The Suffering of Affirmation: New Studies on Thus Spoke Zarathustra

1. Matthew Meyer, The Routledge Guidebook to Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Abingdon / New York: Routledge 2025, 370 pp., ISBN 978-0415791076.

2. Keith Ansell-Pearson / Paul S. Loeb (eds.), Nietzsche’s ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’: A Critical Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2022, XIV + 294 pp., ISBN 978-1108796484.

3. Francesca Cauchi, Zarathustra’s Moral Tyranny. Spectres of Kant, Hegel and Feuerbach. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2022, 201 pp., ISBN 978-1399504317.

4. Emilio Carlo Corriero, ‘The Gift’ in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. Affirmative Love and Friendship. London / New York / Dublin: Bloomsbury Academic 2021, VI + 142 pp., ISBN 978-1350212268.

The works reviewed here demonstrate the interest of current international scholarship in Nietzsche’s most enigmatic book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–85). Over the past few years, a significant number of studies on this subject have been published, which should temper the concerns expressed by Keith Ansell-Pearson and Paul S. Loeb, when they write in their introduction that “recent philosophical scholarship tends to marginalize Thus Spoke Zarathustra and to downplay its significance in our engagement with Nietzsche’s thought” (1). In addition to these books, we can also mention the recent publication of several collections of essays devoted to Zarathustra.^[1] Another great contribution to Zarathustra studies is Katharina Grätz’s impressive two-volume critical commentary, published last year as part of the series Historischer und kritischer Kommentar zu Friedrich Nietzsches Werken.^[2] Although they are very different from one another, the books by Matthew Meyer, Francesca Cauchi and Emilio Carlo Corriero, as well as the collective work edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson and Paul S. Loeb, perhaps share a common focus on the difficulties and suffering involved in the philosophy of affirmation embodied by the character Zarathustra. Despite the misleading simplicity of Nietzsche’s maxims, saying ‘yes’ to life is not such an easy blessing to proclaim. In Nietzsche’s narrative, Zarathustra endures many torments during his travels among humans. The joy and cheerfulness he embodies are not without suffering, worry and sadder passions. In the chapter On the Way of the Creator, he sets out everything that must be endured and renounced by those who truly wish to become creators and overcome themselves:

Lonely one, you are going the way to yourself. And your way leads past yourself and your seven devils. You will be a heretic to yourself and a witch and soothsayer and fool and doubter and unholy one and a villain. You must wish to consume yourself in your own flame: how could you wish to become new unless you had first become ashes! […] With my tears go into your loneliness, my brother. I love him who wants to create over and beyond himself and thus perishes (Z I, On the Way of the Creator).^[3]

If the joy of being a creator, of creating new values, justifies the suffering inherent in life, it does not avoid that suffering as Christian morality does, according to Nietzsche. On the contrary, tragic joy arises from great suffering; it is shaped by Dionysian pain:

Creation – that is the great redemption from suffering, and life’s growing light. But that the creator may be, suffering is needed and much change. Indeed, there must be much bitter dying in your life, you creators. Thus are you advocates and justifiers of all impermanence. To be the child who is newly born, the creator must also want to be the mother who gives birth and the pangs of the birth-giver (Z II, Upon the Blessed Isles).

There are many passages in which Zarathustra suffers and expresses his pain through songs. After hearing the soothsayer’s prophecy of nihilism, Zarathustra is transformed, he becomes melancholic and drained of all energy. He falls into a kind of coma for several days (Z II, The Soothsayer). In the chapter The Stillest Hour, we see him deeply tormented and debating with himself, before acknowledging that he is not strong enough to face his own idea of eternal recurrence. He must therefore leave his disciples and friends once again, this time against his will and in pain: “But when Zarathustra had spoken these words he was overcome by the force of his pain and the nearness of his parting from his friends, and he wept loudly; and no one knew how to comfort him” (Z II, The Stillest Hour). In Part III, he confronts many trials during his odyssey, which are often presented as dreams and take the form of visions of terror and apocalypse. The most challenging test he must overcome before he can live a truly affirmative life is undoubtedly eternal recurrence. As soon as he calls upon this idea, nausea overwhelms him and plunges him into a deep coma, this time close to death:

No sooner had Zarathustra spoken these words than he fell down as one dead and long remained as one dead. But when he regained his senses he was pale, and he trembled and remained lying there, and for a long time he wanted neither food nor drink. This behavior lasted seven days; but his animals did not leave him by day or night, except that the eagle flew off to get food (Z III, The Convalescent).

In contrast to the prophecy in The Gay Science (1882–87), Zarathustra is not suddenly transformed by his love for the eternal return of all things. Nietzsche narrates here a slow and difficult process, which nearly consumes his character. It is only during his convalescence that Zarathustra begins to embrace an affirmative love for life in the last songs of Part III. By exploring different issues such as tragedy, the difficulties of eternal recurrence, the importance of contempt, Zarathustra’s asceticism and its connection with Christianity, these works offer together a more complex and darker understanding of Nietzsche’s philosophy of affirmation.

1. Matthew Meyer’s The Routledge Guidebook to Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a rigorous and stimulating introduction to Nietzsche’s masterpiece. The great success of this book lies in its dual ambition: to serve as both an accessible and precise reading guide to this difficult text and to offer an original interpretation in dialogue with the most recent Nietzsche scholarship. Meyer’s main argument is that Zarathustra should be read as a tragedy: “I want to make the case for the defense of the claim that the work should be read as a tragedy that dramatizes Zarathustra’s own quest to affirm life in the face of meaningless suffering. Specifically, it will be argued that the first three parts of Zarathustra should be understood as what is known as a satyr play” (5). This is a particularly innovative and interesting proposition regarding this work, which is why I will focus on it in this review.

In the opening chapter, Meyer provides essential information regarding Nietzsche’s works and the complex reception of Zarathustra, due to its artistic form. He subsequently argues for the book’s central and organizing role within Nietzsche’s philosophical development, from The Birth of Tragedy (1872) to his final writings of 1888. To explain this reading, Meyer analyzes the links between the project of Zarathustra and Nietzsche’s earlier and subsequent works. Zarathustra can be read as the continuity and fulfilment of the philosophy of affirmation initiated in The Gay Science, as evidenced by the end of its fourth book and the presence of major philosophical concepts in both works, such as the death of God and eternal recurrence. If it is indeed a tragedy, it should also be read in connection with Nietzsche’s first book, The Birth of Tragedy, for its understanding of Greek tragic art, which the author revisits in chapter 2.

