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SCHILLER, JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH ...
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See also:SCHILLER, JOHANN CHRISTOPH See also:FRIEDRICH VON (1759-18o5) , See also:German poet, dramatist and philosopher, was See also:born at Marbach on the See also:Neckar, on the loth of See also:November 1759. His grandfather had been a See also:baker in the See also:village of Bittenfeld, near See also:Waiblingen; his See also:father, Johann Kaspar (1723-1796), was an See also:army-surgeon, who had settled in Marbach and married the daughter of an innkeeper, Elisabeth Dorothea Kodweis (1732-18.02). In 1757 Schiller's father again took service in the army aad ultimately See also:rose to the See also:rank of See also:captain. The vicissitudes of his profession entailed a See also:constant See also:change of See also:residence; but at See also:Lorch and at See also:Ludwigsburg, where the See also:family was settled for longer periods, the See also:child was able to receive a See also:regular See also:education. In 1773 the See also:duke Karl Eugen of See also:Wurttemberg claimed See also:young S chiller as a See also:pupil of his military school at. the " Solitude " near Ludwigsburg, where, instead of his chosen subject of study, See also:theology, he was obliged to devote himself to See also:law. On the removal of the school in 1775 to See also:Stuttgart, he was, however, allowed to See also:exchange this subject for the more congenial study of See also:medicine. The strict military discipline of the school See also:lay heavily on Schiller, and intensified the spirit of See also:rebellion, which, nurtured on See also: In this respect, Schiller's Rduber is one of the most vital German dramas of the 18th See also:century. In See also:January 1782 it was performed in the Court and See also:National See also:Theatre of See also:Mannheim, Schiller himself having stolen secretly away from Stuttgart in See also:order to be See also:present. The success encouraged him to begin a new tragedy, Die Verschworung See also:des See also:Fiesco zu Genua, and he edited a lyric Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782, to which he was himself the See also:chief contributor. A second surreptitious visit to Mannheim came, however, to the ears of the duke, who was also irritated by a complaint from See also:Switzerland about an uncomplimentary reference to Graubunden in Die Rduber. He had Schiller put under a fortnight's See also:arrest, and forbade him to write any more " comedies " or to hold intercourse with any one outside of Wurttemberg. Schiller, embittered enough by the uncongenial conditions of his Stuttgart life, resolved on See also:flight, and took See also:advantage of soiree court festivities in See also:September 1782 to put his See also:plan into See also:execution. He hoped in the first instance for material support from the theatre in Mannheim, and its See also:intendant, W. H. von See also:Dalberg; but nothing but rebuffs and disappointments were in See also:store for him. He did not even feel secure against See also:extradition in Mannheim, and after several See also:weeks spent mainly in the village of Oggersheim, where his third drama, Luise Millerin, or, as it was subsequently renamed, Kabale and Liebe, was in See also:great See also:part written, he found a See also:refuge at Bauerbach in Thuringia, in the See also:house of Frau von Wolzogen, the See also:mother of one of his former schoolmates. Here Luise Millerin was finished and See also:Don See also:Carlos begun. In See also:July 1783 Schiller received a definite See also:appointment for a See also:year as " theatre poet " in Mannheim, and here both Fiesco and Kabale and Liebe were performed in 1784. Neither See also:play is as spontaneous or inspired as Die Rduber had been; but both See also:mark a steady advance in characterization and in the technical See also:art of the playwright. Kabale and Liebe, especially, is an admirable example of that " tragedy of See also:common life " which See also:Lessing had introduced into See also:Germany from See also:England and which bulked so largely in the German literature of the later 18th century. In this drama Schiller's See also:powers as a realistic portrayer of See also:people and conditions See also:familiar to him are seen to best advantage. Although Schiller failed to win an established position in Mannheim, he added to his See also:literary reputation by his address on Die Schaubiihne als eine moralische Anstalt betrachtet (1784), and by the publication of the beginning of Don Carlos (in See also:blank See also:verse) in his See also:journal, Die rheinische Thalia (1785). He had also the opportunity of See also:reading the first See also:act of the new tragedy before the duke of See also:Weimar at See also:Darmstadt in See also:December 1784, and, as a sign of favour, the duke conferred upon him the See also:title of " See also:Rat." In See also:April 1785 Schiller, whose position in Mannheim had, See also:long before this, become hopeless, accepted the invitation of four unknown See also:friends—C. G. Korner, L. F. See also:Huber, and their fiancees Minna and Dora Stock—with whom he had corresponded, to pay a visit to See also:Leipzig. He spent a happy summer mainly at Gohlis, near Leipzig, his jubilant See also:mood being reflected in the See also:Ode an die Freude; and in September of the same year he followed his new friend Korner to See also:Dresden. As Korner's See also:guest in Dresden and at Loschwitz on the See also:Elbe, Schiller completed Don Carlos, wrote the dramatic See also:tale, Der Verbrecher aus Infamie (later entitled Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre, 1786) and the unfinished novel, Der Geisterseher (1789). The Rheinische Thalia was continued as the Thalia (1786–1791; in 1792, again renamed Die neue Thalia), and in this journal he published most of his writings at this time. Korner's See also:interest in See also:philosophy also induced Schiller to turn his See also:attention to such studies, the first results of which he published in the Philosophische Briefe (1786). Don Carlos, meanwhile, appeared in See also:book See also:form in 1787, and added to Schiller's reputation as a poet. In adopting verse instead of See also:prose as a See also:medium of expression, Schiller showed that he was pre-pared to See also:challenge comparison with the great dramatic poets of other times and other lands; but