You need a pretty strong philosophic background in general, but if it's just Nietzsche we are talking about, Just reac chronologically. You can skip Birth of a Tragedy (it's a great read but not essential).

>>7788289
Noted, I think I'll manage that. But then I have only really read Notes from the Underground as far as strictly philosophy is concerned.

>>7788000

Dostoyevsky had a big influence on Nietzsche from what I understand - so that's good. But try getting a feel for Kant and Schopenhauer - they should come before Nietzsche too.

>>7788289
I disagree, skipping birth of tragedy is not a good idea, introducing Apollonian and Dionysian ...concepts(?)... especially important to reading beyond good and evil

>>7789827
Nietzsche didn't read Dostoyevsky until after he wrote Zarathustra, though they come to a lot of the same conclusions independently of one another.

>>7789827
These ideas can be sufficiently covered by summaries, lectures or wiki articles. Or by just having a decent grasp of the Greeks in general.

Anyways, BGE, HATH and GS will help you with contextualizing Zarathustra. Regardless of what people say, you can actually read Zarathustra and get most of what he's saying out of it without much of anything if you are very, very, very careful in your reading. Zarathustra was both the first and last work of his I read, and on the rereading I came away from a few points with a bit more of a nuanced perspective, but the key points are not really obscured too greatly.

Nietzsche does lend himself to misinterpretation by those who read quickly, and his prose is usually good enough to let yourself fall into the trap of 'devouring' the book.

Just read it.

Fuck everyone else, just fucking read it. Ill never understand people issue with "how do I into ____", just pick it up and read it for christs sake.

Just read The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris and you can finish philosophy in one book

How fucked am I to read Beyond Good and Evil first? I have zero philosophical background.

>>7790551
Not that fucked desu, just don't go jumping to any conclusions before you have read all of Nietzsche's major works. BGE, GM, HATH, GS, Twilight, Zarathustra, Antichrist and Ecce Homo, plus his essay on Truth and Lies.

He has other stuff but this is the core of Nietzsche that you need to actually understand him. He's not an author who makes you ask "what the fuck did he just say" through his prose very often, but you still have to ask that question.

>>7790551
The key with Nietzsche is to not read Zarathustra first, or if you do, read it knowing that you're missing parts and will read it again later. Beyond Good and Evil is a fine choice. I started with GS.

>>7790533
This is how I feel. Unironically, JUSTDOIT.

>>7788289
>>7788000

Apollonian and Dionysian in the Birth of Tragedy are probably THE key Nietzsche ideas when it comes to a literary approach. It depends if you want to develop your philosophy chops (in which case it's good to know but not essential) or your literature criticism skills (in which case it's pretty much essential as the key example of a hegelian dichotomy).