The Sorrows and Grandeur of Friedrich Nietzsche

Abstract Thomas Mann describes The Case of Wagner—seemingly an outright hatchet-job—as ‘a panegyric in reverse’; and this essay asks whether, or in what sense, that description could conceivably be true. The author’s answer is that it can be true, but only under some quite strict conditions, including an acceptance of Mann’s decision to place Nietzsche’s views on morality in brackets. Mann’s decision turns out to be surprisingly cost-free in the case of Nietzsche’s critique of Parsifal, where one might have expected those views to be entirely unbracketable, but considerably more expensive elsewhere, especially when it comes to the character of Wagner’s artistry. Here, the difference in their attitudes to the culture that they (partly) share derails Mann’s attempt to read Nietzsche as a panegyrist in reverse, indeed sets the two of them at loggerheads—to often exhilarating effect.