the happy Science

The happy science (later with the subtitle “la gaya scienza” ) is a work by Friedrich Nietzsche first published in 1882 and supplemented in 1887 . The book contains thoughts on a wide variety of topics in almost 400 aphorisms of various lengths. It is considered the final work of Nietzsche's “free-spirited” period, which at the same time heralds the new mood of the subsequent Also sprach Zarathustra . (Compare Friedrich Nietzsche, overview of the work .)

The sigil of the book, which is common in Nietzsche research today, is FW ; GS (after gaya scienza , gai savoir , gay science or gai saber ) is also widespread outside the German-speaking area .

title

Gai Saber has been a term used internationally since the Middle Ages from the poetry of Provencal troubadours - originally it was the self-designation of a group of Toulouse poets. The translation of happy science was a common term in bourgeois German society during Nietzsche's lifetime. From 1887 the work received the subtitle ("la gaya scienza") , which should clarify the reference and make it internationally understandable. Most of the translations of the book title are synonymous in the respective language with the name of the French group of poets or make recognizable references (De vrolijke wetenschap, Gay Science, Gaia Sciensa, Gaya Scienza, Gai Savoir, Gaya Ciencia, ...).

Since gay in English and increasingly internationally almost exclusively as a synonym for gay within the meaning of homosexuality is used Nietzsche's work is no longer just the starting Walter Kaufmann's used translation in the 1960s, "The Gay Science", but more frequently originally with the selected title "The Joyful Wisdom" translated. However, this lacks reference to Gai Saber, so The Gay Science remains the more common name. In some translations (e.g. in Thomas Common) both are used as titles ( The Gay Science or The Joyful Wisdom ).

Issues and overview

Title of the first edition 1882

The motto of the first edition from 1882 was a quote from Emerson :

All things are friends and consecrated to the poet and wise man, all experiences useful, all days holy, all people divine.

This edition contained:

• "Joke, cunning and revenge", a "prelude in German rhymes", namely 63 mostly cheerful and malicious poems. The title is borrowed from a singspiel by Goethe of the same name from 1790.
• Four “books” with a total of 342 aphorisms. The fourth book is entitled " Sanctus Januarius " and has a poem of the same name by Nietzsche as its motto. The other books are untitled.

The 1887 edition was subtitled. The motto of this issue was Nietzsche's own saying ("Above my front door"):

I live in my own house

I never imitated anyone

And - still laughed at every master

Who doesn't laugh at himself.

The old content remained unchanged, but the following were added:

• A preface in four sections.
• A “Fifth Book” under the title “ We Fearless ” and with a saying by Turenne as the motto (“Carcasse, tu trembles? Tu tremblerais bien davantage, si tu savais où je te mène.”). It consists of 41 aphorisms, so the book now contains 383 aphorisms.
• An “appendix” called “ Songs of the Prince Vogelfrei ”. This consists of fourteen poems.

Origin and classification in Nietzsche's writings

Title of the new edition 1887

Shortly after its publication in the early summer of 1881, Nietzsche was planning a continuation of Dawn. Thoughts on the moral prejudice . In the winter of 1881/1882, which he spent in Genoa , he wrote three books on this. He was still unclear about how he would carry out and present the idea of ​​the " Eternal Coming " - which had seized it in August 1881. Also in August 1881 he began to work with the figure Zarathustra .

In the spring of 1882 he decided to compile the accumulated material under the title " The happy science " and have it printed. Nietzsche, who was almost blind at the time, produced the printing manuscript with the help of his sister Elisabeth .

According to the history of its origins, some sections of the happy science can be traced back to older records, but a few were already written in the manner typical of Also Spoke Zarathustra later . From all these, with the exception of one - namely the last, which later formed the beginning of Zarathustra - Nietzsche removed the name Zarathustra for printing and rewrote it. These are the sections 32, 68, 106, 125, 291 and 332. The thought of the “Eternal Second Coming” only appeared in the penultimate aphorism in a questioning and symbolic way.

Most of the short poems that made up the “prelude” came from the spring of 1882. At that time, Nietzsche had composed a number of derisive verses , also inspired by the Skrivekugle he had given to him by his sister . A few longer poems appeared in early June 1882 as Idyllen aus Messina in the international monthly of the publisher Ernst Schmeitzner . At the same time, when the acquaintance with Paul Rée and Lou von Salomé was at its peak, Nietzsche and Heinrich Köselitz corrected the printed manuscript of the cheerful science . The book was published by Schmeitzner in mid-August 1882 with an edition of 1000 copies. Like Nietzsche's previous books, it received very little attention from both critics and the public: only about 200 copies had been sold by 1886.

