Composing the Soul: Reaches of Nietzsche's Psychology [Paperback]

Graham Parkes (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226646874 | ISBN-13: 978-0226646879 | Publication Date: June 1, 1996

Nietzsche wrote in Ecce Homo (1888), "That a psychologist without equal speaks from my writings—this is perhaps the first insight gained by a good reader. . . . Who among the philosophers before me was in any way a psychologist? Before me there simply was no psychology."

Composing the Soul is the first study to pay sustained attention to this pronouncement and to examine the contours of Nietzsche's psychology in the context of his life and psychological makeup. Beginning with essays from Nietzsche's youth, Graham Parkes shows the influence of such figures as Goethe, Byron, and Emerson on Nietzsche's formidable and multiple talents. Parkes goes on to chart the development of Nietzsche's psychological ideas in terms of the imagery, drawn from the dialogues of Plato as well as from Nietzsche's own quasi-mystical experiences of nature, in which he spoke of the soul. Finally, Parkes analyzes Nietzsche's most revolutionary idea—that the soul is composed of multiple "drives," or "persons," within the psyche. The task for Nietzsche's psychology, then, was to identify and order these multiple persons within the individual—to compose the soul.

Featuring all new translations of quotations from Nietzsche's writings, Composing the Soul reveals the profundity of Nietzsche's lifelong personal and intellectual struggles to come to grips with the soul. Extremely well-written, this landmark work makes Nietzsche's life and ideas accessible to any reader interested in this much misunderstood thinker.

Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (June 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226646874
• ISBN-13: 978-0226646879
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,101,325 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An astounding piece of Nietzsche scholarship and commentary., October 8, 1997

By 

Daniel Chapelle (massachusetts) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Composing the Soul: Reaches of Nietzsche's Psychology (Paperback)

It goes after just about every bit of psychological theory there is to be found in Nietzsche -- in the thoughts of Nietzsche the young student, in the psychological ideas from the writings of those who inspired him, in the ideas he advanced as his own psychological theories, in the images and metaphors of his texts. Parkes has put himself on the map as a Nietzsche scholar and commentator of the first rank. His is the only recent work I am aware of, besides my own earlier efforts in a book on NIETZSCHE AND PSYCHOANALYSIS, whose approach to Nietzsche is based on the principles of archetypal psychology. This approach is acknowledged in the opening reference to James Hillman, dean of archetypal psychology. Even if thereafter it is no longer explicitly mentioned, it remains actively present in every chapter. This is less a book about Nietzsche the person -- his feelings and thoughts and behaviors and other strictly personal idiosyncrasies -- than about the images and metaphors that shape and animate Nietzschean thought. We owe Mr.Parkes a debt of gratitude for the enormously rich way he has worked the archetypal material that goes by the personified name of "Nietzsche". Daniel Chapelle

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Noble multiplicity-metaphors that mould., February 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Composing the Soul: Reaches of Nietzsche's Psychology (Paperback)

Parkes provides a Nietzsche of radical comprehensiveness: an unriddler of the human soul that reaches the entire scope and depth of our protean multiplicity. Nietzsche is a psychologist that performs exploratory surgery upon the entire economy, the whole complexity and manifoldness of the drives, wills, energies, and personalities that make us who we are, and who we are perpetually becoming. A healer, magician, chemist, artist, farmer, midwife, philosopher and composer of wholeness: a cascade of perspectives and masks to explore the entire scope and range of personality and will. A must read and genuine delight that intoxicates with its profundity of metaphor, as well as deeply insightful and probing with its varieties of lenses.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars hearing aright, July 25, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Composing the Soul: Reaches of Nietzsche's Psychology (Paperback)

Mr. Parkes provides us with a comprehensive view that does true justice to 'mouths that read' and 'ears that speak' without losing sight of the import of 'the author.' Out of all of the 'Nietzsche's' out there, this is one, seeming following in Lampert's footsteps, that truly brings Nietzsche's corps/e to life. A true find and a passionate, entertaining read for anyone trying to hear aright. Its density and attention to detail brings out the complexity of many of 'Nietzsche's' themes while weaving the many interconnected branches together around the complicated issue of 'composing the soul'. The brilliance of the approach, however, was that Parks allowed 'Nietzsche' to speak and, in my view, did not reduce 'Nietzsche' into a 'psychologist' but rather allowed 'Nietzsche' to be. Nor did he reduce the 'composition of the soul' into crass individualism best representing the 'last man.' A true example of how books should be composed, and out of the plethora of books on Nietzsche I have scanned over the years this may be the best I have read. A book that engages both the new and old traveler embarking on the dangerous sea of "Nietzsche".