Posts
Sometimes, Nietzsche's intentions regarding his autobiography 'Ecce Homo', are put into question - whether it was some huge ironic self-hoax, or a joke etc.
However, his discussions of the work in his private letters to his friends, family and colleagues, show that it was very much meant to be a genuine autobiography, albeit in typically quirky Nietzschean style.
NIETZSCHE TO PETER GAST.
Turin, Thursday, October 30, 1888.
DEAR FRIEND : The weather is so perfect that to do a thing well is no feat. On my birthday I again started some thing fresh something that promises to be a success and is already well advanced. It is called 'Ecce Homo', or 'How one becomes what one is'. It is a daring treatise about myself and my writings: in it I wish not only to represent myself as confronted by the weird and solitary task of the *Transvaluation* [i.e., the projected magnum opus 'The Will to Power: A Transvaluation of All Values', published by the Nietzsche Archive 1901]. I should also like for once to discover what I actually risk under cover of the German idea of the Freedom of the Press. What I suspect is that the *first* book of the Transvaluation will be suppressed on the spot legally and with the best of all possible rights. With this 'Ecce Homo' I should like to drive the *question* to such a pitch of earnestness and curiosity that the customary and, at bottom, rational ideas as to what is *allowable*, should make an exception in this case. Moreover, I speak about myself with all possible psychological subtlety and good cheer - I should hate to come before my fellow men in the guise of a prophet, a monster, and a moral-scarecrow. In this sense, too, this book might do some good: it may perhaps prevent my being confounded with my *opposite*.
"I am all agog about your Kunstwart-humanity [a review by Gast of Nietzsche's 'The Case of Wagner', appeared in the art journal in 1888]. Do you know, by-the-bye, that' in the summer I wrote Herr Avenarius an extremely rude letter because of the way in which his paper dropped Heinrich Heine. Rude letters in my case a sign of good cheer. With heartiest greetings and best wishes for the past, the present and the future. "One thing is more necessary than another"; (Thus Spake Zarathustra) .
N.
NIETZSCHE TO His SISTER.
Torino (Italia) via Carlo Alberto. 6. III. End of October, 1888 ....
.... In this golden autumn - the first I have ever had my whole life long - I am writing a sort of retrospect of my life, ['Ecce Homo'] for myself alone. No one shall read it, save a certain good Lama, [Nietzsche's nickname for his sister] when she comes across the ocean to visit her brother. It is not the stuff for the German cattle whose culture is making such astonish ing strides in the beloved Fatherland. I shall bury and conceal the manuscript ; it may mould away, and when we have all turned to ashes it will celebrate its resurrection. Perhaps at that time the Germans will be more worthy of the great gift I think of giving them.
With my heartiest embrace,
YOUR BROTHER ANIMAL, [Nietzsche's sister and brother-in-law called him 'the great animal']
Who is now quite a great beast.
N
NIETZSCHE TO PETER GAST.
Turin. [November 13, 1888.]
DEAR FRIEND : . . . My 'Ecce Homo, How One Becomes What One Is', came into being between October 15, my birthday and my precious King's day, [Nietzsche was born on the same day as the Prussian king, and so named after him] and November 4, and it was produced with so much of the self-glorification of antiquity and such good spirits that it seems to me too worthy an object to be joked about. The last parts, by-the-bye, are conceived in harmonics which appear to be absent from the 'Meistersinger', "the manner of the *world-ruler*" . . . The last chapter bears the disagreeable title: 'Why I am a Fatality'. The fact that this is so is proved so conclusively that in the end people are forced to halt in front of me, as before a "spectre" and a "feeling breast".
The manuscript in question has already performed the crab-march to the printers. As to the form of the production, I have selected the same as that decided upon for the "Transvaluation", to which it is a fire-spitting introduction.
Herr Carl Spitteler has vented his delight over 'The Case of Wagner' in the *Bund* of Berne. He finds extraordinarily apt expressions. In the letter he also congratulated me on having followed up my thoughts to their extremest consequences. He seems to regard my general indictment of modern music as the music of decadence, as a contribution of the highest value to the history of civilization. Incidentally he had first applied to the *Kunstwart*.
I hear from Paris that I may expect an article in the 'Revue Nouvelle'. I was also approached by a fresh sympathizer from St. Petersburg: Princess Anna Dmitrivna Tenicheff. A day or two ago I also received the address of Bizet's *charming* widow, whom I am especially requested to please by sending a copy of my Wagner pamphlet.
