Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T22:24:28.019Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Link to On the Genealogy of Morals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2013

Paul Bishop
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
Laurence Lampert
Affiliation:
IUPUI, Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
Get access

Summary

Of Nietzsche's publications to date (i.e., to 1886), Beyond Good and Evil (Jenseits von Gut und Böse) had enjoyed arguably the best critical reception. In a review for the Swiss journal Der Bund, Josef Victor Widmann described it as Nietzsche's “dangerous book” (gefährliches Buch), pointing out that the dynamite used in the construction of the Gotthardbahn, the railway line that traverses the Swiss Alps, always bore a black warning-flag to alert people to its danger — and that Nietzsche's book deserved a similar warning. Nietzsche was delighted by the review, both for commercial reasons (KSB 7, 249 and 256) and because, in essence, it said his book was dynamite (KSB 7, 251-52 and 258); in Ecce Homo, he would allude to Widmann's review and playfully apply his description of Beyond Good and Evil to himself: “I am not a man, I am dynamite” (Ich bin kein Mensch, ich bin Dynamit; EH “Why I Am a Destiny” §1; KSA 6, 365). Other reviews were positive, too, but Nietzsche's old friend, Erwin Rohde, was not impressed. The two friends were reunited when Nietzsche visited Leipzig again in 1886, but the encounters left both disappointed. Rohde told Franz Overbeck that there was “something totally uncanny” (etwas mir damals völlig unheimliches) about Nietzsche, “as if he came from a country where no one else lived” (als käme er aus einem Lande, wo sonst Niemand wohnt); for his part, Nietzsche wrote to Overbeck that Rohde's case simply proved that “the best go to seed in the atmosphere of the university”

Type
Chapter
Information
A Companion to Friedrich Nietzsche
Life and Works
, pp. 251 - 254
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×