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The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs Mass Market Paperback – January 12, 1974

by Friedrich Nietzsche (Author), Walter Kaufmann (Translator)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 485 ratings
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The book Nietzsche called "the most personal of all my books." It was here that he first proclaimed the death of God—to which a large part of the book is devoted—and his doctrine of the eternal recurrence.

Walter Kaufmann's commentary, with its many quotations from previously untranslated letters, brings to life Nietzsche as a human being and illuminates his philosophy. The book contains some of Nietzsche's most sustained discussions of art and morality, knowledge and truth, the intellectual conscience and the origin of logic.

Most of the book was written just before Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the last part five years later, after Beyond Good and Evil. We encounter Zarathustra in these pages as well as many of Nietzsche's most interesting philosophical ideas and the largest collection of his own poetry that he himself ever published.

Walter Kaufmann's English versions of Nietzsche represent one of the major translation enterprises of our time. He is the first philosopher to have translated Nietzsche's major works, and never before has a single translator given us so much of Nietzsche.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    396 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Vintage
  4. Publication date
    January 12, 1974
  5. Dimensions
    4.1 x 0.88 x 6.89 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0394719859
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0394719856
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"[This book] mirrors all of Nietzsche's thought and could be related in hundreds of ways to his other books, his notes, and his letters. And yet it is complete in itself. For it is a work of art." —Walter Kaufmann in the Introduction

From the Inside Flap

Nietzsche called The Gay Science "the most personal of all my books." It was here that he first proclaimed the death of God -- to which a large part of the book is devoted -- and his doctrine of the eternal recurrence.

Walter Kaufmann's commentary, with its many quotations from previously untranslated letters, brings to life Nietzsche as a human being and illuminates his philosophy. The book contains some of Nietzsche's most sustained discussions of art and morality, knowledge and truth, the intellectual conscience and the origin of logic.

Most of the book was written just before Thus Spoke Zarathustra, the last part five years later, after Beyond Good and Evil. We encounter Zarathustra in these pages as well as many of Nietzsche's most interesting philosophical ideas and the largest collection of his own poetry that he himself ever published.

Walter Kaufmann's English versions of Nietzsche represent one of the major translation enterprises of our time. He is the first philosopher to have translated Nietzsche's major works, and never before has a single translator given us so much of Nietzsche.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; This translation based on second edition of Die frohliche Wissenshaft, published 1887. (January 12, 1974)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 396 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0394719859
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0394719856
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.1 x 0.88 x 6.89 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 485 ratings

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Friedrich Nietzsche

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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
485 global ratings
Great text; Awful binding
1 Star
Great text; Awful binding
Nietzsche is brilliant as always. However, the binding of my copy has failed miserably after only two months. It would be one thing if one or two pages fell out, but the entire thing has begun to unravel. I'm having to hold it together with paperclips and turning pages is anxiety inducing.
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Top reviews from the United States

Zac Moretz
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2024
Verified Purchase
Make sure if you are buying Nietzsche, you are buying the Walter Kauffmann translations. This is perfect and has lots of explanatory information from him, the world's foremost Nietzsche scholar.
2 people found this helpful
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B. Marold
5.0 out of 5 stars Kindle Edition of Nietzsche's Most Engaging Work
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2012
Verified Purchase
This review addresses the Kindle edition of Kaufmann's translation of what I have come to believe is Nietzsche's most engaging work, the one which gives some of his most interesting psychological insights, done in his period of greatest productivity, just before and during the writing of Also Sprach Zarathustra. (Beyond Good and Evil and A Geneology of Morals are also very important.) Unlike "Beyond Good and Evil", there are some excellently even-handed comments about women in this book.

This may be the first book I am reading 'from cover to cover' on a Kindle, and the experience is rewarding. There are several things which are annoying about Kindle, but one of the very best aspects is the way it handles footnotes. Click on a footnote number, and it immediately takes you not only to the page where that note appears, but it puts the note at the top of the page. This is something no hard copy can do. The other side of the coin is that it suffers from Kindle's difficulty in handling bilingual texts. It takes a whole lot of jiggery pokery to have the German and English versions of the poems to come out side by side. I'm not even sure it's possible. Fortunately, the poems are numbered, for those who don't know German.

Note that some of Kaufmann's Nietzsche books are protected from copying, which is hugely annoying when you are writing papers, and you want an accurate quote. This one has no such prohibition. I am fond of Kaufmann's translations, and the Cambridge University Press edition is not available on Kindle, so this is the one to get. Avoid the cheap or free versions. What is listed under the Cambridge Kindle is NOT the translation published by Cambridge.

One general comment about Kindle on the PC. It would be really nice if one could open multiple Kindle windows. That way, you could have the English translation and the original German of Nietzsche's works open, side by side. Of course, you can always open the German in you Kindle device and prop it up alongsize your monitor.
13 people found this helpful
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Alarick
5.0 out of 5 stars Heraclitus comes to the fore-- Im Fluss:Panta rei
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2008
Verified Purchase
The best first and/or last step into Friedrich Nietzsche's thought. It reads quickly and gives a fair cross-section of his writings chronologically: just before TSZ, right after his "free spirit" epoch, and Bk. V from around the time of Beyond Good & Evil. Only a shame that a Hollingdale translation is not available in English.
And now some buffoonery from yours trulery.

