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Literature and Theology Advance Access originally published online on July 31, 2008
Literature and Theology 2008 22(3):313-323; doi:10.1093/litthe/frn029
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© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press 2008; all rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

This article appears in the following Literature and Theology issue: Sexing the Text [View the issue table of contents]

Beyond the Veil: A Woman Named Truth and the Truth of Woman

Matthew Bennett

Department of Philosophy, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester. CO4 3SQ, UK

mbenneb{at}essex.ac.uk


  Abstract

‘Beyond the Veil’ seeks to understand the relation between truth and woman in Nietzsche's works. I will attempt this by asking two questions. First: how does Nietzsche establish an anthropomorphic feminine truth, and what is achieved by this metaphor? Second: what is Nietzsche's truth about woman? Through analysis of selected passages, I will argue that Nietzsche, through gendering truth, displays a conviction that what we believe to be true functions as such only when ‘veiled’; the metaphor of a veiled woman named truth, I will argue, presents truth as something that retains its value insofar as the truth remains shrouded, distant and unexamined. With this first answer established, the second question will prove to be undermined by Nietzsche's numerous and at times ironic ‘truths' about woman. I will argue that the diverse range of women in Nietzsche's texts problematises the possibility of a Nietzschean ambition to reveal woman in her true form. Moreover, I will claim that Nietzsche's critique of the dogmatic philosopher's ‘will to truth’ subverts the notion that Nietzsche intends to offer a sincere, ‘unveiled’, truth about woman.


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