Untimely Meditations

'Untimely Meditations was started in 1873, completed in 1876. It comprises a collection of 4 out of 13 projected essays concerning the contemporary condition of European culture, especially German. Published posthumously, a 5th was titled "We Philologists". Nietzsche here began discussing limitations of empirical knowledge & presented what would appear compressed in later aphorisms. It combines the naivete of The Birth of Tragedy with a more mature polemical style. It's his most humorous work, tho this levity wasn't much continued. Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen has been difficult to translate: Untimely Meditations (Kaufmann), Thoughts Out of Season (Ludovici), Untimely Reflections (Hayman), Unmodern Observations (Arrowsmith) & Inopportune Speculations Unfashionable Observations or Essays in Sham Smashing (Menken).