Walking the Tightrope

Note:  This post can be considered an addendum to my previous post entitled Sorrento Days . Nietzsche’s Journey to Sorrento by Paolo D’Iorio offers us an intimate look at Nietzsche's time in that Italian town at the beginning of the formation of thinking that would turn him away from his past with Richard Wagner and The Birth of Tragedy toward the future of his “ positivist period ” where concepts such as the “free spirit” took root and flourished.  It spans his notebooks and correspondences of late-1876 into 1877 to reveal the circumstances of his life and thought that lead to the profound period of philosophical development which resulted in Human, All Too Human . The subtitle for the work is apt: “Genesis of the Philosophy of the Free Spirit.”  The books does address the intricacies of his free spirit philosophy .  Rather, it is an account of its birth and early development during and immediately following his time in Sorrento .  The author relies hea...

Nietzsche arrived at Bonn with his good friend Paul Deussen.  It was partly because Deussen wanted to attend Bonn himself that Nietzsche chose that institution.  Not long afterward he became a fraternity “party” boy.  “Finding himself rootless and ignorant in a new city, Nietzsche, together with Deussen, sought out former classmates and found that a host of these had joined fraternity called Franconia.  On October 23, the Sunday after their arrival, the two young men were invited to a tavern and given a recruitment pitch by Georg Stockert, their former dorm-mate at Pforta.  Drinks were surely served, and the bar setting would have encouraged camaraderie and group dynamics.  By the day’s end Nietzsche, Deussen, and six others had signed up as pledges.  The recruiter no doubt stressed what the neophytes needed to hear – that the fraternity promised continuity, community, and enlightenment on the local scene.  Given the tavern setting, he probably di...

In the spirit of “eternal recurrence,” it seems fitting to follow the account of Nietzsche’s death with a look back at his youth.  The Making of Friedrich Nietzsche , written by Daniel Blue , was published in 2016.  It offers many insights into Nietzsche’s student years prior to his professorship at Basel.  Most of this information was previously unavailable to me when I started this philosophical biography back in 2008.  As such, it is a welcome resource peering into the formative years of his mind and personality. For all the discuss ion about the impact that the death of Nietzsche’s father had on his youth, Blue reveals that Nietzsche, being so young, barely knew his father.  The larger impact was made by the expectations Nietzsche’s family placed upon him in light of his father’s religious calling.  More specifically, it was Nietzsche’s mother who impacted his preschool youth more than any other singular force.  Blue’s discussion of this reveals ...

“For meanwhile the tightrope walker had begun his performance: he had stepped out of a small door and was walking across the rope, stretched between two towers, suspended over the street and the people. When he reached the middle of his course the small door opened once more and a fellow in motley clothes, looking like a jester, jumped out and followed the first one in quick steps.  “...he uttered a devilish cry and jumped over the man who stood in his way. This man, however, seeing his rival win, lost his head and the rope, tossed away his pole, and plunged into the depth even faster, a whirlpool of arms and legs.” ( Zarathustra , Prologue, 6)  “The examination at Jena was essentially similar to Basel, although there are more technical details of the examination given which add little to the total picture. A 'scar' on the penis was noted which had been taken by some to indicate prior syphilis although this is a totally unjustifiable assumption. The papillary asymmetri...