**OVERMAN** (Ger. *Übermensch*). - A neologism coined to denote a conception of humanity superior to its normal or typical form, yet free from what appears weak or defective in II.
The term first appears in 17th-century German literature, but it resonates with Renaissance titanism, Vico’s conception of the ages of giants and heroes, and the categories of the universal superhuman formulated by Romanticism (v.). Nietzsche (v.) developed its theory in *Thus Spoke Zarathustra* and *Beyond Good and Evil* (1883–85, 1885–86), vigorously opposing the spirit of decadence and melancholy characteristic of the fin-de-siècle, yet with a pagan-giant tone and echoes of the Sophistic theory of the “triumph of the stronger.” He does not, however, regard his *Übermensch* as merely a heroic figure, but rather as a prophet and conscious advocate of a “philosophy of the future,” which dominates human mediocrities and weaknesses through the revelation and practice of life’s becoming according to the law of sensible love, in which all is transient and all returns. The *Übermensch* possesses “immaculate perception,” or immediate communion with the pure flow of existence; yet for him, God is dead, no longer demanding the sacrifice of humanity, leaving it free to exalt itself. The pan-ecstatic feeling for nature would thus replace religion: the will to power would transcend the limitations of conventional morality. These ideas were developed in the tendency of sensual immanence by D’Annunzio (v.), who saw the preparation of the *Übermensch*’s advent as the very task of art, though he returned to confer upon it a heroic valuation. Certain protagonists of his novels (*The Triumph of Death*, *Maybe Yes, Maybe No*) and dramas (*Glory*) exemplify this type. Yet he sought to reconcile Nietzsche with Wagner, arguing (in *The Flame*) that the mythic and chivalric heroes of poetic-musical legend were also *Übermenschen*; whereas in the German philosopher, the *Übermensch*, like the *Überhaupt* of logic (“in general”), contained not only the surpassing but also the contempt of traditional humanity. Finally, the epithet was widely debated before the war of 1915–18 by French socialists, who questioned whether it corresponded to Marxist doctrine of surplus value or to the figure of the proletarian dictator; but the Pan-Germanists, in the same context attributing the quality of *Übermensch* to the entire German nation, drained the philosophical flavor from the issue and restored Nietzsche’s reputation in this regard.
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