Friedrich Nietzsche: Cheerful Thinker and Writer. A Contribution to the Debate on Nietzsche’s Cheerfulness

Introduction

Cheerfulness or serenity (Heiterkeit) is one of the most important themes in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Throughout his writings, from first to last, he can be found wrestling with the conception of cheerfulness and promoting a cheerful mode of philosophizing. Already in Die Geburt der Tragödie (1872), for which he entertained the title “Griechische Heiterkeit” (Nachlass 1870/71, 7[109], KSA 7.163), Nietzsche sets for himself the task of properly comprehending the “serious and significant concept of ‘Greek serenity’” (BT 9).^[1] In his view, scholars of his age have completely misunderstood the nature of cheerfulness in ancient Greek culture, mistaking it for an “unendangered ease and comfort” (BT 9).^[2] In contrast, Nietzsche aims to show that the Greeks were cheerful “out of profundity” (GS, Preface 4), having courageously faced the dangers of “gazing into the inner, terrible depths of nature” (BT 9). In particular, as is well known, he finds this profound form of cheerfulness or serenity in Greek tragedy; that is, both in the tragic outlook on life he attributes to the Greeks and in tragedy as an artistic form. More specifically, Nietzsche observes, “an air of sovereign serenity pervades” works such as Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus, evident in their clear, delightful aesthetic representation and transfiguration of suffering (BT 9). When properly comprehended Greek cheerfulness turns out to be the product of a culture “growing from the depths of a gloomy abyss, as a victory which the Hellenic will gains over suffering and the wisdom of suffering” (BT 17). Recovering such a serious concept of serenity is deemed significant for us moderns, both with respect to the task of creating a “new form of art” and to that of reviving a tragic culture in “a rising generation with [a] fearless gaze with heroic attraction to what is monstrous [ungeheuer]” (BT 18). As we shall see, much of what Nietzsche says about cheerfulness in Die Geburt der Tragödie with reference to tragedy will be reprised and further elaborated upon in his subsequent writings and beyond the specific context of Greek culture. From the Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen (1873–76) up to Ecce homo he returns again and again to the question of the nature and significance of cheerfulness – for individuals, cultures, and for philosophy – and starting from his middle writings he presents himself as a cheerful thinker and writer.

Despite the importance and recurrence of the theme of cheerfulness in Nietzsche’s entire œuvre, there have been relatively few studies specifically devoted to it. An important debate on Nietzsche and cheerfulness has recently taken place in the secondary literature between Robert Pippin and Lanier Anderson and Rachel Cristy.^[3] This debate has centered on two key questions: first, the nature and meaning of Nietzsche’s conception of cheerfulness; second, whether, or not, he is successful in philosophizing cheerfully – that is, in achieving a form of cheerfulness in his writings. Both sides of the debate have posed these questions in direct relation to Nietzsche’s praise of Montaigne’s cheerfulness and as we encounter it in SE 2.

Pippin has identified an actual “Montaigne problem” in Nietzsche’s philosophy^[4]: “[h]ow, [Nietzsche] wants to know above all, did Montaigne manage to exhibit such a thoroughgoing skepticism and clarity about human frailty and failings without Pascal’s despair and eventual surrender […]?”^[5] As Pippin sees it, Nietzsche is not looking for “an argument in Montaigne that could demonstrate or justify his overall stance toward the human world”;^[6] rather, the cheerfulness at stake in the “Montaigne problem” is a pre-philosophical affective attunement or Stimmung.^[7] Moreover, according to Pippin, “[f]or all his aspiration and admiration Nietzsche never succeeded in writing with the kind of ‘cheerfulness,’ ‘Heiterkeit,’ and balance of Montaigne”^[8]: “The fact that his prose sometimes lapsed into a shrieking intensity, the occasional hysteria, the drift into the maudlin and the sentimental, the hatred venting through some passages, do not at all evince a Montaigne-like peace of mind.”^[9]

Anderson and Cristy have taken issue with Pippin, expressing the concern that his formulation of the “Montaigne problem” might encourage the idea that “the cheerfulness Montaigne had and Nietzsche lacked was simple and entirely natural – a fortunate side-effect of Montaigne’s happy psychological constitution.”^[10] Anderson and Cristy argue that the cheerfulness valued by Nietzsche is a radically non-naïve, complex attitude, one involving truthfulness, the ability to see the problematic character of life, and it is, therefore, bound up with suffering, and even with sickness.^[11] Starting from an interpretation of GS 343, entitled “The meaning of our cheerfulness,” they have contended that cheerfulness is an affective and intellectual response to the recognition of losses and catastrophes, such as the death of God.^[12] According to Anderson and Cristy’s reading of Nietzsche, cheerfulness entails an amorous attachment to the world that amounts to a second nature produced by the deliberate practice of philosophy as a way of life and a mode of self-cultivation.^[13]

Furthermore, they have attempted to resolve the “Montaigne problem” posed by Pippin by showing that a similar conception of cheerfulness can also be found in Montaigne.^[14] While Pippin is convinced that Nietzsche fails to write with the cheerfulness attained by Montaigne, Anderson and Cristy argue that, “despite the irascible and even despairing tone that does sometimes characterizes Nietzsche’s writings, […] it was (partly) through his writing that Nietzsche cultivated a cheerful attitude toward the world as a whole.”^[15] According to their hypothesis, Nietzsche practices this attitude and perhaps attains it, like Montaigne, by writing; and this can be seen in the “cheerful pleasure” Nietzsche clearly took from “expressions of Schopenhauerian wrath,” and more importantly in his “expressions of gratitude” even toward crises and disasters.^[16]

