Friedrich Nietzsche

Background

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a German philosopher whose wisdom set him apart. He was born on October 15, 1844, in Röcken, a village in what was the now dissolved Kingdom of Prussia. In his youth, he attended a private school, where he excelled in Christian theology. By 1854, Nietzsche attended Domgymnasium Naumburg, and later on, he was offered a scholarship at Schulpforta to study there from 1858 to 1864. After his graduation, Nietzsche began studying theology and classical philology at the University of Bonn in hopes of becoming a minister. In 1869, he was offered a professorship of classical philology at the University of Basel in Switzerland. He received an honorary doctorate in March of that year and assumed his role at the university.

In 1872, Nietzsche published his work of dramatic theory, “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music.” He followed this up with “On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense” in1873. That same year, he began working on “Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks,” first published in 1923. Throughout his life, Nietzsche wrote more books, including “The Gay Science” in 1882, “The Case of Wagner” in 1888, and several more. A grand total of 15 books, as well as many additional papers. Nietzsche was known for his writing which spanned philosophical polemics, cultural criticism, poetry, and fiction. His works also displayed aphorism and irony. He is credited for developing concepts like the widely known ‘Übermensch.’ His body of work resonated with different niches from science to art, philology, history, music, religion, tragedy, and culture.

For such a gifted scholar, Nietzsche’s personal life was somewhat nonexistent. He proposed to Lou Salome on three separate occasions, but she rejected him each time. There have also been claims that Nietzsche was homosexual. In the early 1890s, Nietzsche started losing lucidity; by 1899, he had suffered at least two strokes. He contracted pneumonia in 1900 and died on August 25, 1900. Nietzsche had no kids, and he was survived by his sister.