Description: Wagner was a lifelong obsession for Nietzsche. No other topic or figure more consistently and persistently appears in Nietzsche's books from beginning to end as do Wagner and his theories. For the first time, Ryan Harvey and Aaron Ridley put Wagner centre-stage in their book to show why he mattered so much to Nietzsche. Looking at both The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche Contra Wagner, they identify and define the trajectory of a number of overarching themes - modernity, decadence and Wagner as the sign of decline within Nietzsche's work as a whole - in order to demonstrate how they crystallise into Nietzsche's final and most substantial discussion of Wagner in The Case of Wagner. Assuming no prior knowledge of Nietzsche or the texts, the book also offers a section-by-section interpretation of The Case of Wagner addressing especially why Wagner is a 'case' for Nietzsche.
Brief description: Aaron Ridley is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton. He is the author of Nietzsche's Conscience: Six Character Studies from the 'Genealogy' (Cornell University Press, 1998), R.G. Collingwood: A Philosophy of Art (Orion Books, 1998) and Music, Value and the Passions (Cornell University Press, 1995) and the co-editor, with Alex Neill, of Arguing About Art (McGraw-Hill, 1995; 2nd edition: Routledge, 2002) and The Philosophy of Art (McGraw-Hill, 1995).
Review Quotes: A compelling examination of the philosophical stakes of Nietzsche's lifelong fascination with Wagner, from his early idea of a music-making Socrates, to his worries about the health of culture, through to his late concerns with vitalism and decadence. Harvey and Ridley give us Nietzsche's most bombastic book, contextualized and illuminated.-- "Andrew Mitchell, Emory University"