Thoughts out of Season Part I   By: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Thoughts Out Of Season Part One by Friedrich Nietzsche

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE The First Complete and Authorised English Translation

EDITED BY

DR. OSCAR LEVY VOLUME ONE

THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON PART ONE

Of the First Impression of One Thousand Copies this is

No. 1 FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE THOUGHTS OUT OF SEASON PART I

DAVID STRAUSS, THE CONFESSOR AND THE WRITER

RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH

TRANSLATED BY

ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI

CONTENTS. EDITORIAL NOTE

NIETZSCHE IN ENGLAND (BY THE EDITOR)

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO DAVID STRAUSS AND RICHARD WAGNER IN REUTH

DAVID STRAUSS, THE CONFESSOR AND THE WRITER

RICHARD WAGNER IN BAYREUTH

EDITORIAL NOTE.

THE Editor begs to call attention to some of the difficulties he had to encounter in preparing this edition of the complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Not being English himself, he had to rely upon the help of collaborators, who were somewhat slow in coming forward. They were also few in number; for, in addition to an exact knowledge of the German language, there was also required sympathy and a certain enthusiasm for the startling ideas of the original, as well as a considerable feeling for poetry, and that highest form of it, religious poetry.

Such a combination a biblical mind, yet one open to new thoughts was not easily found. And yet it was necessary to find translators with such a mind, and not be satisfied, as the French are and must be, with a free though elegant version of Nietzsche. What is impossible and unnecessary in French a faithful and powerful rendering of the psalmistic grandeur of Nietzsche is possible and necessary in English, which is a rougher tongue of the Teutonic stamp, and moreover, like German, a tongue influenced and formed by an excellent version of the Bible. The English would never be satisfied, as Bible ignorant France is, with a Nietzsche à l'Eau de Cologne they would require the natural, strong, real Teacher, and would prefer his outspoken words to the finely chiselled sentences of the raconteur. It may indeed be safely predicted that once the English people have recovered from the first shock of Nietzsche's thoughts, their biblical training will enable them, more than any other nation, to appreciate the deep piety underlying Nietzsche's Cause.