One day in the middle of the 0/9th century A.D./KLOC, on a road in eastern Germany, a village priest came to his village from the nearby city of Lucerne with his son under five years old. The village of Leken surrounded by green trees is on the side of the road. You can already see the mossy spire of the country church and hear the melodious Easter bell. Soon after, the priest died of illness. In the child's sensitive mind, this bell rang from now on, and he often went to his father's grave with his worries.
Less than a year later, my brother passed away. The successive death of relatives has made children lose the innocence of childhood prematurely and begin to doubt life. He often hides alone in the temple of nature and meditates in the face of clouds or lightning. The beauty and mystery of nature made him want to write poetry. By the time he was ten years old, he had written fifty poems and a piece of music. Of course, some imitation is inevitable, but his precocity can already be seen. For example, there is a poem about a vagrant sleeping on the ruins of an ancient city, dreaming of the past happiness and the last bad luck of the city, and waking up to realize the impermanence of human happiness. In middle school, his little notebook was full of poems, and his tone was so sad:
"When the bell rings,
I can't help but think quietly:
We are all rolling.
Run to the eternal hometown ... "("Homecoming ")
Poetry is sad, but writing poetry is happy, even if it is sad. He found the joy of life in writing poems. He dreams of writing a small collection of poems for himself and his relatives and friends to read. Whenever his mother's birthday, he gave her a handwritten collection of poems as his own gift. From childhood to university, from teaching career to traveling abroad, he has been writing poems, but only a small part of them were published before his death. After his death, his fame spread far and wide, but it was not because of his poems.
When Nietzsche is mentioned, people know that he is a philosopher and a controversial philosopher. Regardless of honor or disgrace. It seems that people's views on his philosophy cover up his philosophy, and his philosophy also covers up his poems. But after all, his poems occupy an important page in the history of German literature. /kloc-in the second half of the 0/9th century, Heine, the last great romantic poet in Germany, died, and the poetry world was once depressed, with a strong imitation atmosphere. At that time, Nietzsche's poems were unique and outstanding, which had a great influence on the later neo-romantic poems of Georg, Rilke and Hesse.
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Modern Germany is an era of philosophers and poets. In addition, many great poets, such as Goethe, Schiller, William schlegel, Novalis and Heine, also began to study philosophy. However, Nietzsche is probably the great philosopher who has made great achievements in writing poems.
Some philosophers, such as Schelling, claim that philosophy and poetry are of the same origin, and art is the holy land for philosophers. Only here can philosophy truly achieve the "absolute" it strives for; But after all, he doesn't write poetry himself, and the combination of poetry and philosophy only stays in theory. In practice, it is difficult to be both philosophical and poetic. In the same person, logic and muse seem to be incompatible, often interfering with each other, conflicting with each other, and even losing each other. Schiller once lamented the troubles caused by the interference of imagination and abstract thinking, and Goethe also criticized Schiller for being too obsessed with abstract philosophy and damaging the image of poetry. But this conflict is not obvious to Nietzsche, perhaps because his philosophy is not abstract thinking philosophy, but poetic philosophy, and his poems are philosophical poems with internal consistency.
When you read Nietzsche's philosophical works, you will feel that you are reading poetry. Unlike academic philosophers, he hates studying and living and opposes the structural system. In his view, it is dishonest to build a system. A person's truly valuable thoughts are often acquired occasionally, as if a spark suddenly flashed. If we want to pull them into a system, we will inevitably insert a lot of mediocre, false and recognizable things. This huge system stifles really important ideas. So Nietzsche said that everything that philosophers have handled for thousands of years has become a "conceptual mummy." He himself would rather be in an empty place, in the valley, by the sea, and the road under his feet seems to be thinking in a thoughtful place. When he walked, jumped and crawled in nature, his thoughts came like the wind, and he wrote it down in his notebook. Most of his philosophical works are written in aphorisms, which is a collection of his wandering thoughts. However, these random feelings are not fleeting, but closely related to "eternity" and "absolute". Nietzsche called this maxim "eternal form", because the "eternity" pursued by philosophy is hidden and not obvious, it only flashes in some lucky moments and can only be obtained by "surprise". The motto is the prey of "surprise", and eternity appears in an instant. "Eternity" and "absoluteness" are unspeakable, so Nietzsche also introduced symbolism into philosophy, claiming to "ride on the back of symbolism and rush to all truth". His masterpiece Zarathustra speaks with symbols everywhere, and many of his philosophical concepts such as "will to life", "strong will" (old translation of "will to power") and "superman" are symbols.
