Unpublished Fragments from the Period of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Summer 1882-Winter 1883/84) - (Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche) (Paperback)

About the Book

Volume 14 of The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche presents the very first translation into English of the philosopher's unpublished notebooks from the period in which he began working on what he considered his best known and most important work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Book Synopsis

With this latest book in the series, Stanford continues its English-language publication of the famed Colli-Montinari edition of Nietzsche's complete works, which include the philosopher's notebooks and early unpublished writings. Scrupulously edited so as to establish a new standard for the field, each volume includes an Afterword that presents and contextualizes the material therein.

This volume provides the first English translation of Nietzsche's unpublished notebooks from 1882-1884, the period in which he was composing the book that he considered his best and most important work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Crucial transitional documents in Nietzsche's intellectual development, the notebooks mark a shift into what is widely regarded as the philosopher's mature period. They reveal his long-term design of a fictional tetralogy charting the philosophical, pedagogical, and psychological journeys of his alter-ego, Zarathustra. Here, in nuce, appear Zarathustra's teaching about the death of God; his discovery that the secret of life is the will to power; and his most profound and most frightening thought--that his own life, human history, and the entire cosmos will eternally return. During this same period, Nietzsche was also composing preparatory notes for his next book, Beyond Good and Evil, and the notebooks are especially significant for the insight they provide into his evolving theory of drives, his critical ideas about the nature and history of morality, and his initial thoughts on one of his best-known concepts, the superhuman (Übermensch).

Review Quotes

"Nietzsche scholars have many reasons to be grateful to Paul S. Loeb and David F. Tinsley: for their meticulous scholarship, their literary skill, and, not least, their exemplary consideration for the reader. Their work in this volume sets a benchmark for future English translations of Nietzsche's writing."--Robin Small, Journal of Nietzsche Studies

"Stanford University Press is doing Nietzsche studies and readers in the English-speaking world a great service through its support and publication of this series of translations of Nietzsche's texts. The Colli-Montinari (de Gruyter) critical edition of Nietzsche's writings, on which they are based, is the German-language 'gold standard' for Nietzsche scholarship. The Stanford series, as it fills out, will undoubtedly come to hold comparable pride of place for English-speaking readers world-wide."--Richard Schacht, University of Illinois

"This series will become the definitive resource for English readers, a resource much needed given the great wave of philosophical, literary, and political interest in Nietzsche's thought. The excellent translations draw on the latest scholarship and are based on the state-of-the-art Colli-Montinari edition. The editors and translators have taken care to provide consistency in rendering Nietzsche's German and explaining important terms and variants. With their extensive and helpful annotations, the translations are indispensable for the scholar and appealing to the general reader."--Gary Shapiro, University of Richmond

About the Author

Paul S. Loeb is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Puget Sound and the author of The Death of Nietzsche's Zarathustra (2010). David F. Tinsley is Professor Emeritus of German and Medieval Studies at the University of Puget Sound and the author of The Scourge and the Cross: Ascetic Mentalities of the Later Middle Ages (2010).