Telling lies, or how to create a history of myths. Commentary on the paragraphs 22 and 23 of The birth of tragedy

Abstract

This paper examines Nietzsche attention paid to the issue of “myth” in two works, The Birth of Tragedy and his Second Untimely Meditation. In the latter the interest towards genealogy as the most effective method to counteract the aspirations of a historiography imprisoned by his scientific aspirations, seems to leave in the background the bet on a “rebirth of the German myth” presents in the first book. However, it is possible to recognize a continuity of the importance of “myth” in the idea about a History that supports the fictional, something that has been taken over by contemporary philosophies of History that have assumed Nietzsche’s legacy