First published 2012
Carl Jung delivers his private assessment of Friedrich Nietzsche and Thus Spoke Zarathustra in this transcript of seminars given to his inner circle in Zurich during the 1920s and 1930s. The young Jung had been both captivated and troubled by stories of Nietzsche's intellectual brilliance and descent into madness while growing up near Basel. As a student at the University of Basel, Jung read Nietzsche's works and found them transformative, shaping his psychological theories throughout his career. In these informal sessions, the mature Jung speaks candidly about how Nietzsche's understanding of human nature overwhelmed him and provided philosophical foundations for his own ideas. He demonstrates how Thus Spoke Zarathustra reveals both Nietzsche's genius and his neurotic, pre-psychotic patterns. Since Jung never intended these seminar notes for publication, he speaks without restraint, making jokes, criticizing contemporary figures, and commenting freely on political and economic issues of his era.
Genres: biography, philosophy, 20th-century, 19th-century, academic
Vibes: dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: unreliable-narrator
Setting: Zurich, Basel
Period: 1920s, 1930s
1616 pages · Kindle Edition · Princeton University Press