By Martine Béland
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Date: 05/13/2024
Description:
Nietzsche as Stylist traces the emergence of the philosopher’s idiosyncratic writing style as he experimented with various rhetorical approaches. Introducing a contextual and historical sensibility to readings of Nietzsche’s published and unpublished works – as well as his correspondence, his journal entries, and other documents he interacted with, such as reviews of his work – the book highlights how Nietzsche’s style evolved in relation to his life and world. Martine Béland situates his writings within contemporaneous debates about the professionalization of academia: by resisting what he felt was an anti-philosophical climate, Nietzsche developed a synesthetic and performative style, hoping that his philosophical ideas could engage diverse readers in multiple ways. Through careful stylistic and contextual analysis, Nietzsche as Stylist explores how Nietzsche cultivated skills as a rhetorician and a writer to bring philosophy into a wider field of attention, thought, and experience.