In this essay, we wish to draw on and contribute to this debate, addressing both the question of Nietzsche’s conception of cheerfulness and the question as to whether he is successful in philosophizing cheerfully in his works. It seems to us that both sides of the debate have merit. Anderson and Cristy provide a compelling interpretation of the non-naïve, complex character of Nietzsche’s cheerfulness, conceived as an attitude toward the world and especially as we find it articulated in GS 343. We agree with them that, from Die Geburt der Tragödie onward, for Nietzsche true cheerfulness is deep and complex rather than superficial and simple: it entails tragic insight and profound suffering, as well as a variety of affective and intellectual attitudes, such as honesty, courage, and risk-taking. We are also in agreement with their interpretation of cheerfulness as a non-naïve attitude that can be practiced or cultivated. On the other hand, we think Pippin is right in identifying the problem of cheerfulness also as a problem of style, posing the question as to whether Nietzsche is successful in writing cheerfully. Here we wish to reformulate Pippin’s question in the light of Anderson and Cristy’s response: is showing, as Anderson and Cristy have done, the non-naïve character of Nietzsche’s conception of cheerfulness – as well as the cheerful spirit we encounter in Montaigne – sufficient to fully respond to the challenge posed by Pippin’s critical remark about Nietzsche’s prose? Leaving the comparison with Montaigne aside, we wish to ask, is Nietzsche successful in putting his deep and non-naïve conception of cheerfulness into practice in his writings? In other words, does Nietzsche “practice what he preaches” with respect to cheerfulness?

To begin answering these questions, let us introduce a distinction between two senses of cheerfulness that can be found in Nietzsche’s texts as well as in the debate: cheerfulness as a psychological ideal, a desirable state or attitude of the spirit, and cheerfulness as an aesthetic ideal, a desirable quality or style of thinking and writing. While Anderson and Cristy have lucidly explained the former as a deep affirmation and love of life stemming from the recognition of its problematic character,^[17] we will pay special attention to Nietzsche’s conception of cheerfulness as a way a thinker and writer gives expression to their thoughts in their works, as a tone or color of their thinking and writing that can be appreciated by the reader and that might have an enduring effect upon them. Of course, these two senses of cheerfulness are closely connected: the cheerful spiritual state or attitude of the thinker may be reflected in and communicated through their writings: “To communicate [an inner] state, an inner tension of pathos, with signs, including the tempo of these signs – that is the meaning of every style” (EH, Books 4). Nonetheless, we maintain, they should be distinguished. This distinction is not trivial since, as we shall see, in his 1886 preface Nietzsche discloses that, in Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I and II (1878–80), he presents himself “as if cheerful,” when in fact he confesses he had not yet attained a genuine spiritual cheerfulness (HH II, Preface 5). In this sense, cheerfulness is not to be understood as the immediate reflection of an author’s state of mind in their writings, but, as Timothy Hampton has helpfully suggested, “can be a technique, a way of managing oneself and influencing others.”^[18] As a technique, “cheerfulness has an aesthetic dimension to go along with its moral and psychological aspects.”^[19] Not only is cheerfulness “a factor in writing,” then, but it is also a stylistic tone and effect that can be composed;^[20] – indeed, reading and writing themselves may be construed as cheerful practices.^[21]

The first two sections of this essay explore and seek to clarify what Nietzsche says about cheerfulness. Section 1 begins by providing a close reading of SE 2, one of the primary loci in the secondary literature on Nietzsche and cheerfulness. In the first part of this section, we will examine Nietzsche’s famous presentation of Schopenhauer and Montaigne in SE 2 as cheerful thinkers and writers, stressing the aesthetic dimension of his discussion of cheerfulness as a desirable quality of thinking and writing. In the second part of this section, we will follow the developments of Nietzsche’s conception of cheerfulness in his subsequent works, showing that, in different periods of his philosophy, he remains committed to a similar aesthetic ideal of cheerfulness as a way of expressing and communicating serious thoughts. In the third part, we will bring Nietzsche’s middle writings into focus. These writings are of particular interest to us because in them he first seeks to present himself as a cheerful thinker and writer. We will show that, in the middle texts, cheerfulness is closely bound up with a cold and sober mode of philosophizing. This connection, as we shall see, is important to a proper appreciation of Nietzsche’s identity as a cheerful philosopher.

Unlike Pippin and Anderson and Cristy, we will not directly deal with the “Montaigne problem.” We will delve neither into Montaigne’s cheerfulness nor into Nietzsche’s reception of it. Rather, section 2 argues that, in addition to Montaigne, Ralph Waldo Emerson is an equally important, yet heavily neglected, influence on Nietzsche’s conception and practice of cheerfulness. A comparison with Emerson will help us better understand and appreciate Nietzsche’s sense of cheerfulness as a quality of thinking and writing.

Section 3 directly addresses the question as to whether Nietzsche actually puts into practice a cheerful mode of philosophizing. On the one hand, we disagree with Pippin’s conclusion that Nietzsche never succeeded in writing cheerfully; on the other hand, we think that Anderson and Cristy’s well-founded speculations on just how Nietzsche practiced and achieved cheerfulness can be further finessed. Are wrath and gratitude the only indicators of Nietzsche’s cheerfulness? Does he express wrath and gratitude in the same way in all his writings? How is wrath compatible with gratitude? Perhaps, both sides of the debate have offered all too general and unilateral answers. Can we say, for example, that Nietzsche fails to write cheerfully in Die fröhliche Wissenschaft? Or, can we say, that Nietzsche expresses and communicates cheerfulness in a work such as Der Antichrist (1888)?^[22] We will endeavor to develop answers to these questions by reconstructing Nietzsche’s largely overlooked self-presentation as a cheerful thinker and writer in the prefaces of 1886 and in Ecce homo. We will show that starting from Menschliches, Allzumenschliches Nietzsche explicitly sets out to think and write in a cheerful style – even at times when he does not find himself in a particularly cheerful state of the mind. By drawing attention to the different senses in which Nietzsche characterizes some of his writings as cheerful, we offer a fresh approach to the question as to whether Nietzsche can be truly regarded as a cheerful thinker and writer.

1 Cheerfulness as a Quality of Thinking and Writing

2 Emerson as an Exemplar of Cheerfulness

Pippin and Anderson and Cristy have focused on Montaigne as an exemplar of cheerfulness in Nietzsche’s philosophy. In this section we argue that Emerson is an equally important, yet largely overlooked, source and model of Nietzsche’s conception of a cheerful mode of thinking and writing. To develop this argument let us first return to Schopenhauer als Erzieher.

