Nietzsche's 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra'

Date

1883 to 1885

Category

Culture, arts & philosophy

Region

Germany (Central Europe)

Era

Modern

Significance

Between 1883 and 1885 the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche published 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' (Also sprach Zarathustra) in four parts, a work of philosophical fiction written in a prophetic, poetic style.

Through the figure of the sage Zarathustra, Nietzsche developed his most influential ideas: the proclamation that 'God is dead', a diagnosis of the collapse of traditional religious and metaphysical foundations of European values, together with the concepts of the Übermensch (overman), the will to power, and eternal recurrence. Rather than advocating atheism as doctrine, the 'death of God' announced a crisis of meaning and a call to create new values. Initially little read, Nietzsche's writings became enormously influential after his mental collapse in 1889, shaping 20th-century existentialism, psychology, literature, and modernist thought. His critique of conventional morality and his probing of the human condition made him one of the most provocative and far-reaching philosophers of the modern era, though his ideas were also later distorted and misappropriated.

Empires active in 1883 to 1885

• German Empire
  1871 CE to 1918 CE
• French Colonial Empire (Second)
  1830 CE to 1962 CE
• Empire of Japan
  1868 CE to 1947 CE
• Russian Empire
  1721 CE to 1917 CE
• British Empire
  1583 CE to 1997 CE
• Qing Dynasty
  1636 CE to 1912 CE

Related culture, arts & philosophy events

• First Impressionist Exhibition opens in Paris
  15 April 1874
• Freud publishes 'The Interpretation of Dreams'
  1900 (completed 1899)
• Rabindranath Tagore wins the Nobel Prize in Literature
  1913
• The Great Exhibition opens at the Crystal Palace
  1 May to 15 October 1851
• Walter Gropius Founds the Bauhaus in Weimar
  April 1919
• The Jazz Singer Inaugurates the Sound Film Era
  6 October 1927

Essential reading

• The Franco-Prussian War, German unification and the Paris Commune
  19 July 1870 to 10 May 1871; German Empire proclaimed 18 January 1871
• Emancipation of the serfs in Russia
  3 March 1861 (19 February O.S.)
• Haber-Bosch Process Industrialises Synthetic Nitrogen Fertiliser
  September 1913
• The Great Irish Famine
  1845 to 1852

Further reading

The Story of Art

The wider story

The Story of Art

E. H. Gombrich

The best-selling art history ever written, from cave paintings to the modern age.

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