Will-to-Live and Eternal Recurrence

Starting at #52 of World as Will and Representation, Schopenhauer presents a comparison of the affirmation of the Will-to-Live, with the denial of the Will-to-Live, that leads to his endorsement of the latter.  At one point, he suggests that the former might even entail an affirmation of the "constant recurrence" (p. 284 of the Dover edition) of Life, thereby implying that he would deny it.  Now, it is difficult to believe that among those who have been oblivious to these passages is the philosopher who, for half his career, is an explicitly devoted follower of Schopenhauer.  In other words, any interpretation of Nietzsche's treatment of Eternal Recurrence must begin by conceiving it as a response to Schopenhauer, as part of a diagnosis of the Nihilism that he finds in the latter's doctrine.  On that basis, for example, the depressing 'Soothsayer' that appears in Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a reference to Schopenhauer, while the 'dwarf' who joins Zarathustra in the section 'The Vision and the Riddle' is a reference to anyone who reduces Eternal Recurrence to a mere 'theory of Time'.