REVIEW ARTICLES "Rare Impressions. " Nietzsche's Philologica: A Review of the Colli-Montinari Critical Edition*

Few things can be more important to understanding Nietzsche than understanding his views of classical antiquity. To do this, sooner or later one must come to grips with his early formation as a classicist. And there can be no better way to learn about this subject han to read what he wrote at the time. Fortunately for us, Nietzsche was a compulsive note-taker during his student years at Bonn and Leipzig and then later while he was a professor at Basel, in addition to producing several volumes of corre-spondence and a few autobiographical sketches. There is more than enough material for a first-hand assessment. Ironically, his publications in philology seem like opera minora in comparison. And yet what stands out about these latter is how remarkably * Many thanks to Wolfgang Haase and Glenn Most for comments on an earlier draft, and to archivist Wolfgang Ritschel in Weimar for helpful clarifications. Abbreviations (see also "References, " below p. 430)