Although, and as we have seen, in SE 2 Schopenhauer and Montaigne are expressly regarded as exemplars of a “genuinely cheering cheerfulness,” we believe there are good reasons to think that in this passage Nietzsche is directly engaging with Emerson too, albeit implicitly. It is well known that Emerson is one of the most important philosophical influences on Nietzsche.^[50] As Thomas Brobjer has noted, Nietzsche appears to have read Emerson’s Essays (1841–44) especially intensively in 1874 in preparation for the third of the Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen.^[51] This is evident, for instance, in the long quotation of a passage from Emerson’s essay Circles (1841) that Nietzsche deploys to bring Schopenhauer als Erzieher to a close (section 8). Nietzsche’s conception of cheerfulness in SE 2, as a victory in thinking and writing over horrifying and serious problems, clearly echoes a passage from Circles wherein Emerson discusses cheerfulness precisely in terms of overcoming, triumph, and conquest: “The great man is not convulsible or tormentable […]. People say sometimes, ‘See what I have overcome see how cheerful I am; see how completely I have triumphed over these black events.’ Not if they still remind me of the black event. True conquest is the causing the calamity to fade and disappear …”^[52]

In addition, in SE 2 Nietzsche mentions in passing a Latin proverb saying “Aliis laetus, sibi sapiens” (cheerful with others, wise with oneself) which is also quoted by Emerson in The Conduct of Life (1860/76),^[53] a book that Nietzsche had in his possession and read keenly from 1862 onward.^[54] The literal translation of the Latin proverb quoted by Emerson and Nietzsche clearly highlights the other-directedness of the “genuinely cheering cheerfulness” extolled in Schopenhauer als Erzieher. As we have stressed, for Nietzsche, true cheerfulness is “genuinely cheering” in that it is able to also profoundly cheer the reader. This aspect of Nietzsche’s conception of cheerfulness can be best understood and appreciated in comparison with Emerson. In The American Scholar (1837), Emerson writes: “The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances.”^[55] For Emerson, a thinker is great insofar as through their writings they “can alter [the reader’s] state of mind […] and persuade men by the cheerful serenity of their carrying the matter.”^[56] Nietzsche goes as far as to say that:

human beings can never experience anything better and more joyful [Fröhlicheres] than to be near one of those victorious people who, because they have thought the most profound things, cannot help but love what is most alive and, because they are wise, ultimately are disposed to what is beautiful. They truly speak […]. They truly move and live (UO III, SE 2).^[57]

Like Emerson, Nietzsche conceives of cheerfulness as a thinker’s triumph over black events as well as their way of expressing and communicating deep, serious thoughts in a serene and energetic manner, one which seeks to enliven the reader and ultimately “cheer” them.

While in Schopenhauer als Erzieher the influence of Emerson on Nietzsche’s discussion of cheerfulness remains implicit, we now wish to show that in the late writings Emerson is explicitly regarded as an exemplar of a cheerful thinker and writer. In Götzen-Dämmerung, Nietzsche writes in praise of Emerson over Thomas Carlyle. Of the two thinkers, he maintains, Emerson is the more “enlightened, more wide-ranging, more multifarious” and “above all happier;” he is a “man of taste” who “lives instinctively on pure ambrosia and leaves behind the indigestible in things” (TI, Skirmishes 13).^[58] Nietzsche goes on to say that “Emerson has the sort of kind and witty cheerfulness that discourages any seriousness […]. His spirit always finds reasons to be satisfied and even grateful.” Emerson’s sense of gratitude is so profound that he now and then verges on “cheerful [heitere] transcendence.” A comparison with Emerson seems to provide promising evidence to support Anderson and Cristy’s hypothesis that in part Nietzsche’s cheerfulness might be found in expressions of gratitude.^[59] Anderson and Cristy, however, do not attend to the inspiration Nietzsche draws from Emerson’s appreciation of cheerfulness. We suggest that Emerson’s cheerfulness inspired Nietzsche’s cheerful mode of thinking and writing, perhaps most notably in Die fröhliche Wissenschaft. As Nietzsche himself declares, an unexpected sense of gratitude permeates Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (GS, Preface 1). In the frontispiece of the first edition of the book, he famously used a passage from Emerson’s essay on History (1841) as an epigraph, which not by chance expresses a profound sense of gratitude: “To the poet and the sage all things are friendly and hallowed, all experiences profitable, all days holy, and all human beings divine.”^[60]

At this point a critical reader might raise two objections. Here is the first: can Emerson’s cheerfulness, which, according to TI, Skirmishes 13, “discourages any seriousness,” be fruitfully brought together with Nietzsche’s conception of cheerfulness as a way of expressing and communicating serious thoughts? After all, as Stanley Cavell has pointed out, some critics might object that “Emersonian cheerfulness and hopefulness would simply express a childish ignorance of our real situation.”^[61] In riposte to this objection, Cavell has noted that “[Emerson] is forever taken by his detractors, and not by them alone, to ignore the tragic facts of life. Whereas Emerson seems to take despair not as a recognition of life, not even a tragic recognition of it, but as a fear of life, an avoidance of it. I persist in thinking this is correct.”^[62] We too think that this is correct. Indeed, like Nietzsche, Emerson is perfectly aware of the tragic facts of life: as he states in his essay The Tragic (1844), “no theory of life can have any right, which leaves out of account the values of vice, pain, disease, poverty, insecurity, disunion, fear, and death.”^[63] With these thoughts about Emersonian cheerfulness in mind let us return to Götzen-Dämmerung.

In TI, Skirmishes 12–3, as we have seen, Nietzsche puts Carlyle and Emerson in dialogue with each other. This dialogue took place historically. Emerson and Carlyle had a life-long debate and correspondence between 1834 and 1872.^[64]As Nietzsche reports, Carlyle was one of those critics who accused Emerson of superficiality: “Carlyle really loved Emerson but still said that ‘he doesn’t give us enough to chew on’” (TI, Skirmishes 13). Nietzsche, however, is keen to defend Emerson against Carlyle’s accusation by saying that this “might in fact be true, but does not reflect badly on Emerson.” It is noteworthy that Nietzsche places the emphasis on “us”: that is to say, the fact that Emerson does not give us heavy thoughts to ruminate on is not necessarily a flaw; rather, it might be one of his virtues. The sense in which this might be regarded as virtuous or praiseworthy directly relates to Nietzsche’s and Emerson’s conception of cheerfulness as a triumph over black events.^[65] Emerson’s cheerful mode of thinking and writing, Nietzsche implies, offers the reader digested problems that have been already confronted and overcome;^[66] and, in doing so, it is able to genuinely cheer the reader.

