# The Genealogy of Morals — Character guide

> Key figures in The Genealogy of Morals by Friedrich Nietzsche.

- [the ascetic priest](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/the_ascetic_priest.md): He belongs to no race or class yet grows from all of them, a type life itself seems to need despite his hostility to it. His will is paradoxical: he uses power to dam the sources of power, seeking mastery over life's dee
- [Schopenhauer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/schopenhauer.md): As the philosopher who paid homage to ascetic ideals, he serves Nietzsche as both a personal case and a typical one, the most eloquent voice of philosophy's rancour toward sensuality. Without his enemies he would have ru
- [Richard Wagner](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/richard_wagner.md): A former friend and the book's most painful case, Wagner is the artist whose late work drifts toward retrogression and conversion, his Parsifal trumpets sounding a secret will to preach salvation elsewhere. Nietzsche ins
- [Luther](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/luther.md): Reformer whose rebellion against priestly authority is discussed in the context of ressentiment.
- [Kant](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/kant.md): Philosopher whose categorical imperative is criticized as a remnant of ascetic morality.
- [Spinoza](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/spinoza.md): Rationalist philosopher whose concept of self-preservation is contrasted with ascetic denial.
- [Plato](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/plato.md): Ancient philosopher whose idealism is linked to the ascetic priest's worldview.
- [the Germans](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/the_germans.md): They are the collective audience Wagner might have addressed with a bold 'Luther Comedy' praising both chastity and sensuality, since every good marriage transcends that antithesis. Instead, many among them turn chastity
- [Israel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/israel.md): Biblical nation discussed as the origin of slave morality and priestly power.
- [the Greeks](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/the_greeks.md): They stand as the ancient counter-image to Judeo-Christian valuation, a noble culture whose instincts are gratified by rank and organisation rather than wounded by them. Beneath every Greek oligarchy lurked the desire fo
- [Feuerbach](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/feuerbach.md): Philosopher whose projection theory of religion is referenced in the critique of asceticism.
- [the Jews](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/the_jews.md): A nation of priests nursing the most profound revengefulness, they launched the slave revolt in morals that has taken two millennia to achieve victory. From the trunk of their hate grew a new love, the most sublime of al
- [Thomas of Aquinas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/thomas_of_aquinas.md): Medieval theologian whose philosophy exemplifies the ascetic ideal in Christianity.
- [Homer](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/homer.md): Epic poet whose works illustrate the noble morality of ancient Greece.
- [Dühring](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/duhring.md): Philosopher and critic whose anti-Semitic views are used as a foil for Nietzsche's analysis.
- [Heracleitus](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/heraclitus.md): Pre-Socratic philosopher whose doctrine of flux is contrasted with ascetic denial of becoming.
- [Goethe](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/goethe.md): Poet and thinker praised as a model of healthy, life-affirming culture.
- [Nietzsche](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/nietzsche.md): Nietzsche writes as a self-confessed stranger to himself, admitting that we knowers are unknown to ourselves and that our experiences strike us like noon bells we cannot count. He traces the genealogy of moral prejudices
- [Dr. Paul Rée](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/dr_paul_ree.md): Philosopher and friend of Nietzsche, whose work on morality is debated in the preface.
- [Hesiod](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/hesiod.md): Ancient poet whose myth of the ages is referenced in the discussion of moral origins.
- [Dante](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/dante.md): Poet whose Divine Comedy is cited as an example of the ascetic ideal in art.
- [Wagnerian Parsifal](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/wagnerian_parsifal.md): Operatic character used to critique Wagner's turn to Christian asceticism.
- [Jesus of Nazareth](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/jesus_of_nazareth.md): Central figure of Christianity, discussed as a symbol of priestly morality.
- [the German](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_genealogy_of_morals_se/characters/the_german.md): Generic national type critiqued for philosophical and cultural shortcomings.

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