Nietzsche, Friedrich

(b Röcken, Saxony, 15 Oct 1844; d Weimar, 25 Aug 1900). German philosopher. Having taught philology at the University of Basle from 1869 to 1879, he retired because of poor health and devoted the rest of his life to travelling and writing his major philosophical works. He collapsed in Turin in 1889, perhaps because of syphilis, and was cared for by his sister Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche until his death. Nietzsche’s early works, particularly Die Geburt der Tragödie (1872), were influenced by German Romanticism, especially by Arthur Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner. He renounced that influence...

(b Röcken, Saxony, 15 Oct 1844; d Weimar, 25 Aug 1900). German philosopher. Having taught philology at the University of Basle from 1869 to 1879, he retired because of poor health and devoted the rest of his life to travelling and writing his major philosophical works. He collapsed in Turin in 1889, perhaps because of syphilis, and was cared for by his sister Elizabeth Förster-Nietzsche until his death. Nietzsche’s early works, particularly Die Geburt der Tragödie (1872), were influenced by German Romanticism, especially by Arthur Schopenhauer and Richard Wagner. He renounced that influence in his late works, notably Also sprach Zarathustra (1883–5), Jenseits von Gut und Böse (1886), Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887), Der Wille zur Macht (1888; a selection of unpublished notes compiled by his sister) and Ecce homo (written 1888, pubd 1908).