ENDING THE TRADITIONAL SCHOLARSHIP

NIETZSCHE, FRIEDRICH.

Der Florentinische Tractat über Homer und Hesiod, ihr Geschlecht und ihren Wettkampf. I-V. [Extract from: Rheinishes Museum für Philologie, Vol. XXV + XXVIII. Herausgegeben von F.G. Welcker und F. Ritschl].

Frankfurt am Main, Verlag von Johann David Sauerländer, 1870-73. 8vo. Bound with the general title-pages to both volumes of Rheinishes Museum in a very nice recent marbled paper binding with gilt leather title-label to front board. (Vol. XXV:) pp. (528) - 540 + (Vol. XXVII:) pp. (211) - 249. The paper is extremely brittle and cracks very easily, thus there are a few smaller marginal tears, no loss of lettering. Occassinal light pencil-underlinings in text.

The rare first edition of Nietzsche's important last piece of traditional scholarship, the final of his earliest publications.

"By early January of 1871, Nietzsche was sufficiently disillusioned with philology to apply for the chair of philosophy at Basel, proposing his friend Rhode for his own position. The request was denied but the refusal did little to delay the end of Nietzsche's classical career. All of his philological works were published prior to the appearance of The Birth of Tragedy (January 1872) except for the last article, the second haft of Der Florentinische Tractat über Homer und Hesiod, dated August 1872, which appeared in February of 1873. It was the last piece of traditional classical Scholarship that Nietzsche published." (Schaberg 13-14 pp.)

"Both Wagner and Cosima found several of Nietzsche's works especially enriching [...]. Wagner was also familiar with Nietzsche's scholarship on the epic poets Hesiod and Homer, through his work on the Florentine Manuscript Concerning Homer and Hesiod, Ancestry and their Contest." (Foster, Daniel. Wagner's Ring Cycle and the Greeks, Cambridge University Press; 2010, pp. 279-80).

"In later years, Nietzsche was understandably dismissive of his philological works. He once wrote to Georg Brandes that "there are of course, also "Philologica" by me but that need not concern either of us anymore." Cartainly this was true in 1888, but twenty years earlier when these articles were published, they were of major personal importance. Nietzsche's mentor Ritschl used the first four articles as justification for the recommendation that resulted in Nietzsche's spectacularly early appointment to Basel as professor at the age of twenty-four. Ritschl then went further and allowed the articles to be accepted as the dissertation requirement for Nietzsche's doctorate, which was offered without oral examination on 23 March 1869." (Schaberg, p. 13).

"[I]t is uncertain whether all of these articles [i.e. in the Rheinisches Museum] were issued individually and there is no evidence in Nietzsche's letters to suggest the standard offprint policies of Rheinisches Museum at the time." (Schaberg, p. 13).

Schaberg 14+16

Order-nr.: 41473