Wordsworth Classics of World Literature: Thus Spake Zarathustra

This series of aphorisms, put into the mouth of Zarathustra, contains the kernel of Nietzches original thought. In it he states that “God is dead” and that Christianity is decadent and leads mankind into a slave morality concerned with the next life rather than this. Translated by Thomas Common. With an Introduction by Nicholas Davey. This astonishing series of aphorisms, put into the mouth of the Persian sage Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, contains the kernel of Nietzsches thought. `God is dead, he tells us. Christianity is decadent, leading mankind into a slave morality concerned not with this life, but with the next. Nietzsche emphasises the UEbermensch, or Superman, whose will to power makes him the creator of a new heroic mentality. The intensely felt ideas are expressed in prose-poetry of indefinable beauty. Though misused by the German National Socialist party as a spurious justification of their creed, the book also had a profound influence on early twentieth-century writers such as Shaw, Mann, Gide, Lawrence and Sartre.