Friedrich Schiller

(b Marbach, 10 Nov 1759; d Weimar, 9 May 1805). German dramatist, poet, aesthetician and historian. Though he was not a musician, his dramas and poetry had a great impact on composers - notably Beethoven, who set verses from his Ode to Joy in his Ninth Symphony. Other works based on Schiller include Rossini's Guillaume Tell, Verdi's Don Carlos and songs by Schubert and others.

---

The German dramatist, poet, and historian Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) ranksas one of the greatest of German literary figures. He was a founder of modern German literature.

Friedrich von Schiller was born at Marbach, Württemberg, on Nov. 10, 1759. His father, Johann Kaspar Schiller, was an army captain in the service of Duke Karl Eugen of Württemberg. His mother, Elisabeth Dorothea, the daughter of a Marbach innkeeper, was a gentle and religious person. Schiller had four sisters, one older and three younger.

As a boy, Schiller, under the influence of Philipp Ulrich Moser, a parson, wanted to become a preacher. He attended the duke's military academy, the Karlsschule, near Stuttgart for two years. After the academy was moved to Stuttgart, Schiller endured five more years of harsh discipline there. He studied medicine because that was the domineering duke's will. In spite of frequent illnesses, fevers, stomach upsets, and headaches, he wrote his final dissertation on the interrelationship between man's spiritual and physical natures. At the same time he was writing his first play, Die Räuber, which was published in 1781. It ranks as one of the literary monuments of the German Sturm und Drang period.

Early Works

In December 1780 Schiller was appointed medical officer to a regiment stationed in Stuttgart at a pitiably low salary. A loan toward the publication of Die Räuber marked the beginning of a succession of agonizing debts that characterized Schiller's early career. In 1782 Die Räuber received its first stage performance, in Mannheim. It brought him both public acclaim and the wrath of the duke, who forbade him to write anything except medical treatises. That same year Schiller published the Laura-Odenin his Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782. The inspiration for these poems was a 30-year-old widow, Dorothea Vischer, who had three children. She had rented a simple ground-floor room to Schiller and another lieutenant.

Meantime, Schiller's conflict with the Duke of Württemberg forced him to flee Stuttgart in September 1782. A period of great deprivation and uncertainty followed until Schiller became dramatist at the Mannheim theater in September 1783. During this time he composed Die Verschwörung des Fiesko zu Genua (1783) and Kabale und Liebe (1784). He also began work on Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien, which appeared in 1785 and in its revised form in 1787.

In 1784 Schiller completed Die Schaubühne als moralische Anstalt betrachtet, which appeared in his Rheinische Thalia, a literary journal, in 1785. The second issue of Thaliacontained Schiller's hymn An die Freude, which later inspired Ludwig van Beethoven to create his magnificent Ninth Symphony in D Minor. In the third issue of Thalia Schiller published part of Don Carlos. During this period Christian Gottfried Körner generously offered Schiller financial help and hospitality, becoming his patron and friend.

Don Carlos was important in Schiller's dramatic development not only for its use of a historical setting but also for its employment of blank verse. For the first time, too, Schiller accomplished the presentation of a perfectly drawn and perfectly convincing noblewoman. The character of Queen Elisabeth of Valois was to some extent based on that of Charlotte von Kalb, an intimate friend.

Schiller occupied himself for many years afterward with the themes he employed in this drama. In Don Carlos the conflict between love and the demands of the state was exalted into the idea of the dignity and freedom of man. The struggle against love is a struggle for a high goal, and it is not the love of Don Carlos for the Queen or his friendship for the Marquis of Posa that forms the crux of the play but the ideal of spiritual and national freedom.

In all of Schiller's earliest tragedies - Die Räuber, Die Verschwörung des Fiesko, and Kabale und Liebe - he presents either a great criminal, a great adventurer, or a great enthusiast. All of his characters speak in the grand style. Schiller captures the secret of great passion even in his earliest dramas. The robber chieftain Karl Moor of Die Räuber judges himself when he admits that two men like him would destroy the organic structure of the civilized world. Fiesko contemplates the idea that it is great to win a crown but that it is divine to be able to cast it off.

