Nietzsches Goethe-Konstruktionen

Nietzsche’s reading of Goethe has already been extensively investigated by scholars.With recourse on the Nietzsche Commentary of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the present paper addresses the topic relying on new analytic insights and in a diachronic perspective. It aims at reconstructing the development of Nietzsche’s Goethe interpretation in accordance with the evolution of his philosophy and showing its strategic functionality for his own thought. In particular, it shows how Nietzsche’s Goethe develops from an unequalled model to an imperfect prefiguration of Wagner, until he finally becomes his strict antipode. In Nietzsche’s later notes the paper detects the polemic attempt to de-Germanize Goethe, contextualizing it against the backdrop of the nationalist manipulations operated by the contemporary German philology.