Annotation of Friedrich Nietzsches´s ´Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft´ (KGW V/2)

This application refers to ongoing work on the Nachberichtsband (supplementary volume containing commentary, annotations and further documents) of Volume 2, "Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft", of the fifth section of the critical edition of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche (henceforth: KGW). Friedrich Nietzsche`s work "Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft" (henceforth: FW; first print: 1882) is one of the great books of Western Thought. It contains, among other topics, critical reflections on truth, knowledge, morality and religion; actually, it is a key text on the relationship of modernity and religion. FW also includes inquiries in the field of aesthetics, and expositions on the stages of culture. Within the above-mentioned, state-of-the-art critical edition, all text volumes will be accompanied by a respective Nachberichtsband. In the present case, it will comprise a philological commentary, a detailed description of the composition of the first print of FW, annotations referring to the context of the book within Nietzsche`s work, to the sources used by Nietzsche and finally to the work`s place in the history of ideas. The significance of such a supplementary volume consists in the reader`s possibility to better understand the genesis of this epoch-making book. The research project applied for comprises all necessary tasks involved in preparing and finishing the above mentioned supplementary volume. These tasks also include a systematic compilation of Nietzsche`s sources. Hence, our research project will deliver new insights into the author`s intellectual background.