In 1787 Schiller paid a visit to his friend Frau von Kalb in Weimar, the residence of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who at that time was traveling in Italy. The two great German poets met the following year in the house of Frau von Lengefeld (later to be Schiller's mother-in-law) in Rudolstadt. They had met once before, in December 1779, when Duke Karl August of Weimar and Goethe had come to the Karlsschule in Stuttgart to award the annual student prizes. Schiller had received three silver medals.

In 1788 Schiller's poems Die Götter Griechenlands and Die Künstler appeared, and that same year he published Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten Niederlande, a history of the revolt of the Netherlands against Spain. These works assured Schiller's fame and social position. Together with Goethe's support they gained him a professorship of history at the University of Jena in 1789. He held this position for 10 years. Schiller's inaugural, Was heisst und zu welchem Ende studiert man Universalgeschichte, caused a sensation. Afterward more than 500 students paid homage to the poet, but at later lectures the number of students in attendance dwindled considerably. Early in 1790 Schiller married Charlotte von Lengefeld, a gifted writer. In February 1803 he was created a nobleman.

Esthetic Theory

After 1790 Schiller became intensely interested in the philosophy and esthetics of Immanuel Kant. His Geschichte des Dreissigjährigen Krieges, a history of the Thirty Years War, appeared in 1791-1792. His studies in esthetics accompanied his historical researches. Schiller strove to capture the essence of "freedom and art." He determined not to read the works of any modern writer for 2 years. In his poem Die Götter Griechenlands Schiller had looked upon Greece with the eyes of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the classical archeologist and historian of ancient art. Under the influence of Winckelmann's conception of the "schöne Antike," Schiller became convinced that only art can ennoble the barbarian and bring him culture. Art became, for Schiller, in the Platonic sense a basis of education. In 1795 he wrote in his Ü ber die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen, "There is no other way to make the sensuous man rational and reasonable than by first making him esthetic." The iron necessity of man's daily existence degraded him, said Schiller, and utility became the idol of the masses. But by means of the esthetic form man can "annihilate" the material aspects of life and triumph over transient matter. Man thus becomes the creator of a pure and permanent world.

In his grandiose philosophic poem Die Künstler, Schiller venerated art as the ennobling power that can create a higher culture and disclose a world harmony. In the opening strophe of this work, man, standing on the threshold of a new century, is depicted as the master of nature. He is shown as free, enlightened, strong through laws, great in his gentleness, matured through time, proud, and manly. Art, said Schiller, teaches man how to overcome his desires. Art is the first step away from the bondage of the flesh into a realm where the nobility of the soul reigns. The artist frees form from material in the same manner that waves separate a reflection from its source. In nature the artist discovers the laws of beauty. For example, in a tree he perceives the form of a pillar, and in the crescent moon the artist becomes aware of the mystery of the universe. For Schiller reality was merely illusion; only in the higher, spiritual realm was truth to be found. Just as the stage had changed into a tribunal in his famous poem Die Kraniche des Ibykus, so to him true art changes into higher reality.

Schiller wrote his important essay in esthetics, Ü ber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, in 1795-1796. It forms the basis of modern poetry criticism. In it Schiller points out that the "naive" poet has an advantage over other poets in his powerful, sensitive, and inherent clarity, while the "sentimentalische" poet has an advantage in his power of moral enthusiasm. By now Schiller had reached an artistic maturity incompatible with moralizing. In his philosophical poem Das Ideal und das Leben (1795) the poet presents no clumsy didactic lesson. No mention of reward or recompense for the sufferer, or of moral striving after inner freedom, is made. The subject of this poem is purely the growth of a powerful personality beyond the confines of the self into a higher world.

Later Dramas

In 1798-1799 Schiller completed his great trilogy on Albrecht von Wallenstein, the condottiere of the Thirty Years War. These three plays - Wallensteins Lager, Piccolomini, and Wallensteins Tod - represent Schiller's most powerful tragedy. In them he comes nearest to the tragic grandeur of William Shakespeare and Heinrich von Kleist. The Wallenstein plays stress Schiller's view of man as a creative force, and they exhibit his concept of historical inevitability. Schiller ennobles Wallenstein as a great creative statesman who bows before inexorable fate. Wallenstein recognizes his guilt and acknowledges the justice of his end because he realizes that every evil deed brings with it its angel of revenge.

