Jung's Nietzsche Zarathustra, The Red Book, and “Visionary” Works

This book explores C.G. Jung's complex relationship with Friedrich Nietzsche through the lens of the so-called 'visionary' literary tradition. The book connects Jung's experience of the posthumously published Liber Novus (The Red Book) with his own (mis)understanding of Nietzsche's Zarathustra, and formulates the hypothesis of Jung considering Zarathustra as Nietzsche's Liber Novus –– both works being regarded by Jung as 'visionary' experiences. After exploring some 'visionary' authors often compared by Jung to Nietzsche (Goethe, Hölderlin, Spitteler, F. T. Vischer), the book focuses upon Nietzsche and Jung exclusively. It analyses stylistic similarities, as well as explicit references to Nietzsche and Zarathustra in Liber Novus, drawing on Jung's annotations in his own copy of Zarathustra. The book then uses Liber Novus as a prism to contextualize and understand Jung's five-year seminar on Zarathustra: all the nuances of Jung's interpretation of Zarathustra can be fully explained, only when compared with Liber Novus and its symbology. One of the main topics of the book concerns the figure of 'Christ' and Nietzsche's and Jung's understandings of the 'death of God.'

Introduction

1. A Life-Long Confrontation

1.1. Jung's Educational Background

1.2 Nietzsche's Presence In The Evolving Of Jung's Thinking

2. Jung's Psychological Understanding Of Nietzsche

2. 1. Jung's Seminar On Zarathustra: A Problematic Reading

2.2. The ?Red Book': Liber Novus

2.3. Jung's Zarathustra Or Nietzsche's Liber Novus?

3. Misreading Or ?Revaluation'?

3.1. The Unconscious As A Perspective

3.2. Structure Of The Work

Chapter 1

?Visionary' Works And Liber Novus

1.1 ?Visionary' Works

1.1.1 Jung's Definition And Characterisation

1.1.2 Return To Mythology

1.2 ?Visionary' Authors

1.2.1 Theology

1.2.2 Basel and its Environment

1.2.3 Liber Novus as Jung's ?Visionary' Experience

Chapter 2

2.1 Nietzsche And The Style Of  Liber Novus

2.1.1 Introductory Remarks

2.2 Similar Symbology: Nietzsche's Hidden Presence

2.2.1 Desert, Lion and Transformation

2.2.2 Poisonous Serpents, Riddles, Dwarfs

2.2.3 Sun, Sunset And Eastern Wisdom

2.3 Nietzsche's Explicit Presence: Overcoming Rationalism

2.3.1 Folly As The Other Side Of Life

2.3.2 Teaching, Mocking And Imitating: The Process Of Self-Becoming

Chapter 3

Liber Novus In Nietzsche: Jung's Seminar On Zarathustra

3.1 Jung's Interpretation of Zarathustra

3.1.1 Introductory Remarks

3.2 Zarathustra As Nietzsche's Failed Individuation

3.2.1 The Old Wise Man: Zarathustra And Philemon

3.2.3 Isolated Suns, The Island Of The Dead And The ?Wheel of Creation'

3.3 Animals

3.3.1 Serpent, Bird And Black Scarab

3.3.2 Frogs And Swamp

3.3.3 Doves, Feminine And Jung's ?Soul'

Conclusion

1. Introductory Remarks

2. The ?Death Of God' And The Meaning Of ?Christianity'

2.1 Philological Experiments And Empiricist Revelations

2.2 Nietzsche And The Issue Of Imitation: Socrates, Wagner, Christ

2.3 Jung And Christ's Archetypal Nature

3. Self-Overcoming

Gaia Domenici is Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies, University College London, UK.