Professional Documents
Culture Documents
of Friedrich Schiller
Edited by
Steven D.
Martinson
I SBN 1 -5 7113 -1 83 -3
Camden House
Edited by
9 781571 131836
Steven D. Martinson
Friedrich Schiller
Edited by
Steven D. Martinson
CAMDEN HOUSE
For Elisa
Contents
Acknowledgments
ix
xi
xv
Intellectual-Historical Settings
Schillers Philosophical Aesthetics in Anthropological Perspective
Walter Hinderer
27
47
67
Major Writings
Die Ruber: Structure, Models, and an Emblem
Werner von Stransky-Stranka-Greifenfels
89
115
137
147
169
viii
CONTENTS
Wallenstein
Dieter Borchmeyer
189
213
227
Wilhelm Tell
Karl S. Guthke
247
Schillers Legacy
The Reception of Schiller in the Twentieth Century
Wulf Koepke
271
Works Cited
297
313
Index
317
Acknowledgments
this volume was facilitated greatly by the outstanding editorial skills of Jim Walker. His responses to numerous inquiries
and questions were always speedy and incisive. Thanks also go to my colleague, Thomas A. Kovach, for having rendered a fine translation of Dieter
Borchmeyers study on Wallenstein. I am grateful also to Claudia Galberg
and Veronica Ostertag for their assistance in the early stages of the project,
as well as to Janna Orlova-Schaeffer for her assistance in preparing the
index. Finally, I wish to thank our colleagues in Germany, Sweden, England, Canada, and the United States whose expertise and patience helped
bring this enterprise to fruition.
This book is dedicated to my oldest daughter, Elisa, who attended the
Schiller-Gymnasium in Marbach am Neckar.
HE COMPLETION OF
S. D. M.
Tucson, Arizona
January 2005
1780
1781
1781
1782
1783
1784
1786
1786
1787
Versuch ber den Zusammenhang der thierischen Natur des Menschen mit seiner geistigen. Stuttgart: Cotta, 1780; translated by
Kenneth Dewhurst and Nigel Reeves as An Essay on the Connection between the Animal and Spiritual Nature of Man, in their
Friedrich Schiller: Medicine, Psychology and Literature, 25385.
Berkeley: U of California P, 1978.
Elegie auf den frhzeitigen Tod Johann Christian Weckerlins; Von
seinen Freunden, 4 pp., N.p., 1781.
Die Ruber: Ein Schauspiel. Frankfurt am Main & Leipzig: Privately printed, 1781; translated by Alexander F. Tytler as The Robbers.
London: Robinson, 1792; New York: Printed for S. Campbell,
1793.
Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782. N.p., 1782.
Trauerspiele / Zum erstenmal aufgefhrt auf der Mannheimer
National-Schaubhne. Die Ruber, Die Verschwrung des Fiesko zu
Genua, Kabale und Liebe. Mannheim, 1783. Die Verschwrung des
Fiesko zu Genua: Ein republikanisches Trauerspiel (Mannheim:
Schwan, 1783); translated by George Henry Noehden and Sir
John Stoddart as Fiesco; or The Genoese Conspiracy. London: Johnson,
1796.
Kabale und Liebe: Ein brgerliches Trauerspiel in fnf Aufzgen
(Mannheim: Schwan, 1784); translated by Matthew Gregory
Lewis as The Minister: A Tragedy in Five Acts. London: Bell, 1797;
translation revised as The Harpers Daughter; or Love and Ambition. Philadelphia: Carey, 1813.
An die Freude: Ein Rundgesang fr freye Mnner. Mit Musik. N.p.,
1786.
Thalia. Vol. 1 titled: Rheinische Thalia. Edited by Schiller. Leizpig:
Gschen, 17851787.
Dom Karlos, Infant von Spanien. Leipzig: Gschen, 1787; translated by Hoehden and Stoddart as Don Carlos, Infant of Spain.
London: Miller, 1798.
xii
1788
1788
1789
1791
1792
1792
1793
1795
1800
1800
1801
1802
1803
1804
1805
1812
1839
1840
1862
1862
1867
1867
1890
1892
1902
1904
1943
xiii
xiv
1988
2004
Translations by Schiller
Euripides. Iphigenie in Aulis. Acts 13, 6: Issue of Thalia, edited by
Friedrich Schiller, March, 1789; acts 45, 7: Issue of Thalia, May
1789.
Euripides. Phnizierinnen. 8. Issue of Thalia (October/November 1789).
[first half of the drama only].
Gozzi. Turandot, Prinzessin von China: Ein tragicomisches Mhrchen nach
Gozzi. Tbingen: Cotta, 1802.
Picard. Der Neffe als Onkel. Lustspiel in drey Aufzgen. Theater von Schiller.
Vol. 5. Tbingen: J. C. Cotta, 1807.
Picard. Der Parasit oder Die Kunst sein Glck zu machen. Ein Lustspiel.
Theater von Schiller. Vol. 2. Tbingen: J. C. Cotta, 1806.
Racine. Britannikus. Trauerspiel. Schillers dramatische Entwrfe zum erstenmal verffentlicht durch Schillers Tochter Emilie Freifrau von
Gleich-Russwurm. Stuttgart, 1867. [Fragments only]
Racine. Phdrus. Trauerspiel von Racine. Tbingen: J. C. Cotta, 1805.
[Fragments only; two manuscripts].
Virgil. Der Sturm auf dem Tyrrhener Meer (Book 1 of the Aeneid).
Schwbisches Magazin, 11. Stck, edited by Balthasar Haug.
Stuttgart, 1780.
Virgil. Dido (Book 4 of the Aeneid). Thalia. 2. and 3. Stck (1792).
Virgil. Die Zerstrung von Troja (Book 2 of the Aeneid). Thalia. 1. Stck
(1792).
HERE ARE TWO EDITIONS OF Schillers works that are currently widely
used by scholars. The edition primarily relied upon in this volume is
Werke und Briefe in zwlf Bnden, edited by Klaus Harro Hilzinger, et al.
(Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1988), which is known
as the Frankfurter Ausgabe and abbreviated as FA.
The other edition, which is used as the source of primary reference to
Schillers works in the essay by Norbert Oellers and as a supplemental
source in several of the other essays in this book, is Werke: Nationalausgabe.
Im Auftrage des Goethe- und Schiller-Archivs, des Schiller-Nationalmuseums
und der Deutschen Akademie, edited originally by Julius Petersen and
Hermann Schneider, currently edited by Norbert Oellers (44 vols. to date;
Weimar: Bhlau, 1943), known as the Nationalausgabe, and abbreviated
as NA.
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
leave a legacy, albeit a problematic one, to him in his first highly successful
drama, Die Ruber (The Robbers, 1781). Under Mosers instruction,
young Schiller began to master Latin and became familiar with Greek, and
it was through Moser that Schiller would be influenced by Swabian
pietism. In this environment Schiller considered the possibility of becoming a pastor. The seeming ridicule that his attempts at declamation
received, however, may well have dissuaded him from pursuing this path.
Several subsequent experiences, in Stuttgart and Weimar, for example,
confirm that Schiller was not destined to become an actor or a preacher.
(His role as Clavigo in a performance of Goethes early work was not well
received, as was evident from the lack of applause and guarded, but audible
laughter.)
In 1766, the Schiller family moved to the court city of Ludwigsburg.
Shortly before their move, Duke Karl Eugen had taken up residence in this
Swabian Versailles. Within a short time, the population of Ludwigsburg
doubled in size from five thousand to ten thousand residents. The stage of
the theater within the castle was one of the finest in Germany at the time.
It was unique because it could be opened to the natural environment so
that, among other things, horses could be brought onto the stage, thus
increasing the effect of dramatic and operatic performances. Because of
Friedrichs exceptional academic success, the duke allowed the young
Schiller to attend the theater with his father on a few occasions. The castles
chapel and the many waiting and sitting rooms, together with the spacious
gardens and likeness to the ruins of a medieval castle, contributed to the
splendor of this location, in and around which Schiller spent many of his
formative years.
Despite his parents hesitation, the duke insisted that Schiller become
a student at the newly established military Pflanzschule, appropriately
called the Solitude. There, the students (called Eleven) were expected
to consider the duke their new father. After a few years, the Herzogliche
wrttembergische Militrakadmie (est. 1781, later the Herzogliche KarlsHohe-Schule), relocated near the castle in Stuttgart.2 Duke Karl Eugen
reigned for nearly fifty years (174493). The students mother was the
well-liked Duchess Franziska von Hohenheim, who, at times, counterbalanced the actions of her husband, Duke Karl Eugen. Although certainly a
tyrant in an age of absolutism, the duke was capable of exercising what
Goethe would characterize as a certain magnanimity (Zeller, 12). One of
Schillers closest friends at the time was Friedrich von Hoven (17591838)
with whom he spent a great deal of time. Together, they would write
poetry and study both medicine and philosophy. Von Hoven noted that
the duke had made some big mistakes as a regent, but even greater ones as
a human being (Zeller, 13).
Even before the time of the dukes funeral, Schiller had come to realize that he had received an excellent education and training (as a future
military officer) at the Karlsschule. In fact, the medical faculty at the military academy was second in Germany only to the faculty at the university
in Gttingen. In its final form, the duke approved the publication of
Schillers dissertation, that is, Abschluarbeit, on physiology, ber den
Zusammenhang der tierischen Natur des Menschen mit seiner geistigen
(Concerning the Connection between the Animal [Corporeal] and Intellectual Nature of the Human Being, 1780). The Johann Cotta Verlag,
which would eventually become one of the most famous publishing
houses in Germany, published Schillers dissertation in 1780. Schillers
interest in medicine and his career in writing owed in part to his ill health.
Since birth he had been lanky and sickly. Throughout his life he would
battle a variety of debilitating illnesses. For Schiller, the act of writing
became a therapeutic means of mediating between the demands of the
mind and the needs of the body. His favorite professor at the Karlsschule
was Jakob Friedrich Abel. Abels integration of poetry, by Shakespeare
and others, into his lectures on philosophy had a profound impact on
Schiller, as can be seen from his later study of the critical philosophy of
Immanuel Kant and the composition of his own philosophical essays in
the 1790s.3
For the sake of brevity, we will mention only the geographical locations where Schiller spent the most time and then address briefly his relationships with the individuals with whom he was most familiar.
The main stations in Schillers life following the early years in the
Stuttgart area were Mannheim, Dresden, Jena, and Weimar. Intermediate
stops included the small village of Bauerbach outside Meiningen in
the Thuringian forest and, among other places, Leipzig. In 1785, in
Mannheim, Schiller experienced both success (with Die Ruber) and failure (with Die Verschwrung des Fiesko zu Genua [The Conspiracy of Fiesco
of Genoa, 1783]). Having received an unexpected and anonymous letter
of appreciation for his work from a number of individuals in Leipzig,
Schiller finally decided to leave his disappointments in Mannheim behind
and travel to Saxony. He wrote: O meine Seele drstet nach neuer
Nahrung nach beern Menschen nach Freundschaft, Anhnglichkeit
und Liebe (quoted from Zeller, 44). It was at this moment that Schiller
also decided to become a poet. The experience was nothing short of liberating. Just outside of Leipzig, in Gohlis, Schiller took up residence in the
home of a farmer named Schneider. His fellow tenant was Georg Joachim
Gschen, one of his future publishers. It was here also that Schiller became
acquainted with Christian Gottfried Krner, who became a lifelong friend.
In the late summer of that year, 1785, Schiller accepted Krners invitation
to travel to Dresden with Krners new bride, Minna Stock, where he
remained until mid-1787. Schiller records that he was never happier. His
euphoria culminated in the writing of the famous poem, An die Freude
(Ode to Joy, 1785).
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
***
The 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah, opened with the grand
chorus of Ludwig van Beethovens Ninth Symphony. No doubt, few of the
millions of people who watched the festivities on television or via the Internet, including those who attended the opening ceremonies in person, realized that the text of Beethovens symphony is by Friedrich Schiller. Both
Schillers text and Beethovens musical composition trumpet the ideal of a
humane humanity. Freedom and responsibility, sickness and healing, the
individual and society all of these and many more topics and themes
that Schiller explores in his work still touch upon our own experiences of
life, no matter how specific or unique that understanding may be. Through
a comparative study of Schillers works and a critical, self-critical confrontation with the values that are encoded in his writings, the reader
should gain even more insight into the nature of the realities that human
beings experience and seek to understand.
In her biography of Schiller (1830, the first to be written), Caroline
von Wolzogen portrayed her brother-in-law neither as a servant of his
time, nor as a self-proclaimed leader. Rather, he is said to have listened to
the sound of nature within him. As the history of Schillers critical reception makes clear, Wolzogen was quite right to state that the voice of the
nation would echo the sound of Schillers lifes work (17).6 The sound of
the humane humanity that Schiller espoused was echoed not only in 1859
and 1959 in both Germany and America but, again, in 2002 at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. This time, however, Schiller
spoke not only to the nation of Germany and the European community
but to the world.
The Companion to the Works of Friedrich Schiller contributes further to
an understanding of Schillers significance as a major writer of literature by
reinvestigating (1) the various intellectual, philosophical, and historical
contexts in which he was writing, (2) his major literary and theoretical
writings, and (3) the reception of his work and legacy in history. The
reader will find a number of suggestions for new directions in scholarship
and further reading. While expanding our knowledge of Schiller, we
remain cognizant of the wealth of information and previous insights that
research has supplied for our consideration as enlightened readers. Without this, there would be no reliable guide by which to determine originality. With respect to history, Schillers work lies between the Enlightenment
and German Romanticism and, as to style, between the Baroque and German, or Weimar Classicism.
Finally, it is important to recognize that Schillers works operate simultaneously on a number of levels, for he was not only a writer of drama,
poetry, and prose; he was also an army doctor, physiologist, philosopher,
historian, professor, co-director of the Weimar court theater, gifted letter
writer, and family man. His native talents, knowledge, and scope of writing
were wide-ranging, as are the themes that he developed and the problems
that he addresses throughout his multifarious writings.
The present volume thus serves as both a signpost for scholarship at
the crossroads of the past and the present and points to promising areas for
future research on the life and works of Germanys greatest dramatist.
10
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
11
But what were Schillers objectives? Walter Hinderer suggests here that
with his aesthetic anthropology or anthropological aesthetics, Schiller
wishes to cultivate human freedom and create the psycho-political conditions of the state of freedom. Over the following decade-and-a-half,
namely from 1780 to his death in 1805, the writer explored the practical
value of aesthetics as an instrument in the further education of both the
individual and society, including political society, while building on and
refining his original position in the early medical dissertations.
In his response to the aftermath of the Great Revolution, Schiller
held that it is not enough da alle Aufklrung des Verstandes nur
insoferne Achtung verdient, als sie auf den Charakter zurckfliet; sie geht
gewissermaen von dem Charakter aus, weil der Weg zu dem Kopf durch
das Herz mu geffnet werden.7 The way that one pursues the truth of
humanity in cultural, religious, and social-political life now becomes the
essential question. Politics was to be informed by ethics. The violent overpowering of the state that had led to the Reign of Terror exhibited mans
inhumanity to man. In the 1790s, Schillers goal, that is, the task of culture, was to counteract the propensity for retribution and violence in
human beings through aesthetic education.8 To be sure, the French Revolution caused Schiller to reorientate his thinking and, as a result, his understanding of the political task of culture.
Given his own bitter experience of the tyranny of Duke Karl Eugen,
Schiller recognized the need for change in the political public sphere. The
way in which this was to be achieved, however, was not by revolution but
through the gradual re-formation of society: . . . das lebendige Uhrwerk
des Staats mu gebessert werden, indem es schlgt, und hier gilt es, das rollende Rad whrend seines Umschwunges auszutauschen (8:563 [emphasis
added]). Schiller was convinced that the Bildung of the individual through
the sensuous knowledge (sinnliche Erkenntnis, as the father of aesthetics, Alexander Baumgarten, had first termed it) of aesthetic culture had an
ennobling effect on ones character. The ennoblement of character in the
middle-class moral sphere would serve, politically, as an example to men
and women of the nobility as well as the aristocracy. The question, then,
was whether or not the nobility (and aristocracy) manifests true nobility of
character. In sum, ethics and politics are inseparable in Schillers work.
Owing to its increasing economical and educational ascendancy the
middle class in Germany was quickly becoming the new model of social
behavior, even if, or perhaps, despite the fact that the courts continued to
emulate French culture. But as long as French was the language of choice in
courtly culture, the task of the Bildung of German culture would entail an
uphill battle, an assignment for the future. Schiller would agree with Johann
Gottfried Herders statement in the Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der
Menschheit (Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Humanity, 178491):
Der Mensch ist einer langen Erziehung bedrftig (315).
12
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
Karl S. Guthke (1994) has underscored the fact that Schiller was a
skilled psychologist, able to offer keen insights into human nature and the
workings of the human psyche. Schiller contended that, with the aid of
aesthetic culture, one is able to refine and redirect, that is, sublimate, ones
natural impulses. By activating and actualizing ones fullest potential as a
human being, one can alter the state of nature. Unlike the animal (or barbarian), the human being can aspire to something greater than what is simply given. The gateway to that higher state of being is art, die Tochter der
Freiheit (8:559). The dignity that was and is lost to base humanity can be
rescued in and through aesthetics. As Schiller writes, in the Ninth Letter of
the sthetische Briefe: die Wahrheit lebt in der Tuschung fort . . .
(8:584). In the classical art of the time one beholds the strength to endure
what life presents in its most challenging and often overpowering manifestations. The nature of the type of character that Schiller believed would
best serve as an example for his time forms the basis of a personal credo:
Strenge gegen sich selbst mit Weichheit gegen andre (8:605; emphasis
added). Among other things, the values of self-discipline and leniency
towards others that Schiller cultivated in his writings were diametrically
opposed to the Reign of Terror and any and all other forms of barbarism.
The sustained coming to terms with the past and the present in light of the
future provides informed evidence of Schillers engagement with the politics of his day.
13
14
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
It is not coincidental that justice and atonement are two of the golden
threads that link Schillers writings, in drama (Die Ruber and Maria
Stuart), prose narratives (Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre), and poetry
(Die Kraniche des Ibykus [The Cranes of Ibycus]). After all, before
having undertaken the study of medicine, Schiller had studied law, albeit
for a short time. Although some minimal research is available in this area,
the relationship between Schillers writings, jurisprudence, and various
other concepts of law in the later eighteenth century is still an open field
of scholarship. Mller Dietz, for example, has confirmed the fact that
Schillers theater is directed to the education of the people and of legalpedagogical significance. We recall that following their heinous crimes,
the characters Karl Moor (Die Ruber) and Christian Wolf (Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre), to say nothing of Maria Stuart, confess their
crimes and guilt in the end. In effect, the moral law within recognizes the
validity of the legal order outside of their individual selves, a sign of their
responsibility to society. Not only Schillers drama and prose work but
also his historical writings underscore the social accountability of the
individual. For example, in both the Geschichte des Dreiigjhrigen Kriegs
and Wallensteins Tod (Wallensteins Death, 1799) General Wallenstein
plots his own course and is eventually held accountable for his actions, or
inaction, by the law of the land. What, then, is the relationship between
law and freedom in Schillers works?
For Schiller, the salvation of the human species lies neither in religion
nor in science but, in art. Art alone is capable of effecting a balance
between all of ones individual faculties. Clearly, Schillers work marks a
profound paradigm shift in German culture. He is the first to replace religion with art explicitly in theory. Somewhat later, at the turn of the new
century, in Maria Stuart (Mary Stuart, 1801), the writer would present his
audiences and readers with a dramatic representation of the power of art
versus religion in the description of Mortimers visit to Rome, in act 1,
scene 6.
But are aesthetics, the visual arts and literature, practical? Schiller
would argue that they are indeed, inasmuch as they are formative forces in
a process of development, that is, education, which is devoted to reshaping
human behavior. Beauty and its correlate, the sublime, serve as keys to the
cultural re-formation of society. One of Schillers foremost contributions is
the knowledge that practical reason operates in concert with aesthetics.
The actualization of moral knowledge in the present that is gained in the
process of aesthetic education means that the ideal of humane humanity
serves as a regulative idea for the improvement of individuals and societies
over time. Schillers ideas are not mere abstractions that await their realization in a distant and unforeseeable future. Rather, one strives to enact the
moral knowledge that one has acquired affectively in and through aesthetic
education.
15
16
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
verehrt (ll. 13738). But rather than take this passage too literally as an
indictment of God, given the context in which it was written, the immediate reference is actually to the Duke of Wrttemberg, Karl Eugen, who
insisted that he was the father of his students. What the young writer is
protesting indirectly is the tyranny of his new father, the absolutistic
ruler. Another biographer, Peter Lahnstein, has termed this contribution
to Schillers collection of poetry, Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782 (Anthology
for the Year 1782), not only an elegy (Trauergedicht) but also a lament
(Leichengedicht) (89). Anticipating our discussion of new directions in
future scholarship on Schiller, what, then, is the relationship between the
body and the text in Schillers writings?
Schiller introduces his first collection of poetry, the Anthologie auf das
Jahr 1782, with the poem Trauer-Ode auf den Tod des Hauptmanns
Wiltmaister. Captain Johann Anton Wiltmaister was a member of the
Stuttgart military regiment, an outfit to which Schiller would be assigned
and serve as a surgeon. Wiltmaister died at the end of December 1780,
around the time that Schiller began his service. In this poem, the wing
metaphor plays a key role, as it does throughout Schillers writings, and
not only in the area of poetry. Maria Stuart, for example, dreams of escaping her prison with the aid of wings, which, in her case, is but a vain hope.
Here, too, the writer explores the limitations, that is, fetters of the body.
Grimmig wirgt der Todt durch unsre Glieder! (l. 1). Drawing upon the
nomenclature and arguments introduced in his medical dissertation,
Schiller advances the idea that when the strings of the body and the wings
of the mind break death is certain and sudden. Yet, as always, there is hope.
For one day, as the poet intuits, joy will prevail beyond the temporal divide
between life and death.
Finally, in mid-May 1782, young Schiller wrote a Trauergedicht on
the death of the fort commander, Philipp Friedrich Rieger. Like Daniel
Schubart, Rieger had spent time at the prison on the Hohenasperg under
the worst of conditions (in grausamster Haft; Lahnstein, 92). Schillers
own short-term imprisonment by Duke Eugen for deserting to attend the
premiere performance of his first highly successful play, Die Ruber, in
Mannheim, also put him in contact with Rieger. In fact, Schiller shared a
review of his drama with Rieger while they were both imprisoned. Clearly,
Schillers experiences as a young man, military doctor, and writer are intermeshed with the cultural and political terrain of the German eighteenth
century.
Schillers first, fascinating collection of poetry, Anthologie auf das
Jahr 1782 as a whole still requires close examination. For one thing, it
can be seen as a body of work that discloses the more intimate connections between the early and later works. For example, by charting the
development of a particular theme, such as love, from the Laura-poems,
for example, Der Triumpf der Liebe, through Wallenstein and beyond,
17
18
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
of music. Music, of course, calls up not only the question but also the
problem of harmony, which is one of the most prolific themes of the
German classical heritage from Johann Joachim Winckelmann to
Thomas Mann.
Although approaching death, Schiller continued to write. Given the
debilitating condition of his internal organs a collapsed lung, congested
heart chambers, and a hardened liver Schillers doctor was amazed that
the man could have lived as long as he did. In the end, it was the pneumonia he had contracted in his one remaining lung that killed him. There is
surprisingly little in the way of exclamations of suffering and pain in
Schillers letters. Perhaps they were diverted to, and worked out in and
through, his numerous writings. Schillers last words had nothing to do
with wanting more light, as had Goethe. Instead, hope in the improvement of humankind and the cheerfulness that accompanies it: Immer
besser, immer heiterer . . .
Amid his sufferings, and in clear view of life in an imperfect world,
Schiller kept joy and hope alive. Perhaps the following lines from the poem
Die Knstler (The Artists), written in 1789 during the French Revolution, could well serve as Schillers epitaph.
Der Menschheit Wrde ist in eure Hand gegeben,
Bewahret sie!
Sie sinkt mit euch! Mit euch wird sie sich heben!
Schiller believed that all social-political change must begin with the individual, no matter how criminal, as the actions of Karl Moor, Christian
Wolf, Maria Stuart, and Wilhelm Tell suggest.
19
20
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
21
awareness that, in modern times, the human being can train, that is, educate oneself (ausbilden) only as a fragment of a larger and often overwhelming network of social and political connections. This feeling of being
but a fragment can then result in the experience of profound alienation.
Stephanie Hammers Schillers Wound (2001), as well as the chapter on
Trauma und Tragdie: Das Trauerspiel vom Los des Schnen auf der
Erde, in Benjamin Schmidts Denker ohne Gott und Vater treat interestingly Schiller and postmodernist issues.
The task also remains to determine the web of relationships among the
multi-dimensional aspects of Schillers collected works. No doubt such
scholarship will help us appreciate the true complexity of the writers work
even more profoundly than in the past. Finally, sustained investigations of
Schillers unpublished fragments would help to identify the writers own
intentions for his work and likewise expand our knowledge of its complexities, both within the Gesamtwerk itself as well as in the contexts in which
his texts were written and the objectives and goals to which they point.
In conclusion, we hope that the present volume will serve as a significant contribution to the study of Schiller and, at the same time, whet the
appetite of the casual reader for the ideas and work of this major writer of
world literature.
Notes
1
Our contributor, Werner von Stransky-Stranka-Greifenfels, charts the significance
of landscapes such as these for a new and unique interpretation of Schillers Die
Ruber.
2
The building was destroyed during World War II and, along with it, the library
which contained books that Schiller himself used, access to which could have been
especially helpful for research on the writer and his work.
3
This point serves as a corrective to Burschells reading. Burschell does not consider the medical writings to be of real significance for an understanding of
Schillers main work.
4
For an excellent discussion of the use of the words klassisch, Klassik, and
Klassizitt in the language of the time, see Alt 2: 2737.
See also the collection of essays, Unser Commercium (Barner, et al.). Furthermore, in Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne, Jrgen Habermas attributes to
Schiller an acute understanding of Mitteilung.
6
References to Schillers works in this essay are to volume and page number in the
Frankfurter Ausgabe, Werke und Briefe in zwlf Bnden, edited by Klaus Harro
Hilzinger, et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1988). Here:
8:582.
22
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
Two of our contributors register acute sensitivity toward the turns in Schillers
work in the last decade of the eighteenth century. Otto Dann sees that Schillers
view of history and historiography changed significantly in 1790 as a result of
his renewed engagement with history, while Norbert Oellers discloses the profound change in Schillers writing of poetry that followed just a few years later, in
1795.
Works Cited
Alt, Peter-Andr. Schiller: Leben Werk Zeit. 2 vols. Munich: C. H. Beck,
2000.
Aufenanger, Jrg. Friedrich Schiller: Biographie. Dsseldorf: Artemis &
Winkler, 2004.
Aurnhammer, Achim, Klaus Manger, and Friedrich Strack, eds. Schiller und die
hfische Welt. Tbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1990.
Barner, Wilfried, Christine Lubkoll, Ernst Osterkamp, and Ulrich Ott, eds.
Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft. Stuttgart: Alfred Krner, 1957.
Barner, Wilfried, Eberhard Lmmert, and Norbert Oellers, eds. Unser Commercium: Goethes und Schillers Literaturpolitik. Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1984.
Baur, Eva Gesine. Mein Geschpf musst du sein: Das Leben der Charlotte
Schiller. Hamburg: Hofmann und Campe, 2004.
Berghahn, Klaus. Schiller: Ansichten eines Idealisten. Frankfurt am Main:
Athenum, 1986.
, ed. Friedrich Schiller: Zur Geschichtlichkeit seines Werkes. Kronsberg /Ts.:
Scriptor, 1975.
Borchmeyer, Dieter. Die Weimarer Klassik: Eine Einfhrung. 2 vols. Frankfurt
am Main: Athenum, 1980.
Dann, Otto, Norbert Oellers, and Ernst Osterkamp, eds. Schiller als Historiker.
Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1995.
Darsow, Gtz-Lothar. Friedrich Schiller. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2000.
Grathof, Dirk, and Erwin Liebfried, eds. Schiller: Vortrge aus Anla seines
225. Geburtstages. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1991.
Guthke, Karl S. Schillers Dramen: Idealismus und Skepsis. Tbingen: A. Francke,
1994.
Habermas, Jrgen. Der philosophische Diskurs der Moderne: Zwlf Vorlesungen.
Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985.
Hammer, Stephanie. Schillers Wound: The Theater of Trauma from Crisis to
Commodity. Detroit: Wayne State UP, 2001.
Herder, Johann Gottfried. Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit.
Ed. Martin Bollacher. Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1989.
Hinderer, Walter, ed., Schillers Dramen: Neue Interpretationen. Stuttgart:
Reclam, 1979.
23
Hinderer, Walter. Von der Idee des Menschen: ber Friedrich Schiller. Wrzburg:
Knigshausen & Neumann, 1998.
Hofmann, Michael. Schiller: Epoche Werk Wirkung. Munich: C. H. Beck,
2003.
Humboldt, Wilhelm von. ber Schiller und den Gang seiner Geistesentwicklung, In Schillers Leben und Werk in Daten und Bildern, ed. Bernhard
Zeller. Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1966.
Knoblauch, Hans-Jrg, and Helmut Koopmann, eds. Schiller heute. Tbingen:
Stauffenburg, 1996.
Koopmann, Helmut, ed. Schiller-Handbuch. Stuttgart: Alfred Krner, 1998.
Khn, Rudolf A., ed. Schillers Tod: Kommentierter Reprint der Studie Schillers
Krankheit von Wolfgang H. Veil aus dem Jahre 1936. Jena: Universittsverlag Jena, 1992.
Lahnstein, Peter. Schillers Leben: Biographie. Munich: List, 1982.
Marbacher Schillerbuch: Zur hundertsten Wiederkehr von Schillers Todestag. Ed.
Schwbischer Schillerverein. Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1905.
Martinson, Steven D. Authority and the Author: Schiller and the Public
Sphere. In The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms 3 (1998): 8796.
. Filling in the Gaps: The Problem of World Order in Friedrich
Schillers Essay on Universal History. Eighteenth-Century Studies 22
(1988): 2446.
. Harmonious Tensions: The Writings of Friedrich Schiller. Newark: U of
Delaware P; London: Associated University Presses, 1996.
. Reason, Revolution and Religion: Johann Benjamin Erhards Concept of Enlightened Revolution. History of European Ideas 12 (1990):
22126.
. Shaping the Imagination: Friedrich Schillers Book Reviews. In The
Eighteenth-Century Book Review. Eds. Karl Fink and Herbert Rowland,
13750. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universittsverlag, 1995.
Mller-Dietz, Heinz. Grenzberschreitungen: Beitrge zur Beziehung zwischen
Literatur und Recht. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1990.
Oellers, Norbert. Friedrich Schiller: Zur Modernitt eines Klassikers. Ed.
Michael Hofmann. Frankfurt am Main: Insel, 1996.
Piedmont, Ferdinand, ed. Schiller spielen: Stimmen der Theaterkritik,
19461985. Eine Dokumentation. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1990.
Pieper, Heike. Schillers Projekt eines menschlichen Menschen: Eine Interpretation der Briefe ber die sthetische Erziehung des Menschen von Friedrich
Schiller. Lage: Jacobs, 1997.
Pilling, Claudia, Diana Schilling, and Mirjam Springer. Friedrich Schiller. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 2002.
Pugh, David. Dialectic of Love: Platonism in Schillers Aesthetics. Montreal:
McGill-Queens UP, 1996.
24
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
Pugh, David. Schillers Early Dramas: A Critical History. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000.
Reed, T[erence] J. Coming of Age in Prussia and Swabia: Kant, Schiller, and
the Duke. Modern Language Review 86 (1991): 61326.
Rippere, Vicky. Schiller and Alienation: A Problem in the Transmission of His
Thought. Bern: Peter Lang, 1981.
Saranpa, Kathy. Schillers Wallenstein, Maria Stuart, and Die Jungfrau
von Orleans: The Critical Legacy. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2002.
Schiller: Aspekte neuerer Forschung. Special edition of Zeitschrift fr deutsche
Philologie. 1990.
Schiller, Johann Kaspar. Betrachtungen ber landwirtschaftliche Dinge in dem
Herzogthum Wrttemberg, ausgesetzt von einem Herzoglichen Offizier.
Stuttgart: Cotta, 176769.
. Von der Baumzucht im Groen. Neustrelitz: Michaelis, 1793.
Schmidt, Benjamin Marius. Denker ohne Gott und Vater: Schiller, Schlegel und
der Entwurf der Modernitt in den 1790ern. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 2001.
Schulze, Hagen. Kleine Deutsche Geschichte. Munich: Beck, 1996.
Sharpe, Lesley. Friedrich Schiller and the Historical Character: Presentation and
Intepretation in the Historiographical Works and in the Historical Dramas.
Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982.
. Friedrich Schiller: Drama, Thought and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991.
. Schillers Aesthetic Essays: Two Centuries of Criticism. Columbia, SC:
Camden House, 1995.
Simm, Hans-Joachim, ed. Insel-Almanach auf das Jahr 2005. Friedrich Schiller
Zum 200. Todestag. Frankfurt am Main/Leipzig: Insel, 2004.
Sokel, Walter. Die politische Funktion botschaftsloser Kunst. Zum Verhltnis
von Politik und sthetik in Schillers Briefen ber die sthetische Erziehung
des Menschen. In Revolution und Autonomie: Deutsche Autonomiesthetik
im Zeitalter der Franzsischen Revolution. Ein Symposium, ed. Wolfgang
Wittkowski, 26472. Tbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1990.
Sulzer, Johann Heinrich. Dr. Sulzers Abgekrzte Geschichte der INSEKTEN:
Nach dem Linaeischen System. 2 parts. Winterthur: H. Steiner u. Comp.,
1776.
Ugrinsky, Alexej, ed. Friedrich von Schiller and the Drama of Human Existence.
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Werner, Charlotte M. Friedrich Schiller und seine Leidenschaften. Dsseldorf:
Droste, 2004.
Wolzogen, Caroline von. Schillers Leben, verfat aus Erinnerungen der Familie,
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1 vol. Stuttgart/Tbingen: J. C. Cotta, 1830.
Zeller, Bernhard. Schiller: Eine Bildbiographie. Munich: Kindler, 1958.
Intellectual-Historical Settings
28
WALTER HINDERER
Anfang der Menschheitsgeschichte (Conjectural Beginning of Human History, 1786), Kant defines the way out of the garden of Eden in spite of
all the obvious drawbacks as a decisive anthropological event: with this
act mankind frees itself from the narrow bonds of instinct (Gngelwagen
des Instinkts) and from the guardianship of nature and passes into a state
of freedom, beginning to serve Reason and becoming, in Kants sense,
mature (mndig, Werke, 9:92). In his essay Etwas ber die erste Menschengesellschaft nach dem Leitfaden der mosaischen Urkunde (On the First
Society of Men according to the Guidelines of the Mosaic Document,
1790), Schiller characterizes, even more forcefully than Kant, the fall of
man from the sway of instinct (Abfall des Menschen vom Instinkt) as
the most fortunate, indeed the greatest event in the history of humankind (glcklichste und grte Begebenheit in der Menchengeschichte,
6:434). Although moral corruption (moralisches bel) enters the world
with self-responsibility and maturity, it was, according to Schiller, only by
means of this event that such a thing as moral goodness (das moralisch
Gute) could become possible.
Schillers reflections belong to the philosophies of what was called by
the historian Reinhart Koselleck, literally, the saddling-period (Sattelzeit) of the eighteenth century. This is a time of new beginning
which, according to Odo Marquard can be characterized as the
Avancement von Geschichtsphilosophie, philosophische Anthropologie,
philosophische sthetik (1981, 47). In this connection, one need only
quote the letter that Schiller wrote to Charlotte von Schimmelmann on
November 4, 1795, in which he asserts: Die hchste Filosofie endigt mit
einer poetischen Idee, so die hchste Moralitt, die hchste Politik. Der
dichterische Geist ist es, der allen Dreien das Ideal vorzeichnet, welchem
sich anzunhern ihre hchste Vollkommenheit ist. This development can
be read as a process of compensation which, in the mid-eighteenth century,
leads to a new understanding of man (Marquard, 1981, 42). Reasons
for this can be found, first, in the experience of a diminution of life
(Lebensverlust) the increasing distance between claims made on life
and their fulfillment that Schiller had already noted in his Philosophische
Briefe (Philosophical Letters, 1786; 8:214); and, second, in a disenchantment of the world through a process of increasing reification during the
period of the Enlightenment. Aesthetics holds an exceptional place, following Marquard, among the simultaneous innovations that occurred in the
various compensatory disciplines because it liberates the individual through
a new enchantment from a reification imposed by alien powers. These various attempts at compensation can be read as reactions to the collapse of
Leibnizs theodicy within the cultural system of the sciences and the arts.
Not least of all, the earthquake in Lisbon on November 1, 1755 so shattered the Enlightenments belief in reason and optimism that, by means of
a dialectical turnabout, as portrayed by Schiller through the fate of the
29
fictive materialist Franz von Moor, the negative side of this worldview came
forcefully to light. The question of responsibility within the discourse of
theodicy in the period 17551789, which has been described as a double
shift of phase from optimism to pessimism and then again from pessimism
to optimism (Weinrich, 6667), becomes further and further displaced
into transcendental philosophy, which, not without reason, came to be
known as a secularized theodicy without God (Theodizee ohne Gott)
(Marquard, 1987, 81). The consequences were, as Marquard points out:
Die Rechtfertigung der Welt hngt fortan an der Rechtfertigung des Ich
und diese an seiner Kapazitt der Antonomienauflsung (83).
Although Schillers theoretical writings and dramas intervene at the
forefront of discussions of the Sattelzeit, his specifically anthropological
tracts evidence arguments drawn from the contemporary physiology and
medicine he encountered as a student of medicine at the Karlsschule. In
fact, it was the so-called philosophy of the physicians that, from the late
Enlightenment on, focused on the whole human being and constituted,
with its psycho-physical concepts, the presuppositions of an anthropology
that not only left visible traces in Schillers early theoretical writings but
also shaped in detail his three major essays influenced by Kant, ber Anmut
und Wrde (On Grace and Dignity, 1793), ber die sthetische Erziehung
des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen (On the Aesthetic Education of
Man in a Series of Letters, 1795), and ber naive und sentimentalische
Dichtung [On Nave and Sentimental Poetry, 1795). One can certainly
maintain that the basic concepts of Schillers philosophical-anthropological
aesthetics had already been developed while he was a student at the Karlsschule. Above all, it was Jakob Friedrich Abel (17511829) who introduced
the young Schiller to the important medical discourses of the time. In
opposition to the views of his Tbinger master, the Wolffian Gottfried
Ploucqet, Abel taught his students Georg Ernst Stahls (16591734) animistic theories, Albrecht von Hallers (17081777) and Ernst Platners
(17441818) anthropology, and the mechanistic theories of Hermann
Boerhaave (16681738), as well as those of the French scientist Julien
Offray de La Mettrie2 (17091751).3 The eclectic Abel appears to have
promoted an open and critical discussion of both schools of thought. But,
like his two students Friedrich Wilhelm von Hoven and Schiller (Riedel,
1993, 21120), he advanced the psycho-physiological perspective. In his
introductory note to Anthropologie fr rzte und Weltweise (1772), Platner
provided a definition that guided contemporary discussions of the matter.
It reads:
Die Erkenntnis des Menschen wre . . . in drey Wissenschaften
abzutheilen. Man kann erstlich die Theile und Geschffte der Maschine
allein betrachten, ohne dabey auf die Einschrnkungen zu sehen, welche
diese Bewegungen von der Seele empfangen . . . das ist die Anatomie und
30
WALTER HINDERER
Physiologie. Zweytens kann man auf eben diese Art die Krfte und
Eigenschaften der Seele untersuchen, ohne allezeit die Mitwirkung des
Krpers . . . in Betracht zu ziehen; das wre Psychologie, oder welches
einerley ist, Logik, Aesthetik und ein groer Theil der Moralphilosophie.
. . . Endlich kann man Krper und Seele in ihren gegenseitigen Verhltnissen, Einschrnkungen und Beziehungen zusammen betrachten, und
das ist es, was ich Anthropologie nenne. (xvxvi)
Platner points to the one-sidedness of materialistic and animistic perspectives and propagates a psychosomatic point of view that does justice to the
whole human being and in no way contributes to a further fragmentation
of medical-philosophical positions. For this reason, the young Schiller
speaks in his second dissertation of a wunderbare und merkwrdige Sympathie, die die heterogenen Principien des Menschen gleichsam zu Einem
Wesen macht and states, almost apodictically, der Mensch ist nicht Seele
und Krper, der Mensch ist die innigste Vermischung dieser beiden Substanzen (8:149).
As a student, Schiller tried to overcome the separation of substances
that Descartes instituted in De homine (1632), first with the idea of the
mediating power (Mittelkraft; Philosophie der Physiologie), next with the
aesthetic sense (sthetischer Sinn; Was kann eine gute stehende Schaubhne
eigentlich wirken? [What Effect Can a Good Repertory Theater Have?,
1784]), a median state (mittlerer Zustand) and, finally, following some
disagreement with Kant, with the aesthetic state (sthetischer Zustand) or
median mood (mittlere Stimmung; ber die sthetische Erziehung). It is
evident that Schiller is applying terms and issues from anthropologicalmedical contexts to contemporary problems of cultural philosophy, society,
and aesthetics. For all the intellectuality of his arguments, he did not intend
in the 1790s to develop a closed system, a fact that distinguishes him from
Kant and Fichte, but aims instead to propose for discussion elements of an
anthropologically-based aesthetics.
In his first dissertation, the Philosophie der Physiologie (1779), which,
was rejected by its evaluators,4 the future poet presents his readers in the
very first paragraph with a daring interpretation of the definition of the
human being (Bestimmung des Menschen): it is nothing less than his
equality with God (Gottgleichheit). Schiller refers this claim to the creators exquisite plan that also grants the human being divine powers. To
approach the ideal is to expand the self (Ich-Erweiterung); the opposite
movement leads to self-diminution (Ich-Verkleinerung). Young Schiller
describes the goal as an idea of totality, in which all forces cooperate gleich Saiten eines Instruments tausendstimmig zusammenlautend in eine
Melodie (8:37). Already here, as in the Theosophie des Julius (Philosophische Briefe), love is introduced as a vital magnetic force: it is der schnste,
edelste Trieb in der Menschlichen Seele, die grosse Kette der empfindenden Natur (8:38). As he explains in the Theosophie, love is based on
31
32
WALTER HINDERER
33
34
WALTER HINDERER
35
36
WALTER HINDERER
37
power of higher human capacities, such as freedom of mind (Geistesfreiheit) and its expression in appearance as dignity (Wrde), he is describing a fundamental experience of the philosophy of idealism: the autonomy
of the individual. It forms the centerpiece of Schillers anthropology and
probably receives its most persuasive formulation in the Eleventh Letter of
ber die sthetische Erziehung. Here he differentiates in the human being
between an absolute being that is grounded in itself, that is, the person,
and a dependent condition, being, or becoming. In a formulation that
almost suggests Existenz-philosophie, Being and Time, and Self (Ich) and
Time are juxtaposed as the conditions of the possibility of human existence. Schiller expresses this fundamental process as follows: Nur indem
er [der Mensch] sich verndert, existiert er; nur indem er unvernderlich
bleibt, existiert er (8:594). The ideal, or complete, individual would be
die beharrliche Einheit, die in den Fluten der Vernderung ewig dieselbe
bleibt (8:594), which is something, however, that he could become in
reality only in an ideal sense. For even if the individual carries within himself the talent for divinity (Anlage zu der Gottheit), it can only be an
unattainable goal (8:59495). Nevertheless, from this limited anthropological constellation, Schiller derives the two fundamental principles of
sensual-rational nature that, conceived at the point of their highest fulfillment, should lead to the concept of divinity. If the first of the laws insists
on absolute reality, the second one emphasizes absolute form. This internalization and formal elaboration of the external, which is thematized in
the poems Das Ideal und das Leben (The Ideal and Life, 1795), Worte
des Glaubens (Words of Belief, 1798), and Worte des Wahns (Words of
Delusion, 1800), is supposed to lead to a unity and reciprocal control of
the two basic binary elements of human existence.
Against Kants categorical imperative Schiller argues as early as in
Anmut und Wrde that it is the task of culture to lend each of the three
drives equal validity. In a procedure typical for him, and one that is evident
in the writings of his youth, Schiller posits a play drive (Spieltrieb) alongside the material and form drives, in which the two basic drives are united.
This drive accomplishes the impossible, namely, die Zeit in der Zeit
aufzuheben, Werden mit absolutem Sein, Vernderung mit Identitt zu
vereinbaren (8:607). Thus, the play drive would be in a position to place
the individual in a state of physical and moral freedom (8:608) and to
reproduce the totality (8:61415) that has been lost to our culture. In the
aesthetic condition the individual experiences himself in the fullness of his
possibilities. In this way, beauty becomes an aesthetic-anthropological phenomenon that Schiller interprets as the consummation of humanity (Konsummation der Menschheit, 8:611). However, this is only one part of the
function of aesthetics in Schillers exposition; at the same time, he understands aesthetics and here he transcends the medical and philosophical
discourse as an existential-philosophical model. One could directly
38
WALTER HINDERER
39
his own nature, he becomes nothing more than the mere imprint of his
occupation or of his specialized knowledge (8:573). In this way the
image of the species (Bild der Gattung) has been dismembered, and one
has to go the rounds from one individual to another in order to read the
totality of the species as a whole (von Individuum zu Individuum herumfragen . . ., um die Totalitt der Gattung zusammen zu lesen, 8:571).
Whereas in his Philosophische Briefe young Schiller speculated about the
overcoming of every separation (Aufhebung jener Trennung) through
love as a reproduction of God (8:227), the task here is to restore via a
higher art the totality of our nature that art has destroyed (Totalitt in
unserer Natur, welche die Kunst zerstrt hat, durch eine hhere Kunst
wiederherzustellen, 8:578). This demand makes apparent the political
component of Schillers aesthetics; a state marked by constraint (Staat der
Not) can be replaced with a free state (Staat der Freiheit) only by a
people who display a totality of character. Only beauty can connect theoretical with practical culture (8:58283) and bring about the nobility of
character that is the condition of any improvement in the political sphere.
That is the point where aesthetics becomes a political and social preparatory school. In this text, the aesthetic state, which is also capable of establishing an aesthetic culture, is, for Schiller, the precondition of freedom
(8:63637). In other words, the aesthetic mood (sthetische Stimmung) eliminates the one-sided coercion of either of the basic drives and
restores to the human being his capacity for freedom.
Schiller differentiates between three different moments or stages in
human development, in both the individual and the species. In his physical
condition the individual endures the forces of nature; in the aesthetic condition he rids himself of these forces; and in the moral condition he governs nature (8:648). This psychic triad correlates with the political one: in
the dynamic state of rights, one man encounters the other as a force, which
restrains his abilities; and in the ethical state of obligations he is opposed by
the majesty of the law, which enchains his will. Only in the aesthetic state is
he allowed to confront the other as an object of free play (als Objeckt des
freien Spiels, 8:673).
Whereas in the dynamic state nature is tamed by nature and in the ethical state the individual will is subjugated to the general will, only in the
aesthetic state is the will of the whole accomplished through the nature of
the individual. Conceived in this way, only beauty is capable of generating
a social character (geselligen Charakter). The basic anthropological conditions or forces of human existence characterize again triadically
political institutions and societies, depending on which of the basic conditions or forces is dominant. What Schiller describes at the end of ber die
sthetische Erziehung as dynamic and ethical, he had described, in his Third
Letter, as the natural state and the moral state, with a change from natural
laws to the laws of reason. But he also points out the difficulties of such
40
WALTER HINDERER
a change (8:56263; see Alt 2:14446). At this point in the text, Schiller
indicates, interestingly, the necessity of an intermediary force that is successful in changing the rolling wheel of state at the moment of its reversal.