The famous literary friendship between Goethe and Schiller began in earnest in 1794. On July 20, 1794, after a meeting in Jena of a nature society of which both were honorary members, Goethe went to Schiller's house to continue a discussion on the interpretation of natural phenomena, the metamorphosis of plants, and the interrelationship or separation between idea and experience. Goethe believed he had "observed with his own eyes" tangible truths of nature that Schiller, however, called "ideas." An important correspondence between the two poets followed. Schiller enjoyed the friendship of Goethe, with whom he began editing the literary journals Horen (1795-1797) and Musenalmanach (1796-1800). Goethe's residence in Weimar was a main reason for Schiller's move there, from Jena with his family, in 1799. During his Weimar years Schiller created many of his finest plays and poems.

Schiller wrote his most popular play, Maria Stuart, in 1800. He employed tragic irony as an artistic means in the memorable scene between the two queens in which Mary speaks daggers to Elizabeth but is hoist with her own petard. Mary remains a noble and tragic character right up to the scaffold. As with Elizabeth, the decisive factor in her fate lies in her personality and not in politics. Mary's death is subject not to "poetic justice" but to the justice of human conscience. By her death she atones for a previous guilt.

Schiller's next play, Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1801), is his poetically richest drama. Its theme is again guilt and redemption. Compared to Maria Stuart, it is loosely constructed, diffuse, and romantic not only in regard to the material itself but also in regard to the poetic character of the heroine. On the other hand, Die Braut von Messina (1803) is compact and stylized. Artistry dominates it at the cost of poetry. This play reflects Schiller's interest in classical antiquity. Its chorus has passages of lyrical and rhetorical magnificence.

In the preface to the first edition of this play, Schiller explained his views on the function of the chorus. The chorus, he wrote, should not be an accompaniment to the drama as in some ancient plays. Rather it should bring out the poetry of the play, thereby converting the modern world into a poetic one. The chorus should express the depth of mankind, and it should be a judging and clarifying witness of the actions in that it reflects them and endows them with spiritual power.

Schiller revealed his technical mastery at its most supreme in Wilhelm Tell (1804). Although this play is stylized, its artistry is less obvious than that of Die Braut von Messina. Schiller created the character of Wilhelm Tell as a manly hero without making him into a leader. When Gessler, the governor, brutally interferes with life and nature, the Swiss, and with them Wilhelm Tell, fight for family and freedom. In this play Schiller for once placed history and hero in favorable conjunction.

In the fragmentary drama Demetrius, Schiller unfolds a mysterious fate, revealing through his analytical dramatic technique a past crime more terrible to contemplate than any dread of the future. Whereas Oedipus in the hands of Sophocles subjects himself to divine command, Schiller's Demetrius defies his fate in order to perish.

Schiller's final tragedies are concerned with man's profoundest experience, the assertion and attainment of free will despite bodily claims or passion. After months of intermittent illness, Schiller died in Weimar on May 9, 1805.

Further Reading

An early biography of Schiller is Thomas Carlyle, The Life of Friedrich Schiller (1825; 2d ed. 1845). Of the many critical biographies see William Witte, Schiller (1949) and Schiller and Burns (1959). Other useful studies include Henry B. Garland's three works, Schiller (1949), Schiller Revisited (1959), and Schiller: The Dramatic Writer (1969); Ernst L. Stahl, Friedrich Schiller's Drama: Theory and Practice (1954); William F. Mainland, Schiller and the Changing Past (1957); and the essay on Schiller in Thomas Mann, Last Essays (trans. 1959). Other useful studies are Stanley S. Kerry, Schiller's Writings on Aesthetics (1961); Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and L. A. Willoughby, eds., Schiller: On the Aesthetic Education of Man, in a Series of Letters (trans. 1967), which has an extensive introduction about Schiller along with some of his works; and John Martin Ellis, Schiller's Kalliasbriefe and the Study of His Aesthetic Theory (1969). For a discussion of Sturm and Drang and Weimar classicism see the relevant chapters in Ernst L. Stahl and W. E. Yuill, Introductions to German Literature, vol. 3: German Literature of the 18th and 19th Centuries, edited by August Closs (1970).

