Abstract
In the introduction, I will explore Jung’s complex relationship with Nietzsche, regarded both as a philosopher and—above all—as an individual. In particular, I will dwell upon the psychological meaning of Thus Spoke Zarathustra for Jung’s understanding of his own personal experience of Liber Novus. I will formulate the hypothesis that the apparent misunderstanding emerging from Jung’s four-year seminar on Zarathustra can be explained through a close reading of Liber Novus: Jung understood Zarathustra as a sort of Nietzsche’s Liber Novus. To endorse my hypothesis, I will show how both Zarathustra and Liber Novus can be thought of as ‘visionary’ works, a precise category Jung had a vivid interest in and analysed in details in 1930. I will conclude the introduction with a brief synthesis of the other chapters of the book.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The text was first published by Aniela Jaffé, Erinnerungen, Träume, Gedanken in 1962, after Jung’s death. Although it has been considered a valuable biography by several authors, its historical reliability is highly questionable, as significant changes and omissions have been made by its editors (Shamdasani 1995/2003). However, the text can be still regarded as a suggestive testimony of Jung’s rethinking his childhood memories.
- 2.
On a detailed reconstruction of Jung’s reception of Schopenhauer, see Liebscher (2014). One of the first studies on Jung and Schopenhauer to be mentioned was written by James Jarrett (1981). Luca Lupo has also postulated the possibility of a Schopenhauerian inspiration for The Significance of the Father in the Destiny of the Individual (1909–1949, CW 4: §§ 693–744) and Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle (1952b, CW 8: §§ 816–997), to be found in Schopenhauer’s writing Transcendent Speculation on the Apparent Deliberateness in the Fate of the Individual (Lupo 2013).
- 3.
In this context, I am not going to take any philosophical position in regard to the existence of the unconscious. In fact, every time the word ‘unconscious’ appears in this text, it has to be understood in relation to Jung’s own understanding of the word. To have a historical excursus on the development of the concept of the unconscious in philosophy, see (alphabetically): Buchholz and Gödde (eds., 2005); Gödde (1999); Nicholls and Liebscher (eds., 2010).
- 4.
I have to sincerely thank Thomas Fischer for this information.
- 5.
- 6.
Paul Bishop has drawn an interesting distinction between Jung’s and Freud’s understandings of Nietzsche’s ‘Of The Pale Criminal’: whereas the latter dwells upon the idea of ‘madness before the deed’—thus stressing the individuality of sense of guilt—, the latter seems to be more interested in analysing the meaning of a form of ‘madness after the deed’, namely its relation to a collective sense of guilt (Bishop 1999).
- 7.
Jung’s writing on libido, unconscious, and the archetypes are numerous. His theory has been developed slowly, and sometimes it does not provide precise definitions. Nonetheless it is possible to find a certain coherency within Jung’s exposition. To have a detailed excursus on Jung and ‘the science question’, see Shamdasani (2003: 87–99).
- 8.
The closeness of Weimar Classicism to Nietzsche’s philosophy has been the main argument of a couple of texts edited by Paul Bishop (2004). A certain proximity between Nietzsche, Weimar environment, and its most influential characters, such as Goethe, Schiller, and Hölderlin, has been debated by Baioni (1981), Vivarelli (1989), and von Seggern (2005). Although it is undeniable to regard Goethe and Hölderlin as relevant figures both in Nietzsche’s writings—which quite often offer several explicit as well as implicit allusions to them—and in his student years—when he used to refer to Hölderlin as his ‘favourite poet’—, it is not easy to defend Jung’s opinion. Surely Nietzsche considered Goethe as an extraordinary man (GD IX, 49, KSA 6: 151–152), and exalted his personality in several occasions. But his anti-German position, started off especially after his estrangement from Wagner and, above all, from the Wagnerians, is too strong to postulate a sense of belonging to German Idealism.
- 9.
