Description
This monograph attempts to go beyond Nietzsche's flamboyant but ambiguous words of praise for violence and oppression, in search of the subtler teachings. White's search leads through the nihilism of The Will to Power, the aesthetics of The Birth of Tragedy, and the hermeneutics of The Genealogy of Morals. He then ventures into Nietzsche's masterpiece of philosophical poetry, Thus Spake Zarathustra, and traces the evolution of Zarathustra's soul as it moves from a longing for the Overman to an affirmation of eternal return. Guided by the features of Zarathustra's own life, White interprets eternal return non-metaphysically, as a doctrine of earthly revitalization rather than of cosmic repetition. He then assesses the ethical and political implications of this doctrine, and its affirmative power.