For more information on Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, visit Britannica.com.

Schiller, Friedrich von (1759–1805), classical German poet, dramatist, and historian, who wrote one major fairy‐tale play, Turandot, Prinzessin von China (Turandot, Princess of China, 1802), based on Carlo Gozzi's play Turandot (1762). Schiller's tragicomedy concerns the gifted but cruel Princess Turandot of China who will marry only the man who can solve three riddles. A daring prince named Calaf, who is travelling incognito, solves the riddles, but the enraged princess demands a retaliatory trial. Calaf must demonstrate his integrity one more time, and after a near tragedy the princess agrees to marry him.

Bibliography

• Snook, Lynn, “‘Auf den Spuren der Rätselprinzessin Turandot’”, in Jürgen Janning, Heino Gehrts, and Herbert Ossowski (eds.), Vom Menschenbild im Märchen (1980).
• Witte, W., ‘Turandot’, Publications of the English Goethe Society, 39 (1969).

— Jack Zipes

Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich (Marbach, 1759-1805, Weimar), generally referred to as Friedrich Schiller, who was elevated to the nobility as von Schiller in 1802, was the son of a commoner who had risen to commissioned rank in the army of the Duke of Württemberg. At 13 Schiller was separated from his family and sent by the Duke to the Militär-Akademie, in which he remained until he was 21. He emerged from this environment, which he resented, as an army physician and something of a rebel. While at school he wrote a play, the unwieldy yet dynamic Die Räuber, which he published at his own expense in 1781. From December 1780 to September 1782 Schiller served in Stuttgart, earning a reputation as an original and outspoken poet by his erotic and other poetry included in the Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782 as well as by the successful performance of his play Die Räuber at Mannheim.

Finding the atmosphere of Stuttgart too repressive, Schiller fled in September 1782 to Mannheim, where he hoped mistakenly for encouragement. From December 1782 to July 1783 he enjoyed asylum on the estate of a patroness, Frau von Wolzogen. Here he completed Fiesco (see Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua, Die) and Kabale und Liebe, and began Don Carlos. He was next appointed house poet to the Mannheim Theatre for a year (1783-4), and there Fiesco was performed with moderate success, while Kabale und Liebe, a play in realistic idiom and with a strong element of contemporary social criticism, played to full houses. So far Schiller's writing was an impressive but belated echo of the Sturm und Drang. An attempt at periodical journalism with Die Rheinische Thalia (see Thalia, Die) was not successful. After a depressing winter spent without income and in a tormenting and hopeless love-affair with a married woman, Charlotte von Kalb, Schiller accepted in the spring of 1785 an invitation to Leipzig to join two young couples who admired his work (see Körner, C. G.). This journey initiated a change in his life. The worst material cares were removed and he could devote himself to poetry. He made, however, only slow progress with Don Carlos, which did not appear until 1787. This historical drama in verse, intertwining the personal passions of individuals and the fate of nations, marks an entirely new phase in his development. During these years he also wrote a story expressing notable social concern, Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre (1786), and began an original novel, which remained a fragment, Der Geisterseher.

In the summer of 1787 Schiller settled in Weimar, soon becoming attached to Charlotte von Lengefeld (see above), whom he married in 1790. Meanwhile he engaged successfully in historical writing, publishing in 1788 a history of the conflict between Spain and the Netherlands in the 16th c. ( Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten Niederlande von der spanischen Regierung). This work gained him appointment in 1789 as professor of history at Jena. The university chair gave him a standing but little financial support and he contracted to write a popular history of the Thirty Years War (Geschichte des Dreißigjährigen Kriegs, 1791-3). His health broke down through overwork early in 1791. In December 1791, however, he was freed from financial strain by a generous grant from Prince Friedrich Christian of Augustenburg and Count Heinrich Ernst von Schimmelmann, both German Danes. After a visit to his homeland in 1793 he devoted himself in Jena to a study of the philosophy of Kant. In 1794 he came into close contact and friendship with Goethe, with whom his relations had hitherto been cool. The results of Schiller's philosophical studies appeared in a series of works dealing with ethical and aesthetic problems. Über Anmut und Würde (1793) championed instinctive right-doing against Kant's rather joyless morality and established Schiller's aesthetic psychology. Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen (1795) set up the doctrine of psychological balance as the aesthetic state of mind, and in Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (1795-6) he essayed a typology of poets, for which he and Goethe may be regarded as characteristic examples. He also wrote a series of short treatises on tragedy, including Über den Grund des Vergnügens an tragischen Gegenständen (1792), Über das Pathetische, Vom Erhabenen (both 1793), and Über das Erhabene (1801), which are significant for his later plays. At the same time the inexhaustible intellectual curiosity distinguishing Schiller's aesthetic writings has attracted philosophers of different schools of thought and ideologies who were not concerned with his dramatic and poetic œuvre. A study by L. Sharpe introduces the reader to the whole range of responses to Schiller's Aesthetic Essays: Two Centuries of Criticism (1995).