For the origin of the following Also Spoke Zarathustra see there.

After the publication of Beyond Good and Evil in 1886 , Nietzsche had his larger writings reissued by EW Fritzsch. The greatest change in cheerful science was the addition of a preface and a fifth book. Both were written in the autumn of 1886, that is, to Zarathustra and the Beyond . Other prefaces to new editions date from the same period. For Beyond unused notes Nietzsche used here in the estate is often found to this material the title "Gai Saber". The songs of Prince Vogelfrei mostly consist of new versions of the idylls from Messina , an important later poem in it is the "dance song" An den Mistral .

Content

Earliest received typewriter text by Nietzsche - some of these mocking verses were included in FW's “foreplay” .

In The Joyful Science , questions from different subject areas are examined from different angles.

In the first book , the possibility of knowledge as well as the task and use of science are problematized. The sections deal with topics from epistemology , philosophy of science and psychology in terms of a philosophy of mind . For example, the following attracted particular attention:

• Section 1 (“The teachers of the purpose of existence”), in which a fundamental skepticism against these “teachers” becomes clear;
• Section 2 with the concept of an "intellectual conscience";
• Section 7 ("Something for Workers"), which sets up some kind of program for a science of morality (s);
• Section 13 (“On the doctrine of the feeling of power”), in which early reflections on the later circle of ideas about the “will to power” can be found.

The second book deals in particular with questions about art and artists. Sections 60 through 75 also have reflections on women and gender relations. The following sections contain reflections on the ancient culture of the Greeks as well as remarks on writers of the 18th and 19th centuries, such as a whole section on Nicolas Chamfort . The book also contains a series of analyzes of Nietzsche's earlier models Arthur Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner .

The third book is mainly devoted to questions of religion and morals . In the first, more symbolic section 108 (“New Struggles”), the “ death of God ” is mentioned for the first time in Nietzsche's writings . The following section 109 (“Let us be careful”) can be read as an explanation of the previous one; it warns against assigning a meaning to the world, perhaps interpreting it anthropomorphically . This is followed by some epistemological sections.

Very well known on the subject of "Death of God" is the detailed, parabolic representation in section 125 with the title The mad man .

The sections of the third book tend to be shorter. Sentences 268 to 275 consist only of brief personal questions and answers, which at the same time evoke core themes of Nietzsche's philosophy.

The fourth book , “Sanctus Januarius”, begins with a (self-) appeal to affirm life and thought, to “ amor fati ” (section 276). There are many self-reflections in this book.

In the 341st section the idea of ​​the eternal return is formulated for the first time, of course as a question and in symbolic form.

The 342nd section, the last section in the first edition, later became the beginning of Also Spoke Zarathustra . Nietzsche put it in verse form and made the concrete lake Urmi just the “lake of his [Zarathustras] homeland”. The section is entitled Incipit tragoedia . Nietzsche also referred to this title in the foreword of the new edition, in the penultimate section of the fifth book and in Götzen-Twilight .

In the fifth book , the problem of nihilism is examined from different angles. In the first section, the “God is dead” topic is taken up again and explained, followed by some considerations on the devaluation of values ​​and on the “self-abolition of morality”, which are also reflected in the preface to the new editions of earlier editions Find works again. The considerations on the origin of consciousness and knowledge (sections 354 and 355) were also observed; in their methodology they are similar to the genealogy of morals that emerged later . One of the longest texts in the book, No. 357, deals again with Schopenhauer and pessimism with the help of the question “what is German?” ; this is taken up again in section 370, "What is Romance?" Section 358 interprets the Lutheran Reformation as a “peasant revolt of the spirit”. In between there are many interjections ("The hermit talks", "The fool's interlocutor", "The wanderer 'talks") and texts that make the comprehensibility of texts a problem at all.

Section 382 finally introduces “The Great Health” as a kind of new ideal and refers to the earlier end of the book (“Incipit tragoedia”), that is, indirectly to Zarathustra . The subsequent “epilogue” leads to the appendix, the songs of Prince Vogelfrei .

