I have six of Nietzsche’s books on my shelves, every single one decked out in a pitch black cover. When I first came across that thick name (“Nietzsche”) with those at first un-pronounce-able five consonants in a row, I thought such a dark figure must somehow stand for NIHILISM or perhaps stand for DEATH, whatever that meant. Within philosophy, literature or any studies related to the history of thought, you see Nietzsche’s name referenced everywhere — referenced, in fact, far more than he’s actually quoted or studied. You see him mentioned in Nazi history (though that intellectual association has been refuted in the last half century) or read how he spent the last ten years of his life in an insane asylum, completely unrecognizable, with the summation of his thought (The Will to Power) still in draft form. He’s often compared in importance to Freud, Einstein, Darwin and, in Henry Miller’s estimation, even with Jesus Christ. He certainly left an enormously significant and complicated legacy.
Although I’ve read The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner three times since I was in my teens, I can still only briefly summarize its content: it’s about the relation in Greek tragedy between the formal, balanced Apollonian style and the more enraptured Dionysian sensibilities. That’s a cheap description, I know, but Nietzsche’s works are so full of deeply Nineteenth Century German references, coupled with a requirement that you have a great understanding of Classical philosophical thought, that it’s very difficult to retain much content from his writings.
Rather, what’s always struck me about Nietzsche’s thought is his sense of excitement and art (rare in philosophers) and his entirely compelling drive to question absolutely everything. Over a lifetime of constantly altered ideas (witness the “Attempt at a Self Criticism” that opens The Birth of Tragedy), it was the love of whole hearted inquiry that he believed in the most. This enabled him to become the first philosopher to make a complete break with religion. There’s nothing too sacred in his world that shouldn’t be doubted and constantly re-evaluated.
From The Case of Wagner:
Above all, no thought! Nothing is more compromising than a thought. Rather the state preceding thought, the throng of yet unborn thoughts, the promise of future thoughts, the world as it was before God created it – a recrudescence of chaos.-Chaos induces intimations.
With its blatant blocks of color comprising its design, this copy of The Birth of Tragedy reminds me of those endless texts you had to read in college — a little Marx, some Rousseau, Milton, all the heavy weight names in history and literature. So many great old books end up having the cheapest covers, through which you eventually start to associate the “good stuff” with an economy of form. This book in particular has such a plain cover (though with that wonderful “artistic” black) that it seems all the more mine, all the more private, for its lack of a glossy Barnes & Noble cover design.