Friedrich Schiller

(1902 – 1986)

Biographical Sketch

Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller (Marbach, Germany, November 10, 1759 – Weimar, Germany, May 9, 1805; as from 1802: von Schiller) was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright.

Next to Goethe (and sometimes even more so than him), Schiller is considered to be Germany’s most important classical playwright. Critics have noted his innovative use of dramatic structure and his creation of new forms, such as the melodrama and the bourgeois tragedy. He wrote his first play, Die Räuber (The Robbers), while still enrolled at an elite military academy in Stuttgart, where he studied medicine. The play dramatizes the conflict between two aristocratic brothers: the elder leads a group of rebellious students into the Bohemian forest where they become Robin Hood-like bandits, while the younger brother, schemes to inherit his father’s considerable estate. The play’s critique of social corruption and its affirmation of proto-revolutionary republican ideals astounded its original audience. Schiller became an overnight sensation. Later, he would be made an honorary member of the French Republic because of this play.

In 1780, he obtained a post as regimental doctor in Stuttgart, a job he disliked. In order to attend the first performance of The Robbers in Mannheim, Schiller left his regiment without permission. As a result, he was arrested, sentenced to 14 days of imprisonment, and forbidden to publish any further works. He fled Stuttgart in 1782, eventually settling in Weimar in 1787. In 1789, he was appointed professor of History and Philosophy in Jena. Ten years later he returned to Weimar with his wife Charlotte, whom he had married in 1790, and his children, and remained there for the rest of his life.

Among Schiller’s most notable plays in addition to The Robbers are Intrigue and Love (Kabale und Liebe), a tragic love story in the vein of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet that attacks absolutism and bourgeois hypocrisy and was adapted as an opera by Giuseppe Verdi under the name Luisa Miller, a trilogy based on the life and career of Thirty Years’ War general Albrecht von Wallenstein, the likewise historical dramas Mary Stuart (Maria Stuart) – portraying Elizabeth I’s cousin and rival as a misunderstood martyr –, The Maid of Orleans (Die Jungfrau von Orleans) and William Tell (Wilhelm Tell), both styled as biographies of important freedom fighters; as well as, significantly, Schiller’s first historical drama Don Carlos, whom Schiller similarly portrays as a republican figure in his attempt to free Flanders from the despotic grip of his father, King Phillip II. The play’s probably most famous speech, however, is not delivered by its eponymous hero but by his friend, the Marquess of Posa, who voices Schiller’s own belief in personal freedom and democracy when he exhorts the king to grant freedom of thought (“Geben Sie Gedankenfreiheit!”).

Schiller also wrote many philosophical papers on ethics and aesthetics. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788 – 1805), he struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They co-founded the Weimar Theater, which became the leading theater in Germany; and their collaboration helped lead to a renaissance of drama in Germany. They also frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien (Xenias), a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision.

For his achievements, Schiller was ennobled in 1802 by the Duke of Weimar. His works were received enthusiastically not only in Germany but also abroad, particularly in Italy and Russia. His 100th birthday in 1859 was celebrated all over Europe, as well as in the United States. By 1867, his publisher Cotta had sold 2.4 million copies of his works worldwide. Replicas of Weimar’s 1857 joint monument to Goethe and Schiller have been erected in San Francisco, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Syracuse and Shanghai. In September 2008, Schiller was voted by the audience of the TV channel Arte as the second most important playwright in Europe after William Shakespeare.

Bibliography

Novels, Novel Fragments, Novellas

Der Geisterseher (1789)
(The Ghost-Seer; The Man Who Sees Ghosts)
Verbrecher aus Infamie (1791)
A/K/A: Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre.

Plays

Die Räuber (1781)
(The Robbers)
Die Verschwörung des Fiesko zu Genua (1783)
(Fiesco, or The Conspiracy of Genoa)
Kabale und Liebe (1784)
A/K/A: Luise Millerin
(Kabal and Love; Intrigue and Love)
Don Carlos (1787)
(Don Carlos, Infante of Spain)
Der Parasit, oder Die Kunst sein Glück zu Machen (1797)
Adaptation of Louis-Benoît Picard’s Médiocre et Rampant.
Wallenstein (1796-1799)
- Wallensteins Lager
  (Wallenstein’s Camp)
- Die Piccolomini
  (The Piccolominis)
- Wallensteins Tod
  (The Death of Wallenstein)
Maria Stuart (1800)
(Mary Stuart)
Macbeth (1801)
Adaptation of Shakespeare’s play.
Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1801)
(Joan of Arc; The Maid of Orleans)
Turandot, Prinzessin von China (1802)
(Turandot, Princess of China)
Adaptation from Carlo Gozzi.
Der Neffe als Onkel (1803)
– Adaptation of Louis-Benoît Picard’s Encore de Ménechmes.
Die Braut von Messina (1803)
(The Bride of Messina)
Wilhelm Tell (1804)
(William Tell)
Phädra (1805)
(Pheadra)
Adaptation from Jean Racine.
Demetrius (1815)
– Fragment.
Historical Dramas (1847)
Werke (1847–1849)
Dramatic Works (1851)
Sämtliche Werke (1910–1911)
Werke und Briefe (1987 – 2000)

