Friedrich Nietzsche

a.k.a. Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Author Code: GFWN

Nietzsche studied classical philology at Bonn and Leipzig and took a position as professor of classics at Basel in 1869. During his tenure there he published his first work, The Birth of Tragedy, in 1872. He retired from the University in 1879 and during the following ten years published Also Spake Zarathrusta (1883-84), Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and On the Genealogy of Morals (1887). Nietzsche's basic ideas reject Christian morality ("God is dead") and affirm the concept of the Superman. His work had an enormous impact on German literature and western philosophical thinking.He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1889 from which he never fully recovered.