Nietzsche als Dichter. Lyrik – Poetologie – Rezeption

Abstract

It is no secret that, for Nietzsche, philosophy and poetry are closely related. Some of his most important works contain poems, or even present themselves as poetry (as in the case of Z). Yet, in their efforts to make Nietzsche a respectable philosopher (especially in the English-speaking world), scholars have turned their attention away from this poetic dimension and have privileged instead the philosophical dimension of his work. The title of the present volume, Nietzsche als Dichter, echoes Arthur Danto's influential Nietzsche as Philosopher, and therefore aims to reinstate the part previously left aside. In order to do so, the articles in the volume focus on specific poems or poetic aspects of Nietzsche's philosophical works and, as the editors suggest in their introduction, aim at bringing attention to Nietzsche's lyrical production, which has been overshadowed by Z and the Dionysian Dithyrambs (DD).The volume is a collection of papers presented at the second Forums Junger Nietzscheforschung in 2015 and contains nineteen articles plus an introduction. One of the best aspects of this volume is that every article has an abstract in English, which gives even the non-German reader an idea of what each article contains. For this reason, I will not summarize the aims and scope of each article, but offer instead an overview of the collection by bringing them into dialogue in order to reveal, if possible, an underlying structure. Although the subtitle seems to suggest a tripartite categorization in lyricism, poetology, and reception, there is no such explicit subdivision within the volume. These three aspects represent rather, as the editors note in the introduction, three intertwined perspectives on Nietzsche as poet: “Particular attention is first directed to Nietzsche's lyrical production, which is revealed and presented exemplarily in close readings of poems. A second focus is set on language theory, aesthetic, and poetological reflections, which are examined especially in their statements about the capacity of poetry for knowledge and truth. Thirdly, and finally, Nietzsche's contemporary reception as poet comes to the fore” (5, my translations throughout). These perspectives therefore show three main directions the articles take: a focus on lyricism explores Nietzsche's poetry and its impact on his philosophy, one on poetology aims at elaborating a Nietzschean philosophy of poetry, and one on reception studies the influence of Nietzsche's poetry. All of the articles either take a general scope on Nietzsche's poetry and the relation to his philosophy or focus on one specific poem or aphorism.The editors suggest in the introduction that the lyrical dimension of Nietzsche's works has often been overlooked for two reasons: first, most research and reception of Nietzsche's poetic works has been focused on Z and DD; and, second, most of his lyrical production remained unpublished and is hidden in the posthumous fragments. The opening articles in the volume set the focus precisely on this notion of lyricism and attempt to fill this gap in Nietzsche scholarship.The first paper, by Sebastian Kaufman, gives “a general overview of Nietzsche's lyrical work and his reflections on lyric theory” (7). While discussing Nietzsche's lyricism, Kaufman also relates this lyrical dimension to the philosophical aspects of Nietzsche's works: “In interpreting Nietzsche's lyrical works, one should always consider the thematic correspondences between his poems and his philosophy” (23). This relation shows that focusing on Nietzsche's poetic works is never a matter of poetic theory or history only, but also offers a new perspective from which to approach Nietzsche's works in general—a perspective that might open new avenues of interpretation. This dialogue between philosophy and poetry is a dominant feature of most of the articles, and a characteristic of this volume lies in the fact that the dialogue often begins with poetry rather than philosophy.Except for Kaufman's contribution, the articles primarily concerned with lyricism all offer an analysis of specific poems or collection thereof. For instance, Katharina Grätz studies Um Mittag / Am Gletschner, a poem that Nietzsche published at two different times and with two different titles. According to her interpretation, the poem establishes a relation between man and nature by showing “nature as a sphere separate from the human one” (94), which then informs Nietzsche's philosophical conceptions. Whereas Grätz focuses on one poem, Kaufman, in his second article in this volume, expands his scope to offer a global interpretation of Idylls from Messina by focusing on the notions of gaiety, heroism, and sentimentality. These two articles illustrate how the volume is organized by alternating between close readings of poems and broader interpretations of Nietzsche's poetic works.As already mentioned, Nietzsche's lyrical production is often hidden, and the contributors therefore give interpretations not only of well-known poems but also of more obscure ones. The two articles by Armin Thomas Müller explore (respectively) Nietzsche's adolescent poetry in his cycle In der Ferne and Nietzsche's 1871 poems on melancholy. These articles aim at showing that there is a coherent conception of lyricism in Nietzsche's works, and that this conception pervades his later philosophical thought as well. In a sense, all the articles about Nietzsche's lyricism show that close attention to Nietzsche's poems reveal concerns that shed light on his philosophical works, further affirming what the editors say in the opening lines of the introduction, “Nietzsche was both: philosopher and poet” (1). More than showing that Nietzsche has two faces, it suggests that we cannot separate one from the other.If the study of Nietzsche's poems can cast light on his philosophy and its development, the opposite is true as well. Nietzsche's philosophy provides the keys we need to approach his poetic works. Milan Wenner's analysis of Nach neuen Meeren relates Nietzsche's poem to the metaphor of seafaring as he uses it in GS (for instance) and suggests that Nietzsche's use of this metaphor in his philosophical texts offers elements to interpret his poetry. Following a similar line of thought, according to which Nietzsche's philosophy enlightens his poetic production, Thomas Forrer explores the influence of philology on Nietzsche's