The Case of Wagner

Written and published in 1888, these short works are Nietzsche's settling of accounts with Richard Wagner — once his closest intellectual ally, by the end the symbol of everything he opposed. *The Case of Wagner* is a polemic against decadence in modern music; *Nietzsche contra Wagner* collects passages from earlier books to demonstrate that Nietzsche's break was no late conversion but a long-developing position. The *Selected Aphorisms* trace the friendship retrospectively. Indispensable for Nietzsche's late aesthetic philosophy.