Meyer also suggests, perhaps more surprisingly, possible links with Dawn (1881) and Human, All Too Human (1878–80) (20–5). While I fully agree with the requirement for continuity in Nietzsche’s philosophy and while the links established with The Birth of Tragedy and The Gay Science are undeniable, it seems more difficult to demonstrate absolute continuity between Zarathustra and all other works, because we can simply miss the specificities of each book. For instance, Human, All Too Human I and II seem much closer, in their form and main themes, to Dawn or Beyond Good and Evil (1886) than to Zarathustra. According to his hypothesis, Meyer logically wonders what status we should give to the writings after 1884: “If he has achieved what he hoped to achieve and thereby given humanity ‘the greatest present that has ever been made to it so far,’ then why does he continue to write and publish after Zarathustra?” (25). While he emphasizes that the most important link connecting Zarathustra to later works remains the project of a transvaluation of values, he also suggests that these books should be placed in the large category of old comedy and read “as a means of making life at least bearable” (28). “Indeed,” says Meyer, “when we look at the works Nietzsche wrote after Zarathustra III and before 1888, we find that they all conclude with some significant reference to laughter or comedy” (31). Laughter and Heiterkeit have always a positive value for Nietzsche, but it seems difficult to gather all these books under this category. First, in terms of form: in what way do Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morality (1887), or The Antichrist (1888) belong to the genre of comedy? It could also be said that the books from Nietzsche’s last period adopt other modalities to create new values than the philosophy of affirmation of Zarathustra, and that we should not minimize their importance because of Ecce Homo’s (1888) retrospective declarations.

In the second chapter, Meyer develops his main arguments for interpreting Zarathustra as a tragedy and a satyr play, after having presented and discussed the main contributions on this subject, especially Paul S. Loeb’s book, The Death of Zarathustra.^[4] Since 1881, Nietzsche has been developing a tragic conception of the world and existence. This is expressed in the poetry of the Idylls from Messina (1882), in his musical project of the Hymn to Life (1887), in the cosmology of eternal recurrence, and in the announcement of the death of God that makes our modernity a tragic age. All these major theses were already present in The Gay Science, but they find their most complete expression in Zarathustra. They are connected, directly or indirectly, to the notion of tragedy, and the most obvious proof to qualify the genre to which Zarathustra belongs is ultimately found in the title of the prologue that concludes the first edition of The Gay Science: “Incipit Tragoedia.” As Meyer states: “The key piece of evidence for this view comes from the title of GS 342, ‘Incipit tragoedia,’ and in my mind, this evidence shifts the burden of proof to anyone who rejects the idea that Zarathustra is a tragedy” (60).

Meyer also shows the great importance of Nietzsche’s theory of tragedy set out in The Birth of Tragedy for understanding the strategy of Zarathustra. In these insightful pages, explaining Nietzsche’s main theses on Socrates and the will to truth, on the musical origin of Greek tragedy, Meyer particularly focuses on the Apollonian-Dionysian aesthetic dualism. This symbolic duality expresses what is really tragic in Greek tragedies, beyond questions of poetics. The great contribution of Nietzsche to the field of Greek studies is to think that the tragic does not only consist in the spectacle of suffering inherent in the human condition in this contradictory and absurd world, as it is revealed by the satyr Silenus. The tragic nature of our condition does not lead to pessimism and despair, but on the contrary it leads to joy. Greek tragedy intended to affirm life, including in its suffering, through the union of two radically different kinds of art: the affective strength of the trance spread by Dionysian music and dance, and the distance of Apollonian figurative art. Meyer then attempts to show how this theory of tragedy can be adapted to read Zarathustra. Nietzsche remains faithful to his true project from 1872: to regenerate decadent culture through the development of a work inspired by Greek tragedy. The great difference is that in 1872, Nietzsche placed all his hopes in Wagnerian opera, whereas by 1882, when he was writing the first part of Zarathustra, he had long since broken with Wagner for aesthetic, ideological, and philosophical reasons. Wagner had become his antipode, the typical representative of German decadence and Christian morality. With the drama of Zarathustra, and particularly his experience of eternal recurrence, Nietzsche “is now writing his own tragedy to exemplify the core idea of his Dionysian pessimism: although life is suffering, it is nevertheless something we can affirm and even love” (71).

The rest of chapter 2 (71–108) analyzes the major philosophical themes of Zarathustra, showing how they display a tragic conception of reality. The reader will find very clear and insightful passages on the importance of Heraclitus, the first “tragic philosopher” for Nietzsche, for his apprehension of reality as pure becoming and his critique of the concepts of being and essence. Meyer also offers a great explanation of the links between the will to power, eternal recurrence, and the overman. He clearly argues for a cosmological apprehension of these notions but considers that this cosmology is in no way metaphysical and can be interpreted as a form of naturalism, thus participating in the contemporary debate in philosophical Nietzsche studies. It should also be noted that Meyer clarifies the evolution of his position, compared to previous publications, on a possible tension between Zarathustra’s teaching of the Übermensch and eternal recurrence. In this work, he argues rather in favor of a continuous evolution between these two ideas.

The second part of the book, from chapters 3 to 6, offers a remarkable commentary on the four parts of Zarathustra. Together with Katharina Grätz’s recent Kommentar, this study may serve as a precious guide for both advanced students and scholars studying Zarathustra. In his reading, Meyer regularly uses the Apollonian/Dionysian duality to identify the tone of certain chapters. However, this use seems quite abstract and difficult to prove in detail. For example, the three songs in the middle of Part II reflect a descent toward Dionysus, mainly because one of them is quoted as an example of a dithyramb in Ecce Homo and because the song of the dance refers to Dionysian symbolism. We should then consider that all of the songs in Zarathustra stand for the ancient chorus associated with Dionysus. But in what sense should we interpret the other chapters as “Apollonian”? On the other hand, I fully agree with Meyer that there is a decisive breach after the speech On Poets in Part II up to the end of Part III, and that the chapters Of Great Events to The Stillest Hour are of crucial importance. More than a change of tone between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, what we can observe is a noticeable shift from Zarathustra’s speeches, focusing mainly on the Übermensch, to the narrative reaching its climax with eternal recurrence. Meyer’s analysis perfectly shows in this way how the soothsayer’s prophecy completely transforms Zarathustra, forcing him to interrupt his teaching and face his terrible thought.

