''Idylls from Messina'' () is a set of eight

idyll An idyll (, ; ; occasionally spelled ''idyl'' in American English) is a short poem, descriptive of rustic life, written in the style of Theocritus's short pastoral poems, the ''Idylls'' (Εἰδύλλια). Unlike Homer, Theocritus did not engag ...

s composed by

Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philology, classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche bec ...

. These poems were written in

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

during the spring of 1882, where Nietzsche remained for three weeks after arriving from

Genoa Genoa ( ; ; ) is a city in and the capital of the Italian region of Liguria, and the sixth-largest city in Italy. As of 2025, 563,947 people live within the city's administrative limits. While its metropolitan city has 818,651 inhabitan ...

. In May 1882, those eight idylls were published in '' Internationale Monatschrift'' by Ernst Schmeitzner, Nietzsche's publisher at the time, with whom he would later sever all ties and whom he will eventually sue. They stem from the same voluminous amount of poetic attempts he took upon himself from February to April 1882, from which Nietzsche later composed his ''Vorspiel in deutschen Reimen'' to '' Die fröhliche Wissenschaft'' in 1882. From these eight poems, Nietzsche used six, in marginally modified form, for the ''Lieder des Prinzen Vogelfrei'', the appendix for the second edition of '' Die fröhliche Wissenschaft'' in 1887.

References

* Kaufmann, Sebastian: ''Kommentar zu Nietzsches Idyllen aus Messina'', in: Historischer und kritischer Kommentar zu Friedrich Nietzsches Werken, hg. von der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften ( Nietzsche-Kommentar), Bd. 3/1, Berlin / Boston 2015 (), S. 457-543. (Review: Hermann Josef Schmidt
Nietzsches ''Morgenröthe'' und ''Idyllen aus Messina'', umfassend und kritisch kommentiert. Ein faszinierendes, wohlbelegtes, überfälliges, Diskussionen provozierendes Wagnis: Historischer und kritischer Kommentar zu Friedrich Nietzsches Werken, Bd. 3/1, vorgestellt, diskutiert, aus genetischer Perspektive ergänzt und mit prinzipielleren Bemerkungen zur Nietzscheinterpretation garniert. Teil II: „Ich möchte eine Lerche sein“. Die ''Idyllen aus Messina'', kommentiert von Sebastian Kaufmann, im Kontext der Entwicklung von Nietzsches Lyrik – eine subversive Agentin seiner moralkritischen Philosophie?
{{Authority control 1882 poems Messina Poetry by Friedrich Nietzsche