In other words, if, for Schiller, it was at first the aesthetic state that
appeared to catalyze a smooth shift of paradigms from the natural state to
the moral state, then at the end of his text, he posited a triadic development, the highest point of which is occupied by the aesthetic state, since
here the instrument that serves is the free citizen: das dienende Werkzeug
[ist] ein freier Brger (8:676). It is doubtless also Schillers answer to
what he considered to be the unsuccessful French Revolution. That was
most certainly on his mind when, on July 13, 1793, he wrote the following
to Duke Friedrich Christian von Augustenburg:
Der Moment war der gnstigste, aber er fand eine verderbte Generation,
die ihn nicht wert war, und weder zu wrdigen noch zu benutzen wute.
Der Gebrauch, den sie von diesem groen Geschenk des Zufalls macht und
gemacht hat, beweist unwidersprechlich, . . . da das liberale Regiment der
Vernunft da noch zu frhe kommt, wo man kaum damit fertig wird, sich
der brutalen Gewalt der Tierheit zu erwehren, und da derjenige noch
nicht reif ist zur brgerlichen Freiheit, dem noch so vieles zur menschlichen
fehlt. (8:501)
41
42
WALTER HINDERER
43
44
WALTER HINDERER
published until 1801 although surely composed in the 1790s: Die Welt,
als historischer Gegenstand, ist im Grunde nichts anders als der Konflikt der
Naturkrfte unter einander selbst und mit der Freiheit des Menschen und
den Erfolg dieses Kampfes berichtet uns die Geschichte (8:835). In this
way, the historian would indeed become an author of pathetic representation, whose business it would be to report the triumphs of the person over
the surrounding circumstances. It is not accidental that this essay should
contain Schillers central confession regarding his anthropological aesthetics: Die Kultur soll den Menschen in Freiheit setzen und ihm dazu
behflich sein, seinen ganzen Begriff zu erfllen. Sie soll ihn also fhig
machen, seinen Willen zu behaupten, denn der Mensch ist das Wesen,
welches will (8:823).12
Notes
1
References to Schillers works in this essay are by volume and page number in the
Frankfurter Ausgabe, Werke und Briefe in zwlf Bnden, edited by Klaus Harro
Hilzinger, et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1988). Here:
8:972.
See, for example, Riedel, 610; Riedel, Abel, 390401; and, generally, also
Dewhurst/Reeves, 24249.
4
In 1780 Schiller submitted a tractatus (De Discrimine Febrium Inflammatoriarum et Putridarum) on the difference between an inflamed (entzndungsartig)
and an idle (faulig) fever one week before his Versuch ber den Zusammenhang
der tierischen Natur des Menschen mit seiner Geistigen. Whereas the first thesis
(in Latin) was rejected again, the second was accepted. Both were written in 1780;
the last one was also published in the same year.
6
Martinson has referred to the influence of Moses Mendelssohns Briefe ber die
Empfindungen (1755) in which the concept of harmonische Spannung was
coined, and which was not without influence on Schiller (2122).
7
See the last stanza of the poem, An einen Moralisten, in Schillers Anthologie
auf das Jahr 1782.
8
45
11
See Leonard Forsters Nachwort to Lipsiuss De Constantia (1931). FriedrichWilhelm Wentzlaff-Eggeberts study, Die deutsche Barocktragdie is still of
fundamental importance.
12
Concerning the topic of des ganzen Menschen, see the rich source of essays in
the publication of the DFG-Symposium: Schings, Der ganze Mensch: Anthropologie
und Literatur im 18. Jahrhundert.
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Abel, Jacob Friedrich. Eine Quellenedition zum Philosophieunterricht: An
der Stuttgarter Karlsschule (17731782). Ed. Wolfgang Riedel. Wrzburg:
Knigshausen & Neumann, 1995.
Alt, Peter-Andr. Friedrich Schiller: Leben Werk Zeit. 2 vols. Munich:
C. H. Beck, 2000.
Bolten, Jrgen. Friedrich Schiller: Poesie, Reflexion und gesellschaftliche Selbstdeutung. Munich: Fink, 1985.
Dewhurst, Kenneth, and Nigel Reeves. Friedrich Schiller: Medicine, Psychology
and Literature. Oxford: Sanford, 1978.
Forster, Leonard, ed. Justus Lipsius: Von der Bestendigkeit (De Constantia).
Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1965.
Heidegger, Martin. Sein und Zeit, 11th ed. Tbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1967.
Herder, Johann Gottfried. Herders Werke in fnf Bnden. Ed. Wilhelm
Dobbek. Berlin: Aufbau, 1964.
Hinderer, Walter. Die Depotenzierung der Vernunft: Kompensationsmuster im
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Gerhard Neumann, 2564. Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann, 1995.
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und Bchners ideologisch-sthetischen Positionen. Zeitschrift fr deutsche
Philologie 109 (1990): 50220.
Hinderer, Walter, and Daniel O. Dahlstrom, eds. Friedrich Schiller: Essays.
New York: Continuum, 1993.
Kant, Immanuel. Immanuel Kant: Werke in zehn Bnden. Ed. Wilhelm
Weischedel. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968.
Koopmann, Helmut, ed. Schiller-Handbuch. Stuttgart: Alfred Krner, 1998.
Marquard, Odo. Abschied vom Prinzipiellen. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1981.
. Transzendentaler Idealismus: Romantische Naturphilosophie: Psychoanalyse. Cologne: Verlag fr Philosophie Jrgen Dinzer, 1987.
Martinson, Steven D. Harmonious Tensions: The Writings of Friedrich Schiller.
Newark: U of Delaware P; London: Associated UP, 1996.
Platner, Ernst. Anthropologie fr rzte und Weltweise. Leipzig: Dyckische
Buchhandlung, 1772.
46
WALTER HINDERER
Riedel, Wolfgang. Die Anthropologie des jungen Schiller. Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann, 1985.
. Die Aufklrung und das Unbewute. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 37 (1993): 198220.
. Schiller und die popularphilosophische Tradition. In SchillerHandbuch, ed. Koopmann, 15566.
Schiller, Friedrich. Der Briefwechsel zwischen Friedrich Schiller und Wilhelm von
Humboldt. Ed. Siegfried Seidel. Berlin: Aufbau, 1962.
. Schillers Briefe. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Ed. Fritz Jonas. Stuttgart:
Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 189297.
Schings, Hans-Jrgen, ed. Der ganze Mensch: Anthropologie und Literatur im
18. Jahrhundert. Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler, 1994.
Szondi, Peter. Das Nave und das Sentimentalische. In Szondi, Lektren und
Lektionen, 6099. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1973.
Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich. Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder: Werke und
Briefe. Ed. Gerda Heinrich. Munich/Vienna: Carl Hanser, 1984.
Weinrich, Harald. Literaturgeschichte eines Weltereignisses: Das Erdbeben von
Lissabon. In Literatur fr Leser, ed. H. Weinrich. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer,
1971.
Wentzlaff-Eggebert, Friedrich-Wilhelm. Die deutsche Barocktragdie. In
Formkrfte der deutschen Dichtung vom Barock bis zur Gegenwart, 2nd ed.,
ed. Hans Steffen. Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967.
Wieland, Christoph Martin. Werke. 5 vols. Ed. Fritz Martini and Hans Werner
Seiffert. Munich: Carl Hanser, 1967.
Introduction
48
DAVID PUGH
inevitably raises the emotional pitch of his treatise. Second, Schillers praise
of antiquity does not lead him to espouse the old Aristotelian or Horatian
poetics, and in fact he expressly condemns a rule-based art: Wo der
Charakter straff wird und sich verhrtet, da sehen wir . . . die Kunst in den
schweren Fesseln der Regel gehen (FA 8:583).2 Instead, he justifies the
turn to antiquity by saying that it will enable the artist to learn the secret of
form in general: Den Stoff zwar wird er von der Gegenwart nehmen, aber
die Form von einer edleren Zeit . . . entlehnen (8:584). Third, as shown
by the words omitted from the last sentence . . . ja jenseits aller Zeit,
von der absoluten unwandelbaren Einheit seines Wesens . . . form is
not, or not only, a matter of taste or poetic technique, but is charged with
metaphysical significance. Schiller presents the artists struggle to find the
right form for his work as a process that mirrors the struggle between spirit
and matter in the universe. Finally, and to return to the first point, this
metaphysical framework means that Schillers political references are not as
straightforward as they seem. Rather, the corruption that surrounds him is
merely a symbol for the work of temporality in general, and the pure form
displayed by Greek art is to be seen less as the product of a free society than
as an achieved conquest of time. By successfully imposing form on matter,
modern artists will free themselves and their public from the shackles
of time and materiality, the Verderbnis der Geschlechter und Zeiten
(8:584) that arouses Schillers disgust. Whereas Schiller might seem to be
outbidding Pope merely in adding a new strand of political polemic to
the traditional advocacy of a classical aesthetic, he is in fact heightening
the neoclassical argument by rephrasing it as a metaphysical one, for he is
attributing to a classically inspired art a power not just of liberation but of
redemption.3
In order to understand this extraordinary reformulation of the classical
creed, it is necessary first of all to consider the career of Johann Joachim
Winckelmann (171768). For, with his pamphlet Gedanken ber die
Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst
(Reflections on the Imitation of Greek Works in Painting and Sculpture,
1759) followed in 1764 by his Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums (History
of Ancient Art), Winckelmann inaugurated a new attitude to ancient
Greece and exerted a spell on all the writers of the next generation, including Herder and Friedrich Schlegel, of whom we do not think primarily as
classicists.
It is not possible to point to one overpowering new idea that Winckelmann contributed to the discussion. As Hatfield argues, his thought is an
eclectic synthesis. In the sentence following on from the famous slogan of
edle Einfalt und stille Gre (20), Winckelmann espouses a Stoical ethic
of resistance to emotion, for he argues that the calm expression on the face
of a Greek statue arises from a mastery of the passions that rage beneath.4
Contrasting with his Stoicism stands an Epicurean worship of the senses
49
Schillers Career
For our purposes Schillers career falls roughly into four phases, in which
his concern with antiquity alternated between being mainly speculative and
mainly practical in nature. The first phase saw the composition of the Brief
eines reisenden Dnen (Letter of a Danish Traveler, 1785), an ecstatic piece
after the manner of Winckelmann, in which he describes the casts of the
most famous Greek sculptures on exhibit in Mannheim. This period culminated in the elegy Die Gtter Griechenlandes (The Gods of Greece) of
1788, which was written with Horazische Correctitt (letter to Krner,
March 17, 1788) for Wielands journal the Teutscher Merkur. It is one of
Schillers finest poems, but in part it reformulates ideas he had expressed
previously in his poem Der Triumph der Liebe (The Triumph of Love).
The latter appeared in 1781, inspired by Gottfried August Brgers
German version of the Pervigilium Veneris, a late Latin poem. Both poems
have to be understood in the context of Schillers early philosophy of love,
the main expression of which can be found, stripped of all Greek references, in his Philosophische Briefe (Philosophical Letters, 1786).6 Antiquity
appears with a different, more political function in some other texts of this
period, notably in Die Ruber (The Robbers, 1781), where Karl Moor
50
DAVID PUGH
draws inspiration from Plutarchs Lives for his ideal of a German republic
that would make Athens and Sparta look like nunneries (2:32). In Die
Verschwrung des Fiesco zu Genua (Fiescos Conspiracy in Genoa, 1783)
the conspirators try to fan Fieskos republican zeal by showing him a painting of a heroic scene from early Rome (2:37275). And in his speech,
Was kann eine gute stehende Schaubhne eigentlich wirken? (What Can
a Good Repertory Theater Really Achieve, 1784), Schiller refers to Periclean
Athens as an example of the theater working as a force for national unity in
a divided country.7
Following his completion of Don Carlos, Schiller turned to Greek
literature with the intention of improving his technique as a writer. The
protracted composition of this tragedy had left Schiller dissatisfied with
his achievements to date and with his working method, and the study of
the ancients was intended to enhance his skills. This second phase saw the
composition of his versions of Euripides Iphigenia in Aulis and part of the
same authors The Phoenician Women (both 1788). It is notable that
Schiller had to use the available translations of Euripides into Latin,
French, and German, for unlike Goethe and Wilhelm von Humboldt, he
never had the opportunity to study the Greek language thoroughly.
Schillers letters to Krner during this period are particularly revealing,
especially that of August 20, 1788, in which he declares that to purify his
taste, he intends to read no modern authors for two years, only ancient
ones: Du wirst finden, da mir ein vertrauter Umgang mit den Alten
uerst wohlthun vielleicht Classizitt geben wird.8 The original
impulse for these studies seems to have been Schillers experience of
attending a reading of Goethes Iphigenie auf Tauris, on which he reports
in a letter of October 14, 1787, but he also drew inspiration from the
hexameter translation of the Odyssey by Johann Heinrich Voss.9
In various texts of this second phase, we notice a tendency that
becomes more important later on, namely a desire to find fault with the
works of the Greeks coupled with an ambition to outdo them. This
agonistic component in Schillers relation to antiquity has rightly led to
comparisons to the seventeenth-century controversy over the relative
merits of ancient and modern culture, known in France as la querelle des
anciens et des modernes and in England as the Battle of the Books.
We notice this argument in Schillers review of Goethes Iphigenie auf
Tauris (1788), where he awards the palm to the modern author for
having united die feinste edelste Blte moralischer Verfeinerung mit
der schnsten Blte der Dichtkunst (8:964). The second reference to
a blossoming refers to the excellence of Greek poetry, which can be
equaled by an exceptional modern author, but the first refers to the superior level of morality attained by the moderns. Thanks to the progress
of moral culture and the comparatively milder spirit (Geist) of the times,
the modern author enjoys an inherent advantage over the ancients.
51
The argument here foreshadows the position that Schiller developed later
in ber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (On Nave and Sentimental
Poetry, 1795). We find a comparable case of the disparagement of antiquity in his essay of 1792, ber die tragische Kunst (On Tragic Art), where
Greek tragedy is said to rely on the concepts of fate and necessity and
hence to leave a modern audience, with its developed rational faculty, dissatisfied. A modern tragedy, by contrast, will arouse in the audience die
erquickende Vorstellung der vollkommensten Zweckmigkeit im groen
Ganzen der Natur (8:261).
With the third phase, we see Schiller returning to a more speculative
preoccupation with antiquity. This is the period of the composition of his
famous treatises on philosophical aesthetics, ber das Pathetische (On the
Pathetic, 1793), ber Anmut und Wrde (On Grace and Dignity, 1793),
ber die sthetische Erziehung des Menschen (On the Aesthetic Education
of Man, 1794), and ber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (On Nave
and Sentimental Poetry, 1795). Schiller wrote these works under the dual
impact of his study of Kant and of the tumultuous events taking place in
France, and yet they both take up themes from the first phase of Schillers
career. In the early part of each treatise, an eloquent passage praising Greek
culture for its harmony with nature is encountered, while the possibility is
also held out that, with our higher level of rationality and morality, the
moderns can actually surpass the Greeks. Schillers return to poetic composition followed the writing of these treatises, and the poems of the next
years are full of Greek allusions that, despite differences of emphasis, are
fundamentally consistent with the view of Greece advanced in the treatises.
A few examples are Das Ideal und das Leben (The Ideal and Life), Der
Spaziergang (The Walk), Das Glck (Happiness), and Die Snger der
Vorwelt (The Singers of Yore).
The last of the four phases is the time of Schillers second period of dramatic composition as well as of his partnership with Goethe. Again he
turned to the study of the Greek dramatists, particularly Sophocles, and his
correspondence with Goethe contains much on poetological matters,
including a discussion of Aristotles Poetics (see especially Schillers letter of
May 5, 1797). Schiller had earlier planned a drama, Die Malteser, that was
intended to conform to the pattern of ancient tragedy. Though he resumed
work on it in these years, it was left unfinished at his death. The most classical of the completed plays of this period is Die Braut von Messina (The
Bride of Messina, 1803), in which Schiller attempted a synthesis of ancient
and modern techniques and motifs, including a chorus, the use of which he
justified in his Foreword by philosophical arguments. But Wallenstein also
contains in Gordon a figure whose role is based on that of the ancient chorus, and even the romantic tragedy Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of
Orleans, 1802) has a scene (act 2, scenes 67) derived from an episode from
the Iliad and written in iambic trimeters, the Greek tragic meter.
52
DAVID PUGH
But, even if Schillers concern with the Greeks at this stage seems to be
predominantly pragmatic. A letter of July 26, 1800, shows that he had not
abandoned the conclusions of the foregoing speculative phase. Johann Wilhelm Svern was a classical scholar who had published a book comparing
Die Jungfrau von Orleans and the Wallenstein trilogy to Greek tragedy. In a
polite but firm response, Schiller argues against imposing alien models on
modern art, for art must always arise dynamisch und lebendig from its
own time. Describing Sophoclean tragedy as das lebendige Produkt einer
individuellen, bestimmten Gegenwart, he applies the nouns Ohnmacht,
Schlaffheit, and Charakterlosigkeit to modernity. The contradiction
between such disparagement of modernity and Schillers belief in its ultimate
superiority is only apparent. His conclusion to the letter, Die Schnheit ist
fr ein glckliches Geschlecht, aber ein unglckliches mu man erhaben zu
rhren suchen, introduces the sublime, the aesthetic experience that is the
threshold to the supersensible realm and that will allow the moderns to prevail in the new querelle. Schillers attitude to antiquity is now entrenched in
his philosophy of history and in his elaborate dialectic of the beautiful and
the sublime.
Humanity
In a famous letter, Schiller gives an unfavorable comparison of his own personality to Goethes. Whereas the latters creative mind is intuitive and is
integrated around a synthesizing imagination, Schiller describes his own
mind as a hybrid and as hovering uncertainly between three pairs of opposites, namely concept and intuition, rule and feeling, technique and genius:
Noch jetzt begegnet es mir hufig genug, da die Einbildungskraft meine
Abstraktionen und der kalte Verstand meine Dichtung strt (letter to
Goethe, August 31, 1794). But Schillers praise of the Greeks in his major
aesthetic writings of the same decade dwells precisely on their successful unification of such opposites. In ber Anmut und Wrde (On Grace and Dignity, 1793), for example, we read: Nie darf sich ihm [dem Griechen] die
Sinnlichkeit ohne Seele zeigen, und seinem humanen Gefhl ist es gleich
unmglich, die rohe Tierheit und die Intelligenz zu vereinzeln (8:334;
Schillers italics), and in the sthetische Briefe the following: Damals . . .
hatten die Sinne und der Geist noch kein strenge geschiedenes Eigentum;
denn noch hatte kein Zwiespalt sie gereizt, mit einander feindselig
abzuteilen und ihre Markung zu bestimmen (8:570). The structural similarity of these arguments shows that Schillers concern with Greek culture is
related to how he views his own character and poetic talent, hence the
strange ruminations in a letter to Wilhelm von Humboldt (October 26,
1795) as to whether or not he has an affinity, not with a particular Greek
author, but with the Greeks as such. We should thus understand Schillers
53
54
DAVID PUGH
The same rapprochement of gods and men is at the heart of Die Gtter
Griechenlandes, where it is forcefully stated just before the end: Da
die Gtter menschlicher noch waren, / Waren Menschen gttlicher
(ll. 19192; 1788 version). Venus is again the presiding deity here, for it
is her worship at the shrine at Amathus that forms the focus of this magnificent poem, and instead of the heroic exploits of Hercules, Schiller
celebrates a form of interaction between gods and mortals that is more
appropriate to this goddess: Pyrrhas schne Tochter zu besiegen, / Nahm
Hyperion den Hirtenstab (ll. 3536; 1788 version).
The function of love in these poems as the bond linking the natural
with the divine world entitles us to see it as derived from Platos theory of
love, which he originally expounded in the Symposium and which was
developed in the Renaissance by Marsilio Ficino in his influential dialogue
De amore. Although explicit references to the concept of love are less frequent in Schillers writings of the 1790s, there is nonetheless a strong continuity between them and these earlier texts, and so it is no distortion to
view Schillers concept of humanity as derived from the Platonic eros. But
we should not underestimate the distinctiveness of Schillers theory. In its
full complexity, it states that in antiquity human beings were more human
than they are now, in the sense of being more natural and less corrupted
by culture. In particular the Greeks did not try to approach divinity as
Christians do, that is, by misguidedly suppressing their humanity through
an ascetic morality, and they also did not suffer from the division of labor
that distorts and fragments the modern personality. However, and only
here do we see the full paradox, the Greeks came closer than we do to
divinity precisely by disclaiming any desire to be more than human. Schillers
concept of Menschlichkeit, which seems in some places to represent a simple call for a balanced physical-spiritual existence and an integration of the
faculties, in fact carries with it an inherent nisus towards a divine, or at least
a more than human, mode of existence. The association of this idea with
the Greeks is expressed nowhere more clearly than in the fifteenth sthetischer Brief, where Schiller refers to the Juno Ludovisi, a massive portrait of
the goddess, as both der weibliche Gott and das gottgleiche Weib.12
Nature
In Die Gtter Griechenlandes, Schiller calls for a return of the Greek
golden age, describing it as Holdes Bltenalter der Natur (l. 146). But
the nature that is enshrined in Greek culture is not the nature of Alexander
Pope. Pope understands nature as a codification of the rules of good sense,
whereas Schiller (to compress the impressions left by the poem into a single
phrase) presents it as a perpetual springtime of youth, dance, and free love.
No one, and certainly not Schiller, would claim that this picture of Greece
55
has much to do with history. It is most likely based on the myth of the
Golden Age, as Schiller could have found it in the first book of Ovids
Metamorphoses (ll. 89112); the reference to the banishment of Saturn
(l. 180) makes this source quite likely, and Schillers Holdes Bltenalter
der Natur may have been prompted by Ovids ver erat aeternum (l. 107;
it is less likely that Schiller was familiar with Hesiods account in the Works
and Days, ll. 10920). As in his later treatises on aesthetics, the portrayal of
Greece in Die Gtter Griechenlandes is not an end in itself, but functions
as a Wunschbild against which Schiller can present and attack the shortcomings of modernity.
The common thread running through the Greek panorama, with its
numerous mythological vignettes, is the unity of nature and spirit or of
human and divine. This is of course the same concept that we found at the
heart of Schillers idea of humanity in the previous section, and, in line
with our opening comparison of Schillers classicism with Popes, we can
see it as a metaphysical expansion of the dramatic unities on which neoclassical critics had insisted.13 The opposite of Schillers unity is the estrangement of nature and spirit in culture. With remarkable dialectical skill,
Schiller portrays modernity in this poem as groaning under both an ascetic
Christianity and an abstract, mechanistic science, each of which is presented as a result of the same original estrangement. He adheres to the
same intellectual model in his essays of the next decade. In the sixth
sthetischer Brief, he writes of die alles vereinende Natur and opposes it
to der alles trennende Verstand (8:571). The course of history is characterized here as a fall from a state of nature into one of culture, with the latter being understood as the fragmentation wrought by the destructive
faculty of the understanding.
But Schillers philosophy of history goes beyond this binary antithesis.
Its full scope is revealed in two further statements that illuminate each
other. In the letter cited above, Schiller writes that alle [Vlker] ohne
Unterschied durch Vernnftelei von der Natur abfallen mssen, ehe sie
durch Vernunft zu ihr zurckkehren knnen, and in ber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung we read, Die Natur macht ihn [den Menschen] mit
sich Eins, die Kunst trennt und entzweiet ihn, durch das Ideal kehrt er zur
Einheit zurck (8:735). As the juxtaposition of the two statements shows,
nature stands as both the first and the last term in a triadic scheme, for the
future ideal is itself associated with the concept of nature. And yet the ideal
nature is not identical to the original nature, but is posited as existing at a
higher level of consciousness and morality. This logical model explains the
paradoxical role of the Greeks in Schillers thought. On the one hand, they
represent a paradigm of unity and harmony to an age that has lost these
qualities, and hence they are an object of aspiration and longing. On the
other hand, and thanks to the intellectual and moral advances achieved
in the modern age, any reconstituted unity and harmony must inevitably
56
DAVID PUGH
surpass all former achievements. Therefore the Greeks must also represent a
stage that humanity has outgrown and must outgrow further. In a handwritten comment on an essay by his friend Wilhelm von Humboldt, Schiller
sketched an analogy for this dialectic of unity and division in the cognitive
process: first we grasp the whole object, but only indistinctly; next we take
in the parts and lose sight of the whole; finally we return to viewing the
whole, but now with a distinct knowledge of the parts. In the second
phase, we still long for the first, but in the third, we have no need to do so.
Similarly, in the third phase of history, we will no longer wish for the return
of the Greeks (8:1075).14
In an article on the historical thought of Johann Gottfried Herder,
Wilfried Malsch has drawn a parallel between this kind of complicated relationship of antiquity to modernity, consisting both of sameness and difference, and the logical model of prefiguration in Christian thought.15 His
findings can also be extended to Schiller, for, as Adam prefigures Christ
and Jerusalem the kingdom of heaven, Schiller regards ancient Greece as
prefiguring the state of ideal nature at the end of history. It is of course
ironic to find the Greeks at the heart of such a quintessentially un-Greek
argument, though it is also possible to relate it to the Neo-Platonic dialectic of fall and return that M. H. Abrams has applied so effectively to the
Romantic era. But if, as I have argued, Schillers agonistic attitude to the
Greeks was in part the consequence of personal insecurity, we can see here
that, no matter whether the Christian or the Neo-Platonic background is
the decisive one, he contrived to convert that private insecurity into an
elaborate philosophical theory of historical change.
In the context of the eighteenth-century argument, nature and culture
are antithetical terms. How, we wonder, can it then make sense to describe
Greek culture as natural? What features of Greek culture fit it for the role
assigned to it in Schillers system? Winckelmann had also used the concept
of nature to establish the superiority of Greek sculpture, but his argument
is largely restricted to matters pertaining to anatomy, such as the athletic
training of Greek youths. Schiller expands the argument far beyond this
narrow base. First, as we have seen, he defines nature as unification, and he
uses this term to illuminate not only the Greek religion, which projects
humanity into nature and the divine world, but also the quality of Greek
society, with its less advanced division of labor, and even Greek individuality, in which the human faculties are not fragmented. But Schiller is clearly
aware of the problem that the Greeks also had a flourishing culture, and
so he describes them as having achieved the maximum degree of culture
that is still reconcilable with nature: Bei diesen [den Griechen] artete die
Kultur nicht so weit aus, da die Natur darber verlassen wurde (8:726).
The further advance of culture in modern times necessarily brought a rupture with nature, and the breach can only be healed by the reconstitution
of nature at an ideal level, however that is to be understood.
57
To conclude this section, we should note that Schiller applies the concept of nature to the Greeks not only as a speculative philosopher but also
as a literary critic. In his antithesis of poetic modes in ber naive und
sentimentalische Dichtung, the Greeks are said to have practiced simple
mimesis. In their poetry we do not come across the idea of nature, for
nature was their immediate life and not an object of reflection or longing.
This is why modern readers, who are accustomed to emotional and intellectual commentary on the object, may initially be repelled by nave poets,
who portray the object severely (streng und sprde, 8:728) and without
ceremony. In a famous passage from the same essay, Schiller contrasts
excerpts from Homer and Ariosto to highlight the formers unadorned
narrative style. In another, the idyll appears as the genre closest to nature,
not only in that it portrays a natural form of life, but also in that the typology of nave and sentimental idyll mirrors the role of nature as the first but
also the third term in humanitys dialectical progress. The stress on simplicity as a feature of Greek poetry may be consistent with the old neoclassical doctrine, but this concept is now embedded in a speculative system of
which Boileau and Pope had no inkling.
Art
We have seen that, within Schillers dialectical theory of history, the concept of nature has two meanings, and the same is true of art Kunst and
Kultur. On one hand, it stands for the dominion of the intellect that, with
its compartmentalization and mechanization, has disrupted an original,
natural unity. On the other hand, it means the process by which the rupture can be healed and the unity restored at a higher level. This double use
of the term is most evident in the eighth sthetischer Brief, where Schiller
writes that, in view of the loss of human totality in modern times, so mu
es bei uns stehen, diese Totalitt in unsrer Natur, welche die Kunst zerstrt
hat, durch eine hhere Kunst wieder herzustellen (8:578). How did
Schiller envisage this higher art? It may seem to be making matters still
more complicated when in the Ninth Letter he tells us that Greek art preserved the achievements of Greek nature, but this provides us with our
answer. Modern art, if it is to be progressive in Schillers sense, must paradoxically orient itself in some way on ancient Greek art. In accordance with
the logic of Schillers historical system, we should not be surprised to find
that it must be both similar to and different from Greek art.
A simple formulation comes in the ninth Brief, where, desiring to preserve the young artist from the harmful influences of modernity, Schiller
sends him to school in Greece. When the artist returns to his own age,
matured and strengthened like the young Orestes a somewhat disturbing comparison, he will apply the lessons he has learned by subjecting
58
DAVID PUGH
modern matter to a strict form. If we turn to Schillers own poetic production, this formula seems to be best borne out by his series of exceptional
poems in the elegiac meter. Here he is able to cause the predominantly
dactylic rhythm to express a poised and wistful lyricism: Sagt, wo sind die
Vortrefflichen hin, wo find ich die Snger, / Die mit dem lebenden Wort
horchende Vlker entzckt? (Die Snger der Vorwelt; 1:99).
Schillers advocacy of strict form, however, is not confined to specifically
classical forms. One should recall, for example, that his most comprehensive
and successful statement of his philosophical views in poetry, Das Ideal und
das Leben (first version 1795, titled Das Reich der Schatten [The Realm
of Shadows]), is written in a strict but wholly un-Greek stanza. For Schiller,
the Greeks may represent the best instantiation to date of the fusion of form
and life, for which he calls in the Fifteenth Letter, but the principle of form
is itself timeless, a metaphysical force that enables us to master the world of
flux in which we live. At the same time, we should note that Schillers references to antiquity are not always in this spirit of austere formalism, but can
also serve to produce a more Rococo spirit of decoration and diversion. This
mood is prevalent in the long poem Die Knstler (The Artists) of 1789
where, apostrophizing all artists of the past, Schiller writes, Wie eure
Urnen die Gebeine, / Deckt ihr mit holdem Zauberscheine / Der Sorgen
schauervollen Chor (1:217). The Greek references in such passages are
chiefly to the Muses and the Graces, allegorical deities whom we are most
likely to associate with Schillers fellow Swabian writer Christoph Martin
Wieland, and their activity seems to be more about concealing unpleasantness than with bringing structure to reality. But these deities also figure
prominently in Schillers announcement of his journal Die Horen (the
Horae) in 1795, in which he deplores the way in which war and political
conflict have banished the Muses and Graces from social intercourse.
The title of the journal alludes to the Greek goddesses of the seasons,
and Schillers commentary shows that, as in the early poem Der Triumph
der Liebe, he is still preoccupied with the birth of Venus as the mythical
symbol for the coming of civilization, for, as the sixth Homeric Hymn tells
us, it was the Horae who first clothed the goddess and led her to Olympus:
eine reizende Dichtung, durch welche angedeutet wird, da das Schne
schon in seiner Geburt sich unter Regeln fgen mu und nur durch Gesetzmigkeit wrdig werden kann, einen Platz im Olymp, Unsterblichkeit
und einen moralischen Wert zu erhalten. On one hand, this is a conventional allegorical expression of a no less conventional aesthetic of decorum.
We are not all that far from the world of Gottsched and German neoclassicism here. On the other hand, the names of the Horae, Eunomia (Order),
Dike (Justice), and Irene (Peace), are indicative of Schillers deeper purposes. The first name alludes to the principle of form, and the last two
point to the association between form and the moral and social aspirations
that are implicit in Schillers classical aesthetic from the outset. And it is of
59
Politics
When Schiller writes in the last quotation of reopening the palaces, he is
thinking of the archaic world portrayed in Greek tragedy in which the city
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states are still ruled by kings. This brings us to the question of whether
Schiller responded in any way to the political legacy of ancient Greece. The
answer here must be mainly negative. As we have seen, the concept of
unity is central to Schillers conceptions of nature and humanity, and, projected back into Greece, this leads primarily to an affirmation of the human
unity of the individual Greek. The problem of disunity in Greek history,
that is, the actual fragmentation of the country into warring statelets and
the frequency of civil strife within them, is barely touched upon. There is
an indirect reference to this problem in the Schaubhne speech, where
Schiller, with an eye on his homeland, asks: Was kettete Griechenland so
fest aneinander? and answers, Nichts anders als der vaterlndische Inhalt
der Stcke, der griechische Geist, das groe berwltigende Interesse des
Staats, der besseren Menschheit, das in denselbigen atmete (8:199).
Schiller is thinking here of a national theater as a means of overcoming
German Vielstaaterei. And yet, as he would have had to acknowledge, the
theater failed to have any such effect in Greece, and the similar hopes
placed in the German theater would turn out to be no less chimerical.
What is left is the fallback position of the theater, or of art in general, serving as a refuge for ideals for which there is no room in real life, that is, as a
substitute and a consolation and not as a means of making them a reality.
This implication is not yet seen in the Schaubhne speech, but it is confronted in the ending of the sthetische Briefe, where Schiller sketches an
aesthetic state (Staat, not Zustand) that will enshrine the qualities of liberty and equality that are too risky to be implemented in reality. Given this
basic structure, it is not surprising that Greece usually functions in his
thought more as a fairy tale or as the Bltenalter der Natur when the
gods walked on earth, and less as a historical civilization with concrete
social and political features.
Two qualifications should be made to this depoliticized picture. In
1792 Schiller delivered a lecture at the University of Jena on Die
Gesetzgebung von Lykurgus und Solon (The Legislation of Lycurgus
and Solon). The factual information is largely derived from Plutarch, but
Schiller includes reflections of his own on the task of the statesman that
parallel his views in the fourth sthetischer Brief. Castigating the Spartan
legislator, Schiller writes: Der Staat selbst ist niemals Zweck, er ist nur
wichtig als eine Bedingung, unter welcher der Zweck der Menschheit
erfllt werden kann, und dieser Zweck der Menschheit ist kein anderer als
Ausbildung aller Krfte des Menschen, Fortschreitung (6:486). All this is
still abstract, but further on in the lecture Schiller writes that Solon understood these relations correctly, and hence built a state in which, in contrast
to the Spartan tyranny, men governed themselves and were thus capable of
the highest cultural attainments. By concluding the lecture with the statement Alles eilte dem herrlichen Zeitalter des Perikles entgegen, Schiller
indicates that the Periclean age was the civilization that most closely
61
Conclusion
In this discussion a recurrent duality in Schillers thought is evident, one
that affects not only his presentation of Greece but his concepts of nature
and art as well. This duality results from Schillers commitment to a
Platonic metaphysic that divides existence into material and ideal worlds,
but it is made more complex by Schillers imposition of this metaphysic
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Notes
1
63
did by conforming to truth and nature (118). On the reasons for Shaftesburys
widespread influence, see Kondylis 39398, and for his relation to Schiller, see
especially Cassirer. As Riedel points out (Popularphilosophie, 164), it cannot be
shown that Schiller read Shaftesbury himself. It is more likely that his ideas were
transmitted to him by Wieland.
2
Schillers dramas and prose works are cited by volume and page number from
Werke und Briefe in 12 vols., ed. Klaus Harro Hilzinger et al. (Known as the
Frankfurter Ausgabe; Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1988-).
Poems are quoted from vol. 1 of this edition and are cited by line number only.
Schillers letters are cited from vols. 11 and 12 of the same edition and are identified by recipient and date.
3
See the conclusion to Dsings recent article on Schillers classical elegies: Das
Ziel klassischer Kunst . . . ist nicht mehr die Umgestaltung der Wirklichkeit. Es
geht um Befreiung, um Erlsung durch die Aufhebung der Zeit in der Epiphanie
des Schnen (114).
4
The Rousseauian praise of the noble savage, evident in the passage starting Sehet
den schnellen Indianer an, der einem Hirsche zu Fue nachsetzet (6), can also be
seen as a modern version of the Stoical life according to nature.
This text was published in 1786, though its central part, the Theosophie des Julius,
goes back to his years at the Karlsschule. The best short account of Schillers philosophy of love is contained in the two cited articles by Wolfgang Riedel.
Eben so wenig darf die Kunst es entgelten, da sie . . . im achtzehnten Jahrhundert nicht ist, was unter Aspasia und Perikles (8:188).
8
9
Schiller did not entirely neglect Roman literature. In 179091, as part of his pursuit of Classizitt, he translated parts of books 4 and 6 of the Aeneid, transposing
the material from the hexameters of the original into the ottava rima of Italian
Renaissance epic. His hexameter translation of part of book 1 is a school exercise
and is of less interest. Emil Staiger has some thought-provoking remarks as to the
Virgilian source of Schillers vision of the underworld in the opening of Das Ideal
und das Leben (29) and also concerning the greater affinity of Schillers use of
language to Latin than to Greek (18184). It may also not be fanciful to detect a
general influence of Virgils Georgics in Der Spaziergang and Das Lied von der
Glocke, particularly in their portrayal of the antithesis of peaceful industriousness
and civil disorder. For a general discussion of Schillers translations, see Koopmann,
bersetzungen, Bhnenbearbeitungen.
10
See Habel, Schiller und die Tradition des Herakles-Mythos for Schillers
reliance on Winckelmann for his interpretation of the Hercules myth.
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DAVID PUGH
11
Schiller returns to the motif of the birth of Venus in 1795 in the announcement
of Die Horen, the journal that he dedicated to the cause of Humanitt.
12
13
14
Schiller gives a further explanation for this point in a footnote to ber naive und
sentimentalische Dichtung, referring here to the Kantian categories of unity, multiplicity and totality (8:777).
15
For a classic account of the prefiguration model, see Auerbach 16, 4849, and
passim. On page 73, Auerbach quotes his own definition of figura from a previous
article: Figural interpretation established a connection between two events or
persons in such a way that the first signifies not only itself but also the second, while
the second involves or fulfils the first.
16
There has been an extensive critical discussion of the relation of ancient and
modern traditions in this play, in particular on Schillers use of the concept of fate.
For a recent discussion, see Ritzer. For a full bibliography, see Guthkes article on
the play (Koopmann, ed. 46685).
17
For further comments on the classical qualities of this drama, see Ptz 295302.
18
The rupture of nature and culture is evoked in the poem as liberty gives way to
libertinism: Freiheit ruft die Vernunft, Freiheit die wilde Begierde, / Von der
heilgen Natur ringen sie lstern sich los (ll. 14142). The subsequent period of
decadence and depravity is described in rather general terms although, with its references to treachery and sycophancy, it is reminiscent of Tacituss account of Rome
under Tiberius, confirming again the Winckelmannian shift of paradigm from
Roman to Greek antiquity.
65
Works Cited
Abrams, M. H. Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in
Romantic Literature. New York: Norton, 1971.
Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature.
Trans. Willard R. Trask. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1968.
Boyle, Nicholas. The Poetry of Desire. Vol. 1 of Goethe: The Poet and the Age.
Oxford: Oxford UP, 1991.
Cassirer, Ernst. Schiller und Shaftesbury. Publications of the English Goethe
Society n.s. 11 (1935): 3759.
Dsing, Wolfgang. Aspekte des Kunstbegriffs in Schillers klassichen Elegien.
In Traditionen der Lyrik: Festschrift fr Hans-Henrik Krummacher, ed.
Wolfgang Dsing, 10314. Tbingen: Niemeyer, 1997.
Guthke, Karl S. Die Braut von Messina. In Schiller-Handbuch, ed. Helmut
Koopmann, 46685.
Habel, Reinhardt. Schiller und die Tradition des Herakles-Mythos. In Terror
und Spiel, ed. Manfred Fuhrmann, 26594. Poetik und Hermaneutik 4.
Munich: Fink, 1971.
Hatfield, Henry. Aesthetic Paganism in German Literature: From Winckelmann to the Death of Goethe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1964.
Kondylis, Panajotis. Die Aufklrung im Rahmen des neuzeitlichen Rationalismus. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1986.
Koopmann, Helmut, ed. Schiller-Handbuch. Stuttgart: Alfred Krner, 1998.
. bersetzungen, Bhnenarbeitungen. In Schiller-Handbuch, 729
42.
Malsch, Wilfried. Hinfllig geoffenbartes Urbild: Griechenland in Herders
typologischer Geschichtsphilosophie. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 30 (1986): 16195.
Ovid. Metamorphoses. 2 vols. Trans. Frank Justus Miller. Loeb Classical
Library, London: Heinemann, 1966.
Ptz, Peter. Nhe und Ferne zur Antike: Iphigenie und Maria Stuart.
In Unser Commercium: Goethes und Schillers Literaturpolitik, ed. Wilfried
Barner, Eberhard Lmmert, and Norbert Oellers, 289302. Stuttgart:
Cotta, 1984.
Riedel, Wolfgang. Schiller und die Popularphilosophie. In Schiller-Handbuch,
ed. Helmut Koopmann, 15566.
. Schriften der Karlsschulzeit. In Schiller-Handbuch, ed. Helmut
Koopmann, 54759.
Ritzer, Monika. Not und Schuld. Zur Funktion des antiken Schicksalbegriffs
in Schillers Braut von Messina. In Schiller heute, ed. Helmut Koopmann and
Hans-Jrg Knobloch, 13150. Stauffenberg Colloquium 40. Tbingen:
Stauffenberg, 1996.
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Today, 17911806). In this subsequent work, at least four volumes of personal memoirs from European history since the Middle Ages were to
appear annually. Schiller accepted the task of writing an introductory historical overview for every volume.
But that was not enough: in December 1788, Schiller was fooled by
his own ambition and by the Weimar government under Goethes administration (see Schillers letter of December 15, 1788) into assuming a lectureship in history at the university in Jena during the summer semester of
1789. His involvement in the German university system, with which he
was not yet familiar, was a personal challenge. Was heit und zu welchem
Ende studiert man Universalgeschichte? (What is, and to What End Does
One Study Universal History?, 1789) is the frequently-quoted title of his
inaugural lecture of May 16, 1789, which was published in the same year.
Schiller also recorded other of his earliest lectures and published them
soon thereafter.
The end of 1789 saw the continuation of his Geschichte des Abfalls der
Vereinigten Niederlande. But Schiller was tempted to accept his publishers
offer to write a new work of his own historical narration: Geschichte des
Dreiigjhrigen Kriegs (History of the Thirty Years War, 1791/93). It
was published in Gschens Historischer Calender fr Damen and became
a great success.
In 1789 and 1790, the thirty-year-old Schiller was not only emboldened by the revolutionary events in Paris, but was convinced that he could
increase his productivity still further, which included writing a deutscher
Plutarch (see the letter of December 16, 1790, to Krner). He overestimated his energy, and became a victim of the book until, in January 1791,
his appalling physical condition caused him to take a break, at which point
he either dropped his previous commitments or handed them over to someone else. Beginning early in 1792, a stipend from Denmark stemmed
Schillers financial worries and enabled him to undertake an intensive study
of Kantian philosophy, which opened up new perspectives. He devoted his
time first to aesthetic and anthropological questions, publishing them in
extensive pamphlets. In 1796, poetry and drama moved back to the center
of his attention, partly due to the influence of his friendship with Goethe.
This provides a sketch of the most important dates that mark Schillers
work as a historian. They enable us to discern a historical phase in Schillers
career lasting five years, from late summer 1787 until fall 1792. Supported
also by Schillers statements in letters of October 26, 1787, to Huber, and
September 21, 1792, to Krner, the idea of such a phase in Schillers career
has generally been adopted by scholarship. The intensive investigations
into Schillers activity as a historian around the anniversaries of 1859 and
1905 continued to have their effect, for example, those by Ottokar
Lorenz, Johannes Janssen, Rudolf Boxberger, Theodor Kkelhaus, and
Richard Fester. At that time in the age of historicism it was shown
69
that because of the manner of his work and the forms of representation
that he chose, and in view of the contemporary standards of scholarship,
Schiller could not be considered a historian.
However, to marginalize Schillers histories is dubious. For it is based
on a problematic approach that is retrospective in nature, and in many
respects often the anti-historical resentment of those who are committed
to literature in the narrower sense. In a letter to Krner in 1792, Schiller
describes his historiographical obligations as a burden and says that he
wants to finish them as soon as possible. One has to keep in mind that
Schiller the historian was still an artist. For him and his contemporaries, art
and science were the two great cultural realms, and were related in their
investigation and mediation of truth. Only in our time has the task arisen
of incorporating Schillers productive engagement with history more adequately and comprehensively into our understanding of his lifelong work
and the times in which he lived, and re-evaluating its significance.
First, it must be said that Schillers interest in history (Geschichte) and
stories (Geschichten) was not at all limited to those five years. Beginning in
Stuttgart, stories based on authentic life experiences fascinated Schiller. As
an author he had a need to tell true stories. In 1782 there is some early evidence of this, for example, the short story Eine gromtige Handlung
aus der neuesten Geschichte, based on an event from 1547 to which
Schiller had devoted serious historical study. In the story he reports on the
destiny of two brothers in the environs of Stuttgart. He places the story
into the context of the most recent history and its educated society, telling
it in the form of a drama.
Schillers next and weightier historical narration stems from 1785: the
historical novella Der Verbrecher aus Infamie (Criminal Out of Infamy,
1784) which bears the notable subtitle: Eine wahre Geschichte. This
true story appeared in the second issue of Schillers journal Thalia, and
provided him with the opportunity to present himself to the reading audience in a new form. Here the original relationship between his literature
and his historical project becomes graphically clear, as Schiller narrates
once again a nexus of occurrences that extend from the framework of the
everyday and were of special interest to him. As an author, he considered it
his task to bring them back to life with the aid of narrative representation.
But, before writing the final version of Verbrecher aus Infamie, Verbrecher
aus verlorener Ehre (Criminal Out of Dishonor, 1785), which was based on
the life of an actual criminal, Schiller reflected thoroughly on the functions
of historical narration and its specific methods.
The first printing of the second act of Don Carlos, the most important
historical drama of the young Schiller, is the focus of attention of the aforementioned second issue of Thalia. His preparations for writing the play
included considerably more study of historical literature than for his earlier
pieces. For the first time he dared to use a significant theme from
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European history. In the process of studying the literature, Schiller recognized that an appealing, modern literary-historical narration ran parallel to
traditional historiography. He had read William Robertsons three-volume
History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V (1769) in German translation, Robert Watsons The History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of
Spain (1777) in French translation, and Guillaume-Hyacinthe Bougeants
depiction of the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia, Historie des
guerres et des ngoticiations qui prcdnerent le Trait de Westphalie (History of the War and Negotiations Leading to the Treaty of Westphalia,
1727). Upon having studied the latter, he shared with Krner the wish
that he had begun the writing of history earlier (letter of April 15, 1786).
For some time, Schiller had known Sebastien Mercier, the French dramatic poet who at that time was capturing the stage with his Tableaux historiques. In the second issue of Thalia, Schiller published a translation of a
characterization of King Philip II of Spain by Mercier that was associated
thematically with Don Carlos, thereby presenting another piece of historical prose. Although this text, Philipp der Zweite, Knig von Spanien: Von
Mercier, does not classify as a historical work in the narrower sense, it has
been assigned a place among Schillers historical writings in editions of his
work.
