1 - Heraclitus’ Clarity

Summary

Whereas references to Heraclitus’ doctrine of universal flux are abundant in Nietzsche’s works, remarks about Heraclitus’ style are few and appear to be limited to the early works. One striking assessment, given Heraclitus’ reputation of obscurity, features in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks: “Hardly anyone has ever written with as lucid and luminous a quality”. The chapter aims at clarifying the relationship between Heraclitus’ fragments, most of which can be described as “aphorisms,” and Nietzsche’s pronouncements about the aphoristic style he himself practices, and at showing why Nietzsche’s systematic reconstruction of Heraclitus’ doctrine takes the form of a cento, a literary form where originally disjoint Heraclitean aphorisms are brought together in a doxographic recomposition that makes of Heraclitus, at the cost of some important tweakings, the tragic, Dionysian philosopher he never ceased to be in Nietzsche’s eyes – as clear and as obscure as Nietzsche himself.