In 1795 Schiller began to edit with Goethe's support Die Horen, a high-toned monthly, which was received coolly by the critics. Schiller and Goethe avenged themselves in satirical distichs, which they called Xenien (1796) and published in the Musenalmanach. They followed up this destructive excursion by creative work in 1797 in the form of ballads, of which Schiller's share included ‘Der Taucher’, ‘Der Handschuh’, ‘Der Ring des Polykrates’, and ‘Die Kraniche des Ibykus’. It was now years since Schiller had written a play and, in spite of his poetry and various prose works, he was worried by a sense of sterility. In 1796 he at last embarked on a new tragedy, Wallenstein, which he wrote principally in 1797-8. In its final form Wallenstein proved to be a trilogy, composed of Wallensteins Lager, a short prologue with deft comic touches, and the drama proper separated into Die Piccolomini and Wallensteins Tod. Wallenstein, which is perhaps Schiller's most impressive historical tragedy, was performed complete in 1799. The new work gave Schiller impetus, and play rapidly succeeded play. Maria Stuart was produced in 1800, when he also completed his adaptation of Macbeth (see Shakespeare), Die Jungfrau von Orleans, which Schiller termed ‘eine romantische Tragödie’ and held in special affection, followed in 1801, and his most classical work, Die Braut von Messina with its chorus (which he justified in Über den Gebrauch des Chors in der Tragödie), in 1803. Schiller's next play, Wilhelm Tell (1804), abandoned tragedy for Schauspiel, and achieved in its breadth and multiplicity of levels a universal success. He quickly reverted, however, to tragedy in Demetrius; it remained unfinished, and work on it was resumed notably by Hebbel and Laube. Schiller, who had long struggled against illness, died in May 1805.

Schiller's character and poetic gifts are dominated by a powerfully developed will, which is embodied in many of his characters, is expressed in the vehemence of his style, and was the supporting element in his modest span of life. His early prose plays, though partially realistic, contain an important element of caricature. With Don Carlos he adopted verse and used it in all his subsequent plays, and in this later part of his œuvre he aimed at a harmonious manner, with a pronounced rhetorical style (‘Schillersches Pathos’). His tragic heroes, he considered, achieve sublimity in the grandeur of their willed submission to an inescapable fate. Since the 1950s increasing attention has been paid to Schiller's acute theoretical and critical writings and to the stylistic means by which he attained dramatic success.

Of the many operatic settings of plays by Schiller, the best-known is Verdi's Don Carlos, to a French libretto by Méry and du Locle (1866). Verdi also set (to Italian libretti) Die Jungfrau von Orleans (Giovanna d'Arco, 1845; also attempted by Tchaikovsky as Orleanskaya Deva, 1878-9), Die Räuber (I Masnadieri, 1846-7), and Kabale und Liebe (Luisa Miller, 1849). Donizetti wrote a Maria Stuarda in 1834. Rossini wrote a successful Guillaume Tell for Paris in 1829 of which the overture remains popular.