Finally, one can find in the aforementioned second issue of Thalia the
impressive poem Resignation with the memorable line: Die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht (l. 95). Even though he borrowed the
topos, the verse makes it clear that, next to narrative stories, Schiller also
had an overarching concept of universal history. At that time the term
Weltgeschichte was used as a collective singular that signaled a new kind
of philosophical-historical thinking (Koselleck, 65368). The same issue of
Thalia, in which Schiller also granted his friends Krner, Huber, and the
young author Sophie Albrecht a voice, testifies to Schillers progressive and
reflective engagement with history in its various forms within the learned
society of education (Bildungsgesellschaft) of the time.
As has been mentioned, in the course of the year 1786 Schiller took on
a new literary project that included the term history in its title: Geschichte
der merkwrdigsten Rebellionen und Verschwrungen. It was not one but
several accounts of previous rebellions and conspiracies, written by a
number of authors, which were to appear with the Leipzig-based publisher
Crusius. Though grounded on historical literature, the pieces did not
claim a scientific basis but, according to Schiller, focused on das Interesse
des Details und der Charaktere. In their pragmatic manner of representation they were different from another novel that Schiller began to write in
1786: Der Geisterseher. Eine Geschichte aus den Memoiren des Grafen von
O** (The Ghostseer: A Story from the Memoirs of the Count von O**).
However, this work, despite the historical-sounding title and a beginning
that purports to be the report of an eyewitness and pure, strict truth
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of the dramatis personae are high points in the art of representation, and
through them we come to recognize Schillers cultural-historical achievements.
Beginning with Don Carlos Schiller succeeded in helping to bring
about a breakthrough in the direction of historical writing in Germany.
This reform can only be understood from todays vantage point if one is
familiar with the situation of historical writing in the eighteenth century:
on the one hand, scholarly histories, which describe the Haupt- und Staatsaktionen in a ponderous style and with numerous footnotes; on the other
hand, authors of historical novels who tell stories in the gallant style of the
time but give no thought to the question of truth. Schiller wanted to tie
these traditions together. He wanted to go back to the sources themselves
in a critical and pragmatic manner. At the same time, he wanted to write in
a polished style. With such historical narration Schiller aimed at practicing
a philosophical way of thinking about history that places stories into a
modern context of development.
Schillers academic appointment as a professor at the University of
Jena took place at the end of May 1789, precisely the week in which the
revolutionary estates began to assemble in Versailles to constitute a
national assembly of the French people. His interest in revolutions and
peoples revolts led the young dramatist to an engagement in history. One
may conclude that Schiller followed the events in France with particular
attention, sympathy, and expectation.
Schillers inaugural lecture in Jena, which was published as Was heit
und zu welchem Ende studiert man Universalgeschichte?, contains the programmatic draft of the universal-historical project that occupied Schiller in
that year of revolution, 1789/90. He saw it necessary to create a new discourse concerning the idea and goal of universal history. Furthermore,
new orientations opened up for the methodology and self-understanding
of the writing of history. Schiller calls the historian a researcher of history
(Geschichtsforscher, 6:428), thereby indicating that historical writing
was on the way to becoming an empirically analytical science.
In his inaugural lecture, Schiller juxtaposes two different and fundamental approaches: the recognition of the past by means of facts and
events, and the achievement of an overview of the epochs of history that
will allow comprehension of their interrelationships (6:41216). The latter
is the philosophical study of history. However, historical writing since Aristotle had been focused only on actual occurrences; it was the responsibility
of philosophy to inquire into the universal and the true. Schiller opposes
this traditional limitation of history. He was convinced that universal history could achieve something that had been considered impossible in the
Western tradition, namely, the arrival at universally valid truth-claims from
a close study of the past. Presumably, such a universal history would throw
light on not only the past but also the most recent developments of the
75
time. The individual human being would be liberated from the limitations
of his private existence and placed into a larger social context. Universal
historical interest would open up a perspective of social development that
aims to bring about, in Schillers words, our century of humanity
(unser menschliches Jahrhundert herbeizufhren, 6:430).
This programmatic introductory address was followed by a number of
lectures that illuminated specific connections between occurrences in
human history. Three of these lectures have been preserved. They give us
an impression of how Schiller completed his project of universal history.
In the essay Etwas ber die erste Menschengesellschaft, Schiller
explains that history is never accessible to us directly, but only via narrative
traditions. He refers to a biblical tradition, and presents an example that
shows the courage and innovative power of his enlightened spirit to interpret the Bible in a new way. The fall of man is now the beginning of mans
freedom (6:434). In a separate section of the essay, Schiller addresses the
origins of social inequality. He ends with an analysis of the origin of legends concerning monarchical sovereignty in light of the idea of the sovereignty of the people. In the essay Die Sendung Moses the biblical
tradition is Schillers most important source. Yet he also refers back to a
report about ancient Egyptian mysteries. Here he highlights the problem
of the self-liberation of an oppressed people. Schiller singles out the constitutive role of Moses as the leader of his people, that is, the figure of a ruler.
In addition, Schiller deals with the question of what significance religion
can play in such a liberating process; on the one hand, for the common
people, and, on the other hand, for the educated. In the epoch of the late
Enlightenment (Sptaufklrung), the European intelligentsia was increasingly concerned with this question.
In the essay Die Gesetzgebung des Lykurgus und Solon (The
Legislation of Lycurgos and Solon, 1790), Schiller presents a historicalconstitutional comparison between the most famous city-republics of Greek
antiquity. At the same time, a third reality is involved: Schillers own time.
Its central themes stand in the foreground and form the criteria for the
comparison: the relationship of the political constitution and culture, of
civil and human rights, and of the political constitution and social structure.
Eventually, in the discussion about constitutional patriotism in a republic of
citizens, he pleads for representative democracy. With that, his writing
attains a political relevance achieved by no other universal-historical text.
Schiller composed all of these universal-historical texts during the first
year of the French Revolution. Especially remarkable is how affirmatively
Schiller argues for the principle of the sovereignty of the people and how
he defends the constitutional form of representative democracy in Die
Gesetzgebung des Lykurgus und Solon. We know that Schiller composed
this text in the days in which the French National Assembly was adopting
the Declaration of Human and Citizens Rights. During the summer
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The unusually high honorarium he would receive for writing the work was
not the least of the reasons why Schiller accepted. As he was working on it,
from May 1790 on, it became clear to him that the project would not be
restricted to one essay. Schiller found himself obligated to articulate, in a
first Buch, the fundamental historical, religious, and political conditions
for the political and military conflict of the Thirty Years War, which at this
time was no longer understood simply as a religious war. His depiction of
the war of states begins in Book 2, following a masterfully written overview
of political and religious issues in the Holy Roman Empire according to
an outline of political relations in the European states with an account
of the so-called Westphalian War (162023). Schiller interpreted the
Bohemian Revolt (161820) as an intra-Habsburgian occurrence during
which the young emperor Ferdinand II had to prove himself.
Ferdinand II is the first of a series of great personages of action who
appear in Schillers Geschichte des Dreiigjhrigen Kriegs. In connection
with the portrayal of the war, these personages are now brought into the
foreground. In the course of Book 2, the two main characters, Wallenstein
and Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, are introduced. In Book 3 Schiller
turns their confrontation of 1632 into the true high point of the work,
which ends with a description of the battle of Ltzen and an evaluation of
the fall of Gustavus Adolphus. Wallensteins transformation into a
todeswrdigen rebel and his memorable end in February 1634 occupies
the center of Book 4. Schiller still feels compelled to narrate the story
(Geschichte) of the Thirty Years War to its end. In the conclusion to his
work, the author reports that his original intention was to include a history
of the Peace of Mnster and Osnabrck, as ein groes und eigenes
Ganzes that would follow his account of the war. The problem of the creation of a European community, with which Schiller had opened his portrayal, remains unsolved. Schillers contemporaries shared this uncertainty
81
when, in 1792, the war with revolutionary France had broken out and held
the attention of Europe until well after Schillers death.
Todays readers recognize more clearly than Schillers contemporaries
the disproportions and breaks in the works composition. They also have
his earlier historical writing more firmly in mind, above all the Geschichte
des Abfalls der vereinigten Niederlande. In comparison with Schillers earlier historical writings, the later work lacks an introduction and begins
immediately with the larger nexus of the problems of the time. With this
work Schiller departed from the academic style of historical writing. He no
longer included references to his sources and did not carry out a timeconsuming study of source materials before beginning to write. Schiller the
historical writer of 1790 no longer considered the battle for freedom and
political independence from a despotic ruler legitimate, either during the
Bohemian revolt or that of the Netherlands. Princes and military commanders determined the events. Peoples and nations, however, which had previously stood at the center of Schillers historical writing, are depicted
almost without exception as dependent subjects. The personalization of
history that is part of Schillers historiography should not be overlooked.
With the Geschichte des Dreiigjhrigen Kriegs Schiller discontinues his
practice of providing character sketches of leading personae on their first
appearance, which he had favored as early as in Geschichte des Abfalls der
vereinigten Niederlande. Character sketches instead occur upon the death
or departure of historical personages. The writer thus heightens the significance of the leading figures as representatives of their time. In the first
part of the work, Gustavus Adolphus is the most prominent hero. In part
two, which was written two years later, Schiller gives greater attention to
the politics of his ascendancy.
How is the great success of the Geschichte des Dreiigjhrigen Kriegs to
be explained? With this work Schiller reached a different readership, that of
the Calender fr Damen. But the work also matched Schillers own convictions. With the historiographical work that he had begun in 1787 and
then continued during his professorial appointment in Jena, he had an academic audience in mind. Following his experiences with the time-consuming
work of the historian and his quarrels with colleagues at the university, he
was disillusioned by the academic world and sought a way to leave the
university at the end of 1789. In his historical writing it became increasingly
more difficult for him to bridge the gap between the academic form and
the interests of his readers. In this circumstance, Gschens Calender project
offered him the opportunity to turn to a new audience. In spite of the
pointed topic of a war history, his work resonated broadly.
By the end of the eighteenth century, the German reading public
included large portions of middle-class society. Schiller possessed a critical
consciousness and a high regard for the reading public. The announcement for his next Thalia-project, the Rheinische Thalia (8:897903),
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part had appeared in the Historischen Calender fr das Jahr 1791. His
friends assistance provided a quick solution for the remaining work on the
Calender. Wieland had written a preface for this volume and, at the end,
developed a unique perspective: Schiller could have a much greater, even a
national, effect through the writing of historical dramas; he could become
a German Shakespeare.
With that, Wallenstein was introduced to the public: Schiller had been
working on the drama since the beginning of 1791. Schiller informed only
Krner and the co-adjutant von Dalberg concerning his plans for the writing of a drama treating Wallensteins end. After all, this political-military
adventure of the Thirty Years War fascinated Schiller the most, and his historical study had left some questions unanswered.
In December 1791 the Danish nobility offered Schiller a three-year
annual stipend, which put him solidly in a position to start a new plan of
work. Schiller could then turn more intensively to the clarification of
aesthetic-philosophical questions that had become increasingly pressing for
him since 1790. A progressively more thorough study of Kants philosophy had shown him the possibilities of an independent illumination of the
foundations of his work. Even his work with the literature of ancient
Greece continued in dialogue with Humboldt.
In the summer of 1792, with rare calmness, concentration, and productivity, Schiller worked out the third, fourth, and fifth books of the
Geschichte des Dreiigjhrigen Kriegs. Alongside this, in the spring, he had
written two insightful introductory texts to writings that he agreed to edit
for a publisher in Jena: the preface to a translation of Pitavals crime stories
and the preface to a translation of the work of Vertot on the Maltese
Order, the depiction of which had stood time and again on the dramatists
agenda (see 7:44959).
The date of the conclusion of the manuscript of Geschichte des
Dreiigjhrigen Kriegs in September 1792 is viewed in scholarship as the
end of the historical phase in Schillers life. However, we should not be
misled into thinking that this was the end of his interest in history and its
representation. To a great extent, the Wallenstein project alone shows how
important history was for him. It would be more adequate to speak of a
transfer (Verlagerung) of the forms of his representation of historical
materials.
The universal- and historical-developmental orientation in Schillers
historiography is hardly recognizable after 1790. His treatment of the
Peace of Westphalia was original and served as a crowning touch to his
work. Schiller had built up other overarching structural connections in his
portrayal of the Thirty Years War: the careers of the great commanders of
this war, above all Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein.
Were military geniuses now the great movers of history? Schiller dedicated his last great historiographical text to such a comet. In a contribution
85
86
OTTO DANN
Notes
1
References to Schillers works in this essay are to volume and page number in the
Frankfurter Ausgabe, Werke und Briefe in zwlf Bnden, edited by Klaus Harro
Hilzinger, et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1988). Here: 6:41.
Works Cited
Hinderer, Walter. Wallenstein. In Schillers Dramen, ed. Walter Hinderer,
20279. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1992.
Koselleck, Reinhart. Geschichte, Historie. In Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe:
Historisches Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, vol. 2,
65368. Stuttgart: Klett, 1975.
Major Writings
Introduction
90
91
92
Structure
The external dramatic action is arranged into two parallel tracks, or plots.
Although the action at the castle supports the main plot, it is the story of
the robbers itself that explains Karls behavior. Beginning with act 4, scene 1,
the two plots are continually interwoven until the inevitable denouement.
Schiller directs the characters and types of dramatic action in a kind of
Figurenballet, whereby always one character and one type form an axis
(Achse). The clearest example of this is Franz Moor and his alter ego
Moritz Spiegelberg. The simultaneity that is achieved through the verbal
entanglements (Verstrickungen) that characterize their dialogue and the
scenes in which they appear helps us understand the Zeitblcke,
Schillers division of the acts (see table 1).
The transformation of the Taborites in the robber bands begins in act
3, scene 2, Gegend an der Donau. After the story of the robbers as well
as the main plot are widely exhausted, Kosinskys story introduces a new
structural phase, which, after act 4, scene 1, comes to full fruition. Schiller
took the structure of this phase from the Aladdin story, and from that
point on, the locations at which the dramatic action takes place in
Die Ruber agree largely with those of Aladdin. The same is true for the
models of movement of Kosinsky, Karl, Amalia, and Franz, which are analogous to those of Aladdin, the princess Baldrouboudour, and the African
magician.
The Scenes
The recognition that the locations of the scenes of Die Ruber actually
exist comes as a surprise. Schiller refers to them in the text by their names.
93
Table 1.
No doubt because he does this so openly, scholarship has taken them for
granted.
The Castle in Franconia
The first reference to the castle is suggested by the counts unique family name, Moor. The stage direction for the first scene of the first act
reads: Franken. Saal im Moorschen Schlo. Schiller has Karl confirm the
location as Franconia once again when he exclaims: Auf ! Hurtig! Alle!
94
Nach Franken. The drama refers to specific locations within the castle, or
in its proximity, such as the garden, the landscape surrounding the castle,
and the fallen tower in the adjoining forest.
One of the models for the main action, as we know, was Schubarts Zur
Geschichte des menschlichen Herzens (Concerning the History of the Human
Heart, 1775). The case of Buttlar (Akte Buttlar), one of the greatest social
and legal scandals in Franconia in the early eighteenth century, also served as
a model. Major Wilhelm von Buttlar married Eleonora von Lentersheim at
Obersteinbach castle. She was a daughter of the House of Freiherr von
Lentersheim. Her father, Erhard von Lentersheim, was an epileptic and was
so victimized by alcohol that he had to be placed under the care of a guardian.
His son-in-law Wilhelm von Buttlar therefore had the right of disposal of von
Lentersheims goods transferred to himself. Additionally, Buttlars mother-inlaw, Louisa von Lentersheim, also possessed her own personal property. To
seize her fortune, Buttlar had her strangled. He was of course indicted for the
crime, but the trial lasted for years and did not end in a conviction.
Schubart used this deed as an opportunity to write his story, Zur
Geschichte des menschlichen Herzens. Schiller adopted it at the recommendation of his friend and classmate, Friedrich von Hoven, among others,
and changed it significantly. The details of the Ruber text permit the conclusion that, next to the literary model, Schiller drew also on both the
material of Buttlars deeds and the genealogy of Lentersheim. Given the
interrelationships within the Lentersheim family and the location of its
ancestral seat at the castles of Altenmuhr and Neuenmuhr one can establish
a link between the occurrences at Obersteinbach castle and the name
Moor. Upon Erhards death, the Oberstein branch of the family died out
and the Obersteinbach castle was later sold.
Although there may be nothing new about the influence of these two
models on Schillers play, the determination of their locations topographically, is indeed original. Until now, it was not known to which castle the
play referred, or where father Moors dungeon is located (the fallen tower
in the adjacent forest), or if Karls description of the terrain in front of the
castle in act 4, scene 1 has to do with any existing landscape. The Herren
von Mur, to whom the name Moor refers, were the first in the knightly
family to reside in Mu(h)r. Through marriage and the eventual purchase of
the Mur estate, the Herren of Lentersheim became the successors to the
Murs. The first authenticated mention of the Herren von Mur is found in
1169 in the figure of Hartwig von Mur (also Hertwic de Moere), that is, at
the time of Emperor Friedrich I, the German king Barbarossa
(11521190). The Lentersheims were also first documented at about this
time. And this is precisely Schillers point of departure in Karls dialogue
with Amalia in the gallery scene: MOOR. O ganz gewis. Sein Bild war
immer lebendig in mir. An den Gemlden herumgehend. Dieser ists nicht.
AMALIA. Errathen! Er war der Stammvater des grflichen Hauses, und
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erhielt den Adel vom Barbarossa, dem er wider die Seeruber diente
(1:108). Therefore, the progenitor received nobility status, that is, lehensfhige Reichsritterschaft, from Barbarossa. Here, Schiller pinpoints the
time exactly. Incidentally, Schiller could rely on several of his friends at
school who, in part, were closely related to the Lentersheims and the Buttlars or were familiar with the region and the historical background, among
them Schubarts son. Furthermore, at that time the study of genealogy was
a favorite hobby, especially among the nobility.
The Herren von Mur, that is, the Freiherren von Lentersheim owned
no fewer than five castles in the area around what is today the municipality of Muhr am (Altmhl-) See, not far from Gunzenhausen in Middle
Franconia.
1. Castle Mittelmuhr burned down in 1570, together with a part of the
village, and was never rebuilt. Presumably it is this catastrophe that
Schiller carried over to the counts castle.
2. Castle Neuenmuhr. This, one of the largest of the many castles in the
area, was affected detrimentally by the Thirty Years War. At the time
when Schillers Ruber originated, it was considered to be quite dilapidated and was uninhabited. The castle was torn down in 1832. The
reference to the fallen tower in Schillers drama resembles the decay at
Castle Neuenmuhr. However, for various reasons, the dramatic action
itself does not suggest this location.
3. Castle Altenmuhr is still maintained and inhabited today. Only the corner towers, the Zwinger, as well as the wall that encircled it were torn
down in the nineteenth century. The castle grounds are found again in
Schillers text. In the Rubern there are two scenes that take place at
the castle in which the entry of the characters are strung together after
the pattern of a so-called Schwingtrdramaturgie, namely act 4,
scene 2, Galerie im Schlo, and act 5, scene 1 with its unique description, Aussicht von vielen Zimmern (1:139). However, in terms of
dramaturgy, it is obvious that neither of the scenes can be played out in
a hall or suite of rooms. For Schiller, the dramaturgical approximation
to French comedy would have been unbearable. Karls description of
the lndliche Gegend um das Moorische Schlo (1:106) in act 4,
scene 1 agrees in detail with the layout of Altenmuhr at that time. Next
to the Gartenthrchen that Karl mentions in the text, there was a dill
garden surrounded by posts. In the seventeenth century, another area
of land was developed in which one hunted small game and employed a
catcher (Fanger). When Karl stands in front of the garden door, he
describes the courtyard of the manor house, which he must traverse to
reach the door of the inner courtyard of the castle, which lies straight
ahead. To his left, there is a building that was added to the wall and, to
his right, the fence to the dill garden, wo man den Fanger belauschen
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und necken kann. Passing the estate, the path leads over a bridge that
spans a moat and enters a gate to the castle. According to the stage
directions, the following is seen from the small door of the garden: Er
geht schnell auf das Schlo zu. [. . .] Er steht an der Pforte. [. . .] Er geht
hinein (1:107), at which point the text offers no more information.
We are unsure whether the gate leads to the castles inner courtyard or,
perhaps, to the castle itself. One thing is certain: a medieval castle grounds
where a visitor can reach the castle portal directly from a garden door
would be highly unusual.
4. The Turmhgelburg. Along the way to the garden door in Altenmuhr,
with the Wiesental below, Karl has, already seen the old mill which is
but a stones throw away next to the grassy knoll. This overgrown hill
incidentally, the only one of its kind in the Wiesental, which at that time
was swampland is nothing other than the Murs first castle. A small
stone house is all that is left of the towered fortress that was perched on
the hill. Since the time of its collapse, it has the look of a grassy hill,
which is in part still recognizable today.
5. The Kellerhaus. On a once-forested hill lies the so-called Witwenschlchen, which was built in the sixteenth century. In Schillers time,
the estate was known only by the name Kellerhaus. This owes to its
two exceptionally large vaults in which, earlier, the Murs preserved
their supplies and locked them up tightly. When a visitor climbs up to
the small castle, the steep entrance to this conspicuous cellar is the first
thing one sees. Even today, one cannot avoid being impressed by it. It
is easy to assume that, given Schillers sources, the depiction of this
location must have been of special importance to the writer. The shape
of the portal and the dimensionalizing of the hand-forged hinges
could easily have been a barred gate, of which Karl speaks in act 4,
scene 5. Consequently, in the poets world of ideas, as well as according to oral tradition, the cellar could have depicted an excellent dungeon. The numerous legends and horror stories that grew out of the
events that impacted the house are reflected in Karls exclamation:
Geist des alten Moors! Was hat dich beunruhigt in deinem Grab?
(1:133), as well as in one part of the dialogue of old father Moor that
follows soon thereafter: [. . .] denn die allgemeine Sage geht, da die
Gespenster meiner Vter in diesen Ruinen rasselnde Ketten schleifen,
und in mitternchtlichen Stunden ihr Todenlied raunen (1:135). The
distance from the Kellerhaus to the village and castles is approximately
one to one and one-half kilometers. This means that Schweizers
Angels of Vengeance, a band of fiery riders galloping down a rocky
mountain path, could have reached the castle within several minutes,
while the cart carrying the corpse of father Moor would take a half
hour. This is precisely the amount of time that old Moor indicates after
Karl rescues him.
97
In sum, the models for the setting of the scene Schlo in Franken
are the castle Altenmuhr and its landscape. The cellar house is still occupied. It is known today as Julienberg.
The Bohemian Woods
What was Schillers reason for placing the action of the story of the robbers, in act 2, scene 3, in Den bhmischen Wldern? Was this Schillers
model? The scene ends after Karls dialogue with the priest, with battles
between the band of robbers and those seventeen hundred men who,
according to the priest, are to guard every hair on his head. The battle
actually takes place outside of this location. Nonetheless, as one of the central points of the story of the robbers, it is an integral part of the dramatic
action. Thanks to Karls masterful tactics, the robbers had inflicted serious
losses on the priests army, while the band of robbers had lost only one
comrade, namely Roller. There must be a historical model for this battle,
and indeed, history records one that is similar in description, namely the
Schlacht bei Taus (Battle at Taus), in 1431. The pope and emperor had
deployed an army against the Taborites, the radical wing of the Hussites,
who controlled most of the Bohemian woods at the time.The battle ended
with the embarassing defeat of the imperial troops. Schiller pinpointed the
location of the city of Taus in Bohemia, very near the German border, on
the Homann map, which is in the Wrttembergische Landesbibliothek in
Stuttgart (see map).
The Donau Region
Schiller provides two references to this location. In the drama it becomes
clear that the camp is located near water. Furthermore, a passage from
Razmanns dialogue is likewise indicative of the location, for he states,
[. . .] da ein reicher Graf von Regensburg durchkommen wrde
(1:75). The explicit naming of Regensburg must be understood as a key
word. Seen from Count Regensburgs location, who is on his way, there is
only one road, namely the one over Furth im Wald, that is, Waldmnchen,
which lies past Taus. The reference establishes the location of the action of
Gegend an der Donau as the environment around Regensburg, which is
a further argument for establishing the location of the scene in the
Bohemian Woods. Both scenes are therefore tied together. One look at the
Homann map should convince the skeptical reader that the path to Bhmen can lead only to this location on the Danube.
Tavern at the Borders of Saxony
On even closer examination, the second scene, Schenke an den Grnzen
von Sachsen, can be located in three ways: (1) from the title of the scene
itself, (2) with the aid of a statement by Kosinsky in act 3, scene 2, according
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WERNER VON STRANSKY-STRANKA-GREIFENFELS
99
to which he says, nach Hof, and (3) with the help of act 1, scene 3
of Shakespeares Richard II, The lists at Coventry, where the lists
can be interpreted not only as a sports field but also as barriers. One look
at the Homann map makes it clear that there was (and still is) an area in
southwestern Saxony that is fenced in by three different borders, namely
those of Thuringia, Bohemia, and the Mark Bayreuth (today Bavaria/
Upper Franconia).The Saxon border runs between Plauen and Hof.
Assuming that Karl is on his way from Leipzig to Franconia, the location of
this scene must be near the city of Hof, to be precise, on Karls path over
Plauen to Hof. Here, a border crossing near, or in, Wi(e)dersberg or Roseck
that lies more than one mile northeast of the castle comes into play.
From this study it is apparent that Schiller was always clearly aware of
what he was writing. This is also the case here. Hof is the term that Schiller
uses throughout his work as a hidden reference. Only secondarily does it
have to do with the text into which it is interwoven. Bringing the phrase
an den Grnzen von into conjunction with Hof, the reference must
indicate a place at the Saxon border near the city of Hof.
100
It becomes a divine symbol that hovers over the dramatic action and represents the inner connections of the content of the play, thereby demonstrating an important part of Schillers message. In the course of the comments
on the text, this study endeavors to clarify the writers message for the
reader.
What the Hussite model became in the hands of the poet and in what way
he developed this material intertextually can be summarized here only with
broad strokes and the aid of a few examples. It is important to realize that
the writing of the history of the Hussite Wars is hardly comprehensible and
even contradictory depending on how it is reported. Aside from the current view of the play, there are sources of interest that young Schiller had at
his disposal in the Ducal Library at the Hohe Karlsschule and that, presumably, influenced his view of the Hussites. The model and its traces in
the Rubern are described as follows.
The Bohemian reformer Jan Huss, who had a masters degree from
the university in Prague, was enticed to the Council in Constance in 1415
by Pope Martin V with a letter of manumission and was burned at the
stake by the Inquisition as a heretic. Among other things, the reason for his
execution owed to Husss demand that believers commune not only by
101
eating the bread, but also by drinking from the chalice, which had been
reserved for the priest. Stemming from the time of Husss death at the
stake, a religious and socially justified protest movement was formed: the
Hussites. The Hussites were opposed to a Roman Church that had
become a feudal power at a wide distance from the original church. The
Hussites were not the only ones to blame the council for the treatment
that Huss experienced. There also arose an intense conflict between the
Czechs and the Holy Roman Empire. The strife between King Wenzel and
his brother Sigismund, king of Hungary, is also part of this history. In
1400, Wenzel was removed as the German king, but he remained king of
Bohemia. Sigismund was elected and crowned emperor.
In the bloody revolt in Prague on July 30, 1419, the more radical
faction of the Hussites assembled a procession under the leadership of
Father Johann von Selau, starting at the Stephanskirche in the Neustadt.
There, participants had broken open the tabernacle and stolen the communion chalice. The procession, which became ever more violent, led to
the Prague city hall. The tumult resulted in the first Defenestration of
Prague, at which the Catholic councilors who had refused to talk were
thrown out of the windows. Jan Ziska (13701424), the most important
military leader of the Hussites, is said to have played a leading role in
this event.
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103
Rotte Korah. The technique that Schiller develops here is especially difficult
to understand and can only be touched upon in this context.
Like the zealots, the Taborites revolted against Roman Catholic rule.
The Jewish shading of Spiegelberg forms the connecting link among libertines, Taborites, and their Biblical allegories. This shading is evident at
several places in the text.
Of the Taborites it is known that they had turned to the Old Testament and rejected the theological framework of the Christian church and,
consequently, the church as an institution. For the Taborites, everything
that occurred after the Old Testament, including all that was written about
the Last Supper, was no longer relevant. Therefore, they did not recognize
the New Testament but only the Old Testament. In the light of this background, Spiegelbergs demand of Karl, Lies den Josephus, ich bitte dich
drum is more easily understood. Several striking statements by Karl in act
2, scene 3, In den bhmischen Wldern, also reveal this understanding.
It is the confession of a religious fanatic who finally sees that neither the
world nor the human being can be changed by means of violence, and that
the path he travels must lead to the abyss. Here a religious aspect is present
that is hardly compatible with the view of life of the leader of a band of
robbers. A model that goes beyond the life of a robber is to be found in the
political-religious realm, that is, the history of religion and, to be sure, in
the history of the Hussite Wars.
This scene in Schillers work, in which the story of the robbers comes
to fruition, forms a triptych that comprises three stories and a dialogue:
Spiegelbergs misdeeds in the Cecilien monastery, the report of Rollers
release and, finally, the preparations for combat and Karls dialogue with
the priest. Although the stories depict the cruelty and other repulsive characteristics of the Taborites, the robbers captain Karl Moor assumes the
role of the Taborite captain, Jan Ziska. Thus Schweizer calls Karls tactical
directions meisterlich, vortrefflich, thereby recalling Ziskas legendary
abilities. Ziska used his tactical skills to annihilate powerful armies. He was
able to escape on account of his reputation of invincibility. This occurred
also in the aforementioned battle of Taus. The reader experiences the
ending of these battle plots in the dialogues of Die Ruber in the Danube
scene: enemies suffering devastating defeat, on the one hand, and the
priests seventeen hundred soldiers, on the other hand, that is, the army
that set out to confront Ziska.
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to the Bannbrief that Franz sends to Karl in the name of old Moor. Imperial
troops were unable to take Ziska and, after his death, Prokop the Great
(ca. 13801434), leader of the Taborites, into custody. In the meantime,
the robberies that the Taborites committed had degenerated into brawling bands of robbers that took on ever more terrible forms. At this time it
was agreed to raise a crusading army in order to either capture or kill the
Taborites. Their captain, Prokop, was wanted dead or alive. In 1431 Cardinal
Giuliano Cesarini, who was only twenty-eight-years-old, was named Cardinal
Legate and leader of the ensuing crusade against the Hussites.
In 1232, the work of the Inquisition was transferred to the Dominicans. Characterized generally as domini cane, Gods watchdog, they were
often portrayed in society as dogs. They appear as such in two of
Schweizers lines of dialogue when the priest enters the stage: Hast du
gehrt Hauptmann? Soll ich hingehn, und diesem abgerichteten Schferhund die Gurgel zusammen schren. . . . (1:86). Further evidence of the
same is provided by the words he directs to the priest: Hund! Hr auf zu
schimpfen (1:85). Right after that, Karl mentions the Inquisition in connection with a clergyman, specifically, Johann von Ragusa. This Pfaffen
Ihres Gelichters can be seen as a Dominican abbot or even a bishop since
he is wearing an agate ring reserved for abbots and bishops. Karl now brags
about having torched the Dominican church. These are no longer the
words of the captain of a band of robbers who must hide in the woods.
This is the statement of a Taborite captain to two of the most powerful
men of the church, who were personally responsible for the death of Jan
Huss. Schiller thus brought two models, Cesarini and Johann von Ragusa,
together. The priests last statement at the end of the dialogue reads: Ich
werde unsinning, ich laufe davon . . . (1:90). This was precisely what the
Cardinal Legate Cesarini did with his retinue in the battle at Taus after the
largest part of his crusading army had already run away. While the robbers
let the priest get away scot-free, the Taborites picked up the insignias,
golden crucifix, and the papal bull from Cesarini.
The Freibrief
The Hussite model emerges perhaps most clearly in another passage from
a dialogue between Karl and the priest. It refers back to Husss death. Karl
answers the letter of manumission in which the robbers are promised safe
conduct when they give the captain over to the besiegers.
MOOR: Seht doch, seht doch! Was knnte ihr mehr verlangen?
Unterschrieben mit eigener Hand es ist Gnade ber alle Grenzen
oder frchtet ihr wohl, sie werden ihr Wort brechen, weil ihr einmal
gehrt habt, da man Verrtern nicht Wort hlt? O seid auer Furcht!
Schon die Politik knnte sie zwingen, Wort zu halten, wenn sie es auch
105
dem Satan gegeben htten. Wer wrde ihnen in Zukunft noch Glauben
beimessen? Wie wrden sie je einen zweiten Gebrauch davon machen
knnen? Ich wollte drauf schwren, sie meinens aufrichtig. Sie wissen,
da ich es bin, der euch emprt und erbittert hat, euch halten sie fr
unschuldig. Eure Verbrechen legen sie fr Jugendfehler, fr bereilungen
aus. Mich allein wollen Sie haben, ich allein verdiene zu ben. Ist es
nicht so, Herr Pater? (1:8990)
Ziskas Drums
Schillers treatment of an extremely macabre perhaps the most
macabre occurrence in connection with Jan Ziska, and one that Schiller
could not ignore, gives an idea of the poets subtle manner of creative production in the metamorphosis of his models. The linguistic finesse that he
employs may elude not only the English-speaking reader. It has also
escaped the attention of the scholarship on Schiller. The transformation of
the libertines in Die Ruber into Hussites/Taborites, begins in act 1, scene 2.
Here, Spiegelberg suggests that his companions form a robber band and
adds: . . . Wollt ihr an der Leute Fenster mit einem Bnkelsnger Lied ein
mageres Almosen erpressen? oder wollt ihr zum Kalbfell schwren . . . ?
oder bei klingendem Spiel nach dem Takt der Trommel spazieren
gehn . . . ? Seht das habt ihr zu whlen (1:40). The expression, zum
Kalbfell schwren, means to enlist in service to war. As a rule, a soldier
accompanied the recruiting officer with a drum that was covered with a
calfs skin, upon which recruits were sworn in. But at this place in the dialogue there are two different drums that serve as alternates to one another.
According to Spiegelberg, libertines can choose between one or the other
drum. Schiller repeats himself and cloaks his repetition in a metonymy.
Schillers deviation from his otherwise strict economy of language admits
only one conclusion: the term, Trommel, stands for the well-known
drums of Ziska, which were still well known in Schillers time. Ziska died
in 1424 from a plague that ran rampant in the Taborite camp. On his
deathbed, he ordered that upon his death his skin be stripped off and
stretched over a drum, so that as soon as the enemies heard its sound they
106
would be forced to flee. Ziskas last order was followed with the help
of three members of the Medici family, who were named in the sources.
The drum was used by Ziskas successor, Prokop.
The Kampflied
Another example of the connection between Die Ruber and the
model of the Hussites is a line spoken by Schweizer at the storming of the
castle wall (Ringmauer) in act 5, scene 1. Against the command of the
captain, he orders, Strmt! Schlagt tod! Brecht ein! Ich sehe Licht! dort
mu er sein (1:150). Built up metrically and in the light of the end
rhyme, this passage produces a rousing march rhythm. Consistent with
the content of the play, the passage corresponds to the battle song of
the Taborites, which began with the words: Schlagt, erschlagt, schonet
niemand!
107
suspect that the theme had caught young Schillers attention, and that in
1773, that is, in his first year at the academy, which was also the year of the
abolition of the Jesuit order by Pope Clemens XIV, he may have been
working with the same theme in Die Christen, his first but no longer extant
drama. One should not rule out the possibility that this piece by an
engaged and perhaps already partially disillusioned young observer treated
not merely sweet romantic stories of pilgrimages, but, rather, Calixtrinern,
crusades, reformations, religious wars, Dominicans, Gallikanern, Jansenists,
the papacy, orthodoxy, and Gottfried Arnold: in short, intra-Christian
Auseinandersetzungen, and, with that, all those anxieties that could be
called up by these battles for power and the injustices of believers that are
connected with them. We may then conclude that the increasing complex
of problems during his school years preoccupied the writer until he found
its release in the Rubern. There, the poet could write the entire problematic
from his soul mixed with other areas of problems and models in an
orderly and well-thought-out fashion.
From this perspective, it is not surprising that the young poet would
have taken a stand a stand against orthodoxy, inquisitions, and clerical
striving for power and, at the same time, a position in favor of the opposite pole, represented by the Jesuits. This is precisely the content of Die
Ruber. Here, Schiller expresses the compulsion for freedom, that is, freedom from the authority of institutions of churches that behave in an absolutistic manner.
Four clerics appear in the Rubern: two Dominicans, namely the
priest and a Pfaffe seines Gelichters, Pastor Moser, and the father confessor. Until now their relationship to Franz has not been clarified. After
Franz has literally thrown out his protestant household cleric, Pastor
Moser, he assigns his servant Daniel the task of calling the Catholic father
confessor, damit er mir seine Snden hinwegsegne (1:149). This contradictory and senseless behavior can be explained when one takes into
consideration the nature and fate of the Jesuits of the eighteenth century.
This insight is based on two facts. First, in 1773, the Jesuits had been
banned by their own head of the church, Pope Clemens XIV. To be sure,
John Huss had been the victim of clerical intrigues and Roman Catholic
exercise of power. Second, the Jesuits of that time stood in excellent stead
with the people. For example, in opposition to other clergymen, the
Jesuits were always willing day or night and despite weather conditions
and other factors, to stand by those who were dying even Protestants
and, whenever possible, to convert these people on their death beds.
Remarkably, this characterizes the situation in which Franz finds himself.
He receives the death sentence and the castle is burning. In this seemingly
hopeless situation he calls for the only person who will stand by him, a
Jesuit. Schiller here intimates on the basis of history the possibility of
Franzs conversion.
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there is only one who can tear the heavens asunder and could undo his own
creation the immortal soul. Therefore, Schillers words are formulated
here not as a threat but as counterfactual. Since Franz cannot tear apart the
heavens, but can destroy beauty, he also possesses an immortal soul, even
when this is deformed (verunstaltet) by his misdeeds, an inner condition
that is expressed through his unsightly appearance. This interpretation can
account not only for Schillers words in his published foreword, Jedem,
auch dem Lasterhaftesten ist gewissermaen der Stempel des gttlichen
Ebenbilds aufgedrckt . . . (1:17); it also agrees with Origens doctrine of
the Resurrection.
Herein lies Schillers message to the public; and, yet, even this is only
one part of a whole part of an emblem.
The Emblem
In the Baroque world, whose child Schiller was in every respect, a motto
was a part of an emblem. Such an emblem contains a brief heading a
motto in the form of a Latin inscriptio that ancient authors and Bible
verses not infrequently employ. The emblem extends from a pictura that
depicts historical or Biblical figures or scenes, as well as an inscriptio that
explains and interprets what the image portrays and the meaning of the
image from which a general truth of life or rule of behavior can be
drawn.
Emblematics is a form of an allegory that Schiller cultivates in the
Rubern. Emblem books were uncommonly popular at the time, and the
public was widely familiar with any number of emblems. Authors of
baroque dramas (against which Schiller has Karl crusade: Mir ekelt vor
diesem Tintenkleksenden Sekulum . . .), above all Daniel Casper von
Lohenstein, played on such emblems in their texts, and often in the footnotes (!) or notations. But emblematics was in no way a sophisticated game
reserved for the dramatist. It belonged to the public. The emblem, or the
reference to one, turned the reader or spectator into a kind of Mitspieler
and evoked a reaction that, to employ a modern expression, one might
describe as a form of intellectual interaction.
Schiller also attached a motto to his play that is difficult to comprehend:
Hippocrates
Quae medicamenta non sanant, ferrum
sanat, quae ferrum non sanat, ignis sanat.
Furthermore, he marks three passages with the golden section: the sectio
divina, namely the frame of the scene in which the goldener Schnitt serves
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surprising that he should enter the castle under the pseudonym of Graf
von Brand and that this castle should be consumed by flames. Schiller
expresses his intentions clearly here as he has done before in his use of
Gift. These are only a few examples of the occurrences of Gift and Feuer
in the text. The analysis leads to the insight that poison stands as a
metaphor for Franz Moors destructive qualities, and fire for those of his
brother Karl.
It is not so easy to recognize the correlate for Eisen. The text contains numerous references to iron. But none of them appears sufficiently
clear-cut. Even the most attentive reader can easily overlook the only passage of dialogue that would seem to form a connecting link. The poets
strong marking of this passage first becomes apparent when we take the
function of the chorus verbatim and consider its relevance for an understanding of the play. The anonymous band of robbers may be seen as a
chorus. Given the example of the ancients, this is hardly surprising. However, the function of the chorus throughout Die Ruber is restricted to
the often ballet-like choreography of the collective of robbers. Like a
higher being, the chorus stands above the actual plot commenting,
observing, admonishing. Even more incisive are the words that the poet
places into the mouth of the Nameless One. What kind of horror could
cause Karl Moors teeth to chatter, and what then is the word that Karl
wishes to convey to the anonymous robber? Is it, perhaps, that word of
eternal damnation that is taken from the Augustinian dualism? This can
only be the horror of a higher power that is embodied in the chorus, a
power that works from the inside out. The horror of dark forces at play in
the human being, the horror of Lucifer as a component of that side of
human nature that Schiller characterizes as die thierische in Versuch
ber den Zusammenhang der thierischen Natur des Menschen mit seiner
geistigen (Concerning the Connection Between the Animal and Intellectual/Spiritual Natures of the Human Being, 1780). But the animal is
only one side of human nature. The seven castles in Franzs poem treat
the other side.
The doctrine of Origen and the robber emblem, and the subsequent
dialogue between Karl and Amalia stand in close relation to one another.
As Amalia falls on his neck, Karl exclaims: Sie vergibt mir, sie liebt mich!
Rein bin ich wie der Aether des Himmels, sie liebt mich. Weinenden
Dank dir, Erbarmer im Himmel! Er fllt auf die Knie und weinet heftig.
Der Friede meiner Seele ist wiedergekommen, die Qual hat ausgetobt, die
Hlle ist nicht mehr (Facsimile, 213, 23).
But for what reason should the captain of the robbers, who, following
Amalia, is all at once a Mrder, Teufel, and Engel, suddenly become pure as
the ether of heaven? As we know, Schillers religious orientation in his
early years was pietistic. Less well known is that the Apokatastasis panton,
the doctrine of the church father Origen regarding the Resurrection,
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Buttlar as the model for the dramatic action having to do with Franz
and, in the case of Karl, the model of the Hussites. Above the framework of the scenes there hovers the divine symbol in the form of the
isosceles trapezium. This trapezium also forms the inner connection of
the emblem and applies to both the scriptura and Schiller himself.
2. The brief heading, or motto, the Latin inscriptio, is quoted frequently
by ancient authors, and is present in various Bible verses. The motto of
Die Ruber stems from an ancient author, Hippocrates.
3. The subscriptio explains and interprets what is represented in the image.
It frequently extracts from the image a general truth about life or a rule
of behavior. The subscriptio of Schillers emblem fulfills the given criteria since it explains and interprets literally what is represented in the
image, namely the trapezium.
It is especially interesting to observe that that symbol of divinity, the
immortal soul, is connected with the birthplace and person of Friedrich
Schiller. As we know, Schiller edited the first version of his work anonymously. Instead of his name there stands that of Hippocrates, featured
prominently in italics. The first part of the aphorism follows. The common denominator of both Hippocrates and the aphorism is the field
of medicine, which Schiller explored at Duke Karl Eugens military
academy.
Concluding Remarks
Up until now, Schillers Die Ruber has been cataloged as a Storm and
Stress drama. That this conclusion is incorrect is evident in the investigations that inform this essay. According to these findings, although he was
at home in the Baroque, with his first great work, the young poet was
already on the path to classicism.
In the Ruber Schiller created his own form, one that has proven to be
classical. To do so, he used models and elements of the most diverse kind,
taking them from wherever he could find them and reshaping them
according to his needs. Still anchored in the Baroque, he also made use of
the elements of form with which he had, so to speak, grown up. Seen in its
own way, the use of the baroque emblem provides an insight into the
meaning of the play which Schiller himself could hardly have foreseen.
In sharp contrast to that parody, or literal deconstruction, that the work
experienced in his Trauerspiel version, Schillers Schauspiel Die Ruber
proves to be a key work in the transition between the epochs of the
Baroque and German Classicism.
Translated by Steven D. Martinson
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Notes
1
Unless otherwise stated, parenthetical references to Schillers works in this essay are
to volume and page number in the Frankfurter Ausgabe, Werke und Briefe in zwlf
Bnden, edited by Klaus Harro Hilzinger, et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher
Klassiker Verlag, 1988). Here: 1:164.
Works Cited
Hrner, Petra, ed. Hus Hussiten: Dokumentation literarischer Facetten im 19.
und 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 2002.
Schiller, Friedrich. Die Ruber: Ein Schauspiel. Frankfurt/Leipzig, 1781.
[Facsimile]
. Die Ruber: Ein Schauspiel. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1990.
Stransky-Stranka-Greifenfels, Werner von. . . . so ists Symmetrie und Schnheit
gewesen . . . Zu Vorlagen und Struktur von Friedrich Schillers Schauspiel
Die Ruber. Stockholm: Almqvist & Weksell International, 1998.
. Schiller, Ruber, Embleme . . . Friedrich Schillers Ruber ein
barockes Emblem? Stockholm: Germanistisches Institut, Universitt Stockholm,
2001.
. Schiller, Ruber, Jesuiten . . . Zur religionsgeschichtlichen Perspektive
der Ruber. Stockholm: Germanistisches Institut, Universitt Stockholm,
1999.
Stubenrauch, Herbert, and Gnter Schulz, eds. Schillers Ruber: Urtext des
Mannheimer Soufflierbuches. Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1959.
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other German plays in the late eighteenth century for his sweeping survey
of Western culture and literature because he considered it the only one of
its kind (443). In his opinion, no further attempts were made in the age
of Goethe toward the tragic treatment of an average contemporary bourgeois milieu on the basis of its actual social situation (443).
Over the years, the plays melodrama and sentimentality has doubtless met certain needs and fed the tastes of a public eager for such entertainment. But beyond this emotional appeal, Kabale und Liebe is an
intellectually intriguing play. In his book, Friedrich Schiller, Benno von
Wiese considers it the boldest play Schiller ever wrote, with a far greater
influence than that of Fiesko (192). The work is exceedingly complex
and complicated, a text whose themes entwine with each other and defy
disentanglement.
Schillers play is still important and interesting to us not least because
of its special place in literary history and in the tradition of a particular
genre: das brgerliche Trauerspiel, the middle-class tragedy. The genre
effectively begins in England with George Lillos The London Merchant of
1731, but had its German inception in 1755 with Gotthold Ephraim Lessings Mi Sara Sampson. According to Karl S. Guthke, Kabale und Liebe
ranks along with three other plays as the most significant examples of the
genre, the others being Lessings Mi Sara Sampson, his Emilia Galotti
(1772), and Hebbels Maria Magdelena (1843).
Schiller himself intended such a generic identification, as the subtitle
he gave his play Ein brgerliches Trauerspiel indicates. While Kabale
und Liebe is also thus situated within the tradition of the domestic tragedy,
it also has features of eighteenth-century sentimentality, as found in the
works of Bodmer, Breitinger, and J. E. Schlegel, and roots in the Sturm
und Drang drama (Koopmann, 1979, 15354). As Auerbach notes, the
bourgeois tragedy combined and contained many features from those traditions. It was a genre wedded to the personal, the domestic, the touching, and the sentimental (441).