Chapter 5 comments in detail on Zarathustra’s odyssey toward his cave and the test of eternal recurrence. Meyer proposes a very detailed and interesting reading of the central chapters dedicated to this thought, particularly Of the Vision and the Riddle, in which Nietzsche narrates the inner struggle between Zarathustra and the spirit of gravity that symbolizes, in my interpretation, the will to truth and the weight of knowledge. This is why Zarathustra is not satisfied with the answer of the spirit of gravity: he only makes it a theoretical proposition, whereas what is most difficult with eternal recurrence is its incorporation, which is necessary for it to become a truly affirmative value. This experience that may liberate Zarathustra’s will is told in the chapter The Convalescent, toward the end of Part III. The three final songs are crucial according to Meyer: they constitute the climax of Zarathustra’s tragedy and indirectly suggest Zarathustra’s initiation into the mysteries of Dionysus, which would be necessary for him to become the one who can teach eternal recurrence, even if we have no real textual guarantee on this subject.

Reading Zarathustra as a tragedy followed by a satyr play is a very stimulating and plausible interpretation. Concerning the doctrinal and philosophical aspects, Meyer argues convincingly that the philosophy of affirmation embodied by Zarathustra turns into a tragic joy. Perhaps he should provide more analysis on the literary form and the poetics of Nietzsche’s own tragedy. Charles Andler already noted that Nietzsche hesitated, in his notebooks, to write a tragic play.^[5] He finally chose to evolve toward a fictional narrative focused on the character of Zarathustra, integrating a multitude of speeches, monologues, and songs. The text does not seem, at first sight, to observe formal characteristics of the tragic genre, even if Nietzsche uses the expression “Incipit tragoedia” in The Gay Science. How to explain this literary choice, if Nietzsche aimed to write a tragedy? The same question could be asked about the fourth part of the book, which is supposed to belong to the highly unknown genre of the satyr play. In order to truly interpret this text as a tragedy, perhaps more textual evidence than the use of the symbolic duality of Apollo/Dionysus would be needed, especially since the conceptuality of The Birth of Tragedy is never explicitly used by Nietzsche in Zarathustra, and since the symbolism of Dionysus has considerably evolved.^[6] To what extent is Zarathustra a rebirth of tragedy?

2. The book edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson and Paul S. Loeb, Nietzsche’s ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’: A Critical Guide, also aims to show the central importance of this text in Nietzsche’s corpus. The editors succeeded in bringing together contributions of great value, written by eminent scholars, on very different topics: eternal recurrence, the Übermensch, the contemporary debate on Nietzsche’s naturalism, as well as the aesthetic form of Zarathustra. As it is impossible to sum up all these contributions here, we have chosen to focus on essays reflecting the diversity of this collective work.

Among the debates about the aesthetic form of Zarathustra, the question of parody is particularly complex.^[7] How should we understand Nietzsche when he writes in the preface to The Gay Science: “Incipit tragoedia, we read at the end of this suspiciously innocent book. Beware! Something utterly wicked and mischievous is being announced here: incipit parodia, no doubt?” (GS, Preface 1).^[8] In her contribution, Laughter As Weapon: Parody and Satire in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Benedetta Zavatta offers an original analysis of this question. She shows very clearly that Zarathustra can be read as a parody of the New Testament, with the prophetic figure of Zarathustra giving his sermons, the tone and many stylistic features of his speeches. But because Nietzsche assigns crucial importance to this book in Ecce Homo, Zavatta considers against Kathleen M. Higgins^[9] that we cannot speak of a “comic book” or a tragicomedy. The parodic dimension of Zarathustra must in no way make us forget its philosophical seriousness. For Zavatta, parody is fundamentally used to criticize Christianity and its morality. The laughter of parody would be a philosophical weapon intended to overcome the ascetic and nihilistic values of Christian religion. However, the critical nature of parody must not degenerate into invective, resentment, and the spirit of vengeance that are symptomatic of the morality it aims to overcome. The critical virtues of parody are perfectly compatible with the spiritual elevation described in On the Three Metamorphoses and affirmative joy. Zavatta focuses on the particular case of the fourth part of the book. After highlighting the intertextual relationships between Zarathustra’s temptation and the temptation of Christ, she argues that the tone is no longer that of parody but of satire (34), and she proposes a distinction between these two genres. She concludes that, while Parts I to III certainly include a parody of the New Testament, this parody differs from the satire of modern decadence concerning the so-called “higher men” in Part IV.

It is also interesting to analyze the aesthetic form of Zarathustra by emphasizing the practical dimension of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Keith Ansell-Pearson and Marta Faustino explore this original perspective in Chapter 2, Philosophy as a Way of Life in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, based on Pierre Hadot’s famous work on ancient philosophy.^[10] They recall to us the great value of understanding philosophy as a praxis, as a kind of life, that Hadot promoted against a purely academic philosophy detached from any practical interest, and demonstrate the relevance of such a perspective for Nietzsche’s philosophy. In Zarathustra, we find the same critique of philosophy envisaged as a blind will to truth, rejecting any need to have an impact on human culture. Zarathustra mocks these so-called scholars and criticizes their idealistic and ascetic way of life. In contrast, he calls for a true passion for knowledge, an incorporated knowledge that may change values and the way of life of those who experiment it. According to the authors, one of the most practical dimensions of Nietzsche’s philosophy is his original style in this book and the character of Zarathustra as a teacher of an affirmative philosophy, who constantly exhorts his disciples to Selbstüberwindung. Ansell-Pearson and Faustino make here a very relevant use of concepts from Hadot’s work, such as “radical conversion” or “spiritual exercise,” to interpret Zarathustra’s spiritual quest.

