Nietzsche contra Wagner

A short montage of passages lifted from his own earlier books, assembled at the very end to prove he had been right about Wagner all along.

by Friedrich Nietzsche29 passages held

German, the original language

Original title: Nietzsche Kontra Wagner
First published: 1895(aged 51)
Original language: German

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Overview

Almost every sentence of this short book had already appeared somewhere else. Assembling it in the middle of December 1888, in his last weeks of clarity, Nietzsche went back through his published works, cut out the passages where he had written about Wagner and about music, and arranged them to make a single case: that his verdict on the composer had been consistent from the start, and that where he had once seemed to praise Wagner he had really been describing a music he believed in and had merely pinned to the wrong man. It is, in effect, a self-anthology with an argument — the ageing quarrel with his former idol, restated as proof of his own constancy. He had the little book printed and corrected before the New Year, but he broke down in Turin in the first days of January 1889 before it could be issued, and like The Antichrist it was held back; it did not appear until 1895. Slight beside the works it borrows from, it is valuable mostly for what it shows about the man at the end: arranging his own past sentences into a verdict, insisting he had never once been wrong.

Key concepts

What kind of book is Nietzsche contra Wagner?

It is a self-anthology. In December 1888 Nietzsche went back through his own published works, cut out the passages where he had written about Wagner and music, and arranged them into a single short book. Almost every sentence had appeared before. The result is his old quarrel with Wagner restaged as documentary proof, assembled from his own past pages rather than written fresh.

What case is Nietzsche trying to make by assembling it?

That his verdict on Wagner had been consistent from the very start. By stitching his scattered remarks together, he argues that even where he once seemed to praise Wagner he was really describing a music he believed in and had merely attached to the wrong man. The montage is meant to prove his own constancy — that his judgment never wavered, only its object was corrected.

Why is this slight book still worth reading?

Because of what it shows about Nietzsche at the very end. Slighter than the works it borrows from, its value is biographical: a man in his last weeks of clarity arranging his own past sentences into a verdict, insisting he had never once been wrong. Printed before the New Year, it was held back after his January 1889 collapse and did not appear until 1895, alongside The Antichrist.

How does it relate to The Case of Wagner?

The two are companion settlings of the same account, both from 1888. The Case of Wagner is the fresh polemic that makes Wagner a symptom of cultural decadence; Nietzsche contra Wagner is the after-the-fact anthology that gathers his old lines to prove his judgment was always consistent. Where the first diagnoses Wagner, the second defends Nietzsche — his constancy, his taste, his record.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

A Self-Anthology Against Wagner

Old passages cut from his own books and rearranged to prove one point: that his verdict on Wagner had been consistent from the start, and that where he once seemed to praise the composer he was really describing a music he believed in, wrongly pinned to the man.

Assembled in December 1888 from sentences lifted out of his published works, this is less a new argument than a montage with a thesis, the ageing quarrel restated as proof of his own constancy. Nietzsche insists he had never once been wrong about Wagner, only mistaken in his object. Corrected and printed before the New Year, it was held back after the Turin collapse and, like The Antichrist, did not appear until 1895. Slight beside the books it borrows from, it is valuable mostly for what it reveals of the man at the end, arranging his past into a verdict of never having erred.

aesthetics
decadence
cultural criticism
authenticity
disillusionment
suffering
wagner

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Within this work

passages held: 29
distinct concepts: 94
by passages held, corpus-wide: #734

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “music” and “suffering”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 3 concepts, joined by 2 pairings. 24 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
music	suffering	1
music	wagner	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1869 Homer and Classical Philology (Homer und die klassische Philologie)
His inaugural lecture at Basel, given at twenty-four — the philologist's public debut, and already the argument that would raise art above scholarship.
DE
1872 The Birth of Tragedy or Hellenism and Pessimism (Die Geburt der Tragödie)
His first book, and the one that cost him his standing among classicists; its discursive prophecy he would spend the next decade outgrowing.
DEEN
1878 Human, All Too Human (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches: Ein Buch für freie Geister)
The turn from Wagnerian metaphysics to the cool aphorist — the book in which the "free spirit" first speaks in his own voice.
DE
1881 The Dawn of Day (Morgenröte)
The book Nietzsche later marked as the start of his campaign against morality — the least read of the mature works, and the seed of the Genealogy.
DE
1882 The Joyful Wisdom (La Gaya Scienza)
Aphorism 125 gives us the madman and "God is dead"; aphorism 341, the eternal return — the most personal of the mature books.
DEEN
1883 Thus Spake Zarathustra (Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen)
His one work of fiction and his most famous, written across 1883–85; the fourth part he withheld from the public entirely.
DEEN
1886 Beyond Good and Evil (Jenseits von Gut und Böse)
The 1886 prelude to his late assault on morality, arguing in the open what Zarathustra had delivered in parable.
DE
1887 The Genealogy of Morals (Zur Genealogie der Moral)
Three treatises, written quickly in 1887 as a "supplement" to Beyond Good and Evil — his most sustained argument and his most studied book.
DEEN
1888 The Case of Wagner (Der Fall Wagner)
His settling of accounts with the composer he had idolised, written in the same 1888 burst as Twilight of the Idols.
DE
1889 Twilight of the Idols (Götzendämmerung)
A short, savage précis of his whole philosophy, written in a week in 1888 as his last lucid year ran out.
DE
1895 Nietzsche contra Wagner (Nietzsche Kontra Wagner) you are here DE
1895 The Antichrist (Der Antichrist)
Intended as the first book of the "revaluation of all values" he did not live to finish — his fiercest word on Christianity, held back until 1895.
DE
1896 On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (Über Wahrheit und Lüge im außermoralischen Sinne)
An essay he left in manuscript in 1873; its picture of truth as forgotten metaphor did its real work a century later.
DE
1896 We Philologists (Wir Philologen)
The scholar's turn against his own discipline: notes for an "untimely meditation" on philology that he abandoned around 1875.
DE
1901 The Will to Power (Der Wille zur Macht)
The most notorious book under his name, and one he never assembled: his sister and Peter Gast made it from his notebooks after his collapse.
DE
1908 Ecce Homo (Ecce Homo: Wie Man Wird Was Man Ist)
His last book, a self-portrait written weeks before the collapse and kept from print by his sister until 1908.
DE
1921 Aufsätze und Vorreden aus dem Nachlaß
Not a book he wrote but a volume his editors gathered from his early papers — prefaces to books he never actually wrote among them.
DE

— or open another of their works