ABSTRACT
In his poem on Nietzsche, Stefan George declares in a tone of reproachful lament: ‘He should have sung,/Not spoken, this new soul!’ [‘sie hätte singen/Nicht reden sollen diese neue Seele!’].1 These words go to the heart of the fundamental problem in Nietzsche’s life, thought and writing: the antagonism of image and concept, of the creative act which proclaims truth and the analysis which seeks it, of art and intellectual inquiry. But George does not merely define Nietzsche’s basic predicament, he believes that he can show a way out, by proposing in retrospect that the predicament be turned into a straight alternative: rather than singing in the language of rational discourse and discoursing in the language of song, he should have sung instead of speaking, that is, been a pure poet like George himself. George’s advice issues from the reservation which he felt about Nietzsche: instead of presenting images and exemplary models, and renouncing the destructive activity of the intellect, ‘you created deities only to destroy them’.