The genre typically makes use of a set of stock characters, as Benno
von Wiese notes. There is characteristically ein bestimmter, typischer
Umkreis von Personen: der gewissenlose Frst, die vornehme Mtresse als
Nebenbuhlerin des brgerlichen Mdchens, der schurkische Confident
und Handlanger, der aufrechte brgerliche Vater, die beschrnkte Mutter,
der Liebhaber als Verfhrer oder umgekehrt als empfindsam Liebender
usw (191). Although Schillers play presents its own variations on the
theme, it clearly follows that basic pattern. Other traits typify the genre and
likewise inform Kabale und Liebe. As Lesley Sharpe observes, the unfortunate consequences of social divisions, the centrality of the suffering heroine, the key role played by the father, were constantly recurring elements
during the previous decade [the 1770s] and testify to the immense
influence of Lessings Emilia Galotti (1771) (46). As might be expected,
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and to tie him in marriage to the Lady Milford. The presidents scheme to
unite his son with the princes mistress, Lady Milford, is a calculated move
to ensure his place of power and prestige at the court. It was moreover
intrigue falsche Briefe und Quittungen (617) that had first brought
the president to power. Wurm hatches yet another plot in the service of his
master, the president, to sabotage the love between Ferdinand and Luise,
another cabal that serves his own interest in the girl. At the end of the play,
Ferdinand believes Luise to be guilty of a final intrigue a dictated letter
she copied under duress whereas it is actually he who ends the drama
with a deception of his own, for he surreptitiously poisons her before
committing suicide.
The love between Ferdinand and Luise cannot be realized for several
reasons, all of which matter and figure in their tragedy. Their love constitutes a msalliance, as they are from markedly different social classes.5
Moreover, there are people actively plotting and acting against them,
including Lady Milford, the president, Wurm, Luises father, and von
Kalb. Both Luises father and her lover want to possess her. In addition,
Ferdinand and Luise are divided by their religious convictions. While
Luise adheres to a conventional Christian ethic, Ferdinand follows a religion of love. To accept any one of these different points of view does not
mean one must reject the others. Rather, they are all different parts of the
whole.
Kabale und Liebe may be a play about love thwarted and doomed by
intrigue, but the tragedy of love serves as a vehicle for Schiller to raise disturbing questions about the social order, the political system, religious attitudes, individual or personal autonomy, and the moral universe within
which it all occurs. The combination of so many different realms results in
an intricate and complex text. As David Pugh writes, the interplay of
social and private themes is exceptionally hard to unravel, and the visionary
and religious language in which both the lovers experience and express
their love adds to the difficulties of assessment (166).
In Guthkes opinion, the attempts to understand the play tend to fall
mainly into two categories. On the one hand, scholars identify a drama of
unconditional love; on the other, they see a tragedy of class conflict, a
political drama of the time (Guthke, 101). It is not really so simple and
straightforward, however. There are as many different approaches to the
play as there are themes in it, and any one perspective cannot do it justice.
In the Schiller-Handbuch, Helmut Koopmann comes to a similar conclusion, writing that the drama cannot be exhausted by a single theme (376).6
It is precisely a polyvalency of meanings that Schillers play offers and that
make a single, unified interpretation so hard to establish and accept.
There have been many fine studies of the drama to date. Some have
dealt with the political dimension of the play, among others, Korff,
J. Mller, and Strich. Some have interpreted the play in terms of class
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conflict, including Heitner and Mller. For others like Martini and Kittler,
the psychology of the characters takes precedence. Various scholars have
examined the dynamics of the social and familial order (Mller, Koopmann, Graham, Janz, Michelsen, and Kaiser). Analyses of the religious
component have been undertaken as well (by Weitbrecht, Malsch, and
most notably Guthke). In addition, several studies have investigated the
role of language and the loss of linguistic facility (Mller-Seidel, Hiebel,
Kieffer, Duncan, and Pilling).
With Kabale und Liebe, Schiller confronts his audience with various
problems, all substantive and compelling. He examines the contemporary
political reality; the prevailing social order with its insurmountable barriers
between the estates or classes, between bourgeois and aristocrat; the growing tension between orthodox religion and the process of secularization
with its attendant theology of love; the deterioration of the family, both
bourgeois and aristocratic; aristocratic corruption and bourgeois insufficiency. The play is directed at the human inability to solve the problems
Luise and Ferdinand face: class distinctions, religious injunctions, familial
obligations and demands. Lesley Sharpe sums it up well when she writes
that Schillers intensely moral turn of mind expresses itself in the [early]
dramas not in moral preaching but in an exploration of the difficulties of
judgment and the agony of choice (5). The following pages review the
many and varied problems addressed in the play and conclude with a look
at an otherwise almost altogether ignored, but pivotal and essential character, Lady Milford.
Millers opening remark immediately charges the drama and establishes not only a conflict, but also the terms of that conflict: Meine
Tochter kommt mit dem Baron ins Geschrei (565). The stage is set.
Reference to the baron establishes the opposition between the bourgeois
and the nobility, while Millers name emphasizes his humble origins in
the trades. Time and again, the contrast between the classes, between
Gesind and Herrschaft (566), as Miller says, confronts the audience,
and as he sees it, never the twain should meet. For him, it is simple: his
daughter has a relationship with a baron, a man above her station and a
man of aristocratic tastes and habits. She should marry someone of her
own rank, einen wackern ehrbaren Schwiegersohn, Miller states, der
sich so warm in meine Kundschaft hineingesetzt htte (567). Miller also
understands what the liasson of a bourgeois girl with a nobleman typically
implies: Ich werde sprechen zu Seiner Exzellenz: . . . meine Tochter ist zu
schlecht zu Dero Herrn Sohnes Frau, aber zu Dero Herrn Sohnes Hure is
meine Tochter zu kostbar (568). Miller knows how the aristocracy, particularly Ferdinands father, President von Walter, views his daughter.
Indeed, the president has no respect for Luise and refers to her disdainfully
as the Brgerkanaille (577). She is only a plaything, an erotic dalliance, a
sexual object for his son to enjoy for a time and then discard. To conclude
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the first scene, Luises father reasserts his identity: Ich heie Miller (568)
a declaration that reflects the self-confidence of the bourgeoisie and its
implicit challenge to the aristocracy.
Luise similarly draws attention to the problems her relationship with
Ferdinand creates, problems that are clearly related to class distinctions.
For that same reason, she is prepared to forsake him, to surrender any
claim to him in this life: Ich entsag ihm fr dieses Leben. Dann, Mutter
dann, wenn die Schranken des Untershieds einstrzen wenn von uns
abspringen all die verhate Hlsen des Standes Menschen nur Menschen sind (574). Luise sees everything in terms of class and status.
She imagines Ferdinand among die vornehmen Frulein, while she is
merely ein schlechtes vergessenes Mdchen (573). In Schillers day,
those terms Frulein and Mdchen clearly expressed the gulf between the
estates. It is the only way Luise can conceive of herself and construe her
relationship with Ferdinand.
Even as Ferdinand tries to reassure Luise that class distinctions do not
matter and can be overcome, he nonetheless reinforces them. Ich bin ein
Edelmann he boasts, La doch sehen, ob mein Adelbrief lter ist, als der
Ri zum unendlichen Weltall? oder mein Wappen gltiger als die Handschrift des Himmels in Louisens Augen (575). Ferdinand sets so much
store by his rank that he even dares contend with heaven and the Creator
himself. In a sense, his Ich bin ein Edelmann answers to Millers Ich
heie Miller, both strong assertions of class identification, signals an audience cannot fail to register.
Every aspect of the play is informed by the preoccupation with class.
In his confrontation with Lady Milford, for instance, Ferdinand does not
say simply that he loves another woman. Rather, he must characterize her
in the terms of class Ich liebe, Milady, he says, liebe ein brgerliches Mdchen Louisen Millerin. As if it were still not clear, he adds
eines Musikus Tochter (599). Although Luise grasps how much Ferdinand is bound and determined by his class consciousness dein Herz
gehrt deinem Stande (622), she tells him she is unaware that her own
heart belongs and is restricted just as much or even more to her position in
society. Ferdinand has declared himself ready to abandon his station, but
he is perhaps no more able than Luise to understand the world without the
categories of class.
Luise is bound by her concepts of social order and class distinctions.
She cannot conceive of a world without them. For her, an alliance with
Ferdinand would violate the foundations of society, a divinely established
social order. An alliance between the bourgeoisie and the nobility would be
unholy. Therefore she believes she must give up a relationship, das die
Fugen der Brgerwelt auseinander treiben, und die allgemeine ewige Ordnung zu Grund strzen wrde (623). In her view, their marriage would
cause the complete breakdown of society as she knows and understands it.
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Vaters stirb! (657). Under such duress, she obliges, suggestively offering him her hand (as if in marriage?). Vater! Hier ist meine Hand!
(657). Das ist meine Tochter! Miller replies, Um einen Liebhaber bist
du leichter, dafr hast du einen glcklichen Vater gemacht (657). Meine
Luise, he cries out, mein Himmelreich! (657). His possessiveness borders
on the perverse and his paternal love on the quasi-incestuous.7
When Ferdinand offers him gold, near the end of the play, Millers love
for his daughter reveals itself instead to be self-interest and a true lack of
concern for Luise. As Gerhard Kluge says, besessen vom Glanz des Reichtums, schmckt er seinen Abgott, Luise, in Gedanken auf vermessene
Weise zur Madame aus, verblendet mit Grenwahnsinn geschlagen
(1415). In a flash, Miller changes his tune and is prepared to surrender and
compromise his daughter and her honor. It is all the more tragic that Luise
is willing to sacrifice herself and her happiness for her fathers safety and
freedom, when her fathers much touted devotion to his daughter turns
out to be not only shallow, but hollow. With his eyes on the gold, Miller
blurts out to Ferdinand: Wren Sie ein schlechter geringer Brgersmann
rasch und mein Mdel liebte Sie nicht? Erstechen wollt ichs, das Mdel
(666). Bewitched by such riches, Miller blatantly persists with the unnecessary charade that Ferdinand would still need to be an ordinary burgher to
marry Luise, but were that the case, and she did not love Ferdinand, Miller
would be ready to kill his otherwise precious daughter. Luise is unable to
find refuge in the family, for the structure of her family is infirm.
The same is true of Ferdinands family. We know nothing of his
mother, who is never mentioned and utterly absent. There are only the son
and the father, who are completely at odds. The president may claim to
have his sons best interest in mind, but in truth seeks only his own advantage. Like Luises father, President von Walter is heavily invested in his
child, but in selfish ways and for selfish reasons. The presidents relation to
his son is not, as Kluge writes, simply von der Sorge bestimmt, diesem mit
den Mitteln intrigierender Karrierepolitik eine erstklassige Stellung am
Hof zu verschaffen und den Weg zum Thron zu ebnen (1419). Rather,
the father is driven by self-interest and by the desire to aggrandize himself
first, his son only as a means to that end. That is abundantly clear in the
exchange between father and son in the first act. While the father tries to
claim that he has done everything to promote his son Wem zu lieb hab
ich die gefhrliche Bahn zum Herzen des Frsten betreten? . . . Sage mir
Ferdinand: Wem tat ich dies alles? Ferdinand rightly answers: Doch
mir nicht mein Vater? (582). Let there be no mistake: President von Walter acted on selfish motives. As Paul Bckmann realizes, the president
wants his son to marry Lady Milford damit der Prsident seinen Einflu
behaupten kann (259). The presidents relation to his son is empty, as he
wants to use his son to secure his own position at court through the marriage of his son to the princes mistress, itself a degradation.
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A new and better model for the family order is unable to assert and
establish itself. The never-to-be-achieved union of Luise and Ferdinand
denies such a possibility. As Koopmann notes, Das Trauerspiel entwickelt
sich freilich nicht daraus, da die familiren Werte eingehalten werden,
sondern vielmehr aus der Unmglichkeit ihrer Verwirklichung (1998,
369). Ferdinand and Luise offer no hope for the foundation of a family any
better than the corrupted ones they both already know and belong to.
Schiller provides no remedy, no possible opportunity for a renewed or
different kind of family. His play is indeed a domestic tragedy, for it is a
tragedy of the family, an enactment of its demise.
Everywhere and in every regard, the family is under attack in Schillers
play. The prince, for example, destroys the family by tearing men away
from their homes to conscript them for foreign military service across an
ocean on another continent. In the world of Luise and Ferdinand, the family no longer exists to protect and preserve. It no longer functions as a
haven from external assaults. Instead of an island of safety, a refuge from
the chaos of the world, the family is shattered and undone. As Koopmann
notes, die Familie als Urordnung . . . ist fragwrdig geworden (1979,
148). Bei aller Vergebung und bei allem Selbstgericht endet die Tragdie
mit einem bitteren Nachgeschmack, he writes. Der Vertrauensbruch ist
nicht wiedergutgemacht, zwei zerstrte Familien bleiben zurck, und auch
die Weltordnung hat einen Ri bekommen, der nicht mehr geheilt werden
konnte (1998, 366). As such, the tragedy of the family may well be graver
than the tragedy of Millers daughter or of the young lovers. In the end,
both Ferdinands and Luises families are destroyed. As the curtain falls,
both fathers stand alone.
The values defining the ideal family Liebe, Treue, Zuverlssigkeit,
auch Gleichberechtigung und Toleranz (Koopmann, 1979, 368) are
missing from both families. According to Koopmann, die Liebe als hchster Wert der brgerlichen Gemeinschaftsstruktur exerts its own destructive power, allows the individual to go under, and annihilates the bourgeois
world altogether. But that assertion drastically oversimplifies and ignores
the dishonesty, suspicion, jealousy, and misunderstanding that wreak such
havoc. In Schillers drama, we see how the bourgeois and the aristocratic
families both have foundered.
Steven D. Martinson offers a valuable insight into the collapse
depicted in Kabale und Liebe. In his discussion of Schillers Theosophie des
Julius (Juliuss Theosophy, in the Philosophische Briefe, 178789), he
explains that the absence of love causes a crisis. For disintegration and loss
of connectedness would be the end result of a world driven merely by egoism and self-preservation (65). Precisely such conditions prevail in Kabale
und Liebe. Egoism and self-preservation, not love, hold sway and define
Ferdinands father, Wurm, the court chamberlain, the prince, even Miller.
Lady Milford, Ferdinand, and Luise each lose love. All the virtue in the
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In the same passage, Lady Milford recalls the horrific abuses she found
when she first arrived in the princes land:
auf einmal [stand] die schauderndste Szene vor meinen Augen. . . . Die
Wollust der Groen dieser Welt ist die nimmer satte Hyne, die sich mit
Heihunger Opfer sucht. Frchterlich hatte sie schon in diesem Lande
gewtet hatte Braut und Brutigam zertrennt hatte selbst der Ehen
gttliches Band zerrissen hier das stille Glck der Familie geschleift
dort ein junges unerfahrnes Herz der verheerenden Pest aufgeschlossen,
und sterbende Schlerinnen schumten den Namen ihres Lehrers unter
Flchen und Zuckungen aus . (597)
Not only does Lady Milfords commentary lay bare the savagery unleashed
by the great ones of the world, it also highlights the deterioration of the
family as one of its consequences.
Lady Milford dared to alleviate and undo the tyranny of the ruling
prince despite her precarious situation as his concubine. Even so, she
courageously placed herself zwischen das Lamm und den Tyger; nahm
einen frstlichen Eid von ihm [dem Frsten] in einer Stunde der Leidenschaft, und diese abscheuliche Opferung mute aufhren (59798). To
Ferdinand, she reveals the full extent of the despots cruelty: Walter, ich
habe Kerker gesprengt habe Todesurteile zerrissen, und manche entsetzliche Ewigkeit auf Galeeren verkrzt. In unheilbare Wunden hab ich doch
wenigstens stillenden Balsam gegossen mchtige Frevler in Staub gelegt,
und die verlorne Sache der Unschuld oft noch mit einer buhlerischen Trne
gerettet (598).
Although the play provides a searing critique of the abuse of power, it
does not present some other form of rule as an alternative. And while Lady
Milford exposes the tyranny of absolute authority, she also describes a
world where freedom is absent and nowhere in sight, except beyond the
horizon, and then only for her.
Kabale und Liebe wrestles with the possibility or impossibility of freedom and autonomy more than with any other question it raises. The two
lead characters, Ferdinand and Luise, seek emancipation from the constraints of class, from bourgeois and aristocratic conventions and expectations, but they cannot achieve that goal. While Ferdinand dared to take the
risk and dared Luise to do so also, she refused, justifiably fearing reprisals
against her father, which then restrained Ferdinand as well. The characters
are unable to become autonomous.
Luise does not assert herself, does not leave her father for a husband,
nor does she establish her own domain, chiefly because of her fathers
demands. Ferdinand likewise makes equally unfair demands of her that
would deny her of any freedom and independence just as much as it would
her father. According to Kluge, beide [Miller und Ferdinand] versndigen sich an Luise, indem sie ihre Liebe mit falschen Besitzansprchen
127
128
moreover has hatched a plan to escape his fathers powerful reach and to
flee the land. The plan includes both Luise and her parents. Schlag ein
Uhr um Mitternacht wird ein Wagen hier anfahren. Ihr werft euch hinein.
Wir fliehen (622). Even though Ferdinand holds his father in check and,
at least momentarily, has kept Luise and her parents out of prison and the
torture chamber, Luise continues to fear the curse of his father (622). She
fails to understand and accept what the president himself knows and fears:
Ferdinand endangers his very existence, and he dare not harm them. Luise
rejects his plan all the same.
Without doubt, flight and freedom mean exile and anguish. In the
choice he presents to Ferdinand Whlt Lady Milford oder Fluch und
Enterbung (625) Wurm defines the cost of freedom for the two
lovers. It is the price Ferdinand, but not Luise, is willing to pay. It is too
frightening for her, such Entsetzliche Freiheit (625), that she cannot
even begin to think it possible. Since that choice is for her incomprehensible, it is unacceptable, and she refuses to flee with Ferdinand. Instead,
she contemplates suicide as the only alternative and the only freedom possible for her. She is prepared to join Ferdinand in a third place (654)
but the grave is not a genuine choice. It equates with desperation rather
than emancipation. Convinced of her helpless situation, she surrenders to
hopelessness and death, even though Ferdinand offered both help and
hope in the concrete form of a real escape to a life together. Because
she cannot conceive of freedom, it becomes something that cannot be
realized.
At her fathers urging, Luise rejects suicide and in a surprising reversal
considers flight an option after all. Unaware of any contradiction, she now
proposes an escape that she had previously rejected. Doch hinweg aus
dieser Gegend mein Vater Weg von der Stadt . . . Weg, weg, weit weg
von dem Ort . . . Weg, wenn es mglich ist (657). All her objections
to flight with Ferdinand lose their force as the inconsistency of her reasoning becomes apparent.
Drawing Ferdinand along with her, Luise cannot act as and fails to
become an autonomous human being. Koopmann calls it Scheitern aus
Mangel an Selbstbestimmung for both Luise and Ferdinand (1986, 300)
and explains that self-determination is all but impossible in Kabale und
Liebe (303).9 Neither Luise nor Ferdinand gains any personal autonomy.
Because they cannot change, their world also is unalterable. No new order
or possibility of existence presents itself; it has been rejected by Luise. The
old order thus remains, but it is destructive rather than restorative, for it is
disharmonious and unhealthy. Only Lady Milford escapes from the prison
house of their world.
The tragic end of the play does not leave much room for hope or
encouragement. Ferdinand has murdered his beloved Luise and committed suicide. The bourgeois world represented by Miller is as bankrupt as
129
that of the court. While the aristocratic order of things presents itself as
utterly corrupt, the bourgeois system of values likewise offers no hope for
a better future and fails to save Luise. There is no emancipation, neither by
the power of reason or love. Reason is altogether absent, thus it cannot
provide an answer or lead to freedom. Deceit, emotion, and intrigue prevail instead. Even love succumbs and is conquered by the harsh realities of
the world of intrigue. Luise cannot envision something better, a better
world, an alternative. The eternal order does not triumph either. Rather,
there is disorder, punishment, and suffering for all, except the always overlooked and forgotten Lady Milford.
No one is free at the end of the play no one except Lady Milford.
Everyone except Lady Milford is bound and held captive by class, social
convention, religion, family obligation, and the like. Luise and Ferdinand,
Miller and the president, find no release from their confinement. Only
Lady Milford achieves and embodies any semblance of real freedom. Ferdinand gives this indication early in the second act when he meets and confronts her about his fathers plans for their marriage. Without fully
realizing the import of his remark, he calls her die freigeborene Tochter
des freiesten Volks unter dem Himmel (595). As the princes mistress, she
may momentarily not be free, but she will emerge as the one character who
sets herself free. The only one who ultimately takes control of her life, who
acts, who determines her own fate and life is Lady Milford. She alone
develops and models human freedom.
While Fluch und Enterbung frightens and repels Luise, it is precisely that which Lady Milford chooses. Her decision to give up her life at
the court, a life of luxury and privilege as the rulers mistress, resulted in
real freedom, but in exchange for exile, for curse and disinheritance as it
were. It is a decision in favor of freedom, an act of self-determination,
which she presents as the viable alternative to Luises choices. Lady Milford
acts heroically and virtuously, gives up everything, and leaves the
court and its corruption. In doing so, she emancipates herself and exemplifies true autonomy. Lady Milfords escape indicates that, contrary to
Ferdinands and Luises conclusions, there was indeed a way out, that
there were other options and alternatives to dependence, subservience,
and captivity.
Whereas the critical literature tends either to ignore her or mention
her only in passing, Lady Milford is of extraordinary importance for
Schillers drama. Although a secondary character, Lady Milford is generally
more interesting, complex, and compelling than Luise. She deserves concentrated attention and consideration. One of the few scholars to recognize her significance is Fischer, who nevertheless mentions her only briefly.
In his opinion, she is eine der interessantesten Figuren des Stcks (114).
As Fischer reports, even Schiller himself acknowledged in his letters that
Lady Milfords character captured his interest more and more (114).
130
Could that explain why Lady Milford overshadows Luise Miller as a more
convincing and engaging character? As noted above, and as Fischer also
realizes, Lady Milford is the only character to undergo any dramatic development (117). She stands apart from the rest of the characters and, it
could even be said, above Luise, the main character, who is otherwise the
focus of the action and attention.
Lady Milford has many functions. She is the motive force behind the
initial intrigue against the union of Ferdinand and Luise. She shows the
contrast between the bourgeoisie and the court aristocracy. She provides
the political criticism, exposing the injustice and crimes of the existing
regime. What is more, Lady Milford offers the only instance of escape
from the imprisonment of class, economics, womans subjugation to
man (Luise remains subject to her father, and in all likelihood would
have been to Ferdinand as well, had she married him), and the tyranny of
absolutism.
It is only natural that audiences and critics concentrate on Luise as the
tragic heroine since she is the focal point of the love story. She is pitiful,
but not especially interesting or sympathetic, at least not compared with
Lady Milford. And Schiller invites comparison between the two characters.
The initials of their names call attention to their connection: Luise Miller
and Lady Milford. Certainly, the tradition and genre of the domestic
tragedy would have us compare and contrast them. Typically, the vices of
the aristocratic lady illumine and underscore the virtues of the bourgeois
girl. Unfortunately, the tables are turned this time, for Lady Milford outshines Luise Miller. Although stage directions call for Luise to be gelassen
und edel (643), and Lady Milford calls Luise the edle, groe, gttliche
Seele (646), it is Lady Milford who actually fits that description and rises
to that level. Luise and Ferdinand confirm Wurms assessment of their
world that greatness of spirit and personal nobility are make-believe: Was
sollten auch die phantastischen Trumereien von Seelengre und persnlichem Adel an einem Hof, he asks (611). Lady Milford proves him
wrong, however, for she demonstrates the possibility of Seelengre and
of persnlichem Adel in her own person.
Instead of Luise, Lady Milford emerges as the virtuous heroine. Here
she displays her true greatness. Gromut allein sei jetzt meine Fhrerin!
she declares, In deine Arme werfe ich mich, Tugend! (647). She
renounces her high position, leaves the duke, and embraces exile and
poverty. There is something heroic in her decision and action, but the
same cannot be said about Luise. She is tragic, not to mention pathetic,
but hardly heroic. Of her own accord, she is helpless and immobilized,
unable and unwilling to act. Auerbach puts his finger on the problem with
Luise: in general Luise is represented as so touchingly innocent, so filled
with noble sentiments, that her essential narrowness and pusillanimity are
not spontaneously recognizable (443).
131
132
Notes
1
See especially Kluge whose edition of the play includes many of those reviews, pp.
137186.
References to Schillers works in this essay are to volume and page number in the
Frankfurter Ausgabe, Werke und Briefe in zwlf Bnden, edited by Klaus Harro
Hilzinger, et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1988). Here:
2:62223.
For further and more detailed discussions of the genre, see Guthkes Das deutsche
brgerliche Trauerspiel (first published in 1972, latest revision 1994); Peter
Szondis Die Theorie des brgerlichen Trauerspiels im 18. Jahrhundert (1973); RolfPeter Janzs Schillers Kabale und Liebe als Brgerliches Trauerspiel (1976); and
Cornelia Mnchs Abschrecken oder Mitleiden: Das brgerliche Trauerspiel im 18.
Jahrhundert (1993).
5
I use the term class here for the German Stand, even though it is a concept
that came into use after Schillers time.
Here Koopmann appears to have modified his stance somewhat since his 1986
essay in Verlorene Klassik where he declared: das Drama liefert mit der Fabel einen
Problemfall, nicht viele (287).
Both Kaiser and Stephan have documented a hint of the erotic in the relationship
between Miller and his daughter.
In this regard, cf. especially Ilse Grahams Passions and Possessions in Schillers
Kabale und Liebe in German Life and Letters, 6 (1952/53): 1220.
10
On this subject, see also Schillers inaugural lecture, Was heit und zu welchem
Ende studiert man Universalgeschichte? of 1789.
133
Works Cited1
Alt, Peter Andr. Schiller: Leben Werk Zeit. 2 vols. Munich: C. H. Beck,
2000.
Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature.
10th ed. Trans. Willard R. Trask. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991.
Bckmann, Paul. Formensprache: Studien zur Literatursthetik und Dichtungsinterpretation. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1966.
Duncan, Bruce. An Worte lt sich trefflich glauben: Die Sprache der Luise
Millerin. In Friedrich Schiller: Kunst: Humanitt und Politik in der spten
Aufkrung, ed. Wolfgang Wittkowski, 2631. Tbingen: Niemeyer, 1982.
Fischer, Bernd. Kabale und Liebe: Skepsis und Melodrama in Schillers
brgerlichem Trauerspiel. Frankfurt am Main/Bern/New York/Paris: Peter
Lang, 1987.
Graham, Ilse Appelbaum. Passions and Possessions in Schillers Kabale und
Liebe. German Life and Letters 6 (1952/3): 1220.
Guthke, Karl S. Das deutsche brgerliche Trauerspiel. 5th ed. Stuttgart/Weimar:
Metzler, 1994.
. Kabale und Liebe. Evangelium der Liebe? In Guthke, Schillers Dramen: Idealismus und Skepsis. Tbingen/Basel: Francke, 1994.
Heitner, Robert R. A Neglected Model for Kabale und Liebe. Journal of
English and Germanic Philology 57 (1958): 7385.
Hiebel, Hans Helmut. Missverstehen und Sprachlosigkeit im brgerlichen
Trauerspiel. Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 27 (1983): 12453.
Although this study refers to and engages past and present scholarship of Kabale
und Liebe and concludes with an extensive list of works cited, an annotated review
of the critical literature far exceeds the scope of this essay. There is moreover no
reason for me to repeat or duplicate the good work done by so many others. I refer
readers to the following studies for a thorough review of pertinent research: Benno
von Wieses chapter on the play in question in his study Friedrich Schiller from
1959; Helmut Koopmans essay and useful bibliography in the 1998 SchillerHandbuch; Karl S. Guthkes essay from 1979, updated for his 1994 book Schillers
Dramen (esp. 1027); Bernd Fischers monograph on Kabale und Liebe (esp.
3674); Gerhard Kluges materials in the commentary section for the 1988
Deutscher Klassiker Verlag edition of the play; Steven D. Martinsons (1996) and
Lesley Sharpes (1991) chapters devoted to the play in their respective monographs
on Schiller; and David Pughs indispensable contribution to Schiller studies
(2000). While the scholars mentioned here have in their time each given a good
overview and offered commentary and assessment of the past scholarship, Pugh is
by far the best source for the most extensive, competent survey and account of the
vast critical literature about Kabale und Liebe.
134
135
Pilling, Claudia. Linguistische Poetik und literaturwissenschaftliche Linguistik? Anmerkungen zu Schillers Kabale und Liebe. In Sprachspiel und
Bedeutung, ed. Susanne Beckmann, Peter-Paul Knig, and Georg Wolf,
43949. Tbingen: Niemeyer, 2000.
Pugh, David. Schillers Early Dramas: A Critical History. Rochester, NY:
Camden House, 2000.
Sharpe, Lesley. Friedrich Schiller: Drama, Thought, and Politics. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1991.
Stephan, Inge. So ist die Tugend ein Gespenst: Frauenbild und Tugendbegriff bei Lessing und Schiller. In Lessing und die Toleranz, ed. Peter
Freimark, Franklin Kopitsch, and Helga Slessarev, 35772. Munich: text
und kritik, 1986.
Strich, Fritz. Schiller: Sein Leben und sein Werk. Leipzig: Tempel-Klassiker,
1912.
Szondi, Peter. Die Theorie des brgerlichen Trauerspiels im 18. Jahrhundert.
Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1973.
Weitbrecht, Carl. Schiller in seinen Dramen. Stuttgart: Fromann, 1897.
Wiese, Benno von. Friedrich Schiller. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1963.
Wittkowski, Wolfgang, ed. Verlorene Klassik? Ein Symposium. Tbingen:
Niemeyer, 1986.
138
ROLF-PETER JANZ
139
gro wird unsre Tugend, / Wenn unser Herz bei ihrer bung bricht!
(ll. 76667). With such suggestive questions as these, Elisabeth wants to
dissuade Don Carlos from his love for her. Up to act 5 it is clear that Carlos
does not want to hear about such exercises in the regulation of affects. In
situations where the power of language is insufficient to persuade the audience of the extraordinary emotions of his figures, Schiller employs the play
of silence, as he had already done in Die Ruber and Kabale und Liebe.
The stage directions require of the characters incessant mini-dramas
enacted by bodily gestures and expressions. We observe Carlos gripped by
sudden paralysis (von einer pltzlichen Erstarrung ergriffen; act 2, scene
4), or see him fling himself down before Philip and express great emotional
turmoil (im Ausdruck der hchsten Empfindung; act 2, scene 2). Eboli,
when she confesses her misdemeanor to the queen, acts like a maniac
(drckt [sie] ihr glhendes Gesicht auf den Boden and fhrt wie eine
Rasende in die Hhe; act 4, scene 19).
The pathos of speeches, exaggerated gestures, and body language
all of these reveal very clearly how closely Schillers modern tragedy
approached the opera, as he had already done with his Ruber drama.
Even there he did not envision tempered stages of emotion. Precisely the
high pitch of the tragedy explains that from time to time the sentences
begin to roar, as happens elsewhere in Schillers works, for instance at the
end of Die Braut von Messina: Das Leben ist der Gtern hchstes nicht, /
Der bel grtes aber ist die Schuld (ll. 283839; 5: 384). There is no
doubt that in this piece one can hear the organ-like pathos that Schillers
critics take for his most characteristic imprint, that cadence that makes his
works prone to parody (see Janz 189201).
Tears have an uncanny function in Schillers works. Whoever is crying
in Don Carlos and many tears are shed in this piece usually admits to
it. At the time of Empfindsamkeit, which runs parallel to the Enlightenment, tears serve as hallmarks of true and honest humanity. Whoever cries
only claims ones own natural right to feel, even and especially in
public. It is a right that Storm-and-Stress heroes employ extensively. In
order to show that even the despot possesses human traits and that
includes being deserving of compassion Schiller cannot apply a more
effective stage device than to let him cry: Der Knig hat geweint (act 4,
scene 13). That is the sensation at Philips court an entirely unexpected
stirring of emotion that touched a later reader of Don Carlos, Thomas
Manns Tonio Krger, enormously.
Murderers, cunning intriguers, betrayers, and conspirators are selfevident in Storm-and-Stress drama.3 Whether Franz Moor, Spiegelberg,
or Fiesco Schiller appreciated and served generously the desire to
behold criminal acts. In his theoretical essays of the 1790s concerning the
sublime and tragedy, he was engaged intensively with the great criminals
of literature, and expressed his admiration for Shakespeares Richard III,
140
ROLF-PETER JANZ
whose malevolence is unsurpassed in dramatic literature. What distinguishes Shakespeares character in particular is the colossal strength
of will that leads him to commit his terrible deeds unimpeded and
consistently.
None of the characters in Don Carlos can compare to Richard III.
When considering the offenders who step onto the stage, the first places go
to Alba, Domingo, and the princess Eboli and, finally, to Philip, the great
inquisitor, and Posa. Carlos must here withdraw, for even if he was willing
to support the rebellion of the Netherlands against the imperial power of
the king, he has too much in common with a Hamlet, as Schiller himself
noted, to consider him capable of activities against his fathers regime. He
remains caught in his unhappy love for Elisabeth and acts as a tool for the
revolt in Flanders as planned by Marquis Posa. Even though Philip is under
the impression that his son could become dangerous to him politically, he
has good reasons to trust Carloss assurances of faithfulness:
Ich bin nicht schlimm, mein Vater heies Blut
ist meine Bosheit, mein Verbrechen Jugend.
Schlimm bin ich nicht, schlimm wahrlich nicht wenn auch
Oft wilde Wallungen mein Herz verklagen,
Mein Herz ist gut (ll. 105256)
Alba and Domingo are presented as ambitious courtiers who are brought
into the center of power and do everything they can, ostensibly for the
sake of the monarchy, but in reality to preserve their own influence, albeit
in vain. They are creatures of the court, who serve the king as long as he
needs them. In short, they are agents of the Inquisition and the army upon
which Philips despotic regime is based. Their conspiracy against the
queen, and against Carlos and Posa, is fearsome and their clever intrigues,
even though they seem overly entangled, demand respect even from an
audience with less criminal sagacity.
The historian Schiller was well aware that security services established
by the army and the Church for the purpose of the Inquisition could
become entities unto themselves, thus threatening to become a state
within the state. Schiller brings this insight to bear in his drama. When
Philip wants to see evidence of Albas accusation that Carlos and the queen
are planning a conspiracy, a decision is inevitable. Should the queen and
Carlos be innocent, the king threatens to sentence the accuser to death. At
the risk of his own life, Alba stands ready to defend his accusation to the
death. But the king rejects the sacrifice.
[. . .] Und was
ist Euch das Leben? Knigliches Blut
Geb ich dem Rasenden nicht preis, der nichts
141
142
ROLF-PETER JANZ
143
144
ROLF-PETER JANZ
145
Notes
1
References to Schillers works in this essay are to the Frankfurter Ausgabe, Werke
und Briefe in zwlf Bnden, edited by Klaus Harro Hilzinger, et al. (Frankfurt am
Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1988). References are parenthetical within the
text by volume and page number. Here: 3:1075.
Whether an Aufhebung of the domestic tragedy takes place in this high tragedy,
as Mller assumes (21920), is open for debate.
3
Concerning Schillers lifelong interest in betrayal, the right of resistance, and
Tyrannenmord, see Mller-Seidel, 42246.
4
Works Cited
Janz, Rolf-Peter. Schiller-Parodien. In Schiller heute, ed. Helmut Koopmann,
189201. Tbingen: Stauffenburg, 1996.
Mller, Klaus-Detlef. Die Aufhebung des brgerlichen Trauerspiels in
Schillers Don Carlos. In Friedrich Schiller: Angebot und Diskurs: Zugnge/
Dichtung/ Zeitgenossenschaft, ed. Helmut Brandt, 21834. Berlin/Weimar:
Aufbau, 1987.
Mller-Seidel, Walter. Verschwrungen und Rebellionen in Schillers Dramen. In Schiller und die hfische Welt, ed. Achim Aurnhammer, Klaus
Manger, and Friedrich Strack, 42246. Tbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1990.
Schings, Hans-Jrgen. Die Brder des Marquis Posa: Schiller und der Geheimbund
der Illuminaten. Tbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1996.
148
LESLEY SHARPE
149
sent against his own and his parents wishes to the Ducal Military Academy
in Stuttgart and Duke Karl Eugens own intervention to put a stop to his
literary ambitions lent intensity to that preoccupation. Personal circumstances were compounded by his observation at close quarters of the workings of princely absolutism and by his interest in theories of the state. As a
tragedian, he was fascinated by the ways in which individuals reach and justify their moral decisions. The central question asked by the sthetische
Briefe is: How can art contribute to the realization of true human freedom? Under the umbrella of that large question are the further questions:
How does the aesthetic realm relate to the moral? What is the significance
of art as a human activity? Engagement with Kants philosophy gave Schiller
a framework and certain key ideas he could adapt to attempt to answer
these questions. Furthermore, as an artist himself, he felt particularly well
placed to offer insights that would satisfy poets as well as philosophers.
That Schiller should study and be forced to take account of Kant was
inevitable. His own tendency of mind, evident long before the 1790s, was
to think in dualisms. Kants system discriminates between the phenomenal
and noumenal worlds. As natural beings we belong to the former, of which
we have knowledge through our organs of perception and the faculty of
our understanding. The noumenal world is the ideal realm, the realm of
the Absolute, which cannot be known through the senses or understanding
and of which we can have no direct experience. It can be accessed only
through the exercise of pure reason. As moral beings, we participate in the
noumenal realm by virtue of our ability to act upon the moral law within
us. Freedom for Kant is to obey the moral law. The Kantian dualism
is adopted by Schiller in all his major aesthetic writings, but he tends to
interpret it experientially as the conflict between the pull of earthly, material existence and the claims of the ideal realm, which includes the moral
law. What is for Kant a set of necessary distinctions to make the investigation
of knowledge possible becomes for Schiller a dualism symptomatic of the
problem of the human condition. At the same time, Schiller always felt a
strong pull from theories of human wholeness, where human beings are
not caught in a battle between two realms but can rediscover harmony of
thought and feeling. The challenge facing him in his major aesthetic writings was that of adapting Kants system to accommodate the possibility of
harmony between the material and intelligible worlds, though arguably he
was setting himself an impossible task.
Schillers starting point in his study of Kant was the third and last of
his three great critiques, the Critique of Judgment (1790). Kant separated
the aesthetic response from the good and the agreeable and thus guaranteed it its own autonomous realm. While recognizing that judgments of
taste are subjective, Kant asked whether our judgments on the beautiful
and the sublime have more than empirical and subjective validity. He came
to the conclusion that it is in the nature of these judgments to claim
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LESLEY SHARPE
universal assent. He described our response to the beautiful as interesseloses Wohlgefallen (disinterested pleasure), thus pointing to the independence of aesthetic pleasure from moral judgment, which for Kant
cannot be disinterested. Schiller was not concerned with a transcendental
theory of the possibility of knowledge but with the place of art as an
expression of full humanity. He took up Kants suggestion that art is a symbol of the moral (Critique of Judgment, 59) by trying to find in art an
expression of autonomy, an analogy between the autonomy of art and the
autonomy of the moral individual, so that in this way the qualities of
beauty and morality could be linked. For if beauty is in some way a symbol
of the nature and possibility of moral self-determination, then the fundamental importance of beauty and art to humanity is established, yet in such
a way that it is not made subordinate to the moral. Schiller held firmly to
the view that art has no direct moral purpose. As he says in the twenty-first
Letter, die Schnheit gibt schlechterdings kein einzelnes Resultat weder
fr den Verstand noch fr den Willen.5 But art, if it is to be a vital human
activity, must be capable of touching our moral lives through its restorative
and integrating effect.
Kant was by no means the only philosophical influence on the sthetische
Briefe, but he was surely the single most important one. Indeed, Schillers
usual eclecticism is conspicuous in the work: among other prominent
influences one should name Rousseau, Fichte, Shaftesbury, Karl Philipp
Moritz, Goethe, Herder, and Karl Leonhard Reinhold, a Jena philosopher
and colleague of Schillers whose extensions of Kantian thought modified
Schillers reception of Kant.
151
Generation, die ihn nicht wert war und und weder zu wrdigen noch zu
benutzen wute (Letter of July 13, 1793; 8:501). Where the Enlightenment had failed was not in the education of the mind and in the increase of
knowledge but in the cultivation of the heart, of sensibility. The way to the
head must be opened through the heart, Schiller argued. Only then can a
people be in a position to choose aright and create and carry through a
state based on reason and moral action.
By comparison with his first attempt at his subject in the Augustenburg letters, Schillers allusions to contemporary events in the sthetische
Briefe are guarded. This may be because he did not want his ideal of art to
seem pass as soon as events in France were no longer of consuming interest. It may also be that he did not want to contradict his own stated policy
as editor of Die Horen (The Horae, 179597), the journal in which the
work originally appeared in three installments, namely that of banning
from the journal material bearing directly on contemporary political developments. In establishing the Horen project, Schiller aimed, with characteristic idealism, to bring readers and contributors together in an enterprise
that would rise above sectional interests. Part of the fascination of the
sthetische Briefe lies in the fact that Schiller gives a non-political answer to
a burning political question how is reform of the state possible? and
does so on the strength of acute political analysis. Indeed the answer he
gives to the question carries weight only because it rests on such a perceptive account of contemporary political culture.
But it is clear that if the French Revolution had not crystallized the
problem of political culture and the possibility of change, Schillers analysis
of the age would have been just as valid and impressive. The speculative
historical scheme (used, for example, by Rousseau and Kant) of postulating
a primal state of unity followed by a state of dividedness the inevitable
result of the increased specialization and sophistication of society that
will in turn be overcome in a third and final stage is adopted and adapted
by Schiller: Die Kultur selbst war es, welche der neueren Menschheit
diese Wunde schlug (8:572).6 But in contrast to Rousseau, Schiller does
not speculate on humanitys presocial condition. Rather, he presents a view
of early human society that is reminiscent of Hobbess, in which human
beings struggle for existence amid coercion. The state provides some kind
of framework in which society can exist, a society in which through
increased specialization human beings play an increasingly limited and
fragmented role and in which the balance of their development is lost. The
contrast Schiller draws is not that between man in a state of nature and
civilized man but that of contemporary human beings and the ancient
Athenians. For Schiller the ancient world at its height still allowed the
development of the balanced individual. Although the advance of civilization has inflicted wounds on society and on the individual, the role of art is
to help heal those wounds and make possible a renewal of the social and
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LESLEY SHARPE
political order. Unlike Kant he does not see the way forward in the practice
of reason alone. For what he sees around him is not unreason, not an
inability on the part of sophisticated human beings to see the right but an
inability or unwillingness to act in accordance with it. The quotation from
Rousseaus novel Julie ou La nouvelle Helose (Julie or The New Heloise)
that served as a motto for the first publication of the treatise is thus apt: Si
cest la raison qui fait lhomme, cest le sentiment qui le conduit. Schiller
then analyzes the problem as how to open up a way to the heart among
those whose reason has been overdeveloped but in limited directions.
Thus, the proper cultivation of feeling is the pressing task of the age.
It is only by showing an intense consciousness of the problems of the
age that Schiller feels he can gain credence for his fascinating and provocative claim in Letter 2 that it is only through beauty that man makes his way
to freedom. Though the claims of beauty may be far from modern peoples
interests and priorities, they are not far from their actual needs, namely the
cultivation of the heart. The problem facing modern societies is how to
progress from the Naturstaat, the state based on coercion and subjugation, to the Vernunftstaat, the state governed by the exercise of reason.
Human beings find themselves in a state in which they have surrendered
their individual liberty and have to accept the dominance of force. How
can human beings transform this kind of state, with which they are bound
to be dissatisfied, into a state based on reason and reasons laws, a state that
can lay claim to the assent of its citizens? For human beings must continue
to exist in any period of change. The state cannot just be dispensed with,
rather it must be transformed while safeguarding something of the life of
its citizens: das lebendige Uhrwerk des Staats muss gebessert werden,
indem es schlgt (8:563). What is needed is a support to mans moral
character to help change be possible, to smooth the transition and serve as
a sinnlicher Pfand der unsichtbaren Sittlichkeit (8:563/14). No change
can rest on the state doing violence to the individual. What is called for is a
refinement, an ennoblement of the human being. If human beings can act
with their sense of morality in harmony with their desires and instincts,
then there will be a basis on which change in the political sphere can be
possible and sustained. Schiller sees beauty as the cure for both fatal tendencies of the age: savagery and lethargy. The former is the hallmark of the
masses (so frighteningly manifest to observers of the French Revolution),
the latter of the privileged classes, who have enjoyed enlightenment of the
mind, only to reject its moral claims and slide into egotism.
This analysis of the ills of modern humanity applies, Schiller admits,
not only to the present age but to any people caught in the process of civilization. His account of the division of labor and the negative effects of
specialization has become the locus classicus in the history of the idea
of alienation, even though his thoughts are not original but a skillful
rhetorical compilation of the commonplaces of the time.7 This portrait of
153
the ages overspecialization is set in contrast to the ideal of the Greek polis,
where the individual citizen was identified with the state, in which he (and
Schiller means he and not she) could still function with all his faculties.
He makes use here of the idealized image of Greece propounded by the
art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (171768) and sustained, for
example, by Goethe and Wilhelm von Humboldt. In fact, Schiller felt
much less affinity with ancient Greece than did those three, but the idealizing of Greece as a contrast to the present age fulfills an important rhetorical function in his argument as a cultural touchstone.
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155
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relationship with Kant is most evident.13 Here we need to look back briefly
over the earlier stages of this journey. Beginning with Schillers earlier
approach to a definition of beauty, he tries to adapt Kant and transcend
him at the same time. In the Kallias letters, his first attempt to find an
objective standard of beauty, he postulates that beauty is Freiheit in der
Erscheinung, meaning that the beautiful is the sensuous manifestation of
autonomy in the beautiful object, or, in Kants terms, beauty is some kind
of manifestation of practical reason. He was unable, however, to take this
argument to a satisfactory conclusion and the work Kallias was never written. The next stage in Schillers struggle for a definition of the beautiful
and perhaps more revealing for the sthetische Briefe is his famous treatise
ber Anmut und Wrde (On Grace and Dignity, 1793). There Schiller,
still inspired by Kants suggestion that the beautiful is a symbol of the
moral, again wants to find a relationship between moral and aesthetic
autonomy. Grace is defined as the sensuous representation of the perfect
fusion of nature and reason, which manifests itself in moral and aesthetic
harmony. In postulating this possibility, Schiller is identifying and attempting to overcome a problem in Kant, namely the fact that Kant excludes
from the scope of the moral any action inspired by nature or inclination.
Schiller would like to allow for the possibility that nature and morality may
act in concert, which, he suggests, must surely be the human ideal. The
culmination of grace is the beautiful soul, in whom moral conduct has
become second nature. Dignity, by contrast, is the product of a moral conflict, where the moral will has to be exerted and autonomy shown by conformity to the moral law. The aesthetic counterpart to dignity is the
sublime, the imaginative transcendence of nature by reason. To capture the
possibility of moral habituation and moral transcendence in a single person, Schiller postulates that a fusion of grace and dignity is necessary if full
humanity is to be expressed both morally and aesthetically. This proposition, however, is a logical impossibility within the categories Schiller has
employed, for each model of behavior grace and dignity excludes the
other. Thus, from a logical point of view, the treatise falls apart.14 Why
does Schiller jeopardize his argument in this way? The answer bears
directly on the sthetische Briefe.
