ABSTRACT

Nietzsche's self-styled description of the Genealogy as a polemic draws on two of the word's common meanings. The first, a controversial and disputatious contribution to a current theological debate is evidenced by his insistence on the non-divine origins of morality. The second meaning of 'polemic' which applies to the Genealogy is its style of almost warlike confrontation with the objects of critique: the Church, Richard Wagner, Ernst Duhring, moralists, cultural philistines and so on. The genealogy of the noble is constituted through a comparison of two of Nietzsche's most sustained commentaries on this figure, both of which are centred around the person and persona of Richard Wagner, The Birth of Tragedy Out of the Spirit of Musicand the first essay of On the Genealogy of Morals. This chapter offers a depiction of the noble in the earlier study and compares and contrasts this descriptive and normative account with that provided in the Genealogy.