Table Of ContentNietzsche’s
The Case of Wagner
and
Nietzsche Contra Wagner
Edinburgh Critical Guides to Nietzsche
Series editors: Keith Ansell-Pearson and Daniel Conway
Guides you through the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), one of modernity’s
most independent, original and seminal minds
The Edinburgh Critical Guides to Nietzsche series brings Nietzsche’s writings
to life for students, teachers and scholars alike, with each text benefitting from
its own dedicated book. Every guide features new research and reflects the
most recent developments in Nietzsche scholarship. The authors unlock each
work’s intricate structure, explore its specific mode of presentation and explain
its seminal importance. Whether you are working in contemporary philosophy,
political theory, religious studies, psychology, psychoanalysis or literary theory,
these guides will help you to fully appreciate Nietzsche’s enduring significance
for contemporary thought.
Books in the series
Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, Tracy B. Strong and
Babette Babich
Nietzsche’s Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, Sean Kirkland
Nietzsche’s Unfashionable Observations, Jeffrey Church
Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human, Ruth Abbey
Nietzsche’s Dawn, Katrina Mitcheson
Nietzsche’s Gay Science, Robert Miner
Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Charles Bambach
Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Daniel Conway
Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality, Robert Guay
Nietzsche’s The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner, Ryan Harvey and
Aaron Ridley
Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols, Vanessa Lemm
Nietzsche’s The Anti-Christ, Paul Bishop
Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo, Matthew Meyer
Nietzsche’s Late Notebooks, Alan Schrift
Visit our website at edinburghuniversitypress.com/series-edinburgh-critical-
guides-to-nietzsche to find out more
Nietzsche’s
The Case of
and
Wagner Nietzsche
Contra Wagner
A Critical Introduction and Guide
Ryan Harvey and Aaron Ridley
Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in
the UK. We publish academic books and journals in our selected subject
areas across the humanities and social sciences, combining cutting-edge
scholarship with high editorial and production values to produce academic
works of lasting importance. For more information visit our website:
edinburghuniversitypress.com
© Ryan Harvey and Aaron Ridley, 2022
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
The Tun – Holyrood Road
12(2f) Jackson’s Entry
Edinburgh EH8 8PJ
Typeset in 11/13 Bembo by
IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and
printed and bound in Great Britain.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 4744 5939 6 (hardback)
ISBN 978 1 4744 6138 2 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 1 4744 6136 8 (paperback)
ISBN 978 1 4744 6137 5 (epub)
The right of Ryan Harvey and Aaron Ridley to be identified as the authors
of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988, and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003
(SI No. 2498).
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
Chronology viii
Primary Sources and Abbreviations xi
Introduction: The Case of Wagner 1
1. The Artwork of the Future: A Prelude to the Philosophy
of the Future 14
The artwork of the future 14
‘Athenian self-dissection’ and the decline of culture
at the hands of science 18
Science, redeemed by her defeat, reaches out to
her acknowledged victor: art 22
Vitalism and art 24
The Birth of Tragedy and the ‘music-making Socrates’ 26
Socrates, make music! 28
Knocking at the portals of the present and the future 32
We must now consider similar phenomena in
the present 33
2. The Pessimism of Strength: An Attempt to Revise the
Socratic and Tragic Cultures 41
The essence of tragic culture 41
An attempt to self-criticise 43
To ‘make music’ from the materials of life 48
The twilight of an idol 53
The uniting and dividing point of two cultures 59
vi contents
3. Music in the Microcosm and the Macrocosm 64
Becoming the legitimate heir and successor to
the pre-Socratics 64
Human, All Too Human and the beginning of
Nietzsche’s post-Wagnerian confrontation 67
Dawn on the horizon 71
The Gay Science 75
Beyond Good and Evil: prelude to a philosophy of
the future 81
Ecce Homo 87
4. Music as the Late Fruit of Every Culture 98
The Case of Wagner 98
The preface 101
The charges 107
Sections 1–2 108
Section 3 111
Sections 4–5 115
Section 6 124
Sections 7–8 149
Sections 9–10 164
Sections 11–12 174
5. The Case of Nietzsche; or, How to Become More
Wagnerian than Wagner 184
First postscript 184
Second postscript and epilogue 211
Conclusion 229
Coming full circle 229
A dangerous game 232
Glossary of Key Terms 240
Guide to Further Reading on The Case of Wagner
and Nietzsche Contra Wagner 245
Bibliography 247
Index 253
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dan Conway and Keith Ansell-Pearson
for inviting our contribution to the present series. Without their
encouragement and support, this work would not have been
possible. We also wish to thank two anonymous reviewers of our
preliminary proposal for both the generosity they showed towards
our initial project as well as the insightful commentary they pro-
vided in terms of how we might improve it.