The fact that Schiller tried to combine two mutually exclusive models of behavior is indicative of a tension in his thinking that is widely
evident throughout his career: the desire to postulate the possibility of
harmony, of some kind of marriage of sense and spirit, and the urge to
assert the supremacy of the intellect, the will, and the moral over the natural in human beings.15 The former urge issues in his theories of beauty,
which are based on the faith that some kind of interpenetration of the
two sides of humanitys nature is possible and that life can be lived with
some kind of wholeness of being. This longing for wholeness, so characteristic of Europe on the brink of Romanticism, is expressed with great
157
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LESLEY SHARPE
Willoughby say:
Of the conflicts involved in such transcendence of nature by Freedom, of
the resultant Dignity and Sublimity, Schiller treated elsewhere in his theoretical works [. . .] For his whole aim in this treatise is to teach, not the
transcendence of one of our natures by the other, but precisely the reconciliation of the two. (311)
159
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LESLEY SHARPE
161
Semblance
One of the major paradoxes of a treatise full of intentional paradoxes is that
although the aesthetic is a means of education, the work of art has no purpose whatever. Indeed, it is its essence to be without purpose and only if
this cardinal rule is adhered to can the educative effects in Schillers sense
flow from the aesthetic experience attached to it. For aesthetic contemplation, the one step backwards essential to the liberating potential of aesthetic experience, depends on the paradoxical nature of art as a kind of
honest deception or illusion, a phenomenon summed up in Schillers use
of the word Schein. It is an illusion in that the artist has created something
that appears to be real and to have its own autonomy, to be its own world,
yet at the same time as we enter imaginatively into this world we are aware
of the fact that it has no substance.
The notion of Schein is linked to the importance Schiller attaches to
what he calls form:
In einem wahrhaft schnen Kunstwerk soll der Inhalt nichts, die Form
aber alles tun; denn durch die Form allein wird auf das Ganze des Menschen, durch den Inhalt hingegen nur auf einzelne Krfte gewirkt [. . .]
Darin also besteht das eigentliche Kunstgeheimnis des Meisters, da er
den Stoff durch die Form vertilgt (8:641)
By form Schiller means the artistic shaping of the material such that
it is the vehicle for a response to the world, a sense of how the world is
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163
untroubled by the speculations that reason puts into the minds of men. On
the other hand, women are presented as the touchstone for humanity.
Their grace and naturalness are a necessary corrective to mens aggression
and self-destructive restlessness.
Poems such as Wrde der Frauen may seem innocent enough relics
of past attitudes until we link them to Schillers theoretical writings, in
which there is a strong tendency to combine aesthetic and gender categories. In ber Anmut und Wrde, for example, the notion of grace, in
particular its supreme expression, the Beautiful Soul, is essentially feminine. The expression of dignity, which is cognate with the sublime, is
linked to the masculine. In ber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung,
Schiller associates women with a more natural state of being, now lost, and
thus with the nave in its broader sense.22 This kind of speculative historical framework raises the question of how women can develop. If they
are trapped in a perpetual childhood and innocence, how can they participate in the arduous journey towards the goal of humanity, namely to
regain something of natures lost harmony while combining it with the
benefits of reason and civilization (Bovenschen 16481)? And if they cannot make that journey, how can they participate in a higher humanity that,
according to Schiller, is the goal of all humanitys striving?
These treatments of women elsewhere in Schillers work alert us to the
fact that we cannot take for granted the inclusion of women in his scheme
of aesthetic education. When one looks at the portrait of the artist in
Letter 9 one finds an exclusively male portrait. The artist is terrible like
Agamemnons son. He has to be independent of his age and environment. It is clear that no woman writer would easily fit into such a pattern,
womens lot being to live in a state of dependence and the woman writers
lot being to exercise her talent in circumscribed ways and in a narrow range
of genres. It is hardly imaginable that she could be the prophet figure
captured in this passage.
Yet when one reads the essay more closely, more promising vistas
open. Schiller, as observed above, adopts a Hobbesian view of humanitys
past history. The natural state, which precedes the state of reason, is presented as a struggle for existence and Schiller projects his longing for an
idealized state of natural harmony onto Ancient Greece. So women in this
treatise are not explicitly associated with Rousseauian nature and thus their
ability to participate in aesthetic education is not predetermined by the
gender assumptions of the Rousseauian model, as it is in ber naive und
sentimentalische Dichtung.
The most prominent female figure in the treatise is the Juno Ludovisi.
For his one and only illustration of ideal beauty, Schiller chooses the female
goddess who combines grace and dignity, the beautiful and the sublime,
and one might add by implication the feminine and the masculine. By
attributing to the image the aesthetic qualities associated with the masculine
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LESLEY SHARPE
and the feminine, one might argue that Schillers vision of ideal beauty transcends gender itself. In anticipating a reconciliation of opposites, it points
the way to liberation from the confines of gender divisions. Schiller is much
more reticent about gendering aesthetic categories in this treatise than in,
for example, ber Anmut und Wrde, and this may be because he fears that
any consistent gendering will simply give him too many elements to integrate into his argument. The result is that his vision of ideal beauty, probably contrary to any conscious intention on his part, looks beyond gender
and gives an intimation even of the fluidity of gender itself.23
Notes
1
For a full account of the works impact in a wider context, see Wilkinson and
Willoughby, cxxxiiicxcvi. For a full survey of critical reception up to the mid1990s, see my Schillers Aesthetic Essays. For the purpose of this contribution I
restricted my references to critical pieces I found particularly relevant to my argument, characteristic of different scholarly views, and illuminating for those
approaching the work for the first time.
2
Later published in slightly revised form under the title Die Schaubhne als eine
moralische Anstalt betrachtet in the fourth part of Schillers Kleinere prosaische
Schriften (Leipzig: Crusius, 1802).
3
Schiller wrote the first part of this work in 178788, and it was published in
1788. The complete work was published in 1801.
165
The original letters were destroyed by fire at the Christiansborg Palace, Copenhagen, in 1794. Copies of some survived. These are Schillers letters to his patron
dated February 9, July 13, November 11 and 21, and December 3 of 1793, and
an undated letter of December 1793. In the letters Schiller discusses the political
and philosophical context of his theme and introduces several concepts central
to the final work such as Verwilderung, Erschlaffung, Veredelung, and sthetische
Kultur.
References to Schillers works in this essay are to volume and page number in
the Frankfurter Ausgabe, Werke und Briefe in zwlf Bnden, edited by Klaus Harro
Hilzinger, et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1988). Here:
8:636.
These commonplaces are ably analyzed by Victoria Rippere, who challenges the
uncritical assumption that Schiller was the father of the concept of alienation.
8
See the appendix to Goethes letter to Schiller of August 30, 1794, In wiefern
die Idee: Schnheit sei Vollkommenheit mit Freiheit, auf organische Naturen
angewendet werden knne.
10
The contradiction between theory and practice here has been explored recently
by Woodmansee.
11
Wilhelm von Humboldt in his Horen essay ber mnnliche und weibliche Form
also discusses the Juno Ludovisi in terms that indicate the close discussions the two
men conducted during Humboldts stay in Weimar in 1794. But Humboldts use
of many examples and concern with male and female characteristics leads to an
attenuation of his argument and a reinforcement of gender stereotypes.
13
See in particular Schaper, Heinrich, and Janke. Both of Schapers essays are more
critical of Schillers use of Kantian terminology than Heinrich or Janke. From a different perspective, Eagleton explores Schillers adaptation of Kant as a way of
responding to the emergent bourgeoisies ideological needs.
14
15
16
17
18
I am greatly indebted to Sabine Rhr for sharing her ideas with me on the influence of Reinhold and for her generosity in sending me the manuscript of two
unpublished articles, Zum Einflu K. L. Reinholds auf Schillers Kant-Rezeption
166
LESLEY SHARPE
This possibility of free choice was also important to his theory of tragedy. In
ber das Pathetische he insists that in tragedy we are not concerned as spectators to
satisfy the demands of our reason that the characters do what is right but, rather,
the demands of our imagination that the characters could choose the right if they
wanted to, in other words, with their freedom of choice, however that is exercised.
Here, too, Schiller wishes to argue for the potential released by the aesthetic condition and this demands a view of human freedom and of the will that grants choice
in a way that Kants system did not.
20
This was a common view in criticism in the German Democratic Republic; see, for
example, Trger. See Burger for a discussion of the courtly ideal in the aesthetic state.
Ueding recognizes this aspect but sees it as combined with a progressive vision.
21
Barnouw (1982) and Chytry are examples of this view, the latter reading
Schillers text from a rather one-sidedly liberal perspective.
22
Schiller also gives the term his own specialized poetological meaning: the nave
poet enjoys singleness of vision, which contrasts with the sentimental poets
divided consciousness.
23
Works Cited
Alt, Peter-Andr. Schiller: Leben Werk Zeit. 2 vols. Munich: Beck, 2000.
Barnouw, Jeffrey. Freiheit zu geben durch Freiheit: sthetischer Zustand
sthetischer Staat. In Friedrich Schiller: Kunst, Humanitt und Politik in
der spten Aufklrung: Ein Symposium, ed. Wolfgang Wittkowski, 13863.
Tbingen: Niemeyer, 1982.
. The Morality of the Sublime: Kant and Schiller. Studies in Romanticism 19 (1980): 497514.
Behler, Constantin. Nostalgic Teleology: Friedrich Schiller and the Schemata of
Aesthetic Humanism. Bern: Lang, 1995.
Berger, Peter L. A Rumour of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the
Supernatural. London: Allan Lane, 1970.
Bovenschen, Silvia. Die imaginierte Weiblichkeit: Exemplarische Prsentationsformen des Weiblichen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1979.
Burger, Heinz Otto. Europisches Adelsideal und Deutsche Klassik. In Burger,
Dasein heit auch eine Rolle spielen: Studien zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte,
21132. Munich: Hanser, 1963.
Calder, William M. Schiller on the Will and on the Heroic Villain. Oxford
German Studies 2 (1967): 4154.
Chytry, Josef. The Aesthetic State: A Quest in Modern German Thought. Berkeley:
U of California P, 1989.
167
Eagleton, Terry. The Ideology of the Aesthetic. Oxford and Cambridge, MA:
Blackwell, 1990.
Gadamer, Hans-Georg. Wahrheit und Methode: Grundstze einer philosophischen Hermeneutik. Tbingen: Mohr, 1962.
Hamburger, Kthe. Schillers Fragment Der Menschenfeind und die Idee
der Kalokagathie. Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift 30 (1956): 367400.
Henrich, Dieter. Der Begriff der Schnheit in Schillers sthetik. Zeitschrift
fr philosophische Forschung 11 (1957): 52747. Translated as Beauty and
Freedom. Schillers Struggle with Kants Aesthetics. In Essays on Kants
Aesthetics, ed. Ted Cohen and Paul Guyer. Chicago and London: U of
Chicago P, 1982.
Janke, Wolfgang. Historische Dialektik: Destruktion dialektischer Grundformen
von Kant bis Marx. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1977.
Langer, Suzanne K. Feeling and Form: A Theory of Art Developed from Philosophy in a New Key. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953.
Pugh, David V. Dialectic of Love: Platonism in Schillers Aesthetics. Montreal:
McGill-Queens UP, 1996.
Rippere, Victoria. Schiller and Alienation: A Problem in the Transmission of
His Thought. Bern: Lang, 1981.
Schaper, Eva. Friedrich Schiller: Adventures of a Kantian. British Journal of
Aesthetics 4 (1964): 43862.
. Schillers Kant: A Chapter in the History of a Creative Misunderstanding. In Studies in Kants Aesthetics, 99115. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
UP, 1979.
Sharpe, Lesley. Schillers Aesthetic Essays: Two Centuries of Criticism. Columbia,
SC: Camden House, 1995.
Trger, Claus. Schiller als Theoretiker des bergangs vom Ideal zur Wirklichkeit. Sinn und Form 11 (1959): 54676.
Ueding, Gerd. Schillers Rhetorik: Idealistische Wirkungssthetik und
rhetorischen Tradition. Tbingen: Niemeyer, 1971.
Wilkinson, E. M. Schillers Concept of Schein in the Light of Recent Aesthetics. German Quarterly 28 (1955): 21927.
Wilkinson, E. M., and L. A. Willoughby, eds. Friedrich Schiller: On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1967.
Woodmansee, Martha. The Author, Art, and the Market: Rereading the History
of Aesthetics. New York: Columbia UP, 1994.
Zelle, Carsten. Die doppelte sthetik der Moderne: Revisionen des Schnen von
Boileau bis Nietzsche. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1995.
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For the next two years, Schiller strove to gain the requisite historical
knowledge to meet his own expectations of a universal historian. His historical papers from this time up to the writing of Geschichte des Dreiigjhrigen Krieges (History of the Thirty Years War, 179193) are only partially
philosophical and speculative in nature. The choice and composition of the
source material although carried out independently does not carry
him much beyond the work of a traditional historian.
Schiller, the philosophically ambitious historian, neglected poetry for a
while, but he never lost sight of it. By 1790 he most likely realized what he
would acknowledge eight years later while working on Wallenstein: Ich
werde es mir gesagt seyn laen, keine andre als historische Stoffe zu
whlen, frey erfundene wrden meine Klippe sein (letter to Goethe,
January 5, 1798). But coming from the solid ground of historical facts, it was
still a long journey to the realm of poetry. Between these two areas of activity lay philosophy. The end of the epoch of Schiller the historian came in
1791 and 1792, and as a philosopher he was not quite successful in influencing the writing of history. Conquering the terrain of philosophy was a
higher priority for him. His intensive study of Kants ideas pushed him to
the edge of experience. Speculations about the conditions that allow the
very possibility of knowledge led him to inquire unpretentiously into the
essence of the beautiful, that is, into a theoretically determinable legitimacy
that would collide neither with the claim of autonomy in art nor with his
intentions for its reception. In rapid succession, Schiller published a wide
range of aesthetic papers, including, ber Anmut und Wrde (On Grace
and Dignity, 1793), ber die sthetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer
Reihe von Briefen (On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters, 1795), and ber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (On Nave and
Sentimental Poetry, 1795). Providing a philosophical foundation for the
beautiful on the basis of historical experience and knowledge, these writings were to bring the poet back to himself. Again, Schiller dared to enter
the field of poetry.
The fact that history remained important to Schiller is evident from
the many dramas of his classical period. Additionally, a number of his
poems from this period stem from historical sources. Tradition served
only as a storeroom that stimulated his imagination. Occasionally he
considered it necessary to draw attention to the surplus of poetical truth
over historical truth. For example, he expressed this idea in his essay
ber das Pathetische (On the Pathetic, 1793). It was an idea that
Aristotle had taken up in his Poetics, namely, that the aesthetic effect is
produced not by historical, but by poetic truth. The precedence of the
poetic over the historic becomes even more apparent in the essay ber
die tragische Kunst (On Tragic Art, 1792): [Es] lt sich begreifen, wie
bey strenger Beobachtung der historischen Wahrheit nicht selten die
poetische leiden, und umgekehrt bey grober Verletzung der historischen
171
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NORBERT OELLERS
173
essay Zerstreute Betrachtungen ber verschiedene sthetische Gegenstnde (Scattered Remarks on Different Aesthetic Objects, 1793): . . . ob es gleich nur
durch seine Beziehung auf sinnlich-vernnftige Wesen Existenz erhlt, so ist
es [das Schne] doch von allen empirischen Bestimmungen der Sinnlichkeit
unabhngig, und es bleibt dasselbe, auch wenn sich die Privatbeschaffenheit
der Subjecte verndert (20:22324).
In what follows, the most important poems by Schiller that originated
in the period from June until September 1795 will be sketched with an eye
toward their philosophical qualities and in view of their rootedness in the
historical materials and to their historical greatness, including that of the
author. Here the historical refers not only to the use of transmitted historical sources but also to the interpretation of history, as is consistent with
Schillers perception of a universal history properly understood. Mythology is also seen as part of the basis of historical narration.
When Schiller, inspired by metaphysics, chose the topic and material of
the dance for his first significant poem following his break from writing
poetry, Der Tanz, he did not shy away from saying what he felt to be
important about this form of art, which he now brought into close conjunction with music; the how, that is, the structure and metrical format,
was no longer a problem for him. At the same time that the poem was
being written, the last of his letters ber die sthetische Erziehung des Menschen appeared in Die Horen. There he wrote that it is inopportune to want
to think reasonably immediately following the enjoyment of the lively
sensations of delightful music. For . . . auch die geistreichste Musik
[steht] durch ihre Materie noch immer in einer grern Affinitt zu den
Sinnen . . ., als die wahre sthetische Freyheit dultet . . . (20:381). The
first version of Der Tanz reads as follows:
Sieh, wie sie durcheinander in khnen Schlangen sich winden,
Wie mit geflgeltem Schritt schweben auf schlpfrigem Plan.
Seh ich flchtige Schatten von ihren Leibern geschieden?
Ist es Elysiums Hain, der den Erstaunten umf ngt?
Wie, vom Zephyr gewiegt, der leichte Rauch durch die Luft schwimmt,
Wie sich leise der Kahn schaukelt auf silberner Flut,
Hpft der gelehrige Fu auf des Takts melodischen Wellen,
Suselndes Saitengetn hebt den therischen Leib.
Keinen drngend, von keinem gedrngt, mit besonnener Eile,
Schlpft ein liebliches Paar dort durch des Tanzes Gewhl.
Vor ihm her entsteht seine Bahn, die hinter ihm schwindet,
Leis wie durch magische Hand fnet und schliet sich der Weg.
Sieh! jetzt verliert es der suchende Blick. Verwirrt durcheinander
Strzt der zierliche Bau dieser beweglichen Welt.
Nein, dort schwebt es frohlockend herauf. Der Knoten entwirrt sich,
Nur mit verndertem Reiz stellt sich die Ordnung mir dar.
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NORBERT OELLERS
175
176
NORBERT OELLERS
(l. 33) on deserving humankind. Den hohen Gttern ist er eigen (l. 35)
signifies that the stranger has arrived in secure arms of nature (l. 49).
Clearly, in its ideal creation poetry can be especially powerful.
Die Macht des Gesanges corresponds with ideas expressed in ber
das Erhabene (On the Sublime, ca. 1793).5 The poem depicts two geniuses
who guide the human being gently through life. One leads the individual
to the knowledge of truth and the exercise of duty, while the other carries
him over staggering depths and sets him free: . . . wir fhlen uns frey
beym Erhabenen, weil die sinnlichen Triebe auf die Gesetzgebung der Vernunft keinen Einflu haben, weil der Geist hier handelt, als ob er unter
keinen andern als seinen eigenen Gesetzen stnde (ber das Erhabene,
21:42). Meanwhile, the return of the individual to nature implies that art
has succeeded at attaining ideal beauty, into which the sublime must also
be absorbed.6
Among the works that Schiller produced for his Musenalmanach is the
poem Die Ideale, which probably originated in the first half of August
1795. The poem is of some interest here. It consists of thirteen stanzas
with eight verses each, in four-foot iambic and alternate rhyme with alternating feminine and masculine cadences. Hence, in its form, and therefore
in its immediate effect, it is similar to Die Macht der Poesie. The poet
philosophizes less here than in preceding and subsequent poems. The lyrical I recognizes the loss of everything that once belonged to that golden
time (goldne Zeit, l. 6) of his life and the path of youth (Jugend Pfad,
l. 10) and is now eager to recall the past. Peering into the future, the lyrical I sums up life up to that point and discovers that it is not without its
delightful perspectives. Life remains the quiet, tender hand of friendship
(Der Freundschaft leise zarte Hand, l. 94). It is an activity that is inexhaustible (Beschftigung, die nie ermattet, l. 99). Goethe was especially
fond of the poem, as Schiller informed Humboldt in a letter of September
7, 1795. In the same letter, the poet describes it as eine Stimme des
Schmerzens, der kunstlos und vergleichsweise auch formlos ist. . . . The
poem reads:
So willst du treulos von mir scheiden,
Mit deinen holden Phantasien,
Mit deinen Schmerzen, deinen Freuden,
Mit allen unerbittlich fliehn?
Kann nichts dich, Fliehende! Ferweilen,
O! meines Lebens goldne Zeit?
Vergebens, deine Wellen eilen
Hinab ins Meer der Ewigkeit.
Erloschen sind die heitern Sonnen,
Die meiner Jugend Pfad erhellt,
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NORBERT OELLERS
179
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It was less with poems for the Musenalmanach than with those for Die
Horen that Schiller contributed to that miraculous building that was
determined to exist for all eternity. The first of these poems was Das
Reich der Schatten. It originated in July and August 1795 and was published the following month. Since the title led to misunderstandings
among its readers, the poet changed it to Das Reich der Formen in 1800
on the occasion of the publication of the modified version of the poem.
Eventually, in 1804, he changed the title to Das Ideal und das Leben. It
thus became clear that the poem described the contrast between historical
reality and the insufficient title Reich der Schatten certainly foreshadows the problem the anticipated ideal of the perfect harmony of all living creatures human beings, god, nature at the end of history. This
was celebrated in the idyll, that highest form of art.
Das Reich der Schatten deals poetically with a resolution of this contrast, which is the subject of Schillers later essay, ber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung. At first, Schiller was satisfied with the poem. Ich gnne
es dem Almanach nicht, he wrote to Cotta on August 9, 1795 and the
same day to Wilhelm von Humboldt: Htte ich nicht den sauren Weg
durch meine Aesthetik geendigt, so wrde dieses Gedicht nimmermehr zu
der Klarheit und Leichtigkeit in einer so difficilen Materie gelangt seyn, die
es wirklich hat. When developing his aesthetics, specifically in ber naive
und sentimentalische Dichtung, Schiller was convinced that it was this poem
that had first established a platform for something even greater to come.8
The poem begins with the evocation of the life of the Olympian gods
that flows Ewig klar und spiegelrein und eben (l. 1). In juxtaposition to
this, Schiller portrayed the destiny of the mortal individual as follows: Zwischen
Sinnenglck und Seelenfrieden / Bleibt dem Menschen nur die bange Wahl
(ll. 78). The seventeen stanzas that follow deal mainly with the question of
if (and how) it was possible that out of the limitations of the senses paths
emerge that lead upward to the infinite (aus der Sinne Schranken fhren /
Pfade aufwrts zur Unendlichkeit, ll. 1718). Over and above that, Schiller
contemplates a related and seemingly more realistic question: an imaginable
happiness already in this world (in des Todes Reichen, l. 21). For that,
courage is required to free oneself from the anxiety of the earthly domain
(Angst des Irrdischen, l. 38) and to succumb entirely to beauty (l. 40).
Only in this realm will the appearance of eternal bliss free the human being
from all duties (von allen Pf lichten, l. 54) and enable him to recognize the
godlike image of humanity (der Menschheit Gtterbild, l. 63).
181
The antitheses that are negotiated in this poem the ideal and life,
this world and the beyond, beauty that triumphs and a deed that fails
are continued in eight more stanzas (916). They begin by alternating
wenn and aber and are framed into poetic images with ever-intensifying gravity. The human being may fight, but the quiet shadow lands of
beauty (der Schnheit stille Schattenlande, l. 94) are not achievable
through struggling; the human being may strive to discover the truth
through philosophy, but he will still be removed from the sphere of
beauty (der Schnheit Sphre, l. 111); the human being may follow
the principles of morality, but he will not gain freedom of thought
(die Freyheit der Gedanken, l. 132). Nehmt die Gottheit auf in euren
Willen, / Und sie steigt von ihrem Weltenthron, ll. 134359). Finally,
the human being may rebel against pain, but he will only find redemption
from agony in den heitern Regionen / Wo die Schatten selig wohnen
(ll. 15152).
Schillers philosophy of beauty that leads to bliss is summed up in the
last two stanzas. The writer recalls the heroic deeds of the mortal, and to
be sure, also divine, Hercules and his crossing to Olympus, where Hebe,
the goddess with the rose cheeks, praises the transfigured (Verklrten)
with a goblet (ll. 17880). The construction seems to be somewhat daring,
for Hercules, son of Jupiter and Alcmene, is not just any human being but
a demigod who is capable of exceptional deeds. Moreover, because of his
ancestry, he is predestined for the joys in Kronions Saal (l. 178). The
poem revolves several times around the following question: How can the
human being partake of the divine already in this world? The answers that
the poet gives (the inability to take from death what belongs to it [compare ll. 2123] and, following that, the flight into beauty that helps to
overcome everything mortal) are postulates of practical reason that employ
Herculess fate as an allegory that indicates the path and goal of the one
who is searching for the only conceivable happiness in the shadow realm of
beauty, that is, pure forms. Schiller describes the sea of poesy from the
solid ground of philosophy as if only good will were needed to make the
sea a home. Self-evidently, the attainment of this goal means that Pilates
question, What is truth? has been resolved.
In his poem Das verschleierte Bild zu Sais, composed in mid-August
1795 for Die Horen, Schiller shifted his view from Olympus to earth. It
sets to verse that which had been told over and over again in the myth of
the temple of Isis. The sanctum of the temple contained a holy chest that
mortals were not allowed to open. Schiller had already retold this myth in
1789 in his lecture Die Sendung Moses (Moses Calling). There, he
mentioned the fate of an unfortunate individual who had disregarded the
law and gone mad. In the poem and following the encounter of Moses
with God, in which God disguises himself in a cloud, the goddess Isis
presents herself to an inquisitive young man as a veiled image of huge
182
NORBERT OELLERS
183
184
NORBERT OELLERS
185
It would be tedious to go through the poem in detail with its 108 distichs and 216 verses; it has been studied in depth by numerous scholars.13
Here we note Schillers successful effort to move both on the shore and
beyond it, that is, to move on the solid ground of his philosophy of history
as well as on the seemingly uncertain surface of the sea of beauty, as ascertained philosophically.
The beautiful is nature, that Berg mit dem rttlich strahlenden
Gipfel (l. 1), the forest, the mountains, the meadow; bees, butterflies, and
larks. Despite all historical change, nature remains in a state of ever-changing
beauty (l. 209). As always, for humankind, beauty is imperishable. Unter
demselben Blau, ber dem nehmlichen Grn / Wandeln die nahen und
wandeln vereint die fernen Geschlechter, / Und die Sonne Homers, siehe!
Sie lchelt auch uns (ll. 21416).
Thus, nature becomes an allegory of art and is one with it and general
(allgemein). It is symbolically enlarged as the infinite whose secret the
poet is able to disclose. However, the nave view of nature, whether it is
experienced or invented, does not only shed light on what is harmoniously
delightful but also on the extremes, on the opposites between the eternal
heights and infinite depths (zwischen der ewigen Hh und der ewigen
Tiefe) that face each other (l. 37). This is, so to speak, the sublime, which
is not terrifying, since the wanderer peers, as Schiller wrote in his essay
Vom Erhabenen, von einem hohen und wohlbefestigten Gelnder in
eine groe Tiefe, oder von einer Anhhe auf die strmende See hinab sieht
(20:17980). Yet, it awakens the memory of what is violent in history, from
which die Liebe verschwand (l. 44), in which entbrennen in feurigem
Kampf die eifernden Krfte (l. 77) and where, for humankind, der Natur
zchtiger Grtel zu eng wird (l. 146), that is, in which the world was brutalized. Schillers lament over the course of history appears all the more
moving as he paints pre-historic times with the brightest colors. Even wars
belong to the order of things, here in alliance with beautiful nature. The
poet plants his ideas into the gaps in historical tradition to make history a
system out of the spirit of poesy. In doing so, the poet proves to be the only
true historian, who not only sees how it was, but who also knows what
finally has to be done for the well-being of humanity. Aesthetic education is
necessary, Drum soll der Snger mit dem Knig gehn, as Karl VII sees in
Schillers Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans, 1801; l. 484).
By poeticizing the philosophical and the compellingly nave depiction
of nature in which at least the semblance of being shines forth, Schillers
Elegie is certainly persuasive. Of course, Schiller was denied the fulfillment of his desire to surpass the Elegie with a pure poem (an idyll) in
which the marriage of Hercules with Hebe was to be immersed into nothing other than light.14 The sentimental poet is never the ruler of the sea of
poesy. This knowledge pained Schiller, for he wanted to be as great as his
own creations.
186
NORBERT OELLERS
Schiller himself did not approve of the separation between the shore
of philosophy and the sea of poesy, or, also, of literature which he may
have taken over from Kant. In his poetry of 1795, and even more so in
subsequent poems, he attempted to soften the separation by way of a
flowing transition. He believed that philosophy would develop sufficiently so that eventually it could be pulled out to sea. This idea was not
at all off course. Schelling, for example, endorsed it in his System des transcendentalen Idealismus (System of Transcendental Idealism, 1800), at
the end of which he states that for the philosopher, art was the highest
field of activity, weil sie ihm das Allerheiligste gleichsam ffnet, wo in
ewiger und ursprnglicher Vereinigung gleichsam in Einer Flamme
brennt, was in der Natur und Geschichte gesondert ist, und was im Leben
und Handeln, ebenso wie im Denken, ewig sich fliehen mu (2:628).
Time and again, and as it always has, beauty rises aus dem unendlichen
Meer, as Schiller writes in Das Glck (l. 68). It remains at a distance
from solid ground, and even the shoreline, in order not to be perceived as
being ordinary.
Translated by Steven D. Martinson
Notes
1
All references to Schillers works in this essay are to the following edition: Werke:
Nationalausgabe. Im Auftrage des Goethe- und Schiller-Archivs, des SchillerNationalmuseums und der Deutschen Akademie, edited originally by Julius Petersen
and Hermann Schneider, currently edited by Norbert Oellers (44 vols. to date;
Weimar: Bhlau, 1943), known as the Nationalausgabe. References will appear in
parentheses with volume and page number. Here: 25:154.
2
Schiller had been working on this poem since October 1788. It was finished only
after Wielands active participation in February 1789 and appeared in his Teutscher
Merkur in March 1789.
3
With the reworking of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft in preparation for the second edition of the work (1787), Kant thoroughly revised the chapter Von den
Paralogismen der reinen Vernunft, which is the first Hauptstck of the second
book of the Transzendentale Dialektik. The poets warning about the uferlosen
Ozean was left out in the revised version.
4
Schillers definition of play appears in the Fifteenth Letter of ber die sthetische
Erziehung des Menschen: um es endlich auf einemal herauszusagen, der Mensch
spielt nur, wo er in voller Bedeutung des Worts Mensch ist, und er ist nur da ganz
Mensch, wo er spielt (20:359).
To be sure, the essay did not appear until 1801, but based on its content, it is
most likely that it was written before 1795.
Compare also the epigram Schn und erhaben, which probably originated in
October 1795 and was included in the twelfth Stck of Die Horen for 1795.
187
In the second version of the poem, Schiller left out the stanza that contains this
image.
See Goethes drama Iphigenie auf Tauris, in which Iphigenie ascertains that the
gods speak to us only through our hearts (nur durch unser Herz zu uns
sprechen, l. 494) and whose character determines the projection of humanity.
Der miversteht die Himmlischen, der sie / Blutgierig whnt; er dichtet ihnen
nur / Die eigenen grausamen Begierden an (ll. 52325); and then begs, Rettet
mich / Und rettet euer Bild in meiner Seele! (ll. 171617).
10
See the Twenty-second Letter of ber die sthetische Erziehung des Menschen,
where Schiller writes, Darinn also besteht das eigentliche Kunstgeheimni des
Meisters, da er den Stoff durch die Kunst vertilgt . . . (20:382).
11
12
13
14
Works Cited
Alt, Peter-Andr. Schiller: Leben Werk Wirkung. 2 vols. Munich:
C. H. Beck, 2000.
Golz, Jochen. Nemesis oder die Gewalt der Musik. In Gedichte von Friedrich
Schiller: Interpretationen, ed. Norbert Oellers, 11422. Stuttgart: Reclam,
1998.
Hinderer, Walter. Konzepte einer Sentimentalischen Operation. In Gedichte
von Friedrich Schiller: Interpretationen, ed. Norbert Oellers, 12848.
Stuttgart: Reclam, 1998.
Jeziorkowski, Klaus. Der Textweg. In Gedichte von Friedrich Schiller: Interpretationen, ed. Norbert Oellers, 15778. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1998.
Kant, Immanuel. Werke in 10 Bnden. Ed. Wilhelm Weischedel. 4th facsimile
reprinting. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975.
Oellers, Norbert, ed. Gedichte von Friedrich Schiller: Interpretationen.
Stuttgart: Reclam, 1998.
Riedel, Wolfgang. Der Spaziergang: sthetik der Landschaft und Geschichtsphilosophie der Natur bei Schiller. Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann,
1989.
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph. Schellings Werke, ed. Manfred Schrter.
Munich: C. H. Beck, 1927. Facsimile reprinting, 1965.
Wallenstein
Dieter Borchmeyer
Unter Saturnus geboren und Jupiter
kokettierend, welcher ihm nicht Stich hlt.
Richard Wagner, referring to Schillers
Wallenstein, from an interview with
Cosima on May 24, 1870.
190
DIETER BORCHMEYER
In short, life in general has lost its meaningful, aesthetic public space and
has become abstract and prosaic.
WALLENSTEIN
191
Schiller does not draw the same conclusion from this fact as does Lessing,
namely that the dramatic poet ought to transpose his plot into the interior
of houses as the only space in which concrete humanity can still be found.
Instead, he develops a dramatic conception out of a spirit of aesthetic
contradiction in opposition to the condition of the modern world.
Der Dichter mu die Palste wieder auftun, er mu die Gerichte unter
freiem Himmel herausfhren, er mu die Gtter wieder aufstellen, er
mu alles Unmittelbare, das durch die knstliche Einrichtung des wirklichen Lebens aufgehoben ist, wieder herstellen [. . .]. (5:28687)
It is the chorus that Schiller uses in Die Braut von Messina as the
poetic instrument for the opening up of life in this sense. In ancient
Greek tragedy, the chorus was the natural accompaniment of tragic
actions, because die Handlungen und Schicksale der Helden und
Knige that comprised such actions are schon an sich selbst ffentlich.
But the chorus can no longer be a natural organ in this way for the events
of modern life. It becomes instead an artificial organ that places the
stage in opposition to these events, and thus a lebendige Mauer [. . .],
die die Tragdie um sich herumzieht, um sich vor der wirklichen Welt
rein abzuschlieen (5:285). The introduction of the chorus, to be sure,
remains an experimental exception. This is conceivable only in the synthetic art world of Die Braut von Messina, but not in the modern historical
drama, within which another means of opening up dramatic actions
must be found.
In the prologue to Die Braut von Messina, Schiller bases his judgment
as to a tragedys appropriateness to the public space of the theatrical performance on the tragedys content and its protagonists manner of expression by means of the public space represented by the chorus, the
dramatic figures stand auf einem natrlichen Theater [. . .] und werden
ebendeswegen desto tauglicher, von dem Kunsttheater zu einem Publikum
zu reden (5:290). Likewise, he demonstrates in his dramaturgical treatises, for example, in ber die tragische Kunst (On Tragic Art, 1792), that
the appropriateness of a drama to the public that witnesses its performance
is based on the form of tragic art, which is fundamentally rich in affect and
related to the public on an elemental level.
It is no coincidence that Schiller, together with Goethe, studied and
interpreted Aristotles Poetics during this time of renewed dramatic productivity (1797). These readings confirmed him in his dramaturgical conviction that it is the purpose of tragedy, in contrast to the largely apathetic
structure of the epic, to arouse the spectators emotions, or else to modulate and balance them through the utilization of specifically epic means.
In a letter to Goethe dated December 26, 1797, Schiller described the
affektvolle, unruhige Erwartung, mithin das Gesetz des intensiven und
rastlosen Fortschreitens as the essential characteristic of all tragic art.
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DIETER BORCHMEYER
WALLENSTEIN
193
tragedy. After all, in his treatise ber die tragische Kunst, he had emphasized that tragedy has to accommodate historic truth to its own laws and
psychagogic needs; that is, the tragedian must stylize the historic material
in terms of plot schemata suited to compel the spectators emotions. In
this sense, the Wallenstein material, which, according to Schillers letter to
Krner dated November 28, 1796, is generally unsuited to the tragic
mode, is poetisch organisiert und [. . .] in eine reine tragische Fabel
verwandelt. This is done, for instance, by bringing die Handlung gleich
vom Anfang an in eine solche Przipitation und Neigung, da sie in
stetiger und beschleunigter Bewegung zu ihrem Ende eilt (letter to
Goethe, October 2, 1797) in accordance with the final principle of dramatic art as he developed it together with Goethe earlier that year. One can
cite the following examples for this tragic schematization of the material:
the virtuosic preparation and shaping of a peripeteia (Wallensteins Tod,
act 3, scene 5), which intensifies and heightens the turn of fortunes in
Wallensteins destiny into a cataract of messages of doom, or the clear
affinity of the pathetic scenes at the end of the trilogy with the fall of the
house of Atreus as portrayed by Aeschylus and Euripides.
That this tragically conceived and stylized material represents a poetic
as if order, and not the historical per se, corresponds to the prologues
maxim according to which the work die Tuschung, die sie schafft /
Aufrichtig selbst zerstrt und ihren Schein / Der Wahrheit nicht betrglich
unterschiebt (ll. 135 ff). It was not until later, when in the process of the
reception of Schillers historic drama Schein and Wahrheit became
confused, that the tragic nemesis hypostasized into an objective law of history. But Schiller was convinced that human reason projects laws of this
kind onto history. As early as in his inaugural lecture, Schiller had emphasized that history is only an Aggregat von Bruchstcken elevated by the
historian zu einem vernunftmig zusammenhngendem Ganzen (6:427).
The historian acts in a manner analogous to the poet: after all, according to
Schillers poem Die Knstler (ll. 235 ff.), it is only by way of the tragic
stage that providence entered into the course of history a thought
vividly elucidated at the end of the ballad Die Kraniche des Ibykus, in
which nemesis or vengeance indeed spills over from the stage onto life. In
Wallenstein too, this mythic, symbolic construction of nemesis is derived
from the art form of tragedy and acts effectively as a characteristic of
tragedy, especially by arousing fear in anticipation of the heros impending
catastrophe.
Nemesis belongs in the realm of symbolic devices upon which tragedy
depends. Schiller was convinced that the modern world, which had left the
gods behind, was infertile ground for tragedy; he therefore sought poetic
surrogates for the gods and the numinous signs of ancient tragedy. In the
prologue to Die Braut von Messina it is said that Die Gtter sind in die
Brust des Menschen zurckgekehrt; therefore, the tragic poet must
194
DIETER BORCHMEYER
restore them to life (5:286). Of course Schiller did not believe in visions,
miracles, or prophetic dreams, yet they are legitimized poetically in works
such as Die Jungfrau von Orleans or Die Braut von Messina. (One might
also think of Countess Terzkys prophetic dream before Wallensteins
death.) Schiller was no Voltaire, for whom literary form, including that of
tragedy, served to destroy mythos and legend; rather, he sought to reconstitute the miraculous as aesthetic illusion in Die Jungfrau von Orleans.
And as is well known, he did so in explicit opposition to Voltaires Pucelle
dOrlans.
The astrological motifs in Wallenstein, with which Schiller struggled
for a long time, are of the greatest significance in this connection. Astrology was a Fratze to him (to Goethe, December 4, 1798; to Iffland
December 24, 1798; et al.), with which he dealt reluctantly, even when he
needed it urgently for the sake of historical ambiance to get closer to the
spirit of the age, as he wrote to Goethe in the letter of December 4. (In his
letter dated December 5, 1798, Goethe described the Astrologische
element in Schillers sense as a Teil des historisch, politisch, barbarisch
Temporren and in this connection as a counterpoint to the tragic.)
But this superstitious caricature is to gain poetic dignity through
dramatic treatment, as Schiller writes to Goethe on April 7, 1797. On
October 2 of the same year, Schiller writes to Goethe that this dignity is
derived from its analogy to the numinous apparatus of the classic tragedy,
especially to the form-determining role of the oracle. He admits that it is
difficult to find a replacement aus weniger fabelhaften Zeiten for the
latter: Das Orakel hat einen Anteil an der Tragdie, der schlechterdings
durch nichts andres zu ersetzen ist. As had already been acknowledged by
Schillers sharp-witted contemporary Johann Wilhelm Svern in his book
ber Schillers Wallenstein in Hinsicht auf griechische Tragdie (Concerning
Schillers Wallenstein in View of Greek Tragedy, 1800), the same year in
which the book edition of the Wallenstein trilogy was published, Schiller
had found a substitute for this supernatural element in the astrological
motif of Wallenstein. In the original version of the astrological scene at the
beginning of the third part of the trilogy, Wallenstein speaks of the
Orakeln in the Buch der Sterne. And in fact, the function of the latter
in the symbolic cosmos of Wallenstein closely resembles the intricate role
of the oracle in Sophocles Oedipus the King and in classical mythology
generally. Again and again, there is a dark counter-sense that lies behind
the oracles surface sense, the true tragic meaning behind the apparently
happy meaning.
The ambiguity of the oracle is portrayed by Schiller in the two faces
(Doppelgesichtigkeit) of the planetary alignment, like the apparently contradictory dream Orakeln (they are explicitly referred to by this term) later
in Die Braut von Messina, which in fact has the same content. More than
anything else, it is this verification of the oracle, the dream, or the planetary
WALLENSTEIN
195
alignment that connects Oedipus the King, Wallenstein, and Die Braut von
Messina. The heroes of these dramas are struck by the Schicksalsfluch
even as they think they have escaped it; the happy condition they think they
have achieved is revealed to be the catastrophe they thought they had
averted.
This is the tragic irony that pervades the Wallenstein trilogy down to
the details of the action. It consists precisely in the fact that Wallenstein
believes, on the basis of his horoscope, that he is one of the hellgebornen,
heitern Joviskindern (Piccolomini, l. 985), and that his destiny stands
under the sign of victorious Jupiter whereas in reality it is the defeated
Saturn, and Mars, the other star of misfortune, that represent his destiny.
Astonishingly, Richard Wagner recognized this (thus anticipating the most
recent Schiller research)3 in a conversation with Cosima Wagner on March
24, 1870, in which he reduced the figure of Wallenstein to the following
formula: Unter Saturnus geboren und Jupiter kokettierend, welcher ihm
nicht Stich hlt.
With these words, Wagner refers to the astrological scene at the beginning of the book version of Wallensteins Tod. In this scene, Wallenstein and
his astrologer Seni are observing and interpreting der Planeten Aspekt,
which finally appears to Wallenstein as he hoped it would:
Glckseliger Aspekt! So stellt sich endlich
Die groe Drei verhngnisvoll zusammen
Und beide Segenssterne, Jupiter
Und Venus, nehmen den verderblichen,
Den tckschen Mars in ihre Mitte, zwingen
Den alten Schadenstifter, mir zu dienen.
[. . .]
Jetzt haben sie den alten Feind besiegt,
Und bringen ihn am Himmel mir gefangen.
Seni completes the thought: Und beide groe Lumina [Jupiter und
Venus] von keinem / Malefico beleidigt! Der Saturn / Unschdlich,
machtlos, in cadente domo (Wallensteins Tod, ll. 2224).
Wallensteins assessment of the various planets corresponds exactly
to the astrological norm: Jupiter and Venus are the beneficae stellae,
Saturn and Mars the maleficae. Of course this assessment is connected to
the actual role of the gods of classical mythology, who now have been
transposed to the starry sky above. In the constellation sketched out by
Seni, the maleficae stellae are in a weak position. Wallensteins strategic
vocabulary Jupiter and Venus take Mars in ihre Mitte, they [haben]
den alten Feind besiegt and now bring him gefangen brings the
scenes tragic irony to the fore with exceptional clarity, because the seemingly fortunate aspect, the planetary constellation as read by Wallenstein,
196
DIETER BORCHMEYER
WALLENSTEIN
197
but an act of civil war. He, like his planet Mars, is the dispenser of misfortune, who, within the constellation that he has seen rightly but interpreted
wrongly, has entered into a fateful dilemma from which there is no escape.
198
DIETER BORCHMEYER
WALLENSTEIN
199
200
DIETER BORCHMEYER
Thomas Manns image of Wallenstein is shaped entirely by this stellarischen Doppelnatur des Helden. True, he is inclined to interpret this
double nature as leading to a kind of harmony, in the sense of the two
complementary souls within Wallenstein. The latters self-characterization
as heiteres Joviskind is never really called into doubt by Mann, even if he
corrects it with the reference to the saturnine features in his being.
Wallenstein himself acknowledges none of this saturnine disposition.
As the Germanist Otto Ludwig wrote in 1857/58, In allem ist er das
Gegenteil von dem, fr was er sich hlt (Cited in Heuer/Keller, 48). The
clearest evidence for this is his dialogue with Illo in act 2, scene 6 of Die
Piccolomini. It is not he himself, but rather Illo, whom he characterizes as
a child of Saturn:
Dir stieg der Jupiter
Hinab, bei der Geburt, der helle Gott;
Du kannst in die Geheimnisse nicht schauen.
Nur in der Erde magst du f inster whlen,
Blind, wie der Unterirdische, der mit dem bleichen
Bleifarbnen Schein ins Leben dir geleuchtet.
Das Irdische, Gemeine magst du sehn.
[. . .]
Doch, was geheimnisvollbedeutend webt
Und bildet in den Tiefen der Natur, Die Geisterleiter, die aus dieser Welt des Staubes
Bis in die Sternenwelt, mit tausend Sprossen,
Hinauf sich baut, an der die himmlischen
WALLENSTEIN
201
202
DIETER BORCHMEYER
WALLENSTEIN
203
of the ruler of the Golden Age. Buttler reports that a Schwindelgeist has
seized hold of the entire city: Sie sehn im Herzog einen Friedensfrsten /
Und einen Stifter neuer goldnen Zeit (Wallensteins Tod, ll. 321618). It
is equally clear that this results from the obligation to conform to the
system of the Saturnian image that the people have made from Wallenstein,
and that this image is delusional. It must not be forgotten that Schiller
included, among the Worten des Wahns in his 1799 poem of that title,
the belief in a Goldene Zeit, / Wo das Rechte, das Gute wird siegen, an
unmistakable echo of the Wallenstein trilogy. Line 16 of the poem, Nicht
dem Guten gehrt die Erde, is almost a direct quotation of Wallensteins
maxim Dem bsen Geist gehrt die Erde, nicht dem guten. In the
political realm the most purely Saturnian sphere the good will never
triumph!
This is Schillers own pessimistic belief, to which he gave devastating
dramatic expression within the Wallenstein trilogy in the self-willed death
of the idealist Max Piccolomini, who believed that politics too can and
should follow the laws of pure morality. In the words of the poem Worten
des Wahns, the good man remains a stranger in this world: er wandert
aus / Und suchet ein unvergnglich Haus thus he represents a
counter-world of pure morality and pure aesthetic illusion that remains
separate from the vicious circle of history and politics.
Wallensteins susceptibility to the astrology that he finally abandons is
based on his desire to subject everything to his calculations and not leave
anything to the blind uncertainty of Zufall (Wallensteins Tod, ll.
13637). But wherever his calculation seems most clearly to be vindicated,
it is thwarted. It is precisely Octavio, to whom he believes himself bound
by Sternenfreundschaft, through their common birth date (Wir sind
geboren unter gleichen Sternen, Piccolomini, l. 889), who brings about
his destruction. But here too, the stars do not lie. Wallenstein and Octavio
are really born under the same stars in that both are betrayers: Octavio
betrays Wallenstein, just as Wallenstein betrays the emperor.
Even the historical Wallensteins contemporaries, as well as subsequent
historians, interpreted their common time of birth in this sense. Thus
Schiller could read the following passage in one of his sources, Johann
Christian Herchenhans Geschichte Albrechts von Wallenstein (1790):
In der Nativitt des Piccolomini, sagte Friedland, habe ich bereinstimmung unserer Schutzengel gefunden, seine Konstellation ist genau die
meinige, aus dieser Ursache kann mich der Graf nicht hintergehen. Wallenstein konnte leicht in den Aspekten viele hnlichkeiten finden, beide,
er und Piccolomini waren, nur auf sehr verschiedene Weise, Verrter.