It can be seen that in Nietzsche's hands, philosophy is completely poetic. However, although poetic, it is still an out-and-out philosophy, because it has not been humiliated, but is more competent for the mission of philosophy-seeking "eternity". Similarly, when we read Nietzsche's poems, we are actually reading philosophy. Nietzsche divides his poems into two categories, one is "motto", that is, philosophical poems, and the other is "song", that is, lyric poems. His motto poems are concise, witty, concise and thought-provoking. He himself said, "My ambition is to tell what others have said in a book in ten sentences and what others have not said in a book."
In order to realize this "ambition", he made great efforts in the art of epigrams. Some epigram poems, just two lines, are subtle in conception, simple in language and meaningful. For example:
"Hostility made of a whole piece of wood.
Better than the friendship that sticks together! "(honest man)" rust is also needed: sharp light is not enough!
People will chatter: "He is too young!" "(Rust) He shot an empty word into the blue sky to kill time-only a woman fell from the sky. "
(Involuntary seducer)
Nietzsche's lyric poems also run through philosophy, but they are different from epigrams. When talking about the essence of lyric poetry, he once said that the "self" of lyric poets is not the self of sober and experienced people, but the eternal self based on everything. It is one with the world itself, "shouting from the abyss of existence", symbolically telling the original pain of the world. Therefore, his lyric poems rarely sing pure personal joys and sorrows, and the themes are all so-called ontological emotional States such as loneliness, ideal and transcendence, and yearning for eternity. In art, he also tried to fully express the basic spirit of his philosophy-Dionysian spirit with lyric poetry, and pursued the style of ancient Greek Dionysian ode. Music, dance and poetry were integrated into one, and the body and mind were completely blended. His masterpiece is Ode to Dionysus. This group of poems jumps in rhythm and is free in rhythm, just like dancing freely in the rugged Shan Ye; Emotions are also unrestrained, unrestrained, laughing and cursing, all of which have become poems. Nietzsche himself thinks Ode to Dionysus is his best work. Whether in form or content, it really best reflects Nietzsche's characteristics.
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When I was studying Nietzsche's philosophy in recent years, I came into contact with Nietzsche's poems and liked them very much. Therefore, after work, as a kind of entertainment, I sometimes translate one or two songs. Unexpectedly, over time, there are quite a few, so I simply translated all the complete works of Nietzsche. I didn't expect to publish it at first, but I have translated it and think it is still valuable to introduce it to readers in China. Because Nietzsche's poetry is not only a wonderful flower in the world poetry garden, but also provides a valuable material for us to study Nietzsche's thought. I understand Nietzsche's philosophy as an aesthetic philosophy of life, which is Dionysian philosophy, tragic philosophy or artistic metaphysics in his own words. Some people say that Nietzsche's thought is full of complex contradictions, and different images of Nietzsche will be obtained from different angles. This may be true, but knowing people is precious, so it is not true for philosophers. Especially for Nietzsche, a philosopher full of personality, we should go deep into his complex inner world and grasp the living contradictions in his thoughts in order to understand the true meaning of his philosophy. In this respect, poetry comes from the heart and can point out a shortcut for our soul exploration.
Nietzsche was immersed in sadness since he was a child. When he grew up as a philosopher, the meaning of life naturally became the center of his philosophical thinking. He was a pessimist all his life, but he also struggled with pessimism all his life. He loves life, refuses to be depressed and tries his best to find the meaning of life. To this end, he turned to the ancient Greeks for help.
In his view, the ancient Greeks had a deep understanding of the hardships of life, but they overcame the hardships of life with art and lived a vibrant life. The so-called art should be broadly understood as an attitude towards life. On the one hand, this is an aesthetic attitude towards life, clinging to the beautiful appearance of life without pursuing the so-called ultimate meaning behind life.
"Where you stand, you will dig deep!