poems. This two-sided relation between philosophy and poetry exhibits one of the aims of the volume, namely that of bringing them into a fruitful dialogue. Although this is not rare in Nietzsche scholarship, a new light is shed on this relation by the strong focus on poetry: philosophy no longer precedes poetry in the interpretative process, but both inform one another.To take a philosophy of poetry seriously therefore means to consider not only that philosophy can help to define poetry, but also that poetry modifies the aims and scope of philosophy. A philosophy of poetry does not leave philosophy untouched—quite the contrary. In exploring this influence, Stavros Patoussis considers philosophy to be a kind of dance for Nietzsche in his poem An den Mistral. Similarly, Mike Rottman studies an unfinished poem (composed in 1885) which, in his view, grounds Nietzsche's conception of the philosopher of the future. Once again, this poem is read against the background of Nietzsche's philosophical ideas. This relation between poems and broader philosophical reflections exemplifies the second perspective the editors mention, namely the poetological reflections, and further articles explore this perspective.In this regard, Z cannot be left aside. Two articles are specifically concerned with it: Jan Kerkmann explores the relation between the literary and philosophical aspects of the work through the analysis of the figure of the fortune-teller in relation to the notion of nihilism. A philosophical concept is also a poetic element, and both philosophical and poetic aspects influence one another. Taking another philosophical concept, Natalie Schulte considers that the Lied der Schwermuth in Z exemplifies the liar's paradox. The exploration of the paradox (that Z is a poem that states that poets lie too much) reveals Nietzsche's subtle relation to poetry, one that forces the reader to engage in an interpretative process and not take anything for granted.This question of paradox is also at the center of Michael Buhl's article. This article takes a broader look at the performative aspects of Nietzsche's works and relates them to self-contradiction. Buhl suggests that Nietzsche has a textual strategy that becomes visible when one compares the published texts and posthumous fragments. According to Buhl, whereas the Nachlass passages often present clear, structured arguments, the published texts incorporate performative aspects that replace the argumentation. The contradictions one can find in Nietzsche's works are therefore part of this textual strategy, which aims at irritating the reader. As Buhl argues: “At least from Daybreak onwards, Nietzsche's works transport their semantic content not only in the form of argumentation; they evoke this content through their composition in the mind of the irritated reader who, to make sense of them, has to question and substitute them” (313).Like Buhl, Patrick Wagner takes a broader look at the relation between philosophy and poetry in Nietzsche's works and analyzes it in relation to Plato. If Nietzsche's philosophy is an inverted Platonism (as he himself suggests), his poetics can best be understood in contrast to Plato, and especially to Plato's use of dialectics as a means of reaching philosophical truth. According to Wagner, “Nietzsche's concept of the poetic is therefore not to be understood as purely aesthetic, but in connection to an Enlightenment tendency through which the apparent character of existence emerges in all clarity” (337). This notion of existence is also at the center of Julius Thelen's article, which takes existence to lie between comedy and tragedy. To support his interpretation, Thelen offers a close reading of the first aphorism of GS, which leads him to suggest that the purported self-contradictions in Nietzsche's texts constitute a performative textual strategy. In this sense, the poetological reflections this volume offers suggest that a similar strategy is at play in both Nietzsche's poetic and philosophical works, thus illustrating once more how philosophy and poetry are intertwined for Nietzsche.Christina Kast's article offers another broad look at the relation between philosophy and poetry in her analysis of “Only Fool! Only Poet!” Unlike Schulte, who considers the poem to be related to the liar's paradox, Kast contends that Nietzsche attempts to ground philosophy in poetry and claims that the poems of Nietzsche's DD “are not to be understood only as a playful poeticising of his philosophy, but as being philosophical at their core” (390). This statement could probably be used as a leitmotif for the whole volume, as it suggests that one should take Nietzsche as poet seriously.Shifting away from poetological reflections, the last four articles focus on the early reception of Nietzsche's poetry. Robert Krause explores how Baudelaire's study on dandyism is related to Nietzsche's understanding of this phenomenon as a critique of utilitarian thinking, and as an alternative model for modern society that leaves space for contemplation. Sarah Scheibenberger examines the relation between Nietzsche and Carlo Michelstaedter by considering their conceptions of rhetoric. Ann-Christin Bolay compares two receptions of Nietzsche that focus not only on his philosophy, but also on his poetry. Grätz, in her second article in the volume, explores Nietzsche's reception as a poet in literary modernism between 1890 and 1930 and argues that “he was primarily understood as a poet” (465). These articles all aim at showing that, in the early reception of his work, Nietzsche qua poet was quite influential, and that this early reception offers important elements to interpret his poetic works.To conclude, this volume offers a number of insights in what could be called a Nietzschean philosophy of poetry. Three in particular stand out. First, the volume's focus on the notion of lyricism offers a perspective different from the usual scholarship on Nietzsche's poetry. Second, the attention to specific poems (especially lesser-known ones) is important if a philosophy of poetry aims not only to examine poetry from a philosophical point of view but also to consider the influence of poetry on philosophical investigation. Third, the focus on close readings (whether of poems or aphorisms) reminds us that to take Nietzsche as poet seriously means to read him closely, and this, in turn, suggests that to take Nietzsche as philosopher seriously requires a similar attention.