ABSTRACT

This study, first published in 1998, makes a lively and welcome contribution to the critical analysis of Nietzsche’s seminal classic This Spoke Zarathustra. Through a close textual reading of the neglected and ill-understood part four of the text, the author seeks to show that Nietzsche’s project of self-overcoming is a failure. Offering herself as a philosopher-priestess of the wisdom of pessimism, Francesca Cauchi invokes a complex of responses in the reader, providing a necessary challenge to any and all advocates of life.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

part |24 pages

The Fall

chapter 1|7 pages

Realism versus Idealism

chapter 2|15 pages

Ropedancer as Buffoon

part |32 pages

Convalescence

chapter 3|14 pages

Cunning Reason and Proud Imagination

chapter 4|16 pages

Physicians as Metaphysicians

part |80 pages

Pilgrimage

chapter 5|7 pages

The Art of Self-Overcoming

chapter 6|36 pages

The Decadence of Modernity

chapter 7|35 pages

The Decadence of Christianity

part |24 pages

Apotheosis

chapter 8|20 pages

Ignoble Lies and Insolent Truths

chapter |2 pages

Conclusion