106: Emil Cioran - On the Heights of Despair

The Nietzsche Podcast

Cioran is notorious as the depressive philosopher par excellence. While figures such as Schopenhauer, Ligotti and Benatar have advanced logical arguments for their pessimistic outlook, Cioran's work is completely missing any such justification for his depressive feeling for life. Instead, his work is a lyrical outpouring of his inner life. In this episode we're taking a look at his first and most infamous book, "On the Heights of Despair", written during a bout of insomnia. As his translator, Zarifopol-Johnston argues, the book was an attempt to preserve Cioran's real self by "killing" a literary version of himself. We explore this interpretation of Cioran's work: that it is a means of coping with the madness and sorrow he finds within himself, through lyricism. Ironically, a text that was rumored to have caused many suicides may have preserved Cioran's life.