Imaginary Inpho

The Birth of Tragedy - 0 - Introduction

Introduction

Quote

... today I find it an impossible book — badly written, clumsy and embarrassing, its images frenzied and confused,... but a book which, as its impact has shown and continues to show, has a strange knack of seeking out its fellow-revellers and enticing them on to new secret paths and dancing-places. - Nietzsche (talking about this book).

Notes

🔥 Taking another break from the history book list to read The Birth of Tragedy by Friedrich Nietzsche.

🔥 Nietzsche was born near Leipzig, Prussia in 1844. His dad was a Lutheran clergyman.

🔥 He studied philology (the study of language and words) and Schopenhauer and he became the chair of philology at his university when he was 24 years old.

🔥 He wrote a few books while at this position, including The Birth of Tragedy (1872), which was his first book.

🔥 He later got sick and had to leave that position. During that time he wrote more books, but then he went insane "and remained in a condition of mental and physical paralysis" for 10 years. And then he died.

🔥 I'm reading the Penguin Classics version translated by Shaun Whiteside and published in 1993.

#bookclub #nietzsche