Arthur Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung [The World as Will and Idea]

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This first English translation (by R. B. Haldane and J. Kemp) of Schopenhauer's work had a considerable impact on contemporary writers, notably on Thomas Hardy and Joseph Conrad who found in Schopenhauer's view of the human will as essentially evil a confirmation of their own pessimistic views of human nature. The spirit of this pessimism is caught in Conrad's epigraph to his story 'An Outcast of the Islands' which comes from Calderon (q.v.) via Schophenhauer: ?For man's greatest offense is that he has been born?. For further information see Arthur Schopenhauer's

Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung [The World as Will and Idea]

, The Literary Encyclopedia profile by Kelsey Wood, College of the Holy Cross

116 words

8222 Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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