With regard to the second possible objection that presents Emerson’s cheerfulness as a form of gratitude and satisfaction: does this not involve a cheerleader-like contentment with present opinions and ways of life? Is it perhaps for this reason that Nietzsche removes the Emerson epigraph in the second edition of Die fröhliche Wissenschaft? For Emerson, cheerfulness is not merely a passive acceptance of things as they are; rather, it is the only mood that enables an active and transformative response to tragedy: “But power dwells with cheerfulness; hope puts us in a working mood, whilst despair is no muse, and untunes the active powers. A man should make life and Nature happier to us, or he had better never been born.”^[67] Like Emerson, Nietzsche believes that “nothing gets done without a dose of high spirits,” and that the courage and capacity “to stay cheerful in the middle of a depressing business” are needed for handling great philosophical tasks such as the “revaluation of all values” (TI, Preface). As we shall see in the conclusion of this essay, one of the reasons why the Emerson epigraph is removed in the second edition of Die fröhliche Wissenschaft might be that in 1887 Nietzsche no longer wishes to express and communicate cheerfulness as gratitude, but rather to think and write in the style of the strident polemic in an effort to combat the decadence and nihilism of his epoch.

Despite this, it is clear that Emerson remains for Nietzsche, like Montaigne, one of those genuinely cheering cheerful thinker and writers. In an unpublished draft of Ecce homo, Nietzsche writes: “Emerson, with his Essays, has been a good friend and someone who has cheered me up even in dark times: he possesses so much skepsis, so many ‘possibilities,’ that with him even virtue becomes witty [geistreich]” (KSA 14.476–7). Here Emerson seems to be associated with the experimental skepticism Nietzsche favors starting from his middle writings (e. g. GS 51): one that does not lapse into the “inertia of despair,”^[68] but permits, and even enables, daring experiments with new modes of thinking and living (Nachlass 1880, 6[356], KSA 9.287).^[69]

Let us conclude this section with a brief consideration of the relationship between cheerfulness and skepticism in Nietzsche, a relationship that has been touched upon in the Pippin and Anderson and Cristy debate, as well as by other commentators. For Pippin, Nietzsche admires Montaigne’s capacity to be cheerful in spite of his “thoroughgoing skepticism;”^[70] for Anderson and Cristy, instead, a form of doubt and suspicion, “prove integral to gay science and cheerfulness itself.”^[71] Leaving aside Montaigne’s “light-hearted skepticism” (Nachlass 1885, 36[7], KSA 11.552), we wish to suggest that Emerson’s cheering skepsis can help us better understand in what specific sense for Nietzsche an experimental mode of skeptical investigation is interwoven with cheerfulness (KSA 14.476–7).

In her study on Nietzsche and the ancient skeptical tradition, Jessica Berry has offered an appreciation of Nietzsche’s cheerfulness in relation to Pyrrhonian ataraxia (absence of mental trouble or tranquility) and especially to Democritean euthymia (good spiritedness) – “[t]he more ‘cheerful’ ancestor of tranquillity.”^[72] Berry tends to interpret Nietzsche’s cheerfulness as an ethical ideal, associating it with forms of peacefulness of the soul that can be found in the context of the Hellenistic traditions of philosophy as a way of life, which originate in Democritus’ ethics. In her Pyrrhonian reading of Nietzsche, cheerfulness is to be construed as the end-point of his skeptical inquiry. It seems to us that this reading fails to capture an essential aspect of the relationship between skepsis and cheerfulness in Nietzsche.

It is true that Nietzsche often uses the term “Heiterkeit” to denote forms of serenity, such as “Buddhist serenity” (A 21), and including Hellenistic conceptions of tranquility,^[73] such as the “serenity of the Stoic” (D 251). However, it is clear that at different stages of his intellectual development Nietzsche engages with Hellenistic philosophies strategically, selecting and utilizing aspects of Epicureanism (GS 375), Stoicism position (BGE 227), Cynicism (EH, Books 3) and Pyrrhonism (HH II, WS 213). In fact, Nietzsche challenges in a quite fundamental way some of the key assumptions informing the ancient traditions of philosophy as a way of life. In Jenseits von Gut und Böse, for example, Nietzsche sardonically criticizes typical conceptions of “living ‘wisely’ or ‘like a philosopher’,” especially when they are taken to mean no more than living “‘prudently and apart’” and are “a form of escape, a tricky way to make a good exit from a wicked game” (BGE 205). In contrast to these conceptions of philosophy as way of life – especially those aimed at forms “negative definitions of happiness” such as ataraxia (GS, Preface 2) – for Nietzsche “the true philosopher […] lives ‘unphilosophically’ and ‘unwisely’ and above all imprudently and feels the burdensome duty of a handed of tests and temptations in life – he is continually risking himself, he plays that wicked game” (BGE 205).

Berry’s comparison with Democritean euthymia might prove helpful: good spiritedness in Democritus entails, among other things, a condition of fearlessness, which, as we have seen, is also one the essential and recurrent characteristics of Nietzsche’s conception of cheerfulness, both as a psychological and as an aesthetic ideal. However, her attempt to reconcile Nietzsche with Pyrrhonian skepticism is deeply misleading.^[74] For Nietzsche, what ultimately inspired the Pyrrhonian skeptics is “a need for rest, a weariness” (Nachlass 1888, 15[58], KSA 13.446): Pyrrhonists sought an escapist, Buddhist-like peacefulness of the soul (Nachlass 1888, 14[191], KSA 13.378), always suspending judgment in their investigations^[75] and prudently “[living] in the common way” (Nachlass 1888, 14[99], KSA 13.277).^[76] Pyrrhonian skepticism, in our view, can only be associated with a Nietzschean sense of cheerfulness at the cost of seriously distorting its complex character.

