Overcoming Declinism: Style and Philology in Nietzsche

Abstract

The article traces the fundamental significance of style for Nietzsche to his intellectual roots in classical philology. It argues that since Nietzsche understood style as a cultural expression as well as an individual one, his revaluation of his own work had to go hand in hand with stylistic changes. A reading of the first aphorism of Gay Science illustrates Nietzsche’s shift from tragic to narrative modes of philosophy.