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Essays and Aphorisms (Penguin Classics) Paperback – May 30, 1973
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For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
- Print length240 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin Classics
- Publication dateMay 30, 1973
- Grade level12 and up
- Reading age18 years and up
- Dimensions7.8 x 5.08 x 0.61 inches
- ISBN-100140442278
- ISBN-13978-0140442274
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About the Author
R. J. Hollingdale has translated eleven of Nietzsche’s books and published two books about him. He has also translated works by, among others, Schopenhauer, Goethe, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Lichtenberg and Theodor Fontane, many of these for the Penguin Classics. He is Honorary President of the British Nietzsche Society, and was for the Australian academic year 1991 Visiting Fellow at Trinity College, Melbourne.
Product details
- Publisher : Penguin Classics; Revised ed. edition (May 30, 1973)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 240 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0140442278
- ISBN-13 : 978-0140442274
- Reading age : 18 years and up
- Grade level : 12 and up
- Item Weight : 6.3 ounces
- Dimensions : 7.8 x 5.08 x 0.61 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #222,603 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #137 in Individual Philosophers (Books)
- #342 in Modern Western Philosophy
- #711 in Essays (Books)
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This book is great literature as well as original philosophy, the writing is so incredibly clear, crystal clear, actually - a straightforward, easy-to-follow, elegant prose. What a switch from hopelessly dry, turgid, stale academic philosophy with its endless references, footnotes and qualifications. On the topic of books and writing, here is a quote which is vintage Schopenhauer: "The thoughts a man is capable of always express themselves in clear, comprehensible and unambiguous words. Those who put together difficult, obscure, involved, ambiguous discourses do not really know what they want to say: they have no more than a vague consciousness of it which is only struggling towards a thought; often, however, they also want to conceal from themselves and others that they actually have nothing to say." Keep this in mind the next time you read an incomprehensible piece of writing - in truth, the burden is on the writer to make their thoughts clear, no matter how impressive the author's credentials.
Among the topics address is aesthetics. As always, Schopenhauer never dances around an issue but goes right to the heart of the matter and tells it like it is. Here is what he has to say on opera: "Strictly speaking one could call opera an unmusical invention for the benefit of unmusical minds." For anybody with a keen interest in listening to music, these words have a very honest ring.
Here is a quote that is especially appropriate to our current age of information: "Students and learned men of every kind and every ago go as a rule in search of information, not insight. They make it a point of honor to have information about everything . . . When I see how much these well-informed people know, I sometimes say to myself: Oh, how little such a one must have had to think about, since he has had so much time for reading!" The truth of this statement is compounded with the omnipresence of the internet.
One more quote, this one capsulizing Schopenhauer's famous pessimistic view of life: "No rose without a thorn. But many a thorn without a rose." Even if you don't agree, you have to admire a brilliant, memorable metaphor. If you are new to Schopenhauer or philosophy, R. J. Hollindale provides an introduction which includes a mini-history of philosophy leading up to Schopenhauer, the cultural, literary and social context of Germany in the nineteenth century, as well as a mini-biography of Schopenhauer. This will be all you will need to have a rich appreciation for one of the most lucid and influential philosophers in the Western tradition.
He is a master of the bon-mot. Two examples:
"If you want to know how you really feel about someone take note of the impression an unexpected letter from him makes on you when you first see it on the doormat" (p. 171).
"Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them" (p. 226).
While many commentators warn readers about AS's gloominess I find him somewhat uplifting. He never shies away from saying what he believes. He talks about subjects that other philosophers might hesitate to discuss and when the times are trying he reinforces the feelings about the world and its inhabitants which you are trying to resist. Several things to keep in mind: he idolizes Kant, is generally contemptuous of Hegel and he believes that his thought was never recognized in the manner which it deserved. The latter feeling undergirds a number of his trenchant, pungent and engaging comments on the world of literature, letters and philosophy.
A familiarity (even a brief one) with AS's thought is an essential part of one's philosophic education.
Won’t regret