ZARATHUSTRA'S REINCARNATIONS: LITERARY RESPONSES TO NIETZSCHE'S WORK

Despite neglect of Also sprach Zarathustra by early twentieth-century philosophers, Nietzsche's figure enjoyed notable popularity among musicians and artists. At the same time several writers adapted Zarathustra as a mouthpiece for their own generational views: pre-war ambivalence (Reinhard Sorge), wartime exuberance (Gustav Pieckert), post-war inwardness (Hermann Hesse), 1920s disillusionment (Rudolf Pannwitz), and political disengagement of the 1930s (C. G. Jung). After 1945, despite efforts of older writers (Thomas Mann, F. G. Junger, Gottfried Benn) to rehabilitate the work, Nietzsche was largely surrendered by younger writers to the professional philosophers-and Zarathustra to pop culture.