Walking the Tightrope

Nietzsche completed The Gay Science at his mother’s home in Naumberg where he arrived by train in May 1882. “…there remained the irksome problem of preparing a legible manuscript. Elisabeth’s ‘girlish’ handwriting seemed to her brother ill-suited to the adult seriousness of the contents. She then hired the services of a Naumberg shopkeeper, who had recently gone bankrupt, Elisabeth and Fritz took turns dictating the text to an unsatisfactory and often shocked ‘scribe’.” ( Cate , page 335) The work is shocking to the extent that it is groundbreaking and outrageous philosophy. Whereas “St. Januarius” deals with how best to stylistically express oneself in a world without God, the first three Books of The Gay Science deal with, among other things, the “death of God” and some of the consequences of the death of God. Nietzsche begins his book with 63 short poems. Once more, these strike me as mediocre. Perhaps they are more interesting and clever in German. What is noteworthy, however, is...