N’s writings on the subject of gender fall somewhat awkwardly into two sets. The first are the frequent well-known passages on biological gender (i.e. women and men), and psychological or sociological gender roles. All of N’s books from H to BGE contain a sustained series of passages or aphorisms devoted to women (and, by extension, men). N’s views often cross well into sexism or misogyny. In this, N is no doubt at least in part a product of his era – and in the first half of Z motivated also by the breakdown of his relationship with Lou Salomé. The second set of writings concern femininity or masculinity understood as symbols of differing drives, psychological states, cultures or peoples and ideals. The biological distinction is not the same as the symbolic one, although to be sure feminine and masculine do correspond roughly to a conservative nineteeenth-century view of women and men. Thus, the difference between these two sets of writings is an ‘awkward’ one because, first of all, N does not himself draw it explicitly or follow it rigorously, and also because there is a considerable amount of conceptual cross-over from the one to the other.
The concept of the feminine in N has many sources; these three are the most prominent: Greek mythology and its interpretation; Plato’s Symposium (for which, see beauty); and Goethe’s Faust. In the Greek creation myth, as recounted by Hesiod, Gaia is the Earth, a female divinity who emerged into being just after Chaos. She produced, without a mate, Uranus (the heavens) as well as mountains and the sea. With Uranus as their father, she also gave birth to the race of gods. The myth of Demeter and Persephone is also a mother-divinity narrative. Accordingly, when Goethe (in
Faust) and N (in BT16, 20) speak of the ‘mothers of being’ it is to
this kind of mythological framework that they allude. Bachofen published in 1861 a famous and influential book of anthropology that argued that the earliest human societies were matriarchal, with divinities such as Gaia or Demeter, before being erased from history by patriarchal societies with divinities such as Dionysus and ultimately Apollo. N may not have accepted this account, but he was certainly engaged with its themes: the role of gender
(both literally and symbolically) in the development of cultures and nations (a few early instances: 1870.7.31; 1871.9.6, 10.1, 16.3). In N’s early notebooks, the figure of the Sphinx represents something like Bachofen’s earlier stage superseded by science in the form of Oedipus answering the riddle (1870.7.22). Likewise at 1870.7.27, the sphinx is beauty, concealing the destructive truth. Notice that at BT9, N contrasts Semitic and Aryan myths as ‘feminine’ and ‘masculine’. At BT21, N describes Apollo as a deity of the formation of States and the ‘male lust for struggle’. Apollonian beauty is both feminine sphinx and masculine state-formation; the Dionysian both the ecstatic voice of the mothers of being and also male science penetrating illusion to its depths. In the early N, then, there is an attempt but one never fully worked out to integrate meditations of the Bachofen type with N’s metaphysics, borrowed from Schopenhauer. In later work, N arrives at a solution.
Goethe’s long dramatic poem Faust is another key influence on the early N’s understanding of the concepts feminine and masculine. Faust is a figure of endless striving and thus also endless longing. However, by the end of Part Two of Faust, this striving is (primarily) directed to the happiness and well-being of others (as it was at the beginning, when Faust worked to cure a plague). Importantly his task at the end of the drama is a huge building project to reclaim fertile land from the sea – this is, as he says, the reconciliation of the feminine Earth with itself. This is hubris, to be sure, but nevertheless a worthy effort to achieve some kind of balance. Faust’s masculine striving is in itself empty; it is the feminine that gives it direction, value and productivity. When Faust achieves a moment of still, contemplative happiness – he stops striving – he dies. Mephistopheles tries to claim him, but Faust is saved by angels. These last scenes are ironic, in the sense that Goethe is using a Medieval Christian theological language to say something about non-Christian spiritual forces in nature. Faust’s salvation is the feminine, personified by Mater Gloriosa (the Virgin Mary, the ‘Mother of God’). The eternal feminine is divine, but is not simply something transcendent to the world (for it is anticipated in the physical working of the Earth, and in the name Euphorion for Faust and Helen’s child). The whole work ends with the famous stanza: All that is transient/is only allegory;/The uncompletable/Here it becomes event;/The indescribable/Here it is done;/The eternal feminine/Draws us up.
