Title
The German title, Der Antichrist, is ambiguous and open to two interpretations: the Antichrist, or the Anti-Christian.[i][32] However, its use within the work generally admits only an "Anti-Christian" meaning.[32] H. L. Mencken's 1918 translation and R. J. Hollingdale's 1968 translation both title their editions as "The Anti-Christ"; and Walter Kaufmann uses "The Antichrist", while no major translation uses "The Anti-Christian". Kaufmann considers The Antichrist the more appropriate way to render the German: "[a] translation of the title as 'The Antichristian' [...] overlooks that Nietzsche plainly means to be as provocative as possible".[ii]
Sanity
This book was written shortly before Nietzsche's infamous nervous breakdown. However, as one scholar notes, "the Antichrist is unrelievedly vituperative, and would indeed sound insane were it not informed in its polemic by a structure of analysis and a theory of morality and religion worked out elsewhere".[33]
