Abstract

This dissertation reads Friedrich Nietzsche as a reader of two French moralists--Francois de la Rocbefoucauld and Sebastien Roch Nicolas Chamfort . The works of Nietzsche's middle period are studied--Human, All too Human , and Daybreak and The Gay Science . The study argues that reading Nietzsche as a descendant of and dissenter from the moralist tradition sheds new light on his thought and brings certain concepts into focus. The key concepts and questions explored are: morality, egoism, vanity and self-love, pity and its cognate emotions, friendship, aristocracy, honour, women, marriage and gender relations. Throughout the dissertation the impact that reading the moralists had on Nietzsche's style is also examined. It is argued that a concern with justice is the 'basso continuo' of the middle period, continuously present and working itself out in the background of these texts. Furthermore, one of the innovative ways Nietzsche expresses this concern is via spatial metaphors