The Problem of Discursive Ambiguity of F. Nietzsche’s Text Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The article analyses discursive characteristics of the main character of F. Nietzsche’s work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The problematic status of this text, which combines artistic and conceptual elements, makes the research tradition return to this work of Nietzsche in search of new ways of interpretation. We focus on the discursive approach in relation to Zarathustra, within the framework of which the main objects of consideration are the parameters of speech and knowledge of the central Nietzschean character. The paper demonstrates the connection between the discursive figure of God and the figure of Zarathustra. In various contexts within the very work under consideration and also in his related texts, Nietzsche shows that the prophetic status of the protagonist cannot be determined on the basis of the idea of expected revelation, i.e. unity of knowledge. Unlike the divine position, seeking to establish certain unity of meaning, the discursive position of Zarathustra requires the preservation of ambiguity. In order to propose a description of such a mode of speech, which could express ambiguity but at the same time produce some knowledge, we addressed the discursive figure of laughter in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. This figure appears in the text precisely in those moments when Zarathustra exposes some kind of knowledge or, crucially, is exposed himself. Laughter acts as a marker of situations in which Zarathustra as a prophet approaches the knowledge he seeks, but stops at the very edge of the disclosure of meaning. Based on the obtained description of the discursive position of the main character of the work, we put forward the assumption that the interpretation of the text requires not the interpretation of the content of the text, but first of all the interpretation of its experimental form.