Abstract
Aligning Virginia Woolf’s essay, ‘On Being Ill’ (1926), with Nietzsche’s thoughts on suffering and nihilism to conclude the study, this chapter suggests the relevance of the book’s insights to other writers of the period and to contemporary debates about affect and the body. The chapter draws attention to the irresolvable tensions permeating literary modernism by examining Nietzsche’s and Woolf’s shared ideology of self-sufficiency as it manifests in their respective valorisations of illness: while both celebrate the insights disclosed by illness, their heroic rhetoric is undercut when scrutinising their shared views of one’s relation to others’ suffering, a relation that may dangerously precipitate feelings of suicidal nihilism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Blackman, Lisa, Immaterial Bodies: Affect, Embodiment, Mediation (London: Sage, 2012).
Eagleton, Terry, Sweet Violence: The Idea of the Tragic (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003).
Flatley, Jonathan, Affective Mapping: Melancholia and the Politics of Modernism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).
Kafka, Franz, Letters to Friends, Family and Editors (New York: Schocken, 1977).
Ngai, Sianne, Ugly Feelings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, The Will to Power. trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (New York: Vintage Books, 1968).
———, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Harmondsworth: Penguin, repr. 1990).
———, The Birth of Tragedy. trans. Shaun Whiteside (London: Penguin, 1993).
———, The Anti-Christ in Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ. trans. R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin, repr. 2003).
———, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in German Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs. trans. Josefine Nauckhoff and Adrian Del Caro (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, repr. 2003).
———, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality. trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, repr. 2007).
Woolf, Virginia, On Being Ill: With Notes from Sick Rooms by Julia Stephens (Ashfield, MA: Paris Press, 2012).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Smith, S. (2018). Conclusion: Affective Modernism. In: Nietzsche and Modernism. Palgrave Studies in Modern European Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75535-9_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75535-9_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-75534-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-75535-9
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)