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Goethe does not write this in a Platonic mind-set that all transient things are simply illusions, but rather are allegories. Faust’s efforts to link masculine and feminine, albeit flawed (i.e. incomplete or tainted), nevertheless have spiritual meaning and value – and thus his salvation. See the entry on allegory. N refers to these lines often, but usually with at least a touch of scorn. This is because he sees the nineteenth century interpreting them mistakenly as the perfect excuse for the abandonment of masculine virtues in favour of an idealized feminine (e.g. DP4).
N employs the concepts of masculine and feminine as symbols for a wide range of topics, from human behaviours through to cultural acts or achievements (e.g. science, the state or music). To summarize the discussion of mythology, Plato and Goethe above, the feminine is the symbol of fertility, but in its protecting and preserving side (GS24 is particularly clear). That is, what in BT was the function of Apollonian beauty is a key characteristic of the feminine. The feminine can be activity and even heroic (see 1870.7.122, 1871.16.3 and H1.259), but is not directed outwards towards incorporation, but inwards towards consolidation. Thus, and not surprisingly, N describes the feminine type of genius (genuine creativity, great contributions to culture) with the metaphor pregnancy (BGE248); Greece and France, he says, were feminine cultures in this sense (at least with respect to other cultures; internally, Greece would be more ‘masculine’ – see H1.259). Likewise, the feminine is the symbol of something relatively constant and unchanging (Goethe’s ‘eternal’, but also this is related to the preserving function). Accordingly, the feminine is associated with a kind of idealism, a rejection of the senses. The feminine beautiful is also something that seduces, creates longing – thus the many instances in N of tropes such as truth is a woman, a goddess, a beautiful girl, etc. (UM3.8, H1.257, GS339 and the famous opening of BGEP). ‘Life’ and ‘Wild Wisdom’ are figured as women in Zarathustra (Z2.10). However, in accordance with the analysis given by Plato, what is longed for here is not the beautiful itself but rather what could be attained by way of beauty. That attainment is, in both a sexual and spiritual sense, children (e.g. UM3.8). Finally, the feminine is the symbol of something valuable that has itself been attained – it is like a quiet plateau reached after a struggle, a deserved repose.
Morality and especially modern ideas concerning morality (democratic, socialist or utilitarian ideas and of course gender
equality) are feminine. Such modern ideas seek the preservation or diminishment of the current state of the human and, specifically, certain weak or diseased segments of a society. Indeed, N’s definition of ‘feminism’ (‘Femininismus’, for example GM3.19, EHBooks3) is precisely the feminine viewed as exclusive and a ‘closed door’ to ‘daring knowledge’. N’s objection to such ‘feminism’ is not an objection to the feminine, but to its being exclusively feminine, and thus ‘weak’ (in fact, symbolically infertile). This is akin to romanticism (GS371, BTP7). GS24 provides a similar account – N’s critique of the ‘as it were feminine’ lies in its attempt to narcotize the masculine out of existence, as (he claims) in China.
In contrast, the masculine is associated with precisely struggle and war, or the desire to conquer and rule. Thus, for example, Napoleon ushered in a warlike, masculine era of European history (GS362). Accordingly, the masculine form of genius is that which seeks out and impregnates, ‘in love and lusting after foreign races’: N’s examples are the Jews, Romans and (perhaps) Germans (BGE248). Moreover, the masculine involves destruction, including the risk of self-destruction. Finally, the masculine is connected to laws, constraints and discipline (e.g. training leading to improvement through narrow application of rules). These qualities are characteristic of the disposition to, and method of, the sciences (GS293); while music imitating but inferior to Wagner risks losing altogether the discipline of rhythm (H2.147, and see H2P3). At TIGermans1, N claims that the Germans possess the most masculine virtues in Europe, and yet this does not amount to noble taste or high culture; instead, power makes ‘stupid’. There is a similar passage at BGE241 where N distinguishes between strength and ‘greatness’ in political action. Both of these are in their ways commentaries on the ‘lion’ stage of Z1.1 and also Z2.13. In the later passage the sublime hero of critique is restless, unproductive. For him ‘the beautiful is of all things the most difficult’.