One of such cases is represented by a curious anecdote. During one of my researches at Jung’s library in Küsnacht, I found a headed paper of Jung’s with a couple of I-Ching hexagrams written down, in the middle of Förster-Nietzsche and Gast’s postface at the end of Zarathustra. It is known that Jung came across Chinese philosophy and horoscope later than Liber Novus, it is therefore likely that the paper dates back to the 1930s. Furthermore, in the aforementioned Förster-Nietzsche and Gast’s postface, all of the most significant lines referring to Nietzsche’s fear of illness and contagion are underlined, and a few marginalia present phrases occur in Jung’s seminar comments. This all endorses the hypothesis of those reading marks’ belonging to the time of Jung’s Zarathustra seminar.
References
Andreas von Salomè, Lou. 1894. Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken. Vienna: Verlag von Carl Konegen.
Baioni, Giuliano. 1981. La filologia e il sublime dionisiaco. Nietzsche e le ‘Considerazioni inattuali’. In Considerazioni Inattuali (Italian translation of Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen, 1873–1876), ed. F.W. Nietzsche, V–LXII. Turin: Einaudi.
Bergson, Henri. 1903. An Introduction to Metaphysics. Translated by T. E. Hulme. New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1912.
Biedermann, Alois Emanuel. 1869. Christliche Dogmatik. Zurich: Orell, Füssli, & Co.
Bishop, Paul. 1993. The Jung/Förster-Nietzsche Correspondence. German Life and Letters 46: 319–330.
———. 1994. The Members of Jung’s Seminar on Zarathustra. Spring 56: 92–122.
———. 1995a. The Dionysian Self: C. G. Jung’s Reception of Friedrich Nietzsche. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.
———. 1995b. Jung’s Annotation of Nietzsche’s Works: An Analysis. Nietzsche-Studien 24: 271–314.
———. 1999. Estrangement from the Deed and the Memory Thereof: Freud and Jung on the Pale Criminal in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. Orbis Litterarum 54: 424–438.
———, ed. 2004. Nietzsche and Antiquity. His Reaction and Response to the Classical Tradition. Rochester, NY: Camden House.
———. 2008. Analtytical Psychology and German Classical Aesthetics: Goethe, Schiller, and Jung. Vol. 1, The Development of the Personality. 2 vols. London and New York: Routledge.
———. 2012. Jung’s Red Book and Its Relation to Aspects of German Idealism. The Journal of Analytical Psychology 57: 335–353.
———. 2014. Carl Jung. London: Reaktion Books.
———. 2017. On the Blissful Island with Nietzsche and Jung: In the Shadow of the Superman. Oxon and New York: Routledge.
Bishop, Paul, and R.H. Stephenson, eds. 2004. Friedrich Nietzsche and Weimar Classicism. Rochester, NY: Camden House.
Brobjer, Thomas H. 2010. The Origin and Early Context of the Revaluation Theme in Nietzsche’s Thinking. The Journal of Nietzsche’s Studies 19 (Spring): 12–29.
Buchholz, Michael B., and Günter Gödde, eds. 2005. Macht und Dynamik des Unbewussten: Auseinandersetzungen in Philosophie, Medizin und Psychoanalyse. Giessen: Psychosozial Verlag.
Colli, Giorgio. 1980. Scritti su Nietzsche. Milan: Adelphi, 1995.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1965. Nietzsche, sa vie, son œuvre: avec un exposé de sa philosophie. Paris: PUF, 2005.
Dixon, Patricia E. 1999. Nietzsche and Jung: Sailing a Deeper Night. New York: Peter Lang.
Domenici, Gaia. 2014a. Eine ‘göttlich künstliche’ Sprache. Zarathustra als Beispiel für Nietzsches Lebenskunst. Nietzscheforschung 21: 231–240.
———. 2014b. Overleaping oder Surpassing? Die problematische Lektüre der Geschichte des Seiltänzers bei C. G. Jung. In Nietzsches Zarathustra Auslegen. Thesen, Positionen und Entfaltungen zu “Also sprach Zarathustra” von Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, ed. Murat Ates, 207–219. Marburg: Tectum Verlag.
