The Joyous Science Read online

  The next section, ‘The Dying Socrates’, takes a figure who previously in the middle works had been celebrated for his independence and rationality (in part to make up for being accused of killing Greek tragedy in Nietzsche’s early The Birth of Tragedy) and, by interpreting a stray remark attributed to him from Plato’s Phaedo, concludes that even Socrates for all his virtues did not truly love life. The contrast to ‘Vita femina’ is unmistakable: Socrates’ seemingly heroic embrace of death is born of weakness, a failure to love, a wish for annihilation rather than repetition. And this is why it isn’t enough for Nietzsche to become pagan, to return to antiquity in his attempt to transcend both Christianity and modernity, for Socrates was the best pagan antiquity had to offer. For this reason, Nietzsche says that ‘we have to surpass even the Greeks!’.

  It is at this point that Nietzsche gingerly introduces the thought which had first occurred to him ‘at the beginning of August 1881, in Sils-Maria, 6,000 feet above the sea and much higher above all human things’ (Kritische Studienausgabe, volume 9, p. 494). In The Joyous Science it is presented hypothetically: suppose that you learned (from a ‘demon’) that your life was to be repeated an infinite number of times without the slightest variation. Would you be horrified? Or would you be ecstatic? Nietzsche seems to think that only these extreme reactions make sense in the face of infinite repetition. The first point to make here is that Nietzsche’s emphasis is simultaneously on the aforementioned ‘beautiful moments’ which are so very rare that they never repeat themselves within a single lifetime, and the amount of suffering involved even in a life well lived. While we may imagine that a life which ends in death may be less than fully satisfying for that reason (at least the believers in an afterlife seem to think so), there is some consolation in knowing that one’s suffering will be at an end by virtue of annihilation. This, Nietzsche thinks, is the ‘Socratic’ reaction (despite the fact that Socrates in the Phaedo argues extensively for the existence of an afterlife). If instead of death there were infinite repetition of this life, this nihilistic solace would be as unavailable to us as the solace of a happy afterlife. We might also add that, since Nietzsche’s metaphysics is completely naturalistic and deterministic, in order for one human life to be exactly repeated, all of the history of the cosmos within which it was embedded would also have to be exactly repeated. And with that, any solace one might experience at the thought of posthumous reputation, heirs, the success of future generations, indeed, future progress of any kind, would be made a mockery of by the endless cycling of the cosmos and human history. In a sense, Nietzsche radicalizes a common secular thought that, in the absence of an afterlife, we must make the most of this life, for this life is all we have. Matters for him are more extreme: this life is inescapable. If its ending provides any solace to the weary, that solace is illusory, for as soon as you end this life you must (subjectively speaking) start it over again from the beginning.

  The idea that this could be true, and that we must test our fundamental attitude towards life as affirming it or negating it by contemplating our reaction to this thought, is the idea as it is presented in The Joyous Science. However, the evidence of Nietzsche’s notebooks suggests that he regarded the eternal recurrence not only as a terrifying or exhilarating thought experiment, but as actually true, indeed, provably true. This colours the idea in a very different way than those who regard Nietzsche’s notion as purely hypothetical have thought. In fact, it is hard to imagine why Nietzsche would have placed such an enormous emphasis on the idea if he thought it was merely a challenging hypothetical with which we might reconsider our fundamental attitudes. This point can be seen more clearly if we imagine that Nietzsche’s great rival, Christianity, were to present itself in the following words. ‘Suppose that after you die, if you have sinned in this life and have not properly received the atoning death of Jesus Christ, then you will continue to exist in a non-physical form, subjected to horrible tortures for all eternity. If that were the case, wouldn’t you want to renounce sin and accept Jesus to avoid such a horrible torment? Not that any of this is true of course! Thank God for that! But you should act as if it were true.’ But why should we? Most of the vivacity of the idea of damnation dissipates into a sigh of relief that it is merely hypothetical, and with it, all motivating force as well. Why should I act as if something is true when it is precisely not true?

  It does seem to be the case, once we take Nietzsche’s unpublished remarks into account, that he actually believed this mad idea, and found not only challenge in it, but consolation and a sense of mission as well. For the infinite repetition of your life means that, in a certain sense, you will never truly die, and that those ‘beautiful moments’ shimmer with the radiance of eternity. The sense of mission comes from the fact that Nietzsche, in asking himself what life he wishes to lead, now that he knows his life is subject to and must become worthy of infinite repetition, answers that he is to become the teacher of the doctrine of the eternal recurrence.

