“The Song of Melancholy” / “Only Fool! Only Poet!”—Nietzsche’s Philosophical Poetry

Abstract

This article analyzes Nietzsche’s poem “The Song of Melancholy,” which later appeared in the Dionysus Dithyrambs under the title “Only Fool! Only Poet!”. While Nietzsche scholars have noted that Nietzsche outlines a new poetic program in this poem that valorizes the commonly devalued terms “lie” and “robbery,” the question of the poet’s relationship to truth remains controversial. Existing interpretations of the poem tend to read the phrase “only poet” as limiting and pejorative, excluding the poet from any pursuit of truth. The reason for this interpretation lies in the fact that, according to Nietzsche scholarship, truth (as absolute) was abolished in Nietzsche’s analysis of nihilism. A reference to truth (however complicated) is still present in the poem’s depiction of a new poetic program. This program, it is argued, not only integrates philosophical reflection into the new poetic program (thus transcending the alternative of poetry or philosophy), but also reevaluates animality and sexuality as conditions of philosophy and poetry. The poet’s treatment of melancholy in Nietzsche’s poem is anticipated by the type of melancholic fool in Shakespeare’s comedies, who overcomes his melancholy by singing and laughing. The relationship between philosophy and poetry is thus contextualized in the historical semantics of the fool and melancholy.