Oscar Levy
{{Short description|German physician, writer and journalist (1867–1946)}}
{{More citations needed|date=March 2010}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| name = Oscar Levy
| birth_date = {{birth date|1867|3|28|df=y}}
| death_date = {{death date and age|1946|8|13|1867|3|28|df=y}}
| caption =
| birth_place = Stargard, Prussia
| death_place = Oxford, England
| nationality = German Jewish
| occupation = Translator, Philosopher
| known_for = Scholar of Nietzsche
| spouse = Frieda Brauer
| children = 1
| family = Jim Rosenthal (grandson)
Tom Rosenthal (great-grandson)
}}
Oscar Ludwig Levy{{Cite web|url=http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/oscar-ludwig-levy|title = BN No Results Page}} (28{{Citation needed|date=May 2012}} March 1867 – 13 August 1946) was a German Jewish physician and writer, now known as a scholar of Friedrich Nietzsche, whose works he first saw translated systematically into English. His was a paradoxical life, of self-exile and exile, and of writing on and (as often taken) against Judaism. He was influenced by the racialist theories of Arthur de Gobineau. He also admired Benjamin Disraeli, two of whose novels he translated into the German language.
Life and career
Levy was born in Stargard in the Province of Pomerania, the son of Ernestina (née Lewy) and Moritz Levy and the brother of Max Levy (1869, Berlin - 1932) and Emil Elias Levy.{{Cite web|url=http://www.blankgenealogy.com/getperson.php?personID=I1029&tree=Blank1|title = Dr. Oscar Ludwig Levy b. 23 Mar 1867 Stargard, Pomerania, Prussia d. 13 Aug 1946 Oxford, England: Blank Family}} He studied medicine in Freiburg, qualifying in 1891. He left the German Empire in 1894, where his father was a banker in Wiesbaden, and lived in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
He apparently discovered, or was more thoroughly converted to, Nietzsche in 1905 or 1906 via a patient. The 18-volume Nietzsche translation he oversaw appeared from 1909 to 1913. His collaborators were Francis Bickley, Paul V. Cohn, Thomas Common, William S. Haussman, J.M. Kennedy, Anthony Ludovici, Maximilian A. Mugge, Maude D. Petre, Horace B. Samuel, Hermann Georg Scheffauer, G.T. Wrench and Helen Zimmern. Ludovici became his most important follower. In general he found little British support, but A.R. Orage was an enthusiast and Levy found an outlet in The New Age.
Subsequently, his life was complicated by having to leave the United Kingdom and his medical practice despite his support for the British side against the Central Powers when World War I broke out. He went back to the German Empire in 1915 and then to Switzerland. Back in the United Kingdom in 1920, he incautiously wrote a preface for an inflammatory political pamphlet by George Pitt-Rivers, The World Significance of the Russian Revolution. He was deported as an alien in 1921. He then lived in the French Third Republic.
Eventually he returned to the United Kingdom. He died in Oxford. He was married to Frieda Brauer. His daughter Maud lived in Oxford, having married the bookseller Albi Rosenthal. His grandson is television sports presenter Jim Rosenthal and his great-grandson is actor Tom Rosenthal.
In 2004, his papers were deposited in the Nietzsche-Haus in Sils Maria.
Works
{{refbegin}}
- {{citation | first = Oscar | last = Levy | title = Das neunzehnte Jahrhundert | year = 1904}} , translated into English by Leonard A. Magnus as ''The Revival of Aristocracy (Probsthain & Co., 1906)
- {{citation | translator-first = Oscar | translator-last = Levy | language = de | title = Contarini Fleming, ein psychologischer roman | first = Benjamin | last = Disraeli | publisher = Berlin: Oesterheld | year = 1909 }}
- {{citation | editor-first = Oscar | editor-last = Levy | title = The complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche. The first complete and authorized English translation | volume = 18 vols. | publisher = Edinburgh and London: T. N. Foulis | year = 1909–1913 }}
- NB volume order differs between versions
- {{citation | title = The Birth of Tragedy | year = 1909 | url = https://archive.org/details/thebirthoftraged00nietuoft/page/n7 | translator-first = Wm. A. | translator-last = Haussmann }}
- {{citation | title = Early Greek Philosophy | year = 1911 | url = https://archive.org/details/cu31924021569151/page/n3 | translator-first = Maximilian A. | translator-last = Mügge }}
- {{citation | title = On the future of our educational institutions. Homer and classical philology | year = 1910 | url = http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28146 | translator-first = J.M. | translator-last = Kennedy }}
- {{citation | title = Thoughts out of Season (Part I) | year = 1910 | url = https://archive.org/details/cu31924021569268/page/n7 | translator-first = Anthony A. | translator-last = Ludovici |translator-link=Anthony Ludovici }}