For Nietzsche, we suggest, cheerfulness meets skepsis in the mode of living dangerously and experimentally. From the Die Geburt der Tragödie onward, as we have seen, cheerfulness is construed not only as the courage to face dangers, but also as active risk-taking, namely, as the attraction toward dangers – the will to take up new dangerous challenges with calmness, indeed enjoying the opportunity to test and exercise one’s spiritual strength by responding to these challenges. The experimental skepsis Nietzsche values, in general and in Emerson in particular, is cheerful precisely because it does not merely suspend judgment but is willing to take the risk of tests and temptations, opening up and suggesting new possibilities in philosophical investigation and in life itself. This explains why, in Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Nietzsche is keen to take to task forms of “weak skepticism” and advocate in their place a form of “strong skepticism” (BGE 208–9).

3 Nietzsche’s Self-Presentation as a Cheerful Thinker and Writer

Thus far, we have explored what Nietzsche says about cheerfulness, especially as a quality of thinking and writing. In this section we address the question as to whether Nietzsche actually succeeds in practicing a cheerful mode of philosophizing. We have seen that, in Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, Nietzsche distinguishes between melancholy authors and serious ones (HH II, WS 128). How can we position Nietzsche according to his own distinction? Should we regard him as more similar to a melancholy author in that “he puts on paper what he is suffering,” or as a serious and cheerful one who tells us “what he has suffered and why he is now at rest amid joy” (HH II, WS 128)? Does Nietzsche’s thinking and writing celebrate a complete victory over the monsters he is courageously fighting against? In Ecce homo, Nietzsche accepts that “[t]he slightest compulsion, a gloomy look, any harsh tone in the throat, all of these are all objections to a person and even more to his work …” (EH, Clever 10). Is Nietzsche himself vulnerable to this objection? As Pippin has noted, sometimes Nietzsche’s prose seems to relapse into a compulsive, gloomy, and harsh tone.^[77]

To begin answering these questions we wish to draw attention to Nietzsche’s retrospective self-presentation as a cheerful thinker and writer in the prefaces of 1886 and in Ecce homo. In these texts, as we shall see, Nietzsche tells his readers the story of his intellectual and personal development, assessing his own writings in terms of cheerfulness. The way Nietzsche speaks of his cheerfulness, we suggest, can help us develop an interpretation of him as a cheerful thinker and writing that is more moderate, yet more precise, than the contrasting answers we find in the Pippin and Anderson and Cristy debate.

What is evident in Nietzsche’s case is that it takes some time for him to arrive at a fully cheerful mode of thinking and writing. Although, as we have seen, cheerfulness is one of the central themes in Die Geburt der Tragödie, he does not consider his first book as a cheerful one. In Versuch einer Selbstkritik, the 1886 preface written for the second edition of Die Geburt der Tragödie, he introduces it as “a youthful work full of youthful courage and youthful melancholy” (BT, Attempt 2). Similarly, and in the same period, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches is characterized as a “melancholic-courageous [schwermüthig-muthige] book” (HH, Preface 2, translation modified). It is important to note, however, that both Die Geburt der Tragödie and Menschliches, Allzumenschliches are not described only as melancholic books, but also qualified as courageous. Although Nietzsche acknowledges that in these works he is not “at rest amid joy,” he does not see himself as a merely “melancholy author” (HH II, WS 128). Indeed, and as we have seen, courage, is one of the intellectual virtues that are continually associated by him with cheerfulness. In Nietzsche’s eyes, then, his intellectual endeavors in Die Geburt der Tragödie and Menschliches, Allzumenschliches are not merely melancholic since they do not result in despair and resignation, but show at least the courage required by a cheerful mode of thinking and writing. Neither Die Geburt der Tragödie nor Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, though, are taken to be expressions of a genuinely cheering cheerfulness, in that a complete intellectual and affective mastery is not achieved in either text. In Ecce homo, Nietzsche says that in Menschliches, Allzumenschliches “[a]lmost every sentence is the manifestation of a victory” (EH, HH 1), but, as we shall see shortly, he believes he only fully succeeds in securing this victory – and in terms of true cheerfulness – in Morgenröthe.

In the 1886 preface to the second volume of Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, Nietzsche tells an interesting story about his search for a practice of cheerfulness between 1878 and 1880. While his early writings, such as Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (1876), reveal a “melancholy turn of phrase,” Nietzsche discloses, in Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, there “lies something of the almost cheerful and inquisitive coldness of the psychologist” dealing with “a multitude of painful things” (HH II, Preface 1). Importantly, the cheerfulness of Menschliches, Allzumenschliches is associated with cold philosophical and psychological investigation, as well as with a mode of handling suffering. In line with the preface to the first volume, Nietzsche deems the overall project of Menschliches, Allzumenschliches to be “almost cheerful,” implying that true cheerfulness has not been fully achieved at this point in his intellectual development. He further complicates the picture:

It was at that time that I learned the art of presenting myself as if cheerful, objective, inquisitive, above all, healthy and malicious […]. What perhaps constituted the attractiveness of these writings will nonetheless not escape a subtler eye and sympathy – that a sufferer and a renouncer speaks here as if were not a sufferer and a renouncer. Here balance, composure, even gratitude toward life shall be upheld (HH II, Preface 5).

The three books contained in Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I and II are said to be attractive because in them a sufferer and a renouncer speaks as if he were not a sufferer and a renouncer, presenting himself as if cheerful – when in fact he is not. The “as if” dimension is key here. Nietzsche affirms that what he learned at that time is not so much the art of being cheerful, but rather the art of disguising himself as a cheerful thinker and writer. But why does Nietzsche describe his disguised cheerfulness as attractive? Moreover, why should we find it attractive?

