What Dante and Goethe believed about women
CHATGPT
Nietzsche is referencing two monumental figures in literary history: Dante Alighieri and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
1. **Dante's Reference**: The line "ella guardava suso, ed io in lei" is from Dante's "Divine Comedy" (specifically, the end of "Paradiso"). Translated, it means "she looked upward, and I at her." In "Paradiso," Dante follows Beatrice, his idealized love, through the celestial spheres. Beatrice looks up toward God, the ultimate source of truth and love, while Dante's gaze is fixed upon Beatrice.
2. **Goethe's Reference**: Goethe's "the Eternal Feminine draws us upward" is from "Faust," particularly the end of the second part. The "Eternal Feminine" here represents an idealized, divine, and transformative aspect of femininity.
Nietzsche's commentary is twofold:
1. **Commentary on Dante and Goethe**: Both Dante and Goethe presented an idea that the divine or idealized femininity leads man towards a higher truth or purpose.
2. **Role Reversal**: Nietzsche humorously suggests that noble women might have a similar upward-aiming idealization of masculinity – the "Eternal Masculine." In essence, just as men (represented by figures like Dante and Goethe) have idealized women as guiding them to higher truths or virtues, noble women might also see men as embodying certain aspirational qualities.
Nietzsche is pointing out a reciprocal idealization between genders and highlighting the symmetrical nature of such idealizations in human relationships and culture.
