Abstract

ABSTRACT Enoch Powell claimed to have been an avid reader of Friedrich Nietzsche in his youth. But what exactly he took from this reading has never been investigated; hitherto there has been only speculation, and some sensationalism, centring upon the more dramatic themes of Nietzsche’s work and Powell’s thought: atheism, nationalism, and power. The first half of this article rehearses Powell’s discovery of Nietzsche, and surveys the suggestive elaborations hitherto provided by biographers and commentators – which, it is explained, are poorly evidenced. The second half of the article details what is revealed in contemporary documentary evidence which, on this point, does not seem to have been consulted before: namely, unpublished notes and lectures found among the Papers of Enoch Powell, held by the Churchill Archives Centre at Cambridge. Evidence is presented that Nietzsche inspired (1) Powell’s interest in ancient Greek culture, (2) his theory of education, and (3) his notion of an exactness of ‘style’ in writing, thinking, and living, and the power of classical scholarship to inculcate it.