Thursday, February 17, 2005

Nietzsche on Classics and Classicists

*please note that the nietzsche entry for 9 february has been removed by necessity due to a scribal error on my part. you see, my photocopy had cut off the bottom of a page, thereby eliding the end of one excerpt and the beginning of the next, which caused me to believe i was looking at one excerpt when, in fact, i was looking at parts of two. the next two entries, then, will be the two that i inadvertantly combined. as separate entities, they will, i'm sure you'll agree, make much more sense.

Origin of the classicist. When a great work of art makes its appearance, it always finds a corresponding spectator who not only experiences its influence but wants to immortalize it. The same applies to a great state, to everything, in short, which raises mankind. In the same way classicists want to immortalize the influence of the classics, which they can only do as imitative artists. Not as men who model their lives on the classics?


i wonder if his jab at classicists as 'imitative artists' is at all related to his dislike of aristotelian poetic theory.

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