  At which point we come to the final section of Book IV, ‘Incipit Tragoedia’. This section introduces the character of Zarathustra by giving us an almost verbatim anticipation of the opening of Nietzsche’s next work, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In it, Zarathustra, modelled on the ancient Iranian prophet and founder of Zoroastrianism, grows weary of his solitude and decides to descend from his mountain cave to return to humanity with new teachings. What new teachings? Nietzsche explains in Ecce Homo that one of the reasons why he chose Zarathustra for his fictional persona is because Zoroaster’s original teaching was that the cosmos is to be understood as a great battleground between the forces of good and evil, light and darkness.2 In this battle, human beings must freely choose a side on which to fight; this idea eventually finds its way into Christianity. But, Nietzsche imagines, the genius who first thought up this false conception of things must surely have been the first to see through it? And so by using Zarathustra as a mouthpiece, Nietzsche styles himself as the first teacher of the fact that the cosmos is precisely not a battleground between the forces of good and evil, and the teacher of all the implications of this fundamental criticism. But as we learn in reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra, most of the text is concerned not just with Nietzsche’s new ethic, but with Zarathustra’s own struggle to accept, affirm and ultimately teach the doctrine of the eternal recurrence itself. Thus The Joyous Science in its original form ends by announcing that Nietzsche can no longer continue as the aloof outsider who criticizes humanity, society and modernity. He must achieve a higher form of joyous affirmation, and must become the quasi-religious teacher of this doctrine to the humanity he had formerly left behind.

  If The Joyous Science has a protagonist of sorts, and a storyline, it even more clearly has a setting. Although the idea of the eternal recurrence came to Nietzsche in Sils-Maria, Switzerland, most of the book was written on and near the Mediterranean, in northern Italy, in such cities as Genoa (the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, a figure often alluded to in the text), Recoaro Terme and Cannobio. The poems in the Appendix were written in Messina, Sicily. Some of Book V was written in Nice. Throughout the text, Nietzsche contrasts the warm, cosmopolitan and life-affirming spirit of the South to the cold, parochial and stultifying spirit of the North. Finally, the book opens and closes with references to Provence, the coastal region of the South of France which is not far from Genoa. The first reference, as mentioned above, is the title The Joyous Science (‘la gaya scienza’), with its associations with the poetry of the medieval troubadours of Provence. The final reference is the last poem, ‘To the Mistral Wind’, in which Nietzsche likens himself and his free spirit to a cold, north-westerly wind that blows across Provence, and is strongest during the transition between winter and spring. The Mistral brings with it exceptionally clear and fresh weather and plays an important role in creating the conditions which give the region the qualities Nietzsche so appreciated, and whose sunlight attracted artists like Cézanne, Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso and Matisse.

  Proven
ce itself has a peculiar history which resonates in surprising ways with Nietzsche’s personality and his conception of philosophy. Until the thirteenth century, Provence was an autonomous region with its own culture and language (Occitan, or ‘langue d’oc’) which were much closer to Latin influences than France proper, with its Frankish-Germanic origins. Its social character was dictated by the effects of Mediterranean trade rather than agriculture, and as a result Provence was for much of its history a bastion of the rising middle class, and an environment more friendly to merchants, lawyers and gnostic heretics (the Cathars) than to the aristocracy or clergy. Given Nietzsche’s staunch opposition to anti-Semitism, it is significant that it also possessed a flourishing and well-received Jewish community. It is in this cosmopolitan, almost Italian setting that the troubadours emerged. And because in such a community wealth is valued more than birth, the intelligence required to succeed in commerce or law came to be valued more than mere position or ecclesiastical credential. The troubadours thus represented not merely the local entertainment, but a new model of the independent intellectual, beholden to no one and prized for his or her talents and wits. Interestingly, given the meritocratic spirit of the region, the troubadours themselves displayed as a group a remarkable indifference to social class, with people of noble birth who had taken up the art out of passion mixing freely with people of the middle and lower classes. This remarkable degree of social freedom gave rise to a small renaissance of sorts and produced a body of poetry containing over two thousand separate compositions.

