George Burman Foster in Nietzsche and the Great War
“Nietzsche was first artist, then scientist, then prophet. Since it is from the prophetic period that we derive most of his war literature, it is important to take into account his prophetic style and manner of utterance. Certainly, Nietzsche is a craftsman of the first rank. He manipulates language with a rare virtuosity, and consciously avails himself of all of the means and devices of a brilliant style. He is rich in striking antitheses, in elaborate pictures, in pertinent coinages, as well as in unexpected plays upon words. He understands the art of inducing a cumulative effect even to the point of explosive violence, as well as the art of delicate allusion, of sudden dumbfounding and silence. These properties of style emerge especially at the time when he began to write in aphorisms, in the compact brevity of which close attention to form is required. Nietzsche understood preeminently how to manipulate the rhetorical arts in his aphorisms. But quite apart from this, aphorisms as such are an effective device of style — single thoughts appear much more sharply and appealingly in their abrupt particularity than would be the case if they were soberly placed in their order and sequence, not grounded in the antecedent nor softened by the consequent. Each single thought appears in harsh one-sidedness, as if sprung from nothingness, — and this makes all the stronger impression. Let such short sayings be uttered with prophetic poignancy and dignity, and they force the reflective mind into activity far more effectively than long-winded argumentation could do. Nietzsche speaks in such short, sharp precepts — like the founder of a religion. They are compressed texts, and everybody finds peculiar charm in making his own gloss for the texts. As I say, the first writings of Nietzsche do not show this form, but neither do they speak of war. Only since 1876 did he so write. It is a style in which literary people are inclined to accord him the uncontested palm of mastership. And now, to this purely historical art and finesse of the aphorist, we must add the art of the lyric poet in Nietzsche. Others wrote polished aphorisms — La Rochefoucauld and Pascal, Lich tenberg and occasionally even Schopenhauer; but Nietzsche is more — he is a lyrist. This lyrical quality of his style shows itself in the emotions which he supplies, in the flow of passion with which he speaks, in the subjective coloring which everything assumes. An extremely temperamental ego speaks to us in all his utterances. In all those aphorisms we get the inner experience of the author, his personal joy and pain. This lyric element mounts to formally poetic altitudes occasionally; — prose fails him and Nietzsche seizes upon poetic form in the shape of the dithyramb. This is especially true of his Zarathustra, the glowing and profound lyric thought of which reminds us of Giordano Bruno and of Holderlin. But as we must add to the aphoristic the lyric, so we must add to the lyric the symbolistic. Symbolism especially characterizes Nietzsche’s main work, Zarathustra. The figure of Zarathustra himself and his story is a symbol to Nietzsche, a poetic construction, a parable. In Zarathustra Nietzsche materializes himself (to use the language of spiritism) and his ideal: in the fate of Zarathustra we behold the necessary mutations and upheavals of his own nature, the dissonances and their resolutions in his own inner being. But this parable, in the case of Nietzsche, never becomes dry, didactic allegory, but remains living symbol. On the other hand, the parable is never too distinct and obtrusive, but remains always in the clair-obscur of the intimated, of the dawn of day, and so, of just the symbolic. And the clair-obscur of symbol rises occasionally to the heights of enigmatic mysticism, where deeper, more mysterious backgrounds are unveiled behind what is said. It has been necessary to call attention at some length to this stylistic character of Nietzsche’s writings, for if one forgets this style as Nietzsche treats of war, and of woman, and takes his words as prosaic, literal, matter-of-fact, scientific, and not aphoristic, lyric, symbolic, mystic, one will misunderstand many a passage and will fail to gain an insight into his true position on these and other subjects. Before we go into the question of content, shall it be held that content is rooted in Nietzche’s personality? Should the personal characteristics of the man be disengaged? Perhaps it were better to do so, yet I hesitate, so great is the difference between a character-sketch and real life! In Nietzsche’s case it is quite certain that the philosophic impulse is the fountainhead from which his personality is to be understood. The delineation of the personality of Nietzsche, then, is tantamount to the delineation of the philosophic personality of Nietzsche. But the philosophic impulse can be preponderantly understanding, theoretical thought, or feeling, or will — that is, it can make intellect, feeling or will serviceable, employ either as vehicle in order to live out this impulse in life. And so we have, in the one case, a scientific philosopher (Leibnitz, Wundt); in the next case, an artist-philosopher (Plato, Schopenhauer); in the third case, the prophetic philosopher (Pythagoras, Empedocles). Of course, a scientific philosopher investigates, establishes : an artist philosopher feels and forms: the prophetic philosopher proclaims and demands and enlists. Now, master-thinkers belong predominantly to one or another of these groups. But of Nietzsche one cannot say this; for, to reiterate, now he is artist, now investigator, and now prophet — frequently all three at once — no one ever exclusively. This triplicity is the most peculiar thing in Nietzsche’s philosophic individuality. Perhaps this is the reason why neither as artist, nor as scholar, nor as prophet, Nietzsche quite became a star of the first magnitude. This triplicity in coordination of its factors is the reason again why we cannot describe the theoretical Nietzsche apart from the emotional Nietzsche, or vice versa. We must abandon the effort to understand the heart and head of Nietzsche sundered from each other. If now we seek the most important properties in which there is an interplay of the two, we shall find two things, which I choose to call intensity and finesse, or, more simply, strength and fineness. Strength and fineness, these constitute the personality of Nietzsche. I agree with Miigge’s striking phrase: ‘Nietzsche’s intellect was as hard as iron, but his heart was soft as down’”
George Burman Foster in Nietzsche and the Great War
