Knowest thou it not, O Zarathustra? I SEEK ZARATHUSTRA.”
Asked what he sought and how he tested Zarathustra, the magician says he seeks a perfectly honest great man, and that he seeks Zarathustra.
- The higher menThe magician names his search for a great, honest man, the longing of the higher men.
What the critics said
Ludovici argues that the magician is Wagner, recounting Nietzsche's youthful idealisation of him and the bitter break, and reads the dialogue as exposing what Nietzsche came to loathe in Wagner: his histrionics, vanity, equivocation and falseness, though Zarathustra still treats him as a higher man broken by modern values.
Ludovici argues that the magician is Wagner, recounting Nietzsche's youthful idealisation of him and the bitter break, and reads the dialogue as exposing what Nietzsche came to loathe in Wagner: his histrionics, vanity, equivocation and falseness, though Zarathustra still treats him as a higher man broken by modern values.