  Ultimately, northern France, the Church and the French monarchy had enough of this luxuriant and permissive society, and in 1209 Pope Innocent III initiated the Albigensian Crusade in an attempt to stamp out the Cathar heresy which was largely present in the South, and the process of subjugation and assimilation began in earnest. Most of the troubadours eventually fled to the more tolerant climes of northern Italy or Moorish Spain. It was a foreshadowing of many later developments throughout Europe in which national cultural identities consolidated themselves at the expense of individual and regional ones. In this, the character and fate of the South of France at the hands of Christianity and nationalism served as an apt analogue for the very qualities and types of person Nietzsche thought were similarly threatened by the new forces of modernity.3

  I mentioned above that The Joyous Science straddles Nietzsche’s middle and late periods, and thus provides us with an unusually comprehensive exposition of his themes, problems and proposed solutions. As a result, it is a treasure trove of philosophical suggestions and insights, and for intellectual content few of Nietzsche’s works are its equal. It is, however, more than just a philosopher’s book. With its unique voice and prose style, its playful combination of poetry and prose, its implied Mediterranean setting, its authorial persona’s quest for self-emancipation, The Joyous Science is a literary tour de force. It is quite possibly Nietzsche’s best book.

  I am indebted to the support and assistance of numerous people, but most notably and in no particular order: Tom Seppalainen at Portland State University; Iain Thomson at the University of New Mexico for his stylistic suggestions; Jessica Harrison at Penguin; Gerald Simon of the Nietzsche Channel for providing me with his own renditions of the two Idylls from Messina poems; Ruth Pietroni, Michael Brown and Linden Lawson for editorial assistance; and my wife, LisaMary, for her continued patience and generosity.

  NOTES

  1. It is merely felicitous that Emerson, whom Nietzsche read closely while writing this book, also referred to the art of poetry as ‘the joyous science’ (though there is no indication that Nietzsche himself was aware of this fact).

  2. Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, reprinted with an Introduction by Michael Tanner (London: Penguin Classics, 1992), pp. 97–8.

  3. I am especially indebted to Rolando Pérez’s ‘Towards a Genealogy of the Gay Science: From Toulouse and Barcelona to Nietzsche and Beyond’, eHumanista, vol. 5, pp. 546–703 (2014) for this historical background.

  I live here in my own house,

  I copy no one’s craft,

  And laugh at every master,

  Who at himself can’t laugh.

  OVER MY FRONT DOOR

  ‘To the poet and sage, all things are

  friendly and sacred, all experiences profitable,

  all days holy, all men divine.’

  Emerson1

  [Epigraph to the first edition]

  Preface to the Second Edition

  1

  Perhaps more than one preface would be necessary for this book; and after all it might still be doubtful whether anyone could be brought nearer to the experiences in it by means of prefaces, without having himself experienced something similar. It seems to be written in the language of the thawing wind: there is exuberance, restlessness, contrariety and April showers in it; so that one is as constantly reminded of the proximity of winter as of the victory over it which is coming, which must come, which has perhaps already come …

  Gratitude continually flows forth, as if the most unexpected thing had happened, the gratitude of recovery – for to recover was most unexpected. ‘Joyous Science’:1 that implies the Saturnalia of a spirit which has patiently withstood a long, terrible pressure – patiently, strictly, coldly, without submitting, but without hope – and which is now suddenly overcome with hope, the hope of health, the giddiness of recovery. What wonder that much that is unreasonable and foolish thereby comes to light, much mischievous affection is lavished even on problems which have a prickly hide, and are therefore not meant to be caressed and courted. The whole book is really nothing but a revel after a long privation and sense of powerlessness: a rejoicing in the return of strength, in newly awakened belief in a tomorrow and day after tomorrow, in sudden sentiment and presentiment of a future, in approaching adventures, in seas open once more, and aims once more permitted and believed in. And consider what I had just passed through, what I had left behind! This wasteland of exhaustion, disbelief and freezing up in the midst of youth, this premature onset of old age, this tyranny of pain, surpassed, however, by the tyranny of pride which repudiated the conclusions of pain – and conclusions are consolations – this absolute seclusion, as defence against a contempt for mankind become abnormally clairvoyant, this restriction on principle to all that is bitter, harsh and woeful in knowledge, as prescribed by the revulsion which had gradually resulted from an imprudent intellectual diet and self-indulgence – it is called Romanticism – oh, who could share these feelings of mine! Whoever could do so would surely forgive me more than a little folly, high jinks and ‘Joyous Science’ – for example, the handful of songs which are given along with the book on this occasion – songs in which a poet mocks all poets in a way not easily forgiven.