The above-mentioned passage might seem to be merely suggesting that a sufferer and a renouncer can be cheerful, though only in disguise: all that is left to them is to pretend to be cheerful when in fact they continue to suffer and renounce life in private. This would be cold comfort to readers of Nietzsche and offer a fairly uninteresting example of a philosophical life. As becomes evident in the remainder of the preface much more, though, is being suggested. In 1886, Nietzsche links his disguised cheerfulness to a wish to return to health: “Just as a doctor puts his sick patient into totally alien surroundings, […] I forced myself, as doctor and patient in a single person, into a reversed, untested climate of the soul, and especially into a diverting wandering abroad, into the unknown, toward a curiosity about every sort of strangeness” (HH II, Preface 5). Presenting himself as if cheerful is a critical stage in the evolution of this developmental process. As the sick patient in the period of convalescence, Nietzsche goes on to say, he learned how to stretch his hands toward “new nourishment, a new sun, a new future,” both personally and philosophically:

a lot of cricket-happiness, cricket-cheerfulness [Grillen-Munterkeit],^[78] a lot of quiet, light, subtler foolishness, hidden enthusiasm – all of this ultimately resulted in a great spiritual strengthening, an increasing pleasure and abundance of health. Life itself rewards us for stubborn will to life, for a long war such as I waged at that time against the pessimism of weariness with life (HH II, Preface 5).

It is crucial that we grasp the point being articulated here. “Cricket-cheerfulness” or “made-up cheerfulness,” though disguised, is significant in that it signals a wish to return to health and might ultimately result, “in a great spiritual strengthening, an increasing pleasure and abundance of health.”^[79] Or at least, this is what happened to Nietzsche in the course of his intellectual development. He explains how he practiced a form of cheerfulness by simulating and seeking to enact a cheerful mode of thinking and writing.^[80]

But there is more. Nietzsche seems to believe that his lived experiences might even function as an example of how to cultivate genuine cheerfulness. In this sense, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I and II are described as attractive by him: they teach “a lesson of health” and a “disciplina voluntatis” (HH II, Preface 2). In practicing and learning the art of presenting oneself as cheerful, in wanting even just a “made-up cheerfulness,” one exercises and strengthens one’s spirit and will to life; and true cheerfulness might come as a reward.^[81] To put it simply: the lesson we can draw from Nietzsche’s experience is that by willfully enacting cheerfulness one might actually become cheerful.^[82] We find this encapsulated in the motto “fake it until you make it.” This lesson is thus valuable in that it suggests how to go about cultivating cheerfulness in actual practice.

The search for cheerfulness is construed by Nietzsche as an essential part of his struggle against “Romantic pessimism, that is, [against] the pessimism of those who renounce […], have been overcome” (HH II, Preface 7) – the kind pessimism that “destroys the spirit’s severity and mirth [Lustigkeit] and makes every sort of vague desire and fungal covetousness proliferate” (HH II, Preface 3). However, as in Die Geburt der Tragödie, Nietzsche seeks to overcome any simplistic opposition between cheerfulness and tragedy, between a cheerful mode of thinking and writing and a specific kind of pessimism: “there is a will to the tragic and to pessimism that is as much the sign of severity as of strength of intellect (of taste, feeling, conscience). With this will in our breast, we do not fear the frightening and questionable aspect characteristic of all existence; we even seek it out” (HH II, Preface 7).^[83] In searching for a cheerful mode of thinking and writing, Nietzsche triumphs over his youthful tendency toward romantic pessimism (HH II, Preface 2).^[84] The practice of a “made-up” cheerfulness helps Nietzsche increase his intellectual courage and strength, and reclaim the right to pessimism – indeed, a cheerful pessimism, one distinguished not only by fearlessness but also by risk-taking in investigating “frightening and questionable” problems.

According to Nietzsche’s reconstruction in Ecce homo, he first achieves a perfect cheerfulness in Morgenröthe: “The perfect lightness and cheerfulness, even the exuberance of spirit that is reflected in this work, was accompanied not only by the deepest physiological weakness, but by an excess of painful feelings as well” (EH, Wise 1). Morgenröthe is presented as emerging from, and reflecting, a cheerful sprit, and that speaks of a cheerfulness that goes hand in hand with suffering and the acknowledgement of psychological weakness. This is an excellent example of Nietzsche’s deep conception of cheerfulness. In achieving cheerfulness “[i]n the middle of the torture,” he writes, he “had a dialectician’s clarity par excellence and could think with cold-blooded lucidity about things that, in healthier conditions, [he] was not enough of a mountain climber, not refined, not cold enough for” (EH, Wise 1). Here, Nietzsche once again associates his cheerfulness with coldness and having an unclouded mind.

In the preface to the second edition of Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, Nietzsche writes that the last book of his middle writings

is nothing but a bit of merry-making after long privation and powerlessness, the rejoicing of strength that is returning, of a reawakened faith in a tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, of a sudden sense and anticipation of a future, of impending adventures, of seas that are open again, of goals that are permitted again, believed again (GS, Preface 1).

Die fröhliche Wissenschaft is presented as the expression of a full cheerfulness, even more perfect than the one reflected in Morgenröthe. While Nietzsche sees his newfound cheerfulness in Morgenröthe as inseparable from psychological weakness, the cheerfulness of Die fröhliche Wissenschaft is linked with “high spirits,” with an exuberance of joy, with a greater sense of possibility, with a feeling of power, and with an overall increase in spiritual strength. We should recall that spiritual strength is one of the fundamental characteristics, in addition to courage, that for Nietzsche distinguishes the true cheerfulness.^[85] Nietzsche believes that in Die fröhliche Wissenschaft not only did he show the courage or fearlessness to face dangerous subjects; he had also built up the strength and power to overcome them.