Down Going Limerick

Zarathustra is now down going
And so he speaks in rhyme:
The madman said, "God is dead.
Where is he? Is it we who killed a lie?"

Now I Exhort You to Love What is Most Distant, to
Dionysus Against the Crucified.

Burn Your Ships and move to Inland Deserts
Onward--To the Great Noontide,
For The Twilight of the Idols Approaches,
And The Overman's Time is Well Nigh.

At Last Behold the Higher Man--
Whom With Hammer Doth Philosophize:
"You yourself are this Will to Power,
and nothing else besides!"

Now Completely Drunk With Laugher,
And Unafraid to Die
The Higher Man Declares: Amor Fati!
Finally Dionysus Will Fly!

Thus Spoke Zarathustra in His Down Going
Of the Innocence of Becoming from on High.
"Together, Apollo and Dionysus unite
Against the Crucified."

Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The Sorcerer unpursed his lips
laying his flute beside him, and sighed.
9 people found this helpful
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Orlando Monsivais
4.0 out of 5 stars On the product
Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2014
Verified Purchase
The book was shipped appropriately - it was a day or two after it was promised, but that is the only complaint on the shipping. The binding and its covers are of a relatively good quality; however I found an older version (still the same walter kaufmann translation) in Half Price Books which had a binding and covers of superior quality - and after reading the two, the older version looks almost impeccable with little to no creases (this was the first day). However the page quality, the material and overall the printing of the book (a few misprints, like three or four) are very neat and well done. 3.5/5 stars.
2 people found this helpful
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Jennifer F Armstrong
5.0 out of 5 stars The majesty of the powerful
Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2012
Verified Purchase
In Nietzsche's GAY SCIENCE, he speaks of the nature of power and how it can be mishandled. His example is that of Luther and the Church. Luther, according to Nietzsche, wanted to save the Church from the impending secularism of its evolution towards the Enlightenment. That religious power should find the maturity of its ultimate expression in secular enlightenment was beyond Luther's power to see. He rushed to "save" the Church, by "reforming" it, and thus undermined its authority in the broader scope of life. After Luther's intervention, the influence of the Church became narrower; its authority diminished. Nietzche effectively chastises Protestant reformer Martin Luther for being of the lower classes and hence not understanding how power actually worked. By virtue of his lack of knowledge and experience of power, he achieved the opposite to that which he had set out to achieve.

One way of looking at Luther and his intervention is that Luther was a "Beta" male. He didn't understand that power, in order to maintain itself as genuine authority, has to exert itself with in subtle ways. Luther's efforts therefore made the Church's influence appear cruder and more harshly defined. This was the means by which he stripped the Church of power -- by defining power too narrowly, and by not understanding that authority can only develop as a feature of power over a long time. Instead, Luther only understood power much as a "Beta" male understands it, that is, as something to be grabbed at, and imposed by force, rather than as something that gradually develops, along with the relationships that allow it to justify itself.
9 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Hari Charan
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in India on March 7, 2024
Verified Purchase
Purchase "Mass Market PaperBack version" i.e., Translated with commentary by Walter Kaufmann (Vintage) . Paperback version is not authentic and is translated by some unknown translator.
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Hari Charan
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in India on March 7, 2024
Purchase "Mass Market PaperBack version" i.e., Translated with commentary by Walter Kaufmann (Vintage) . Paperback version is not authentic and is translated by some unknown translator.
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P.F.C.
4.0 out of 5 stars One of Nietzsche's best.
Reviewed in Italy on November 22, 2020
Verified Purchase
Nietzsche starts to up his game from the last great book Human All Too Human. I don't recommend this version of the book though because it's full of grammatical errors.
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Laurent de Brienne
5.0 out of 5 stars A must
Reviewed in Canada on August 8, 2018
Verified Purchase
A very good way to introduce yourself to Nietzsche and his literature. As said in the preface, many (if not all) of his ideas either begin from this book, or end in it. A classic to own and read.
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Jack Wonder
5.0 out of 5 stars Pearls of Wisdom
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 1, 2012
Verified Purchase
Probably the most beautiful and important of all Nietzsche's books. It is here that the famous fragment `God is dead' appears (The Madman, book III: 125) and a passage on Eternal Return (The Greatest Weight).

The best way to get acquainted with Nietzsche is to read him direct:

The Greatest Weight. -"What, if some day or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence - even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again - and you with it, speck of dust!
-Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god, and never had I heard anything more divine!" If this thought were to gain possession of you it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you. The question in each and everything, "Do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?", would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed you would have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal conformation and seal? (book IV: 341)
6 people found this helpful
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shubneek
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice
Reviewed in Canada on June 25, 2019
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