Abstract

In September 1886, the poet and critic Josef Victor Widmann penned a review of BGE titled "Nietzsche's Dangerous Book,"1 observing that a keen sense of danger pervaded the work.2 Nietzsche, who often felt misunderstood and wrongfully attacked, responded enthusiastically to Widmann on June 28, 1887: Mainly, I have to thankfully inform you, after a year's time no less, that your review has been by far the most "intelligent" one that this uncongenial book has received until now. Poets are, after all, "divinatory" beings: in the end, such a book of riddles will much sooner be deciphered and "cracked open" by a poet, than by a philosopher and "specialist."3 Indeed, Widmann identified a motif that runs not only...