Nietzsche: A Selected Annotated Bibliography

Philosophy of Art

Kemal, S., Gaskell, I., and Conway, D. eds.  Nietzsche, Philosophy and the Arts.  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).  JFE 99-2407

A broad range of essays examining Nietzsche’s aesthetic understanding of philosophy. 

Schacht, Richard.  “Making Life Worth Living: Nietzsche on Art in The Birth of Tragedy” in Making Sense of Nietzsche: Reflections Timely and Untimely. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995). JFE 95-6934

Schacht argues that for Nietzsche, the task of art is to transform the horror and meaninglessness of life by spreading, in Nietzsche’s words, a “veil of beauty” over it, thereby making life worth living.

Young, Julian.  Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Art.  (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992)  JFE 92-3892

Young see Nietzsche’s changing views of art as a long argument against Schopenhauer’s pessimism.   Young argues that Nietzsche’s final view, that art makes life bearable, is a return to the idea of art expressed in his Birth of Tragedy, and a view that fails to overcome Schopenhauer’s pessimism.