———. 2015. Il ‘ruggito del leone morale’. C. G. Jung si confronta con Zarathustra. In Prospettive. Omaggio a Giuliano Campioni, ed. Paolo D’Iorio, Maria Cristina Fornari, Luca Lupo, and Chiara Piazzesi, 197–202. Pisa: ETS.
———. 2018. ‘Crush the Head of the Serpent and it will Bite you in the Heel’. A Reconstruction of Jung’s Interpretation of the Poisonous Serpents in Zarathustra through Liber Novus. Phanês: Journal for Jung History 1: 1–27. https://doi.org/10.32724/phanes.2018.Domenici.
Freud, Sigmund. 1906–1974. The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Edited by J. Strachey and A. Freud. London: The Hogarth Press.
———. 1925–1928. Gesammelte Schriften von Sigm. Freud. Leipzig, Vienna, Zurich: Internatioaler Psychoanalitischer Verlag.
Freud, Sigmund, and C.G. Jung. 1974. Briefwechsel. Edited by William McGuire and Wolfgang Sauerländer. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer.
Gadamer, Hans. 1986. Das Drama Zarathustra. Nietzsche-Studien 15: 1–15.
Gay, Marco, and Isolde Schiffermüller, eds. 2013. Lo Zarathustra di Nietzsche: C. G. Jung e lo scandalo dell’inconscio. Bergamo: Moretti & Vitali.
Gödde, Günter. 1999. Traditionslinien des Unbewußten: Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud. Tübingen: Edition Diskord.
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang. 1772–1832. Faust. Stuttgart and Tübingen, 1835.
Gunter, P.Y.A. 1982. Bergson and Jung. Journal of the History of Ideas 43: 635–652. Reprinted. In Jung in Context. A Reader, ed. Paul Bishop, 265–282. London and New York: Routledge.
Hölderlin, Friedrich. 1946–. Sämtliche Werke, 6 Bände. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag.
Huskinson, Lucy. 2004. Nietzsche and Jung. The Whole Self in the Union of Opposites. Hove and New York: Brunner-Routledge.
Innamorati, Marco. 1991. La presenza dello Zarathustra di Nietzsche nelle opere di Jung. Giornale storico di psicologia dinamica 29: 73–93.
Jaffé, Aniela. 1967. Der Mythus vom Sinn im Werk von C. G. Jung. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1971.
Jarrett, James. 1981. Schopenhauer and Jung. Spring: An Annual of Archetypal Psychology and Jungian Thought 81: 193–202.
Johnson, Dirk R. 2010. Nietzsche’s Anti-Darwinism. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Jung, Carl Gustav. 1902. On the Psychology and Pathology of So-called Occult Phenomena. Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 1, §§ 1–150.
———. 1905. Cryptomnesia. Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 1, §§ 166–186.
———. 1909/1949. The Significance of the Father in the Destiny of the Individual. Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 4, §§ 693–744.
———. 1912. Psychology of the Unconscious. A study of the Transformations and Symbolisms of the Libido. A contribution to the History of the Evolution of Thought. New York: Moffat, Yard and Company, 1917.
———. 1917. On the Psychology of the Unconscious. Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 7, §§ 1–201.
———. 1921. Psychological Types. Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 6.
———. 1922/1931. On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry. Collective Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 15, §§ 97–132.
———. 1930/1950. Psychology and Literature. Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 15, §§ 133–162.
———. 1932a. Picasso. Collective Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 15, 204–214.
———. 1932b. ‘Ulysses’: A Monologue. Collective Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 15, §§ 163–203.
———. 1934. Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious. Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 9, 1, §§ 1–86.
———. 1936. Wotan. Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 10, §§ 371–399.
———. 1939. Foreword to Suzuki’s Introduction to Zen Buddhism. Collective Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 11, §§ 538–557.
———. 1945. After the Catastrophe. Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 10, §§ 400–443.
———. 1952a. Symbols of Transformation. Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 5.
———. 1952b. Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle. Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 8, §§ 816–997.
———. 1989. Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934–9. 2nd ed. Edited by James L. Jarrett in Two Parts. London: Routledge, 1994.
