Product Description: Nietzsche called The Gay Science "the most personal of all my books." It was here that he first proclaimed the death of God -- to which a large part of the book is devoted -- and his doctrine of the eternal recurrence.
Walter Kaufmann's commentary, with its many quotations from previously untranslated letters, brings to life Nietzsche as a human being and illuminates his philosophy. The book contains some of Nietzsche's most sustained discussions of art and morality, knowledge and truth, the intellectual conscience and the origin of logic.
Most of the book was written just before Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the last part five years later, after Beyond Good and Evil. We encounter Zarathustra in these pages as well as many of Nietzsche's most interesting philosophical ideas and the largest collection of his own poetry that he himself ever published.
Walter Kaufmann's English versions of Nietzsche represent one of the major translation enterprises of our time. He is the first philosopher to have translated Nietzsche's major works, and never before has a single translator given us so much of Nietzsche.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Master of persuasion
The explosive, defiant spirit of Nietzsche is engraved in his very own fierce writing. His words are alluring and somewhat dangerous, as the reader will come to feel guilty for recognizing sparks of truth ... Read More
Rating: - Heraclitus comes to the fore-- Im Fluss:Panta rei
The best first and/or last step into Friedrich Nietzsche's thought. It reads quickly and gives a fair cross-section of his writings chronologically: just before TSZ, right after his "free spirit" epoch, and ... Read More
Rating: - Brilliant
Nietzsche's Die Froliche Wissenschaft may be a great and brilliant book precisely because it is impossible to say exactly what it is about. On the one hand, we are given the Nietzsche who repudiates the assumptions ... Read More
Rating: - THE FAVOURITE: JOY THANKS TO LUCIDITY
For the admirers of Nietzsche and those who love to read him, "The Gay Science" is somehow their FAVOURITE BOOK. In this work the hughe, great German philosopher and psychologist (honour to whom it deserves!) confronts ... Read More
Rating: - RE: "God is dead"
If you have heard this phrase and never done a critical reading of Nietzsche you may understandably be confused! He is saying the authority (moral, scientific, etc.)previuosly accorded "god" (also religious institution)belongs ... Read More
- RE: "God is dead"