Novalis and Nietzsche: Analogies and Differences Between Two Poetic Thinkers.There are several substantial similarities between Novalis and Nietzsche. Stylistically, they both present their arguments and ideas in the form of short and concise prose (Aphorismus,Fragment), but there is also considerable overlap in terms of the general orientation of their thinking: both exhibit a certain concern for earthly nature and show an interest in the figure of the extraordinary individual, but they also have a common interest in physiology, in the idea (...) of fiction, and in the night as a allowing for greater experiential depth. Moreover, Novalis and Nietzsche both warned of the rise of nationalism in Europe, to some extent anticipating a new form of war that eventually became a reality in the First World War. This essay, thus, seeks to outline a range of connections between early German romanticism and Nietzsche that would require further research. (shrink)

Prior to the third essay of his Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche affixes a fragment from Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The purpose of the fragment seems explicit in the Genealogy’s preface where Nietzsche tells us that the essay is a commentary on an aphorism. However, the relationship of the fragment to the third essay is unclear. In response, several commentators have offered a solution: namely, to disregard the fragment from Zarathustra and to read the first section of the third essay as the (...) object of Nietzsche’s commentary. Since this reading, the puzzle concerning Nietzsche’s aphorism has been considered solved. In this thesis, I make a case for why we should revive this debate, why we should restore the most natural reading of the preface, which makes the fragment from Zarathustra the aphorism Nietzsche refers to there, and how we can make sense of its connection to the third essay. (shrink)