What is most important about these two symbols, however, is their interaction and indeed reciprocity. The feminine without the masculine is simply ‘weak’; the masculine without the feminine is simply ‘strong’. Neither on its own is productive or healthy (although see TISkirmishes38). In his early work, N employed the Apollonian and Dionysian as ‘brother’ drives that accounted for cultural change; later, because of his rejection of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics, and his development of concepts like will to power,
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this account is modified. The concepts of feminine and masculine come to replace the Apollonian and Dionysian. The necessary dynamic between them can occur in the form of an cycle, which is how N views European history at GS24. This alternation is an important aspect of the rhythm of the narrative in Zarathustra. So, for example, the violent scenes of Z3.2 are followed by the meditative peacefulness of Z3.3. The latter ends with ‘Happiness, however, is a woman.’ A similar cycling occurs between Z4.2–9 and Z4.10. In both cases, notice that Zarathustra welcomes the calm happiness, but then also has to urge himself to reject it as an end in itself, and move on. The feminine–masculine dynamic can also be a synthesis: arguably, this is the meaning of the ‘child’ stage at Z1.1, or the transformation of the hero at the end of Z2.13. Again, the concept of the agon although certainly linked to war or conflict more generally cannot be simply masculine, since it demands the preservation of the enemy and thus of competition. N chooses the term Versucher as one of his key new names for future philosophers (e.g. BGE42). The word means both the one who tempts and also the one who experiments. This word is significant because it combines both the feminine (beauty, seduction) and the masculine (change, exploration). Dionysus is thus the experimenting/tempting god at BGE295 (and see EHBooks6): the ideal of a mode of life that integrates feminine and masculine principles.
N’s views on women will appear to today’s political and social consciousness as sexist (i.e. drawing moral or political conclusions based upon gender), occasionally even misogynist. Here, N is repeating the views of his era – indeed, of conservatives of his era. However, he is not doing so simply unreflectively. That is to say, more important and perhaps disturbing than his conclusions are the principles that seem to lead him there. These principles are the concepts of feminine and masculine discussed above. When these concepts are projected onto female or male human beings, the result is N’s analysis of women and men. Thus, for example, the nature of feminine beauty as concerned with surface leads N to argue that women are incapable of science (BGE232). Again, the virtues required for preservation mean that women are clever and men stupid (H1.411, H3.273, EHBooks5). Finally, the feminine– masculine distinction is evident in N’s account of women as an image of what has been attained in the human, and men as an image of the struggles in the past and which await in the future (H1.274).
One of the models for how to understand the respective natures of women and men, and their roles, is ancient Greece. Greek society represented for N a healthy balance between the feminine and masculine types of human life and culture; this balance found its way in to the social roles of women and men (H1.259, 1870.10.1). N thus argues that Plato’s proposals in the Republic concerning marriage arrangements and the removal of children from their mothers are not bizarrely at odds with existing Greek culture, but just a kind of radicalization of it. The treatment of women in Greece, N argues, is
one successful solution to the problem of the synthesis of feminine
and masculine so as to create a healthy, dynamic culture, one that releases rather than inhibits the possibilities of the human. N’s reflections on women and men in contemporary Europe begin from the need to discover a similarly successful solution (H1.424, Z1.18). These reflections concern especially the institutions of marriage and education. Any ‘solution’ to this cultural problem has to contend with what N at GS68 calls the ‘corruption’ of women by men, who create an image for women who in turn are doomed to follow it: woman as ‘soul and form’ (GS59), women as calmness (GS60), women as ‘masters’ (GS70). The masculine drive results in a denaturing of the feminine and, with it, women (GS361, BGE232, TIArrows13, Z2.10: ‘you men always confer on us your own virtues’). One of N’s accusations against his contemporary culture is a kind of inversion of this: so unmasculine are men that women have had to take their place (Z3.5.2, BGE239). Importantly, N would likely accept the charge of sexism, but reject misogyny. Our assumption that his descriptions of women are descriptions of something ‘inferior’ are, he might argue, the result of the projection of masculine values. The genuine subordination of women is their application to themselves of those beliefs that the masculine projects upon them (see for example EHBooks5).
On the other hand, if we believe that N’s views about women and men are a grotesque mistake, then (working backwards) we must either reject the legitimacy of the concepts of the masculine and feminine, or we can reject the assumption that they necessarily inform biological gender. The former solution is, in effect, a rejection of N’s philosophy because it involves rejecting his account of life in terms of competing drives and alternating states. The latter solution transforms N’s observations from the biologically determined into a psychological or social analysis of cultural
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beliefs – that is the question is no longer what women and men are, but what they are believed to be (where those beliefs might also be embodied in institutions and everyday practices). Here, liberation is not a return to an essence, but rather a removal of limiting or degrading cultural constraints.
fertility (or fruitfulness, fecundity, etc.)
N employs a whole range of symbols that cluster around the idea of fertility. These serve to designate the manner in which the present has a future (often by way of the additional metaphor of pregnancy or procreation: Z4.13.2, TISkirmishes22, Ancients4) or the way in which an individual or group has the power to create new values (GM3.8, WC1). Conversely, the absence of these possibilities is symbolized by infertility or impotence (Z2.14, GM3.12). See also
feminine and masculine.
festival
Fest. Broadly speaking, a festival is a celebratory occasion, held
in the honour or reverent memory of something – a god or saint, perhaps, or an event (e.g. the arrival of spring). N takes it that festival is the event at which the underlying drives or instincts are most clearly displayed and in the highest way satisfied. Thus, he talks about Dionysian festivals at BT2, and the condemnation of lyric found at the Apollonian festivals (BT6). Religious festivals, then, are indirect ways of praising the humanity of the participants. Similarly, the ‘festival of the ass’ that Zarathustra’s guests create (Z4.17–18) is a mockery of religious worship, but a celebration of the human capacity to be cheerful and even foolish. Zarathustra says, celebrate this festival ‘for love of yourselves’ and do it also ‘in remembrance of me’ (an echo of Lk. 22.19). A second important feature of festivals is genuine joy – joy in these drives and their expression, joy in being the people of this god, etc. Even the solemnity of some festivals is part of the ‘happiness of Homer’ (GS302). So, the ‘consummating death’ should be a matter of festival (Z1.21) – that is, the celebration of a life as a ‘promise’ to the future. The joy in passion is emphasized at H2.187 and 220.
This is incomprehensible to Christianity and its hatred of passion. More generally, modernity is characterized by its inability to understand the festival. At GS89, N writes ‘What does all our art of making art matter, if we lose that higher art, the art of festivals!’ The idea is that art is no longer a celebration of ‘high and happy’ moments, but rather merely a narcotic to help those who are sick or weak. (See the account of art and music festivals at UM1.3, and 3.4.) Likewise, Zarathustra finds play-actors at Christian festivals, where love of the neighbour is merely apparent (Z1.15 – compare GS353). In contrast, Zarathustra insists that the ‘neighbour’ be replaced by the friend who is a ‘festival of the earth’ (Z1.15).
A third feature of festival, which dates back to N’s early treatment of tragic festivals and the Dionysian, is cruelty. At AC25, N argues that for the Israelites ‘Yahweh expressed a consciousness of power’; therefore, their festivals were in gratitude for a ‘magnificent elevation’ over their difficulties or their enemies. Likewise, punishment represents a festival of cruel triumph, ‘mocking and doing violence to a finally defeated enemy’ (GM2.13 and see GM2.6–7). See happiness.
flee
See solitude.
food
See diet.