———. 1996. The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga. Notes of the Seminar given in 1932. Edited by Sonu Shamdasani. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 2009. The Red Book: Liber Novus. Edited and Introduced by Sonu Shamdasani, Translated by Mark Kyburz, John Peck, and Sonu Shamdasani. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company.
Jung, Carl Gustav, and Aniela Jaffé. 1962. Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Gustav Jung. Recorded and Edited by Aniela Jaffé. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Kerner, Justinus Andreas Christian. 1831–1835. Blätter aus Prevorst; Originalien und Lesefrüchte für Freunde des inneren Lebens, mithgeteilt von dem Herausgeber der Seherin von Prevorst. Karlsruhe.
Krell, David Farrell. 1986. Postponements, Woman, Sensuality, and Death in Nietzsche. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Krug, Wilhelm Traugott. 1832. Allgemeines Handwörterbuch der philosophischen Wissenschaften, nebst ihrer Literatur und Geschichte. 2nd ed. Leipzig: Brodhaus.
Liebscher, Martin. 2001a. ‘Wotan’ und ‘Puer Aeternus’. Die Zeithistorische Verstrickung von C. G. Jungs Zarathustrainterpretation. Nietzsche Studien 30: 329–350.
———. 2001b. Jungs Abkehr von Freud im Lichte seiner Nietzsche-Rezeption. In Zeitenwende-Wertewende. Internationaler Kongreß der Nietzsche-Gesellschaft zum 100. Todestag Friedrich Nietzsches vom 24.-27. August 2000 in Naumburg, 255–260. Protokollband des Naumburger Nietzsche-Kongresses. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
———. 2002. Zarathustra – Der Archetypus des ‘Alten Weisen’. Nietzscheforschung 9: 234–245.
———. 2003. Die ‘unheimliche Ähnlichkeit’. Nietzsches Hermeneutik der Macht und analytische Interpretation bei Carl Gustav Jung. Ecce Opus 81: 37–50.
———. 2006. Nietzsche und Jung. Review of Lucy Huskinson, The Whole Self in the Union of Opposites (2004). Nietzsche Studien 35: 393–397.
———. 2012. Libido und Wille zur Macht. C.G. Jungs Auseinandersetzung mit Nietzsche. Basel: Schwabe.
———. 2014. Schopenhauer und Jung. In Schopenhauer-Handbuch. Leben, Werk, Wirkung, ed. Daniel Schubbe and Matthias Kossler, 312–316. Stuttgart: Metzler.
Lindner, Michael. 2010. ‘Ein tiefstes Erlebnis’. C. G. Jungs Lektüre von Nietzsches ‘Also sprach Zarathustra’ anhand seiner Seminare 1934–39. In Nietzsche und die Tiefenpsychologie, ed. Roman Lesmeister and Elke Metzner, 107–120. Freiburg and Munich: Verlag Karl Alber.
Löwith, Karl. 1935–1956. Nietzsches Philosphie der ewigen Wiederkehr des Gleichen (1935–1956). Hamburg: Meiner, 1978.
Lupo, Luca. 2012. ‘Also spricht meine Seele’. Lo Zarathustra di Nietzsche nel Libro rosso di Jung: la verità come vita tra esperienza ed esperimento. In Teorie e pratiche della verità in Nietzsche, ed. Pietro Gori and Paolo Stellino. Pisa: ETS.
———. 2013. A ‘mighty Hand’: Father, God, and Chance: Jung Reads Schopenhauer’s ‘Transzendente Spekulation über die anscheinende Absichtlichkeit im Schicksale des Einzelnen’. In Schopenhauer-Jahrbuch 94: 203–216.
Màdera, Romano. 1989. Nietzsche e Jung: Mitografie del senso perduto. Aut Aut 229–230: 111–123.
Nante, Bernardo. 2010. ‘El libro rojo’ de C. G. Jung. Claves por la comprension de una obra inexplicable. Madrid: Siruela.
Nicholls, Angus, and Martin Liebscher, eds. 2010. Thinking the Unconscious. Nineteenth-Century German Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. 1878. Human, All Too Human I. Translated by Alexander Harvey. Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company, 1908.
