THE TEXT

Nietzsche published each of the first three parts of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (TSZ hereafter) separately between 1883 and 1885, during one of his most productive and interesting periods, in between the appearance of The Gay Science (which he noted had itself marked a new beginning of his thought) and Beyond Good and Evil. As with the rest of his books, very few copies were sold. He later wrote a fourth part (called “Fourth and Final Part”) which was not published until 1892, and then privately, only for a few friends, by which time Nietzsche had slipped into the insanity that marked the last decade of his life. Not long afterwards an edition with all four parts published together appeared, and most editions and translations have followed suit, treating the four parts as somehow belonging in one book, although many scholars see a natural ending of sorts after Part iii and regard Part iv as more of an appendix than a central element in the drama narrated by the work. Nietzsche, who was trained as a classicist, may have been thinking of the traditional tragedy competitions in ancient Greece, where entrants submitted three tragedies and a fourth play, a comic and somewhat bawdy satyr play. At any event, he thought of this final section as in some sense the “Fourth Part” and any interpretation must come to terms with it.