In Chapter 3, What Makes the Affirmation of Life Difficult?, Paul Katsafanas tries to clarify difficulties with regard to affirming life under the condition of eternal recurrence. He rightly emphasizes, in my view, that what makes this idea important and challenging does not lie in the complexity of its theory of time or in its connections with the will to power, but rather in the doctrine of affirmation. He begins by examining different kinds of difficulties with regard to affirming life that are related to well-known issues in Nietzsche studies: Schopenhauer’s pessimism, the interconnection of all events, permanence or even the desire for revenge.^[11] By employing very concrete examples from our daily life, he shows that these difficulties in affirming life are in fact the same, whether we consider a single life or the same life that recurs eternally. If it is true, then we would not understand why the idea of eternal recurrence is so difficult to bear and desire. To understand the specificity of this thought, Katsafanas suggests a distinction between conditional affirmation and unconditional affirmation, which he defines in this way: “Conditional affirmation: I affirm life on the condition that an aspect or feature of life can be eliminated. Unconditional affirmation: I affirm life just as it is” (74). With this distinction, we can better evaluate the difficulty of affirming life under the condition of eternal recurrence. Most of us may say “yes” to life in a conditional way, which means saying “yes” to our existence under the condition that certain aspects will disappear in the future of our unique existence. In our ordinary perception of time, we hope that our future life will be liberated from past or present sufferings. However, eternal recurrence forbids this kind of affirmation. It requires unconditional affirmation, since past and present sufferings, the things to which we say “no” and which we want to abolish, return eternally in identical fashion. According to Katsafanas: “The function of eternal recurrence, then, is to diagnose the nature of one’s affirmation, revealing it to be either conditional or unconditional” (77).

The second difficulty for unconditional affirmation is completely different and belongs to a hierarchical order in Nietzsche’s philosophy. Katsafanas suggests that for the common mortal, for us, who have an ordinary life, the affirmation of life may not be such a crucial test. The real difficulty of this thought appears to those “whose evaluative perspectives include higher values” (79), in other words, philosophers who intend to create new ideals, such as Zarathustra or Nietzsche himself. We usually think, perhaps wrongly, that those for whom the thought of eternal recurrence is unbearable represent a weak type or even the ascetic ideal. Katsafanas turns this interpretation upside down: saying “yes” may be even more difficult for Nietzsche’s project of creating new values, for the coming of the Übermensch for Zarathustra, given that both are entirely focused on the future of their ideal and must overcome a great aversion aroused by the eternal return of the weakness of human being. This original interpretation is based on an important argument: in Zarathustra, from the middle of Part II to the end of Part III, Nietzsche relates in detail the real pain that Zarathustra is experiencing in willing eternal recurrence, which clearly shows how difficult it is for him to reach unconditional affirmation.

Paul S. Loeb’s contribution analyzes the relationships among eternal recurrence and the classical philosophical problem of becoming. Continuing his previous work on Zarathustra, Loeb defends here a cosmological reading of eternal recurrence and argues that this theory is an original solution to the problem of absolute change, which is quite important in Nietzsche’s writings before 1881.^[12] First, we may see a contradiction between Nietzsche’s conception of reality as absolute becoming and eternal recurrence. How can we reconcile the Heraclitean defense of universal flow, which seems to abolish the category of permanence, with the cosmological idea that what eternally returns is always the same, identical, and not something different? If the cosmological theory of eternal recurrence is true, it seems that despite the apparent change of events in our temporality, the same events have already taken place an infinite number of times and will be reproduced again and again, exactly in the same order, so that nothing changes. Loeb emphasizes that Nietzsche never really changed his position about the constant change and the absolute nature of becoming, which must be reevaluated positively. He then argues that there is no contradiction between this thesis and eternal recurrence by affirming that “there is always a recurring synchronic sameness in the midst of absolute diachronic change that allows us to identify and re-identify what comes before and after any change” (126). The demonstration of this point is quite complex. It is based on a distinction between qualitative identity and numerical identity, as well as on the necessity to adopt a circular understanding of infinite time, not a linear one. Loeb insists on the notion of synchronic similarity that characterizes the recurring cycles of time, in order to make sense of the return of the sameness and apply it to the becoming present in each cycle. To understand this argument, we must stop projecting an absolute and linear time as the substratum of the temporal cycles, which allows us to put one cycle as the past in relation to another cycle. The projection of a primordial time under a circular time would lead us to believe that an event a in a cycle x would be temporally different from the same event a (which we could then refer to as a’) in the cycle y which would be posterior to x. For Loeb, on the contrary,

if we assume a relational time that is circular, there is still a fixed and invariant sequence of great-year cycles. But now each great-year cycle begins and ends with a full circular rotation. This means that all the great-year cycles are exactly superimposed on each other and, consequently, that all the moments that constitute each great-year cycle are always in exactly the same position on the circle (134).

Loeb also explains what he considers to be Nietzsche’s “proof” of his cosmology, quoting a posthumous text (Nachlass 1888, 14[188], KSA 13.374–6), a proof that is not present, however, in the published work.^[13] According to Loeb, only a cosmological reading of eternal recurrence solves the problem of the will with the irreversibility of time and the past in the chapter On Redemption. It seems to me that on this last point, the cosmological reading goes too far beyond Nietzsche’s own text and overinterprets the slightest allusions to eternal recurrence. I do not think we have to create such a complex theory of time and memory to properly interpret this chapter, nor that Nietzsche wrote it in this way. In this chapter, Zarathustra is trying to answer to the prophecy of nihilism made by the soothsayer and subtly suggests that the only proper solution would be the thought of eternal recurrence. This means changing our relationship with time expressing our desire for revenge and nihilism. To the “es war,” which expresses the powerlessness of the will in front of the inevitable and linear essence of time and all actions, we may be able to answer by saying: “So wollte ich es,” thus showing a will that can affirm life and transforms every action in a creative act. In this chapter, the reader indeed recognizes some signs of the thought of eternal recurrence. However, Zarathustra does not dare to express and teach it, because he is not yet strong enough to want such a thought.

In this collective work, we also find valuable studies on chapters of Zarathustra that have been little commented on. Scott Jenkins (Chapter 8) offers a careful reading of the notion of great contempt, which appears in the prologue and is presented by Zarathustra as the “greatest experience.” Jenkins asks why this feeling is considered so important. He convincingly shows that this great contempt should be interpreted as a positive feeling, based on self-love and love for humanity, and focused on that part of human, all too human, that shall be overcome. It is therefore not in contradiction with the philosophy of affirmation. As Zarathustra expresses this in a parody of the Bible: “Do love your neighbor as yourself, but first be such as love themselves – loving with a great love, loving with a great contempt” (Z III, On Virtue That Makes Small 3). Jenkins compares different sorts of contempt in Zarathustra and more generally in Nietzsche’s writings: noble contempt, moral contempt, and religious contempt. He precisely points out the similarities and differences between this new kind of contempt and these more traditional forms in several chapters of Zarathustra, especially On Passing By, focusing on Zarathustra’s fool. The great contempt of Zarathustra is not only close to noble contempt, as one might perhaps expect, but also to the religious and ascetic forms of contempt. Zarathustra’s great contempt shares the painful feeling of contempt for the current condition of humanity which does not correspond to his ideal. For the rest, the content of the ideal changes completely from the ascetic ideal to that of the Übermensch. Great contempt for oneself and for humanity can thus be understood psychologically as an instrument of critical elevation and overcoming, albeit always driven by an affirmative love.

Finally, some essays show the relevance of Nietzsche on issues in contemporary debates, such as naturalism (see Matthew Meyer’s contribution) or ecological thought in Kaitlyn Creasy’s contribution, Nietzsche on the Re-naturalization of Humanity in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Chapter 11). In a fragment between Dawn and The Gay Science, Nietzsche expresses his philosophical task as follows: “die Entmenschung der Natur und dann die Vernatürlichung des Menschen, nachdem er den reinen Begriff „Natur“ gewonnen hat” (Nachlass 1881, 11[211], KSA 9.525). Creasy explores the consequences of these two perspectives: what does the de-humanization of nature and the naturalization of humanity mean? This sentence has first to be read in the context of Nietzsche’s criticism of “human exceptionalism” which is “the view that human beings have a special status among other living beings and that their extraordinary value derives from certain distinctly human capacities, including higher-order cognitive capacities” (226). If human culture in its dominant form of life can be evaluated by Nietzsche as a form of corrupted life, turning against life itself, it is largely due to our overestimation of our values and capacities, an overestimation that encourages us to despise everything arising from living nature, including our body and instincts. However, the task of dehumanizing nature goes beyond this criticism of anthropocentrism. According to Creasy, we must also become aware that the concept of nature, in the history of philosophy, results from the anthropomorphic projection of our interpretations, our values, and our categories (Nachlass 1881, 11[238], KSA 9.532). Such an anthropocentric nature is not only an error incorporated by us; it is an ascetic view of nature which leads to removing any value from non-human living beings. The will to power, first exposed in On Self-Overcoming, would offer for the first time a dehumanized conception of nature, a nature released from human reason and morality.

Zarathustra’s positive teaching about nature can be understood in different aspects.^[14] Nietzsche first attempts to restore value to non-human life, beginning with the environment, animal and plant life, because all living beings, whatever they may be, also interpret and evaluate their environment, according to the will to power. The naturalization of humanity is also embodied in very concrete ways, such as the presence of a natural, even wild world in Zarathustra, through its rich bestiary, through Zarathustra’s solitude, living far from human community. This concern for nature, in us and around us, is finally linked to Zarathustra’s teaching of an affirmative life and his constant exhortation to “remain faithful to the earth”: “In this sense, the natural world is the condition of the possibility of a stronger, healthier humanity” (244). Creasy well shows in Zarathustra’s call an original ecological consciousness, which never opposes nature and human culture. In my view, this point should be emphasized in order to avoid any confusion with other sources of ecological thought. If the value of our biological condition is undeniable for Nietzsche, it remains that his teaching is not focused on nature, but on human life, on creating new values and a healthier kind of humanity. It is in the name of humanity, in the name of the Übermensch, that we can understand Nietzsche’s concern for nature.

3. Francesca Cauchi’s Zarathustra’s Moral Tyranny aims to explore two very original perspectives. She argues that, in Zarathustra, Nietzsche offers a new form of ascetic morality based on a restrictive rational will, more radical than Christian morality. She also places this “moral tyranny” within the tradition of classical German philosophy and argues for a relevant dialogue between Nietzsche and the philosophies of Kant, Hegel and Feuerbach. In her introduction, Cauchi states that she does not intend to prove a clear influence of these authors on Nietzsche, which would indeed be difficult to demonstrate. Instead, she wants to show “a constellation of ideas and ethical ideals that recall their original formulations in Kantian philosophy and its German Idealist outgrowth” (18), suggesting an unexpected proximity between the philosophers of German idealism and Zarathustra, which is a highly original perspective in Nietzsche studies.

Before drawing these similarities, Chapter 1 outlines the emergence of Nietzsche’s asceticism, referring to the three publications preceding Zarathustra. While Nietzsche creates his own moral ideal, he adopts some typically Christian and ascetic virtues, such as “self-restraint,” “self-denial,” “sacrifice” and “obedience” (30). Beyond his radical critique of Christian morality, Nietzsche ends up endorsing a kind of morality much closer to his axiological opponent than would appear on first thought: a severe asceticism defined by Cauchi as a “self-evisceration” (39) produced by a tyrannical rational will. This “radical asceticism” does not simply reaffirm the content of Christian morality, since it is based on a critique of moral feelings and compassion. As the author carefully demonstrates, this critique was first deployed in Human, All Too Human, when Nietzsche advocates for an ethics of individual achievement based on the probity of the free spirit and self-mastery in opposition to the excess of Christian pity. Cauchi also analyzes the morality of sacrifice in Dawn, showing that, as an attentive moralist, Nietzsche considers even the most altruistic acts, such as self-sacrifice, as a form of hidden selfishness, because the pleasure taken in sacrifice is felt as a form of divinization of oneself and as an intensification of the feeling of power. I find it quite doubtful to suggest that the self-discipline of Nietzsche’s free spirit is genealogically derived from the example of the Christian martyr, since from a psychological and physiological point of view Nietzsche’s argument stands in contrast to this example. In the case of the martyr, the individual is destroying himself with an exquisite feeling of power, he gives himself over to his emotions. Instead, what is important to Nietzsche is the search for a domination over oneself, the will to be hard on oneself that Zarathustra calls for. The extracts of Dawn quoted by Cauchi do not seem to describe Nietzsche’s own asceticism. For example, D 18 emphasizes our culture’s lack of historical sense which leads to the assumption that we are liberated from the sacrificial practices of ancient religions. Against this delusion, Nietzsche suggests that the same instincts coming from the “morality of custom” continue to secretly drive our supposedly more “civilized” moral behavior. He does not at all praise self-sacrifice as a moral value.

