Publisher's Synopsis
This book aims to demonstrate that part four of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, dismissed by Nietzsche scholars as a regrettable postscript, contains the counterpoint and thus the hermeneutic key to the philosophy advanced in parts one to three. Part four exposes the hypocrisy and bankruptcy of ZarathustraÆs teaching of self-overcoming, and testifies to NietzscheÆs failure, as dramatised by Zarathustra, to overcome his decadent cultural heritage, both ancient (Christian) and modern (Romantic), as allegorized by ZarathustraÆs higher men. - The bookÆs originality lies in its central claim that, in contradistinction to the prevailing view of Nietzsche as anti-Christian and anti-Romantic, this most pessimistic of philosophers is an unregenerate Romantic of a decidedly Christian bent. A rigorous application of NietzscheÆs own principal analytical tool of æbackward inferenceÆ exposes NietzscheÆs tirades against Schopenhauer and Wagner as a sophisticated form of self-flagellation, whilst the popular perception of Nietzsche as an affirmative philosopher of self-overcoming (his own self-overcoming extended no further than the ability to pull himself back, time and again, from the abyss of suicide) is caricatured by the detailed portrayal of a tragic buffon whose pessimistic Weltanschauung exceeds even Schopenhauerian dimensions. - As a work of independent critical thought which applies the non-partisan analytical tool of immanent critique, this study of Zarathustra is unique. It places NietzscheÆs self-proclaimed masterpiece within its proper context, namely, his published work, and judges Nietzsche and Zarathustra on and specifically with(in) the terms of the other.
