Afterword

Abstract Here, the author attempts to encapsulate, by way of arguments developed in the preceding essays, the profound effect that Richard Wagner, certainly the most important person in Nietzsche’s life, had on his thinking about art. The author’s claim is that when Nietzsche broke with Wagner, this both changed the way that he conceived of ‘art’, and cast, in his mind, a pall of suspicion over artists in general (i.e. not just Wagner). The author offers a diagnosis of the missteps that led to this latter attitude and suggests that they can in fact be read as an unexpected retreat into regions more Platonic than Nietzsche, surely, should have felt comfortable with.