In the second part of this chapter (41–54), Cauchi focuses on Nietzsche’s ambition to create new values and to teach humanity a new goal, the Übermensch. She suggests that part of this project is a form of “Kantian duty to enlighten man” by showing similarities between Zarathustra’s declarations and Kant’s short text, An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment?’ (1784). She explores the difficulties of such a task and all the obstacles that Nietzsche himself encountered before beginning work on Zarathustra. To undertake the formidable task of creating and defining new values, the philosopher must first conquer and discipline himself with courage and determination. In Ecce Homo and the 1886 prefaces, Nietzsche describes in detail his “anti-romantic cure” (HH II, Preface 2), emphasizing the suffering and solitude he experienced before he succeeded in overcoming the moral prejudices and romantic passions of his youth. In these pages, Cauchi shows clearly that Nietzsche thematizes in the same way the suffering that Zarathustra imposed on himself.

Chapter 2 is fully devoted to the similarities between Kantian ethics and the ideal of the Übermensch. Cauchi comments on several aspects of this ideal, notably his connection with the will to power as well as some essential virtues. But what stands out in this chapter is the normative ability of the will. She once again emphasizes the need for a kind of moral tyranny and a hardness toward oneself and others, embodied by the character of Zarathustra, as he says in a famous extract: “Only the noblest is altogether hard. This new tablet, O my brothers, I place over you: become hard!” (Z III, On Old and New Tablets 29). This hardness of Zarathustra’s creative will is akin to the Kantian exigency of an ascetic morality of duty, which implies complete obedience to the moral law and requires constant sacrifices and efforts from human nature, as Kant insists in his Critique of Practical Reason (1788) but also in his anthropological texts. Kant is perfectly aware of the difficulties for humanity to act out of respect for perfect duty, which is why he sometimes expresses a form of pessimism and misanthropy, but he also underlines that the sublime quality of moral actions creates a feeling of respect and enthusiasm. In Nietzsche’s philosophy, and particularly in Zarathustra, we can find echoes of this pessimism concerning the elevation of humanity, which is no longer driven by a morality of duty, but rather by the ideal of the Übermensch. Zarathustra himself is tempted by despair and disgust to contemplate the eternal recurrence of humanity’s smallness, as evidenced in the soothsayer’s prophecy. Similarly, Zarathustra’s tyrannical hardness can be seen as a form of the sublime, or rather of great nobility.

Cauchi also highlights another common aspect of Kant’s and Nietzsche’s conceptions of will: the normativity of reason. She clearly states:

My twofold argument in this chapter is (1) that the act of self-overcoming as articulated by Zarathustra presupposes a form of rational agency that in certain particulars bears a striking resemblance to the autonomous, self-legislating, rational will of Kantian ethics, and (2) that the blood sacrifice and martyrdom demanded by Zarathustra’s doctrine of self-overcoming is an unwitting transformation of the Kantian rational will into a tyrannical overlord (69).

Despite such a nuanced position, it seems to me that the divergence between Kant and Nietzsche is much more significant than any resemblance among their ideas which can be misleading if they are not interpreted within their respective contexts. When Nietzsche claims his “passion for knowledge” in The Gay Science, when he is referring to “his truths” in opposition to the lies of Christian morality, idealism, and modernity, this in no way suggests that he is reintroducing a will to truth that he consistently denounces. On this issue, I think that we must accept the radical nature of Nietzsche’s philosophical questioning in relation to more traditional philosophers, such as Kant and Hegel, even if it affects our perception of philosophical activity. Kant’s great originality lies in his conception of good will as the unconditional normativity of reason, provided that this reason is pure and a priori, independent of any sensible inclination or emotion. This normativity of reason reveals transcendental freedom, allowing for authentic autonomy. Kant’s moral philosophy maintains a complete normativity of theory over practice in order to ground morality. Despite his attachment to the liberation of the will in Zarathustra, Nietzsche categorically rejects Kant’s concept of will as freedom.^[15] He also rejects the distinction and hierarchy between theory and practice, considering that the normativity of reason is an illusion created by reason itself.^[16] In other words, there is no “moral” or practical rationalism in Nietzsche, even though the creative will of Zarathustra is not irrational or blind but rather enlightened by the probity of the free spirit. It is the body that remains “the great reason” (Z I, On the Despisers of the Body), it is the body that is thinking, willing, acting and setting goals, rather than reason a priori and independent of the body.

Chapter 3 is devoted to possible similarities with Hegel from several interesting perspectives. Cauchi begins by revisiting Deleuze’s famous intuition in Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962) that Nietzsche is a thinker of affirmation and completely differs from Hegel’s dialectics.^[17] Following Walter Kaufmann and several other works,^[18] she aims to go beyond this opposition and to demonstrate that a dialogue between Nietzsche and the great philosopher of the “Absolute Spirit” is relevant, particularly with regard to the value of negation. As we know, Hegel is a philosopher who assigns a crucial role to negation and its determinations. The great achievement of these pages is to show that, although Nietzsche does not develop a logic similar to Hegel’s, he is also a thinker who attaches great importance to the “Labor of the Negative” in the field of morality and values. The significance of negative and destructive action (Nein thun) is explicit in the philosopher’s task of establishing values, a concept that Nietzsche outlined as Dionysian philosophy:

The affirmation of passing away and destruction that is crucial in a Dionysian philosophy, a yea-saying to opposition and war, becoming along with a radical repudiation of the very concept of ‘Being’ – in all cases, I must acknowledge these as being closer to me than to what has been thought hitherto (EH, BT 3).^[19]

Cauchi invites us to think in a Hegelian, almost dialectical way, this inseparability of affirmation and negation, of creation and destruction. There can be no affirmative life or affirmation of reality as it is without first evaluating the dominant cultural values, nor without deciding to reject these ascetic values that Nietzsche considers to be negative toward life:

I shall argue that dialectical negation, as the immanent driving force of the Hegelian spirit’s “progressive unfolding of truth” (PhS § 2; W 3:12), is pivotal to Zarathustra’s doctrine of self-overcoming, the first precept of which is the negation of the Christian moral paradigm and all erroneous, fragmentary, partial thought that has hitherto passed for knowledge. […] In short, Nietzsche’s “yes” is inseparable from a ruthlessly destructive “no,” a “no,” moreover, to the binary mode of argumentation displayed in Deleuze’s critique (104).

