e cadaverous perfume of Schopenhauer's world-view continued to permeate Nietzsche's mature thought is still a matter of scholarly debate" (Wicks, 1997). After discovering Schopenhauer, Nietzsche was highly influenced by works written by F.A. Lange who's work criticized materialist metaphysical theories from the standpoint of Kant's critique of metaphysics in general, and attracted Nietzsche interest in its view that metaphysical speculation is an expression of poetic illusion. While Schopenhauer's philosophy was pessimism (which holds that the universe was created, still is and will be the worst possible world), Nietzsche found no value in what was considered as valuable from the worldly viewpoint and ended up with the metaphysics of nihilism. Just to find and affirmation of life , he joined the Prussian cavalry to discover that he fell off a horse and was in consequence discharged. He later went on to teach at the University of Leipzig and stayed there until his retirement due to an illness.
             If Nietzsche left anything of himself with us, it would have to be an extensive library of his works, which embrace the very essence of his thought processes. His books covered various topics from government to Christianity and leave those whom read them in a state of deep contemplation or in a frenzy of criticism. His first book The Birth of Tragedy, presented a theory of Greek drama and of the foundations of art that has had profound effects on both literary theory and philosophy. In this book he introduced his famous distinction between the Apollonian, or rational, element in human nature and the Dionysian, or passionate, element, as exemplified in the Greek gods Apollo and Dionysus. When the two principles are blended, either in art or in life, humanity achieves a momentary harmony with the "Primordial Mystery" (Nietzsche, 1872). This work, like his later ones, shows the strong influence o...