Image and Meaning in Also sprach Zarathustra

Author(s): Peter Wolfe

Source: MLN , Dec., 1964, Vol. 79, No. 5, General Issue (Dec., 1964), pp. 546-552
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3042700

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 56 M L N

Image and Meaning in Also sprach Zarathustra

Nietzsche, like Blake, Carlyle, and Whitman, does not argue discursively,
but proceeds symbolically and metaphorically with the confidence of an
inspired prophet. To look for logical thematic exposition in Also sprach
Zarathustra will land the reader in a gnarled thicket of paradoxes and
contradictions. The underbrush is, however, least dense in the area of
imagery, and the reader will discover that Nietzsche's imagistic expression
offers a body of consecutive statement that is perhaps the most reliable
approach to the meaning of his long philosophical poem.
The clue to Nietzsche's imagery resides in a word whose full range of
significance cannot be rendered literally. The crucial word is unter-
gehen, along with its cognate, Untergang. As the word gains force (noth-
ing is static in Nietzsche) we shall see how its multiple references inform
the episode of the tightrope walker, the doctrine of self-overcoming, and
the atmospheric phenomena which appear in the poem.
The early part of Also sprach Zarathustra is dominated by descents
(one application of untergehen) -the prophet's down-going into the
market place from his mountain lair and the fatal plunge of the tightrope
walker. This downward movement is a necessary prelude to the establish-
ment of living values in a supernaturally meaningless universe. Zara-
thustra clarifies the idea with the imagistic statement, " Oh meine Briider,
was ich lieben kann am Menschen, das ist, dass er ein Ubergang ist und
ein Untergang," 1 i. e., human progress includes the scouring action of
downward motion as an essential ingredient: the centricity of the state-
ment to Nietzsche's doctrine is emphasized by the consciously developed
antithesis. Phoenix-like, both Zarathustra and humanity at large must fall
before they can rise; modern man is not a perfect being, the end product
of an evolutionary scheme or divine fiat. He is only an ephemeral, al-
though vital, stage in a teleological plan: " Der Mensch ist ein Seil,
gekniipft zwischen Thier und Ubermensch,-ein Seil uiber einem Ab-
grunde." 2 Nietzsche's self-avowed vocation is dual: he must fill the abyss
created by the destruction of the "slave morality" with cogent secular
life and lead man from the dangers of nihilism to a state where he is
most worthy of his potentialities. Nietzsche's approach to the problem is
primarily unintellectual. As with D. H. Lawrence, the body for Nietzsche
has its own wisdom and sovereignty. Both men view life as an active

1 Friedrich Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, Nietzsche's Werke, VI (Leipzig,

1919), 418.
2Ibid., p. 16.

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 M L N 547

process, an energetic striving to create. Only an integrated, active will

can bring to fruition the aristocratic millennium we get a foretaste of
at the end of Also sprach Zarathustra. As a step in the development of
mankind, Nietzsche's tightrope walker is a vital factor.
Although the roles of the tightrope walker and Zarathustra differ vastly
in degrees of urgency and pervasiveness, both figures are metaphorically
linked. The tightrope walker, having made danger his calling, perishes
in the attempt to cross the abyss extending from the tower of the present
to the tower of the future. Emily Hamblen, in an early but perceptive
study, interprets the clown who causes the tightrope walker's overthrow
as humanity and locates Nietzsche closer to the clown than to Zarathustra.3
(Miss Hamblen's criticism justly acknowledges the long-range implica-
tions of Nietzsche's thought, a matter which will be considered later as a
clear-sighted and inevitable extension of his basic tenets.) Certainly, the
tightrope walker is a lesser human type than Zarathustra-as Zarathustra
himself is at this point in comparison to what he will be. Just as the
archetype of humanity (the clown) causes the death of the tightrope
walker, Zarathustra is misread and mocked by the crowd in the market
place (humanity in general). The difference in treatment that the two
intruders receive is one of degree rather than kind. Instead of heeding
the prophet's message, the crowd yearns for the Ultimate Man, who will
enforce their notions of guilt and self-abnegation. The dry uniformity
they are pledged to and their willingness to lapse meekly into lame recon-
ciliation are burlesqued by Zarathustra's tone and syntax: "Man zankt
sich noch, aber man versdhnt sich bald-sonst verdirbt es den Magen." 4
Suspicion of innovation, then, marks the temper of the people in the
market place. Zarathustra's kindred feeling for his fellow innovator
prompts him to remove the tightrope walker's corpse from the area be-
tween the two towers. A desire to introduce joy into the daily lives of
the people, the threat of falling victim to public scorn, and the common
act of forcing others to " look up " as they perform their roles lessen the
distance between Zarathustra and the tightrope walker. Moreover, they
are both associated with transcendental and descendental imagery. As
the tightrope walker balances precariously over the abyss, Zarathustra
keeps as his pets an eagle and a serpent. After his disenchanted return to
the world of men, Zarathustra spends several years communing with his
animals. Thus he dramatizes his own doctrine of self-overcoming by
descending below the human level in order to ascend higher in the scale
of knowledge and power than he had done before.
The value of the parallel between the tightrope walker and Zarathustra