Our wonderful little ladies of the Turin aristocracy have planned a *Concorso di bellezza* for January; they have grown quite wanton since the portraits of the Spa beauty-prize winners reached here. As early as the spring I noticed a similar contest in the matter of portraits at the last exhibition. Wherein they no doubt feel superior to the whole world outside Turin in the perfect naivete with which they entrust their bosoms to the painter.
Our new *citoyenne*, the beautiful Latitia Bonaparte, recently married to the Duke of Aosta, and now a resident here, will in any case be one of the company. . . .
Your friend,
NIETZSCHE
NIETZSCHE TO PETER GAST. Turin, November 18, 1888.
.... 'Ecce Homo' alone will open people's eyes. I am almost falling off my chair with joy.
NIETZSCHE TO PETER GAST. Turin, Monday, November 26, 1888.
.... The question of the 'Freedom of the Press', as I see it only too clearly now, is one which cannot be altogether raised in respect of my 'Ecce Homo.' I have taken a stand so very far *beyond* - not that which is to-day generally accepted and supreme, but beyond mankind - that to apply a law-code to my work would be a farce. Besides, the book is full of jokes and malicious conceits, because I present myself with violent emphasis as the *opposite of that type of man* who has been looked up to hitherto - the book is as "unholy" as it can possibly be.
I admit that 'The Twilight of the Idols' strikes me as being perfect.
[...] I think that in such a state a man is ripe for the task of 'World Redeemer'? . . .
Come!
YOUR FRIEND, N.
NIETZSCHE TO STRINDBERG.
Torino, via Carlo Alberto, 6, III. December 7, 1888
[Nietzsche asks Strindberg to translate EH into French[ .... For, between ourselves, for the translation of 'Ecce Homo' a poet of the first rank would be required. It is an expression of subtle feeling, a thousand miles removed from all ordinary 'translators.' After all, it is not a thick book....
.... Since it is full of the most unheard of things and its language is at times in all innocence that of a world-ruler, we shall excel even 'Nana' in the number of editions.
On the other hand, it is anti-German to the point of annihilation. I have kept firmly on the side of French culture throughout ( I treat German philosophers, 'en masse', as unconscious counterfeiters).
Nor is the book tedious - here and there I have even written in the style of 'Prado'. In order to guard against German brutalities (confiscation) I shall send the first copies, previous to publication, to Prince Bismarck and the young Kaiser, accompanied by a written declaration of war. Soldiers cannot answer that sort of thing by police measures. I am a psycho logist. Just think it over a bit, my dear sir. It is a matter of the utmost importance. For I am strong enough to cleave the history of mankind in two. There still remains the question of the English translation. Can you make any suggestions about that? An anti-German book in England!
Yours,
NIETZSCHE
NIETZSCHE TO BRANDES.
Torino, November 20th, 1888.
Forgive me, dear Sir, for answering you on the spot. Curious things are passing at this crisis in my life, things which have never had their like. The day before yesterday, again to-day. Ah! if you could only know what I had been writing when your letter reached me! With a cynicism which will become part of the world's history I have now related 'myself.' The book is called 'Ecce Homo', and is an onslaught on the Crucified without the ghost of a scruple; it ends with thunderclaps and lightning flashes, that deafen and blind, against everything that is Christian or tainted with Christianity. I am, in short, the first psychologist of Christianity, and, old artillery-man that I am, can fire heavier cannon than any opponent of Christianity has ever before dreamed the existence of. The whole is the prelude of 'The Transvaluation of all Values', the work which lies ready before me. I vow to you that in two years we shall have the whole inhabited globe in convulsions. I am a Destiny.
Guess who comes off the worst in 'Ecce Homo.' Messieurs the Germans! I have told them awful things. For instance, the Germans have it on their conscience that they ruined the conception of the last great epoch of history, the Renaissance, at a moment when Christian values, the decadence values, were humiliated, when these instincts in even princes of the Church were yielding to the instincts diametrically opposed thereto, the instincts of life.
It meant simply the restoration of Christianity to attack the Church. Caesar Borgia as Pope, that was the conception of the Renaissance, its genuine symbol.
You must not be angry, either, that in a decisive passage of the book you crop up. I wrote it as an indictment of the conduct of my friends, their leaving me completely in the lurch, both with regard to reputation and philosophy. At this juncture you come on the scene with a halo of glory round your head.
[...] Turin is still my residence.
Your NIETZSCHE. (Now a 'Monster'.)
.jpg)
.jpg)
