The Gay Science (German: Die fröhliche Wissenschaft; sometimes translated as The Joyful Wisdom or The Joyous Science) is a book by Friedrich Nietzsche published in 1882, and was followed by a second edition in 1887, after the completion of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil. This substantial expansion includes the addition of a fifth book to the existing four books of The Gay Science, as well as an appendix of songs. It was described by Nietzsche as "the most personal of all my books", and contains more poems than any of his other works.
>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
In this Dossier
The Gay Science in the context of God is dead
"God is dead" (German: Gott ist tot [ɡɔt ɪst toːt] ; also known as the death of God) is a statement made by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The first instance of this statement in Nietzsche's writings is in his 1882 The Gay Science, where it appears three times. The phrase also appears in the first section, that titled the Prologue, of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and again in Chapter 25, The Pitiful, of the longer portion, Zarathustra's Discourses.
The meaning of this statement is that since, as Nietzsche says, "the belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable", everything that was "built upon this faith, propped up by it, grown into it", including "the whole [...] European morality", is bound to "collapse".
The Gay Science in the context of Idylls from Messina
Idylls from Messina (German: Idyllen aus Messina) is a set of eight idylls composed by Friedrich Nietzsche. These poems were written in Sicily during the spring of 1882, where Nietzsche remained for three weeks after arriving from Genoa.
In May 1882, those eight idylls were published in Internationale Monatschrift by Ernst Schmeitzner, Nietzsche's publisher at the time, with whom he would later sever all ties and whom he will eventually sue. They stem from the same voluminous amount of poetic attempts he took upon himself from February to April 1882, from which Nietzsche later composed his Vorspiel in deutschen Reimen to Die fröhliche Wissenschaft in 1882. From these eight poems, Nietzsche used six, in marginally modified form, for the Lieder des Prinzen Vogelfrei, the appendix for the second edition of Die fröhliche Wissenschaft in 1887.
The Gay Science in the context of Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (German: Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen), also translated as Thus Spake Zarathustra, is a work of philosophical fiction written by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and published in four volumes between 1883 and 1885. The protagonist is nominally the historical Zarathustra, more commonly called Zoroaster in the West.
Much of the book consists of discourses by Zarathustra on a wide variety of subjects, most of which end with the refrain "thus spoke Zarathustra". The character of Zarathustra first appeared in Nietzsche's earlier book The Gay Science (at §342, which closely resembles §1 of "Zarathustra's Prologue" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra).