YOU CRAZY FOR THIS ONE, FRED!

Birth of Tragedy was very hard to understand, but it is very great! Nietzsche's genealogic method is very great in the second book, but I must comment that when he openly spoke about the genealogy of morals in the cases of debtor-creditor relationship, he is not very aware of the inexistence of morality in cats, but the females do practice debtor-creditor relationship with regards to their maternity. Besides that, I agree with his points, especially the Dionysiac spirit, the brutality of law throughout history, and Christanity's reversing of the Aristocratic ideals by praising asceticism.

Still reading

(Sic)

This book was a very dense and frustrating read. It was like a really stormy day that has moments of brilliant and refreshing sunlight, but is mostly just muddy and cold.

As a whole, I feel like both of these essays don't really hold up. There are so many contradictions, hypocrisies and wild tangents, too many to make the arguments feel cohesive and strong. Additionally there are a lot of really obnoxious, outdated rants about the "weak," the "sick," the "Jews" that really take away from the effectiveness of his points. The German Nationalism stuff is also horrid.

However, both essays are also highly quotable and unarguably brilliant. The flashes of true, bold intellect are there and they are striking. Lots of good thoughts about aesthetics and ethics here. This guy was truly a great thinker, great and terrible.

Horrible translation. The texts are interesting, of course, and provocative and guaranteed to set your impression of the world on its head.

But- if you are to read Nietzsche you've just got to do it with a translation by Walter Kaufmann. I have no German, but I've never read anything which is as vibrant and severe and powerful as his editions. Actual philosophy professors have said as much to me, too.

Trust me on this.

I purchased this book on January 17, 1970 (per a stamp on the inside cover) and read the entirety of it sometime in 1970. I'm guessing that I completed it by June 1970.

The rating is for The Birth of Tragedy, with which I profoundly disagree for many reasons. I probably reread The Birth of Tragedy at least once during the ensuing decades.

Although I read The Genealogy of Morals in 1970, I don't now, more than four decades later, recall it. I will have to reread it.

Nietzsche’s first book could be read as a work of metaphysics (or as a comment on the metaphysics of the ancient Greeks), but it is more a work of philology (Classics studies) than of philosophy. To be precise, about the first third of this book is about the birth of tragedy; the second third is about the decline and death of tragedy in Classical Greece, and the last third of the book is about the rebirth of tragedy in the late nineteenth century.

Nietzsche argues that tragedy comes out of the spirit of music, which latter he associates with the Greek god Dionysus (and the term “Dionysian” has come to be associated with rock concerts, spring break—drinking, dancing and excess). At the time the book came out, the philological authorities (with the exception of Erwin Rohde) criticized the book for its lack of classical references and conventional methods of proof; the modern general reader may find that the classical references Nietzsche does mention (Archilochus, Pindar, Anaxagoras, for example) get in the way of his argument.

After he had written several more books, Nietzsche became critical of this early work and particularly the way it reflected the influence of the composer Richard Wagner and the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer on his thought (and indeed, the latter half of the book, which is about Wagner, is less satisfying than the first half).

The significance of this book with reference to Nietzsche’s later work is his emphasis here on the will, which would become a dominant theme of his philosophical writing. (And although Nietzsche himself later distanced himself from his thesis, his distinction between Apollonian and Dionysian art has proved useful and has influenced later thinkers and artists.)

The Genealogy of Morals gives some idea of how far Nietzsche moved away from his earlier, Schopenhauerian thinking. There are many passages in this later book that remind me of how far ahead of his time Nietzsche was--and how even for the modern age, Nietzsche remains something of a receding horizon.

Acquired the copy I am currently using 1986
Cheap Thrills, Montreal, Quebec

The first book I ever decided to "deface" by writing in the margins. This one required writing my thoughts down in it as I went so I could refer back to them as I progressed. It's dense but fascinating.

Had I known that The Birth of Tragedy was in the context of ancient Greek theater, I might not have bought the book. It was an impluse buy at my favourite secondhand bookstore. That being said, while I considered not finishing the book mulitple times, I am glad that I have read it through; for the few lines that I could understand have made such a great impression on me. How Nietzsche tackles the necessity of tragedy, a pure expression of the will through music and the birth of morals, as well as guilt, have caused me to reconsider much in my own life.

Here is one of my favourite excerpts from The Genealogy of Morals.

"... everywhere a deliberate misinterpretation of suffering as guilt, terror, and punishment; everywhere, flagellant's lash, the hair shirt, the sinner stretching himself on the rack of his sadistic conscience; everywhere, dumb torment, agonizing fear, the spasms of an unknown bliss, the cry for redemption. No doubt such a system of procedures, once instituted, made short work of the ancient depression and tedium."

Crazy for this one Fred, quite eccentric

this book is a prophecy of rocknroll. read a good translation (hollindale).