Dec 17, 2008 Nietzsche's seminal work tells of the travels and pedagogy of Zarathustra, the Persian prophet and founder of Zoroastrianism.
Written in four parts between 1883 and 1885, Thus Spoke Zarathustra represents the culmination of Friedrich Nietzsche’s mature philosophy. Nietzsche wrote each of the first three parts in ten day spurts while living in very modest conditions and battling extreme ill-health. Each part was published separately and the fourth part was not presented to the public until 1892.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a dense and esoteric treatise on morality and philosophy based around the travels and teaching of a fictionalised Zarathustra.
The Enlightenment of Zarathustra Zarathustra has spent ten years alone, meditating in a mountain cave until one day, his heart full of wisdom and love, he decided to leave the cave to teach the rest of humanity about the overman. According to Nietzsche, the overman is someone who is free of prejudice, who is no longer constrained by the morality of human society and who creates their own values and purpose. Zarathustra arrived in a town and announced to the people in the marketplace that the overman must be the meaning of the earth, that mankind is just a bridge between animals and the overman and so must be overcome.
The majority of the townspeople do not understand Zarathustra and are not interested in the overman and, at the end of his first day with the people, Zarathustra is saddened by his inability to move the herd of people towards his ideas. Zarathustra decides that he will not seek to try and convert the multitudes but will instead spread his wisdom by speaking only to those individuals who are interested in separating themselves from the herd.
The Teaching of Zarathustra The majority of the first three parts of Thus Spoke Zarathustra is made up of individual lessons and sermons delivered by Zarathustra. These lessons cover most of the general themes of Nietzsche’s philosophy but they are often highly symbolic and obscure. Zarathustra values struggle and hardship since the way toward the overman is difficult and requires a great deal of sacrifice. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra the journey to the overman is often symbolised by the climbing of a mountain while the free spirit of the overman is symbolised by laughter and dance.
Zarathustra is extremely critical of mass movements and of the rabble of the general public. Nationalism and mass politics are seen as the means by which weary, sick bodies try to escape from themselves. Zarathustra suggests that those who are strong struggle on while those who are weak turn to religion, nationalism, democracy or some other form of escape.
The culmination of Zarathustra’s teaching is the doctrine of eternal recurrence, the idea that all events will be repeated again and again forever. Only the overman could embrace this doctrine since only he has the strength to take responsibility for every moment of his life and want nothing more than for every moment to be repeated. Zarathustra himself has trouble embracing the doctrine of eternal recurrence since he cannot bear the thought that the ignorance of the rabble will be repeated throughout eternity.
In the fourth part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Zarathustra has returned to his cave and is accompanied by a group of men who have nearly achieved the position of overman. The group enjoy a feast and a number of songs and the book ends with Zarathustra finally embracing the doctrine of eternal recurrence.
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic