Division of Literatures, Cultures, and Languages
France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies
Guillaume Métayer is a research director at the CNRS within the CELLF (Sorbonne Université, Paris). His research focuses on the reception of the Enlightenment at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and especially on Friedrich Nietzsche and Anatole France and his circle. At French-Speaking Worlds, Prof. Métayer will be speaking about Friedrich Nietzsche and his (little known) fascination with the French Revolution. (The abstract of his talk is included below.)
Abstract: Friedrich Nietzsche took an astoundingly early interest in French culture and especially in the French Revolution. It is one of the haunting themes of his early poems, in particular around 1862. How can we understand this early fascination? What were its sources? Through an investigation focused mainly on the poem “Im Gefängnis” (“In Prison”), dedicated to the legendary account of the death of the Girondins, we will attempt to better understand Nietzsche’s relationship with France and its history, while also identifying the philosophical and ideological implications of his poetic interpretation of it.