1. Throughout this article, I refer to the higher individual as a male. This is because of Nietzsche's repeated references to the higher individual in this way: even though the German term Übermensch is not gender specific (Mensch means “human being,” not “male”), Nietzsche repeatedly uses the pronoun “he” to describe the Übermensch. And all of the examples he uses are male. It is not entirely clear that Nietzsche simply rejected the idea that women could be higher individuals, but given his repeated statements that women were weaker and less capable of intelligence, it seems likely.

2. Many scholars argue that the overman is by necessity a vague concept: because Nietzsche cannot prescribe a single moral code for all, or hold up one ideal of excellence, a concrete description of such a being is impossible. See, e.g., Danto's, ArthurNietzsche as Philosopher (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), p. 199,Google Scholar and Nehamas, Alexander, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), pp. 221–23.Google Scholar Others argue that the overman is a being of the future, beyond humanity, and therefore cannot be adequately described by mere humans. See, e.g., Conway, Daniel, Nietzsche and the Political (New York: Routledge, 1997), p. 14;Google ScholarDeleuze, Gilles, Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. Tomlinson, Hugh (London: Athlone Press, 1983), p. 163 and pp. 169–71;Google Scholar and Strong, Tracy, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), p. 54.Google Scholar Others who argue that the concept is intelligible and knowable often present little more than abstract descriptions. Kaufmann, Walter, for example, separates the overman from any Darwinian interpretation (Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, 4th ed. [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974], pp. 311–13),Google Scholar and describes the overman as “the one who has transfigured his physis and acquired self-mastery” (p. 312), but distances the concept from concrete individuals from history (pp. 313–16)

3. In this article, I address myself to the growing English-language literature on Nietzsche.

4. References to Nietzsche's writings are cited parenthetically in the text. Each citation consists of an abbreviation of the title followed by the section number (not the page number). For works without sequentially numbered sections, the name of the chapter or section is given. Roman numerals are used to differentiate parts of the book. A “P” indicates Nietzsche's preface. The abbreviations are: BGE=Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Kaufmann, Walter (New York: Vintage Books, 1989);Google ScholarCW=The Case of Wagner, trans. Kaufmann, Walter (New York: Vintage Books, 1967);Google ScholarEH=Ecce Homo, transl. Kaufmann, Walter (New York: Vintage Books, 1989);Google ScholarGS=The Gay Science, trans. Kaufmann, Walter (New York: Vintage Books, 1974);Google ScholarHH=Human, Al-Too-Human, trans. Hollingdale, R.J. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986);Google ScholarGM=On the Genealogy of Morals, trans. Kaufmann, Walter and Hollingdale, R.J. (New York: Vintage Books, 1989);Google ScholarZ=Thus Spoke Zarathustra; trans. Kaufmann, Walter (New York: Penguin Books, 1966);Google ScholarTI=Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist, trans. Hollingdale, R.J. (New York: Penguin Books, 1990);Google Scholar A=The Antichrist; UM=Untimely Meditations, transl. Hollingdale, R.J. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996);Google ScholarWP=The Will to Power, trans. Kaufmann, Walter and Hollingdale, R.J. and ed. Kaufmann, Walter (New York: Vintage Books, 1968).Google Scholar

5. Nietzsche may be influenced here by one of his intellectual heroes, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson's Representative Men: Seven Lectures analyzes a number of individuals as standing for something greater than themselves. On Nietzsche and Emerson, see Cavell, Stanley, “Aversive Thinking: Emersonian Representations in Heidegger and Nietzsche,” in Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome: The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).Google Scholar

6. There is a tradition of nineteenth-century history (particularly, but not exclusively, French) which consistently elevates Napoleon above humanity and attributes great deeds to him. Even those critical of his deeds often attributed nearly superhuman qualities to him. For a good summary of such historiography, see chapter 14 of Gooch, G. P., History and Historians in the Nineteenth Century, 3d ed. (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1920).Google Scholar Historians were not the only ones to focus on the emperor. Hegel's account of Napoleon as a tool of the “cunning of reason” fits here—despite his own intentions, Napoleon furthered the cause of freedom in the world. Similarly, Raskolnikov in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment sees Napoleon as a person unafraid to commit crimes in order to move humankind forward. Nietzsche was certainly not alone in holding Bonaparte up as an exemplar, but his reasons for doing so are quite different.

7. Bergmann, Peter, Nietzsche: “The Last Antipolitical German” (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 16.Google Scholar Given this, it is probable that Napoleon influenced Nietzsche's vision of human excellence.

8. As will be discussed later, Nietzsche regarded Napoleon's nationalism as a sign of weakness and decay.

9. In this, Nietzsche closely follows romantic attitudes toward Bonaparte. Rosenblum, Nancy notes that “His [Napoleon's] achievements as a strategist and his imperial ambitions are ignored; romantics draw their inspiration instead from Napoleon as an exemplary personality” (Another Liberalism [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987], p. 20).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10. The core of Nietzsche's analysis of slave morality, and its origins in weakness, can be found in On the Genealogy of Morals, particularly the first essay.

11. It is interesting to note that Emerson viewed Napoleon in an almost opposite fashion: he termed Bonaparte the representative of the middle classes and a democratic figure. See Emerson, “Napoleon, or the Man of the World,” in Representative Men: Seven Lectures.

12. On this point, Caro, Adrian Del writes that “Nature is not moral, but terrible; and Napoleon stands as the greatest example of a man who succeeded in returning to nature” (Nietzsche Contra Nietzsche [Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989], p. 113).Google Scholar

13. Nietzsche repeatedly claims that egoism is part and parcel of the character of the noble individual—such people seek to create distance between themselves and the masses. Therefore Nietzsche writes that “egoism belongs to the nature of the noble soul” (BGE, 265).

14. The description is also similar to Aristotle's account of the magnanimous person who does not wish to be praised by those inferior to him. The similarity fits with the point made by both Kaufmann and Hollingdale that Nietzsche's Übermensch is very similar to Aristotle's magnanimous man.

15. This is a significant contrast to a number of strands of romanticism. Nancy Rosenblum has pointed out that romantics take certain liberal ideas to an extreme, and one of these prominent values is freedom: romantics reject all law and predictability as limitations and favor the anarchic and unpredictable “law of the heart” (see Rosenblum's Another Liberalism, chap. 2).

16. This account of what makes for great character fits with several other of Nietzsche's writings. For example, in On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, he describes creativity of the Greeks in similar language: “The Greeks gradually learned to organize the chaos” (UM, II. 10). And in Beyond Good and Evil section 200 he notes that the warring drives that result from ethnic mixing can be mastered by noble ones (such as Alcibiades and Caesar).

17. For this reason Nietzsche notes that even strong people respected the saint because “they sensed the superior force that sought to test itself in such a conquest, the strength of will in which they recognized and honored their own strength” (BGE, 51).

18. Nietzsche describes Goethe as “in an epoch disposed to the unreal, a convinced realist” (TI “Expeditions,” 49). And he characterizes Napoleon as one of “the greatest of factual men” (EH, “Clever,” 3).

19. Kaufmann, , Nietzsche, p. 315.Google Scholar

20. White, Alan, Within Nietzsche's Labyrinth (New York: Routledge, 1990), p. 55.Google Scholar

21. It is a bit surprising that Kaufmann overlooks the way in which Nietzsche uses the term “problem.” Nietzsche also labeled Socrates as a problem (a chapter in Twilight of the Idols is called “The Problem of Socrates”), yet this did not stop Kaufmann from arguing that Nietzsche actually held Socrates in high esteem (see Kaufmann, Nietzsche, chap. 13). Kaufmann's interpretation of Nietzsche's Napoleon seems to reflect Kaufmann's desire to rehabilitate Nietzsche and make him “safe.”

22. It is worth noting that Taine did not particularly admire Bonaparte. His point about Napoleon as related to the artists is that the emperor was more akin to amoral Italians of the Renaissance than good upstanding Frenchmen. Nietzsche, however, makes the equation between the emperor and the artists for different reasons.

23. Abbey, Ruth and Appel, Frederick, in their valuable article “Nietzsche and the Will to Politics,” Review of Politics 60 (1998): 92–94,CrossRefGoogle Scholar also note the connection Nietzsche draws between art and politics. In general, I agree with their view on the issue.

24. This point is not widely held. Two prominent examples show this. Bruce Detwiler argues that political leaders are important in Nietzsche's project, but the philosopher ranks above the leader; the leader, in effect, is a tool of the philosopher: “ [Nietzsche] advocates a kind of politics…that is wholly subordinate to what is conducive to or expressive of the highest levels of cultural attainment” (Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, (1990), p. 66).Google Scholar This view is also held by Straussian interpreters of Nietzsche, such as Lawrence Lampert, Stanley Rosen, and Peter Berkowitz, who argue that Nietzsche (like Plato before him) valorized philosophy as the highest human undertaking. Daniel Conway, on the other hand, sees the philosopher as beneath the great political actor—the philosopher has the same aspirations as the legislator but lacks the strength to act: “Nietzsche proposes the emergence of philosophers as an unmistakable symptom of the inevitable decay of a people or age” (Nietzsche's Dangerous Game: Philosophy in the Twilight of the Idols [New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997], p. 104).Google Scholar As will become more clear as the argument develops, I disagree with both views—I think that art, politics, and philosophy are all possible avenues for greatness. None is necessarily privileged above the others.

25. Nietzsche is of course not alone among nineteenth-century intellectuals in linking art and politics. Linda Nochlin, in her essay “The Invention of the Avant-Garde,” in The Politics of Vision: Essays on Nineteenth Century Art and Society (New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1989),Google Scholar shows that politics and art were inseparable for French avant-garde artists of the nineteenth century: the point of art was to challenge the ideas of the present day.

26. Nietzsche's description of Napoleon as an artist reinforces the link between Napoleon and Goethe.

27. Nehamas, , Nietzsche: Life as Literature, p. 227.Google Scholar

28. It is not too surprising that Nehamas interprets Nietzsche's Napoleon in this way. The main thrust of Nehamas's interpretation is decidedly antipolitical, and it would undercut his own argument to claim that the higher man can be valuable as a political actor.

29. Nietzsche accuses Richard Wagner of doing just this: he charges him with “demolatry“ (worship of and groveling before the demos) (CW, Preface).

30. Thus E. E. Sleinis writes that Nietzsche's, “great and unwavering admiration for Goethe is not just admiration for the totality of his works, it is an admiration for the man.… The works are a sign of the greatness of the man, they do not exhaust it” (Nietzsche's Revaluation of Values [Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1994], p. 132).Google Scholar Chapter five of Sleinis's book is a useful discussion of Nietzsche's aesthetics. A somewhat contrary position is taken by Ruth Abbey and Frederick Appel, who argue that “many passages suggest that an individual's worth depends upon the quality of their life's work and that their identity derives partly from their deeds” (“Nietzsche and the Will to Politics,” p. 95). I think that the fact that Nietzsche dwells on artists as individuals, and barely mentions their writings or other creations, suggests that it is not the deeds, but the stature of the soul, that determines one's worth.

31. Edelman's, Murray comment about art more generally, that it “can transfigure experience and conception, calling attention to aspects and meanings previously slighted or overlooked” (From Art to Politics [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995], p. 55)Google Scholar, fits in well with my analysis of Nietzsche's aesthetics. Art of its nature then plays a political and moral role because it presents viewers with an image of new values as embodied in an excellent human being.

32. For this reason, I disagree with Abbey and Appel's contention that Nietzsche's political task was “the emergence of a good society,” and the higher individual has a certain responsibility to the human race as a whole (“Nietzsche and the Will to Politics,” pp. 99–100). If Nietzsche is indifferent to the harm that a ruler such as Napoleon caused, and does not pay much attention to the details of how his regime was structured, then it seems unlikely that he cared about creating a good society. Rather, his politics seem much more individualistic: political action can be used as a tool of self-creation by the higher man, as art and other pursuits can. The higher man as political actor seems to have no obligation to help, or even care about, others.

33. This is not to say that outcomes are simply unimportant: after all, it would be impossible to know the greatness of a person without any artifacts. But Nietzsche is clear that outcomes are secondary, mere symptoms of who the person is (what Ahern, Daniel R., Nietzsche as Cultural Physician [University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1995]Google Scholar, refers to as Nietzsche's symptomatic approach). Thus, Nietzsche writes that “every great philosophy so far” has been “the personal confession of its author and a kind of involuntary and unconscious memoir” (BGE, 6), and also argues against the idea that our deeds differ from our characters (GM, 1.13).

34. Knauer, James, “Motive and Goal in Hannah Arendt's Concept of Political Action,” American Political Science Review 74 (1980): 721–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35. Although the section in which this point is made—“On the Three Metamorphoses” —is a very early one, the imagery recurs throughout Zarathustra. At the end of Part II, when Zarathustra is about to embark on his most difficult task (culminating in the embrace of the eternal recurrence at the end of Part III), the voice in his dream tells him “You must yet become as a child and without shame” (“The Stillest Hour”).

36. The image of the child at play also sheds light on the harm a political actor can cause. It is a cliché, but nonetheless frequently accurate, that children are often very cruel because they do not know any better. A child at play is often so wrapped up in his activity that he does not think about consequences or outcomes and thus can damage things and other people unwittingly.

37. Nietzsche uses the same terms in the passages being considered. In “On the Three Metamorphoses” he describes the child as “ein Spiel,” a game. And section 48 of “Expeditions of an Untimely Man,” Nietzsche uses the word “spielen,” to play.

38. My argument is thus distinct from many aristocratic interpretations of Nietzsche's politics. Such scholars argue that Nietzsche's political goal is the creation of a regime that will help breed the philosophers of the future. See, e.g., Bruce Detwiler's Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism, and Ansell-Pearson's, KeithAn Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39. Daniel Conway has also argued that exemplification of values is unintended (Nietzsche and the Political, p. 10Google Scholar). But Conway sees a certain calculation in the lack of intention—he argues that Nietzsche, for example, consciously turned towards unintentional action because he recognized the limits of his own capacities to affect change (see pp. 44–48). It seems to me that this does not fit with Nietzsche's description of the monological artist—it seems unlikely that they could choose to forget the audience in such a calculated manner.

40. It is worth noting the parallel between Napoleon's comment and the title of Nietzsche's autobiography, Ecce Homo (“behold the man”). Both point to the vibrant character of the person, not to any work or doctrine they created.

41. In a sense, then, Nietzsche is not simply an anti-humanist as Nick Land contends. “Aborting the Human Race,” in The Fate of the New Nietzsche, ed. Ansell-Pearson, Keith and Caygill, Howard (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 1993), pp. 303–315Google Scholar. It is not too surprising that Nietzsche's humanism is complex—a repeated claim of Nietzsche's is that we tend to simplify reality by bifurcating things into two categories (e.g., good vs. evil), but this misses the nuances and subtle shadings of reality. Nietzsche is neither simply a humanist or an antihumanist; he is something of both.

42. This point marks a sharp disagreement with a very prominent strand of Nietzsche scholarship which simply rejects political action as a possibility for the higher person. Kaufmann, for example, claims that “the leitmotif of Nietzsche's life and thought” is “the theme of the antipolitical individual who seeks self-perfection far from the modern world“ (Nietzsche, p. 418Google Scholar). Similarly, Thiele, Leslie Paul writes that “occupied with ordering his own soul, the philosopher has little time for instituting social order, even if it might prove useful for his comfort or security” (Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990], p. 223)Google Scholar. Both of these authors argue that Nietzsche isolates himself, staying as far from the public arena as possible, and encourages other higher individuals to do the same. Although I agree with Thiele's view that the primary goal of the philosopher is ordering his own soul, I argue that this can be done through political action, something Thiele rejects. While both interpretations are admirable, I think, for focusing on the spiritual elements of Nietzsche's thought, they overlook the public realm as a legitimate venue for artistic creation and self-overcoming.

43. Not all interpreters, of course, make this accusation. As noted above, Kaufmann and White see Nietzsche's attitude toward the emperor as skeptical. Others recognize that Napoleon was an admirable figure who fell prey to corruption. Thiele, for example, writes that “Napoleon, whose character Nietzsche celebrated, was held to have been thoroughly corrupted by power” (Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul, p. 19Google Scholar). And Staten, Henry notes that “even Napoleon was corrupted” (Nietzsche's Voice [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990], p. 145)Google Scholar. But neither of these authors examines what Napoleon's corruption means to Nietzsche—what does the failing of such a dynamic exemplar indicate about the higher man? In this section, I attempt to delve into that question.

44. Conway, , Nietzsche and the Political, p. 9.Google Scholar

45. Caro, Del, Nietzsche Contra Nietzsche, p. 40.Google Scholar

46. The terms come from Nietzsche's On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life (the second of the Untimely Meditations). Tracy Strong argues that “to some degree Nietzsche's portraits of Greek antiquity or Napoleon are cases in point” of his use of antiquarian history (Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration, p. 32Google Scholar). I think this statement is true as far as it goes, but Strong does not mention Nietzsche's negative discussions of Bonaparte.

47. Kaufmann, , Nietzsche, pp. 315–16.Google Scholar

48. Alexis de Tocqueville's comment that tyranny is a possible result of the trend towards equality fits here: all people are equal under the tyrant, even if they are all equally subservient. This is a marked change from aristocracy. See Democracy in America, 2. 2. 4; 2. 4. 6.Google Scholar

49. Casaubon, the narrator of Eco'sFoucault's Pendulum, states at one point, “I believe that you can reach the point where there is no longer any difference between developing the habit of pretending to believe and developing the habit of believing” (trans. Weaver, William [New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1989], p. 467)Google Scholar.

50. In two passages, Nietzsche explicitly links Napoleon with the mob, showing the emperor's soul to be infected with the values of weakness. In Beyond Good and Evil section 256, he describes figures like Napoleon as “successful plebeians who knew themselves to be incapable, both in their lives and work, of a noble tempo.” And in The Gay Science section 282, he recounts Napoleon's inability to walk like a prince because he had come from “the mob or semi-mob.”

51. It is worth noting that Nietzsche attributes similar failings to figures whom scholars universally agree that he admires. In Beyond Good and Evil section 256, where Nietzsche describes Napoleon's patriotism as a sign of weakness, he also faults Heinrich Heine and Stendahl—both of whom he respected—for the same thing. And, continuing the parallel sketched earlier, he also lists Goethe. If, as R. J. Hollingdale notes, “the description of Goethe in ‘Expeditions of an Untimely Man’ 49 defines the Übermensch more succinctly than any other single passage in Nietzsche's works” (Glossary appended to Hollingdale's translation of Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist, p. 204Google Scholar), then it seems that even the mightiest can fall. Based on this, one cannot argue that Napoleon succumbed to nationalism because he was weaker than Goethe. Instead, they both succumbed because of the inherent fragility of spiritual elevation.

52. An example of this view is Love's, NancyMarx, Nietzsche, and Modernity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986)Google Scholar. She argues that for Nietzsche, , solipsism is necessary: “Only the speechless, solipsistic individual can be free” (p. 140)Google Scholar.

53. For Nietzsche's view of Socrates, see the chapter “The Problem of Socrates” in Twilight of the Idols. Two excellent analyses of Nietzsche's interpretation of Socrates are Dannhauser, Werner J., Nietzsche's View of Socrates (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1974)Google Scholar, and Ahern, Nietzsche as Cultural Physician.

54. This view might seem similar to romantic notions of political action, but as noted several times throughout the article, Nietzsche is not just another romantic. He clearly shares certain ideas with romantics—e.g., expressive individualism—but also differs in significant ways—e.g., the rejection of anarchic freedom and the pursuit of military glory. For an account of Nietzsche's complex relationship to romanticism, see Adrian Del Caro's Nietzsche Contra Nietzsche. For a good discussion of different strands of romantic political views, and their relationship to liberal politics, see Rosenblum's Another Liberalism.

55. On this point, I disagree with Abbey and Appel, who argue that “the real value of Nietzsche's writings lies in their radical challenge to liberal and democratic commitments” (“Nietzsche and the Will to Politics, ” p. 114), that is, to our core political beliefs.