Although the kind of “Wissenschaft” that Nietzsche seeks to promote in Die fröhliche Wissenschaft is technically “fröhliche” (gay or joyful), rather than “‘heitere” (cheerful), gaiety and joy are deeply and intimately connected to cheerfulness.^[86] This connection is more explicitly drawn in the preface to Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887): “cheerfulness, in fact, or to put it into my parlance, that gay science – is a reward [for taking the problems of morality seriously]: a reward for a long, brave, diligent, subterranean seriousness for which, admittedly, not everyone is suited” (GM, Preface 7). In a preparatory note for GM, Preface, Nietzsche laments a misunderstanding of his cheerfulness in Zur Genealogie der Moral, especially by all-too-serious scholars: the gaiety of his scientific investigation and his cheerful mode of thinking and writing are mistaken for a lack of rigor and profundity, whereas this book emerged from a “triumphant condition,” a victory over and gratitude toward the serious problems he had been grappling with in his previous writings (Nachlass 1885/86, 2[166], KSA 12.150). All of this suggests that Nietzsche sees Die fröhliche Wissenschaft as his own version of the “cheerful form of seriousness” and “playful wisdom” that he had attributed to Socrates in WS 86, as well as of the genuinely cheering cheerfulness that he had attributed to Schopenhauer and Montaigne in SE 2.

The kind of cheerfulness that for Nietzsche pervades his Die fröhliche Wissenschaft nevertheless remains different from previous conceptions and practices of cheerfulness, at least in some respects. In addition to courage and seriousness, it has four distinctive characteristics: (1) as we have just noted, a newly discovered spiritual strength; (2) an overflowing “gratitude” (GS, Preface 1), for which, as we saw in the previous section, Emerson might be an exemplar; (3) a “reawakened faith in a tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, of a sudden sense and anticipation of a future” (GS, Preface 1). This third new characteristic of Nietzsche’s cheerfulness perhaps finds its clearest expression in GS 343 where he discusses the way in which the catastrophic and potentially gloomy event of the death of God can be positively received by fearless and strong free spirits, “born guessers of riddles” animated by the passion of knowledge, who are “posted between today and tomorrow, stretched between today and tomorrow.” Cheerfulness here is closely connected not only with “gratitude” but also with “premonitions” and “expectation” (GS 343). Anderson and Cristy’s otherwise excellent reading of GS 343 overlooks the fundamental temporality, indeed future-directedness, of the meaning of Nietzsche’s conception and practice of cheerfulness in Die fröhliche Wissenschaft. Although Nietzsche considers false hope or wishful thinking “the worst of evils because it lengthens agony” (HH I 72), it is undeniable that a strong faith in the future informs the last part of his middle period, at least starting from Morgenröthe.^[87] And it seems to us that an important part of Nietzsche’s cheerful mode of thinking and writing in Morgenröthe and Die fröhliche Wissenschaft consists precisely in the expression and communication of an existential and philosophical hope for new possibilities of thinking and living.

(4) Nietzsche observes that from the abysses of pessimism, from severe sickness and from the loss of trust in life, “one returns newborn, with a more delicate taste for joy, with a tenderer tongue for all good things, with merrier sense, with a second dangerous innocence in joy, more child-like and yet a hundred times subtler that one has ever been before” (GS, Preface 4). To achieve this return, he goes on to say, we modern free spirits might need the cheerfulness of art (GS, Preface 4)^[88] in addition to the cheerfulness of cold and sober knowledge. For the will to truth at any price, “we are too experienced, too serious, too merry, too burned, too profound;” we need to return once again to the ancient Greeks: “What is required for that is to stop courageously at the surface,” to be “superficial – out of profundity” (GS, Preface 4).

Also sprach Zarathustra (1883–85), along with Morgenröthe and Die fröhliche Wissenschaft completes for Nietzsche a series of genuinely cheerful writings. In a letter to Franz Overbeck of 1883, in relation to the publication of the first three parts of Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes: “the fact that in this year I have thought up and written my brightest and most cheerful things, many miles above me and my misery: this is in fact one of the most astonishing and most difficult things to explain that I know” (August 14, 1883, no. 451, KSB 6.428). In another letter from 1883, dated September 3, Nietzsche informs Heinrich Köselitz that the third part of Zarathustra requires a gloomy pessimism – deeper than that of Schopenhauer and Giacomo Leopardi: “In order, however, to be able to write this part, what I shall need, in the first place, is profoundly Heavenly cheerfulness for I shall succeed with the pathos of the highest kind, only if I treat it as play. (In the end everything becomes bright)” (no. 461, KSB 6.445). In Ecce homo, Nietzsche also attempts to explain the psychological type of Zarathustra by quoting GS 382, the penultimate aphorism in the fifth book of Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, which is thematically linked to GS 343. In this passage, Nietzsche affirms that a new, great health, which is “stronger,” “bolder” and “more cheerful,” is the psychological presupposition of the type Zarathustra (EH, Z 2; GS 382). Here, cheerfulness is construed as a quality of the psychological condition of great health presupposed by the philosopher, not only as the aftereffect of philosophy.^[89] Importantly, for Nietzsche, this cheerful health is not merely a fixed psycho-physical constitution; rather, it is “a health that one doesn’t only have, but also acquires continually and must acquire because one gives it up again and again, and must give it up …” in one’s philosophical hazards (EH, Z 2). This precariousness seems to be an important aspect of Nietzsche’s relentless search for cheerfulness, indeed for ever new modes of cheerful thinking and writing.

Moreover, Nietzsche specifies that his words in Zarathustra “are not the words of some fanatic, nothing is being ‘preached’ [t]here, nobody is demanding that you believe: drop after drop, word after word falls from an infinite fullness of light and depth of happiness, – the tempo of this speech is tender and slow” (EH, Preface 4). In this passage, Nietzsche is keen to deploy the moods and styles associated with cheerfulness as a way of guarding against his words and teaching being taken up in a fanatical fashion.