This inseparability of the Ja-sagen and Nein thun is already clearly expressed in the chapter Of Old and New Tablets. Cauchi’s analysis is particularly relevant when she considers the passages in which the need to reject ascetic morality is part of the logic of self-overcoming in order to orient oneself toward the ideal of the Übermensch. Her reading of the “three metamorphoses” of the spirit particularly highlights the role of negation through the figure of the lion that says no to “the proscriptive and prescriptive tenets of Christian dogma to which the venerating or unreflecting conformist ‘camel’ spirit has long been in thrall” (112). Nietzsche explicitly associates the liberating power of negation and critique with this figure, which allows the spirit to “conquer his freedom for new creations”: “The creation of freedom for oneself and a sacred ‘No’ even to duty – for that, my brothers, the lion is needed” (Z I, On the Three Metamorphoses).

However, this negation is still insufficient for the creation of new values. The author emphasizes the gap between the abstract “I will” of the lion and the truly affirmative will of the child, which suggests that negation itself must be overcome or abolished. But there are always two possible movements after this negative phase: decline (Untergang), destruction, or an affirmative passage (Übergang) toward the figure of the child. The great originality of Cauchi’s analysis is that she shows how Nietzsche narrates Zarathustra’s Untergang much more than a sudden metamorphosis toward the Ja-sagen, which means that his own self-overcoming differs completely from Hegelian dialectics and the notion of Aufhebung. What we see throughout the narrative of Zarathustra’s life is the constant resurgence of what has been denied, which haunts his spirit in a truly negative and dangerous way and which Cauchi does not hesitate to compare to the Hegelian “Unhappy Consciousness.” After the prophecy made by the soothsayer in Part II, Zarathustra is consumed by a great distress at the thought of the eternal recurrence of human insignificance and the inability to overcome oneself. This disgust is his greatest threat; it plunges him into a deep coma several times, because eternal recurrence has the potential to lead him to abandon his teaching and to succumb to nihilism. Zarathustra only gradually manages to overcome his disgust and to embrace an affirmative form of life when he is still “convalescent.” His greatest threat is his possible failure to overcome pure negativity, to tolerate the persistence of ascetic morality under the condition of eternal recurrence, just like the figure of Zarathustra’s fool who is consumed by contempt.

In her final chapter, Cauchi concludes her exploration of Nietzsche’s moral tyranny by highlighting similarities with Feuerbach’s philosophy. Compared to Kant and Hegel, Feuerbach is undoubtedly the closest to Nietzsche’s thought in many respects, such as his critique of idealism and religion, his materialism, and his interest in physiology. However, there are far fewer comparative studies between Nietzsche and this author.^[20] After briefly recalling these aspects, the author explores the theme of love both in Feuerbach’s writings and in Zarathustra. With his anthropological projectivism, Feuerbach argues that love is not a gift from God to humanity. On the contrary, the Christian God is the transcendent projection of love, which is a power that characterizes humanity and is part of what makes us divine, along with reason and will.

In line with the previous chapters, Cauchi wants to prove that Zarathustra embodies a new form of Christ-like love because he suffers and sacrifices himself for the arrival of the Übermensch in the same way that Christ died for the love for humanity, for remitting its sins: “It is my contention in this chapter that Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, a parodic Christ-like prophet preaching an ostensibly anti-Christian creed, is paradoxically impelled by a Christ-like love to sacrifice himself for the redemption of mankind” (145). This is indeed an original and paradoxical thesis, joining other well-known philosophers^[21] in judging (or presupposing) that, despite himself, Nietzsche remains Christian, and that his critique is haunted by Christianity, to take up the spectral metaphor of Cauchi, maintaining the presence of Christian schemes in his philosophy. However, even if Zarathustra adopts the redeeming gesture of Christ, he does so to free humanity from the notion of sin and guilt. Cauchi provides detailed commentary on the various chapters in which Zarathustra preaches his love for humanity in its ability to overcome itself and progress toward the Übermensch. She tries to demonstrate that this love necessarily involves a sacrificial will, “the will to perish [Wille zum Untergang]” (Z I, Prologue 4), which is embodied by the Sun, a recurring symbol of Zarathustra’s fate. Moreover, in another Christian motif, Zarathustra’s love is not entirely free from all forms of compassion (Mitleid). The author distinguishes between active pity, a virtue strongly denounced by Zarathustra in his discourse on pity, and passive pity, or pure Mitleid, where the individual suffers involuntarily, “but restrains oneself from acting upon at the sight of another’s suffering” (154). According to this reading, Zarathustra constantly experiences this pity for humanity throughout the narrative, particularly in the fourth part.

The real value of Cauchi’s book is perhaps not in a comparative study of Nietzsche, Kant, Hegel, and Feuerbach. One could indeed discuss the methodology adopted, as the texts and concepts of these authors are sometimes quite unrelated to Nietzsche’s work. But beyond the figures of classical German philosophy, Cauchi’s main objective is to offer a highly original reading of the morality embodied by the character of Zarathustra: a morality based on true asceticism of the passions and a normative will which, with great difficulty, tries to overcome its own negativity. This morality is characterized by sacrificial love and vulnerability to compassion. In her conclusion, Cauchi says very clearly that “Zarathustra is but the latest incarnation of the ascetic ideal. Having dispensed with God and Christian values, he paradoxically resembles the saint more than the heretic and the virtuous scarecrow more than the triumphant immoralist” (179). What makes this study original is that it reveals the significant difference between the ideal vision of Zarathustra that Nietzsche himself promoted in Ecce Homo and the text itself. In the latter, Nietzsche does not really celebrate the triumphant arrival of the Übermensch, nor the victory of a fully affirmative ideal. On the contrary, he tells us about all the difficulties and the suffering that Zarathustra experiences in teaching his doctrine, perhaps only his decline, his failure.

