Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-8kt4b Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-16T10:26:59.777Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nietzsche's Zarathustra and Parodic Style: On Lucian's Hyperanthropos and Nietzsche's Übermensch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Babette Babich
Babette Babich*
Affiliation:
Fordham University, New York City
*
Babette Babich, Fordham University, 113 West 60th Street, Room 925H, New York City, NY 10023, USA. Email: Babich@fordham.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It is well-known that as a term, Nietzsche’s Übermensch derives from Lucian of Samosata’s hyperanthropos. I argue that Zarathustra’s teaching of the overman acquires new resonances by reflecting on the context of that origination from Lucian’s Kataplous – literally, “sailing into port” – referring to the soul’s journey (ferried by Charon, guided by Hermes) into the afterlife. The Kataplous he tyrannos, usually translated Downward Journey or The Tyrant, is a Menippean satire of the “overman” who is imagined to be superior to others of “lesser” station in this-worldly life and the same tyrant after his (comically unwilling) transport into the underworld. As a reflection on the life and the death of Zarathustra, this essay also explores the politics of kingship for Empedocles as reformer in terms of Hölderlin’s Death of Empedocles and Nietzsche’s unpublished drafts on the same topic. In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche points to a perspective beyond the here and now, including the “values” of our all-too-worldly and all-too-human concerns, no matter whether in terms of perceived political/economic advantage, or indeed in the pursuit of more trivial satisfactions.

Type
Articles
Information
Diogenes , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , November 2011 , pp. 58 - 74
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 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.)

