The unifying theme is the sense of values embodied in the works of key German poets, writers, and thinkers from Goethe to Kafka, particularly the consciousness of life's deprecation. While earlier poets and philosophers were preoccupied with the marvelous, Professor Heller writes, their modem successors try desperately to ward off "the predominance of the prosaic." He deals with this problem most directly in the central essay, "Rilke and Nietzsche." Other essays discuss Goethe's Faust, his opposition to Newtonian science, Burckhardt's philosophy of history, Kafka's The Castle, Spengler's historical imagination, and Karl Kraus's satire. To this expanded edition Professor Heller has added a new preface and two essays that belong thematically -- one discussing Nietzsche's effect on Yeats, and the second, the metamorphoses in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
We publiceren alleen reviews die voldoen aan de voorwaarden voor reviews. Bekijk onze voorwaarden voor reviews.