Nietzsche′s Use of Music as a Literary Device - Nietzsche CircleofUseuseMu.docVIP

Nietzsche’s Use of Music as a Literary Device Most of you are already familiar with the unique tone and style of Friedrich Nietzsche’s writings. His texts are filled with exhortations, exaggerations, polemical attacks, metaphors and wild comparisons. Let me give just one brief example from The Gay Science. The following is a poem from the introductory “Prelude of Rhymes”: Nothing tastes good to you, my friend? I’m tired of your belly-aching. You spit, rage, slander without end; My patience and my heart are breaking. I have a remedy; just follow My good advice and rest assured: A toad is what you need to swallow, And your dyspepsia will be cured. Passages like these represent a decisive and remarkable break from the previous 2000 years of philosophical writings. Some scholars have approached this difference as if it were merely a stylistic one, and moved on to examine the content of the work, as if Nietzsche and Kant differed only in their “style.” Much to the contrary, Nietzsche’s writing is characterized by his “multifarious use of styles” (to borrow a phrase from Alexander Nehemas) rather than a consistent adherence to one style. Furthermore, Nietzsche uses these varying styles as literary devices to convey his message and involve the reader. In short, Nietzsche’s styles are not a vapid surface superimposed over a philosophical skeleton; they are simultaneously form and content. Considering Nietzsche’s focus on style, it is not surprising to learn that he was also deeply interested in music. Amongst all the arts, music is the most abstract and least descriptive, and therefore the best medium in which to engage with style qua substance. Nietzsche’s interest in music went far beyond mere appreciation, and he was in fact a talented amateur composer and pianist. In his teenage years he aspired to become a professional musician, and it was only during college that he decided to pursue philology instead. As these new studies began to play a larger role in his