4. Emilio Carlo Corriero’s book, The ‘Gift’ in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Affirmative Love and Friendship, shares with Cauchi the idea of a profound affinity between Zarathustra’s teachings and Christ’s sacrificial love through the religious symbol of the gift. He offers a careful study on the significance of the gift in Zarathustra, highlighting its importance in the prologue, in Zarathustra’s prayers to the sun, in the chapter On the Bestowing Virtue, or again at the end of the book. In the opening chapter, he provides a conceptual synthesis of the notion of giving, considering it from an essentially dynamic and relational perspective between the “donor” and the “donee.” Drawing on various well-known works from sociology, cultural anthropology and linguistics – particularly Marcel Mauss and Émile Benveniste – as well as more contemporary perspectives from Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Marion, and Roberto Esposito, Corriero focuses on two distinct and complementary aspects of the gift. There is the gift as munus, as a social duty grounding the relationships constitutive of communitas, which can appear as a form of selfish exchange, and there is the gift as beneficium, as a selfless and purely generous action, whose most perfect form is God’s love and grace toward humanity. We understand from this opening chapter that Corriero will focus on the complex relationship between Zarathustra, the one who gives, constantly tempted by solitude, and the community to which he is offering the gift of his wisdom.

In Chapter 2, Corriero explains the content and modalities of “the greatest gift” offered by Zarathustra. This gift is his new wisdom about life; his teaching reveals that humanity’s greatness lies in being a bridge, not an end in itself (Z I, Prologue 4), and in being overcome toward the ideal of the Übermensch. Although it is a “gift,” Zarathustra feels the need to spread his wisdom. It is not a rational necessity, but rather a necessity of his own nature, closely related to grace. From the prologue, Zarathustra is compared to the sun, which gives its light and illuminates all things in the world simply by existing. He knows the happiness of giving, not receiving. Grace also combines the pure gratuity of the gift with the necessity of its movement, that is to say it cannot be otherwise. We understand from these pages that Corriero’s analysis of Zarathustra’s love is entirely derived from a religious and Christian background:

Zarathustra does not intend to abolish Christian love, but rather to use the dynamics on which it has prospered for centuries to replace it with an affirmative love which, by abolishing the distance between God and men (as imperfect imitators of that love which always comes from God), brings that love back to earth, orienting it to the Overman, as the infinite and common tension of men to their own overcoming (42).

According to this reading, being faithful to Zarathustra’s teaching means above all developing this “bestowing virtue” and making sacrifices to facilitate humanity’s transition to the Übermensch, in the tradition of Christian love.

In the following chapter, From Whom the Sun Shines, Corriero explores the relational logic of the gift in Zarathustra, adopting many of the ideas presented in the first chapter. These analyses remain sometimes quite abstract and unrelated to Nietzsche’s text. Concerning the value of Zarathustra’s gift, for instance, Corriero states:

As said, here the subject of the gift, what gives value and established the relationships within the donation happens, is not the donor nor the donee but the gift itself. The value is not assigned starting from the exchange that takes place, that is, starting from the will to power of the donor nor from the response of the done, since it is the gift itself that has “value” beyond what is good and bad for the donor and for the one who receives (or rejects) it (60).

It is difficult to see why we should separate the “gift” from Zarathustra and his community, unless the intention is to make it an event, a kind of transcendent revelation, when it is just the teaching of self-overcoming and of the Übermensch. Corriero also examines the different publics of Zarathustra’s teaching: first the mocking crowd, then the community of disciples, and finally the friendly relationship, which is indeed often present in the book. Rather than a hierarchical relationship between master and disciples, Zarathustra is fundamentally looking for a friendship based on equality, encouraging individuals to sacrifice themselves to achieve the ideal of the Übermensch. This relationship allows him to avoid two pitfalls: on the one hand, total isolation, which would prevent him from sharing his wisdom, on the other, excessive pity for the community to which he aspires.^[22] Corriero analyzes friendship in an original way, studying its different aspects, particularly its connection with the relationship of enemy and the virtue of hardness. He argues that Zarathustra’s friendship is not incompatible with the love of the neighbor, but it can still be seen as continuing the Christian tradition rather than rejecting it. This is a rather paradoxical reading of the chapter On Love of the Neighbor, in which friendship is supposed to take the place of compassion for the neighbor.

In the final chapter, Corriero provides an interesting commentary on Part IV of Zarathustra, demonstrating how this friendship can easily turn into pity for the higher men – which is the greatest temptation for our protagonist. As in the rest of his book, his main purpose is to interpret the different scenes within a biblical context, sometimes literally describing Zarathustra as a “Fifth Gospel.” The religious orientation of the analysis is obvious at the end of the chapter, when Corriero asserts that Zarathustra’s gift shares deep similarities with divine grace, and that the Übermensch is a forthcoming event, very similar to revelation. It is certainly useful to highlight the religious background of Zarathustra for the reader, a task which Corriero undertakes with remarkable erudition. However, one should question the relevance of offering such a literal religious interpretation of a text which has an eminently critical and parodic tone, particularly in the fourth part. It is regrettable that Corriero neither mentions nor discusses any academic literature that precisely indicates Nietzsche’s sources on this subject, or the critical distance between Nietzsche and the biblical model.^[23] Moreover, the hermeneutic presupposition of reading Zarathustra as a continuation of Christianity and a form of religious discourse would need to be justified with more arguments. This reading would need to be confronted with Zarathustra’s declarations where he refuses any attitude of belief toward himself, whether from his disciples at the end of the first part or the higher men in the fourth whose religiosity betrays his teaching and disappoints him. At the end of Part I, Zarathustra proclaims: “Dead are all gods: now we want the Übermensch to live” (Z I, On the Bestowing Virtue 3). How can we justify an interpretation that emphasizes continuity over rupture with religious discourse with this statement? Corriero’s book certainly indicates the importance of the gift metaphor in Zarathustra and its affirmative meaning. However, this metaphor can also be interpreted independently of the Christian context. It can just as well be related to Zarathustra’s constantly frustrated desire to create a true community that will accept his teaching on the Übermensch and the necessity of creating affirmative values, as he says at the very end of the book: “Am I concerned with happiness? I am concerned with my work” (Z IV, The Sign).