Abstract

The essay aims to investigate the relationship between Nietzsche’s and Bataille’s thought using the theme of the Gift as a common thread. The essay is divided into two parts: in the first, an attempt will be made to bring out the central role that the Nietzschean concept of the «Gift-Giving Virtue» plays for Bataille as a key to Mauss’s Essay on the Gift by enabling him to come to develop the notion of dépense. It will prove crucial to understanding this process to go through the analysis of a series of images, such as especially that of the sun, and experiences such as that of sacrifice, communication or friendship, which for both are closely connected to the experience of the Gift. What is really at stake in the dynamic of the Gift will turn out to be, therefore, thinking of the subject in a dimension of total immanence. The second part of the essay will look at how on the basis of the concept of dépense Bataille reads Nietzsche, in particular, with respect to two central questions, that of the political usability of Nietzsche’s thought and that of the relationship between sovereignty and Will to Power.