Interpretations

Nietzsche's own statements about the book

At the time when the first edition was being written, Nietzsche often emphasized that The Happy Science concluded its “free-spirited” phase that began around 1876. He saw it as an expression of recovery and now the opportunity to try something new. He was particularly interested in the reactions to the fourth book, "Sanctus Januarius". Nietzsche said that it contained his “private morals”. He also emphasized several times that the book was very personal, in mid- 1888 he described his “middle books” Dawn and The Happy Science as the “most personal” and the “most sympathetic” to himself.

During the preparation of the new edition, Nietzsche said that the new fifth book belonged “in its tone and content, moreover, more to Beyond Good and Evil” and could be added “more rightly” to this book than to cheerful science . However, after a misunderstanding between Nietzsche and his publisher, on which this idea was based, had been resolved, the original plan was retained.

In his stylized autobiography Ecce homo , Nietzsche explicitly drew attention to the Provencal origin of the term “gaya scienza” and recalled “that unity of singer, knight and free spirit”, which the “wonderful early culture of the Provençals” (compare also Trobador , Trobador poem , Gai Saber ). The joyful science is (like the dawn ) "a book that tells the story, deep, but bright and kind".

Some interpretations in Nietzsche's reception

Especially section 125 with the exclamation “God is dead” has found various interpretations (see article by Friedrich Nietzsche ). Here are some remarks on the entire work The happy science should be presented.

In his foreword to the Italian edition (translated as an afterword in KSA 3), Giorgio Colli calls The Happy Science “central” for Nietzsche's work in several respects. First, it is roughly in the middle of Nietzsche's work in terms of time. Second, the book fits into his writings “like a magical moment of balance”: all extremes are there, but there is no fanaticism ; all contradictions in Nietzsche's philosophy can be traced here, but they did not appear conspicuous or hurtful, but rather reconciled. Ultimately, the text is central in the sense that Nietzsche's personal and philosophical basic problem - the struggle between art and science - finds a new, “healthy” solution, namely to “lead both to coexistence in a transfigured area”. This connection is already evident in the title and the structure of the book, which begins with verse.

Nietzsche takes the position here as a philosopher to stand above both art and science; on the other hand, because of his knowledge of and rejection of previous philosophy, he resorted to methods of art and science in order to communicate with himself. Finally, Colli sees in this fragile and in a certain way impossible equilibrium a new level of Nietzsche's ongoing search for knowledge, the highest transfiguration of which is found in section 324 (“In media vita”): “ Life is a means of knowledge ”. The fact that Nietzsche finally came across the idea of ​​the Eternal Coming, "a truth that is more terrible than any other", moved him to approach art again, as the last two sections of the fourth book indicated. - For Colli, the fifth book added later no longer reaches the equilibrium of the first four books.

In Martin Heidegger's Nietzsche interpretation, The Joyful Science is Nietzsche's first step on the "path to the formation of his metaphysical basic position". Heidegger attached great importance to the word “God is dead” and interpreted it in the context of his philosophy of completing and overcoming Western philosophy and metaphysics.

In his epilogue to the Reclam edition, Günter Figal thinks that cheerful science is a “philosophical version of a novel ”. The book is not an arbitrary collection of aphorisms, but a composition that can be read like a “long story of thought” with digressions , allusions, variations of motifs, anticipations and references. The sections are only understandable in the context of the whole.

In the title “Sanctus Januarius” he sees an allusion to Ianus , with which the situation of the work is also defined as “foresight and review”. Nietzsche is about exploring freedom in thought. His “knowledge program” is to perceive the world from as many different perspectives as possible and at the same time to be aware of the limitations of each perspective: and especially the affirmation of this contradiction between entangled life and knowledge is “happy science”. The first three books showed how such knowledge can be articulated on a number of main motifs in a multitude of variations. In the fourth book, Figal sees Nietzsche's reflections “for himself” in the tradition of the notes of Mark Aurel and Montaigne . The opening of the fourth book with a call to life and self-affirmation was only consistent, since previously under the motif “God is dead” it was stated that Christianity had become “a victim of its own negativity”. Of course, the affirmation of life also includes suffering and pain, yes, pain is a “more or less clear leitmotif ” of the book. Figal sees the last three sections of the fourth book as a unit: since Socrates was a pessimist , he must be overcome; and the “greatest heavyweight”, the doctrine of the Eternal Second Coming, demands a new teacher, a counterpart to Socrates: Nietzsche's Zarathustra.

