Nietzsche: A Selected Annotated Bibliography

The “New Nietzsche” (Nietzsche & the French)

Allison, David B., ed.  The New Nietzsche: Contemporary Styles of Interpretation.  (New York: Dell Publishing, 1977).   JFD 80-1009

An influential anthology with essays by Heidegger, Deleuze, Derrida, Kofman, Klossowski, and others.

Behler, Ernst.  Confrontations: Derrida, Heidegger, Nietzsche.  (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991).  JFD 92-9712

Derrida's reading of Nietzsche as a thinker of infinite interpretations is contrasted with Heidegger's metaphysical interpretation of Nietzsche. 

Derrida, Jacques.  Spurs: Nietzsche’s Style, trans. Barbara Harlow.  (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).  JFE 80-426

In contrast to Heidegger’s metaphysical interpretation of Nietzsche, Derrida argues that Nietzsche’s fragmentary and contradictory writings have more than one meaning.  For Derrida, “there is no such thing as the truth of Nietzsche or of Nietzsche’s text.” p. 53.

Deleuze, Giles.  Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Hugh Tomlinson. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983).  JFD 83-2646

First published in 1962, this study helped to create interest in Nietzsche in France and influenced thinkers such as Derrida and Foucault.  Deleuze emphasizes the multiple meanings and indeterminacy of Nietzsche’s thought. For Deleuze, Nietzsche understands life as a contest between “active” (life affirming) and “reactive” (life denying) forces.

De Man, Paul.  Allegories of Reading: Figural Language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust.  (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979).   JFE 80-389

An important book for French and postmodernist readings of Nietzsche.  For de Man, “the key to Nietzsche’s critique of metaphysics…lies in the rhetorical model of the trope…in literature as language grounded in rhetoric.” p. 109.  De Man’s essay is based almost exclusively on Nietzsche’s lecture notes on rhetoric and his unpublished essay, “On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense.” 

Foucault, Michel.  “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History” in Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, trans. Donald F. Bouchard and Sherry Simon.  (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977).  JFD 78-1452

This influential essay was important for identifying Nietzsche with postmodernism.  Foucault’s genealogies of psychiatry, sexuality, and the prison are indebted to Nietzsche’s idea that there are no fixed meanings or essences behind things, only  interpretations.

Klossowski, Pierre.  Nietzsche and the Vicious Circle, trans. Daniel M. Smith.  (London: Athlone, 1993).  JFD 98-3548

For Klossowski, the many contradictions in Nietzsche’s philosophy reflected his understanding of the soul as a multiplicity of forces.

Kofman, Sarah.  Nietzsche and Metaphor, trans. Duncan Large.  (London: Athlone Press, 1993).  JFD 95-10444

For Kofman, Nietzsche’s use of metaphor is not only literary, but also reinforces the belief that concepts are dead metaphors as expressed in Nietzsche’s unpublished essay, “On Truth and Lie in a Nonmoral Sense.”  According to Nietzsche, it is the forgetfulness of the metaphorical origin of concepts that leads to the mistaken belief that concepts literally represent reality.  The metaphorical character of Nietzsche’s concepts serves to foil any definitive reading of his philosophy.

Schrift, Alan D. Nietzsche’s French Legacy: A Genealogy of Poststructuralism. (New York: Routledge, 1995) JFE 95-18849

Schrift provides a good overview of the French reception of Nietzsche. He shows how the thought of Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, and Cixous made use of Nietzsche in developing their own ideas.