The author of Romeo and Juliet, Richard II and III, The Merchant of Venice, Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Henry IV would be certain of a place of honor, but without his ten greatest works, all written during the next ten years, he would not have been what Shakespeare has been to millions since.

Nietzsche came into his own during the last six years of his creative life. Between the winter of 1882-83 and the end of 1888 he completed eight books. None of these are merely collections of aphorisms that can easily be represented by excerpts; all eight should be read in their entirety, with a regard for context and nuances. Four of these books were made available in a single volume, in entirely new translations, in 1954;10 the other four are offered in the present volume, together with The Birth of Tragedy and some supplementary material. Thus all of Nietzsche’s books are now available in two volumes, with the exception of the four meditations (of interest mainly as early works of the man who wrote the works included in these two volumes) and the aphoristic books (represented by sample in both volumes). Overlap has been avoided deliberately in order to make readily accessible as much as possible of Nietzsche’s work.

The arrangement of the material in this volume is chronological, except for the Preface to The Birth of Tragedy, which was added by Nietzsche to the new edition of 1886 and is representative of his later style. All of the translations were made especially for the present volume and published for the first time in 1966-67. The editor has contributed a separate introduction for each of the five books included, as well as a detailed footnote commentary; and there are indices.

In sum, this edition is designed for serious study as well as enjoyment. Any dichotomy of these two would have been anathema to Nietzsche; and once the dichotomy is rejected, both “enjoyment” and “serious study” become infelicitous expressions. Nietzsche clearly wanted to be read with a delighted awareness of nuances of style and thought. He wanted readers whose sense of his exceptional versatility does not keep them from feeling that their own convictions and values are at stake and must be reconsidered in the light of what he says. There is no work of Nietzsche’s that does not say to us, like Rilke’s “Archaic Torso of Apollo”:

“You must change your life.”

1See Walter Kaufmann, “Nietzsche Between Homer and Sartre: Five Treatments of the Orestes Story,” in Revue Internationale de Philosophie, Numéro 67 (1964); also Kaufmann, Tragedy and Philosophy (1968), section 51.
2See R. A. Nicholls, Nietzsche in the Early Work of Thomas Mann (1955). For the poets, see Twenty German Poets, ed. Walter Kaufmann, The Modern Library (1963); also Chapters 12 and 13 in Kaufmann, From Shakespeare to Existentialism (1959).
3Selbstdarstellung; Gesammelte Werke, XIV, 86.
4See, e.g., P. Rom and H. L. Ansbacher, “An Adlerian Case or a Character by Sartre,” Journal of Individual Psychology, XXI (May 1965).
5Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, II (1955), 344.
6The Philosophy of Martin Buber, eds. Paul Arthur Schilpp and Maurice Friedman (1967). In Buber’s “Autobiographical Fragments” only one brief section (#8) is devoted to “Philosophers,” and Buber singles out only two men: Kant and Nietzsche. (The German edition of Martin Buber appeared in 1963.)
7Jones, op. cit., III, 460.
8The book is included in the present volume, complete, and discussed in the editor’s Introduction to the translation.
9All are represented in this volume by selected aphorisms.
10The Portable Nietzsche, selected and translated, with an introduction, prefaces, and notes, by Walter Kaufmann.

Acknowledgments

But for Jason Epstein I should never have translated another Nietzsche book after 1954. He persevered; he left the choice of books and all particulars entirely up to me; and eventually I consented to go over some of the old versions to eliminate outright errors. This proved to be a thankless, endless, and all but impossible undertaking. Hence I gave up and made some more new translations. The commentaries, not anticipated, took form as the translations progressed.

Berenice Hoffman’s editorial queries and suggestions have been unfailingly expert and gracious, and she deserves the readers’ thanks as well as mine for her unstinting devotion to an often extremely difficult task.

Stephen Watson helped me with the indices, and Sonia Volochova made valuable additions to them. Mr. Watson, as a University Scholar at Princeton University, also called to my attention many points on which he thought students needed help, especially in Beyond Good and Evil, and aided me by reading proofs.

George Brakas read the page proofs of Genealogy and Ecce Homo and called to my attention many points that were not as clear as, I hope, they are now.

My wife, Hazel, kept up my spirits.

W.K.

The
BIRTH
of
TRAGEDY

FOR
My Apollinian Grandfather
Arnold Seligsohn (1854–1939)

AND
My Dionysian Grandmother
Julie Kaufmann (1857–1940)

CONTENTS

TRANSLATOR’S INTRODUCTION
The Birth of Tragedy

Translator’s Introduction

This was Nietzsche’s first book. It is far from being his best book, but the “Attempt at a Self-Criticism” that Nietzsche placed at the beginning of the “new edition” of 1886 is among the finest things he ever wrote.