some who suffer an impoverishment of life, and therefore demand from art either calmness or else a frenzy that will anesthetize. Such, with their double needs, are the ones that Wagner responds to. Such decadents need mildness and a god for the sick — a healer, a savior. Nietzsche says after exploring Epicureanism and Christianity, and has developed a sharp eye for what he terms “backwards inference” — to understand the creator by knowing the creation, and to ask: “Is it hatred against life, or the excess of life which has become creative?” [20] [21] [22]
(cf. Beyond Good and Evil , 254, 256)
In this section Nietzsche considers which culture would be most fitting for Wagner – an unexpected question considering that Wagner’s musical and literary creations are richly associated with Germany, and Wagner was passionately pro-German. Nietzsche’s stance is the opposite of Wagner’s — Nietzsche has nothing good to say about Germany. [23] [24]
Nietzsche begins this section by pointing out that France is the "most spiritual and refined culture in Europe," though such Frenchmen may perhaps be few in number and "not among the sturdiest: partly fatalists, somber and sick, partly pampered and artificial." But "French romanticism and Wagner belong together most closely". Northern Germany, on the other hand, according to Nietzsche, is a place of darkness, where some Germans consider the French to be "barbarians". Nietzsche mentions that the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and the German poet Heinrich Heine both belong in France. Nietzsche feels that "Paris is the real soil for Wagner." Wagner would not be flattered by that suggestion. It is possible Nietzsche may be teasing Wagner, who in his writings has vehemently disparaged the French; or perhaps Nietzsche wants to rescue Wagner from a Germany that does not appreciate his greatness. That second possibility is further developed as the section continues, and Nietzsche asks, "Who could be more incapable of understanding Wagner than, for example, the young Kaiser?" [25]
Nietzsche says, do not be fooled by Wagner himself–it was "disgraceful on Wagner’s part to scoff at Paris, as he did, in its agony in 1871." That was 17 years earlier, when the Prussian army was laying siege to the city of Paris as part of the Franco-Prussian War, and the Prussians were bombarding and starving the French people that were trapped. At the time Wagner expressed jubilance about the military action, as Nietzsche, who had enlisted to tend the wounded earlier in the war, was outraged by the barbarity, the deliberate cruelty, and by Wagner’s vengeful and nationalistic reaction. [26] [27]
(cf. Beyond Good and Evil, 256; On the Genealogy of Morals , III, 2; On the Genealogy of Morals, III, 3)
Here Nietzsche focuses on Wagner’s opera Parsifal. The story of Parsifal is partly based on medieval Germanic legends and Christian ideals, and it dramatizes a conflict between sensuality versus chastity. [28]
1. Part one of "Wagner as Apostle of Chastity" is a verse by Nietzsche, written in the style of a poem by Goethe. Parsifal contains an act of castration, which Nietzsche refers to in line three. [29] Nietzsche’s poem begins by asking:
"Is this still German?
Out of a German heart, this torrid screeching?
A German body, this self-laceration?
German this priestly affectation, this incense-smelling lurid preaching?" [30]
Nietzsche is asking this of Wagner, who is German and a noted devotee of German literature, music, and culture. Nietzsche concludes his poem by pointing out that the opera Parsifal, though dressed in Germanic knightly romance, is expressing Catholicism: [31]
"That which you hear is Rome — Rome’s faith without the text." [32]
2. Nietzsche critiques the theme of "sensuality versus chastity" in Wagner’s opera Parsifal. The opera presents those two aspects in such dire opposition, that when a naive young man encounters an alluring siren in the woods, a "long kiss on the lips" threatens to destroy his hopes of salvation by robbing him of his chastity: The young man responds to the kiss in "utmost terror", he then "flings himself in despair on his knees" and cries out: "Redeemer! Saviour! Lord of grace! How can I, a sinner, purge my guilt?" [33] [34]
Nietzsche responds by saying that, in fact, "There is no necessary objection between sensuality and chastity." Sensuality and chastity can coexist in the human experience, and when there is a conflict, it does not need to be tragic. Nietzsche suggests that there are some "mortals", who find balancing their existence between two extremes, angel and animal, to be an attraction to life itself. It is easy to understand that those who are "brought to the point of adoring chastity" will be obsessed with its opposite, and will adore that. Nietzsche metaphorically refers to such people as "animals of Circe". Circe is a sorceress in the legends of ancient Greece who had the power to turn humans into lions, wolves and swine. [35] [36]
Finally, Nietzsche asks why Wagner "at the end of his life" wanted to set this "embarrassing and perfectly superfluous opposition to music and produce it on the stage." [37] [38] [39]
3. Nietzsche asks what the title character, Parsifal ("that innocence from the country … that poor devil and child of nature whom Wagner finally makes a Catholic") means to Wagner. Nietzsche might prefer Wagner's opera to be meant as a satyr play — that "wanton parody on the tragic", and on "earthly seriousness and earthly misery", and on the "anti-nature of the aesthetic ideal". If Parsifal is taken seriously, it would be seen as a "curse on the senses and the spirit", a regression to "sickly Christian and obscurantist ideals", and a "self-abnegation". Nietzsche remembers "how enthusiastically Wagner once fallowed in the footsteps of the philosopher Feuerbach". Ludwig Feuerbach, an influential German philosopher, advocated atheism, considering "God" to be the "idealization of human aspirations". Wagner dedicated his essay "The Art Work of the Future" to Feuerbach. Nietzsche concludes, "The preaching of chastity remains an incitement to anti-nature: I despise everyone who does not experience Parsifal as an attempted assassination of basic ethics." [40] [41]
(cf. Human All-Too-Human, II, Preface 3-4)
1. By 1876, Wagner had moved to Germany and had become a decaying anti-Semitic Christian. Nietzsche expressed his disappointment and feeling of loss. 2. Nietzsche then became a solitary, courageous pessimist and he completely dedicated himself to his life's arduous task. [42]
(cf. Beyond Good and Evil, 269-270)
1. Sympathy interferes with the psychological analysis of great, higher humans. Psychologists should be cheerfully unsympathetic. Revered, great people always eventually decay. This realization might remind the psychologist of his own decadence and may contribute to his own corruption. The great human's work, not his own person, should be venerated. 2. Great artists and other higher humans create works in order to forget their own decadent flaws. Revering higher people with feminine sympathy is detrimental to them. 3. When a higher human knows deep, heartbreaking suffering, there develops immunity to receiving sympathy from lower humans. Noble, profound sufferers feign cheerfulness in order to ward off unwanted pity. [43]
