The Reader Not Yet Born: Reassessing Nietzsche’s Zarathustra
Vorwort Why is it that the book Nietzsche esteemed above all others is the one his readers most readily sideline? Few claims in contemporary Nietzsche scholarship have become as widespread, and as rarely examined, as the judgment that Thus Spoke Zarathustra is overrated. One often hears that the book “has not aged well,” that its lyrical voice obscures its philosophical force, or that its prophetic tone feels excessive to modern sensibilities. According to this now-familiar view, posterity has quietly consigned Zarathustra to the margins of Nietzsche’s work, preferring the sharp polemics of Genealogy or the crystalline aphorisms of Beyond Good and Evil . What makes this consensus puzzling, however, is that it stands in stark opposition to Nietzsche’s own evaluation. In Ecce Homo , composed during a remarkably lucid and productive period, he describes Zarathustra as “the greatest gift that has ever been bestowed upon humanity.” How can contemporary readers diverge so dramaticall...