> I am thinking in particular about this claim in which N. puts
> himself over and above the pantheon of the literary greats: Dass ein
> Goethe, ein Shakespeare nicht einen Augenblick in dieser ungeheuren
> Leidenschaft und Hoehe zu atmen wissen wuerde, dass Dante, gegen
> Zarathustra, bloss ein Glaeubiger ist und nicht Einer, der die Wahrheit
> erst schafft, ein weltregierender Geist, ein Schicksal--, dass die Dichter
> des Veda Priester sind und nicht einmal wuerdig, die Schuhsohlen eines
> Zarathustra zu loesen, das ist Alles das Wenigste und giebt keinen Begriff
> von der Distanz, von der azurnen Einsamkeit, in der dies Werk lebt (ECCE
> HOMO, Also Sprach Zarathustra, 6).
Interestingly, most of those who are named in these high-flying
overpassings are folks to whom Nietzsche feels some affinity, that it
might be to Shakespeare or Goethe or the Vedantas that some would hope to
compare Zarathustra, all of which are otherwise usually praised or treated
with great interest. These are not the rejected but those embraced for
comparison, the dead peers to whom Nietzsche casts his challange. He
treats these critical favorites to the full impact of his ironic existence
that makes his buffoonery so wonderfully comic. No hagiographics needed
here to abjudicate some academic glass bead game that decides poetic
priority. No matter for approval either that overthrows this pantheon in
these extravagant gestures to which I append a citation further along in
the same section;
"The psychological problem in the type Zarathustra is how he that says
No and does No to an unheard-of degree, to everything to which one has so
far said Yes, can nevertheless be the opposite of a No-saying spirit"
Say yah,
Leonardo Raggo//\\//\\
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