What became known in the 1800s as 'the gay science'?
The Gay Science Provençal expression ("gai saber") for the technical skill required for poetry-writing that had already been used by Ralph Waldo Emerson and E. S. Dallas and, in inverted form, by Thomas Carlyle in "the dismal science". The book's title was first translated into English as "The Joyful Wisdom", but "The Gay Science" has become the common translation since Walter Kaufmann's version in the 1960s. Kaufmann cites "The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary" (1955) that lists "The gay science (Provençal "gai saber"): the art of poetry." In "Ecce Homo", Nietzsche refers to the poems in the Appendix of "The Gay Science", saying they
The Gay Science much of the later works. Here is also the first occurrence of the famous formulation "God is dead", first in section 108. Section 125 depicts the parable of the madman who is searching for God. He accuses us all of being the murderers of God. "'Where is God?' he cried; 'I will tell you. "We have killed him"—you and I. All of us are his murderers..." The Gay Science The Gay Science () or The Joyful Wisdom is a book by Friedrich Nietzsche, first published in 1882 and followed by a second edition, which was published after the completion of