The Art of Aphoristic Interpretation in Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, Prologue, 8

by Corry Shores
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Friedrich Nietzsche

On the Genealogy of Morals:

A Polemical Tract

Prologue

8

Nietzsche claims his text is written clearly, especially when compared to such earlier works as Thus Spoke Zarathustra. That text only becomes clear after one struggles with it. Before we can understand it clearly, we must be "deeply wounded by and profoundly delighted with every word in it." Another way that Nietzsche's lucid writing may be difficult is when it is written aphoristically. But aphorisms are impossible to understand only on the first read. They must be re-read over-and-over, and pondered at length. Only then can they be explicated by skillfully employing the art of interpretation. Nietzsche will demonstrate how this is done in the third book. There he will begin with an aphorism, and spend the rest of the book commenting on it. We see then, that reading itself — as restructive interpretation — is a compositional art form.

Of course, in order to practice this style of reading as art, one thing is above all essential, something that today has been thoroughly forgotten—and so it will require still more time before my writings are “readable”—something for which one almost needs to be a cow, at any rate not a “modern man”—rumination.

From the Ian Johnston Translation:

On the Genealogy of Morals

A Polemical Tract

Prologue

8

If this writing is incomprehensible to someone or other and hurts his ears, the blame for that, it strikes me, is not necessarily mine. The writing is sufficiently clear given the conditions I set out—that you have first read my earlier writings and have taken some trouble to do that, for, in fact, these works are not easily accessible. For example, so far as my Zarathustra is concerned, I don’t consider anyone knowledgeable about it who has not at some time or another been deeply wounded by and profoundly delighted with every word in it.* For only then can he enjoy the privilege of sharing with reverence in the halcyon element out of which that work was born, in its sunny clarity, distance, breadth, and certainty. In other cases the aphoristic form creates difficulties. These stem from the fact that nowadays people don’t take this form seriously enough. An aphorism, properly stamped and poured, has not yet been “deciphered” simply by being read. It’s much more the case that only now can one begin to explicate it, and that requires an art of interpretation. In the third essay of this book I have set out a model of what I call an “interpretation” for such a case.—In this essay an aphorism is presented, and the essay itself is a commentary on it. Of course, in order to practice this style of reading as art, one thing is above all essential, something that today has been thoroughly forgotten—and so it will require still more time before my writings are “readable”—something for which one almost needs to be a cow, at any rate not a “modern man”—rumination.

Sils-Maria, Oberengadin
July 1887

Nietzsche, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morals. Transl. Ian Johnston. Copyright information can be found here.

Available online at:

http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/genealogytofc.htm