Nietzsche’s holy jest: the ambivalence of laughter in thus spoke zarathustra

ABSTRACT

This paper offers an interpretation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra as Nietzsche’s attempt to write a ‘holy book’ that sanctifies laughter. I compare two important scenes, that of the jester and ropedancer from the Prologue, and that of the ‘ass festival’ from part IV, to show the progressive incorporation of laughter into Zarathustra’s teaching. Throughout, I show that laughter in Zarathustra is ambivalent, possessing both critical and constructive elements. As such, the laughter that is celebrated by the end of the Fourth Part is not merely ironic and self-parodying, but also constitutes a teaching with positive content. In other words, laughter itself represents the heart of Nietzsche’s new revelation of ‘holiness,’ one that challenges regnant expressions of religion and piety while resisting serious, doctrinal formulation. I defend this interpretation against readings that recruit laughter toward a modest philosophical ideal of self-ironization. While laughter does parody and destabilize Zarathustra’s own teachings, it also animates a teaching of holiness that can be helpfully illuminated by Bakhtin’s theory of the carnivalesque. In closing, I suggest that scholars should respect the ‘religion-like’ ambitions of Nietzsche’s work rather than assimilating them to the more modest projects typical of modern scholarship.

KEYWORDS:

• Nietzsche
• Bakhtin
• Zarathustra
• laughter
• holiness
• carnivalesque

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. When these letters were written, Nietzsche had only completed part I of Z. This shows that even at this early stage, Nietzsche already considered laughter central to the message of Zarathustra despite the fact that the theme is treated all the more extensively in parts III and IV.

2. Friedrich Nietzsche to Ernst Schmeitzner, February 13^th, 1883, no. 375. KSB 6.327. My translation.

3. Friedrich Nietzsche to Malwida von Meysenburg, 20th April, 1883, no. 404. KSB 6.363. Translated with advice from Fabien Muller.

4. Ruin, “Saying Amen to the Light of Dawn: Nietzsche on Praise, Prayer, and Affirmation,” 103–4.

5. When referring to Nietzsche’s texts, I use abbreviations (e.g. ‘Z,’ ‘BT,’ GS,’ etc.), followed by page number. I have used the following editions and translations of Nietzsche’s texts: The Anti-Christ, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, trans. Judith Norman, Cambridge 2005; Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Judith Norman, Cambridge 2001; On the Genealogy of Morality, trans. Carol Diethe, Cambridge 2006; The Birth of Tragedy, trans. Ronald Speirs, Cambridge 1999; The Gay Science, trans. Josephine Nauckhoff, Cambridge, 2001; Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. Adrian Del Caro, Cambridge 2006.

6. Cf. Zavatta, “Laughter as Weapon: Parody and Satire in Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” 39–40.

7. On Nietzsche’s potential mysticism and asceticism, see Roberts, Contesting Spirit. On the pietist legacy in Nietzsche’s thought, see Benson, Pious Nietzsche. On romanticism, see Del Caro, “Nietzsche and Romanticism: Goethe, Hölderlin, and Wagner.” See also Otto, The Idea of the Holy.

8. Lampert, Nietzsche’s Teaching: An Interpretation of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 5–7.

9. See Alderman, Nietzsche’s Gift; Hurst, “An Ethos of Affirmative Laughter in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra”; and Lippitt, “Nietzsche, Zarathustra and the Status of Laughter.”

10. Shapiro, Nietzschean Narratives, 113.

11. Cf. Hurst, “Ethos,” 553; and Boddicker, “Humor in Nietzsche’s Style,” 454.

12. Thomas Brobjer has argued that Z can be read as an autobiographical work. My argument doesn’t demand going so far, but simply suggests that we can read Zarathustra’s pedagogical mission, and his various failures and misadventures, as imbued with Nietzsche’s reflections on his own philosophical and personal struggles. Brobjer, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra as Nietzsche’s Autobiography.”

13. Babich, “Future Philology!” by Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff.

14. For more on the hybridity of BT, see M.S. Silk/J.P Stern, Nietzsche on Tragedy, 229, 355, 398.

15. Cf. Gordon, “Camus, Nietzsche and the Absurd: Rebellion and Scorn vs. Humor and Laughter.” 376; Higgins, “Zarathustra is a Comic Book,” 8; and Hurst, “Ethos,” 563.

16. Cf. Hurst, “Ethos,” 572.

17. See Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature; Ure, Nietzsche’s Therapy; Ansell-Pearson and Serini, “Friedrich Nietzsche: Cheerful Thinker and Writer. A Contribution to the Debate on Nietzsche’s Cheerfulness.”

18. Loeb, The Death of Zarathustra, 85–91.

19. Pippin, “Irony and Affirmation in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” 62.

20. Pippin, “Irony and Affirmation,” 56.

21. Pippin, “Irony and Affirmation,” 46.

22. Higgins, “Zarathustra is a Comic Book,” 12–13.

23. Higgins, “Comic Book,” 4.

24. Higgins, “Comic Book,” 11.

25. See Roberts, Contesting Spirit; Benson, Pious Nietzsche; Ruin, ‘Saying Amen to the Light of Dawn: Nietzsche on Praise, Prayer, and Affirmation’; and Young, Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Religion.

26. See Marion, The Idol and Distance; Franck, Nietzsche and the Shadow of God; and Messerschmidt, “The Guiding Thread of Modernity: Nietzsche’s Death of God as a Physiological Event.”

27. Cf. Zavatta, “Laughter as Weapon,” 18.

28. The status of ZIV and its relation to the first three Parts has been discussed extensively in the secondary literature on Zarathustra. I follow those interpreters who believe that ZIV has an important structural relationship to ZI-III, and that it effectively functions as a satyr play following a three-part tragedy. Why Nietzsche only circulated this piece to a select audience, and why he then regretted even that limited distribution, are difficult questions to answer. One might argue that its apocryphal status undermines my argument that ZIV contains in some sense the most ‘complete’ representation of Zarathustra’s teaching, and the consummation of an ambivalent, carnivalesque laughter. This, however, doesn’t follow. It’s possible that, on the contrary, Nietzsche withheld the piece precisely because he took it to contain an important interpretive key to the earlier parts. In any case, the marks of its structural relation to Z I-III are, I believe, apparent within the text even though it was never published in Nietzsche’s lifetime. See Higgins, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, 203–232; Loeb, The Death of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, 93–105; and Meyer, Nietzsche’s Free Spirit Works: A Dialectical Reading, 218–247.

29. For some accounts of the significance of the feast of fools in medieval European Christian culture, see Gilhus, Laughing Gods, Weeping Virgins: Laughter in the History of Religion, 78–100; and Cox, The Feast of Fools: A Theological Essay on Fantasy and Festivity.

30. Higgins, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.

31. Cf. See Zavatta’s claim that the first three parts are parody, whereas the Fourth Part is satire, and therefore generates a different sort of laughter. Zavatta, “Laughter as Weapon,” 35–6.

32. Cf. Ruin, “Saying Amen,” 112–113.

33. Cf. Zavatta, “Laughter as Weapon,” 36.

34. Bakhtin, Rabelais and his World, 62. Cf. Hurst’s description of Nietzsche’s laughter as ‘Janus-faced,’ Hurst, ‘Ethos,’ 572.

35. Shapiro, Nietzschean Narratives, 101.

36. In GS 382, Nietzsche invokes the name of the goddess Baubo, who exposes herself to Demeter to make her laugh in the midst of her mourning for her lost daughter, Persephone. This is another instance from Nietzsche’s writing that demonstrates the elevating, positive element of laughter, and additionally associates laughter with a certain holiness. Baubo is, after all, a semi-divine figure, and Demeter’s laughter certainly has a sacred significance. Z IV shows Zarathustra and the higher men becoming in their own way the ‘most incarnate and involuntary parody’ of prior earthly seriousness.

37. Cf. Ruin, “Saying Amen,” 101, 107.

38. Hatab, “Laughter in Nietzsche’s Thought: A Philosophical Tragicomedy,” 77.

39. Hatab, “Laughter,” 78.

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Nicholas E Low

Nicholas E Low is a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for the Study of World religions at Harvard Divinity School, working in the Transcendence and Transformation Initiative. He received an MTS in Philosophy of Religions from Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD from Harvard University in November 2023. His research focuses on points of contact between theology, religion, and modern philosophy, tracking especially the afterlives of gods, divinities, and other “religious” phenomena in continental philosophy.