NIETZSCHE AND MODERN LITERATURE

NIETZSCHE AND MODERN LITERATURE

By the same author ALDOUS HUXLEY OUT OF THE MAELSTROM: Psychology and the Novel in the Twentieth Century CHARACTERS OF WOMEN IN NARRATIVE LITERATURE IBSEN AND SHAW

Nietzsche and Modern Literature Themes in Yeats, Rilke, Mann and Lawrence Keith M. May M MACMILLAN PRESS

Keith May 1988 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1988 Published by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG212XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data May, Keith M. Nietzsche and modern literature: themes in Yeats, Rilke, Mann and Lawrence. I. Nietzsche, Friedrich - Influence 2. European literature - 20th century History and criticism 3. Philosophy in literature I. Title 809'.04 PN771 ISBN 978-1-349-19118-5 ISBN 978-1-349-19116-1 (ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-19116-1

Contents Acknowledgements 1 Perspectives of Nietzsche 2 Yeats and Aristocracy 3 Rilke's Angels and the Ubermensch 4 Mann: Beyond Good and Evil 5 Lawrence: How One Becomes What One Is 6 God and Nietzsche's Madman Notes and References Bibliography Index vi 1 16 45 79 111 144 159 168 173

Acknowledgements Acknowledgement is gratefully made to the following: Random House Inc. and Marianne Fallon, Permissions Editor, for permission to quote from The Will to Power by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, copyright 1967 by Walter Kaufmann; Laurence Pollinger Limited and the estate of Mrs Frieda Lawrence Ravagli for permission to quote from D. H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover and Movements in European History; Cambridge University Press for permission to quote from The Letters of D. H. Lawrence, General Editor James T. Boulton; Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. for permission to quote from D. H. Lawrence's The Plumed Serpent and from the following works of Thomas Mann: Death in Venice, Doctor Faustus, Joseph and His Brothers, The Beloved Returns, The Magic Mountain and Tonia Kroger, all translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter, and Confessions of Felix Krull Confidence Man, translated by Denver Lindley; Secker & Warburg Limited for permission to quote from the translations by H. T. Lowe-Porter of Thomas Mann's Joseph and His Brothers, Tonia Kroger, Death in Venice, The Magic Mountain, Lotte in Weimar and Doctor Faustus, and from the translation by Denver Lindley of Thomas Mann's Confessions of Felix Krull Confidence Man; Chatto & Windus: The Hogarth Press for permission to quote extracts from Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated with introduction and commentary by J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender. The lines from Duino Elegies by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by J. B. Leishman and Stephen Spender, are reprinted with the permission of W. W. Norton & Company Inc., copyright 1939 by W. W. Norton & Company Inc., copyright renewed 1967 by Stephen Spender and J. B. Leishman. Grateful acknowledgement is also made to: Viking Penguin Inc. for permission to quote from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence, copyright 1913 by Thomas Seltzer Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin Inc. From The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence, copyright 1915 by D. H. Lawrence. Copyright renewed 1943 by Frieda Lawrence. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin Inc. From Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence, copyright 1920, 1922 by D. H. Lawrence, renewed 1948, 1950 by Frieda Lawrence. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin Inc. vi

Acknowledgements vii From Aaron's Rod by D. H. Lawrence, copyright 1922 by Thomas Seltzer Inc. Copyright renewed 1950 by Frieda Lawrence. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin Inc. From Kangaroo by D. H. Lawrence, copyright 1923 by Thomas Seltzer Inc. Copyright renewed 1951 by Frieda Lawrence. Reprinted by permission of Viking Penguin Inc. To A. P. Watt on behalf of Michael B. Yeats and Macmillan, London, Limited for permission to quote from three works of W. B. Yeats: The Rose Tree', 'Two Songs from a Play' and 'Mohini Chatterjee'. A selection from The Rose Tree' is reprinted with the permission of Macmillan Publishing Company from Collected Poems by W. B. Yeats, copyright 1924 by Macmillan Publishing Company, renewed 1952 by Bertha Georgie Yeats. A selection from 'Two Songs from a Play' is reprinted with the permission of Macmillan Publishing Company from Collected Poems by W. B. Yeats, copyright 1928 by Macmillan Publishing Company, renewed 1956 by Bertha Georgie Yeats. A selection from 'Mohini Chatterjee' is reprinted with the permission of Macmillan Publishing Company from Collected Poems by W. B. Yeats, copyright 1933 by Macmillan Publishing Company, renewed 1961 by Bertha Georgie Yeats. Gratitude is also expressed for the use of the following works: Nancy Cardozo, Maud Gonne: Lucky Eyes and a High Heart (Golla nez, 1979); Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy, translated by Hugh Tomlinson (Athlone, 1983); Richard Ellman, The Identity of Yeats (Faber & Faber, 1964, and Macmillan, 1954); Richard Ellman, Yeats: The Man and the Masks (Oxford University Press, 1979, Macmillan, 1948, and Faber & Faber, 1961); Romano Guardini, Rilke's Duino Elegies, translated by K. G. Knight (Darwin Finlayson, 1961); Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche VOl.I The Will to Power as Art and Vol.1I The Eternal Recurrence of the Same, both volumes translated by David Farrell Krell (Harper & Row); T. R. Henn, The Lonely Tower (Methuen, 1965); Joseph Hone, W. B. Yeats 1865-1939 (Penguin, 1971 and Macmillan, 1943); A. Norman Jeffares, A New Commentary on the Poems of W. B. Yeats (Macmillan, 1984); Walter Kaufmann, From Shakespeare to Existentialism: An Original Study (Princeton University Press, 1980); Lawrence in Love: Letters to Louie Burrows, edited and introduced by James T. Boulton (University of Nottingham, 1968); Thomas Mann's Essays of Three Decades and Past Masters and Other Papers, each translated by H. T. Lowe-Porter; Thomas Mann Diaries 1918-1939, selection and foreword by Herman Kesten, translated by Richard and Clara Winston (Andre Deutsch,

viii Acknowledgements 1983); Last Essays, translated by Richard and Clara Winston and Tania and James Stem (Seeker & Warburg, 1959); The Letters of Thomas Mann 1889-1955, selected and translated by Richard and Clara Winston (Penguin, 1975); Thomas Mann: A Collection of Critical Essays (Prentice-Hall, 1964); Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970); George Orwell, Collected Essays (Seeker & Warburg, 1961); Rainer Maria Rilke, The Notebook of Malte Laurids Brigge, introduction by Stephen Spender (Oxford University Press, 1984); Selected Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke 1902-1926, translated by R. F. C. Hull (Macmillan, 1946); Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, translation by E. F. J. Payne (Dover Publications, 1966, and The Falcon's Wing Press, 1958); Works of Spinoza, translated by R. H. M. Elwes (New York, Dover Publications, 1951); Joan Stambaugh, Nietzsche's Thought of Eternal Return Oohns Hopkins University Press, 1972); the following works of W. B. Yeats: Autobiographies (Macmillan, 1955), Collected Poems (Macmillan, 1969), Essays and Introductions Macmillan, New York, 1961), Explorations (Macmillan, New York, 1962), Letters of w. B. Yeats (Rupert Hart-Davis, 1954), Memoirs (Macmillan, 1972), Pages from a Diary Written in Nineteen Hundred and Thirty (Dublin, 1944), The Variorum Edition of the Complete Plays of w. B. Yeats (Macmillan, 1966), A Vision (Macmillan, 1962). The author wishes to express special appreciation for the opportunity to make use of the following editions of Nietzsche's works: Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, translated with commentary by Walter Kaufmann (Vintage Books, Random House, 1966); The Birth of Tragedy and The Case of Wagner, translated with commentary by Walter Kaufmann (Vintage Books, Random House, 1967); Daybreak: Thoughts On the Prejudices of Morality, translated by R. J. Hollingdale, introduction by Michael Tanner (Cambridge University Press, 1982); The Gay Science, translated with commentary by Walter Kaufmann (Vintage Books, Random House, 1974); On The Genealogy of Morals, translated by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale, and Ecce Homo, translated with commentary by Walter Kaufmann (Vintage Books, Random House, 1967); A Nietzsche Reader, selected and translated by R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin, 1979); Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, translated with introduction by Marianne Cowan (A Gateway Edition, Regnery Gateway, 1962); Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by A. N. Ludovici, edited and introduced by O. Levy (Soho Book Company, 1985); Thus Spoke

Acknowledgements ix Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One, translated with introduction by R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin, 1980); Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ, translated with introduction and commentary by R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin, 1978); Unpublished Letters, translated and edited by Karl F. Leidecker (Peter Owen, 1960, Philosophical Library USA, 1959); Untimely Meditations, translated by R. J. Hollingdale, introduction by J. P. Stern (Cambridge University Press, 1983).