The Gay Science

The Gay Science (German: Die fröhliche Wissenschaft), more accurately (given modern associations of the word "gay"), 'The Happy Science or The Joyful Wisdom, is a book by Friedrich Nietzsche, first published in 1882 and followed by a second edition, which was published after the completion of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil, in 1887. This substantial expansion includes a fifth book and an appendix of songs. It was noted by Nietzsche to be "the most personal of all [his] books", and contains the greatest number of poems in any of his published works.