Abstract

This text examines the early work of Friedrich Nietzsche. I contend that although this period is not well known to Nietzsche scholars, it had a discernable impact on Nietzsche's later thought. In the first part of my text, I consider Nietzsche's meditations on the meaning of historical studies for life. These meditations offer valuable insights on how the historian, in Nietzsche's view, identifies "the past" as a form and on how all forms become identifiable as what they are. Next, I will consider Nietzsche's claim that the classical historian ought to conduct his studies with a view towards better comprehending and critiquing his own his times. Classical study, Nietzsche argues, informs the historian with an "untimely" perspective. The true classicist, in this view, seeks out differences between antiquity and modernity, judging honestly the efficacy of each. Such a scholar will see that in the best of times the Greeks avoided the skepticism and pessimism responsible for modernity's social drift. The Greeks before Plato avoided this drift, Nietzsche contends, by developing all of the necessary components of a "true culture": the Greeks cultivated the talents of the genius in society, while promoting competition amongst these exemplars; they remained true to the human being's instinct to "wage war," while creating a healthy paradigm for life. Most importantly, in Nietzsche's view, the Greeks established earthly measures of greatness in various forms, making purposeful all strivings for human elevation. The Greek way brought forth an artistic-philosophical form of the genius, legislating greatness for all, competing on the stage of Greek culture for the mind and admiration of the state. The Greeks offer modernity a strange paradigm for structuring the lives of individuals, one that Nietzsche suggests is well suited for the challenges facing the nineteenth century and beyond. The latter part of my study looks through Nietzsche's untimely perspective at the structure of this Greek paradigm, examining the development of forms "becoming what the are," and identifying the exemplars who best represent its form