(Cited in Borchmeyer 1988, 116)
But it is precisely this lack of fidelity that is ascribed to Saturn the Saturn
impius (Horace) who devours his children and to those humans under
204
DIETER BORCHMEYER
WALLENSTEIN
205
much we may want to excuse the duke on the basis of chain of unfortunate circumstances, from the traumatic experience of being offended by
the emperor at the Regensburg Imperial Diet to the arrest of Sesin and
Octavios betrayal. The motivic complex of the blessed stars and the
paradisal world of light and peace designates an ideal sphere within Wallenstein that remains separate from the reality-based motives of his
actions, and which in case of conflict is sacrificed to political interests
an example of Schillers insight into the psychology of the seeker of
power.
For Max and Thekla as well, Jupiter and Venus symbolize a paradiselike, idyllic world of light and peace as it appeared to them during the
goldenen Zeit der Reise (Piccolomini, ll. 147677), as a utopian object
of desire, opposed to the dsteren Reich of Saturn (l. 1654). And just as
Max embodies for Wallenstein the desired idyllic world of light, Max on
the other hand sees in Wallenstein the pure bringer of peace a delusion
that places a fateful blindfold before his eyes, which he tears off only at the
last moment before a moral plunge into the abyss: Er wird den lzweig
in den Lorbeer flechten, / Und der erfreuten Welt den Frieden schenken
(ll. 165657). In this utopian sense which points back unmistakably to
the idea of the idyll in Schillers essay ber naive und sentimentalische
Dichtung Max and Thekla appropriate Wallensteins astrological beliefs
for themselves not in a superstitiously literal sense, but as reinterpreted
by Max (ll. 161943) in an explicitly de-mythologized, aesthetic and symbolic fashion. It is of this that Thekla speaks when she says: Wenn das die
Sternenkunst ist, will ich froh / Zu diesem heitern Glauben mich bekennen (ll. 164445).
Maxs words Die alten Fabelwesen sind nicht mehr, / Das reizende
Geschlecht ist ausgewandert (Piccolomini, ll. 163536) remind us of the
artists lament on the departure of the gods from the world in Schillers
poem Die Gtter Griechenlands in the words of Heinrich Heine, the
gods in the starry heaven live im Exil. The process by which the ancient
gods become stars, and symbolically endow these stars with their ancient
mythological names, which then enliven them and allow them to give a
reply to the loving human heart: all this makes us think of the Pygmalion
motif in Schillers poem Die Ideale. Just as Pygmalion gives life to stone
through his feelings, the poet endows the nature that has been abandoned
by the gods, the soulless one, with a new language. Thus myth experiences a symbolic resurrection. Maxs lines about the poetic return of the
alten Fabelwesen were understood, especially by the British Romantic
poets, as a kind of beacon. Coleridge expanded considerably on this passage in his translation of Wallenstein, Walter Scott placed it as a motto at
the beginning of the third chapter of his novel Guy Mannering, and Keats
made use of it in lines 23133 of his Lamia. Underlying all these texts
is a nostalgia for a mythic world. Goethe is the author of the following
206
DIETER BORCHMEYER
characterization of Wallenstein, which in its precision has not been surpassed up to the present day:
Der Dichter hatte also zwei Gegenstnde darzustellen, die miteinander
im Streit erscheinen: den phantastischen Geist, der von der einen Seite an
das Groe und Idealische, von der andern an den Wahnsinn [cf. Wallensteins
Tod, ll. 2559ff.] und an das Verbrechen grenzt, und das gemeine wirkliche
Leben, welches von der einen Seite sich an das Sittliche und Verstndige
anschliet, von der andern dem Kleinen, dem Niedrigen und Verchtlichen
sich nhert. (Cited in Heuer/Keller, 89)
All the facets of both Wallensteins character and that of his counterparts
are presented here in an impartial manner.
All the same, there is no doubt that the idealistic aspect of Wallensteins character is veiled in tragic irony. We have already spoken of the lack
of credibility that characterizes his idea of peace. At most, his goal is a
peace created by him within a world that he Ich einzelner has
given birth to from within himself as a godlike creator. Octavios bitter
irony is thus not without its justification: Nichts will er, als dem Reich den
Frieden schenken; / Und weil der Kaiser diesen Frieden hat, / So will er
ihn er will ihn dazu zwingen! (Piccolomini, ll. 233335).
Thus in his historical dramas Wallenstein, Maria Stuart, and
Demetrius, Schiller, the supposed idealist, has presented every form of idealism, to the extent that it seeks to realize itself in political form, as either
doomed to defeat or based on self-interest. This is true as well for Wallensteins counterpart, namely, legitimate authority. In the great monologue
of act 1, scene 4, in which he arrives at his decision, the principle of legitimacy is placed in an extremely timely and apt light, given its negation by
revolutionary ideology. Wallenstein weighs the pros and cons of political
legitimacy with dialectical acuity. Du willst die Macht, / Die ruhig, sicher
thronende erschttern, / Die in verjhrt geheiligtem Besitz, / In der
Gewohnheit festgegrndet ruht (ll. 19396). The principle of Verjhrung, in the older, positive sense of the term the integrity of a political order based on its historical duration was for Edmund Burke and
Justus Mser, for conservatives of all stripes, the counter-principle to the
French Revolution and its interpretive model, namely the negation of an
existing order in the name of pure, super-historical principles of reason
(Borchmeyer 1988, 158).
Wallensteins reflection, quoted earlier, corresponds to Schillers own
prose from the fourth book of the Geschichte des Dreiigjhrigen Krieges:
Nichts geringes war es, eine rechtmige, durch lange Verjhrung befestigte, durch Religion und Gesetz geheiligte Gewalt in ihren Wurzeln zu
erschttern; [. . .] alle jene unvertilgbaren Gefhle der Pflicht, die in der
Brust des Untertans fr den geborenen Beherrscher so laut und so
mchtig sprechen, mit gewaltsamer Hand zu vertilgen. (7:364)
WALLENSTEIN
207
This is one side of the matter. But the other side of legitimacy is:
[. . .] das ewig Gestrige,
Was immer war und immer wiederkehrt,
Und morgen gilt, weils heute hat gegolten!
Denn aus Gemeinem ist der Mensch gemacht,
Und die Gewohnheit nennt er seine Amme.
Weh dem, der an den wrdig alten Hausrat
Ihm rhrt, das teure Erbstck seiner Ahnen!
Das Jahr bt eine heiligende Kraft,
Was grau fr Alter ist, das ist ihm gttlich.
Sei im Besitze, und du wohnst im Recht,
Und heilig wirds die Menge dir bewahren.
(Wallensteins Tod, ll. 20818)
Shortly thereafter, Wallenstein will experience in his own person the justification for this ironic pessimism. In the moment that he takes off the cloak
of legitimacy, the magic of his personality is broken; in Max Webers terminology, charismatic leadership loses out to traditional leadership. In his
Geschichte des Dreiigjhrigen Krieges, Schiller writes of Wallenstein:
Gre fr sich allein kann sowohl Bewunderung und Schrecken, aber nur
die legale Gre Ehrfurcht und Unterwerfung erzwingen. Und dieses
enscheidenden Vorteils beraubte er sich selbst in dem Augenblicke, da er
sich als einen Verbrecher entlarvte (7:365).
Without a doubt, there is just as much of Schillers personal convictions in Wallensteins lines just quoted as there is in the contradictory
reflections quoted earlier. To be sure, Wallenstein has no moral right to his
criticism of the traditional order, since he is concerned basically with the
right of the more powerful, not the right of reason. As his sthetische Briefe
show, Schillers political theory is determined by liberal principles of natural law to such an extent that there is no room in it for a traditional historical legitimization of political power. But, in the interim, the experience
of revolution taught Schiller that the attempt to destroy an existing state
according to principles of pure reason drives society into a state of anarchy,
and that the temporary suspension of an existing political order conjures
up a chaos of passions. The Uhrwerk des Staates, according to the third
letter, can thus be improved only indem es schlgt (8:563); the state
based on reason must in a sense develop under the skin of the pre-existing
order.
Wallensteins balancing between conservative affirmation and liberal
negation, based on abstractions of pure reason, of traditional power that is
legitimized only historically corresponds to Schillers own ambivalent posture vis--vis the ancien rgime, and explicates the dialectic of existing
power structures, their Anschliessen to what is moral as well as to what is
208
DIETER BORCHMEYER
WALLENSTEIN
209
210
DIETER BORCHMEYER
Notes
1
References to Schillers works in this essay are to the Frankfurter Ausgabe, Werke
und Briefe in zwlf Bnden, edited by Klaus Harro Hilzinger, et al. (Frankfurt am
Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1988). References are to volume and page
number, except references to the Wallenstein trilogy, which are by line number.
Here the reference is to the sixth of Schillers sthetische Briefe: 8:574.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Werke und Briefe in zwlf Bnden, ed. Wilfried Barner
et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 19852003). Here the reference is to the fourteenth part of the Hamburgische Dramaturgie, 6:251.
3
This is the central thesis of my book, Macht und Melancholie: Schillers Wallenstein.
Compare the main work of the available research by Raymond Klibansky, Erwin
Panofsy, and Fritz Saxl, Saturn und Melancholie, which deals with the German
version of Raymond Klibanskys Saturn and Melancholy.
5
Thomas Mann, Gesammelte Werke, 2nd ed. (Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1974),
9:905.
Das Reich der Schatten was the original title of Schillers philosophical poem Das
Ideal und das Leben.
10
11
Goethe concerning Iphigenie auf Tauris in a letter to Schiller of January 29, 1802.
Works Cited
Borchmeyer, Dieter. Altes Recht und Revolution. Schillers Wilhelm Tell. In
Friedrich Schiller: Kunst, Humanitt und Politik in der spten Auf klrung,
ed. Wolfgang Wittkowski, 69111. Tbingen: Max Niemeyer, 1982.
. Die Kontrapunktik von Familiegemlde und Staatsaktion in Don
Carlos. In Borchmeyer, Tragdie und ffentlichkeit: Schillers Dramaturgie
WALLENSTEIN
211
HIS FIRST MEDICAL DISSERTATION Philosophie der Physiologie (Philosophy of Physiology, 1779), Johann Friedrich Schiller asserted that philosophy and religion can overpower the animal, that is, corporeal
sensations, and tear (reien) the soul away from mere agreement, that is,
identification with matter.1 Even though it has not been enlisted to do so
in the past, Schillers early medical writing would seem to support the traditional reading of Maria Stuart. Queen Mary absolves herself of the sins
of the past, attains a state of sublimity, and marches triumphantly to her
death. Through this chain of events, she achieves the final victory over
death, to say nothing of her opponent, Queen Elizabeth. Or, so it would
seem. In fact, the sustained and, at times, profound impact of Schillers
early medical dissertations on his later works suggests a quite different
interpretation, one that is also at variance with the most recent scholarship.
The present undertaking expands my reading of Schillers Maria
Stuart in my book Harmonious Tensions: The Writings of Friedrich Schiller
(1996). It is my purpose here to explore the relationship between physiology and politics in Maria Stuart. I will also cast further light on the drama
by showing how it interrelates with a number of other works by Schiller.
A close analysis of gender roles and the relationship between Elizabeth and
Mary rounds out the discussion.
N
214
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
explaining the nature of fevers, Schiller sees that the crisis of our physical
being in moments of illness can also lead to a restoration of health.
To my knowledge, Schillers third and final medical dissertation, ber
den Zusammenhang der tierischen Natur des Menschen mit seiner geistigen
(On the Connection between the Animal and Spiritual Nature of Man,
1780), is the first work in the Western tradition to introduce an interactionist theory of the relationship between body and mind. Having
disapproved of Schillers first two attempts to write a dissertation, his committee, as well as the duke, Karl Eugen, accepted this third writing. It was
published in 1780 at the Cotta publishing house in Stuttgart. In this work,
Schiller advances the idea that although the mind regulates the activities of
the body, the body holds the mind within its bounds. The dynamic interplay that this particular relationship creates, however, is not one of harmony in the traditional sense, that is, of balance and equilibrium wherein
opposites are completely reconciled. Rather, human physiology is a tensionfilled process of reciprocal delimitation and interdependence. In arriving at
this conclusion, Schiller drew upon the work of the Jewish-German writer
Moses Mendelssohn (17291786). In his Briefe ber die Empfindungen
(Letters on Sensory Perceptions, 1755), Mendelssohn underscores the
integrated nature of body and mind. The nervous system is comprised of a
labyrinthine network of passages, such that everything in the body, including the mind, is tied to everything else. The degrees of tension in the body
are distributed harmoniously from nerve to nerve. A change in the one
leads to a change in the whole. A healthy state of being depends on the
perpetual cultivation of what Mendelssohn here terms harmonious tension
(harmonische Spannung).
Having surveyed the debate over materialism and idealism in his own
time, Schiller submitted that the more common error was to overemphasize the power of the human spirit (Geist) and downplay, or even neglect,
the influence of the body when claiming the independence of the mind
(8:123). The writers candid recognition of a more complex interrelationship between mind and body is supported by the tension between anthropology and metaphysics that reverberates throughout his work as a whole.
But there is more. Schillers writings display the dynamic integration of literature, physiology, philosophy, history, and music as referenced by the
innumerable metaphors and other linguistic devices that lend his writings
their interdisciplinary texture. The most prominent among the central
symbols and metaphors in all of Schillers writings is the stringed musical
instrument.
In one of his first speeches, Rede ber die Frage: Gehrt allzuviel
Gte, Leutseeligkeit und grosse Freygebigkeit im engsten Verstande zur
Tugend? the nineteen-year-old medical student associated the metaphor of
the stringed musical instrument with the source of all Creation (Martinson,
23). In his first dissertation concerning the philosophy of physiology, young
215
216
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
217
In Harmonious Tensions, I helped to shift the general tide of scholarship on Maria Stuart from its preoccupation with Mary as a positive heroine to the struggles within Queen Elizabeth in order to flesh out her
character and thereby set her on an equal footing with her antagonist,
Queen Mary. As it turns out, the text lends itself very well to this exercise,
not only with respect to physiology but also in terms of the tension
between politics and morality. Foremost, Schiller underscores the common
heritage of the two queens. However, rather than reduplicate the fact that,
in history, they were cousins, the writer creates a more intimate relationship between them by referring to them as sisters. The technique is purposeful and the ramifications for an interpretation are significant. It draws
attention to the possible complementariness of the central heroines.
218
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
219
At the same time, Schillers criticism is presented indirectly by way of artistic expression. To be sure, at a time of entrenched absolutism and the reality of censorship, criticisms of the political system had to be indirect.
Literature, that is, fiction, offered a means by which such criticism could
be transmitted and understood by those whose lives were impacted by the
dominant political structures of the time.
In retrospect, within the historical context of his time and in the light
of history up through the eighteenth century, Schillers portrayal of female
characters is actually more progressive than feminist readings, and not only
feminist readings, of Schillers plays have allowed.2 The portrayal of female
characters in Schillers dramatic texts forces the spectator or reader to consider critically and self-critically his or her assumptions and biases regarding
the sexes. Although the portrayal of women in selected poems like Wrde
der Frauen (Dignity of Women) is negative as viewed from the vantage
point of modernity, one first needs to take into account all of Schillers representations of and statements on women, as well as the observations of
those whom he knew personally, such as Caroline von Wolzogen, before
one can generalize about Schillers view of women. Schillers literarydramatic representations of women were certainly conditioned or even
determined by the times in which he was living. In most cases, they are forward-looking. Whatever else they may be, Schillers female characters
should be appreciated for their combination of sharpness of mind and
quickness of wit, emotional passion (and poise) and compassion, that is,
more for their strengths than for their weakness of mind and voluptuousness of body. The fact that this is true regardless of their social standing
would seem to disclose the construction of a general type. However, as the
unique personalities of Amalia, Luise, Eboli, Mary, and Johanne clearly
indicate, it is not an undifferentiated type.
220
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
the imprisonment of whatever free will Elizabeth may still possess that
causes the queen the most distress. Externally, that is, as a queen, she is not
allowed to be herself, as suggested by her depiction of the powerful office
she holds, namely as a form of slavery, suggests that she is not allowed to
exercise personal freedom. For her political office dictates that she must be
responsive to the will of the people, as Lord Burleigh makes abundantly
clear. In short, whatever the nature of her inclinations, she is duty-bound.
But this does not come easily since she is shown to struggle with her own
moral knowledge.
As queens of different religious persuasions, political orientations, and
cultural environments, and yet sisters, they are, at the outset, two parts
of a greater whole; oppositional, yet interdependent. They are not, in the
first instance, complete opposites. However, as the combat between them
increases, their interdependence is progressively compromised. Eventually,
their relationship is completely severed. Elizabeth, in the end, is relegated
to the exclusively corporeal-material concerns of mere politics. Only in the
end do Elizabeth and Mary finally become complete opposites. Politically
and physically enchained, Mary is still free morally. Although politically
strong and in command, Elizabeth is a prisoner, that is, slave to her office.
As the battle of words in act 3, scene 4 makes abundantly clear, the fierce
rivalry between these two female monarchs is informed not only by politics
or religion but by the rupture that is brought about by the crises within
their own natures as well as by the natural split between them, which
by definition is anthropological in nature (see Hinderers essay in this
volume).
Certainly, Marys grand yet momentary victory in the battle of words
comes not only at the cost of political defeat. It also means that the harmonious tension between the rational and sensuous natures has been
short-circuited and that the crisis in her relationship with Elizabeth will
have tragic consequences. For her part, Elizabeth is incapable of exercising
her free, moral will. Her self-imposed imprisonment within the confines of
both her sensuous being and her political office underscores her ultimate
moral ineptitude. In the end, she becomes the complete embodiment of
the will of the people, and this leaves her isolated and alone on a throne
that seems to restrict her very movement. As the curtains are drawn, she is
paralyzed within the body politic. The spiritual/intellectual as represented
by Mary has now departed her. The relationship between mind and body
has been completely ruptured.
In retrospect, Mary goes to her death at peace with her own history,
while Elizabeth sits in isolation upon a throne that entraps her. As Mary is
given to say, Jetzt habe ich nichts mehr auf der Erden! (l. 3838). Clearly,
she is freed from the confines of the corporeal world which is now represented by Elizabeth. The harmonious interaction between mind and body
is no longer possible.
221
222
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
itself to the audience and readers. In short, Schillers dramatic heroes disclose
fundamental problems of their times that compel readers and spectators to
come to terms with their own situations, the problems that attend their own
societies, and, to be sure, their lives.
In addition to the ethical-spiritual consciousness that they share, Karl,
Christian, and Mary, among others, represent an extreme in the mindbody paradigm. According to his essay Theosophie des Julius (Juliuss
Theosophy, 1782) Schiller emphasized the ordaining of the human being
to the divine (Bestimmung des Menschen zur Gttlichkeit), which was a
widespread and widely accepted idea in later eighteenth-century German
literature. However, as argued here, the ultimate challenge for the human
being is not so much perfection as it is the cultivation of harmonious tension between mind and body, body and mind, which guarantees health and
healing. In this way one realizes the honorable or noble human being
within oneself that is to serve as an example to others and the community
at large. Nevertheless, the most difficult task of culture remains to extend
the knowledge that is gained through critical self-reflection outwardly
through the active promotion of harmonious tension and humaneness for
the improvement of society.
As early as in his characterizations of Karl Moor and Christian Wolf,
Schiller underscored the importance of a personal moral turn, an act of
moral will that proves to be necessary when one finds oneself entangled
in and overcome by the enormity and complexities of life. Self-overcoming (berwindung) is the positive result of an act of moral resolve
that consists not in the one or the other individual dominating others
but in the following: reason keeps the senses within their bounds while
sensuousness informs reason. In political terms, whereas the senses keep
reason from becoming dictatorial, reason restrains the anarchical
extremes of passion. When the healthy tension between the individual
and the society of which one is invariably and inescapably a part is compromised, society runs the risk of disruption, dissolution, and revolution. As is made explicit in ber die sthetische Erziehung des Menschen
in einer Reihe von Briefen (On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a
Series of Letters, 1795), Schiller advocated reform, not revolution.
Although Schillers call for reform is indebted to the Lutheran tradition,
Kants philosophy, and Moses Mendelssohns analysis of sensuality, we
have seen that it is likewise informed by his early interactionist theory of
physiology.
To recap, with respect to the medical dissertations and the later classical dramas, for Schiller, the interaction between mind and body is a process
of reciprocal delimitation and interdependence. While the body holds the
mind within its bounds, the mind regulates the impulses and drives of the
body, safeguarding it against possible destruction. In Maria Stuart, this
vital interrelationship collapses, sealing the tragic end of the drama.
223
In Die Ruber and Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre, it is out of the
depths of experience that Karl and Christian are first able to embrace the
moral principle. What occurs here is hardly idealistic but, rather, wholly
realistic. The same is also true of Mary, who, given her personal history and
the encounter with her other, Elizabeth, exercises moral resolve. In fact, all
three characters Karl Moor, Christian Wolf, and Mary Stuart attain
sublimity of character. To a point, the same is true of Wilhelm Tell, who
faces and overcomes adversity. In Marys case, however, this comes at the
expense of her own body and Elizabeth.
With respect to the theme of love, unlike Die Ruber, Kabale und
Liebe, or Wallenstein, Maria Stuart contains no genuine love relationship.
Mortimer, like Leicester (and, to some extent, even Shaftesbury), desires
Mary and all that she represents, while Marys apparent love for Leicester is
but a form of manipulation. There is only intrigue and the tragic cessation
of the reciprocity between mind/spirit and body. As Schillers early theoretical writings, such as Theosophie des Julius, illustrate, it is the gravitational
pull of love that holds the universe together. Without it, the world collapses. In Die Ruber, Franz Moor represents the material world of necessitation, whereas Karl takes on the characteristics of mind or spirit. As we
know from the Philosophie der Physiologie, the absence of a transmutative
force (Mittelkraft of mediation) explains the Ri zwischen Welt und
Geist (authors emphasis), whereas the presence of the Mittelkraft animates and enlivens everything around it. The character constellation of Die
Ruber creates a bridge to the later classical drama. In fact, the verbal disagreements between Franz and Karl Moor, as well as between Luise and
Lady Milford in Kabale und Liebe and Don Carlos and the Marquis Posa in
Don Carlos set the stage for the later battle of words between Mary and
Elizabeth. And, in both Don Carlos and Maria Stuart, the driving forces
that inform the dramatic action are not only political but physiological in
nature.
As do Karl Moor in Die Ruber, Christian Wolf in Der Verbrecher aus
verlorener Ehre, and the title character in Maria Stuart, the criminal calls
for his own arrest and accepts the consequences of his actions. It is an act of
moral will that is in fact liberating. This moral act is sublime precisely
because it breaks through the limits with which the average individual
remains content. It is a call to self-action above and beyond the confines
one imposes upon oneself when one follows only the force of passion, for
example, Elizabeth. When coming to terms with the past, as with Mary
Stuart, Schillers main characters are no longer enslaved by history. Instead,
they forge a new chapter in history, one that points in the direction of the
improvement of self and society, that is, to the actualization of true humanity in the present, as well as in the future.
In his later writings, Schiller concentrated more and more on the
powerful forces of nature that animate life in the universe. In Der Kampf
224
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
mit dem Drachen (Battle with the Dragon), for example, the battle with
the dragon is as much a battle with oneself as it is with an external enemy.
But, happily, the threat of destruction is averted here through the cultivation of harmonious tension. As we read in the poem, Das weibliche
Ideal. An Amanda, in the Musenalmanach fr das Jahr 1797, Auch dein
zrtester Laut ist dein harmonisches Selbst. In Das Ideal und das
Leben (The Ideal and Life) life is always greater and more powerful than
any one individual: Mchtig, selbst wenn eure Sehnen ruhten, / Reit
das Leben euch in seine Fluten, / Euch die Zeit in ihren Wirbeltanz
(ll. 4446). And: Thatenvoll der Genius entbrennt, / Da, da spanne sich
des Fleisses Nerve, / Und beharrlich ringend unterwerfe das Element
(ll. 7176).
In the end, tension-filled harmony, which registers the power of
perpetual renewal and healing, also contains within itself the possibility
of extinction and collapse. Health can only be maintained when the individual, as an embodiment of nature, actively seeks to cultivate the necessary reciprocity between the spiritual-intellectual and physical-corporeal
spheres of existence. One of the main tasks of political culture for Schiller
is the maintenance or recovery of a healthy relationship between oneself,
society, and nature in the ever-vacillating, forever challenging course of
history.
Conclusion
Maria Stuart is not a Luterungsdrama, as Schiller maintained. Nor is it a
martyr play. The physiological-anthropological dimension of the dramatic
text intensifies its tragic elements. As suggested, Elizabeths signing of the
death warrant is motivated by an exclusively sensuous act of retribution for
her defeat in the battle of the words in act 3, scene 4. In act 4, scene 10,
Elizabeth is given the following words:
Mit welchem Hohn sie auf mich nieder sah,
Als sollte mich der Blick zu Boden blitzen!
Ohnmchtige! Ich fhre bere Waffen,
Sie treffen tdlich und du bist nicht mehr!
Mit raschem Schritt nach dem Tische gehend und die Feder ergreifend.
Ein Bastard bin ich dir? Unglckliche!
Ich bin es nur, so lang du lebst und atmest.
Der Zweifel meiner frstlichen Geburt
Er ist getilgt, sobald ich dich vertilge.
Sobald dem Briten keine Wahl mehr bleibt,
Bin ich im echten Ehebett geboren!
225
The real source of her political decision, namely the senses carries tragic
consequences, not only Marys demise but also Elizabeths sensuous
enslavement and imprisonment in the body politic. Her merely sensuous
reaction precludes any responsible political action3 while satisfying another
sensuous need: the peoples desire to have Mary executed.
In the end, the central tragedy of Maria Stuart consists in the disclosure of the political world as a sickly body in need of spiritual renewal, that
is, healing. This is underscored by Elizabeths lack of development (Bildung). But this does not necessarily turn Mary into a heroine since the crisis
in her relationship with Elizabeth results not in harmonious tension but in
rupture, which is the source of the plays full tragic effect. In Maria Stuart,
the mind-body problem and politics are intimately related.
The ultimate goal of Schillers sthetischen Briefe is not the realization
of a future utopia but the actualization of the knowledge of humanity
through the cultivation of harmonious tension between the rational and
sensuous natures of the human being and between the individual and society in the present. This ideal is realizable at any point in history by virtue of
the individuals moral will to actualize him or her self, especially in times of
adversity. In the essays on the sublime, for example, ber das Erhabene
(On the Sublime) the accent lies on transgressing the limits of the world of
beauty. To be sure, this act of sublime self-determination is a primary
means in the actualization of the rational-aesthetic state in the present. At
the same time, however, it is the beauty of harmonious tension between
mind and body in individual human beings that first creates the hope for a
better future.
Notes
1
References to Schillers works in this essay are to volume and page number in the
Frankfurter Ausgabe, Werke und Briefe in zwlf Bnden, edited by Klaus Harro
Hilzinger, et al. (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1988). Here:
8:152.
2
Wittkowski argues that Schillers portrayal is more progressive than feminist readings of the drama have allowed (389, 400).
3
Alt maintains that Elizabeth does not hesitate to order the execution aus Furcht
vor der ffentlichen Meinung (2: 503). Furthermore, Gerade weil Elisabeth die
Sklaven der ffentlichen Stimmung ist, bleibt ihre Rolle prekr (503). Clearly, my
interpretation varies significantly from Alts. According to Alt, the play constitutes
a political tragedy. Nicht die subjektiven Spiele der Leidenschaften, sondern deren
objektive Folgen fr den Staat bilden das Zentrum der Tragdie (499).
226
STEVEN D. MARTINSON
Works Cited
Alt, Peter Andr. Schiller. Leben Werk Zeit. 2 vols. Munich: C. H. Beck,
2004.
Martinson, Steven D. Harmonious Tensions: The Writings of Friedrich Schiller.
Newark: U of Delaware P; London: Associated UP, 1996.
Wittkowski, Wolfgang. Knnen Frauen regieren? Schillers Maria Stuart.
Poesie, Geschichte, und der Feminismus. Orbis litterarum 52 (1997):
387409.
1.
N HIS LAST TWO COMPLETED PLAYS, not counting the fate tragedy Die
Braut von Messina (The Bride of Messina, 1803), Schiller, the German
Shakespeare as he was known in the 1780s, seems to have taken a leaf from
the masters book: in Die Jungfrau von Orleans (The Maid of Orleans,
1802) and Wilhelm Tell (1804), tragedy yields to a more conciliatory, indeed
redemptive mood, culminating in the triumph and glorification of Romantic nationalism (Reed, 97) or related noble sentiments. Not surprisingly,
both plays rank highest among Schillers plays in popularity. All-time
favorites of open-air theaters and amateur productions, their Romantic
pageantry, miraculous events, grandiose scenic effects, and musical intermezzi
have the broad appeal of opera. Arguably, there is even a touch of kitsch
in them, and they are to this day an inexhaustible reservoir of familiar
quotations without which no newspaper or cocktail party would be quite
the same.
Yet both are also serious, philosophically charged historical dramas. In
Tell, Romantic nationalism glorifies the triumphant political liberation
movement of the Swiss cantons; in Jungfrau, it leads up to the apotheosis
of the patriotic heroine at the moment when she has turned the tide of the
war in favor of her country and a victorious outcome of the struggle for
national autonomy is in sight. In each play, the course of history confirms
or validates the high-minded aspirations of the protagonist, even suggesting a near-utopian future. This is strange if we remember that in the mid1790s, Schiller had rejected his idealistic, teleological, and therefore
optimistic conception of history, and its lofty promise of ultimate justice
(die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht) in favor of a thoroughly skeptical, indeed disillusioned concept of history history as a jumble of random events without ulterior meaning and certainly without the seeds of
progress of any kind (Hofmann in Oellers, 37179).
But this apparent contradiction between the historical plays and their
authors view of history becomes irrelevant once we realize that in all of his
historical plays, Schiller focuses not so much on the course of history and
its ulterior meaning as on the prominent man or woman caught up in it.
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KARL S. GUTHKE
He did so in Fiesko and Don Carlos, before his supposed disillusion with
history, and again in Wallenstein and Maria Stuart after it. Being a born
dramatist, and one who did not need to be told that the proper study of
mankind is man, Schiller was especially fascinated by individuals whose
inner conflicts are activated by their conflicts with the world or the history around them that plunge them into guilt and error, and ultimately
tragedy. But, then, arent Jungfrau and Tell about saints of sorts? Richard
Wagner spoke of Schillers dichterische Heiligsprechung (poetic canonization) of Joan,1 and isnt Tell a patriotic hero about whom it was rightly
written at the time of the French Revolution, if in parte infidelium, Dein
Name werde geheiligt,2 the bringer of freedom who is celebrated as
the savior of the country? Saints and saviors are not usually psychologically interesting, at least on stage. Yet in Jungfrau and Tell, Schiller is not
deserted by his genius for problematizing character portrayal even as
the greater-than-life national hero and heroine are showered with welldeserved jubilation by a chorus of lesser figures. Schillers keen eye for
tragedy perceives them as very human for all that: as suffering and erring,
struggling to come to terms with their failings and their guilt. As such,
they are no less tragic than Schillers other dramatic heroes and heroines.
Joan of Orleans and Wilhelm Tell join ranks with them by presenting the
dramatists original insights into what he would have called die
Geschichte des menschlichen Herzens.
2.
Yet there is something strange not only about the tragic quality but also
about the present-day popularity of Die Jungfrau von Orleans, which theater programs tend to bill as a noble-minded wondrous play. (These are
the words of none other than Thomas Mann, whose Versuch ber
Schiller was a landmark not only in the authors own career but also in the
history of the appreciation of Schiller.) The strangeness of the play derives
from the fact that its featured character problems and conflicts are associated with saintliness or holiness. How meaningful are such concepts
not to mention pure maiden, divine command, holy mission, and
redemption to the modern theatergoer? Not only are these terms
sprinkled all over the text, they have also been indispensible to interpreters
of the Romantic Tragedy, as it was subtitled, ever since Schillers lifetime, as though there was nothing baffling or disturbing about them.
What is the interest in a drama that has virtually nothing in common with
the significant historical figure it foregrounds nor with any mortal
woman that ever walked this earth, as G. B. Shaw noted, no doubt speaking from experience, in the preface to his own Saint Joan? Why should late
twentieth- and early twenty-first-century audiences care for a play about
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KARL S. GUTHKE
231
on earth clearly beyond reproach. Triumphing over all trials and tribulations, she completes her mission as the paradigm of the Christian Gods
witness and indeed as his representative on earth or, to choose a less Christian, more idealistic formulation, as the presence of the eternal in the
realm of history, in fact, as Gef des Gttlichen (Erluterungen, NA
9:435). Accordingly, the ending of the play the death of a saint, rather
than a witch places a seal of approval on an exemplary life. Der irdische, heroische strebende Mensch geht nach Leid, Schuld, Bue und Reinigung in das Reich des Ewigen ein (Erluterungen, NA 9:436). Johanna,
in this view, is the stranger sent from a transmundane realm, a blind
instrument of God accomplishing its mission in the world of history; the
play accordingly becomes a parabolic, legend-like drama about the alien
nature of the transcendental in the midst of a vain, impure and debasing
world, as an influential critic put it, speaking for a host of others.4
Amounting to a religious perspective, this line of interpretation is hard
to take at a time when all belief systems come under suspicion. But one
should first look at the second, the more humanistic, rather than Christian or
idealist-crypto-Christian, ideological interpretation. Its vantage point is not
ber das Erhabene but ber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (On Naive
and Sentimental Poetry, 1795). Seen from it, Die Jungfrau von Orleans
appears to exemplify a particular concept of the development of mankind
and of the individual. This development proceeds from the initial stage of a
putative nave union of the self with nature and with itself, via the conflict
between self and the world and the conflict within the self (the stage of culture) all the way to the utopian ultimate condition in which all faculties of
the senses and the mind are re-united in an ideal harmony: from Arcadia to
Elysium. Applied to the play, this speculation, shared by others at the time,
implies an understanding of Johannas final moments as the realization of
the highest perfection possible, in spite of the imperfections of the world and
the vulnerability of the individual. In effect, the first-mentioned ideological
interpretation could readily agree with this line of thought, except that it
would see this perfection as one of human nature participating in the realm
of the transcendent; in other words, this perfection would be that of man
bearing witness for God by living up to his mission on earth until, at
the end of his time, he fully enters into the divine as Schiller envisaged the
conclusion of his uncompleted Heracles idyll (12:102). The humanistic
interpretation, on the other hand, views that ultimate perfection of human
nature in this-worldly terms: as that ideal secular humanity that can be realized through human determination and responsibility alone (Ide; Kaiser).
The final scene of the play is the touchstone of either way of understanding
the heroine: Johannas death on the battlefield (invented by Schiller with
supreme disregard for history: St. Joan was burned as a witch) is seen either
as self-abandonment to the will of a transcendent God, that is, entry into the
real world of the ideal in the more secularized idealistic view or, in the
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humanistic interpretation, as the regeneration of the autonomous self reaching its ultimate authenticity.
This very contradiction of the two ideological lines of interpretation,
which have nothing in common except their unrelenting abstractness,
makes one wonder what image of human nature, exemplified by Johanna,
would come into view if one were to look at the play without casting
glances sideways at Schillers theory. One wonders all the more as the
analyses proceeding from philosophical concepts tend to marginalize the
specific character traits of a given dramatis persona as at best incidental to
the overall conceptual scheme they try to uncover, no matter whether this
is articulated in quasi-religious or in humanistic terms. Both, then, ignore
a lot but what, precisely? Aspects of Johanna that fit neither the concept
of the saint sent to earth by God nor the vision of Weimar-style human perfection include, first of all, the fanatic brutality, indeed the power-hungry,
self-serving vitality of a bloodthirsty St. Joan of the battlefields and, second, the narrow-minded chauvinism of a savior who advocates humane
behavior only in the company of the French, not in encounters with what
we now call the other. These two unsettling aspects of Johanna are marginalized as harmless or irrelevant in the conventional ideological interpretations of the play, whereas the lart pour lart approach does not catch
sight of character portrayal at all. But doesnt the unbridled savagery of a
saint or pure maiden who cheerfully goes about her business of making widows (l. 1666), sword in hand, give us pause? Dont critics all too
routinely reel off those awe-inspiring key terms, taking them either literally
(documenting Christian values or verities) or metaphorically (as referring
to idealist or humanist values or verities)? And dont they explain Johannas
bloodthirsty conquistador mentality away too easily when they say: such
bloodthirst is sufficiently excused by Johannas high mission5 and by the
eternal order that is to be preserved? Does Johanna really remain a
schne und zugleich erhabene Seele for all her savagery (Erluterungen,
NA 9:39394), terrifying [. . .] but never impure (v. Wiese, 738)? Her
Ttungsrausch, we read as late as 1996, is no Problem des Stckes
(Oellers, 259): as Johanna acts under the coercion of her divine mission,
she is not responsible for her gratuitous atrocities in the battlefield. Really?
Oddly enough, Johanna herself is a better critic. Confronted with the
enemy, Montgomery first and Lionel later, she by no means ignores this
question, nor does she minimize it. And just as Johanna finds no pat
answer to her moral dilemma, neither does the thoughtful critic (or should
one say, the critic cursed with common sense who fails to see the empresss
new clothes?). For such a critic wonders how Johannas killing spree and
her refusal to love (both, she tells us, ordained by God and both, we know,
invented by Schiller, in contradiction to the historical facts known to him)
are compatible with the statement that Johannas calling is one zur Idealitt des Menschen (Kaiser, 1978, 136). Or such a critic wonders how
233
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mention her frenzied mass slaughter: Ein Schlachten wars, nicht eine
Schlacht zu nennen (l. 981). Slaughter authorized by the Virgin Mary
(featured in Johannas banner) or by Minerva (on the title page) or by
both? Such plurality of motivation need not be a shortcoming of the play.
On the contrary, it may reveal consistency of thought and of artistic shaping. What obviously fascinates Schiller is das weite Land of the soul (as
Schnitzler would have called it) with all its conflicts and contradictions.
A closer look at the development of the protagonist should leave no doubt
about that.
3.
The play opens with a Prologue. Its function is the knstlerische Herausarbeitung der Sendung (Erluterungen, NA 9:422). All the same, it
fails to answer the question whether this mission or divine command is a
matter of objective truth, as some critics see it (Miller, 41; v. Wiese), that
is to say, whether it is a fact of the dramatic world that is to be taken at face
value (as the interference of transcendence in the life of an otherwise
solidly this-worldly human being) or a fact of subjective consciousness
(so that one could at best speak of Johannas sense of a mission, not
Sendung but Sendungsbewutsein). Indeed, this is not the only
respect in which the prologue is ambiguous about the self-proclaimed mission of the uneducated shepherdess. The very place where she claims to
have had the vision that commanded her to wield the sword of God and
liberate France from the English invites ambiguity: Vorn zur Rechten ein
Heiligenbild in einer Kapelle; zur Linken eine hohe Eiche. Why an oak,
rather than the beech of Schillers source (Erluterungen, NA 9:423)? The
oak was the sacred tree of the Celts, appropriately called Druidenbaum
in the play. As a consequence, the vision occurring between an oak and a
chapel is a priori questionable: is it a Christian calling to the service of God
or a call from the depth of the heathen past of a warlike people (Harrison;
Pfaff, 414)? Our uncertainty is confirmed on almost every page of the text
as Johanna, who features the Virgin Mary on her banner but acts like a
heathen goddess of war on the battlefield, is seen by the dramatis personae
surrounding her either as an envoy of Jesus Christ or of Satan (who held
the fallen world of the heathens in thrall with evil spirits such as those worshipped in the Druidenbaum). Interestingly, as Johanna herself, after a
long silence, begins to speak, she defines herself neither as the Fromme
that Raimund sees in her nor as the devotee of an infernal spirit of
Heidenzeit that her father thinks she is; she does not define herself in
religious terms at all. Instead, she grabs Bertrands helmet: Mein ist der
Helm und mir gehrt er zu (l. 193). In other words: the lion-hearted
young woman who, we hear, thought nothing of strangling a Tigerwolf
235
with her bare hands (ll. 19697), breaks out into Begeisterung for the
national cause of France:
Mit ihrer Sichel wird die Jungfrau kommen
Und [des Feindes] Saaten niedermhn. (ll. 3067)
What is not said here is just as important: not a word about her calling
from on high. Instead, Es ist / der Helm der sie so kriegerisch beseelt
(ll. 32829). This is not a commentary that, like others in the play, can be
brushed aside as a matter of the limited perspective of the speaker. For in
this case the audience has just witnessed its veracity: it has seen how
emphatically Johanna grabbed the kriegerischen Schmuck (l. 195). This
is the spontaneous expression of her patriotic urge which is less fittingly
symbolized by the image of the mother of God than by the heathen oak
that Johanna is associated with so consistently. True, the France she loves
and sees threatened is the land of Christians, the land of the crusades
against the heathens. But how does Johanna herself refer to the realm of
Christian transcendence? The Old Testament God, der Schlachten Gott,
will choose her, she says (ll. 32425). It is not a case of man pressed into
service by the Divine; the Divine is pressed into service by man: it serves as
a confirmation or guarantee of Johannas own wishes, of her patriotic commitment to the Land des Ruhms (ll. 33233); against this countrys
enemies she will wield the scythe, following her own drive, as the helmetgrabbing scene made clear. On balance, then, it is God who is called, not
Johanna.
We do not hear about Johannas calling until the following scene, the
fourth of the prologue: shouldnt that be a hint from the playwright, so
well-versed in the tricks of his trade, that what matters most in Johannas
psychological makeup is the patriotic urge or drive? It is not until the
fourth scene of the prologue, a monologue, that Johanna interprets her
chauvinistic enthusiasm for an immediate departure for bloody battlefields
as a calling. The role of the metaphysical, subjectively embraced with fervor, remains secondary in a precise sense demonstrated on stage by the
course of events. Moreover, the identity of the metaphysical power that
calls Johanna still remains unclear in scene four: does the calling come
from the evil spirit (a Geist, as in Begeisterung) worshipped in the
druids tree, or from Jahwe? Both are mentioned in this scene the Virgin Mary is not. Of her, Johanna does not speak until in act 1, when she
appears before King Charles, who is about to give up the fight against the
English invaders. But even then the patriotic urge remains paramount. Not
for nothing, after all, is Johanna (who has just worked a strange miracle
in the battle of Vermanton, leaving two thousand enemy warriors dead)
introduced to the king in a typically syncretist manner: as the (obviously
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237
them consistently confronts us with the question: saint and Gottgesandte or self-appointed Kriegsgttin endowed with rabid chauvinism
and brutal violence? These stages are Johannas encounters with Montgomery, with the Black Knight, and with Lionel.
The military situation is favorable as Johanna confronts Montgomery
on the battlefield. The English have been defeated, Orleans has been
retaken by the virgin with the Virgins banner. But as Johanna appears in
person, she seems to be not so much an envoy of the Queen of Heaven as
a terrifyingly warlike Fury. She herself speaks of her Schreckensnhe
(l. 1500), continuing:
Jetzt Fackeln her! Werft Feuer in die Zelte!
Der Flammen Wut vermehre das Entsetzen,
Und drohend rings umfange sie der Tod! (ll. 15035)
Dnois and La Hire urge moderation: Nimm das Schwert, das tdliche,
nicht selbst, but her (unhistorical) reply is: Wer darf mir Halt gebieten?
And, as an afterthought, she refers to the powers authorizing her actions
appearing once again in their typical ambiguity, not to say duplicity: evil
spirit (Geist) and Gott (ll. 151623). Against the background of such
ambiguity, Johannas motivation is all the clearer, and it is dramatically, palpably present the bloodthirst of the reine Jungfrau. This manifests
itself as die Schreckliche confronts Montgomery. The woman who compares herself with Noahs white dove (l. 315) acts out murderous military
aggression which she once again sanctifies only afterwards with references to her Sendung (which, to be sure, did not include a word about
brutality). What one sees on stage is a fit of nationalist frenzy that welcomes any and all bloody means to achieve its ends:
Wenn dich das Unglck in des Krokodils Gewalt
Gegeben oder des gefleckten Tigers Klaun,
Wenn du der Lwenmutter junge Brut geraubt,
Du knntest Mitleid finden und Barmherzigkeit,
Doch tdlich ists, der Jungfrau zu begegnen.
Denn dem Geisterreich, dem strengen, unverletzlichen,
Verpflichtet mich der furchtbar bindende Vertrag,
Mit dem Schwert zu tten alles Lebende, das mir
Der Schlachten Gott verhngnisvoll entgegen schickt.
[. . .]
Auch Englands Mtter mgen die Verzweiflung nun
Erfahren, und die Trnen kennen lernen,
Die Frankreichs jammervolle Gattinnen geweint.
[. . .]
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KARL S. GUTHKE
239
If one pays close attention to Johannas own reflection about her savagery on the battlefield, the controversial encounter with the Black Knight
that follows in act 3 becomes virtually self-explanatory. To be sure, there
may never be an incontrovertible answer to the question of the identity of
the unnamed figure rising up before Johannas eyes in that scene (Frey;
Herrmann). Beyond quibbling, however, is the function of the apparition
of the Black Knight: Johanna is confronted, dramatically and almost palpably, with her own doubts, not coincidentally so soon after her murder of
Montgomery. Confronted with the Black Knight, she arrives at an
unprecedented stage of the development of her consciousness: how will
she master the growing conflict in her soul, she asks herself, quite at a loss.
The Black Knight warns her (not without ambiguity) against continuing
her mission as she understands it. To Johanna, this must sound like a warning against her success, against the warlike atrocities that she has so amply
demonstrated. In other words, the Black Knight verbalizes her own
doubts, previously at least hinted at, about the uncomfortable ensemble of
contradictory motivations in her soul. That is why the words of the
stranger shatter her and confuse her so much: it is her own conscience
speaking (Pfaff, 41617). Is the Geist, [. . .] der aus mir redet an
Ungeist (l. 1723)? Isnt the Virgin Mary who demands such bloody sacrifices not uncomfortably similar to many a pagan deity? What sort of
heaven is it that is in favor of France in such an atrocious fashion? Of
course, what transpires on the stage amounts to Johannas rejection of the
voice of her conscience: Nicht aus den Hnden leg ich dieses Schwert, /
Als bis das stolze England niederliegt (ll. 243233); she sticks to her mission. But it is equally clear that the Romantic apparition of the Black
Knight has confirmed Johannas self-doubt about her patriotic brutality
that had arisen in the Montgomery scene at the latest.
This is borne out by the Lionel scene, which follows immediately. Like
the Montgomery scene, it is one of Schillers inventions, as was the order to
kill and not to love (in the wording of Johannas mission) that is the subtext of both of these scenes (Sauder, 354). It follows from this subtext that,
just as before the onset of her self-doubt Johanna considered the killing of
Montgomery a triumph of her god-willed mission, she now interprets her
erotic attraction to Lionel and her subsequent failure to slay him as a
betrayal of her mission and therefore as her guilt, a transgression against
the divine. Gebrochen hab ich mein Gelbde (l. 2482). When Lionel
escapes unharmed, Johanna is in despair, wishing to atone with her own
death: Lat [mein Blut] mit meinem Leben / Hinstrmen (ll. 251617)
words echoing the dying words of Talbot the nihilist a little earlier! But is
Johanna right when she identifies the reason for her despair as her failure to
live up to the mission that required her not to love but to slaughter men?