In Ecce homo, Nietzsche also describes the tone of Götzen-Dämmerung as both “cheerful and fateful” (EH, TI 1). This is perhaps a further refinement of the cheerful form of seriousness that is of such importance to Nietzsche’s conception of philosophical style. In particular, the cheerful fatefulness of Götzen-Dämmerung has to do with the capacity to overthrow, in thinking and writing, old idols or truths. Indeed, the preface of Götzen-Dämmerung is largely devoted to the theme of cheerfulness, which is understood as a “proof of an excess of strength” that involves the capacity to recover and to return stronger from the serious, heavy, and at times depressing business of sounding out and overthrowing idols (TI, Preface). Here Nietzsche admits that the greatness and difficulty of the task of the revaluation of all values “forces him to keep running out into the sunlight to shake off a seriousness that has become heavy, all too heavy.” Moreover, this work for him “is above all a recuperation a sunspot, a little light adventure into a psychologist’s idle hours.”^[90]

Finally, Nietzsche declares that “nobody who saw me [during the composition of Ecce homo] would have noticed a single trace of tension, but rather an overflowing freshness and cheerfulness” (EH, Clever 10). Indeed, he considers Ecce homo too to be an exercise in cheerfulness, one that is linked both with Zarathustra’s non-fanatical mode of expression and with the capacity to overthrow idols that we have just seen at work in Götzen-Dämmerung. Nietzsche declares that perhaps the whole purpose of his Ecce homo is to articulate in a “cheerful [heitren] and affable way” the opposition between being a satyr and a saint (EH, Preface 2). Nietzsche says that, if anything, he is “the opposite of the type of person who has been traditionally admired as virtuous” (the saint); he “would rather be a satyr,” a comically hideous spirit. What is certain is that, in articulating this opposition, Nietzsche is eager to distance himself from the saint, from their taking idols, as well as themselves, too seriously, from their dogmatism and fanaticism, and from their solemn tone. Nietzsche states clearly that in his philosophy he will not try to set up new idols; his style is more about “[k]nocking over idols,” including himself as an idol (EH, Preface 2).

Conclusion

Why, one might ask, should we take at face value Nietzsche’s testimony about his own cheerfulness? Nietzsche’s presentation of himself, especially in Ecce homo, frequently assumes an exaggerated form and tone and aspects of it can be taken with a pinch of salt. Moreover, as we have seen, he openly declares that in the two volumes of Menschliches, Allzumenschliches he presented himself “as if cheerful” when in fact he was not (HH II, Preface 5). How can we be sure that his self-presentation as a cheerful thinker and writer is not just another of Nietzsche’s masks? After all, he himself acknowledges the existence of “‘cheerful human beings’” who make use of cheerfulness precisely in order not to be understood (BGE 270). Could it not be therefore that he is merely continuing to present himself “as if cheerful?” Questions such as these might lead some readers to deem Nietzsche at best a would-be cheerful thinker and writer.

Nietzsche is not merely creating an idol of himself – a false image without substance, one that needs to be unquestioningly worshipped. In contrast, what strikes us about the way he speaks of his own cheerfulness is his frankness and “finger for nuances” (EH, Wise 1). As we have seen, Nietzsche tells us that some of his works, such as Die Geburt der Tragödie and Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, are not particularly cheerful; and that they are informed by a more melancholic, though courageous, mode of thinking and writing. He spells out the works in which he believes he had philosophized cheerfully, specifying in each case the sense of his practice of cheerfulness. From his self-presentation as a cheerful thinker and writer we suggest we can learn three important things. (1) Nietzsche holds that in certain phases of his personal and intellectual development, and starting from his middle writings, he practices cheerful modes of thinking and writing. (2) Although he is confident that at times he does philosophize cheerfully, Nietzsche does not have the general presumption that he always does so, or that he does so in the same way in all his works. (3) Indeed, he acknowledges that his works are not all equally cheerful, and that his search for a cheerful mode of thinking and writing contains subtly different senses and meanings.

The image Nietzsche creates of himself as a cheerful thinker and writer provides us with a helpful interpretive strategy for constructively responding to the question raised in the Pippin and Anderson and Cristy debate: does Nietzsche write cheerfully? Does he achieve a form of cheerfulness in or through his works? In the first place, we should resist wanting to find all too general and simplistic responses, polarized between “Nietzsche never succeeds in writing cheerfully” and “he is always or generally successful in achieving cheerfulness even in the highest moments of melancholy and wrath.” These questions should be asked with reference to specific phases of Nietzsche’s philosophy and, more narrowly, to specific texts. Indeed, in Ecce homo, Nietzsche famously says about himself that he has “an extraordinary number of inner states” and, accordingly, “a lot of stylistic possibilities” too, indeed “the most multifarious art of style that anyone has ever had at his disposal” (EH, Books 4). Cheerfulness, we suggest, is to be understood as one of the inner states and stylistic possibilities displayed by Nietzsche in some of his works.

According to the account Nietzsche gives of his own development, while in Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I and especially in Menschliches, Allzumenschliches II he presents himself “as if cheerful” even if he is not, in Morgenröthe he believes he succeeds in achieving a perfect cheerfulness, which he then further cultivates in Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, Also sprach Zarathustra, Götzen-Dämmerung, and Ecce homo. In his story, it is important to note, Nietzsche does not mention Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Zur Genealogie der Moral, Der Antichrist and other late writings as cheerful works. Although in some of these works, such as in GM, Preface 7, he still highly values cheerfulness, Nietzsche seems to imply that his style of thinking and writing is not that of cheerfulness. Indeed, in many of his late works, such as Zur Genealogie der Moral, Nietzsche’s style is that of the strident polemic. His principal aim in these works, it seems, is not to cheer the reader, but rather to communicate to them a sense of alarm motivated by the need to confront and combat what he sees as an impending era of nihilism and decadence.

If we are not convinced of the reliability of Nietzsche’s self-presentation as a cheerful thinker and writer, can we still regard some of his works as cheerful on the basis of the conception of cheerfulness that we have highlighted in this essay? We have seen that Nietzsche conceives of cheerfulness not only as one of his inner states, but also as one of the styles of thinking and writing at his disposal. We have also seen that cheerfulness as an aesthetic ideal is, for Nietzsche, a way of expressing and communicating serious and indeed grave problems. The result is a philosophical practice that involves intellectual strength and courage, risk-taking, calmness, steadfastness, sobriety and coldness, exuberance, liveliness, high-spirits, playfulness, laughter, gratitude, hope, and adopting a tender and slow tempo in opposition to fanatical harshness and rashness. Ultimately, the question as to whether Nietzsche really succeeds in thinking and writing cheerfully in some of his most significant works cannot be resolved in any absolute terms since it is ultimately relative to the reader. And, as we know, Nietzsche did not have the presumption, nor the intention, of wishing to, or being able to, cheer any and every reader of his writings.