Work · Life & Existential Philosophy
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
A book for all and none: the overman.
Introduction
Nietzsche wrote the four parts between 1883 and 1885, each within a few weeks; the first three appeared through a publisher, the fourth only as a private printing of a few dozen copies. Instead of arguments the book offers speeches, parables and songs, echoing the language of Luther’s Bible. Its hero, named after the ancient Iranian prophet Zoroaster, comes down from ten years of solitude in the mountains to teach the overman, fails before the crowd in the marketplace and gathers disciples; in the later parts he struggles to accept the thought of eternal recurrence. It became Nietzsche’s most widely read book; Richard Strauss based a tone poem on it in 1896.
Read the full text
Free full text, often an older edition or translation
Connections
Builds on
- The Gay Science1882 · Friedrich Nietzsche
Taken up in
- Aristocratic Radicalism1889 · Georg Brandes
- Difference and Repetition1968 · Gilles Deleuze
More works by Friedrich Nietzsche
- 1882The Gay Science
As of November 2026 · Improve this page · How Agora is made