Is Zarathustra No Longer a Scholar? The Future of Philology

In 1872, The Birth of Tragedy appeared and almost immediately gave rise to one of the greatest controversies and quarrels in the history of learning. Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff attacked Nietzsche's book with savage irony and narrow professional objections. Nietzsche's colleague and friend Erwin Rohde defended the book, as did the composer Richard Wagner. In this essay, I examine the major issues underlying the ideological assumptions of the classicists in the German tradition of the period. I also address the unprecedented originality of Nietzsche's work as it still affects the future of the philological imagination.