Among older editions the Säkular-Ausgabe (ed. E. von der Hellen, 16 vols., 1904-5) should be mentioned. The Nationalausgabe (ed. successively by J. Petersen; L. Blumenthal and B. von Wiese; N. Oellers and S. Siedel, 1943 ff.), planned for 43 volumes, includes correspondence and Gespräche (i.e. references to Schiller by contemporaries). The letters (Schillers Briefe) were edited by F. Jonas (7 vols., 1892-6). An edition of Werke und Briefe (12 vols.) by K. H. Hilzinger et al. appeared 1988 ff.

Schiller, Johann Cristoph Friedrich (1759-1805) The German poet and man of letters is remembered philosophically principally for his influential insistence on the importance of aesthetics. Whereas Kant identified freedom with the exercise of reason, for Schiller the aesthetic impulse is a fundamental element of human nature, whose proper expression and development is itself the point at which the phenomenal and noumenal worlds of Kant fuse, and hence the supreme exercise of human freedom (aesthetics is also connected with play, or activity as an end in itself). Schiller shared the idealism of the contemporary German school (see Fichte, Schelling) and played an important role in joining the literary movement of Romanticism to contemporary philosophical themes. He develops his view of aesthetics into a general account of epistemology that stresses the different character and temperament people bring to their interpretations of the world. In particular, the naïve or classic artist is subordinate to the material; the sentimental or romantic artist dominates it. Schiller's most important philosophical works are Briefe über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen (1794-5, trs. as Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Mankind, 1844) and Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (1795, trs. as On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry, 1861).

Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich Von (1759–1805), German dramatist, poet, historian, and philosopher. Born on 10 November 1759 in Marbach, in Württemberg, the only son of a low-ranking army officer, Schiller was educated from 1773 to 1780 at the military academy founded by Karl Eugen, duke of Württemberg (1728–1793). His first play, Die Räuber (1781; The robbers), premiered at the Mannheim National Theater in 1782. Forbidden by the duke to pursue his literary work, he absconded from Württemberg later that year, and after serving as resident playwright at Mannheim for one year, he moved to Dresden and Leipzig and then in 1787 to Weimar, home of several leading literary figures, chiefly Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In 1789 he was appointed professor of history at the University of Jena, on the strength of his Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten Niederlande von der spanischen Regierung (History of the revolt of the United Netherlands from Spanish rule, 1787).

Schiller married Charlotte von Lengefeld in 1790. After a serious illness in 1791 he remained a semi-invalid for the rest of his life. In 1794 he formed a friendship and alliance with Goethe based on shared convictions about the enduring validity of classical principles in art and about the centrality of art as a human activity. Their correspondence, along with their joint essays and projects, had a lasting impact on German literary debate and practice. In 1799 Schiller moved from Jena to Weimar, and he died there on 9 May 1805.

Schiller's work as a poet and dramatist falls into two distinct periods: before 1789 and from the mid-1790s to his death. His first three plays, Die Räuber, Die Verschwörung des Fiesko zu Genua (1783; The conspiracy of Fiesko at Genoa), and Kabale und Liebe (1784; Intrigue and love) owe much in style and spirit to the short-lived but influential avantgarde literary movement of the 1770s, the Sturm und Drang. Written in vigorous prose and showing the impact of the Sturm und Drang generation's reception of William Shakespeare, the plays explore flawed idealism, the charismatic leader, social divisions, and the impatience of the young with the imperfections of the world. They also bear the imprint of Schiller's medical training at the military academy and in particular of his interest in the problem of mind-body relationships. His fourth play, Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien (1787; Don Carlos, infante of Spain), anticipates his later dramas in its use of blank verse and concern with historical and public themes.

The compositional difficulties Schiller encountered with Don Carlos provoked a creative crisis, and though he wrote two seminal poems in 1788, "Die Götter Griechenlandes" (The gods of Greece) and "Die Künstler" (The artists), he turned away for almost a decade from creative writing, with the purpose of clarifying his thoughts on art in general and tragedy in particular. In 1791 he turned to the German philosopher Immanuel Kant's philosophy. Kant's dualism, according to which human beings belong to the realm of nature but also partake through reason in the realm of freedom, became fundamental to Schiller's thinking on aesthetics, for he saw art as a means of reconciling the tensions between nature and reason. His theory of the sublime in tragedy claims that tragedy mediates an experience of transcendence derived from the awareness that human beings may assert their moral freedom even while being physically destroyed (see in particular "Über das Pathetische" [On tragic pity]). In his influential treatise Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen (1794; On the aesthetic education of man in a series of letters), he argues that beauty as "living form" symbolizes and helps bring about the ideal harmony of sense and spirit to which human beings aspire. His notion of beauty as play and of aesthetic semblance have been important in later discussions of aesthetics. His final major treatise, Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (1795; On naive and sentimental poetry), defines the problem of the modern ("sentimental") writer's divided consciousness.