(cf. The Gay Science, Preface 3-4)
1. From a universal perspective, deep suffering is necessary, healthful, and beneficial, if it does not kill. Great pain is useful and should be welcomed. Amor fati [love your fate]. It makes a philosopher deeply profound. Questions arise concerning beloved life itself. 2. After experiencing profound pain, a taste for artificial, cheering art is acquired. The horror of life is ignored. Like the ancient Dionysian Greeks, we have known the terrible truth about life and now appreciate the effects of an artist's false, wonderful tones, fictional words, and fascinating forms. [44]
(cf. Dionysus-Dithyrambs )
"On the Poverty of the Richest" is one of the poems of the Dionysus-Dithrambs, which use poetic imagery taken from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. This collection he referred to as "The Songs of Zarathustra". They were written over a period from 1883 to 1888. Nietzsche intended this poem to be published at the end of Nietzsche contra Wagner; then changed his mind, and removed it from there, and included it in Dionysus-Dithyrambs. "On the Poverty of the Richest" expresses and explores his truth, the death of Zarathustra, self sacrifice, desiring, superabundance, the tale of King Midas, the experience of striving to gain and share wisdom, and the virtue of poverty. [45] [46]
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer, whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Parsifal is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance Parzival of the Minnesänger Wolfram von Eschenbach and the Old French chivalric romance Perceval ou le Conte du Graal by the 12th-century trouvère Chrétien de Troyes, recounting different accounts of the story of the Arthurian knight Parzival (Percival) and his spiritual quest for the Holy Grail.
The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. In his 1883 book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche has his character Zarathustra posit the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself. The Übermensch represents a shift from otherworldly Christian values and manifests the grounded human ideal.
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; it was published in four volumes between 1883 and 1885. The protagonist is nominally the historical Zoroaster.
The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Music is an 1872 work of dramatic theory by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. It was reissued in 1886 as The Birth of Tragedy, Or: Hellenism and Pessimism. The later edition contained a prefatory essay, "An Attempt at Self-Criticism", wherein Nietzsche commented on this earliest book.
Eternal return is a philosophical concept which states that time repeats itself in an infinite loop, and that exactly the same events will continue to occur in exactly the same way, over and over again, for eternity.
"God is dead" is a statement made by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The first instance of this statement in Nietzsche's writings is in his 1882 The Gay Science, where it appears three times. The phrase also appears in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits is a book by 19th-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, originally published in 1878. A second part, Assorted Opinions and Maxims, was published in 1879, and a third part, The Wanderer and his Shadow, followed in 1880.
The Will to Power is a book of notes drawn from the literary remains of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche by his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Peter Gast. The title derived from a work that Nietzsche himself had considered writing. The work was first translated into English by Anthony M. Ludovici in 1910, and it has since seen several other translations and publications.
Walter Arnold Kaufmann was a German-American philosopher, translator, and poet. A prolific author, he wrote extensively on a broad range of subjects, such as authenticity and death, moral philosophy and existentialism, theism and atheism, Christianity and Judaism, as well as philosophy and literature. He served more than 30 years as a professor at Princeton University.
Anthony Mario Ludovici MBE was a British philosopher, sociologist, social critic and polyglot. He is known as a proponent of aristocracy and anti-egalitarianism, and in the early 20th century was a leading British conservative author. He wrote on subjects including art, metaphysics, politics, economics, religion, the differences between the sexes and races, health, and eugenics.
Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is is the last original book written by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche before his death in 1900. It was written in 1888 and was not published until 1908.
The Case of Wagner is a book by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, originally published in 1888. Subtitled "A Musician's Problem".
This is a list of writings and other compositions by Friedrich Nietzsche.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) developed his philosophy during the late 19th century. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to reading Arthur Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung and said that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers that he respected, dedicating to him his essay Schopenhauer als Erzieher, published in 1874 as one of his Untimely Meditations.
Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer is a book by Friedrich Nietzsche, written in 1888, and published in 1889.
The German composer Richard Wagner was a controversial figure during his lifetime, and has continued to be so after his death. Even today he is associated in the minds of many with Nazism and his operas are often thought to extol the virtues of German nationalism. The writer and Wagner scholar Bryan Magee has written:
I sometimes think there are two Wagners in our culture, almost unrecognizably different from one another: the Wagner possessed by those who know his work, and the Wagner imagined by those who know him only by name and reputation.
Untimely Meditations, also translated as Unfashionable Observations and Thoughts Out of Season, consists of four works by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, started in 1873 and completed in 1876.
Andreas Urs Sommer is a German philosopher of Swiss origin. He specializes in the history of philosophy and its theory, ethics, philosophy of religion, and Skepticism. His historical studies center on the philosophy of Enlightenment and Nietzsche, but they also deal with Kant, Max Weber, Pierre Bayle, Jonathan Edwards, and others.