
Friedrich Nietzsche was the most influential philosopher of the nineteenth century, Richard Wagner the most influential composer, and they were firm friends... Until, as Nietzsche saw it, Wagner changed. Distraught at the loss of his closest friend, Nietzsche nevertheless severed the relationship. In this short book, he explains why. Use the Look Inside feature to view our unique parallel text with the original German on the left page, the English translation on the right, with sentences and paragraphs aligned for easy reading and reference. Parallel texts of this kind are a very valuable learning resource, as they make the foreign language content immediately comprehensible.
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Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (Ph.D., Philology, Leipzig University, 1869) was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality. He was interested in the enhancement of individual and cultural health, and believed in life, creativity, power, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world beyond. Central to his philosophy is the idea of “life-affirmation,” which involves a questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent those views might be. Often referred to as one of the first existentialist philosophers along with Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855). From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy