VOLUME VI, ISSUE I & II, SPRING & FALL 2013
Abstract
The first version of The Gay Science was published in 1882 and the aphorism that concludes this book also serves for Nietzsche as incipit for his next book: Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None. This essay looks at the notion of eternal recurrence, which Nietzsche also happens to introduce at the end of Book Four of The Gay Science, and this notion connects The Gay Science and Thus Spoke Zarathustra, two books, both of which were designedly, so I shall argue, initially published in unfinished versions. Indeed and because Thus Spoke Zarathustra was published in several unfinished versions the scholars’ habit of citing the books of Zarathustra corresponds not to individual ‘parts’ but separate books, published seriatim. Thus the first Zarathustra book is published as Also Sprach Zarathustra, Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen with E. Schmeitzner in Chemnitz in 1883.
How his shadow stands even now behind everyone, as his dark fellow traveler.
(GS IV: §281)
If you believed more in life, you would devote yourselves to the moment.
(Z I: Of the Preachers of Death)
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