Stefan Zweig: What Made Nietzsche a Prophetic Figure

The poet-philosopher is doomed to speak, to struggle, to suffer alone.

THE TRAGEDY of Friedrich Nietzsche’s life was that it happened to be a one-man show, a monodrama wherein no other actor entered upon the stage…

For it was voluntarily, in full lucidity of mind, that he renounced a secure existence in order to build for himself a life apart, doing so out of a profound tragical instinct. With unprecedented courage he challenged the gods, so that he might, in his own person, “experience the highest degree of danger it is possible for man to live through”. Hail daemons!