CSP 57 Nietzsche and the Poets

This course will explore the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche and their significance for the literature and philosophy of the fin de siècle. In addition to selected texts by Nietzsche -- including, among other works, The Birth of Tragedy, Thus Spoke Zarathustra and On the Genealogy of Morality -- students will read works of literature, philosophy, and aesthetics that allude in different ways to Nietzsche's writings. Authors to be discussed include: Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Gottfried Benn, Wassily Kandinsky, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Stefan George. While the course will focus primarily on the exchange between literature, philosophy and aesthetics around 1900, it will also grapple with the complex and often controversial conceptions of power, morality, aesthetics, finitude, and epistemology developed in Nietzsche's work.