Aristocratic Radicalism

Introduction

Brandes published this essay in the Danish journal Tilskueren in 1889, based on lectures he had given in Copenhagen in spring 1888; a German version followed in 1890. It was one of the first major accounts of Nietzsche’s philosophy for a wider public and presented it, in a phrase Nietzsche himself welcomed, as an “aristocratic radicalism” that values great individuals and the culture they create over the happiness of the masses. The essay prompted Harald Høffding’s reply “Democratic Radicalism” and a debate between the two that ran into 1890. It did much to establish Nietzsche’s European reputation in the years after his collapse.

Connections

Builds on

• Thus Spoke Zarathustra1883 · Friedrich Nietzsche
• On the Genealogy of Morality1887 · Friedrich Nietzsche

More works by Georg Brandes

• 1872Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature