Within Nietzsche's labyrinth

Abstract

In Within Nietzsche's Labyrinth, Alan White looks beyond Nietzsche's flamboyant but ambiguous words of praise for violence and oppression in search of the subtler yes-saying teachings', the ones which Nietzsche presents with the voice of Beauty' which speaks only to readers with fingers for nuances'. White's search leads through the nihilism of the The Will to Power, the aesthetics of The birth of Tragedy, and the hermaneutics of The Geneaology of Morals ; he then ventures into Nietzsche's masterpiece of philosophical poetry, Thus Spoke Zarathustra . There, White traces the evolution of Zarathustra's soul as it moves from a longing for the overman to an affirmation of eternal return. Guided by the features of Zarathustra's own life, White interprets eternal return non-metaphysically, as a doctrine of earthly revitalization rather than of cosmic repetition. He then assesses the ethical and political implications of this doctrine - and thereby its affirmative power - by continuing his exploration of Nietzsche's labyrinth, first following and then diverging from the accounts provided by Alexander Nehamas and Milan Kundera.