Eternal Recurrence, Tragedy, and Comedy

Both Zarathustra and Eternal Recurrence first appear in The Gay Science, with Nietzsche introducing the former with the phrase 'The tragedy begins'. At the outset of The Gay Science, he explains how the teaching of Morality has traditionally been 'tragic' in two senses, applying the connotation, presented in Birth of Tragedy, of the ultimate illusoriness and vanity of the individual. The content of Morality hitherto, according to Nietzsche, is tragic, because it has always posited a purpose for individual existence. Furthermore, the act of teaching Morality is also tragic, because Moralists function under the illusion of the meaningfulness of the act. But, since Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche has achieved a new perspective on Tragedy--its vanity is comic, as well, which would explain why, in the preface to The Gay Science, he hints that Zarathustra's teaching of Eternal Recurrence may be parodistic. For, that effort combines tragic and comic elements. Zarathustra's seriousness in carrying out his mission is tragic, but that the purpose of the doctrine is Life itself, not something ulterior, is comic. Furthermore, the content of the doctrine--the idea that the eternal recurrence of all events precludes the possibility of a purpose being attained--is likewise comic. So, Zarathustra's teaching of the doctrine is, on this strong textual evidence, a parody of a Moral teaching, in which the ultimate significance of Recurrence is its counter-purposiveness, not that it might be the product of some flash of intuitive insight into the ontology of Time, as some would have it.