- {{citation | title = Thoughts out of Season (Part II) | year = 1910 | url = https://archive.org/details/cu31924021569268/page/n7 | translator-first = Adrian | translator-last = Collins }}
- {{citation | title = Human, All-Too-Human (Part I) | year = 1911 | url = https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.22149/page/n5 | translator-first = Heinz | translator-last = Zimmern }}
- {{citation | title = Human, All-Too-Human (Part II) | year = 1909 | url = https://archive.org/details/cu31924021569284/page/n5 | translator-first = Paul V. | translator-last = Cohn }}
- {{citation | title = The Case of Wagner | year = 1911 | url = https://archive.org/details/cu31924021569169/page/n5 | translator-first = Anthony A. | translator-last = Ludovici|translator-link=Anthony Ludovici}}
- {{citation | title = The Dawn of Day | year = 1911 | url = https://archive.org/details/cu31924021569177/page/n5 | translator-first = J.M. | translator-last = Kennedy }}
- {{citation | title = The Joyful Wisdom ("La Gaya Scienza") | year = 1910 | url = https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.22148/page/n5 | translator-first = Thomas | translator-last = Common }} , poetry rendered by Paul V. Cohn and Maude D. Petre
- {{citation | title = This Spake Zarathustra | year = 1909 | url = https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.55499/page/n5 | translator-first = Thomas | translator-last = Common }}
- {{citation | title = Beyond Good and Evil | year = 1909 | url = https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.95793/page/n3 | translator-first = Helen| translator-last = Zimmern}}
- {{citation | title = The Genealogy of Morals / Peoples and Countries | year = 1913 | url = https://archive.org/details/cu31924021569201/page/n7 | translator-first = Horace B. | translator-last = Samuel }}
- {{citation | title = The Will to Power (Vol.1, Books 1 and 2) | year =1909 | url =https://archive.org/details/beyondgoodevilpr1909niet/page/n11 | translator-first = Anthony A. | translator-last = Ludovici|translator-link=Anthony Ludovici}}
- {{citation | title = The Will to Power (Vol.2, Books 3 and 4) | year = 1910 | url = https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.175029/page/n0 | translator-first = Anthony A. | translator-last = Ludovici|translator-link=Anthony Ludovici }}
- {{citation | title = The Twilight of the Idols | year = 1911 | url = https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52263 | translator-first = Anthony A. | translator-last = Ludovici|translator-link=Anthony Ludovici }}
- {{citation | title = Ecce Homo | year = 1911 | url = https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52190/52190-h/52190-h.htm | translator-first = Anthony A. | translator-last = Ludovici|translator-link=Anthony Ludovici }}
- {{citation | editor-first = Robert | editor-last = Guppy | title = Index to Nietzsche | year = 1913 | url = https://archive.org/details/CompleteWorksOfFriedrichNietzscheVol18/page/n1 }}
- {{citation | editor-first = Oscar | editor-last = Levy | title = Selected letters of Friedrich Nietzsche | year = 1913 | translator-first = Anthony | translator-last = Ludovici|translator-link=Anthony Ludovici | url = https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.169464/page/n0 }}
- {{citation | first = Oscar | last = Levy | title = My Battle for Nietzsche in England }}
- {{citation | first = Oscar | last = Levy | title = Nietzsche verstehen. Essays aus dem Exil 1913-1937 }}
- {{citation | first = Oscar | last = Levy | title = The Idiocy of Idealism | publisher = London: W. Hodge | year = 1940 }}
- {{citation | first = Oscar | last = Levy | title = Nietzsche | encyclopedia = Encyclopædia Britannica | year = 1952 }} , replacing the shorter article by F. C. S. Schiller in the 1911 edition.
{{refend}}
Levy also wrote an introduction to On the tracks of life: the immorality of morality (1909) by Leone Gioacchino Sera, translated by J. M. Kennedy.
References
{{Reflist}}
=Further reading=
{{refbegin}}
- {{citation| last = Stone| first = Dan |authorlink=Dan Stone (historian)| title = Oscar Levy: A Nietzschean Vision | work = In Breeding Superman: Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Interwar Britain | pages = 12–32 | publisher = Liverpool University Press | year = 2002 |jstor = j.ctt5vjfgb}}
- {{citation| title = An 'Entirely Tactless Nietzschean Jew': Oscar Levy's Critique of Western Civilization| first = Dan | last = Stone|authorlink=Dan Stone (historian) | journal = Journal of Contemporary History | volume = 36 | number = 2 | date = Apr 2001 | pages = 271–292 |jstor = 261226 | doi = 10.1177/002200940103600203| s2cid = 153488904 }}
{{refend}}
External links
{{wikiquote}}
{{wikisource|works=or}}
- {{Gutenberg author |id=Levy,+Oscar | name=Oscar Levy}}
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=Oscar Ludwig Levy}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levy, Oscar}}
Category:Jewish German writers
Category:People from the Province of Pomerania
Category:University of Freiburg alumni