FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

Friedrich Nietzsche was born in 1844 in Röcken (Saxony), Germany. He studied philology at the universities of Bonn and Leipzig, and in 1869 was appointed to the chair of classical philology at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Ill health led him to resign his professorship ten years later. His works include The Birth of Tragedy, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Case of Wagner, Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist, Nietzsche contra Wagner, and Ecce Homo. He died in 1900. The Will to Power, a selection from his notebooks, was published posthumously.

WALTER KAUFMANN

Walter Kaufmann was born in Freiburg, Germany, in 1921, came to the United States in 1939, and studied at Williams College and Harvard University. In 1947 he joined the faculty of Princeton University, where he became a professor of philosophy. He held many visiting professorships, including Fulbright grants at Heidelberg and Jerusalem. His books include Critique of Religion and Philosophy, From Shakespeare to Existentialism, The Faith of a Heretic, Cain and Other Poems, Hegel, Tragedy and Philosophy, and Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, as well as verse translations of Goethe’s Faust and Twenty German Poets. He translated all of the books by Nietzsche listed in the biographical note above. He died in 1980.