References

Allinson, Francis G (1926) Lucian: Satirist and Artist. Boston: Marshall Jones Company.Google Scholar
Babich, B (2005) ‘The Science of Words or Philology: Music in The Birth of Tragedy and The Alchemy of Love in The Gay Science’, Rivista di estetica, 28: 47–78.Google Scholar
Babich, B (2008) ‘Die Naturkunde der Griechischen Bronze im Spiegel des Lebens: Betrachtungen über Heideggers ästhetische Phänomenologie und Nietzsches agonale Politik’, trad. Seubert, H. with the author, in Figal, Günter (ed.) Internationales Jahrbuch für Hermeneutik, pp. 127–189. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.Google Scholar
Babich, B (2009) ‘Nietzsche's Will to Power: Politics and Destiny’, in: Strong, Tracy (ed.) Friedrich Nietzsche, pp. 281–296. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Babich, B (2010) ‘Towards a Critical Philosophy of Science: Continental Beginnings and Bugbears, Whigs and Waterbears’, International Journal of the Philosophy of Science, 24(4): 343–391.Google Scholar
Baier, Annette (2008) Death and Character: Further Reflections on Hume. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.Google Scholar
Bartley, Adam, ed. (2009) A Lucian for Our Times. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Baumbach, Manuel (2002) Lukian in Deutschland. Eine forschungs- und rezeptionsgeschichtliche Analyse vom Humanismus bis zur Gegenwart. Munich: Wilhelm Fink.Google Scholar
Billault, A (1986) ‘Hécate Romanesque’, in: Mort et Fécondité dans les Mythologies. Actes du Colloque de Poitiers, 13–14 mai 1983, pp. 109–116. Paris: Les Belles Lettres.Google Scholar
Boedekker, Deborah (1983) ‘Hecate: A Transfunctional Goddess in the Theogony?’ tapa, 113: 79–93.Google Scholar
Branham, Robert Bracht (1989) Unruly Eloquence: Lucian and the Comedy of Traditions. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Eliza M (1958) Tyranny of Greece over Germany. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Butterfield, Herbert (1951) The Whig Interpretation of History. London: Bell.Google Scholar
Cardew, Alan (2004) ‘The Dioscuri: Nietzsche and Erwin Rohde’, in: Bishop, Paul (ed.), Nietzsche and Antiquity, pp. 458–478. Rochester: Boydell & Brewer.Google Scholar
Clay, Diskin (1992) ‘Lucian of Samosata: Four Philosophical Lives (Nigrinus, Perigrinus, Demonax, Alexander Pseudomantis)’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, 2.36.5: 3406–3450.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques (1989) ‘“Il faut bien manger” ou le calcul du sujet. entretien avec Jean-Luc Nancy’, Cahiers Confrontation 20: 91–114.Google Scholar
Diogenes Laertius (2005) Lives of Eminent Philosophers, trans. Hicks, R D. Cambridge: Harvard UP.Google Scholar
Ebner, Martin, Gzella, Holger, Nesselrath, Heinz-Günther, Ribbat, Ernst, eds (2001) Philopseudeis è Apiston. Die Lügenfreunde oder: Der Ungläubige. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Eisler, Rudolf (1904) Handwörterbuch der Philosophie. Berlin: Mittler und Sohn.Google Scholar
Empedocles (1934) Katharmoi, in Hermann Diels and Walther Kranz, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, Vol. 1, p. 354 s. Berlin: Wiedmannsche Buchhandlung.Google Scholar
Fauth, Wolfgang (1985–86) ‘Aphrodites Pantoffel und die Sandale der Hekate’ Grazer Beiträge, 12–13: 193–211.Google Scholar
Fowler, H W, Fowler, F G (1905) The Complete Works of Lucian of Samosata: Complete with Exceptions Specified in the Preface. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Frye, Northrop (1957) Anatomy of Criticism. Princeton: Princeton UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ginzburg, Carlo (2000) No Island is an Island: Four Glances at English Literature in a World Perspective. New York: Columbia UP.Google Scholar
Güthenke, Constanze (2008) Placing Modern Greece: The Dynamics of Romantic Hellenism, 1770–1840. Oxford: Oxford UP.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen (2001) Die Zukunft der menschlichen Natur. Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalen Eugenik? Frankfurt-am-Main: Suhrkamp.Google Scholar
Heidegger, Martin (1984) Sein und Zeit. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Hock, Ronald F (1987) ‘Lazarus and Micyllus: Greco-Roman Backgrounds to Luke 16: 19–31’, J. of Biblical Literature, 106(3): 447–463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunger, Herbert (1978) Die hochsprachliche profane Literatur der Byzantiner; Teilbd. 2: Philologie, Profandichtung, Musik, Mathematik und Astronomie, Naturwissenschaften, Medizin, Kriegswissenschaft, Rechtsliteratur. Munich: Beck.Google Scholar
Jung, Carl Gustav (1988) Nietzsche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934–1939, trad. Jarrett, James L. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP.Google Scholar
Kainz, Friedrich (1974) ‘Klassik und Romantik’, in Maurer, Friedrich, Rupp, Heinz (eds) Deutsche Wortgeschichte, t. 2, pp. 245–491. Berlin: de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaufmann, Walter A (1974) Nietzsche, Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP.Google Scholar
von Koppenfels, Werner (2007) Der andere Blick. Das Vermächtnis des Menippos in der europäischen Literatur. Munich: Beck.Google Scholar
Lauvergnat-Gagnière, Christine (1988) Lucien de Samosate et le Lucianisme en France au xvie siècle: Athéisme et polémique. Geneva: Droz.Google Scholar
Lucian of Samosata (1913–67) Lucian, with an English translation by Harmon, A M, 8 v. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.Google Scholar
Lucian of Samosata (1968) Selected Satires of Lucian, trad. Casson, Lionel. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Marsh, David (1999) Lucian and the Latins: Humor and Humanism in the Early Renaissance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Nietzsche, F (1980) Kritische Studien Ausgabe [KSA]. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Pavur, Claude (1998) Nietzsche Humanist. Milwaukee: Marquette UP.Google Scholar
Rabinowitz, Jacob (2005) ‘The “Her” Story of the Great Witch-Goddess: Analyzing the Narratives of Hekate’, AJCN, 2, http://cf.hum.uva.nl/narratology/a05_rabinowitz_00.html.Google Scholar
Rauer, Konstantin (2005) ‘Totengespräch zwischen Kant and Nietzsche zur Moralphilosophie’, in: Himmelmann, Beatrix (ed.), Kant und Nietzsche im Widerstreit, pp. 119–129. Berlin: de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Renault, Philippe (2004) ‘Lucien de Samosate ou le prince du gai savoir’ Folia Electronica Classica, 8, bcs.fltr.ucl.ac.be/FE/08/Lucien.html.Google Scholar
Robinson, Christopher (1979) Lucian and his Influence in Europe. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Rohde, Erwin (1869) Über Lucians Schrift Loukios e Onos und ihr Verhältnis zu Lucius von Patrae und den Metamorphosen des Apuleius. Leipzig: Engelmann.Google Scholar
Rohde, Erwin (1900) Der griechische Roman und seine Vorläufer. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel.Google Scholar
Rohde, E (1925) Psyche, Seelencult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen. Tübingen: Mohr.Google Scholar
Salter, William MacIntire (2009) ‘Nietzsche and War’, in Strong, Tracy (ed.) Friedrich Nietzsche, pp. 3–26. Aldershot: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Gary (2008) ‘Beyond Peoples and Fatherlands: Nietzsche's Geophilosophy and the Direction of the Earth’, Journal of Nietzsche Studies, 35–36: 9–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallas, Armin A (1994) Albert Ehrenstein: Mythenzerstörer und Mythenschöpfer. Grafrath: Boer.Google Scholar
Wienand, Isabelle (2006) Significations de la Mort de Dieu chez Nietzsche d’Humain, trop humain à Ainsi parlait Zarathoustra. Bern/Oxford: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Wolfe, Peter (1964) ‘Image and Meaning in Also Sprach Zarathustra’, MLN, 89(5): 546–552.Google Scholar