'Emily S. Hamblen, Friedrich Nietzsche and His New Gospel (Boston, 1911),
p. 160.
"Nietzsche, p. 20.

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 548 M L N

is worked out in the context of historical inevitability. The former stands

as the first link in the Dionysian chain that includes the Higher Men
and Zarathustra and extends to the Ubermensch. Whereas the tightrope
walker tried to distract the crowd from dull lifeless routine by his aerial
stunts, Zarathustra's function is much more dynamic and inclusive. And
unlike his predecessor, the enemy to the Spirit of Gravity 5 will not suc-
cumb to public folly. Defying human and natural laws, he will soar from
the depths of despair and moral isolation.
Zarathustra's bifold task is the acceptance of a Godless universe and a
transvaluation of all values in that universe to make it personally mean-
ingful. The first step in the program is no less than to overthrow the
prevailing Christian-democratic ethic; the " herd morality," as stated in
Die frohliche Wissenschaft and Gdtzendimmerung, has conspired to pre-
serve itself at the expense of undermining the life instinct (possessed
only by the exceptional) and the biological potentialities of man. Nietz-
sche sees the inferior vulgarizing life by inflating their needs into cosmic
values; in the process, the aristocrats of nature are checked, and their
latent strength wanes to nihilism and pantheism. The situation is sum-
marized ably by Miss Hamblen:

Nietzsche's condemnation of modern society is that it has lost all sense of

living values, and this very fact proves that its forms and valuations stand
for the exhausted, degenerate elements rather than for the instinct of
self-expression of its virile ascending classes.6

Nietzsche's doctrine of transvaluation of all values is closely bound to

the necessity of engendering a moral climate which will eventually con-
duce to the creation of an Ubermensch. It is not, as some commentators
have thought, an apology for misanthropy. Zarathustra's mission springs
from a feeling of love for mankind, not hatred.7 At one stage he prefers
solitude to the diluted life of the newspaper-cluttered market place. Yet
his aim is not to rid the world of market places or their occupants.
He even censures the fool for railing against humanity.8 Zarathustra
feels disgust, not hatred, for the mentality bred by the Church, the state,
the newspaper (" dem schreibenden Gesindel "),9 and the preachers of
equality. But his basic loyalty is to humanity, and he is able to convert
his disgust into constructive action before it chills into nihilism. Zara-
thustra's own emergence as an individual, then, accompanies the growth
of his social-ethical consciousness. This dovetailing of motifs helps to
explain the phoenix image and apparent paradoxes like " Von Grund
aus liebe ich nur das Leben-und, wahrlich, am meisten dann, wenn ich

"Ibid., p. 281.
o Hamblen, p. 120. 8Ibid., pp. 261-262.
7Nietzsche, p. 11, 9Ibid., p. 141.

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 M L N 549

es hasse!" 10 At one stage, the life of a hermit is acceptable, even neces-

sary, for Zarathustra. Yet eventually he understands that he must re-
affirm his doctrines by returning to the market place. Accordingly, the
debris of contemporary notions of good and evil must be cleared from the
world's market places before new ideas can be instituted. Life, for Nietz-
sche, is a continual process of destroying and begetting. The very de-
struction of yesterday's values is a creative act: " Wandel der Werthe,-
das ist Wandel der Schaffenden. Immer vernichtet, wer ein Schdpfer sein
muss." 11 As with Yeats's interlocking gyres, the birth of a new order
always originates for Nietzsche in an explosive act. Thus the presence of
the earthquake image in Also sprach Zarathustra. Although necessity
demands its eventual overthrow, a new order represents such a thorough-
going convulsion of its predecessor's values and standards that an ecstasy
of Dionysan tumult is inevitable.
The sense of joy (Freude) accompanying rebirth represents absolute
defeat of nihilism and submission. In English we have only Keats and
Thomas Wolfe and, at a different level, Hopkins to match Nietzsche's
vigorous acceptance of the profuse, dappled flow of life. The occasion
for rejoicing resides in the idea of eternal recurrence. If God is dead, as
Nietzsche and Sartre believe, then contingent humanity becomes its own
object. Without ultimate rewards to strive for in the aether of afterlife,
the unsponsored here-and-now takes on infinite significance, becoming,
to borrow Pope's phrase, the source, end, and test of all our actions and
investigations: "Das ist Zarathustras Optimismus: die Welt ist frei von
Zweck und Ziel, darum auch frei von Schuld. Jedes Ding . . . hat seine
Bedeutung in sich." 12 The dynamic, proliferating nature of the eternal
recurrence doctrine is stated most succinctly, perhaps, by Hollingdale in
his fine introduction to his translation of Also sprach Zarathustra:

If everything is eternally repeated, then there is no purpose or end in

existence, and all who look for one are doomed to everlasting disappoint-
ment. The concept of purpose becomes meaningless. But the opposite
concept is invested with infinite meaning: not what I do-my purpose-
but what I am-my state of being-is what counts for me. It is as if one
were on an unending sea journey. The destination is immaterial, since
it is never reached; but whether one is sick for much of the time is very
material: it is really all that matters.13

Lea, is right then, when he states that Also sprach Zarathustra is about

'IObid., p. 158.
'-Ibid., p. 86.
12 Hans Weichelt, Zarathustra Kommentar (Leipzig, 1922), p. 131.
13 R. J. Hollingdale, " Introduction," Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zara-
thustra, trans. and ed. by R. J. Hollingdale (Baltimore, 1961), p. 25.

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 550 M L N

the rebirth of the individual and the rebirth of humanity at large.14 We

have already seen the themes intertwined while discussing the phoenix
image. Nietzsche's muscular, forward-looking doctrine of eternal recur-
rence, obliterating all existing forms and values, stands as a further de-
velopment: " Nicht, woher ihr kommt, mache euch filrderhin eure Ehre,
sondern wohin ihr geht! " 15
Yet Nietzsche is not so fired with zeal that he fails to see the institution
of his values (the "master morality ") as the work of ages. The links
joining Zarathustra to the Ubermensch are admittedly obscured in an
opaque vapor. Zarathustra himself comments metaphorically upon the
provisional nature of his teachings and the need for generations of men
to reverse the moral and religious judgments of centuries. And, once
again, the aphorism is couched in a Dionysian image: " Wer einst fliegen
lernen will, der muss erst stehn und gehn und laufen und klettern und
tanzen lernen:-man erfliegt das Fliegen nicht! " 16 Thus Manthey-Zorn
offers helpful comment when he calls Zarathustra (who is himself but a
precursor of the Ubermensch) "the anticipation of a realization possible
only at a great distance." 17 The presence of the lion at Zarathustra's
cave at the end of the poem is indubitably an affirmative sign, symbolic
of the motif of power, which Kaufmann sees as the mainspring of Nietz-
sche's philosophical system.18 But power is only the second phase in
man's metamorphosis to a final state of uninhibited joyful innocence. Like
the camel, Zarathustra has accepted a burden (that of his knowledge)
and withstood the pain of his fellows' rebuke in the market place. His
new self-confidence at the end ripples quietly and steadily. At this point,
the intimacy of the lion signals Zarathustra's awareness of his metamor-
phosis to the stage of power. He is not, as Manthey-Zorn argues, in
danger of falling prey to the jaded Christian virtue of sympathy.19 On
the contrary, Zarathustra recognizes that the Higher Men (the two kings,
the retired pope, the evil sorcerer, the voluntary beggar, the wanderer,
the shadow, the old prophet, the conscientious man of the spirit, and
the ugliest man) have too much to unlearn to prove suitable companions.
Thus it becomes evident that in the transition to his second stage, Zara-
thustra retains the burden of isolated virtue which marked his initial

14 F. A. Lea, The Tragic Philosopher: A Study of Friedrich Nietzsche (Lon-

don, 1957), p. 185.
15 Nietzsche, p. 297.
6 Ibid., p. 285.
17 Otto Manthey-Zorn, Dionysius: The Tragedy of Nietzsche (Amherst, 1956),
p. 83.
18 Walter A. Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, and Antichrist
(Princeton, 1950), p. viii.
19 Manthey-Zorn, p. 106.