———. 1888–1889. Dithyrambs of Dionysus. www.thenietzschechannel.com.
———. 1899–1911. Kleinoktav-Gesamtausgabe. Leipzig: Naumann und Kröner.
———. 1930 [1883–1885]. Thus Spake Zarathustra. Translated by Thomas Common. New York: The Modern Library.
———. 1967–. Kritische Gesamtausgabe der Werke Nietzsches. Edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.
———. 1980–. Kritische Studienausgabe. Edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.
———. 2009–. Digital Critical Edition. Edited by P. D’Iorio.
Nill, Peggy. 1988. Die Versuchung der Psyche: Selbstwerdung als schöpferisches Prinzip bei Nietzsche und C. G. Jung. Nietzsche-Studien 17: 250–279.
Parkes, Graham. 1999. Nietzsche and Jung: Ambivalent Appreciations. In Nietzsche and Depth Psychology, ed. Jacob Golomb, Weaver Santaniello, and Ronal L. Lehrer, 205–227. Albany: SUNY Press.
Pezzella, Mario, ed. 1995. Lo spirito e l’ombra. I seminari di Jung su Nietzsche. Bergamo: Moretti & Vitali.
Pilard, Nathalie. 2015. Jung and Intuition: On the Centrality and Variety of Forms of Intuition in Jung and Post-Jungians. Oxon and New York: Routledge, 2018.
Rocci, Giovanni. 1999. La maschera e l’abisso. Una lettura junghiana di Nietzsche. Rome: Bulzoni Editore.
Ross, Werner. 1979. Der ängstliche Adler. Friedrich Nietzsches Leben. Munich: Kastell Verlag GmbH, 1997/98.
Schmitt, Gerhard. 1998. Zyklus und Kompensation: Zur Denkfigur bei Nietzsche und Jung. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
———. 2011. Vom Übermensch und Übersinn: Nietzsches Metaphorik im Roten Buch. Recherches germaniques 8 (special edition): 117–133.
Schopenhauer, Arthur. 1851. Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays. 2 vols. Translated by E. F. J. Payne. Oxford: Caledonian Press, 1974.
von Seggern, Hans. 2005. Nietzsche und die Weimarer Klassik. Tübingen: Francke Verlag.
Shamdasani, Sonu. 1995. Memories, Dreams, Omissions. Spring: A Journal of Archetype and Culture 57, Reprinted. In Jung in Context. A Reader, ed. Paul Bishop, 33–50. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.
———. 1998. Cult Fictions. C.G. Jung and the Founding of Analytical Psychology. London: Routledge.
———. 2003. Jung and the Making of Modern Psychology. The Dream of a Science. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
———. 2005. Jung Stripped Bare: By His Biographers, Even. London: Karnac.
———. 2009. ‘Introduction’ and ‘Footnotes’. In The Red Book: Liber Novus, ed. C.G. Jung. Edited and Introduced by Sonu Shamdasani, Translated by Mark Kyburz, John Peck, and Sonu Shamdasani. New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company.
———. 2012. A Biography in Books. New York and London: Norton and Company.
Spitteler, Carl. 1881. Prometheus und Epimetheus. Ein Gleichnis. Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1906.
———. 1900. Olympischer Frühling. Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1910.
———. 1906. Imago. Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1922.
Suzuki, Daisetz Deitaro. 1934. Die grosse Befreiung: Einführung in den Zen Buddhismus. Leipzig: C. Weller, 1939.
Vigna, Francesco. 2011. La depressione creativa. Dal Libro rosso di Jung alla modernità. Rome: Moretti&Vitali.
Vischer, Friedrich Theodor. Auch Einer. 1878. Leipzig: Heffe & Becker Verlag.
Vivarelli, Vivetta. 1989. Empedokles und Zarathustra. Verschwendeter Reichtum und Wollust am Untergang. Nietzsche-Studien 18: 509–536.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Domenici, G. (2019). Introduction. In: Jung's Nietzsche . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17670-9_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17670-9_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-17669-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-17670-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)