This study, first published in 1998, makes a lively and welcome contribution to the critical analysis of Nietzsche’s seminal classic This Spoke Zarathustra. Through a close textual reading of the neglected and ill-understood part four of the text, the author seeks to show that Nietzsche’s project of self-overcoming is a failure. Offering herself as a philosopher-priestess of the wisdom of pessimism, Francesca Cauchi invokes a complex of responses in the reader, providing a necessary challenge to any and all advocates of life.
Chapter 1. Realism versus Idealism
Chapter 2. Ropedancer as Buffoon
Chapter 3. Cunning Reason and Proud Imagination
Chapter 4. Physicians as Metaphysicians
Chapter 5. The Art of Self-Overcoming
Chapter 6. The Decadence of Modernity
Chapter 7. The Decadence of Christianity
Chapter 8. Ignoble Lies and Insolent Truths