2019
DOI: 10.1017/9781139019354
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Nietzsche's <I>The Gay Science</I>

Abstract: Nietzsche's The Gay Science (1882/1887) is a deeply personal book, yet also an important work of philosophy. Nietzsche conceives it as a philosophical autobiography, a record of his own self-transformation. In beautifully composed aphorisms he communicates his central experience of overcoming pessimism and recovering the capacity to affirm joyfully the tragedy of life. On the basis of his experiments in living, Nietzsche articulates his most famous philosophical concepts and images: the death of God, the exerc… Show more

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Cited by 4 publications
(2 citation statements)
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“…Nietzsche's concept of happiness at least includes Epicurean ataraxia as a crucial ingredient," 23 and furthermore, "[t]he spirit of Epicurus presides over Dawn as it did over its predecessor." 24 Michael Ure concurs with Young's (and others') assessment, 25 and argues that with the publication of GS in 1882, "Nietzsche reverses his judgment of Epicureanism: he no longer interprets it as a means of or signpost to an affirmative philosophy, but as a philosophical way of life that is symptomatic of life denial." 26 For Ure, one passage in particular now portrays Epicurus' ideal of happiness as a solution to the problem of suffering, as a superficial invention by someone seeking to escape his own distress: Only someone who is continually suffering could invent such happiness-the happiness of an eye before which the sea of existence has grown still and which now cannot get enough of seeing the surface and this colourful, tender, quivering skin of the sea: never before has voluptuousness been so modest.…”
Section: Epicurus' Greek Decadent Idealmentioning
confidence: 82%
See 1 more Smart Citation
“…Nietzsche's concept of happiness at least includes Epicurean ataraxia as a crucial ingredient," 23 and furthermore, "[t]he spirit of Epicurus presides over Dawn as it did over its predecessor." 24 Michael Ure concurs with Young's (and others') assessment, 25 and argues that with the publication of GS in 1882, "Nietzsche reverses his judgment of Epicureanism: he no longer interprets it as a means of or signpost to an affirmative philosophy, but as a philosophical way of life that is symptomatic of life denial." 26 For Ure, one passage in particular now portrays Epicurus' ideal of happiness as a solution to the problem of suffering, as a superficial invention by someone seeking to escape his own distress: Only someone who is continually suffering could invent such happiness-the happiness of an eye before which the sea of existence has grown still and which now cannot get enough of seeing the surface and this colourful, tender, quivering skin of the sea: never before has voluptuousness been so modest.…”
Section: Epicurus' Greek Decadent Idealmentioning
confidence: 82%
“…In his view this negative portrayal of the world has culminated in the prevailing trend for modern pessimism as inspired by Schopenhauer and replicated by the likes of Edward von Hartmann and Philipp Mainländer (see also GS 357). The association of Romanticism with decadence is later explicitly confirmed in a number of notebook entries, including one from late 1887 where Romanticism is listed as a type of decadence (KSA 13:11 [10], p. 12; see also KSA 13:14 [25]), and in another from early 1888, in which he states, "In fact, the Romantics present a morbid form of decadence [Thatsächlich stellen die Romantiker eine krankhafte décadence-Form vor]" (KSA 13:15[97], p. 463, my translation). 69 Two partial exceptions are Will Dudley, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 128-45, where the categorization is discernible but not formally stated in his discussion of "The Decadent Failures to Will Freely: Two Types of Sickness," and Huddleston, Nietzsche on the Decadence and Flourishing of Culture, 82-87, who alludes to the distinction in his discussion of "Individual Décadence," by using the example of Socrates as presented in TI.…”
mentioning
confidence: 97%