Thus Spoke Zarathustra
By Friedrich Nietzsche
A new translation by Graham Parkes
Oxford University Press, 2005
Reviewed by Horst Hutter
This new translation of Nietzsche’s magnum opus is by far the best available in the English language. It should find its way to the desk of all students who do not have access to the original German.
It may be true that “traduire, c’est trahir”, as the attempt to translate this very phrase into English demonstrates. Yet there would seem to be degrees of “betrayal”, ranging from the faithful recreation of an authorís intention and rhetoric in a different language to an appropriation of it for purposes that are completely at odds with the original. So many of modern interpretations and translations of classical texts thus appear to be mere pretexts and ploys by their authors to invoke the fame of great writers long dead for enhancing their own reputations. Indeed, many current commentaries on the classics invoke as a justification for this procedure the admitted inability of anyone ever to close the hermeneutic circle.
While no recreation can fully close the hermeneutic circle, there is yet a difference between translators who acknowledge this and try to minimize the distance between their words and those of the author to be translated, and translators who use this inability to impose a vision on a text that is not to be found in it, proceeding either openly or surreptitiously. Previous translations of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra suffer particularly from the imposition of distorting visions. It is hence refreshing to read this new translation of Zarathustra by Graham Parkes. Parkes has managed to narrow the chasm between the German original and its English rendition in a most poetic and philosophically profound manner. He is able to do this, because of his superb understanding of Nietzsche’s philosophical teaching, his mastery in imitating Nietzscheís poetical rhetoric and his command of both languages.
Parkes’ translation is the only one hitherto that tries and largely succeeds in recreating the musicality and the poetry of Nietzsche. It follows Nietzsche’s ordering into paragraphs without either telescoping several short paragraphs into one longer one, or breaking up longer ones into short sentences. He does not in this manner “summarize” Nietzsche’s thinking by following a modern understanding of philosophic discourse that Nietzsche did not have, and which he hence did not use to express his vision. Parkes does not follow the habit of many modern interpreters of imposing on Nietzsche’s texts a concept of philosophy which may be current today but which Nietzsche distinctly rejected. These go for “propositional content” and ignore the rhetorical styles of the originals. Barely able to do justice to the poetry of Nietzsche, they refuse to accept the fact that Nietzsche was above all concerned with the rhetorical impact of his writings on his readers. Thus, previous translators seem to have believed that philosophical discourse can be freed from rhetorical intent, thereby turning Nietzsche’s writings into inferior and internally contradictory “analyses”. Parkes, by contrast, accepts the diversity of Nietzsche’s styles, honors his rhetorical intent, and succeeds remarkably well in rendering Nietzsche into a similar English style. Above all, he understands Nietzsche’s view of philosophy to have been more than the mere writing of supposedly “true” propositions about the world. He honors Nietzsche’s view by not imposing a contemporary model of analytical dexterity and minimizes a reader’s prejudices in this direction.
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