Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
(Difference between revisions)
| Revision as of 19:49, 3 October 2010 Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) ← Previous diff |
Current revision Jahsonic (Talk | contribs) |
||
| Line 1: | Line 1: | ||
| {{Template}} | {{Template}} | ||
| - | The German philosopher [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] owned an extensive private library, which has been preserved after his death. Today this library consists of some 1,100 volumes, of which about 170 contain annotations by him, many of them substantial. However, less than half of the books he read are also found in his library. | ||
| - | Nietzsche, who had been a student and a professor of [[philology]], had a thorough knowledge of the [[Greek philosophy|Greek philosophers]]. Among modern philosophers, his reading included [[Kant]], [[John Stuart Mill|Mill]] and [[Schopenhauer]], Late in life he read [[Spinoza]], whom he called his "precursor", in particular for his criticisms of [[free will]], [[teleology]] and his thoughts on the role of affects, joy and sadness. Nietzsche, however, opposed Spinoza's theory of ''[[conatus]]'', for which he substituted the "will to power" (''Wille zur Macht''); and he replaced Spinoza's formula "''Deus sive Naturae''" (God or Nature) by "''Chaos sive Naturae''". Nietzsche also admired the [[French literature of the 17th century|French moralists of the 17th century]] such as [[François de La Rochefoucauld (writer)|La Rochefoucauld]], [[Jean de La Bruyère|La Bruyère]] and [[Vauvenargues (writer)|Vauvenargues]], whose books he received from his sister in 1869. He also admired [[Blaise Pascal|Pascal]] and, most of all, [[Stendhal]]. He also read Eduard von Hartmann's "Philosophy of the Unconscious", and alludes to it in some of his works. | + | '''Therese Elisabeth Alexandra Förster-Nietzsche''' (July 10, 1846 – November 8, 1935), who went by her second name, was the sister of philosopher [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] and the creator of the [[Nietzsche Archive]] in 1894. |
| - | + | ||
| - | Nietzsche read in 1883 [[Paul Bourget]]'s ''Essais de psychologie contemporaine'', from which he borrowed the French term ''[[décadence]]''. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Bourget had an [[organicism|organicist]] conception of society. Nietzsche had already encountered organicist theories in [[Rudolf Virchow]]'s ''[[Cellular pathology|Die Cellularpathologie]]'' (1858) and in [[Alfred Espinas]]'s ''Des sociétés animales'' (1887; ''Die thierischen Gesellschaften'', Braunschweig, 1879). | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Nietzsche also became familiar with [[Darwinism]] through his early reading of [[Friedrich Albert Lange]]'s ''[[Geschichte des Materialismus]]'' (1865), which criticized [[Charles Darwin|Darwin]]'s gradualism. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Lange alluded to [[Stirner]] in this book, whom he (incorrectly) identified with Schopenhauerian positions. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | He also mentioned [[Louis Auguste Blanqui|Blanqui]]'s ''L'Eternité par les astres'', which discussed the thesis of an [[eternal return]]. Besides Lange, he read the anti-Darwinist botanist [[Karl Wilhelm von Nägeli]]'s ''Mechanisch-physiologische Theorie der Abstammungslehre'' (1884) in the period of ''Beyond Good and Evil'', which became his main source concerning [[physiology]]. Nietzsche targeted [[Social Darwinism]], in particular [[Herbert Spencer]], [[John Stuart Mill]] and [[David Strauss]] (he read all of them, and titled the first ''Untimely Meditation'' "David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer"). | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Finally, Wolfgang Müller-Lauter showed that Nietzsche also read the embryologist [[Wilhelm Roux]]. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | In a letter of 26 February 1888 to [[Peter Gast]], Nietzsche mentions his reading of the posthumous works of [[Charles Baudelaire]] (published in 1887). He also read [[Leo Tolstoy|Tolstoy]]'s ''My Religion'' (Paris, 1885), the Jewish historian [[Julius Wellhausen]] on [[Orientalism|Arab antiquities]] and his ''Prolegomena zur Geschichte Israels'' (Berlin, 1882), the first volume of the ''Journal'' of the [[Goncourt brothers]], thoughts of [[Benjamin Constant]] on German theater, [[Ernest Renan]]'s ''Life of Jesus'' — whom he opposed —, and [[Dostoevsky]]'s ''[[The Possessed (novel)|The Possessed]]'' (Paris, 1886 — read in 1887). [[Julius Wellhausen]] became famous for his critical investigations into [[Old Testament]] history and into the composition of the ''[[Hexateuch]]'', the uncompromising scientific attitude he adopted in testing its problems bringing him into antagonism with the older school of biblical interpreters. He became arguably best-known for the [[Documentary hypothesis]] on the origin of the [[Pentateuch]]. Wellhausen influenced Nietzsche in his writing of ''[[The Antichrist (book)|The Antichrist]]'' and in his musings on the [[Internal consistency of the Bible|internal discrepancies of the Bible]]. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | Nietzsche's 1888 notebooks also contain references to [[Victor Brochard]]'s ''[[Philosophical skepticism|Les Sceptiques grecs]]'' (1887); to [[Charles Féré]], who had concerns about "[[degeneration]]" issues; and to [[Louis Jacolliot]]'s ''Les Lois de Manou'', which became for Nietzsche the "classical [case] of ''pia fraus'', the ''pious lie'' of religion" | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | In his notebooks, Nietzsche copied several passages of Féré, later included, without quotation marks, in ''The Will to Power'' published by [[Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche]] and [[Peter Gast]]. | + | |
| - | + | ||
| - | It was also said that Nietzsche was an admirer of Ralph Waldo Emerson. | + | |
| - | == See also == | + | |
| - | * [[Nietzsche-Archiv]] | + | |
| + | Förster-Nietzsche was two years younger than her brother. Both were children of a [[Lutheran]] pastor in the [[Germany|German]] village of Röcken bei Lützen. The two children were close during their childhood and early adult years. However, the siblings grew apart in 1885 when Elisabeth married [[Bernhard Förster]], a former high school teacher who had become a fanatic [[anti-Semitic]] agitator—Friedrich [[Nietzsche abhorred anti-Semitism]]. | ||
| {{GFDL}} | {{GFDL}} | ||
Current revision
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Therese Elisabeth Alexandra Förster-Nietzsche (July 10, 1846 – November 8, 1935), who went by her second name, was the sister of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the creator of the Nietzsche Archive in 1894.
Förster-Nietzsche was two years younger than her brother. Both were children of a Lutheran pastor in the German village of Röcken bei Lützen. The two children were close during their childhood and early adult years. However, the siblings grew apart in 1885 when Elisabeth married Bernhard Förster, a former high school teacher who had become a fanatic anti-Semitic agitator—Friedrich Nietzsche abhorred anti-Semitism.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
