Abstract

This dissertation is directed toward a critical re-evaluation of the traditional relationship that has obtained between philosophy and mythology. Pursuant to this aim, I have undertaken a post-Heideggerian analysis of Nietzsche's magnum opus, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, in terms of a theory of myth deduced from a selection of Nietzsche's early published and unpublished writings. My contention in this analysis is that the relationship established by Nietzsche between philosophy and mythology depends essentially upon his appropriation of what I define as the German Romantic perspective of aesthetic temporality. ;In chapters I and II, the origins of this perspective are located in Winckelmann and Herder; more precisely, in Herder's attempt to mediate Winckelmann's aesthetic revaluation of the experience of art with his own historicistic revaluation of the experience of time. The perspective developed from this synthesis is shown here to form the context for Herder's philosophic appropriation of the language of myth through the narrative model of his philosophy of history. ;Chapters III, IV and V establish a dialogue between Nietzsche and Herder in terms of this perspective of aesthetic temporality, thus locating Nietzsche's theory of myth within the Romantic project for philosophy to create a new mythology. Chapter III introduces the investigation of Nietzsche's theory of myth by grounding the methodology of this investigation within the context of contemporary Nietzsche studies. Here the perspective of myth is offered as a means of reconciling the conflict between the hermeneutic and structuralist methodologies currently being applied to the interpretation of Nietzsche. ;Chapter IV presents a detailed analysis of the foundations of Nietzsche's theory of myth in two early texts along with the relevant material from Nietzsche's notebooks. This analysis derives Nietzsche's theory of myth from his concept of tragedy, and the relationship of tragedy to the Apollonian and Dionysian aesthetic principles. Crucial to the examination of this theory of myth is the elucidation of its implied theories of language, time, and the fictive nature of man's linguistic participation in time. According to this theory, a metaphoric and rhetorical engagement in one's linguistic horizon enables one to engage fictively the pattern of temporality embraced by that linguistic structure. The mythic capacity of this linguistic participation in time, finally, is shown to lie in its historical effectiveness; that is, in its potential to alter radically the mode of man's participation in his cultural tradition. ;Chapter V develops this concept of historical efficacy through a consideration of Nietzsche's Use and Abuse of History. Nietzsche's mythic reorientation of the temporal context of human action is demonstrated here to be fundamentally prescriptive for the possibility of historically appropriate action issuing from a new form of time: action that incorporates the past into life in the present, as directed toward the creation of those horizons under which life can continue in the future. ;In the sixth chapter, the validity of using this theory of myth as a model for the interpretation of Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra is examined. The plausibility of this interpretation is based on three conditions: first, the text is shown to constitute an attempt by Nietzsche to initiate a rebirth of tragedy; second, this reinstatement of tragedy is demonstrated to take place as a linguistic performance; and third, the mythic capacity of this linguistic performance is shown to be grounded in its historical effectiveness. The dissertation is then concluded with the proposal of an anti-hermeneutical approach to the text, offered as a methodology of interpretation based upon the theory of myth personified in the text of Zarathustra