Untimely Meditations consists of four works by the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...

, started in 1873 and completed in 1876.

The work comprises a collection of four (out of a projected 13) essays concerning the contemporary condition of European, especially German, culture. A fifth essay, published posthumously, had the title "We Philologists", and gave as a "Task for philology: disappearance". Nietzsche here began to discuss the limitations of empirical knowledge, and presented what would appear compressed in later aphorisms. It combines the naivete of The Birth of Tragedy with the beginnings of his more mature polemical style. It was Nietzsche's most humorous work, especially for "David Strauss: the confessor and the writer," though this levity was not continued by Nietzsche much in later works.

Publication

Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen has been one of the more difficult of Nietzsche's titles to be translated into English, with each subsequent translation offering a new variation. Thus: Untimely Meditations (Kaufmann), Thoughts Out of Season (Ludovici), Untimely Reflections (Hayman), Unmodern Observations (Arrowsmith) and Inopportune Speculations Unfashionable Observations or Essays in Sham Smashing (Menken).

Many different plans for the series are found in Nietzsche's notebooks, most of them showing a total of thirteen essays. The titles and subjects vary with each entry, the project conceived to last six years (one essay every six months.) A typical outline dated "Autumn 1873" reads as follows:
Nietzsche abandoned the project after completing only four essays, seeming to lose interest after the publication of the third.

David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer

David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer, 1873 (David Strauss: der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller) attacks David Strauss

David Strauss

David Friedrich Strauss was a German theologian and writer. He scandalized Christian Europe with his portrayal of the "historical Jesus," whose divine nature he denied...

's The Old and the New Faith: A Confession (1871), which Nietzsche holds up as an example of the German thought of the time. He paints Strauss's "New Faith" - scientifically-determined universal mechanism based on the progression of history - as a vulgar reading of history in the service of a degenerate culture, polemic

Polemic

A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...

ally attacking not only the book but also Strauss as a Philistine

Philistinism

Philistinism is a derogatory term used to a particular attitude or set of values perceived as despising or undervaluing art, beauty, spirituality, or intellectualism. A person with this attitude is referred to as a Philistine and may also be considered materialistic, favoring conventional social...

 of pseudo-culture.

On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

On the Use and Abuse of History for Life, 1874 (Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben) offers — instead of the prevailing view of "knowledge as an end in itself" — an alternative way of reading history, one where living life becomes the primary concern; along with a description of how this might improve the health of a society. It also introduced an attack against the basic precepts of classic humanism.

In this essay, Nietzsche attacks both the historicism of man (the idea that man is created through history) and the idea that one can possibly have an objective concept of man, since a major aspect of man resides in his subjectivity. Nietzsche expands the idea that the essence of man dwells not inside of him, but rather above him, in the following essay, "Schopenhauer als Erzieher" ("Schopenhauer as Educator"). Glenn Most argues for the possible translation of the essay as "The Use and Abuse of History Departments for Life", as Nietzsche used the term Historie and not Geschichte. Furthermore, he alleges that this title may have its origins via Jacob Burckhardt

Jacob Burckhardt

Carl Jacob Christoph Burckhardt was a historian of art and culture, and an influential figure in the historiography of each field. He is known as one of the major progenitors of cultural history, albeit in a form very different from how cultural history is conceived and studied in academia today...

, who would have referred to Leon Battista Alberti's treatise, De commodis litterarum atque incommodis (1428 — "On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Literary Studies"). Glenn Most argues that the untimeliness of Nietzsche here resides in calling to a return, beyond historicism, to Humboldt

Wilhelm von Humboldt

Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand Freiherr von Humboldt was a German philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of Humboldt Universität. He is especially remembered as a linguist who made important contributions to the philosophy of language and to the theory and practice...

's humanism, and, maybe even beyond, to the first humanism of the Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

.

Schopenhauer as Educator

Schopenhauer as Educator, 1874 (Schopenhauer als Erzieher) describes how the philosophic genius of Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...

 might bring on a resurgence of German culture. Nietzsche gives special attention to Schopenhauer's individualism, honesty and steadfastness as well as his cheerfulness, despite Schopenhauer's noted pessimism.

Richard Wagner in Bayreuth

Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (1876 - that is, after a gap of two years from the previous essay) investigates the music, drama and personality of Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

 — less flatteringly than Nietzsche's friendship with his subject might suggest. The original draft was in fact more critical than the final version. Nietzsche considered not publishing it because of his changing attitudes to Wagner and his art. He was persuaded to redraft the article by his friend, the enthusiastic Wagnerian Peter Gast who helped him prepare a less contentious version. Shortly after its publication, Nietzsche visited Bayreuth for the opening of the Bayreuth Festival

Bayreuth Festival

The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...

. The essay was well-received by Wagner and his circle. However in the event the Festival confirmed Nietzsche's growing misgivings. The essay thus foreshadows the philosopher's imminent split with Wagner and his ideas.

External links

• Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen, original German text