he start of many financial troubles and a steady decline in popularity. Ironically, Nietzsche meets his mentor and superior in 1868, just at the start of RW's decline from the journey towards achieving happiness through pure art and becoming a true overman. RW's abandonment of his life's work and beliefs, and his eventual reconciliation with Christianity, culminated in his final opera, Parsifal, in 1882, which was overflowing with Christian and Aryan imperialist intent. His death followed soon after in 1883. It seemed that RW had reached the end of his artistic journey at Tristan. His efforts at Bayreuth seemed - to the artistic community and the general public - a vain attempt at regaining lost respect and popularity. His final work was often seen as a compromise of his true philosophy and beliefs, the aim in Parsifal apparently only an over-dramatic and unconvincing attempt at another masterpiece whose passion would equal that of Tristan. Whether vanity was his motive, or whether the struggle to create during his life without a safety net for the afterlife was too difficult, FN saw RW's moral transformation as a failure. The rapid onset of RW's physical illness and his distorted Anti-Semitic moral sentiments thus came to serve FN as a very grave example of what the overman becomes when he strays from his natural creative instincts. "Every time, sickness is the response when we want to doubt our right to our task, when we begin to make things easier for ourselves in any way."(Nietzsche contra Wagner, Kaufman 677) It might be postulated that this great disappointment was necessary for FN to reach his fruition. Regardless, one can plainly see that FN's journey towards becoming an overman greatly coincides with the phases of RW's journey. This course towards the overman, and the similarities between the paths of these two men is what spawned the idea of relation between LvB and Nietzsche. We must remember that FN is born as RW enters his...