Nevertheless, Also Spoke Zarathustra was not to be understood as overcoming joyful science . On the contrary, Nietzsche continued this later, so that Zarathustra was "included like a blank space in the earlier book" and was by no means a canonical or solely binding articulation of Nietzsche's philosophy. This is true because the first section of the happy science also relativizes Zarathustra, a reference that Figal wants to prove with the title “Incipit tragoedia”. The “program” of happy science remained topical for Nietzsche, even if he was later unable to fulfill it as it was here. Only this work keeps the promise of its title, in which Figal expressly also includes the fifth book.

literature

expenditure

See Nietzsche edition for general information.

• In the by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari founded Critical Edition is The Gay Science found in
  • Section V, Volume 2 (together with the idylls from Messina and abandoned fragments 1881–1882). ISBN 3-11-004477-3 . A follow-up report , i.e. H. critical apparatus, is still missing for this volume.
• The same text is provided by the critical study edition in volume 3 (together with Dawn and Idyllen from Messina and with an afterword by Giorgio Colli). This is also published as a single volume under ISBN 3-423-30153-8 . The associated apparatus can be found in the commentary volume (KSA 14), pp. 230–277.
• The current edition by Reclam , ISBN 3-15-007115-1, is also based on this edition . It contains an afterword by Günter Figal.
• In 1990 Reclam Leipzig published an edition with comments on the text and an essay by Renate Reschke . This edition was based on that of Karl Schlechta .

There are also editions of the book:

• In Goldmann Verlag with comments by Peter Pütz , ISBN 3-442-07557-2 .
• In Insel Verlag with an afterword by Ralph-Rainer Wuthenow , ISBN 3-458-34378-4 .

Secondary literature

For a detailed bibliography see web links .

• Marco Brusotti: The passion of knowledge. Philosophy and aesthetic lifestyle with Nietzsche from “Morgenröthe” to “Also sprach Zarathustra” . In: Monographs and texts on Nietzsche research . No. 37 . de Gruyter, Berlin and New York 1997, ISBN 3-11-014563-4 .
• Andreas Dorschel , 'Morality as a Problem. Friedrich Nietzsche: Fröhliche Wissenschaft § 345 ', in: Zeitschrift für Didaktik der Philosophie und Ethik XXX (2008), no. 1, pp. 56-61
• Pierre Klossowski : Sur quelques thèmes fondamentaux de la "Gaya scienza" de Nietzsche. first in: the same: Un si funeste désir. , Pp. 6-36, Paris 1963, ISBN 2-07-073742-X .
• Günter Schulte (Ed.): Nietzsche's “Morgenröthe” and “Fröhliche Wissenschaft”: Text and interpretation of 50 selected aphorisms. Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2002, ISBN 3-8260-2236-X .
• Werner Stegmaier : Nietzsche's Liberation of Philosophy: Contextual Interpretation of the V Book of the Happy Science , de Gruyter, Berlin 2012, ISBN 3-11-026967-8 .
• Christian Benne and Jutta Georg (eds.): Interpret the classics: Friedrich Nietzsche: The happy science . Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-044030-0 .

• Volume 26 (1997) of Nietzsche studies has The Gay Science as a priority. In this:
  • Jörg Salaquarda : The "happy science" between free spirit and new "teaching". (Pp. 165–183)
  • Wolfram Groddeck : The “new edition” of the “Happy Science”: Reflections on paratextuality and work composition in Nietzsche's writings based on “Zarathustra”. (Pp. 184–198)
  • Marco Brusotti: Knowledge as Passion: Nietzsche's path of thought between "Morgenröthe" and "Happy Science". (Pp. 226–238)
  • Renate Reschke : “Welt-Klugheit” - Nietzsche's concept of the value of the mediocre and the middle: the philosopher's cultural-critical considerations in the context of his “happy science”. (Pp. 239–259)

Web links

Wikiquote: The Joyful Science  - Quotes

Commons : The Joyful Science  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

• Complete text from Nietzsche Source , Colli / Montinari edition
• Literature for happy science , directory of the Weimar Nietzsche bibliography
• Text in German on zeno.org
• Scans of the 1887 edition at Nietzsche Source