Below is the clear spring!
Let this stupid guy lament:
At the bottom is-hell! "("Go Forward ")
Apollo, the sun god in Greek mythology, brought a bright and beautiful appearance to everything, so it was adopted by Nepal, and this aesthetic attitude towards life was named Apollo spirit.
However, under the clear spring of beauty, it is "hell" and death after all. The guide of life wears an artistic veil and mask, just like a charming girl. But:
"sad! What do I see?
The guide took off his mask and veil,
At the head of the line
Slowly but surely, the inevitability of fierce force. "("the game of thought ")
So the more important aspect is Nietzsche's tragic attitude towards life, which is called Dionysian spirit. Nietzsche believes that tragedy can give people pleasure because it gives people a feeling of personal disintegration and integration with the universe through the destruction of tragic heroes. We should be heroes in the tragedy of life, look down on our life from the standpoint of the universe itself, and don't be too serious, live and die with a bang.
"To really experience life.
You must stand above life!
To this end, we must learn to climb high!
Learn to do this-look down! "("the law of life ")
This spirit of overlooking one's life from the standpoint of "absolute" and "eternal" is the basic spirit of Nietzsche's philosophy-Dionysian spirit. Dionysian spirit is based on some kind of communication between individual and noumenon, so that the survival and destruction of individual will be meaningful, but Nietzsche did not believe it in his heart:
"Immortal things.
Just your metaphor!
Trouble god
This is a poet's scam. ...
The wheel of the world keeps turning,
Target and time interval:
Disgruntled husbands call it a necessity,
Clowns call it a game. ...
The game in this world is cruel,
Mixed existence and illusion:—
"Eternal" Clown
Get us into this muddy soup again! ..... "("To Goethe ")
It can be seen that both the Apollo spirit based on beautiful appearance and the Dionysian spirit based on absolute noumenon are just a poetic dream or intoxication. Nietzsche mourns the loss of the meaning of life, seeks poetry and tries to save life with poetry, but at the same time he clearly realizes that poetry is unreliable. This contradiction makes his emotions constantly conflict with each other, and also makes his poems full of disharmony. Beautiful lyricism is often suddenly interrupted by ruthless irony and self-mockery, which is surprising and thought-provoking. Some poems, such as The Duty of the Poet, The Medicine of Rhyme and The Poet! Just a clown! ",the whole article is the poet's self-mockery, but this self-mockery can not be regarded as a simple denial of poetry, but a performance of bitterness and twists and turns. The problem is that, in Nietzsche's view, although poetry is illusory, life cannot be without poetry. Individuals are accidental products of nature, and the meaning of life is a mystery. "If people are not poets, riddlers and accidental saviors, how can I stand being a man! "The opposite evaluation of poetry provides clues for us to understand the complex contradictions in Nietzsche's philosophy. For example, "Superman" (man's self-transcendence) is a poem, while "eternal reincarnation" (eliminating the possibility of transcendence) is a negation of poetry.
Anyway, in Nietzsche's eyes, poetry is not a good way out, but it is the only way out. To affirm life, we must look at life from an aesthetic perspective. Therefore, on the basis of aesthetic life evaluation, he re-evaluated all values and emphatically criticized the life evaluation of Christianity and its ethics. In his poems, we can read many works that enthusiastically eulogize the joyful and healthy life interest and satirize Christianity and its morality. These poems can help us better understand Nietzsche's ethics and clarify some misunderstandings. Just give one example. Nietzsche often criticizes the Christian motto "Love your neighbor", so does he advocate "individualism"?
"I hate my neighbors around me,
Let him go to high altitude and far away!
Otherwise, how could he become a star and shine for me? "("neighbor ")
Obviously, Nietzsche advocates that a person must be self-loving, self-respecting, self-reliant and have a unique personality in order to truly benefit others. "Individualism" is really an overly general concept, which includes Abagon's egoism, mercenary and empty soul, as well as Faust's individualism, which pursues rich soul and self-realization, but ignores practical interests. Can they be compared? Nietzsche belongs to the latter, so Lu Xun praised him as "the greatest individualist", or in layman's terms, a great individualist. It seems that as individualism, the big and the small cannot be cooked in one pot.