“…My view that the essay's main body is an exegetical commentary on its own section 1 leaves intact whatever figurative connections radiate out from the 'wisdom is woman' image. And as far as the question of 'Nietzsche and woman' is concerned, my interpretation contradicts neither Walter Kaufmann's once fashionable statement that Nietzsche's judgements concerning women are 'philosophically irrelevant', 27 nor Peter Burgard's presently more fashionable verdict that 'He includes woman, accords the feminine a central role, in the articulation of his philosophy, even as his extreme sexism excludes woman.' 28 But just as nothing I have said could stem the metaphorical and intertextual energies emanating from the 'wisdom as woman' epigraph, so the existence of these metaphorical pathways through Nietzsche's oeuvre does not constrain us to accept the standard view of the essay-epigraph relationship.…”