NIETZSCHE
SETTANTACINQUE ANNI DOPO BENN

Francesco Valagussa

The article is about the essay written by Benn fifty years after Nietzsche’s death. In particular, it seeks to answer again the three main questions posed by Benn: where Nietzsche’s thought has become obsolescent; the relationship between Nietzsche and his contemporaries; Nietzsche and his illness. The first question is answered through the Nietzschean notion of “Unzeitgemäßigkeit”; answering the second through a quick comparison between Nietzsche and Wilamowitz-Möllendorf reveals the difference between the historical-scientific world and the world of expression; Nietzsche’s illness is interpreted in the light of that crisis of the entire Western tradition that Nietzsche himself diagnosed and analysed to its extreme consequences.