Generations of critics, from Schillers contemporaries to ours, and including
the editors of the Nationalausgabe, have agreed: What happens in the
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241
about the conflicted ensemble of very different feelings in her own self.
One of them may be regret about her failure to live up to her Sendung.
But what remains decisive is her realization that her brutal frenzy of activity in the cause of France has deprived her of her Menschlichkeit that
her sense of a mission was not above question.
However, she overcomes the Streit in meiner Brust. Regenerated,
rising out of the shock that had literally dumbfounded her in Reims,
Johanna reaffirms her mission at the outset of the final act. But hardly has
she regained her emotional balance when it is upset again in the following
scene. Once again she is in the grip of what she calls her weakness (l. 3179):
despair about her mission, her sense of being abandoned by God, her
deathwish even. Why? Because she is to meet Lionel again, thus repeating
the encounter that, in a shock of recognition, made her see her inhumanity.
As the Streit of contradictory emotions is rekindled right after
Johannas wordy articulation of her new-found balance, we see the familiar
sight of the Fury once again. In captivity now, she proudly speaks of the
Strme Engellndschen Bluts she has shed (l. 3234). That is indeed a
cue for her barbaric will to power, coupled with rabid patriotism, to
reassert itself, this time in yet another encounter with Lionel and in what
follows it. Far from giving in to any erotic appeal, she addresses Lionel,
who approaches his prisoner with warm words of kindness, as the hated
enemy of her people. With the Trotz der Rasenden (l. 3368) she directs
the dialogue toward the chauvinism that animated her every word up until
her first encounter with Lionel on the battlefield. And in the scenes subsequent to this second confrontation with the enemy, the tenor remains the
same: furiously single-minded and war-mongering: Verderben ber
England (l. 3410). Johanna is in chains, to be sure, but frei aus ihrem
Kerker schwingt die Seele / Sich auf den Flgeln eures Kriegsgesangs
(ll. 341415), she says, all but parodying the sublime: the escape of the
soul from the chains of this world is animated by martial music.
In the famous teichoscopy, it is once again the truculent patriot foaming at the mouth that is foregrounded, as well as the ferocious doer of
manly deeds (with a strangled Tigerwolf in her past). It is interesting to
see how the metaphysical power (whose tool Johanna often claimed to be)
is brought into play here: merely as support for her own will, just as in the
prologue and in the first act. Hre mich, Gott, in meiner hchsten Not, /
[. . .] Du willst und diese Ketten fallen ab (ll. 3463, 3470). Whereupon
she breaks her zentnerschwere Bande and rushes into battle without a
word of thanks for the heavenly helper thus giving a cue to some AngloSaxon critics who like to point out that her escape was not a matter of
divine intervention at all but of will power and strong muscle (Mainland,
100). Be this as it may: carrying her sword rather than the Virgin Marys
banner, Johanna storms into the heavily armed enemy lines like a warlike
Fury and wrenches sichern Sieg from the English (l. 3492).
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243
Notes
1
Richard Wagner, Publikum und Popularitt, Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen, 10:88. Quotations and paraphrases from Die Jungfrau von Orleans are
identified by line number; the text is that of the Frankfurter Ausgabe of Werke und
Briefe (Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1988), vol. 5. Unidentified source references
are to this volume as well. The abbreviation NA refers to the Nationalausgabe.
Dieter Borchmeyer, 1982, 70. Gerhard Kaiser calls both Tell and Johanna Heilige
der Natur (1974, 114; 1978, 201); Gert Ueding sees Tell as a skularisierten
Heiligen und Mrtyrer (395; quoting Kommerell, 188).
3
Benno von Wiese, 73435; Oberkogler, 5859, 7677, 9091; Oellers, 26268.
Gottgesendet (98990).
That Johanna is ein mit allen Schwchen behafteter Mensch is rather too gallant a formulation (Luserke, 660). I note with pleasure, however, that my general
view of the play, first formulated in my book Schillers Dramen (1994), has been
accepted by Luserke in the Frankfurt edition of Werke und Briefe (66061).
7
Das leibhaftige Ideal ist ohne blutriefende Hnde nicht vorstellbar, says Gert
Mattenklott, referring primarily to the early works of Schiller (307). In 1955,
Grappin still managed to see Die Jungfrau von Orleans as an exemplary illustration
of the idealism of Weimar classicism.
Works Cited
Borchmeyer, Dieter. Schillers Jungfrau von Orleans: Eine Oper fr Richard
Wagner. In Ethik und sthetik: Werke und Werte in der Literatur vom 18. bis
zum 20. Jahrhundert: Festschrift fr Wolfgang Wittkowski zum 70. Geburtstag,
ed. Richard Fisher, 27791. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1995.
. Altes Recht und Revolution. Schillers Wilhelm Tell. In Friedrich
Schiller: Kunst, Humanitt und Politik in der spten Aufklrung. Ein
Symposium, ed. Wolfgang Wittkowski, 69113. Tbingen: Niemeyer, 1982.
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KARL S. GUTHKE
245
Wilhelm Tell
Karl S. Guthke
1.
ILHELM TELL (1804) unique in Schillers oeuvre in that it is subtitled Schauspiel has always been taken to be the most easily
accessible of Schillers plays, appealing primarily, if not exclusively, to children and the Swiss, to opera lovers appreciating the son et lumire, as well
as to connoisseurs of familiar quotations, and, just possibly, to aficionados
of kitsch, be they nave or sophisticated. No wonder at least one critical
intellectual, Swiss as it happens but no doubt speaking for many others,
fantasized about a Schiller without Wilhelm Tell (Muschg). Schiller himself had hoped that Tell would appeal to the heart and senses and be
effective on stage, in other words, that it would be a Volksstck, fr
das ganze Publikum.1 Whether taking such hints or not, audiences have
usually experienced the work as a celebratory play or a festive event, a
Festspiel jubilating about the victory of a popular sort of idealism that
restores the sovereignty of the people with unfailing aplomb. Tell was
something for everybody, then (who could be against it, other than totalitarian regimes, such as Hitlers [Fetscher, 15253]) and something for
all seasons. But that is where popularity becomes problematic. For
Schillers celebration of an event of thirteenth-century Swiss history is so
rhetorically vague and operatically enthralling that it gained a dubious kind
of universality and adaptability allowing it to be appropriated by a motley
crew of ideologies. After all, hadnt Schiller himself instrumentalized his
chosen moment in medieval local history to express concerns about his
own political present (Fink, 59)? So why not look for timely applications at
a later period? As a result, Tell came to be a multipurpose political play.
Although the men of the twentieth of July right-of-centre conspiracy
against Hitler may not have claimed Schillers Tell as an archetypical model
themselves, recent scholars have confidently done so on their behalf
(Mller-Seidel, 143; Herbst). East German Communists thought nothing
of welcoming the rebellion of the Swiss lower strata of society, indeed of
the Volk, against the feudal order as an analogue of their own seemingly
successful class struggle (Braemer); and as they pointed to the French
Revolution as yet another analogue hadnt Schiller, commenting on Tell,
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spoken of a storm on the Bastille (Braemer, 327)? They might have taken
comfort from the fact that the historical, or rather mythical, Tell of the
Swiss tradition had indeed been a heroic idol of the Jacobins (Borchmeyer
1982, 6970). Likewise, Tell was claimed as a precursor of late-twentiethcentury freedom fighters (Ueding, 413), of mid-twentieth-century terrorists (Frisch, 122), and, most recently, of the anti-Communist liberation
movement in East Germany culminating in 1989 (Piedmont); finally, the
play has been read as a case study of colonialism in the guise of modernization (Ndong).
If Tell can be appropriated by so many and diverse political ideologies, then maybe its own intellectual signet is wishy-washy enough that
it can be said to have no political message, or even implication, at all. The
play has indeed been seen that way. Pre-1968 generations reveled in the
euphoria of Wilhelm Tell as a Gesamtkunstwerk celebrating the triumph of
Schillers concept of aesthetic education; as such, it was a timeless, universally human, pointedly unpolitical vision of the whole man cultivating
his serene inner freedom and autonomy, complemented by the aesthetic
state he is providentially fortunate to live in; Tell was beauty of existence
beautifully presented, with ideological dynamite conspicuous by its
absence (Martini). One particularly beautiful moment in this view is the
sun rising, at the conclusion of the Rtli scene, as a harbinger of the realization of this aesthetic ideal. But every reasonably alert contemporary
would have registered that the rising sun had been the ubiquitous symbol
of the French Revolution (Borchmeyer 1982, 98; Fink, 71). Hadnt
Schiller himself, quite apart from his reference to Tells storm on the
Bastille, remarked that at a time when Swiss political freedom seemed to
have vanished he wanted to make den Leuten den Kopf wieder warm
with his play (5:753)? Wieder the American War of Independence
was still a talking point for the author of Kabale und Liebe; the French
Revolution, its turbulent aftermath extending well into the early 1800s,
was never far from his thoughts, and the Helvetic Republic of 1798 collapsed while Schiller, suspected of subversive leftist propensities himself,
was writing his play about the quasi-mythical Swiss freedom fighter. So
how could this play not be a Lehrstck ber rechtes Verhalten unter
bedrohlichen politischen Verhltnissen (Koopmann 1988, 129), perhaps
even one with an in tirannos motto?
The political message or implication of Tell has been analyzed in
depth and repeatedly, largely by competent students of intellectual history
and political philosophy. Yet, oddly enough, not only has there been no
agreement but the most sophisticated analyses have diagnosed a complicated, highly differentiated ideological stance of such sophistication in
legal and constitutional thought that one wonders how das ganze Publikum for whom the Volksstck was intended could have been
expected to follow the subtleties of such an argumentation. At issue,
WILHELM TELL
249
broadly speaking, is this: does the author, known to have opposed the
French Revolution, come out on the side of the democratic-republican
ideals, natural law, and the rights of man (all proclaimed in 1789), that is
to say, on the side of a new social contract for the moral-rational state of
the future (Martinson, 266; cf. Braemer, Thalheim, Kaiser, Hinderer,
et al.)? Or does the play advocate a conservative revolution in the sense of
restoring established rights, agreed upon in writing? In other words, does
the play advocate the restoration of the ancien regime which the proponents of libert, galit, fraternit overthrew in the name of unwritten
natural rights? (This is the view of Benno von Wiese [76567] and many
others who, in effect, turn a deaf ear to Attinghausens Das Alte strzt, es
ndert sich die Zeit, / Und neues Leben blht aus den Ruinen
[ll. 242526]). The former view might recommend itself more easily if one
keeps ones eyes fixed on Tell, the latter if one listens to the Rtli conspirators. Can one blame critics for arguing yes and no? The most sensitive
and knowledgeable among them see an uneasy yet subtle and sophisticated ensemble of an ideology bent on restoring ancient cantonal constitutional rights and a political vision indebted to the natural law that the
French Revolution had recourse to (Borchmeyer 1982; Fink, Mller-Seidel,
Knobloch). And dont the Rtli conspirators speak with two voices themselves when, on the one hand, they insist they are non-subversive in their
abidance by the emperors written guarantees of their liberty: Wir stiften
keinen neuen Bund, es ist / Ein uralt Bndnis nur von Vter Zeit, / Das
wir erneuern! (ll. 115557; cf. ll. 1215, 1326) while, on the other
hand, they appeal to the droits de lhomme in the state of nature; it is the
same person, Stauffacher, who speaks for them:
Nein, eine Grenze hat Tyrannenmacht,
Wenn der Gedrckte nirgends Recht kann finden,
Wenn unertrglich wird die Last greift er
Hinauf getrosten Mutes in den Himmel,
Und holt herunter seine ewgen Rechte,
Die droben hangen unveruerlich
Und unzerbrechlich wie die Sterne selbst
Der alte Urstand der Natur kehrt wieder,
Wo Mensch dem Menschen gegenber steht
Zum letzten Mittel, wenn kein andres mehr
Verfangen will, ist ihm das Schwert gegeben
Der Gter hchstes drfen wir verteidgen
Gegen Gewalt Wir stehn vor unser Land,
Wir stehn vor unsre Weiber, unsre Kinder! (ll. 127588)
So the rebels stand for both: for the conservative restoration of positive law
and the affirmation of the peoples and the individuals sovereign natural
250
KARL S. GUTHKE
WILHELM TELL
251
speaking, the most important political fact (McKay, 110). And yet the
isolation of Tell from the Rtli conspirators did not just happen. It was
Schillers own doing, in deliberate contradiction of his sources, Tschudis
Chronicon Helveticum (1734) and Johannes von Mllers Der Geschichten
schweizerischer Eydgenossenschaft erster und zweyter Theil (History of the
Swiss Commonwealth, Parts One and Two, 1786) (Fink, 5962, 74, 78).
Indeed, even within the play this separation of Tell from the conspiracy is
thematized, not only in Tells proverbial Der Starke ist am mchtigsten
allein (l. 437) but more significantly in that Schiller is at great pains to
point out that Tell, acting on his own in killing Gessler who forced him to
risk shooting his child in the apple-shot scene, is in conflict with the stated
aim of the insurgents:
Denn Raub begeht am allgemeinen Gut,
Wer selbst sich hilft in seiner eignen Sache. (ll. 146465)
Moreover, by isolating Tell in this way, Schiller invited the interpretation
that Tell, the killer (appropriating for his part the subversive rights of
man and law of nature), would be suspected of Jacobinism, as indeed he
was when Iffland voiced his concern in connection with the 1804 performance in Berlin (5:801). But would that not also make Tell a Jacobin
troubled by his conscience? And is it really a Jacobin whom the patriotic
Swiss cheer in the final scene? Would that not implicate the real conspirators
as well?
In the light of the abundant writing on Tell, it still remains unclear just
what Schiller intended by isolating Tell from the conspirators and what the
play gained from this decision. The various readings, taken together, unintentionally suggest more questions than answers: contractual rights of the
medieval tradition or the natural justice and droits de lhomme of 1789,
anti-Jacobinism (and anti-terreur) or Jacobinism, conservative revolution
or progressive revolution? And replacing the either-or by both-and only
muddies the waters of political philosophy and legal theory even more. But
should that not be a hint that the play ought to be read not in terms of theories of state and society but in terms of Tell himself so carefully
removed from close contact with the revolutionary event based on political
ideology? Schiller, the dramatist, shaper, and explorer of characters, is no
doubt more interested in emphasizing the human dimension of the historical event, with its philosophical implications forming no more than its
backdrop. Once one sees that not ideology but Tell is the crux, that is:
once one focuses on the human rather than the political or philosophical
dimension, the Schauspiel Wilhelm Tell ceases to be as exceptional in
Schillers oeuvre as it has long seemed to be and still is to many readers. For
the human dimension opens up that tragic perspective that is Schillers dramatic signet. This comes into view when one takes seriously the question
252
KARL S. GUTHKE
posed earlier: does the revolution succeed, that is, is it good, also in the
sense that it leaves Tells moral and psychic harmony intact, ungetrbt,
unverstrt, unversehrt? Only if one approaches the play with this
question in mind the question that would have exercised the dramatist
renowned for his Menschengestaltung can one ultimately understand
why Tell is conceived to be a figure apart and, vice versa, how the drama as
a structured whole gains its meaning only in relation to this figure and its
inner conflicts. If, then, the old and perennially vexing question of the isolation of Tell from the revolution that bears his name is thought through
again from this point of view, an interesting answer might emerge.
2.
Schiller was aware that the isolation of the protagonist was at the core of
the play as a whole and that its structure depended on it. While still working on the manuscript, he wrote to Iffland on December 5, 1803: So
[. . .] steht der Tell selbst ziemlich fr sich in dem Stck, seine Sache ist
eine Privatsache, und bleibt es, bis sie am Schluss mit der ffentlichen
Sache zusammengreift (5:755). This, then, is the heart of the matter: just
how do the personal and public, the moral and the political, the events
around Tell and the uprising against the Hapsburg governors in their feudal fortresses interact, not pragmatically, but intellectually and thematically? This question has been at issue for two centuries: champions of a
glckliche Symbiose or unbroken fusion are confronted by those critics
who see an unrelieved tension between the two or even a breaking apart
amounting to a serious flaw (Koopmann 1988, 128 vs. Sharpe, 3078 and
Stahl 14142, 145). In other words: does Tells deed become a representative event in the course of the action, giving meaning to the entire play,
or doesnt it?
One thing is clear: the public matter would point in the general
direction of an intellectually undemanding Volksstck, while the personal matter suggests an approach Schiller was intimately familiar with:
thinking through a problem in the medium of character portrayal. Which
of the two had more weight in Schillers deliberations with himself? He
leaves no doubt about this in his remarks written in the margins of Ifflands
catalog of concerns on April 10, 1804. Here, he defends Tells soul-searching
monologue in act 4, which Iffland had found to be inappropriately loquacious, Tell being a self-admitted man of action, not words; Schiller confides: he would not have written the play if it had not been for this
particular scene (5:807). And, generalizing from that other soul-searching
scene, the dialogue with Parricida in the final act, he goes on to say that the
literary merit of the play (das poetisch groe) was to be found in dem
Gehalt der Situationen und in der tragischen Dignitt der Charactere.
WILHELM TELL
253
254
KARL S. GUTHKE
strands of the action together as it celebrates the revolution and Tell, that
is to say, both the political and the personal Sache.
The rub is in the and. There would be a good fit if Tell could be
included in the general jubilation in the manner of a suitable rather than a
jarring prop, in other words, if Tell were of a piece with the rest of the
patriotic Swiss that crowd the stage. This, however, would imply that
Schiller would have abdicated as the shaper and portraitist of complex,
difficult human beings that he normally is as the shrewd and subtle
Menschenkenner that Max Kommerell had in mind as long ago as the 1930s
when he wrote: Keine Tat verwirklicht die Idee, ohne sie zugleich zu verleugnen. Mensch sein is nicht nur Handelnknnen, sondern Handelnmssen, Handelnmssen im Stoff der Welt mit sinnlichen Mitteln, und
also handelnde Untreue an der Idee. Menschsein ist die Tragdie der Mittel. He wrote this in an essay titled Schiller als Psychologe.3 If one reads
Tell as a triumphant exposition of harmony beyond tragedy, as has usually
been the case, certainly in German-speaking countries, Schiller, the doctor
of medicine of a period when psychology was not a discipline distinct from
surgery, as his dissertation amply demonstrates, would have failed to
practice his psychological skill in creating the protagonist of the play. And
sure enough, we are told that Tell cannot be grasped psychologically, as
he is a Heiliger der Natur as though that were a household term, like
terrorist or resistance fighter (Kaiser 1978, 201; Martini, 109; Ueding,
395). In this view, Tell is a saint, or a mythical dragon-slayer, or a political
messiah without moral scruples, in a word, a fairy-tale figure of superhuman dimensions fitted into a work that fuses idealistisches Geschichtsdrama und Kultgesang auf die alten Heroen into one play (Ueding, 394,
404). Such a Tell fits neatly, without jarring, into a Festspiel of political liberation. Grasping Tell this way surely preempts the need to consider
what Schiller might have meant when he said in a March 3, 1804 letter to
Karl August Bttiger that Wilhelm Tell was about psychologische
Motivierung (5:79798). If one ignores such a hint from the acknowledged master psychologist, one easily jumps to an idealization or canonization or blanket justification that transforms the assassin of Gessler into an
ideal personified: Tell becomes an apostle or a saint or indeed a savior, a
skularisierte Heilandsfigur, a Messiah who performs ein Wunder
Gottes (Karthaus, 23339) or even a paradigm of Schillers critique of
Kants indictment of Tyrannenmord (Thalheim, 234). What all such
interpretations miss is the human dimension of Wilhelm Tell, chamois
hunter, husband, father, and neighbor.
This is all the more surprising as Schiller goes out of his way, to the point
of dramatic implausibility, to demonstrate that Tells drama is first and foremost an inner one, a drama of moral soul-searching. Why else the anguished
monologue above the hohle Gasse and the somewhat contrived dialogue
with Parricida attempting self-justification? Wasnt taciturnity one of the
WILHELM TELL
255
3.
The key passages that psychological attention must focus on are those that
Schiller considered the intellectual core of the play: the monologue in
Kssnacht at the scene of the murder and the justificatory dialogue with
Parricida. It is in them that the inner drama expresses itself above all.
The monologue, as Schiller said in responding to Ifflands concerns
about its possible political subversiveness, is das beste im ganzen Stck:
Tells Empfindungszustand constitutes the emotional appeal of the play,
and that was, to repeat, what persuaded Schiller to write Tell in the first
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KARL S. GUTHKE
place (5:807). In the same response, this time addressing Tells exchange
with Parricida, he wrote the statement, already quoted, about Tell being
the interessanteste Gegenstand im Stck and crucial to the Absicht des
Werks. The two key passages are again coupled in Schillers letter to
Iffland of April 14, 1804: Auch Goethe ist mit mir berzeugt, da ohne
jenen Monolog und ohne die persnliche Erscheinung des Parricida der
Tell sich gar nicht htte denken lassen (5:770). Der Tell the play
would be unthinkable without these two decisive scenes, and its protagonist as well. How then does Tell reveal his inner drama in these two key
passages? The meditative prelude to the assassination of Gessler first:
Mach deine Rechnung mit dem Himmel Vogt,
Fort mut du, deine Uhr ist abgelaufen.
Ich lebte still und harmlos Das Gescho
War auf des Waldes Tiere nur gerichtet,
Meine Gedanken waren rein von Mord
Du hast aus meinem Frieden mich heraus
Geschreckt, in ghrend Drachengift hast du
Die Milch der frommen Denkart mir verwandelt,
Zum Ungeheuren hast du mich gewhnt
Wer sich des Kindes Haupt zum Ziele setzte,
Der kann auch treffen in das Herz des Feinds.
Die armen Kindlein, die unschuldigen,
Das treue Weib mu ich vor deiner Wut
Beschtzen, Landvogt Da, als ich den Bogenstrang
Anzog als mir die Hand erzitterte
Als du mit grausam teufelischer Lust
Mich zwangst, aufs Haupt des Kindes anzulegen
Als ich ohnmchtig flehend rang vor dir,
Damals gelobt ich mir in meinem Innern
Mit furchtbarm Eidschwur, den nur Gott gehrt,
Da meines nchsten Schusses erstes Ziel
Dein Herz sein sollte Was ich mir gelobt
In jenes Augenblickes Hllenqualen,
Ist eine heilge Schuld, ich will sie zahlen.
Du bist mein Herr und meines Kaisers Vogt,
Doch nicht der Kaiser htte sich erlaubt
Was du Er sandte dich in diese Lande,
Um Recht zu sprechen strenges, denn er zrnet
Doch nicht um mit der mrderischen Lust
Dich jedes Greuels straflos zu erfrechen,
Es lebt ein Gott zu strafen und zu rchen. (ll. 256696)
WILHELM TELL
257
258
KARL S. GUTHKE
a tragic self-awareness, as has been said, without offering textual documentation (McKay, 112). On the other hand, recent readings persist in
maintaining equally airily that no moral scruple is evident in the monologue above the hohle Gasse: having accepted his role as the messiah
of the country in the apple-shot scene, Tell merely reconfirms this mission
before he actually carries it out (Ueding, 404, 405, 407, 414). What does
the text itself reveal? Does Tell feel guilty?
At first glance, the passage at issue is a speech of self-justification and
self-exoneration. If one reads it with the specialized knowledge of the
forensic trial lawyer, one recognizes here as well as in the Parricida scene a
formal schema of legalistic argumentation with all the usual professional
ruses, feints, or subterfuges. This would then prompt the conclusion that
the speaker knows that he is guilty and in effect confesses his guilt. And
the reason why this self-convicted murderer gives himself up only to the
justice of his own conscience, rather than that of a court of law, as Karl
Moor did, seems equally clear from such a legalistic point of view: the
patriotic figurehead cannot let the commonwealth down (Richards; see
also Ryder). In this interpretation, the text is certainly read closely (which
is not always the case), but it is read with the eyes of a juridical specialist
whom Schiller, who wrote Tell fr das ganze Publikum, could not have
had in mind. The legal layman will hardly be convinced that this is the
proper way of convicting the defendant of guilt-feelings and consequently
of guilt; he will not be familiar with and will not discern in Tells own
words an alleged procedurally correct duel of the prosecution and the
defense taking the form of Tells conflicted lawyerly strategy of repeated
self-incrimination followed by self-defense (for instance: Tell then applies
the rule of utra lex potentior [Richards, 482]).
Taken on its own human terms, without recourse to such legalistic
maneuvering, the Kssnacht monologue, through its repeated insistence
on the word Mord, reveals all the more persuasively Tells latent but
nonetheless real feelings of guilt, his pangs of conscience, his self-doubt,
and even his despair, indeed his disbelief in his own defense (Best, 303;
Mainland 1968, lviii). This view gains even more plausibility if one sees the
monologue from the perspective of the Rtli scene and the Parricida scene.
For in the Rtli scene the very idea of murdering Gessler was painstakingly
avoided: Die Zeit bringt Rat. Erwartets in Geduld (l. 1437); and in the
later scene Tell draws the line between himself and the regicide motivated
by personal ambition and revenge with the lines: Gemordet / Hast du,
ich hab mein teuerstes verteidigt (ll. 318384) which amounts to a
self-acquittal from what so deeply troubles his conscience in the Kssnacht
monologue: Mord.
Whether we are willing to take the self-acquittal in the Parricida scene
at face value and therefore as a given of the play or not, the Kssnacht
monologue points to Tells awareness of guilt (Best, 297; Mainland 1968,
WILHELM TELL
259
lxvii). Even that may still be too legalistic a term. What is undeniable, however (as Mainland in particular has insisted, though he does speak of Tells
consciousness of guilt), is the troubled and painful state of mind of this
perfectly ordinary member of the community as he is suddenly faced with
abandoning his principles as murder becomes inevitable.6 The milk of
human kindness has turned into Drachengift (ll. 257273). Tell is terrified by himself, by what he is about to do, and in retrospect also by what
he did in Altdorf a deed that now inexorably demands that he follow
through: Wer sich des Kindes Haupt zum Ziele setzte, / Der kann auch
treffen in das Herz des Feinds (ll. 257576). Tell now suffers the same
Hllenqualen he experienced when he was about to shoot the apple off
his sons head (l. 2588), but not just because he remembers that moment
and now relives it. For the present predicament carries its own moral
anguish: to protect his children from similar atrocities that he can firmly
count on in the future (ll. 263134) Tell now believes that he has to commit a deed that is contrary to his nature and to all he considers human. He
does, to be sure, see himself as the executor of Gods will, of Gods
revenge even (l. 2596), but his anguish is no less terrible for that (l.
2604). We may remember the line spoken on the Rtli: schrecklich
immer / Auch in gerechter Sache ist Gewalt (ll. 132021). All the more
surprising is the conventional view that Tells monologue amounts to a
manifest justification of his personal deed and of the political cause at the
same time. For though speaking as the defender of the family, as a father
and a husband in this monologue, it is commonly argued that Tell also
realizes the political implications of his personal cause: in protecting the
family, he is protecting the natural and original cell of all social life and
thereby the order of the political community.
This is, of course, how Tell professes to see it after the fact: Diese
Hand / [. . .] / Hat euch verteidigt und das Land (l. 3143); and it fits
well with the ethos of the Rtli conspirators.7 But Tell is not one of them!
Shouldnt that give us pause? It is hard to see that Tell is convinced of the
impeccable dignity of what he is about to do and that he emerges from his
emotional ordeal as a hero: Tells Selbstverstndnis in diesem hchsten
Augenblick der Entscheidung konvergiert endgltig mit dem Bild, das sich
die anderen schon lngst von ihm gemacht haben, namely the image of
the just (Ueding, 4045, 414). What transpires in the monologue the
best part of the entire play, we recall is not so much exoneration (which
comes into play only on the surface and which Schiller did not identify as
the function of the monologue) as the agony: the irresolvable emotional
dilemma that offers no clear-cut moral justification to Tell and yet carries
the moral demand of action. The theme of his speech is the curse of the
good deed. To do it, Tell at last takes up his crossbow zum Morde jetzt
(l. 2634) in this decisive moment he pronounces the word that has been
troubling him so unrelentingly, and still is. Why else, after the monologue
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KARL S. GUTHKE
but before the release of the arrow, Tells words in response to the news of
a landslide in the canton of Glarus: Wanken auch / Die Berge selbst? Es
steht nichts fest auf Erden (ll. 266667). Tells resolution to kill Gessler is
unshaken from the beginning of the monologue. What is shaken is his
peace of mind, and it remains so until the end of the play.
Nonetheless, in the Parricida scene, Tell does come close to selfjustification. He claims reine Hnde (l. 3180) and the gerechte Notwehr
eines Vaters: Hast du der Kinder liebes Haupt verteidigt? (ll. 317677),
he scolds Parricida. A guter Mensch himself, he curses the murderer (ll.
3171, 318184). But does this amount to a demonstration of das Nothwendige und Rechtliche der Selbsthilfe in einem streng bestimmten Fall
(5:808) as Schiller put it himself? This interpretation is common to this
day. It may convince Parricida, but does it convince the spectator the
spectator who is not in the mood for celebratory performance of patriotic
virtue or the spectator who remembers that Schiller wrote the just-quoted
words in an effort to appease Ifflands concern about what might be taken
as carte blanche for political assassination? And what about the word that
Schiller, the superb craftsman, now has Tell throw at Parricida, the word
that had disturbed Tell so much in the monologue: Mrder? Karl Moor,
who is in many ways comparable, in his ultimate confrontation with himself
put his rhetoric in the service of self-accusation. Tell puts his in the service
of self-defense and doesnt he protest too much, thereby confirming,
according to the psychological rule of thumb, what he denies, namely that
his deed is at all comparable with Parricidas. As early as 1949 Ludwig
Kahn argued against the consensus:
In fact, once we risk reading a meaning into Schiller that he certainly
would have repudiated (had he been conscious of it), we may attribute to
him a semiconscious apprehension as to the moral rectitude of his hero.
Why else the fifth act with the scene of Tells self-justification? And does
not Tell protest a little too much in this scene? Does not the very protestation betray the anxiety of the man who terribly much wants to be (but
is not quite) sure that his hands are unsullied? Just before Tell had sent off
the arrow that killed Gessler, he himself had spoken of his deed as murder.
And if, as we said above, the task to which Tell is called is distasteful
and repulsive to him, it is so in no small degree because of its moral
opprobrium.8
This reading is not documented by textual references, and Kahn undermines his argument by suggesting that Schiller would have rejected it himself. Also, no dramatis persona in the play sees it that way, thus giving us a
hint (in contrast to Schillers frequent practice). But are there no hints in
Tells own words to Parricida that might suggest Tells latent awareness of
guilt, just as was the case in the earlier monologue? In other words, is the
point of this scene really the exoneration and justification of Tell, or is his
WILHELM TELL
261
262
KARL S. GUTHKE
O Tell! Tell!
tritt zurck, lt seine Hand los.
Was erschreckt dich, liebes Weib?
Wie wie kommst du mir wieder? Diese Hand
Darf ich sie fassen? Diese Hand O Gott!
(ll. 314042)
There is no textual evidence for the recent singular view that Hedwigs
revulsion refers to the hand that shot at their son (Schweitzer, 257).
Tells hand at this moment is the hand of a murderer, even if his victim was
Gessler. Calling himself a man of sin, he expresses his solidarity with Parricida, his shared humanity: Ihr seid ein Mensch Ich bin es auch
(l. 3224). Unless we want to take this as a Christian banality, for which
there is no reason in a play devoid of specific Christian ethos, we should
hear homo sum and its corollary: Nil humanum a me alienum puto,
with humanum unmistakably meaning human weakness, the lack of moral
perfection in non-religious terms. This, then, is what is hinted at by Tells
astonishing identification with Parricida, the murderer.12 Hence Tells
humility in the final moments of this scene.
Keeping in mind these observations on the language of gesture and of
allusion, the spectator will also find it plausible that in showing Parricida
the way to Rome (and repentance), Tell also has in mind his own way from
guilt or sin to forgiveness.13 Speaking to Parricida of his hoped-for Ruh,
of his Reuetrnen, and his Schuld (ll. 3231, 3251), Tell gives voice to
his own troubled conscience. Symbolic language reinforces this point. Up
to now, Tell has never been seen without his crossbow, but now we hear
that he has placed the instrument of murder in a heilge Sttte; it will
never be seen again (ll. 313738). It is hard to see how this is to be a hint
that Tell is able from now on Schuld in Unschuld zu erleben (Koopmann 1988, 137) or that he has regained his peace of mind (Schweitzer,
262) or that the solitary hunter has become fully integrated into society
(Kaufmann, 143; Ockenden, 41). One recent critic has even surmised that
WILHELM TELL
263
Tell, far from giving up his pre-civilized existence symbolized by the crossbow, will return to his former life as a hunter, since a self-respecting
hunter would own several cross-bows (Schweitzer, 259, 262). On the
contrary, as Tell deprives himself of the tool of his Mordtat, he also
deprives himself of the innocence whose tool the crossbow had been
before the deed. This symbolic detail, invented by Schiller without any
prompting by his sources, points to what has been hinted at by the other
dramatic devices mentioned earlier: Tells unresolved moral dilemma, the
unrelieved agony of his conscience.
4.
Tells dialogue with Parricida, which lifts his suppressed unease about his
own similar yet different deed into the twilight of his consciousness, is
interrupted by the arrival of the representatives of the cantons eager to
honor and glorify Tell as the savior of their country and their freedom.
Tell reacts with silence to their jubilant ovations. Could this possibly be
read as Schiller allowing his hero to savor his triumph (Lamport, 868),
to enjoy his victory (Ueding, 395)? Or doesnt Tells silence rather point
to the fact that he is still suffering those pangs of his conscience, however
dull and inarticulate, which suggested themselves only minutes earlier?
Doesnt the jubilation (Lautes Frohlocken) rather confirm his newfound
doubt about his really being ein guter Mensch (l. 3171)?14 This would
of course imply that Schiller was not merely writing a popular Festspiel, a
celebratory Volksstck, but was also continuing to explore the vein of
tragic character portrayal that he had been pursuing throughout his career
as a dramatist.
But, to return to our earlier question, why juxtapose the Tell plot and
the uprising of the people? Why keep the protagonist so deliberately solitary, isolated from his compatriots, contrary to what Schiller had found in
his historical sources? The significance of the juxtaposition would be not so
much a political one (the political agent and the political will of the people
in ideal harmony) as a dramaturgical one: one that suits Schillers inclination to portray a problematic character and also brings into full view the
Sinnstruktur of the entire play as a work of art and of thought. The subtitle
of Tell notwithstanding, this Sinnstruktur would not be that of a Schauspiel culminating in festive exuberance. Instead, it suggests that the peoples revolution is just and worth celebrating but that it succeeds only at
a price. The price is paid by Tell. The happiness or redemption of the people who may not deserve it any more than the rabble in Fiesko since none
of them stood by Tell in the hour of need in Altdorf, as Hedwig notes bitterly (ll. 236970) is achieved, and could only be achieved, through the
undiminished anguish of the bringer of redemption, through his personal
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KARL S. GUTHKE
tragedy (Guthke, 304; Luserke, 819, 823). Tell suffers in silence; patriotic
rejoicing drowns out the torments of his conscience, which is all the more
troubled as he has no one with whom to share his anguish. Apart and
lonely, he is a broken man. It must needs be that [salvation, rather than the
biblical offences] come; but woe to that man by whom [it] cometh
(Matthew 18:7). Realizing this, we look back in wonderment to readings
common in simpler and easier times. Here is Ludwig Bellermann in 1905
(the year of a Schiller jubilee): So tiefe Blicke ins innerste Geheimnis der
Menschennatur, wie fast all brigen Stcke Schillers, lt [Wilhelm Tell] uns
nicht tun.15 On the contrary, while heartily joining in the celebration of
the good deed, Schiller was also acutely aware that there is one who has to
bear its curse. It is this awareness that allowed him to succeed in creating
the groe Tragdie that he had hoped to write (5:752).
Notes
1
References in this essay to Schillers works are to the Frankfurter Ausgabe, Werke
und Briefe (Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1988), volume 5. Here: 5:750, 751,
754. Subsequent references are in parentheses in the text by volume and page
number. References following quotations or paraphrases from Tell are to line
numbers.
2
Ockenden, 41; Schweitzer, 26162, among many others. This view is modified
somewhat by Herbst, 44041. For a critical discussion of this reading, see Guthke,
291 n. 25.
3
Max Kommerell, Geist und Buchstabe der Dichtung, 3rd ed. (Frankfurt: Klostermann, 1944), 187.
Moore, 280, 283: Is there in great drama another instance of a man so idealized,
so brave, laconic, faithful, honourable, as the hero of this play? So thoroughly
has the author justified him that the morality of his deed has been hardly discussed. Moore himself sees the personal tragedy of the situation, but the links of
his analysis with the text are too tenuous to carry conviction.
6
I see little point in the observation that Tell, as a hunter, is a member of a wild,
primitive, pre-civilized world who after the deed, when he relinquishes his crossbow rises to the level of civilized society (Ockenden, 4041).
7
ll. 268283; 279394; 128788; cf. 318184; for the interpretation described
here, see Lamport, 865; Koopmann, 1977, vol. 1, 86; v. Wiese, 77275: Tell the
Gerechte. Others, of course, prefer to see an act of personal revenge in Tells
slaying of Gessler (e.g., Ryder).
8
9
It is unreasonable to suppose that at this stage in his dramatic career Schiller
would invent the long tirades of the scene merely so that the audience might be
WILHELM TELL
265
shown the difference between Tells deed and Parricidas. Yet this seems to be all
that countless audiences have been advised to look for. It is odd that so many commentators have overlooked the connection between protestations which even they
regard as excessive in the Parricida scene and the prominence of the word Mord
in the monologue. Just as the humiliation of Tell and that of Gessler are causally
related, so there is here a linking of Tells deed with that of Johannes, which is dramatically and humanly far more impressive than any pointing of a moral or any
demonstration of a political principle (Mainland, 1968, lxiii).
10
Peter Michelsen, Der Bruch mit der Vater-Welt: Studien zu Schillers Rubern
(Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1979), 963. See also FA 8:17374.
11
Fiesko, V, 14; Don Carlos, following ll. 4713, 4812, 4903, 5195, 5670, 5689;
Wallensteins Tod, following ll. 1660; Die Braut von Messina, following ll. 2430. See
also Gerhard Kluge, ber die Notwendigkeit der Kommentierung kleinerer
Regie- und Spielanwesungen in Schillers frhen Dramen, editio 3 (1989), 9097.
12
13
Richards, 484: Tell has confessed to equal guilt; Mainland, 1968, lxvlxvi;
Ryder, 501. Ueding, 415, reads the directions to Parricida as implying that Tells
path is a different one. For a rejection of the view that Tell is guilty and implicitly
confesses his guilt, see also Herbst, 437, and Schweitzer, 26162.
14
15
Ludwig Bellermann, Schillers Dramen, vol. 3, 3rd ed. (Berlin: Weidmann, 1905),
133. For a similar view, expressed in 1999, see Schweitzer, 262: Tell is not a tragic
figure, does not lose his peace of mind, makes no sacrifice, there is no Fluch
der guten Tat.
Works Cited
Bellermann, Ludwig. Schillers Dramen. Vol. 3. 3rd ed. Berlin: Weidmann,
1905.
Best, Alan. Alpine Ambivalence in Schillers Wilhelm Tell. German Life and
Letters, n.s. 37 (1984): 297306.
Borchmeyer, Dieter. Altes Recht und Revolution: Schillers Wilhelm Tell. In
Friedrich Schiller: Kunst, Humanitt und Politik in der spten Aufklrung,
ed. Wolfgang Wittkowski, 69111. Tbingen: Niemeyer, 1982.
. Um einen anderen Wilhelm Tell fr die Schule bittend. Der
Deutschunterricht 35 (1983): 7890.
Braemer, Edith. Wilhelm Tell. In Braemer and Ursula Wertheim, Studien zur
deutschen Klassik, 297330. Berlin: Rtten and Loening, 1960.
Fetscher, Iring. Philister, Terrorist oder Reaktionr? Schillers Tell und seine
linken Kritiker. In Fetscher, Die Wirksamkeit der Trume, 14163. Frankfurt: Athenum, 1987.
Fink, Gonthier-Louis. Schillers Wilhelm Tell, ein antijakobinisches republikanisches Schauspiel. Aufklrung 1:2 (1986): 5782.
266
KARL S. GUTHKE
WILHELM TELL
267
McKay, G. W. Three Scenes from Wilhelm Tell. In The Discontinuous Tradition: Studies in German Literature in Honour of Ernest Ludwig Stahl, ed. P.
F. Ganz, 99112. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1971.
Michelsen, Peter. Der Bruch mit der Vater-Welt: Studien zu Schillers Rubern. Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1979.
Moore, W. G. A New Reading of Wilhelm Tell. In German Studies Presented
to Professor H. G. Fiedler, 27892. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1938.
Mller-Seidel, Walter. Verschwrungen und Rebellionen in Schillers Dramen. In La Revolution Franaise vue des deux cts du Rhin, ed. Andr
Dabzies, 14148. Aix en Provence: Publications de lUniversit de
Provence, 1990. Also in Schiller und die hfische Welt, ed. Achim Aurnhammer, Klaus Manger, and Friedrich Strack, 42246. Tbingen: Max
Niemeyer, 1990.
Muschg, Walter. Schiller ohne Wilhelm Tell. In Studien zur tragischen Literaturgeschichte, 82104. Bern and Munich: Francke, 1965.
Ndong, Norbert. Sie werden kommen, unsre Alpen abzumessen . . .: ber
Friedrich Schillers Drama Wilhelm Tell. In Andere Blicke, ed. Leo Kreutzer,
3353. Hannover: Revonnah, 1996; also in Welfengarten 2 (1992): 521.
Ockenden, R. C. Wilhelm Tell as Political Drama. Oxford German Studies
18/19 (1989/90): 2344.
Piedmont, Ferdinand. Reit die Mauern ein!: Schillers Wilhelm Tell auf der
Bhne im Jahr der deutschen Revolution 1989. German Studies Review
18 (1995): 21321.
Richards, David B. Tell in the Dock: Forensic Rhetoric in the Monologue and
Parricida Scene in Wilhelm Tell. German Quarterly 48 (1975): 47286.
Ryder, Frank G. Schillers Tell and the Cause of Freedom. German Quarterly (1975): 487504.
Schweitzer, Christoph E. A Defense of Schillers Wilhelm Tell. Goethe Yearbook 9 (1999): 25363.
Sharpe, Lesley. Schiller and the Historical Character: Presentation and Interpretation in the Historiographical Works and in the Historical Dramas. Oxford:
Oxford UP, 1982.
Stahl, E. L. Friedrich Schillers Drama. Oxford: Clarendon, 1961.
Thalheim, Hans-Gnther. Notwendigkeit und Rechtlichkeit der Selbsthilfe in
Schillers Wilhelm Tell. Goethe: Neue Folge des Jahrbuchs der GoetheGesellschaft (1956): 21657.
Ueding, Gert. Wilhelm Tell. In Schillers Dramen, ed. Walter Hinderer,
385422. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1992.
Vander Meulen, Ross. The Theological Texture of Schillers Wilhelm Tell.
Germanic Review 53 (1978): 5662.
Wiese, Benno von. Friedrich Schiller. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1959.
Schillers Legacy
Schiller, Nationaldichter
272
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273
274
WULF KOEPKE
comrades, it is not enough to look for suitable quotes and create a Schiller
that is to ones own liking. The proletariat must go beyond that. Now is
the time to understand cultural and political phenomena objectively in light
of their historical conditions. It is not the time to celebrate Schiller, but to
arrive at a critical understanding of his texts. For Luxemburg, there was a
timely parallel between the cooption of Schiller by the bourgeoisie and
revisionist readings of Karl Marx, in opposition to which she attempted to
guide the proletariat to a better appreciation of Marxs revolutionary theories. Likewise, she contended that instead of political appropriation, a critical reading of Schiller, the idealist, was needed, but held that this could not
be done without reading Karl Marx.
Commemorations of Schiller brought to the surface the need for a
total re-evaluation of the German cultural heritage so that it would make
sense to the proletarian class but, equally, address the need for keeping the
revolutionary Marxist attitude, in the spirit of Schiller the revolutionary. It
was Kurt Eisner in particular who pointed out how damaging the social climate in Weimar and Jena was for Schiller and that he was unable to recognize the French Revolution as the decisive event in human history that is
was. Instead, Schiller looked the other way and formulated letters on aesthetic education.
Eisner, Mehring, Kautsky, and Luxemburg claimed emphatically the
right of the proletariat to the classical heritage. Schiller was not a socialist;
yet he was seen as a progressive spirit in his own epoch who opposed
nationalism and the power of the churches and their dogmatism. If he did
not recognize the meaning of the French Revolution, he kept fighting,
nevertheless, for freedom and justice and against the first signs of exploitative capitalism (Jonas, ed., Schiller-Debatte; Hagen).
It goes without saying that the majority of voices of 1905 Germany
did not agree with this view. But Adolf Drrfu, a Lutheran minister, saw
the strong participation of the working class and their publications in the
Schiller anniversary year as a new aspect of Schillers Volkstmlichkeit
(quoted in Oellers, 23640). The tenor of the socialist voices of 1905 was,
with few variations, continued in 1955 in the speeches in the German
Democratic Republic (Schiller in unserer Zeit).
Inevitably, comparisons were drawn between the unforgettable celebrations of 1859 and the reflections on Schiller Today in 1905. In the meantime, literary trends, naturalism in particular, had caused a considerable
distance between contemporary writers and Schiller. The emphasis on
Schiller texts in the Gymnasium was a mixed blessing. Max Liebermann, for
instance, starts his answer to Julius Harts survey in Literarisches Echo with
this phrase: Nachdem mir das Gymnasium Schiller so viel als mglich
verekelt hatte . . . (Oellers, 1966, 169). In his introduction (16568),
Hart points to the wide spectrum of attitudes among the writers, art historians, and artists who had been surveyed, and articulates his own initial
275
276
WULF KOEPKE
277
278
WULF KOEPKE
friendship in the light of Stefan George and his group, the vlkische
view of German literature preferred to write about Schiller the man and
his life and quoted selectively from his works. For some, Wilhelm Tell provided the best reference point, but it was undeniable that the only historical play on Germanys past, Wallenstein, while arguably Schillers most
important play, had a protagonist who could hardly serve as the paradigm
of a Fhrer. Schiller, the Nationaldichter, provided little in his texts that
could serve as Nationaldichtung. Therefore, in 1933, two opposing
schools emerged, one of which adhered to the slogan, Denn er war
unser, the other of which was more solidly grounded in the evidence that
emphasized the distance and differences between Schiller and National
Socialism, primarily in his ideas on Humanitt and Weltbrgertum. The
first group found its authoritative voice in Herbert Cysarzs massive
Schiller volume of 1934. The extreme thesis of Hans Fabricius, Schiller als
Kampfgenosse Hitlers: Nationalsozialismus in Schillers Dramen (1932, second edition 1933), remained an exception, as respectable professors of
Germanistik distanced themselves from the dominant trend of the early
Nazi years to turn the entire history of German culture into a precursor of
National Socialism. Cysarzs method and image of Schiller were attacked
by the spokesman of the opposing faction, Gerhard Fricke. In his review
of Cysarzs book in 1934, in the Deutsche Literaturzeitung (Ruppelt, 60),
Fricke attacked its ahistorical approach. He had stated his position in
1927 in his book Der religise Sinn der Klassik Schillers: Zum Verhltnis
von Idealismus und Christentum. After 1933, he retained his view of the
non-political Schiller, as opposed to the political writer Heinrich von
Kleist.
