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affinity with Emersonian transcendentalism. By contrast, my
view of the basis for the comparison between the two writers is
that they placed a similar concept of tragedy at the center of their
life and work. This concept entailed not only a rejection of the
Kantian and Humean autonomous self but a recognition of the
inescapability of suffering and evil and an insistence that the
nineteenth-century critique of religion be extended to morals.
Such insistence, for which Nietzsche is well known, is also
voiced by James when he criticizes Emerson explicitly (in a late
essay) and Coleridge implicitly (in "The Coxon Fund") for
lacking "a definite conception of evil" and for being too
complacent about the self's "goodness." James's tragedies
celebrate the darker forces of existence even as they struggle to
overcome them.
That there is something drastically wrong with the perspec–
tive of "tender" Jamesians is indicated by a simple fact: James
saw himself as an artistic Napolean Bonaparte-an American
Balzac-and indeed admired the French general more than any
other historical personage. Mter the stroke that preceded his last
illness, James dictated letters discussing the administration of the
French Republic and signed one of them with the original
Corsican form of Napoleon's name, 'Napoleone'. Naturally, the
thought occurs that this is just another case, somewhat pathetic, of
a paleface painting himself red, but no one acquainted with
James's monumental literary accomplishments is likely to sus–
tain such a thought for very long. Early in his writing life, James
wrote to his family:
"It
is time I should rend the veil from the fe–
rocious ambition which has always
couve
beneath a tranquil
exterior..
.!
rather think I shall become a (sufficiently) great man."
Decades later, on publication of his autobiography, James
boasted to Henry Adams about his literary efforts, "Behold me so
behaving." These words are reminiscent of the title of
Nietzsche's last book,
Ecce
Homo,
with its half-mad chapter titles,
"Why I am so Wise," "Why I am a Destiny," etc. Indeed, like
James, Nietzsche greatly esteemed Napoleon; was obsessed
from an early age with the pursuit of his own greatness, promising
"to make things as hard for myself as they have ever been for any–
body"; and at the end of his life signed his letters with the
names of famous military figures.
