Paul Bishop 
Nietzsche and Antiquity 
His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition

Wide-ranging essays making up the first major study of Nietzsche and the classical tradition in a quarter of a century.


This volume collects a wide-ranging set of essays examining Friedrich Nietzsche’s engagement with antiquity in all its aspects. It investigates Nietzsche’s reaction and response to the concept of ‘classicism, ‘ with particular reference to his work on Greek culture as a philologist in Basel and later as a philosopher of modernity, and to his reception of German classicism in all his texts. The book should be of interest to students of ancient history and classics, philosophy, comparative literature, and Germanistik. Taken together, these papers suggest that classicism is both a more significant, and a more contested, concept for Nietzsche than is often realized, and it demonstratesthe need for a return to a close attention to the intellectual-historical context in terms of which Nietzsche saw himself operating. An awareness of the rich variety of academic backgrounds, methodologies, and techniques of reading evinced in these chapters is perhaps the only way for the contemporary scholar to come to grips with what classicism meant for Nietzsche, and hence what Nietzsche means for us today. The book is divided into five sections —
The Classical Greeks; Pre-Socratics and Pythagoreans, Cynics and Stoics; Nietzsche and the Platonic Tradition; Contestations; and German Classicism — and constitutes the first major study of Nietzsche and the classical tradition in a quarter of a century.


Contributors: Jessica N. Berry, Benjamin Biebuyck, Danny Praet and Isabelle Vanden Poel, Paul Bishop, R. Bracht Branham, Thomas Brobjer, David Campbell, Alan Cardew, Roy Elveton, Christian Emden, Simon Gillham, John Hamilton, Mark Hammond, Albert Henrichs, Dirk t.D. Held, David F. Horkott, Dylan Jaggard, Fiona Jenkins, Anthony K. Jensen, Laurence Lampert, Nicholas Martin, Thomas A. Meyer, Burkhard Meyer-Sickendiek, John S. Moore, Neville Morley, David N. Mc Neill, James I. Porter, Martin A. Ruehl, Herman Siemens, Barry Stocker, Friedrich Ulfers and Mark Daniel Cohen, and Peter Yates.


Paul Bishop is William Jacks Chair of Modern Languages at the University of Glasgow.

Table of Content

Nietzsche, Homer, and the Classical Tradition – James I. Porter

‘Unhistorical Greeks’: Myth, History, and the Uses of Antiquity – Neville Morley

Breeding Greeks: Nietzsche, Gobineau, and Classical Theories of Race – Nicholas Martin

Ecce Philologus: Nietzsche and Pindar’s Second Pythian Ode – John Hamilton

Nietzsche, Aristotle, and Propositional Discourse – Peter Yates

‘
Politeia’ 1871: Young Nietzsche on the Greek State – Martin A. Ruehl

Nietzsche and Democritus: The Origins of Ethical Eudaimonism – Jessica N. Berry

‘Full of Gods’: Nietzsche on Greek Polytheism and Culture – Albert Henrichs

An Impossible Virtue: Heraclitean Justice and Nietzsche’s Second Untimely Meditation – Simon Gillham

Cults and Migrations: Nietzsche’s Meditations on Orphism, Pythagoreanism, and the Greek Mysteries – Isabelle Vanden Poel

Cults and Migrations: Nietzsche’s Meditations on Orphism, Pythagoreanism, and the Greek Mysteries – Danny Praet

Cults and Migrations: Nietzsche’s Meditations on Orphism, Pythagoreanism, and the Greek Mysteries – Benjamin Biebuyck

Nietzsche’s Cynicism: Uppercase or lowercase? – R. Bracht Branham

Nietzsche’s Unpublished Fragments on Ancient Cynicism: The First Night of Diogenes – Anthony K. Jensen

Nietzsche’s Stoicism: The Depths Are Inside – R. O. Elveton

Nietzsche and Plato – Laurence Lampert

Nietzsche, Nehemas, and ‘Self-Creation’ – Thomas A. Meyer

God Unpicked – John S. Moore

Nietzsche’s Wrestling with Plato and Platonism – Thomas Brobjer

On the Relationship of Alcibiades’ Speech to Nietzsche’s ‘Problem of Socrates’ – David N. Mc Neill

Dionysus versus Dionysus – Dylan Jaggard

Rhetoric, Judgment, and the Art of Surprise in Nietzsche’s
Genealogy – Fiona Jenkins

How Nietzsche’s
On the Genealogy of Morals Depicts Psychological Distance between Ancients and Moderns – David F. Horkott

Nietzsche’s Aesthetic Solution to the Problem of Epigonism in the Nineteenth Century – Burkhard Meyer-Sickendiek

From Tragedy to Philosophical Novel – Barry Stocker

Nietzsche, Interpretation, and Truth – David M. A. Campbell

Nietzsche’s Remarks on the Classical Tradition: A Prognosis for Western Democracy in the Twenty-First Century – Mark Hammond

The Invention of Antiquity: Nietzsche on Classicism, Classicality, and the Classical Tradition – Christian Emden

Nietzsche and the ‘Classical’: Traditional and Innovative Features of Nietzsche’s Usage, with Special Reference to Goethe – Herman Siemens

Conflict and Repose: Dialectics of the Greek Ideal in Nietzsche and Winckelmann – Dirk t. D. Held

Nietzsche’s Ontological Roots in Goethe’s Classicism – Friedrich Ulfers and Mark Daniel Cohen

Nietzsche’s Anti-Christianity as a Return to (German) Classicism – Paul Bishop

The Dioscuri: Nietzsche and Erwin Rohde – Alan Cardew

About the author

Paul Bishop is Professor of German and Head of Department of German at the University of Glasgow.