Nietzsche, Friedrich - William Barrett (essay date 1958)
William Barrett (essay date 1958)
[Barrett was an American critic, educator, and editor who was associated with the influential leftist journal Partisan Review, whose editors, including Lionel Trilling, Hannah Arendt, and Mary McCarthy, espoused Marxist and modernist ideas in politics and literature. Barrett reacted against the utopian strain in these ideologies and distinguished himself in translating and explicating the work of European existentialists. In the following excerpt from his much-praised study of existentialism, Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy, Barrett elucidates Nietzsche's contributions to existentialist thought.]
By the middle of the nineteenth century …, the problem of man had begun to dawn on certain minds in a new and more radical form: Man, it was seen, is a stranger to himself and must discover, or rediscover, who he is and what his meaning is. Kierkegaard had recommended a rediscovery of the...
[The entire page is 11392 words long]
Join eNotes
Over 3,500 study guides, question and answer forums, literature criticism, reference content, and much more!
Navigate
