Trajectory (plain list)
Eternal recurrence
Surfaces as a psychological test in 1882, becomes Zarathustra's teaching while the text itself disputes its status, is revised toward cosmology and ideal in 1886, and is retrospectively declared central in 1888. The corpus never settles whether it is a doctrine or an ordeal.
1882 · Anticipates
The Joyful Science · §285 · Excelsior!
The Joyful Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882/87)
The recurrence thought is shadowed before it is stated: the refusal of ultimate repose already presses toward a life that cannot be prayed away.
_Excelsior!_—"Thou wilt never more pray, never more worship, never more repose in infinite trust—thou refusest to stand still and dismiss thy thoughts before an ultimate wisdom, an ultimate virtue, an ultimate power,—thou hast no constant guardian and friend in thy seven solitudes—thou livest without the outlook on a mountain that has snow on its head and fire in its heart—there is no longer any requiter for thee, nor any amender with his finishing touch—there is no longer an…
Sources: gutenberg:52881
1882 · Introduces
The Joyful Science · §341 · The Heaviest Burden
The Joyful Science (Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, 1882/87)
First full statement, framed as a demon's hypothetical: a test of affirmation posed to the reader, not a doctrine asserted.
_The Heaviest Burden._—What if a demon crept after thee into thy loneliest loneliness some day or night, and said to thee: "This life, as thou livest it at present, and hast lived it, thou must live it once more, and also innumerable times; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and every sigh, and all the unspeakably small and great in thy life must come to thee again, and all in the same series and sequence—and similarly this spi…
Sources: gutenberg:52881
1884 · Develops
Thus Spoke Zarathustra · III, The Vision and the Enigma
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–85)
The gateway called Moment, the two lanes of eternity, the dwarf's easy circle, and Zarathustra's rebuke of that formulation.
1. When it got abroad among the sailors that Zarathustra was on board the ship—for a man who came from the Happy Isles had gone on board along with him,—there was great curiosity and expectation. But Zarathustra kept silent for two days, and was cold and deaf with sadness; so that he neither answered looks nor questions. On the evening of the second day, however, he again opened his ears, though he still kept silent: for there were many curious and dangerous things to be hea…
Vom Gesicht und Räthsel 1. Als es unter den Schiffsleuten ruchbar wurde, dass Zarathustra auf dem Schiffe sei,—denn es war ein Mann zugleich mit ihm an Bord gegangen, der von den glückseligen Inseln kam—da entstand eine grosse Neugierde und Erwartung. Aber Zarathustra schwieg zwei Tage und war kalt und taub vor Traur…
Sources: gutenberg:1998 · gutenberg:7205
1884 · Develops
Thus Spoke Zarathustra · III, The Convalescent
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–85)
The animals sing recurrence as cosmology; Zarathustra calls them buffoons and barrel organs, then falls silent.
1. One morning, not long after his return to his cave, Zarathustra sprang up from his couch like a madman, crying with a frightful voice, and acting as if some one still lay on the couch who did not wish to rise. Zarathustra’s voice also resounded in such a manner that his animals came to him frightened, and out of all the neighbouring caves and lurking-places all the creatures slipped away—flying, fluttering, creeping or leaping, according to their variety of foot or wing. …
Der Genesende 1. Eines Morgens, nicht lange nach seiner Rückkehr zur Höhle, sprang Zarathustra von seinem Lager auf wie ein Toller, schrie mit furchtbarer Stimme und gebärdete sich, als ob noch Einer auf dem Lager läge, der nicht davon aufstehn wolle; und also tönte Zarathustra’s Stimme, dass seine Thiere erschreckt …
Sources: gutenberg:1998 · gutenberg:7205
1884 · Contradicts (unresolved)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra · III, The Convalescent → The Joyful Science · §341 · The Heaviest Burden
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–85)
The text stages its own dispute about what the thought is: ordeal for the reader in GS 341, cosmology in the animals' song, refusal in Zarathustra's silence.
1. One morning, not long after his return to his cave, Zarathustra sprang up from his couch like a madman, crying with a frightful voice, and acting as if some one still lay on the couch who did not wish to rise. Zarathustra’s voice also resounded in such a manner that his animals came to him frightened, and out of all the neighbouring caves and lurking-places all the creatures slipped away—flying, fluttering, creeping or leaping, according to their variety of foot or wing. …
Der Genesende 1. Eines Morgens, nicht lange nach seiner Rückkehr zur Höhle, sprang Zarathustra von seinem Lager auf wie ein Toller, schrie mit furchtbarer Stimme und gebärdete sich, als ob noch Einer auf dem Lager läge, der nicht davon aufstehn wolle; und also tönte Zarathustra’s Stimme, dass seine Thiere erschreckt …
Sources: gutenberg:1998 · gutenberg:7205
1885 · Develops
Thus Spoke Zarathustra · IV, The Drunken Song
Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–85)
Recurrence as the affirmation of joy: all joy wants eternity (Levy: The Drunken Song; scholarly Sleepwalker / Once More).
1. Meanwhile one after another had gone out into the open air, and into the cool, thoughtful night; Zarathustra himself, however, led the ugliest man by the hand, that he might show him his night-world, and the great round moon, and the silvery water-falls near his cave. There they at last stood still beside one another; all of them old people, but with comforted, brave hearts, and astonished in themselves that it was so well with them on earth; the mystery of the night, how…
Das Nachtwandler-Lied 1. Inzwischen aber war Einer nach dem Andern hinaus getreten, in’s Freie und in die kühle nachdenkliche Nacht; Zarathustra selber aber führte den hässlichsten Menschen an der Hand, dass er ihm seine Nacht-Welt und den grossen runden Mond und die silbernen Wasserstürze bei seiner Höhle zeige. Da …
Sources: gutenberg:1998 · gutenberg:7205
1886 · Revises
Beyond Good and Evil · §56
Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
The circulus vitiosus deus passage: recurrence recast as the world-affirming ideal of the most high-spirited human being.
Whoever, like myself, prompted by some enigmatical desire, has long endeavoured to go to the bottom of the question of pessimism and free it from the half-Christian, half-German narrowness and stupidity in which it has finally presented itself to this century, namely, in the form of Schopenhauer's philosophy; whoever, with an Asiatic and super-Asiatic eye, has actually looked inside, and into the most world-renouncing of all possible modes of thought--beyond good and evil, an…
Wer, gleich mir, mit irgend einer räthselhaften Begierde sich lange darum bemüht hat, den Pessimismus in die Tiefe zu denken und aus der halb christlichen, halb deutschen Enge und Einfalt zu erlösen, mit der er sich diesem Jahrhundert zuletzt dargestellt hat, nämlich in Gestalt der Schopenhauerischen Philosophie; wer w…
Sources: gutenberg:4363 · gutenberg:7204
1888 · Comments on
Ecce Homo · Why I Write Such Good Books · Birth of Tragedy §3 → The Joyful Science · §341 · The Heaviest Burden
Ecce Homo (1888)
Nietzsche retrospectively names the doctrine of eternal recurrence and, contentiously, backdates its lineage toward Heraclitus and the tragic Greeks.
The extent to which I had by means of these doctrines discovered the idea of "tragedy," the ultimate explanation of what the psychology of tragedy is, I discussed finally in _The Twilight of the Idols_ (Aph. 5, part 10).... "The saying of yea to life, and even to its weirdest and most difficult problems: the will to life rejoicing at its own infinite vitality in the sacrifice of its highest types--that is what I called Dionysian, that is what I meant as the bridge to the psyc…
Sources: gutenberg:52190
1888 · Develops
Twilight of the Idols · What I Owe the Ancients §5
Twilight of the Idols (1888)
Recurrence bound to the Dionysian and to a final yea-saying at the corpus's end (Levy chapter title: Things I Owe to the Ancients).
The psychology of orgiasm conceived as the feeling of a superabundance of vitality and strength, within the scope of which even pain _acts as a stimulus,_ gave me the key to the concept _tragic_ feeling, which has been misunderstood not only by Aristotle, but also even more by our pessimists. Tragedy is so far from proving anything in regard to the pessimism of the Greeks, as Schopenhauer maintains, that it ought rather to be considered as the categorical repudiation and _con…
Sources: gutenberg:52263
1888 · Targets
Twilight of the Idols · What I Owe the Ancients §5 → heraclitus
Twilight of the Idols (1888)
Polemical and affirmative contact with Heraclitus in the Dionysian frame of the Ancients chapter.
The psychology of orgiasm conceived as the feeling of a superabundance of vitality and strength, within the scope of which even pain _acts as a stimulus,_ gave me the key to the concept _tragic_ feeling, which has been misunderstood not only by Aristotle, but also even more by our pessimists. Tragedy is so far from proving anything in regard to the pessimism of the Greeks, as Schopenhauer maintains, that it ought rather to be considered as the categorical repudiation and _con…
Sources: gutenberg:52263