The Gleichschaltung of Schiller by the propaganda machine overshadowed the ongoing research of Germanists. The 175th anniversary of
Schillers birth, in 1934, provided an opportunity for an unprecedented
spectacle (Ruppelt, 3338; Deutsche Klassiker im Nationalsozialismus,
6776). A relay of fifteen thousand young runners carried flowers to the
monument in Schillers birthplace in Marbach, and, on June 21, the summer solstice, it all climaxed with a gigantic bonfire. There was a daylong
performance of the Wallenstein trilogy in Berlin, a two-hour radio broadcast on all German stations on November 10, and celebrations throughout
Germany and beyond. The government and Goebbelss propaganda
topped this with a Reichsschillerwoche in Weimar and a speech by
Goebbels himself claiming Schiller for the new Germany. Since November 9
was the high holiday of the Nazi movement, the connection was evident.
These celebrations helped to efface the memory of the terror and assassinations of June 1934 and cemented Hitlers position as Fhrer after
Hindenburgs death.
When the Second World War began, the manipulation of the Schiller
image became much more pronounced, as his example was used to boost
279
the morale of the troops and the population. This was eminently achieved
by the popular film of 1940, Friedrich Schiller: Der Triumph eines Genies,
with Horst Caspar representing the young rebellious Schiller (Ruppelt,
12631). A curious episode in view of the general admiration for Schiller is
Hitlers order of 1941 that Wilhelm Tell, Schillers most popular play,
should neither be performed nor taught in the schools. This order caused
consternation and controversy among the top Nazi leaders, but was widely
obeyed. The reason for Hitlers aversion has remained unclear, although
the most plausible explanation is Hitlers fear of assassination, foreshadowed in the Tyrannenmord in Tell (Ruppelt, 4045).
280
WULF KOEPKE
scholarship on German literature since Schillers time. All told, the attention given to Schiller has been overwhelming, if not exhaustive. Schiller is,
indeed, not only a Klassiker of German literature but of German Literaturwissenschaft. Only Goethe and, arguably, Lessing have received similar
attention. In this respect, Schiller still remains the Nationaldichter that he
has always been. One aspect of this respectful attention are the bibliographies compiled by the Goethe-und-Schiller-Archiv in Weimar since 1959,
and the numerous research reports, many of them in the Jahrbuch der
Deutschen Schillergesellschaft.
The Deutsche Schillergesellschaft in Marbach/Stuttgart, which was
founded in 1946 as the successor of the Schwbische Schillerverein, emphasized its national mission. Its seat is the Schiller-Nationalmuseum in
Marbach. In 1859, Emperor Wilhelm I established a Schillerpreis for the
best drama and, in 1955, the Land Baden-Wrttemberg instituted the
Schiller-Gedchtnis-Preis for eminent achievements of cultural and scholarly
significance. There was a Deutsche Schillerstiftung of 1859 and a Schweizerische Schillerstiftung of 1905 that presented the Groen Schillerpreis.
Thus many institutions support and honor authors and literary scholarship
in the name of Schiller. Even with todays proliferation of literary prizes, the
preponderance of prizes named for Schiller shows that his status as a
Nationaldichter continues.
281
During the Nazi years a strong first attempt was made to find texts
that would prove that Schiller was an ardent German patriot and a true
forerunner of National Socialism. This led to a repetition of the same texts,
for instance the Reiterlied in Wallensteins Lager. Later, more sober
voices began to dominate, pleading for a reading of the texts without
undue political twisting. Deutschunterricht still could not do without
Schillers classical plays Wallenstein, Maria Stuart, Die Jungfrau von
Orleans, and above all, Wilhelm Tell, at least until 1941 (Ruppelt, 79103).
The resistance of teachers of German against a total Nazification of
Schiller indicates the importance of Schillers texts, primarily the classical
plays, for their instruction. Their sense of professional integrity stood in
opposition to the party propagandists, even among those teachers who
believed in National Socialism. The teaching of Schiller poems, especially
ballads, and plays was inevitable for the instruction of German. Schiller
texts appealed to young minds, and teachers clung to the idea of the
German Klassik, of the Volk der Dichter und Denker in the face of
the reality of the Volk der Richter und Henker. The paradoxical outcome of
this tenacious fight to preserve a classical Schiller for the Gymnasium was,
at the time, a concerted effort to maintain distance between the schools
and the party institutions. Nevertheless, after 1945, Schillers texts were
indicted as nationalistic and Nazi-infected. It took ten years, that is, until
the Schiller anniversary of 1955, to reintegrate Schiller into the curriculum
as an author of the German Klassik. The later de-emphasis of the literature
of the past, including Classicism, in the curriculum of the Federal Republic
was due to other factors. The GDR took a different route, by reinterpreting Schiller in the light of Marxist orthodoxy. In this context, the early
plays, Die Ruber, Fiesco, Kabale und Liebe and Don Carlos, were enlisted
as expressions of the bourgeois revolution of the late eighteenth century
that had led to the French Revolution. The honorary citizenship conferred
on Schiller by the French Republic was therefore especially meaningful.
Schiller wrote plays that can have a tremendous effect. Despite changing trends, ideologies, and tastes, some of his plays have always been
appealing to audiences. The proof is that, in spite of the extreme events of
German history and the concomitant changes in the mood of the Germans
and their attitude toward their fatherland, his plays keep re-emerging with
new aspects of relevance. While his classical plays, especially Wallenstein
and Wilhelm Tell, were most suitable for festive occasions and were elevated to the status of Festspiele, the naturalists found enough realism in the
early plays to suit their taste, while the Romantic elements of Wallenstein
and Die Jungfrau von Orleans appealed to the neo-Romantic disposition.
After the defeat of 1918 Schiller seemed at first out of place in the new
republic. This was exemplified by the ambivalence of the young playwright
Bertolt Brecht. The Berlin theater of the twenties reveled in experiments,
and the pathos of expressionism did not lie too far from Schillers young
282
WULF KOEPKE
283
284
WULF KOEPKE
Weimar and then in Amsterdam, Mann implored the Germans to rise above
their differences. Allusions to NATO and the Soviet Union are not necessary to understand Manns personal encounter with Schiller, for he considers himself a personification of the continuity of the humanistic spirit of
Goethe and Schiller in the present. Mann represented German literary culture above the political fronts of the day, and his speech symbolized that
writers were the only ones who still dared to differ from hostile ideologies
(Schiller-Handbuch, 78586). Thomas Manns Schiller-Rede was printed
both in the East German collection of speeches Schiller in unserer Zeit and
the West German volume Reden zum Gedenkjahr 1955, edited by Bernhard
Zeller. It was also published in an expanded form as Versuch ber Schiller,
Manns last publication. Mann recounts Schillers life and work in his own
way, including his early enthusiasm for Don Carlos, which found its literary
expression in the novella Tonio Krger (1903). Schillers pathos of
Gedankenfreiheit merges here with Manns own liberal humanism. The
allusions to the present emerge in the last paragraph, when he recalls the
commemorations of 1859 and adds: Es war ein nationales Fest, und das sei
das unsrige auch. Entgegen politischer Unnatur fhle das zweigeteilte
Deutschland sich eins in seinem Namen (Schiller 1955, 28). But then he
points beyond the nation; this Gedenkfeier, he says, should stand im
Zeichen universeller Teilnehmung nach dem Vorbild seiner hochherzigen
Gre . . . von seinem sanftgewaltigen Willen gehe durch das Fest seiner
Grablegung und Auferstehung etwas in uns ein: von seinem Willen zum
Schnen, Wahren und Guten, zur Gesittung zur inneren Freiheit, zur
Kunst, zur Liebe, zum Frieden, zu rettender Ehrfurcht des Menschen vor
sich selbst (28). Schiller is once more a secularized savior who can transform human lives and lift his people above their blind divisions, and above
politics this is one of the last manifestations of the true German
Bildungsbrgertum. The ubiquitous metaphor for the survival of the German
people after 1945, death and resurrection, is transferred to the image of
Schiller, whose spirit is reappearing in a new incarnation, as it were.
The West German collection of the speeches held during 1955 strives
to transcend politics in the sense Schillers own journal, Die Horen (The
Horae, 179597), had done. Even Theodor Heuss, the president of the
Federal Republic, emphasized: Ich enttusche jene gerne, die meinen,
weil ich gegenwrtig Bundesprsident bin, sei es meine Aufgabe, aus
Schiller eine staatsaktuelle Werbeaktion zu machen. Dafr ist er mir zu
gro, dafr bin ich mir zu gut (Schiller 1955, 82). He makes a point not
to talk about that Schiller, the legend, but the other, the real Schiller,
namely, his own regional countryman. Still, Heuss primarily discusses
Schillers fascination with politics, political history, and metapolitics, and
the German tragedy understandably so only ten years after the Second
World War. But he did what he had promised: not to use Schiller as a
spokesman for the West against the East.
285
286
WULF KOEPKE
guidance in life from his words and works. Schiller, applauded or rejected,
had to be more than just a writer. The inevitable comparison with Goethe
remained typical of all speeches, although the question arose, here and
there, that Schiller should first be considered in his own right.
Even in the collections of the Reden im Gedenkjahr 1959 it is clear that
there was der Wille zu einer neuen Begegnung mit Schiller (Zeller,
1959, 7). The commemorations were more academic and subdued than in
1955, just as they had been fifty years earlier in 1909. The references to the
present and to the two Germanys were in evidence, of course, when Hans
Mayer in Dem Wahren, Guten, Schnen (Schiller 1959, 15969)
stressed that Danneckers Schiller monument was eine fragwrdige Harmonisierung des Menschen Friedrich Schiller (161) and emphasized the
tensions and antinomies. The West considers Schiller a phenomenon of the
past: Schiller lebt als ein Gercht (165). For Mayers society the GDR
however, it should be different: Schiller ist zu gro, als da er irgendeiner Beschnigung bedrfte. Wir wollen ihn weder umdeuten noch als
ein bloes Gercht betrachten, sondern mit ihm leben: mit seinen Spannungen und in einem Zustand lebendiger Spannung zwischen ihm und
uns (165). Schiller was not far away from his late antagonist, Bertolt
Brecht: Will Brecht die Verhltnisse ndern, um den Menschen zu
befreien, will Schiller den Menschen ndern, seiner Freiheit zuliebe
(168). Brechts Heilige Johanna recognized that it was not enough to be
good; one had to create eine gute Welt. And Schiller can help: Unser
Leben mit Schiller geht nicht zu Ende, sondern beginnt erst (169). This
is Schiller as an eingreifender Dichter the other extreme is the conclusion of Emil Staigers speech Schillers Gre (293309): Sein ganzes
heroisches Leben und Schaffen verkndet mit unverweslicher Schrift: Hier
hat ein sterblicher Mensch in schwerester Prfung die Not der Welt berwunden (309). However, more typical is the speech by Dolf Sternberger,
who discusses the political Schiller without asking about his relevance for
the present, and the speech by Gerhard Storz, the Schiller scholar,
which makes us forget that he happened to be cultural minister of BadenWrttemberg. There is nothing official in Storzs speech; he does not
claim Schiller for his state or appropriate him for his own political viewpoint, but appears as a Schiller scholar with academic credentials, yet with
a persuasive, non-academic style, one who is concerned with the enduring
beauty and value of Schillers work.
The American volume Schiller 1759/1959: Commemorative American
Studies, edited by John R. Frey, provides a telling example of the effect of
anniversaries. The first sentence of Freys foreword underscores the significance of the edition. It has been more than fifty years since anything even
vaguely resembling this undertaking appeared on the American scene (v).
The previous undertakings had been products of the year 1905. Freys
Schiller volume is demonstratively apolitical and offers no reference to the
287
situation of German Studies in the United States at the time. Yet it is a powerful demonstration of the viability of Germanistik and, before the momentous changes of the sixties with their influx of German Germanists, a
manifesto, as it were, again carefully understated, of the caliber of intellectual acumen and scholarly competence of the old guard, as exemplified by
names like Harold Jantz, Henry Hatfield, Hermann Weigand, and Walter
Silz, together with immigrants like Oskar Seidlin, Melitta Gerhard, Helmut
Rehder, and Hans Jaeger. The emphasis here lies on theoretical problems
and philological questions, of which ber die sthetische Erziehung des
Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen (On the Aesthetic Education of Man in
a Series of Letters, 1795) is the central text. Only Harold Jantzs examination of the Nadowessiers Totenlied indicates an American connection.
Freys bibliography shows the continuity of the scholarly interest in Schiller,
but one curious item should be noted. It claims Thomas Manns speech on
Schiller of 1955 for American Schiller research, since it was published in
English translation in the Chicago Review 11 (1957): 318. Since then,
North American scholarship has gone on to develop new approaches and
ideas in close interdependence with German scholarship.
In 1959, the emphasis shifted from commemoration to scholarship. It
was the year of the synthesizing monographs, Friedrich Schiller by Benno
von Wiese, Gerhard Storzs Der Dichter Friedrich Schiller, and a revised
edition of Reinhard Buchwalds Schiller: Leben und Werk. These three
books, as Wolfgang Paulsen put it, did not duplicate each other, sondern
im Gegenteil [einander] auf fruchbarste ergnzen; da sie eine fortlaufende
dreifache Spiegelung desselben literarischen Komplexes ermglichen, wie
das wohl kaum irgendwo in der Literatur wieder auf hnliche Weise der
Fall ist (Paulsen, 384). Remarkably, all three books, which are the result
of many years of research and thought, were begun and found their first
form in the 1930s; their authors continued their research in subsequent
books and articles. In their 1959 versions, they attempt to bridge the gap
of 1945 from a new perspective in order to preserve what was important
about Schiller scholarship during the Nazi years. In his Forschungsbericht,
Paulsen was able to summarize the situation of Schiller scholarship and
Schiller commemorations in a manner that would be hard to duplicate
today.
Bernhard Zellers Friedrich Schiller: Eine Bildbiographie had appeared
a year earlier, in 1958. Emil Staigers Friedrich Schiller of 1967 can be
regarded as a late response to these books. Since then, Schiller scholarship
has been produced in books on more specific topics and shorter studies.
The book by Steven Martinson, Harmonious Tensions. The Writings of
Friedrich Schiller, 1996, is a rare exception. Shorter introductions have
been offered by Gert Ueding, Friedrich Schiller, 1990, and Helmut Koopmann, Friedrich Schiller. Eine Einfhrung, 1988; Koopmann is the author
of the two-volume Friedrich Schiller in the Sammlung Metzler. Two recent
288
WULF KOEPKE
books treat the drama of Schiller: Karl S. Guthke, Schillers Dramen. Idealismus und Skepsis, 1994, and Lesley Sharpe, Friedrich Schiller: Drama,
Thought and Politics, 1991.
289
290
WULF KOEPKE
einer tragisch-unmglichen Liebesgeschichte die Geschichte von der komischen Unmglichkeit der Liebe (Piedmont, 105). Kabale und Liebe turns
into a tragicomedy with Ferdinands rash temperament and the melodramatic fifth act. Reinhart Baumgart, writing in Der Spiegel on Alexander
Langs 1983 Don Carlos at the Munich Kammerspiele, comments similarly:
Da tobte eine Handvoll empfindungsseliger und wtiger junger Menschen gegen ein starres, vom Mitrauen aller gegen alle verdstertes
Lebenssystem. Lauscher sind in allen Nischen und Ecken postiert. Gerchte
und Intrigen hecheln nach Opfern. Orwell als rasend exekutierter Comic
Strip ein Orwell in Versen und von Schiller? (Piedmont, 151). According to Peter Iden, writing in Theater heute on Hansgnter Heymes Wilhelm
Tell in Stuttgart in 1984, Heymes Inszenierung ist skeptisch gegenber
dem republikanischen Traum Schillers. Jedoch ist diese Skepsis nicht radikal,
sie lt noch Raum auch fr Hoffnungen. Die Frage, mit der sie konfrontiert, heit: Wo stehen wir jetzt? (Piedmont, 275). This seemed to reflect
the mood at the beginning of Helmut Kohls government.
In other words, theaters seem to have few scruples in refashioning
Schillers plays in the style of the day. To be sure, this can uncover new
aspects of his texts. However, it often tends to undermine Schillers rhetoric
and reduce the message to either an entirely political or completely private
event. It is clear that the German-speaking stage cannot do without its
Klassiker including Goethe, Kleist, Grillparzer, even Hebbel. Nevertheless, it would like them to be different. This is particularly true for Schiller.
Whereas Shakespeare, Bchner, and Brecht speak directly to todays audiences, Schiller is no Shakespeare. He cannot be avoided, and that seems in
itself to present the unending challenge of de-Schillerizing Schiller.
Schiller in Fiction
Given the enormous popular, critical, political, and cultural attention
Schiller has received over the centuries, it is surprising that he has not been
terribly attractive to writers as a character in plays and novels. In the 1840s,
Heinrich Laubes play Die Karlsschler (1847) and Hermann Kurzs novel
Schillers Heimatjahre (1843) established the character of the young Schiller
that dominated most Schiller fiction. Thomas Manns Schwere Stunde of
1909 remained an exception in modern German literature. The figure of
Schiller seemed more appropriate for historical fiction, as exemplified by
Walter von Molos four-volume work Friedrich Schiller (19121916). Dramas and stories based on Schillers life seemed to echo the celebrations of
1905 and 1909, where enthusiasm crowded out critical judgment, and
Schiller biographies destined for a larger audience during that period was
hardly different in style and content from the historical fiction. Characteristically, Schiller remains a figure in the realm between fiction (or myth) and
291
history. Schiller, the rebellious and idealistic youth, appealed to the Jugendbewegung and political youth organizations of all persuasions.
Another spurt of Schiller fiction, with a nationalistic accent, occurred
during the Nazi period. Schiller as a dramatic and fictional hero seems not
to have survived the division of 1945. The selection of poems on and
about Schiller offered by Norbert Oellers (473502) is characterized, with
few exceptions, by the overwhelming attraction of Schillers own style and
rhetoric: his eulogists must have found it impossible to avoid a distinct
Schiller tone. Exceptions are Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and post-1945
poets like Walter Hllerer and Georg Maurer although here traces of
Hlderlin may be detected.
Schillers fictional image has remained that of the youthful rebel, of
the aspiring poet and playwright, in spite of his classification as a Klassiker.
Friedrich Hlderlin, another German writer and poet whose image has
generated many fictional accounts, came into contact with Schiller during
his time in Jena in 1795, but Schiller appeared distant and condescending
to Hlderlin, and therefore, in accounts of Hlderlins life, Schiller appears
in a rather negative light (as does Goethe). Thus, there are two faces of
Schiller in the German imagination. While Hlderlin is a poet whose memory is preserved with an aura of other-worldliness, this aura is denied to the
memory of Schiller: he is seen either as the rebellious youth or as the
cold and distant Klassiker.
292
WULF KOEPKE
With the unhappy associations that the word Nation acquired during
the twentieth century, it became an arduous task during the last decades of
the century to disengage Schiller from his monumental past. On the one
hand, Benno von Wieses book maintained unwavering reverence for a hero,
but on the other hand it was the signal for decades of critical re-examination.
In the foreword to his book, von Wiese writes that anyone who tries to narrate Schillers life and interpret his work, um die Gestalt als ein Ganzes von
neuem sichtbar zu machen (v), will face one major difficulty: Sie besteht in
der bis heute unausrottbar gebliebenen Verkennung und Verflschung, die
Schiller durch die Nachwelt gefunden hat. Mehr noch als die Kritik seiner
Gegner hat ihm das Lob seiner Verehrer geschadet (v). Von Wieses book is
directed against this falschen Glanz and Gtzendienst an Schiller, the
latter of which, he says, scheint mir jener unwahre Mythos zu sein, der
bereits vor hundert Jahren entstand und auch heute weiter nachwirkt (v).
In other words, Benno von Wiese set out to revise the Schiller myth that had
literally been fixed in stone and bronze through the national celebration of
1859. He, too, wanted to claim the cultural heritage of our Schiller. But
he wanted a human Schiller in his own historical and regional context, and it
should be anything but a distant monument: Der Verfasser dieser Gesamtdarstellung wollte sich selbst und seinen Lesern einen unmittelbaren und
unverstellten Zugang zu Schiller (vi). Purely scholarly discussions on the
finer points should take second place to a narration and interpretation (Deutung), which can be understood as explanation and commentary. This does
not mean a popular biography but confrontation with Schillers own words
in his works and letters. Whatever the hermeneutic problems may be, the
intention is clear: leave the Nationaldichter behind and confront Schiller
without his nation, that is, the man, his ideas, and his creations. There is
one preconceived notion, however: In allen Phasen seines Lebens war
Schiller stets der gleiche, jedoch auf einer immer wieder verwandelten Stufe
(vii). During the various periods of his life, and in his many activities, as a
poet, playwright, philosopher, historian, Schiller was always the same: there
is unity in diversity.
Since 1959, numerous studies of Schiller have been written from a multitude of perspectives. Nonetheless, they tend to agree on these two points:
to view Schiller in his own right and to seek unity in diversity, even when
contradictions in his thinking must be acknowledged. The move away from
celebration to investigation has, understandably, disclosed more problematic
aspects of his work than before. Instead of comprising some preordained
harmony, Schillers plays are examined for their disharmonies and for their
all-too-human aspects. A two-tiered criticism is at work: on one level, the
idea of a German Klassik has been thoroughly scrutinized, baring the limits
of classicism as representation and of literature as representing German culture; on another level, the question has been asked how classical, and especially, how classicistic (not Romantic) Schiller really was, that is, where he
293
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WULF KOEPKE
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Contributors
DIETER BORCHMEYER is Professor of German Literature at the University
of Heidelberg and President of the Bavarian Academy of the Fine Arts in
Munich. His publications cover the whole range of German literature from
the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. His primary focus is on Weimar
classicism (Goethe and Schiller), Thomas Mann, and the interplay between
music and literature (musical drama, Richard Wagner, Mozart, literaryhistorical opera studies). Among numerous other publications, he is the
author of Goethe: Der Zeitbrger (1999) and Drama and the World of
Richard Wagner (2003). In addition to various editorships, he has been
featured in broadcast documentaries and television programs.
OTTO DANN is Professor of Modern History at the University of Cologne.
His scholarly interests include research on the nation, political theory, intellectual history, Herder, Wilhelm von Humboldt, and Schiller. He co-edited
(with Norbert Oellers) Friedrich Schiller: Universalhistorische Schriften
(1995), edited the volume Friedrich Schiller: Universalhistorische Schriften
(1999) and wrote the notes to Schillers Historische Schriften und Erzhlungen (2001/2002). Among his many publications are Nationalism in the
Age of the French Revolution (1988, with John Dinwiddy), Nation und
Nationalismus in Deutschland (3rd ed. 1996), and Schiller (Deutsche
Erinnerungsorte II, 2001).
KARL S. GUTHKE is Kuno Francke Professor of German Art and Culture
at Harvard University, Corresponding Fellow of the British Institute of
Germanic Studies, and a member of Sidney Sussex and Magdalene
Colleges at Cambridge University. His publications include Schillers
Dramen (2nd expanded ed., 2005), Trails in No-Mans Land, The Last
Frontier, Last Words, The Gender of Death, and Epitaph Culture in the West
(Sprechende Steine, 2005), as well as several volumes of essays.
WALTER HINDERER is Professor of German at Princeton University. His
work on Schiller includes Von der Idee des Menschen: ber Friedrich Schiller
(1998) and Der Mensch in der Geschichte: Ein Versuch ber Schillers Wallenstein (1980). He has also edited or co-edited two collections of essays on
Schiller. He has conducted advanced research at the Institute for Advanced
Study (Wissenschaftskolleg) in Berlin and the Rosenzweig Research Center
for German-Jewish Literature and Cultural History at Hebrew University.
He has been awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of
Germany and the Alexander von Humboldt Prize.
314
315
Index
Abel, Jakob Friedrich, 3, 29, 3234
Abel, Jakob Friedrich, works by:
Dissertation de origine characteris
animi, 32
Abrams, M. H., 56
absolutism, 2, 125, 130, 149, 217,
219
Abusch, Alexander, 285
act of writing, 3, 10, 1213
Adolphus, Gustavus, 80, 8182, 84
Aeschylus, 62, 193
Aeschylus, works by: Eumenides, 62
aesthetic anthropology, 40
aesthetic condition, 37, 39, 15860
aesthetic culture, 1012, 3839
aesthetic education, 11, 14, 185, 248
aesthetic mood, 39
aesthetic public space, 190
aesthetic state, 27, 30, 35, 39, 40, 60,
62, 147, 160, 161, 225
aesthetician, 13, 179
aesthetics, 1114, 1920, 2728, 30,
3637, 39, 4243, 51, 55, 62,
14748, 150, 153, 155, 157, 164,
174, 180
Akte Buttlar, 91, 94, 99
Aladdin story, 91, 92, 106
Albrecht, Sophie, 17, 29, 31, 3334,
70
Alcmene, 181
alienation, 21, 38, 152, 190, 275
Alt, Peter-Andr, 7, 8, 15, 20, 33, 35,
40, 217
Alt, Peter-Andr, works by: Schiller:
Leben Werk Zeit, 20
Altenmuhr, 9497
America, 4, 9, 283
American Revolutionary War, 90
American War of Independence, 248
anagnorisis, 204
ancien regime, 10
ancient Greece, 48, 56, 5960, 62,
153
ancient Greek art, 57
ancients, 41, 50, 169, 174
Anderson, Adam, 73
animal world, 17
Anschauung, 7, 36
anthropological aesthetics, 11, 34, 40,
44
anthropology, 11, 2830, 34, 3637,
43, 214
anti-Jacobinism, 251
antiquity, 38, 41, 4752, 54, 56, 58,
6162, 75
Apokatastasis panton, 111
Arcadia, 231, 242
Ariosto, 57
aristocracy, 1011, 117, 11921, 130
Aristotle, 47, 51, 74, 157, 170, 191,
204
Aristotle, works by: Poetics, 51, 170,
191
Aristotelian golden mean, 10
Arnold, Gottfried, 107
art, 10, 1214, 30, 39, 4143, 4849,
5152, 57, 59, 6062, 69, 74, 77,
79, 90, 132, 141, 14751, 153,
157, 16062, 170, 173, 17576,
180, 182, 18486, 19193, 230,
232, 263, 274, 276
artist, 48, 57, 69, 149, 154, 161, 163,
172, 205
astrology, 194, 197
atonement, 13
Atreus, 193
Auerbach, Erich, 11516, 130
Aufenanger, Jrg, 20
Aufenanger, Jrg, works by: Friedrich
Schiller: Biographie, 20
318
INDEX
Boerhaave, Hermann, 29
Bohemian revolt, 81
Bohemian Woods, 97
Boileau, Nicolas, 47, 57
Boileau, Nicolas, works by: Lart
potique, 47
book reviews, 10
Borchmeyer, Dieter, 20, 18990, 200,
203, 206, 24850, 289
Bttiger, Karl August, 254
Bougeant, Guillaume-Hyacinthe, 70
Bougeant, Guillaume-Hyacinthe,
works by: Historie des guerres et des
ngoticiations qui prcdnerent le
Trait de Westphalie, 70
bourgeois tragedy, 11617, 18990
Boxberger, Rudolf, 68
Braemer, Edith, 24749
Brecht, Bertolt, 27, 106, 271, 28182,
286, 290
Bchmann, Georg, 280
Bchner, Georg, 271, 285, 290
Buchwald, Reinhard, 285, 287, 288
Buchwald, Reinhard, works by:
Schiller: Leben und Werk, 287
Burdach, Konrad, 275
Burdach, Konrad, works by: SchillerRede, 275, 284
Brger, Gottfried August, 36, 40, 49,
85, 160
Burke, Edmund, 206
Burschell, Friedrich, 57
Buttlar, Wilhelm von, 91, 94, 113
Camden House, 20
Cardinal Legate Giuliano Cesarini, 104
Carlyle, Thomas, 273
Caspar, Horst, 110, 279
Castle Altenmuhr, 95
Castle Mittelmuhr, 95
Castle Neuenmuhr, 95
Catholic church, 108
Catholicism, 108
Celts, 234
central force, 13
Chicago Review, 287
chorus, 8, 51, 59, 62, 111, 191, 228
Christian transcendence, 235
INDEX
Christian values, 232
Christian virtues, 261
Chronicon Helveticum, 251
church, 140, 142
civilization, 53, 58, 6061, 15152,
163
classic tragedy, 192, 194
classical aesthetic, 48, 58
classical heritage, 274, 282
Classicism, 47, 55, 62, 108, 113, 199,
271, 281, 292
Claudius, Matthias, 17
Clavigo, 2
Cold War, 279
collective cultural memory, 197
condition humaine, 233
Consbruch, Johann Friedrich, 17
conscience, 121, 23839, 251, 258,
26264
Continuum German Library, 20
Conz, Karl Philipp, 91
Cotta, Johann, 3, 154, 171, 180;
Cotta Verlag, 3, 214
Council in Constance, 100
Count Ernst Heinrich von
Schimmelmann, 6, 148
courtly culture, 11
crisis, 4, 19, 82, 83, 121, 123, 142,
208, 21314, 220, 225
critical philosophy, 3, 5, 7, 9, 13, 18,
29, 31, 67, 71, 7374, 77, 79, 81,
85, 115, 129, 14748, 159, 216,
218, 222, 233, 247, 274, 277,
279, 290, 292
crusades, 107, 235
cultural re-formation, 14
Cysarz, Herbert, 278
dArc, Jeanne, 233, 238, 242, 271,
280
Dalberg, Wolfgang Heribert von, 84,
137
dance, 54, 173, 174, 175
Darsow, Gtz-Lothar, 20
das brgerliche Trauerspiel, 116,
137
das Idealschne, 155, 157
Das Weimarische Wochenblatt, 8
319
320
INDEX
INDEX
Garve, Christian, 32, 34, 42
Gatterer, Johann Christoph, 77
Gatterer, Johann Christoph, works by:
Handbuch der Universalgeschichte,
77
Gedankenfreiheit, 280, 282, 284
Geflgelte Worte, 280
Geistesgeschichte, 277
gender roles, 213, 217
genius, 7, 52, 85, 115, 154, 184, 198,
228, 273, 285, 293
genres, 40, 41, 57, 116, 117, 130,
137, 148, 163
George, Stefan, 116, 278
Gerhard, Melitta, 287
German classical heritage, 18
German Classicism, 47, 113, 27172,
28081, 292
German cultural heritage, 274
German culture, 11, 14, 27778,
292
German Democratic Republic (GDR),
274, 28183, 286
German Germanists, 287
German immigrants, 273
German language, 8, 19
German nation, 8283, 271
German Neoclassicism, 58
German Romanticism, 9
German scholarship, 287
Germanistik, 276, 27778, 285, 287,
293
Germany, 2, 3, 4, 6, 9, 11, 20, 47, 49,
67, 74, 77, 83, 85, 147, 248,
27174, 27880, 283, 285, 289,
291
Gesamtkunstwerk, 248
Geschichtsdrama, 82, 254
Geschichtsschreiber, 83
Geschichtsschreibung, 82, 86
Gestalt, 155, 174, 273, 292, 293
Gibbon, Edward, 77
God, 15, 16, 2931, 33, 39, 53, 104,
108, 124, 181, 184, 23036,
24041, 259, 262
Goebbels, Joseph, 277, 278
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 2, 48,
12, 18, 20, 5052, 59, 68, 116,
321
322
INDEX
INDEX
Homer, works by: Odyssey, 50
Horace, 203
Hoven, Friedrich Wilhelm von, 2, 29,
94
Huber, Ludwig Ferdinand, 6768, 70,
73
human being, 2, 12, 15, 17, 21, 29,
30, 3233, 35, 3739, 4243, 75,
103, 111, 128, 138, 143, 152,
162, 172, 17576, 18082, 198,
222, 225, 23334, 24243, 255
human culture, 41
human nature, 217, 230, 238
humane humanity, 89, 1415, 19
humanist, 164, 230, 232, 243
Humanitt, 27, 275, 278, 291
humanity, 4, 11, 27, 33, 37, 38, 49,
5357, 6062, 7577, 13839,
143, 15052, 156, 158, 160, 163,
180, 185, 19091, 204, 209, 223,
225, 231, 262
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 12, 41, 50,
52, 56, 79, 84, 153, 176, 180, 184
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, works by:
ber das Studium des Altertums,
und des Griechischen insbesondere,
41; ber Schiller und den Gang
seiner Geistesentwicklung, 12, 19,
225
humor, 197
Huss, Jan Johannes, 100101, 1045,
107
Hussite Wars, 9192, 100, 1023, 106
Hussites, 97, 100102, 1046, 113
ideal, 8, 14, 19, 27, 30, 31, 33, 37,
4041, 4950, 5556, 59, 6162,
76, 9091, 123, 143, 149, 151,
15357, 16364, 17576, 18081,
2045, 208, 216, 225, 231, 248,
254, 263, 271, 285
idealism, 19, 34, 37, 151, 206, 214,
233, 238, 242, 247, 273
idealist, 12, 19, 40, 14243, 203,
206, 217, 230, 23132, 243,
274
idealistic, 33, 41, 142, 206, 223, 227,
231, 233, 255, 257, 291
323
324
INDEX
INDEX
Ludendorff, Mathilde, 277
Ludendorff, Mathilde, works by: Der
ungeshnte Frevel an Luther, Lessing
und Schiller im Dienste des
allmchtigen Baumeister aller
Welten, 277
Ludwig, Otto, 8, 34, 67, 77, 200
Lukcs, Georg, 285
Luserke, Maathias, 229, 242, 250, 264
Luxemburg, Rosa, 27374, 283
Lycurgus, 43
Madame de Stal, 273, 285
Madame de Stal, works by: De
lAllemagne, 273
Mainland, William F., 241, 25859
Mann, Thomas, 18, 139, 199200,
228, 28384, 287, 290
Mann, Thomas, works by: Tonio
Krger, 139, 284; Versuch ber
Schiller, 228, 284
Marquard, Odo, 2829, 36
Martini, Fritz, 119, 248, 250, 254
Martinson, Steven D., 1, 35, 86, 113,
12324, 131, 144, 186, 21315,
249, 28789
Martinson, Steven D., works by:
Harmonious Tensions: The Writings
of Friedrich Schiller, 19, 213
Marx, Karl, 274, 283
materialist, 29
Maurer, Georg, 291
Mayer, Hans, 285, 286
McKay, G. W., 251, 258
mechanistic theories, 29
Medici family, 106
medicine, 23, 1415, 29, 110, 113,
169, 213, 254
Mehring, Franz, 27374, 283
Mehring, Franz, works by: LessingLegende, 273
melancholy, 19899, 2012
Mendelssohn, Moses, 214, 216, 222
Mendelssohn, Moses, works by: Briefe
ber die Empfindungen, 214
Menschengestaltung, 252
Menschenkenner, 254, 257
Menschlichkeit, 54, 241
325
Mercier, Sebastien, 70
Mercier, Sebastien, works by: Tableux
historiques, 70
Meulen, Vander, 255
Meyer, Conrad Ferdinand, 291
Meyers, Richard M., 275
Meyers, Richard M., works by:
Schiller der Heros der
Deutschen, 275
Michelsen, Peter, 119, 124
middle class society, 11, 72, 76, 81,
218
Miller, R. D., 117, 11924, 12630,
23334, 238, 242
mind, 3, 7, 10, 1213, 1617,
31, 33, 37, 40, 42, 52, 69, 76,
78, 81, 103, 119, 122, 131, 147,
149, 15152, 158, 162, 21323,
225, 229, 231, 236, 240,
25254, 258, 25960, 262,
293
mind and body, 3, 10, 29, 30, 32, 52,
112, 130, 179, 202, 209, 214,
216, 220, 222, 225, 230, 241
Minerva, 23334, 236
Minks, Wilfried, 289
Mittelkraft, 13, 30, 31, 215, 223
modern, 7, 10, 17, 21, 27, 38, 4852,
5459, 70, 7374, 76, 8283, 109,
127, 139, 148, 152, 154, 157,
184, 190, 191, 193, 216, 228,
240, 290
modern tragedy, 51, 139
Molo, Walter von, 290
Molo, Walter von, works by: Friedrich
Schiller, 290
Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de
Secundat, Baron de, 77
Moor, Karl, 14, 18, 29, 49, 9193,
103, 111, 131, 139, 22123, 257,
258, 260
Moore, W. G., 257
moral, 11, 14, 28, 33, 3537, 3940,
50, 55, 58, 76, 86, 11819,
13132, 142, 14852, 15461,
164, 205, 207, 20910, 21923,
225, 230, 232, 249, 252, 25455,
25760, 26263
326
INDEX
INDEX
Pfaff, Peter, 234, 23940
Pfeffel, Gottlieb Konrad, 171
Philip II, King of Spain, 70, 73, 137
philosopher, 5, 9, 57, 150, 170, 186,
198, 292
philosophical-anthropological
aesthetics, 29
philosophy, 2, 3, 8, 2930, 3334, 37,
4243, 49, 53, 55, 62, 68, 74, 84,
149, 159, 170, 172, 17475, 181,
18586, 21314, 216, 219, 222,
248, 25051, 288
physical condition, 5, 68
physiognomy, 34
physiology, 3, 8, 17, 29, 21314,
21617, 219, 22122
Piccolomini, Max, 15, 190, 19697,
2023, 204
Piedmont, Ferdinand, 248, 289, 290
Pietism, 49, 91
Pilate, Pontius, 181
Pilling, Claudia, 119
Piscator, Erwin, 277, 282
Pitaval, 84
Platner, Ernst, 2930, 3233
Platner, Ernst, works by: Anthropologie
fr rzte und Weltweise, 29
Plato, 54
Plato, works by: Symposium, 54
play, 13, 16, 3638, 40, 59, 69, 75,
9192, 94, 99100, 106, 10911,
113, 11526, 12829, 13839,
142, 14748, 151, 155, 159, 175,
189, 196, 202, 213, 2156,
21819, 221, 22425, 22736,
241, 24760, 26263, 27779,
28890
Ploucqet, Gottfried, 29
Plutarch, 50, 60, 68, 169
Plutarch, works by: Lives, 50, 169
poet, 3, 16, 27, 30, 41, 62, 70, 71,
73, 78, 89, 90, 96, 99, 100, 105,
107, 111, 113, 148, 154, 17071,
17476, 18082, 18485, 189,
191, 193, 205, 27273, 29193
poetry, 2, 3, 8, 9, 14, 16, 17, 27, 32,
41, 47, 50, 57, 58, 68, 76, 169,
17071, 17376, 179, 182, 186
327
328
INDEX
Saint Augustine, 92
Saint Joan, 228
Skular-Ausgabe, 279
salvation, 14, 141, 264
Smtliche Werke, 279
Saranpa, Kathy, 20
satan, 105, 121, 202, 234
satire, 40
Sauder, Gerhard, 229, 239
Schein, 147, 160, 161, 162, 193, 200,
201
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph,
186
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph,
works by: System des
transcendentalen Idealismus, 186
Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich,
works by:
Allgemeine Sammlung historischer
Memoirs vom zwlften
Jahrhundert bis auf die neuesten
Zeiten, 67, 78, 83
An die Freude, 3, 273
Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782,
1617
Brief eines reisenden Dnen, 49,
5355, 57
Das Ideal und das Leben, 37, 51,
53, 180, 224
Das Reich der Formen, 180
Das Reich der Schatten, 58,
17172, 180
Das verschleierte Bild zu Sais,
171, 182
Das weibliche Ideal. An Amanda,
224
Don Carlos, 4, 50, 6970, 72, 74,
131, 13740, 14243, 148,
18990, 223, 228, 28182,
284, 28990
Demetrius, 206, 2089, 288
Der Abend, 17, 171
Der Eroberer, 242
Der Geisterseher, 4, 7071
Der Geistenseher. Eine Geschichte aus
den Memoiren des Grafen von
O**, 70
Der Kampf mit dem Drachen, 224
INDEX
Der Spaziergang, 51, 61
Der Tanz, 171, 173, 175
Der Triumph der Liebe, 17, 49,
53, 58
Der Verbrecher aus Infamie, 4, 69,
76
Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre,
4, 14, 69, 216, 221, 223
Deutsche Gre, 83
Die Braut von Messina, 51, 59,
139, 19091, 193, 194
Die Christen, 92, 107
Die Geschichte des Dreiigjhrigen
Kriegs, 5, 14, 68, 8084, 199,
2067
Die Gesetzgebung des Lykurgus
und Solon, 60, 75
Die Gtter Griechenlandes, 49,
54, 55, 157, 169, 193, 205
Die Gre der Welt, 17
Die Herrlichkeit der Schpfung.
Eine Phantasie, 17
Die Horen, 7, 15, 58, 85, 151, 153,
171, 173, 179, 181, 284
Die Ideale, 171, 176, 205
Die Jungfrau von Orleans, 20,
5152, 144, 185, 194, 22731,
233, 235, 237, 242, 28081
Die Kraniche des Ibykus, 14, 62,
193
Die Knstler, 18, 58, 169,
193
Die Macht des Gesanges, 171,
17576
Die Malteser, 277
Die Piccolomini, 192, 200201,
2036
Die Ruber, 2, 3, 14, 16, 34, 49,
72, 8992, 9495, 100103,
1057, 10913, 137, 139, 209,
21516, 221, 223, 233, 261,
273, 277, 28182, 289
Die Rebellion der vereinigten
Niederlande, 73
Die Snger der Vorwelt, 51, 58,
62
Die seligen Augenblicke, 17
Die Sendung Moses, 75, 181
329
330
INDEX
Schiller (continued)
Philipp der Zweite, Knig von
Spanien: Von Mercier, 70
Philosophie der Physiologie, 30, 35,
213, 216, 223
Philosophische Briefe, 15, 28, 30, 32,
35, 3839, 49, 123
Poesie des Lebens, 171
Quellen-Editionsprojekt, the
Allgemeine Sammlung
historischer Memoirs, 78
Rede ber die Frage: Gehrt
allzuviel Gte, Leutseeligkeit und
grosse Freygebigkeit im engsten
Verstande zur Tugend?, 214
Resignation, 70
Rheinische Thalia, 81
Rmische Geschichte, 78
Spruch des Confucius, 171
Stanzen an den Leser, 171
Thalia, 67, 69, 70, 72, 81
Theosophie des Julius, 15, 3031, 43,
123, 22223
Theorie der tragischen Kunst, 79
Trauer-Ode auf den Tod des
Hauptmanns Wiltmaister, 16
ber Anmut und Wrde, 29,
3537, 40, 42, 5152, 15556,
15859, 16364, 170, 184
ber das Erhabene, 43, 85, 176,
230, 231
ber das Pathetische, 42, 51
ber den Gebrauch des Chors in der
Tragdie, 190
ber den Grund des Vergngens an
tragischen Gegenstnden, 79
ber den moralischen Nutzen
sthetischer Sitten, 13
ber die sthetische Erziehung des
Menschen in einer Reihe von
Briefen, 6, 10, 12, 29, 30, 35,
36, 37, 39, 43, 47, 5152,
6061, 147, 148, 15051,
15354, 15659, 16162, 164,
17073, 190, 207, 222, 225,
240, 287
ber die notwendigen Grenzen beim
Gebrauch schner Formen, 179
INDEX
Schiller-Gedchtnis-Preis, 280
Schiller-Theater, 289
Schimmelmann, Charlotte von, 28
Schlacht bei Taus, 97
Schlegel, Friedrich, 48, 116, 172
Schlzer, August Ludwig, 34, 77
Schlzer, Ludwig, 34
Schmidt, Benjamin, 21
Schmidt, Erich, 276
Schubart, Christian, 16, 91, 94, 95, 99
Schubart, Christian, works by: Zur
Geschichte des menschlichen Herzens,
91, 94
Schulze, Hagen, 10
Schwrmerei, 106, 143
Schweitzer, Christoph, 262, 263
science, 14, 17, 55, 69, 7374, 77,
182, 184
Scott, Walter, 205
Second World War, 83, 27880, 284
sectio divina, 99
Seidel, Siegfried, 247
Seidlin, Oskar, 287
Selau, Johann von, 1012
Selbsthelfer, 144, 253
self, 30, 120, 2034, 231, 234, 258
self-consciousness, 27
self-determination, 36, 12829, 131,
150, 210, 225
self-diminution, 30, 32, 43
self-discipline, 12
self-expansion, 32, 35, 43
self-interest, 122, 13132, 206
self-knowledge, 13
self-liberation, 75
self-love, 13
self-overcoming, 222
self-responsibility, 28
self-sacrifice, 144
Sendungsbewutsein, 234, 238, 240,
242
sensibilities, 158
sensuous knowledge, 11
sentimental, 7, 41, 57, 116, 124, 185,
204
Shaftesbury, 150, 223
Shakespeare, 3, 27, 84, 91, 99,
13940, 227, 255, 282, 290
331
332
INDEX
Trauergedicht, 16
Tschudi, Aegidius, 251
Tschudi, Aegidius, works by:
Chronicon Helveticum, 251
Turmhgelburg, 96
2002 Winter Olympics, 89
typology, 40, 57
tyranny, 11, 16, 38, 60, 126, 130,
143, 217
Ueding, Gert, 248, 254, 25859, 263,
287, 289
understanding, 5, 811, 18, 20, 28,
32, 38, 55, 69, 74, 76, 103, 110,
111, 149, 169, 172, 175, 215,
218, 231, 236, 274, 293
Union of Utrecht, 73
United States, 271, 273, 287
unity, 3538, 50, 5557, 6061, 151,
182, 190, 271, 29293
universal history, 70, 74, 77, 85
University of Jena, 60, 7374, 153,
159, 169
Uri Bastille, 253
utopia, 19, 175, 18990, 225
Venus, 5354, 58, 108, 112, 19596,
2045
Verjhrung, 206
Versailles, 2, 74
Verstand, 10, 38, 41, 52, 55, 150,
160, 180, 183
Vertot, 84
Virgin Mary, 23435, 23941
Volk der Dichter und Denker, 28081
Volk der Richter und Henker, 281
Volksstck, 24748, 252, 263
Voltaire (Franois-Marie Arouet), 77,
194
Voss, Johann Heinrich, 50, 171
Wagner, Cosima, 195
Wagner, Richard, 189, 195, 228
war, 5, 35, 40, 58, 61, 8081, 84, 94,
105, 132, 15051, 158, 17779,
183, 19697, 2067, 209, 215,
227, 230, 23334, 236, 24041,
257, 276, 278, 28284, 292
INDEX
Watson, Robert, 70, 73, 77
Watson, Robert, works by: History of
the Reign of the Emperor Charles V,
70
Weckherlin, Johann Christian, 15
Weigand, Hermann, 287
Weimar Classicism, 9, 199
Weimar Secret Council, 169
Weinrich, Harald, 29
Weitbrecht, Carl, 119, 124
Weltgeschichte, 70, 227
Weltliteratur, 6
Werner, Charlotte, 20
Werner, Charlotte, works by: Friedrich
Schiller und seine Leidenschaften, 20
wholeness, 149, 15657
Wieland, Christoph Martin, 46, 27,
33, 38, 42, 49, 58, 67, 73, 80, 84,
142
Wieland, Christoph Martin, works by:
Geschichte des Agathon, 4; Neuer
Teutsche Merkur, 6, 49, 80
Wiese, Benno von, 11516, 232, 234,
24950, 279, 285, 28788,
29293
Willoughby, L. A. 158, 160
Wiltmaister, Johann Anton, 16
Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, 18,
4849, 56, 153
Winckelmann, Johann Joachim, works
by: Gedanken ber die Nachahmung
der griechischen Werke in der
333
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Steven D.
Martinson
I SBN 1 -5 7113 -1 83 -3
Camden House
Edited by
9 781571 131836
Steven D. Martinson