  Alas, it is not only on the poets and their fine ‘lyrical sentiments’ that this convalescent must vent his spleen: who knows what kind of victim he is seeking, what kind of beastly stuff he will soon be provoked into parodying? Incipit tragoedia, it is said at the conclusion of this scrupulously unscrupulous book; one must be on one’s guard! Something exceedingly naughty and wicked announces itself here: incipit parodia no doubt …

  2

  But let us leave Herr Nietzsche; what is it to us that Herr Nietzsche has been restored to health?

  Few questions are more attractive to the psychologist than those concerning the relation of health to philosophy, and in the case where he himself falls ill, he will bring with him into the illness all his scientific curiosity. For assuming that he is a person, of necessity he also has his own personal philosophy: there is, however, an important distinction to be made. In some, their deficiencies philosophize, in others, their wealth and strength. The former have need of their philosophy, whether as support, reassurance, medicine, deliverance, exaltation or depersonalization; the latter merely regard it as a fine luxury, or at best the voluptuousness of a triumphant gratitude which in the end must inscribe itself in cosmic capitals on t
he heaven of ideas. In the more common case, when exigencies impel a man to philosophize, as is always the case with ailing thinkers – and perhaps in the history of philosophy the greater part of the thinkers are ill – what will become of thought itself when it is subjected to the pressure of illness? This is a question for the psychologist: and here an experiment is possible. Just like a traveller who undertakes to rouse himself at an appointed hour and then calmly abandons himself to sleep, we philosophers, should we become ill, may for a time surrender ourselves to the illness body and soul – and close our eyes to ourselves, as it were. And just as the traveller knows that something does not sleep, that something counts the hours and will awaken him, we also know that the critical moment will find us awake – that just then something will pop up and catch the intellect in the very act, I mean in weakness, or repentance, or resignation, or rigidity, or gloom, or whatever the morbid intellectual conditions are called, which in better times have intellectual pride opposed to them (for it is as in the old rhyme, ‘The spirit proud, peacock and horse, are the three proudest things on earth, of course’). After such self-interrogation and self-examination one comes to view all that has ever been philosophized with a keener eye; one more readily discerns the involuntary wrong turns, side streets, resting places and sunny spots of thought to which suffering thinkers, precisely as sufferers, are led and misled: from now on, one knows where the sickly body and its needs unwittingly urge, prod and entice the intellect – to sunlight, tranquillity, gentleness, patience, medicine, balm in some sense. Every philosophy which puts peace above war, every ethic with a negative conception of happiness, every metaphysic and physic that knows an end, a final state of any kind, every predominantly aesthetic or religious longing for some means to get away from, outside of, above or beyond the world, all these raise the question of whether illness has not inspired the philosopher. The unconscious disguise of physiological needs under the cloak of the objective, the ideal, the purely intellectual, occurs to an alarming extent – and I have often wondered whether on the whole philosophy has thus far really been only an interpretation of the body, and a misunderstanding of the body. Concealed behind the most exalted value judgements that have governed the history of thought so far lie misunderstandings of physicality, either of individuals, classes, or entire races. One may consider these bold absurdities of the metaphysicians, and especially their answers to the question as to the value of existence, first and foremost as symptoms of different bodily constitutions; and although not one iota of significance inheres in such affirmations and denials of the world when scientifically measured, they nevertheless furnish valuable hints to historians and psychologists, and, as I have said, serve as symptoms of the bodily constitution which flourishes or fails, of its plenitude, power and imperiousness in history, or else of its inhibition, fatigue and depletion, its premonition of the end, its desire for the end. I still await a philosophical physician, in the exceptional sense of the word – one who will apply himself to the problem of the overall health of peoples, periods, races and mankind – who will some day have the courage to push my suspicions to their extreme and venture the following suggestion: in all philosophizing so far it has not been a question of ‘truth’ at all, but of something else – namely of health, futurity, growth, power, life …