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 M L N 551

phase. Nietzsche sees individual progress as a synthetic accumulation

rather than an abrupt step-by-step development. As Russell claims, there
is nothing personally profitable, prudent, or sociable about Nietzsche's
concept of virtue.20
Zarathustra's final awareness, as stated, partakes of a stern but quiet
reconciliation to the solitariness of his mission. To regard his serenity
here as a sign of backsliding fails to account for the more chastened tone
of the poem's entire fourth part. Where he sought companions, Zara-
thustra found only disciples in the Higher Men. The Higher Men are
high, but not high enough. They allow themselves to be enraptured by
the defeatism preached by the sorcerer (who is identified by Hollingdale
as Wagner) .21 Their value for Zarathustra is that they serve as omens
that still Higher Men are on their way. The despair they temporarily
lapse into is better than submission, and their struggle to overcome
despair functions positively as a creative act directed toward the origin
of a richer future for mankind. The essence of Nietzsche's philosophy is
strife. Contra Schopenhauer, life is reaffirmed by every free exercise of
the will. The murmurings of protest sounded by the Higher Men,
although inchoate, do sound a faint chord of the mighty secular music
Zarathustra knows himself capable of producing.
Imagery, once again, sharpens the cleavage between Zarathustra and
the Higher Men. As they retreat whimperingly to the cave at the sight
of the lion, Zarathustra, unterrorized by power in its highest manifesta-
tion, advances auspiciously forward, "glihend und stark, wie eine Mor-
gensonne, die aus dunkeln Bergen kommt." 22 Nietzsche likewise uses
light and dark imagery throughout the poem to signal the contrast be-
tween his Dionysian prophet and humanity at large. Modern man's
present state is associated with mists, heaviness, darkness, and som-
nolence, while Zarathustra's secular elan throbs and flashes with a
wild brilliance. Sound imagery, too, although used more sparingly,
delineates the contours of the two worlds; opposed to the dry rattle
produced by popular journalism are the reverberating peals of Zara-
thustra's Promethean laughter. The collision of Christian democratic col-
lectivism and " the great noontide" 23 prophesied by Zarathustra will culmi-
nate in a total conquest of mediocrity. Nietzsche preserves in modification
the " Greek solution " which he applied to art and myth in Die Geburt
der Tragodie. The world is illogical and inscrutable, and the only way
we can exchange harmful approximations of the truth for useful ones

20 Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (New York, 1945), p.

763.
21 Hollingdale, ed., p. 34.
22 Nietzsche, p. 476.
28 Ibid., p. 252.

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 552 M L N

is through the collision of Apollonian tranquillity and reasonableness

with the self-annihilating lawlessness of the Dionysian will. The raw
ferocity and brutality of the act of renewal is more primal and universal
in Also sprach Zarathustra than it was in Die Geburt der Tragddie. We
can point to Nietzsche's imagery in the later work as the chief agent
vitalizing the necessary causality between untergehen, Ubermensch, and
eternal recurrence. From Zarathustra's decision to leave the mountain of
solitary contemplation to his ecstatic vision of the Perpetual Now, the
developing image of self-overcoming is blended into Nietzsche's prophetic
agenda for human regeneration, thus elevating the poem from the status
of polemic statement to that of dramatic myth.

University of Nebraska PETER WOLFE

Marmontel: A Comprehensive Bibliography 1900-1960

A. BOOKS 1

Angiviller, Charles Claude de la Billarderie, comte d'. Memoires: Notes

sur les Memoires de Marmontel, publiees d'apres le manuscrit par
Louis BobL Copenhagen (Levin and Munksgaard), 1933.
Bauer, Heinrich. Jean-Francois Marmontel als Literarkritiker. Dresden
(M. Dittert and Co.), 1937. (Thesis, Leipzig.)
Freund, Max. Die moralischen Erzdhlungen Marmontels. Halle a. d. S.
(Druck von E. Karras), 1904. (Thesis, Leipzig.)
Hebert, Rodolphe-Louis. L'Esthetique de Marmontel. 1953. (Unpub-
lished Ph. D. thesis, Brown University.)
Knauer, Karl. Jean-Francois Marmontel: Ein Ktinstler poetischer Prosa
in der franzdsischen Vorromantik. Bochum (H. Poppinghaus),
1936.
Lenel, S. Un Homme de lettres au XVIIIe siecle: Marmontel. Paris,
1902.2
Pick, Emil. Marmontels Biihnenwerke. Weida (Druck von Thomas und
Hubert), 1910. (Thesis, Leipzig.)
Price, Lawrence Marsden. The Vogue of Marmontel on the German
Stage. University of California Publications in Modern Philology,
vol. 27, no. 2, 1944.
Schmid, Gottried Otto. Marmontel, seine " moralischen Erziihlungen"

1 Only books dealing exclusively with Marmontel and his work are listed.
2 Lenel gives a complete bibliography of studies prior to 1900.

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