Narrative and Lyrical Poetry

Laura-Oden (1781)
(The Laura Poems: Fantasy; Rapture; Melancholy)
Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782 (1782)
(Anthology on the Year 1782)
Thalia: An die Freude (1785)
(Ode to Joy)
Die Götter Griechenlands (1788)
(The Gods of Greece)
Die Horen (1795)
Sängers Abschied (1795)
(Singer’s Farewell)
Der Spaziergang (1795)
(The Walk)
Die Poesie des Lebens (1795)
(The Poetry of Life)
Das Ideal und das Leben (1795)
(Life and the Ideal)
Die Macht des Gesanges (1795)
(The Power of Song)
Klage der Ceres (1796)
(The Complaint of Ceres)
Xenien (1797)
– With Goethe.
Der Handschuh (1797)
(The Glove)
Der Taucher (1797)
(The Diver)
Die Kraniche des Ibykus (1797)
(The Cranes of Ibykus)
Der Gang nach dem Eisenhammer (1797)
Der Ring des Polykrates (1797)
(The Ring of Polycrates)
Ritter Toggenburg (1797)
(The Knight of Toggenburg)
Reiterlied (1797)
Der Kampf mit dem Drachen (1798)
(The Fight with the Dragon)
Die Bürgschaft (1798)
(The Pledge)
Das Lied von der Glocke (1799)
(Song of the Bell)
Nänie (1799)
(Naenia)
Hero und Leander (1801)
(Hero and Leander)
An die Freunde (1802)
(To My Friends)
Kassandra (1802)
(Cassandra)
Der Graf von Habsburg (1803)
(The Count of Hapsburg)
Der Jüngling am Bache (1803)
(The Youth by the Brook)
Der Alpenjäger (1804)
(The Alpine Hunter)
Gedichte und Prosa (1984)
Hundert Gedichte (1987)
Sämtliche Balladen und Romanzen (1992)
Gesammelte Gedichte (1994)
Die schönsten Gedichte und Balladen (1998)
Ausgewählte Gedichte (1998)
Die Gedichte (1999)
Sämtliche Gedichte (2000)
Die schönsten Gedichte von Friedrich Schiller (2003)

Treatises, Essays, Articles, Correspondence

Die Schaubühne als eine moralische Anstalt betrachtet (1784)
Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten Niederlande von der Spanischen Regierung (1788)
(The History of the Revolt of Netherlands)
Was heißt und zu welchem Ende studiert man Universalgeschichte? (1789)
Geschichte des Dreißigjährigen Krieges (1790)
(History of the Thirty Years’ War)
Über den Grund des Vergnügens an tragischen Gegenständen (1792)
Brief an den Herzog von Augustenburg (1793)
Über die Schönheit (1793)
Über das Pathetische (1793)

Über Anmut und Würde (1793)
Über das Erhabene (1793)
(Of the Sublime)
Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen (1793)
(On the Aesthetic Education of Man)
Die Belagerung von Antwerpen (1795)
Über Naive und sentimentale Dichtung (1795)
(Naive and Sentimental Poetry; On the Naive and Sentimental in Literature)
Die Huldigung der Künste (1804)
(Homage of the Arts)
The Philosophical and Aesthetic Letters and Essays (1845)
Aesthetical and Philosophical Essays (1902)
Schillers Briefe (1982)
Essays (1993)
Correspondence Between Goethe and Schiller 1794 – 1805 (1994)
Friedrich von Schiller: Briefe 1772 – 1795 (2002)

Online editions of Friedrich Schiller’s works:

A Selection of Quotes

Die Jungfrau von Orleans

“Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.”
(“Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.”)

Don Karlos: Infant von Spanien

Sie wollen pflanzen für die Ewigkeit,
Und säen Tod? Ein so erzwungnes Werk
Wird seines Schöpfers Geist nicht überdauern.
Dem Undank haben Sie gebaut – umsonst
Den harten Kampf mit der Natur gerungen,
Umsonst ein großes königliches Leben
Zerstörenden Entwürfen hingeopfert.
Der Mensch ist mehr, als Sie von ihm gehalten.
(…)
Gehn Sie Europens Königen voran.
Ein Federzug von dieser Hand, und neu
Erschaffen wird die Erde. Geben Sie
Gedankenfreiheit.
(…)
Sehen Sie sich um
In seiner herrlichen Natur! Auf Freiheit
Ist sie gegründet – und wie reich ist sie
Durch Freiheit! Er, der große Schöpfer, wirft
In einen Tropfen Thau den Wurm und läßt
Noch in den todten Räumen der Verwesung
Die Willkür sich ergötzen – Ihre Schöpfung,
Wie eng und arm! Das Rauschen eines Blattes
Erschreckt den Herrn der Christenheit – Sie müssen
Vor jeder Tugend zittern. Er – der Freiheit
Entzückende Erscheinung nicht zu stören –
Er läßt des Uebels grauenvolles Heer
In seinem Weltall lieber toben – ihn,
Den Künstler, wird man nicht gewahr, bescheiden
Verhüllt er sich in ewige Gesetze
Die sieht der Freigeist, doch nicht ihn. Wozu
Ein Gott? sagt er: die Welt ist sich genug.
Und keines Christen Andacht hat ihn mehr,
Als dieses Freigeists Lästerung, gepriesen.
(…)
Weihen Sie
Dem Glück der Völker die Regentenkraft,
Die – ach, so lang – des Thrones Größe nur
Gewuchert hatte – stellen Sie der Menschheit
Verlornen Adel wieder her. Der Bürger
Sei wiederum, was er zuvor gewesen,
Der Krone Zweck – ihn binde keine Pflicht,
Als seiner Brüder gleich ehrwürd’ge Rechte.
Wenn nun der Mensch, sich selbst zurückgegeben,
Zu seines Werths Gefühl erwacht – der Freiheit
Erhabne, stolze Tugenden gedeihen –
Dann, Sire, wenn Sie zum glücklichsten der Welt
Ihr eignes Königreich gemacht – dann ist
Es Ihre Pflicht, die Welt zu unterwerfen.”
[Marquis von Posa; 3. Akt, 10. Szene]“

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