Date: Sun, 29 Oct 1995 09:47:17 -0500
Subject: Re: MB: Blanchot and Nietzsche


Reply to message from hgoldman-AT-weber.ucsd.edu of Wed, 25 Oct
>
>	Does anyone know when exactly Blanchot started writing/publishing on 
>Nietzsche?  I've coming to think that Blanchot may occupy an important 
>spot in the reception of Nietzsche EARLIER rather than later in France, 
>perhaps in the early 1950s.  The influence of Bataille is obvious from 
>1946, even leaving aside his 1930s activities in _Acephele_.  But I'm 
>wondering whether Blanchot's essays in NRF, which made Foucault wish he 
>could write like him, might have provided another source for interest in 
>Nietzsche, otherwise too often attributed to Heidegger's prior influence.
>
>Harvey Goldman
>Sociology
>University of California, San Diego
>
Impact of Nietzsche very pronounced in France, since the beginning of
the century: Gide, especially; Proust read him; Valery didn't care for him
but read him nevertheless.  Then, in the 1930's, even more so, often for
dubious reasons (Nietzsche "lends" himself to that kind of misuse all too
easily--I think it's partly his fault.)  But then, consider: Sartre's
fascination with N., the whole group around Bataille and Blanchot reading
Nietzsche along with Hegel (I don't quite know what role Kojeve might
have played in all this); and the young Foucault, Klossowski and Derrida.
I suppose one might call the period from 1950 to 1980 the "French redis-
covery and reinterpretation of Nietzsche."
Hope this helps you to focus the question.
                               Walter A. Strauss>