Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- PART ONE Youth
- PART TWO The Reluctant Professor
- Chapter 6 Basel
- Chapter 7 Richard Wagner and the Birth of The Birth of Tragedy
- Chapter 8 War and Aftermath
- Chapter 9 Anal Philology
- Chapter 10 Untimely Meditations
- Chapter 11 Aimez-vous Brahms?
- Chapter 12 Auf Wiedersehen Bayreuth
- Chapter 13 Sorrento
- Chapter 14 Human, All-Too-Human
- PART THREE The Nomad
- Chronology
- Notes
- Bibliography of Secondary Literature
- Index
- Plate section
Chapter 13 - Sorrento
from PART TWO - The Reluctant Professor
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- PART ONE Youth
- PART TWO The Reluctant Professor
- Chapter 6 Basel
- Chapter 7 Richard Wagner and the Birth of The Birth of Tragedy
- Chapter 8 War and Aftermath
- Chapter 9 Anal Philology
- Chapter 10 Untimely Meditations
- Chapter 11 Aimez-vous Brahms?
- Chapter 12 Auf Wiedersehen Bayreuth
- Chapter 13 Sorrento
- Chapter 14 Human, All-Too-Human
- PART THREE The Nomad
- Chronology
- Notes
- Bibliography of Secondary Literature
- Index
- Plate section
Summary
Nietzsche arrived back in Basel from Bayreuth on August 27, 1876, and continued working on the notes that would eventually become Human, All-Too-Human. Since Elizabeth, after a year as his housekeeper, had gone back to Naumburg, he returned to his old, bachelor digs in Baumann's Cave. Overbeck was in Dresden with his new wife, Ida, and so Nietzsche's favourite student, Adolf Baumgartner, took over the rooms he had vacated. And Rée took his place in lunchtime conversations.
In Bayreuth, Malwida von Meysenbug had renewed her suggestion that, for his health, Nietzsche should join her in Italy. Nietzsche had applied for sabbatical leave the previous May, stressing (as one does) the ‘academic’ character of his proposed visit to the South – to the homeland of classical civilisation. The leave approved, he accepted Malwida's invitation and arranged to be accompanied by a favourite former pupil, the delicate Albert Brenner (who had, in fact, barely eighteen months to live). On September 26 he asked Malwida if he could bring Rée, as well, since he ‘took great delight in his utterly clear head as well as his considerate, truly friendly soul’.
Shortly before leaving for Sorrento he received a telegram from Wagner, who, suffering from the stresses of the Festival, had also decided on Italy as a place of recuperation. It must have been difficult for Nietzsche not to find it insulting:
Please send two pairs of silk vests and underpants made in Basel on Wednesday to Bologna Hotel Italy. Until then Venice Hotel Europa.[…]
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- Friedrich NietzscheA Philosophical Biography, pp. 229 - 240Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010