Talk:The Gay Science

Untitled
The title of the book given by Nietzsche was originally Gaia Scienza. It was the title on Italian.

A list of translations of the book would be helpful. (is there a turkish translation?)

The link to the English version of The Gay Science is directed to an unavailable page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.164.210.146 (talk • contribs) 00:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Title
When thinking about the title, it might be useful to refer to the section "On those who are sublime" in Thus Spake Zarathustra, Second Part. There, Nietzsche wrote metaphorically: "Still is the bottom of my sea: who would guess that it harbors sportive monsters? Imperturbable is my depth, but it sparkles with swimming riddles and laughter." This indicates that Nietzsche wanted profound knowledge to be accompanied by fun and gaiety. He opposed deep thinkers who were "&hellip;decked out with ugly truths&hellip;" but were gloomy and had "&hellip;not learned laughter&hellip; ." Nietzsche's response to his knowledge and understanding of the horrors of life and death was dancing laughter and a gay science.Lestrade 16:14, 12 July 2007 (UTC)Lestrade

"In Nietzsche's time, the word "gay" in English was not a euphemism for "homosexual". The homosexual connotation of "gay" did not become widespread until the mid-20th century." The fact that the article has to explain this makes me lose a little more faith in humanity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.148.237.44 (talk) 16:42, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Faith in humanity? The title basically means that Nietzsche had knowledge (science) of life's meaninglessness and of the finality of death, yet he could be light-hearted and even happy. Knowledge, itself, was a source of pleasure for him. Lestrade (talk) 21:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)Lestrade


 * Nietzsche didn't use the word "gay" -- it's Kaufman's translation. Therefore, this sentence is actually wrong and I suggest just taking it out entirely. Philosophygeek (talk) 06:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Agreed, the title is not only misleading but simply wrong. "The joyful science" would be right, or just "The gayan science". Maybe Kaufmann was convinced that Nietzsche was gay (I'm not going to judge this stupid idea, because it's well known that he loved women, although due to his diseases it wasn't easy for him to get one). A question: Is this misleading title maybe the reason why this book isn't read too much in the English-speaking world? It should be read more, because many English speaking scientists nowadays still make some of the methodical error Nietzsche wrote about. --178.197.227.68 (talk) 14:43, 11 January 2014 (UTC) For instance the behaviour of animals: Anglo-American scientists often try to explain an animals behaviour by "Darwinism". But this is simply wrong because animals act either due to food or sexuality. Or they act out of joy or fear, at least the higher developed animals. So in general they act out of needs or passion, nothing else. Therefore many of those fancy explanations of animal behaviour from "accredited" scientists are often misleading and/or simply wrong. --178.197.227.68 (talk) 15:05, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I support that the title of this page be changed to The Happy Science. The word "gay" has clearly changed its meaning since it was chosen for the title of English translations of this work. The title The Happy Science is actually used by recent scholars who are not referring to the English translation, i.e. they directly translate Die Freuliche Wissenschaft as The Happy Science. The only drawback is that many older references use the title The Gay Science, but this could be handled by the use of a redirect. - Wwallacee (talk) 07:40, 28 June 2017 (UTC)

Considering the word "gay" now has almost no meaning in English but "homosexual" or in some cases specifically "male homosexual", the traditional English title of this work must be one of the most striking and confusing, if unintended, misdirections out there. Ever fewer people know "gay" long meant "happy" or "joyful". Seemingly fewer yet know that "science" once had a very broad meaning in English and French, effectively referring to any systematic body of knowledge or practiced skills. Consider not only the poetry example, but such durable euphemisms as "the sweet science" for the sport of boxing. Shakespeare's Duke of Burgundy speaks of those sciences that should enrich a peaceful France- he meant mainly agriculture and arts. not theoretical or experimental science in the relatively narrow sense we now use the word.

It would be a tad vandalic to change the word science in the title now, so I expanded slightly on the existing paragraph that discusses science and knowledge. Random noter (talk) 23:14, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, based on current usage it would make sense to restore the passage explaining the use of the word "gay" but correctly assigning it to English translation. Random noter (talk) 23:17, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Section 125
Isn't this a copyright violation? It's the exact text from Kaufman's translation of The Gay Science. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Philosophygeek (talk • contribs) 06:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Excerpts are fair use. Citing even a few paragraphs is legal, let alone less than 20 words. &lt;eleland/talkedits&gt; 02:29, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Disambiguation link
Why does this link to a page about biology? There are other scientific approaches besides biological ones that have studied homosexuality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.160.172.16 (talk) 08:41, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * This book has nothing to do with homosexuality. Nothing at all, it's just a wrong - and stupid - translation. You should read it...every scientist should. --178.197.227.68 (talk) 14:49, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Removed Link
I removed the link to Biology/Sexual Orientation because in this case "Gay" is not synonymous with homosexuality. The link makes no sense in this context. Ericqwerty (talk) 22:08, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Very nice work Wikipedians
But you have to expand it! --188.67.222.111 (talk) 10:37, 10 February 2013 (UTC)

earlier death
The section stating, that aphorism 108. contained the first mentioning of the famous quote "god is dead" is inaccurate (i.e. wrong). First time the metaphor of a "dead god" is used/evaluated/tested out was in Aphorism 84. ("The Prisoners") of "Der Wanderer und sein Schatten" (addendum to "Menschliches, Allzumenschliches", from the year 1880 (!)), which apparently is older (judging by release) than this phrase about Buddha; it also shows, that it gravitates around christian believe much more (and for a longer time) than around Buddha's apotheosis, since the "Sohn des Gefängniswärters" (son of the jailer? - prison guard? - officer? - warder?) obviously symbolizes Jesus, the self-acclaimed "son of god"; the [anti]christian emphasis can also to be Witnessed in aphorism 125. ("Der Tolle Mensch" (the madman)) of this book, the most classical/typical/iconic mentioning of said idea ("god is dead"); btw.: the mentioning of said aphorism 125 in said paragraph of this side is rather meaningless, dull, uninformative... so: cut that out along with the wrong (b/c of contradicting chronology) information maybe? - or Rephrase the entire paragraph along the line of "one of the most important mentionings of the famous concept "god is dead", also happens to be found in this book, most of all in Aph. 125., but Aph. 108. already plays with that idea also; though the first appearance/earliest mentioning of the concept itself should be found in Aph. 84 from "Der Wanderer...", published in 1880", if you want to save the flawed piece of information. - but then again, work in a mentioning of the bigger emphasis on christian believe, please; obviously that was of much greater importance for the Author of "The Antichrist"! Oh, yes: I am aware that it states "the famous formulation" (in the criticized paragraph), not the "idea" in and of itself; but that's misleading, to say the least, given the information above; it both underlines the real chronology (/history/development) of the inherent idea/metaphor, and the first and most important target of that thought(/satire). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.52.207.84 (talk • contribs) 06:26, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

English Translations
The article needs to list the translations of this book.Flaviusvulso (talk) 03:55, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

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Translation of 'fröhlich'
The translated title of 'Die fröhliche Wissenschaft" as 'The Gay Science' is ridiculous for obvious reasons and rejected by the academic community, in the UK and Commonwealth at least.  It has nothing to do with homosexuality.  A better translation would be 'The Merry Science', which is how 'fröhlich' is usually translated. 82.43.184.91 (talk) 17:09, 3 May 2023 (UTC)