On Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra

A transcript of the lecture course Strauss gave at the University of Chicago in 1959, edited by Richard L. Velkley and published in 2017. Strauss works through Zarathustra slowly and in sequence, treating it as a philosophical text with a deliberately literary surface rather than as aphorism or prophecy: the will to power, the eternal return, the overman, Nietzsche’s quarrel with Plato, and his relation to the Bible he is parodying. Because it is a classroom transcription rather than a book Strauss wrote, it preserves the students’ questions and his asides, which is much of its value.

Why it’s on the list: It sits in the curriculum’s literature and societal critique section, immediately after the three Nietzsche primary texts the list specifies — The Genealogy of Morals, Beyond Good and Evil and Thus Spoke Zarathustra — and functions as the reader’s guide through the hardest of them.

Where I saw it: Brendan McCord’s Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in the section on Literature and Societal Critique. The entry carries a ☑️ on the source page; the page gives no legend for that mark, so it is recorded here literally and not interpreted. The full 211-entry transcription is on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

Connections

• Leo Strauss — the lecturer; he appears several times on this list.
• Friedrich Nietzsche — the author under discussion.
• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.