The Symbols of Eternal Return and the Eternal Return of Symbols in Freidrich Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra

This work argues that Nietzsche employs the circle image to communicate his idea of eternal recurrence in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The recurrences of circular and diurnal symbols (cycles) represent the eternal return on both contextual and narrative levels, thereby creating within the narrative the ring of rings, the ring of recurrence, i.e., affirmation of affirmation, as implicit in the circular image of the will willing itself. Importantly, it demonstrates that diurnal symbols represent the eternal recurrence by returning to themselves in the text, while Zarathustra’s identity changes throughout the diurnal cycle: morning symbolises his rebirth; noon, his maturity; evening, his decline; and midnight, his death – thereby manifesting the literary hero’s affirmative, creative response to meaningless existence in accordance with the doctrine of life affirmation. Nietzsche’s work is revealed to harbour a hidden symbolic diurnal structure comprised of twelve chronological diurnal cycles representing his most abysmal thought. The underlying structure revealed by this reading demonstrates the eternal recurrence to be the unifying idea of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Conflicts in existing interpretations of the eternal return reflect their commentators’ failure to solve the problem of its communication in Nietzsche’s work due to their underestimation of the symbolic form of the doctrine. Employing the methods of analogy and association, this project undertakes to solve this problem by examining the relation between the circular and diurnal symbols and the eternal recurrence. Careful analysis reveals the three-dimensional character of the doctrine as the return of the moment inaugurating the moment and sequence of time: the return of same meaninglessness, meaningful differences, and same meaningfulness – through the roundness (moment, or same meaningfulness) and continuity (sequence, or meaningful differences) of circular symbols and the moment (moment, or same meaningfulness) and temporality (sequence, or meaningful differences) of diurnal symbols, employed to counter the same meaninglessness of daily existence. Thus, while the circular and diurnal symbols incorporate the idea of eternal recurrence, thereby emphasising its life-affirmative aspect, the eternal return calls for the creative recurrence of circular and diurnal symbols, with the symbols and the eternal return merged into one creative, affirmative whole.