Abstract

In Nietzschean Narratives, Gary Shapiro explores the narrative structure that informs Nietzsche's thinking and writing. Shapiro's primary aim is to show that Nietzsche's celebrated critiques of subjectivity and authority are perfectly consistent with his deployment of a unified narratology: "As a philologist, Nietzsche is always suspicious of the claims to originality, authenticity and exclusivity accompanying the grand stories or metanarratives that would provide a final accounting of first and last things. The task of the studies that follow is to show, however, that such suspicion does not exclude narrative strategies, styles, or views of the world from Nietzsche's work". Shapiro proposes the narrative as an alternative to the two models most commonly invoked for Nietzsche's texts: the epistemically suspect metanarrative popularized by Heidegger, and the radically indeterminate fragment suggested by Derrida. Although the latter model is presently more influential, Shapiro takes less seriously the charge that the "postmodern" currents of Nietzsche's epistemology drown his texts in différance and discontinuity: "If one were... to read those books which [Nietzsche] published under his signature, the appearance of radical indeterminacy would be more difficult to establish". To the more serious charge that Nietzsche is a purveyor of metanarratives, Shapiro responds that "Nietzsche's path of thinking and writing maintains a constant vigilance with regard to the possibility and limits of narrative".