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Admittedly, the purpose of this introduction is not to defend my interpretation of Nietzsche’s published works, but rather to describe it so that I can situate the present study within its confines. On the one hand, the reason for sketching this framework here is that it helps make sense of the transitions that take place from Human, All Too Human to Beyond Good and Evil. On the other hand, it is with this framework in mind that my efforts in what follows can be understood as an attempt to defend one significant aspect of a larger project.

7). ).  7).  172). 84 Wohlfart (1991). 85 Silk and Stern (1981), Von Reibnitz (1992), and Porter (2000a and 2000b). 86 Borsche, et. al. (1994), Riedel (1999), Bishop (2004), Heit and Jensen (2014). Cancik (1995) and Benne (2005) have also authored monographs on Nietzsche and classical philology. 87 There has also been much discussion about Nietzsche’s relationship to Plato and Socrates. Some of the earliest studies are Hildebrandt (1922) and Sandvoss (1966). One of the most extensive is Schmidt (1969).

The most straightforward one is that Nietzsche’s reading of ancient Greek philosophy was one of two main sources for his philosophical literacy. The other source was his reading of post- and neo-Kantian thinkers such as Arthur Schopenhauer, F. A. Lange, Afrikan Spir, and Gustav Teichmüller, each of whom was well acquainted with the problems and theories of ancient philosophy. Moreover, reading Nietzsche through the ancients can help make sense of some of his more idiosyncratic ideas. Although pointing to possible connections between, say, Nietzsche’s doctrine of the will to power and the concept of eros at work in Hesiod’s Theogony or Aristophanes’ Birds does nothing to prove the truth of such a view, it does make it more difficult to simply dismiss an idea as unworthy of consideration given its central role in the poetry of the ancient Greeks.