During 1795 Schiller started again to write poetry. In 1799 he completed his greatest drama, Wallenstein (published 1800). A rapid succession of verse plays followed up to his death: Maria Stuart (1801; Mary Stuart), Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1802; The maid of Orleans), Die Braut von Messina (1803; The bride of Messina), Wilhelm Tell (1804; William Tell), and Demetrius (unfinished). Each signals a new departure in style. Together they reflect Schiller's preoccupation with some of the pressing themes of the age of the French Revolution: legitimacy of government, conscience versus political calculation, and the individual within the tide of events. His later poetry encompasses the more popular in style (for example, his ballads and "Das Lied von der Glocke" ([The song of the bell]), but he also used poetry as a meditation on the nature of art (for example, in "Das Ideal und das Leben" [The ideal and life] and "Der Tanz" [The Dance]).

The action-filled plots, strong characters, and thrilling encounters of Schiller's plays have not only guaranteed their continued place on the world stage but have inspired numerous opera composers, Giuseppe Verdi being the most prominent.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

Dewhurst, Kenneth, and Nigel Reeves. Friedrich Schiller, Medicine, Psychology and Literature: With the First English Edition of His Complete Medical and Psychological Writings. Berkeley, 1978.

Schiller, Friedrich. Don Carlos and Mary Stuart. Translated by Hilary Collier Sy-Quia. Adapted in verse drama by Peter Oswald. New York, 1996.

——. Five Plays. Translated by Robert David Mac Donald. London, 1918.

——. On the Aesthetic Education of Man, in a Series of Letters. Edited by Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and Leonard A. Willoughby. Oxford and New York, 1967.

——. Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Edited by Julius Petersen, Liselotte Blumenthal, et al.; from 1992 by Norbert Oellers. 44 vols. Weimar, 1943–.

——. Wallenstein. Translated by Charles E. Passage. New York, 1958.

——. Werke und Briefe. Edited by Otto Dann et al. 12 vols. Frankfurt am Main, 2000–.

——. Wilhelm Tell. Translated and edited by William F. Mainland. Chicago, 1972.

Secondary Sources

Koopmann, Helmut, ed. Schiller-Handbuch. Stuttgart, 1998.

Reed, T. J. Schiller. Oxford and New York, 1991.

Sharpe, Lesley. Friedrich Schiller: Drama, Thought and Politics. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 1991.

—LESLEY SHARPE

Quotes:

"That which is so universal as death must be a benefit."

"What shall he fear that does not fear death."

"It is easy to give advice from a port of safety."

"One can advise comfortably from a safe port."

"No cause has he to say his doom is harsh, who's made the master of his destiny."

"Not without a shudder may the human hand reach into the mysterious urn of destiny."

See more famous quotes by Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

• Born: Aug 13, 1890 in Columbus, Ohio
• Died: Apr 15, 1962 in Los Angeles, California
• Occupation: Actor
• Active: teens
• Major Genres: Western, Drama

Biography

From Ohio, despite his Germanic-sounding name, debonair silent screen leading man Carl Von Schiller enjoyed a long screen career that lasted well into the 1950s and included appearances on such television shows as The Lone Ranger. A popular stock company juvenile, Von Schiller entered films with the Philadelphia-based Lubin Mfg. Company in the very early 1910s. By 1916, he was in California appearing in Sins of the Parents a melodrama in which he discovers that the mother of his betrothed is a dance hall girl and in Vengeance is Mine in which he is executed for a crime he didn't commit. Leaving the screen in favor of stage work in 1920, Von Schiller returned to films in the early '40s under a new moniker, Jerome Sheldon, appearing mostly in B-Westerns. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, All Movie Guide

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)