Abstract

In this chapter, ‘“Visionary” Works and Liber Novus’, I will contextualise both Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and Jung’s Liber Novus within Jung’s category of ‘visionary’ works, as presented in his definition from Psychology and Literature (1930). Starting with such a definition—which touches upon several authors and works—I will narrow the field, to explore a precise group of writers and works, often put by Jung in connection with Nietzsche and Zarathustra: J. W. Goethe and Faust; F. Hölderlin and Song of Destiny (Hyperion), F. T. Vischer and Auch Einer; C. Spitteler and both Olympian Spring and Prometheus and Epimetheus. I will explore their frequent use of mythology, their common interest in Theology, the connection of such authors with Basel (often through the names of J. Burckhardt and J. J Bachofen), all of them referring to a symbolic understanding of mythology starting with F. Creuzer. I will finally show how Jung and Liber Novus fit in the category of ‘visionary’ works too.