Friedrich Nietzsche

Peter Sedgwick (Cardiff University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Dates

Born 15 Oct 1844
Died 25 Aug 1900
Activity 1864-1900

Places

Born in Germany
Active in Germany; Switzerland; Italy

Activities

Primary

Philosopher

Resources

Nietzsche's Works

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The thought of Friedrich Nietzsche has had a pervasive influence on Western thought since his death. Psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and existential philosophers such as Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger and Albert Camus have acknowledged their debt to his work, as have the post-structuralist and deconstructionists thinkers Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida. Nietzsche has also influenced many great literary authors, notably George Bernard Shaw, André Gide, Rainer Maria Rilke, W. B. Yeats, Thomas Mann, Herman Hesse and André Malraux. Nietzsche's influence is grounded in the fact that he wrote with poetic force and elegance to express what his age in any case believed – that “God is dead”, that human kind is alone on the face of the earth, that our illusions of self-importance…

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4473 words

Citation: Sedgwick, Peter. "Friedrich Nietzsche". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 March 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3342, accessed 21 November 2024.]