How Thus Spoke Zarathustra drew on Faust, Part Two
A documented line of influence: Friedrich Nietzsche demonstrably engaged Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Faust, Part Two
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe · 1832
RomanticismThe influenced
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Friedrich Nietzsche · 1883
The Age of the NovelRelevance
7/10
On Thus Spoke Zarathustra’s page
- Zarathustra sets itself against Faust directly — Goethe was the one German Nietzsche held as a near-realization of the Übermensch
- Goethe's closing "the Eternal Feminine draws us upward" is the line Nietzsche borrows and inverts, pulling the gaze down toward the earth and the eternal return
- Read Faust's ending first and you'll hear exactly what Nietzsche is answering
On Faust, Part Two’s page
- Goethe was Nietzsche's near-Übermensch — the figure he revered above all others in German culture
- Faust, Part Two ends "the Eternal Feminine draws us upward"; Nietzsche takes that very line and turns its pull back toward the earth
- Zarathustra alludes to Faust throughout — Nietzsche named the two works as the closest German literature has