Special thanks are also due to Marco Murelli and James
McGuiggan, both of whom read through early drafts of the manu-
script, either in whole or in part, and provided invaluable feedback
from their unique specialities and perspectives.
Chronology
1844 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche is born on 15 October
in Röcken, Saxony.
1849 Nietzsche’s father Ludwig, a Protestant minister, dies
of ‘softening of the brain’.
1850 Nietzsche’s younger brother, Joseph, dies, and the
family moves to Naumburg.
1858–64 He attends the elite boarding school Schulpforta on
a full scholarship that he received as the orphan of a
minister.
1864 Enrols at the University of Bonn to study theology,
although he no longer plans to become a minister. He
joins a fraternity, but resigns soon after.
1865 Follows the philologist Professor Albrecht Ritschl
to the University of Leipzig. He buys a copy of
Schopenhauer’s World as Will and Representation in
his landlord’s shop.
1865 Refuses to take Communion during his Easter visit
home to Naumburg.
1866 Publishes an essay on Theognis in a philological
journal edited by Ritschl.
1867 Enlists in an artillery regiment after managing to pass
a physical exam.
1868 Injures himself while riding. Reads Kuno Fischer’s
book on Kant. Meets Richard Wagner in a café in
Leipzig, through the mediation of Mrs Ritschl. After
chronology ix
his 24th birthday becomes emancipated from his
guardian.
1869 Appointed Extraordinary Professor of Classical
Philology in Basel on Ritschl’s recommendation.
Renounces Prussian citizenship. Begins frequent
visits to Wagner in nearby Tribschen.
1870 Volunteers as a medical orderly in the Franco-Prussian
War, but after two months becomes ill with dysentery
and diphtheria.
1872 Publishes his first, controversial book, The Birth of
Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music. Accompanies Wagner
to Bayreuth for the laying of the foundation stone for
the new opera house.
1873 Meets Paul Rée in Basel.
1873–75 Publishes Unfashionable Observations. Relationship with
Wagner begins to sour.
1876 Begins working with Peter Gast, who takes dictation
for an essay on Wagner. Visits the Bayreuth Festival
and sees Wagner for the last time in Sorrento.
1878 Publishes the first part of Human, All Too Human.
1879 Publishes the two additions to Human, All Too
Human. Resigns from Basel with a small pension.
Begins a long period of wandering, mostly through
Italy and Switzerland, staying in off-season boarding
houses.
1881 Publishes Daybreak.
1882 His friendship with Paul Rée ends. Publishes the first
edition of The Gay Science. In April travels to Rome,
meets Lou Salomé, and proposes marriage to her. She
declines and the relationship ends badly.
1883–84 Publishes Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
1884 Breaks with his sister Elisabeth over her fiancé’s anti-
Semitism.
1886 Publishes Beyond Good and Evil. Plans new editions of
previous works, for which he writes five new prefaces,
among other material.
1887 Writes On the Genealogy of Morality in July and August.
It is published in November in an edition of 600 copies.
He pays for the printing himself.
x nietzsche’s The Case of Wagner
1888 Publishes The Case of Wagner. Writes The Anti-Christ,
Ecce Homo, Nietzsche Contra Wagner and Twilight of the
Idols.
1889 Suffers a breakdown and collapses in Turin, after writing
megalomaniacal postcards to many friends and celebri-
ties. He is retrieved by his friend Franz Overbeck, who
takes him to Basel. Nietzsche’s mother then takes him
to an asylum in Jena.
1890 Nietzsche is moved to his mother’s apartment in Jena,
and then to Naumburg. His sister Elisabeth returns to
Germany from Paraguay. She later takes control of her
brother’s literary estate.
1894 Elisabeth founds the Nietzsche Archive, which houses
Nietzsche and his papers.
1896 Elisabeth moves Nietzsche and the Archive to Weimar.
1900 Dies in Weimar on 25 August.