in seeking a See also:model for this higher type of tragedy he unfortunately turned rather to the classic theatre of See also:France than to the See also:English drama which Lessing, a little earlier, had pronounced more congenial to the German temperament. The unwieldiness of the See also:plot and its inconsistencies show, too, that Schiller had not yet mastered she new form of drama; but Don Carlos at least provided him with an opportunity of expressing ideas of See also:political and intellectual freedom with which, as the See also:disciple of Rousseau, he was in warm sympathy. A new See also:chapter in Schiller's life opened with his visit to Weimar in July 1787. Goethe was then in See also:Italy, and the duke of Weimar was absent from Weimar; but the poet was kindly received by See also:Herder and See also:Wieland, by the duchess Amalie and other court notabilities. The chief attraction for Schiller was, however, Frau von See also:Kalb with whom he had been passionately in love in Mannheim; but not very long afterwards he made the acquaintance at See also:Rudolstadt of the family von Lengefeld, the younger daughter of which subsequently became his wife. Meanwhile the preparation for Don Carlos had interested Schiller in See also:history, and in 1788 he published the first See also:volume of his chief See also:historical work, Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten Niederlande von der spanischen Regierung, a book which at once gave him a respected position among the historians of the 18th century. It obtained for him, on the recommendation of Goethe, a professorship in the university of See also:Jena, and in November 1789 he delivered his inaugural lecture. Was heisst and zu welchem Ende studiert See also:man Universalgeschichte? In See also:February of the following year he married See also:Charlotte von Lengefeld. Schiller's other historical writings comprise a Sammlung historischer Memoires, which he began to publish in 1i90, and the Geschichte des dreissigjahrigen Krieges (1791–1703). The latter work is more perfunctory in execution and written for a wider public than his first history, but the narrative is dramatic and vivid, the See also:portraiture is sympathetic, and the historical events are interpreted by the See also:light of the rationalistic optimism of the later 18th century. Before, however, the History of the See also:Thirty Years' See also:War was finished, Schiller had turned from history to philosophy. A year after his See also:marriage he had been stricken down by severe illness, from the effects of which he was never completely to recover; See also:financial cares followed, which were relieved unexpectedly by the generosity of the
hereditary See also:prince of See also:Holstein-Augustenburg and his See also:minister, See also:Graf See also:ing with the pseudo-classic method he had adopted in Don Carlos —the two lovers, Max See also:Piccolomini and Thekla, are an obvious concession to the tradition of the See also:French theatre—See also:Wallenstein shows how much Schiller's art had benefited by his study of See also:Greek tragedy; the See also:fatalism of his See also:hero is a masterly application of an See also:antique See also:motive to a See also:modern theme. His whole conception of life and See also:character had deepened since Don Carlos, and under the See also:influence of See also:Kant's philosophy the drama became the embodiment of ethical problems that are essentially modern. The success of Wallenstein, with which Schiller passed at once into the front rank of See also:European dramatists, was so encouraging that the poet resolved to devote himself with redoubled ardour to dramatic poetry. Towards the end of 1799 he took up his residence permanently in Weimar, not only to be near his friend, but also that he might have the advantage of visiting regularly the theatre of which Goethe was director.
Wallenstein was followed in 1800 by Maria See also:Stuart, a tragedy, which, in spite of its great popularity in and outside of Germany, was See also:felt by the critics to follow too closely the methods of the lachrymose " tragedy of common life " to maintain a high position among Schiller's See also:works. It is a serious flaw in the play that the See also:fate of the heroine is virtually decided before the See also:curtain rises, and the poet is obliged to create by theatrical devices the semblance of a tragic conflict which, in reality, does not exist. A finer See also:production in every way is Schiller's "romantic tragedy," Die See also:Jungfrau von See also: If the experiment cannot be regarded as successful, the See also:fault lies in the difficulty of reconciling the artificial conventions of the Greek theatre, the See also:chorus and the See also:oracle—here represented by dreams and superstitions—with the point of view of the poet's own time. As far as the diction itself is concerned, the lyric outbursts of the chorus gave Schiller's See also:genius an opportunity of which he was not slow to avail himself. In the poet's last completed drama, Wilhelm Tell (1804), he once more, as in Wallenstein, See also:chose a historical subject involving wide issues. Wilhelm Tell is the drama of the Swiss people; its subject is less the See also:personal fate of its hero than the struggle of a nation to See also:free itself from tyranny. This is the See also:reason for the epic breadth of the work, its picturesque and panoramic character. It also justifies the idealization of the hero, on the one See also:hand, and, on the other, the introduction of episodes which have but little relation to his personal fate, or even put his character in a directly unfavourable light. Wilhelm Tell was an See also:attempt to win for the German drama a new See also: He was ennobled in 1802, and in 1804 the duke of Weimar, unwilling to lose him, doubled his meagre See also:salary of 400 talers. SchiIler's art, with its broad, clear lines, its unambiguous moral issues, and its enthusiastic optimism, has appealed with Schimmelmann, who conferred upon him a See also:pension of 1000 talers a year for three years. Schiller resolved to devote the leisure of these years to the study of philosophy. In the summer of 1790 he had lectured in Jena on the See also:aesthetics of tragedy, and in the following year he studied carefully Kant's See also:treatise on aesthetics, Krilik der Urteilskraft, which had just appeared and appealed powerfully to Schiller's mind. The influence of these studies is to be seen in the essays Uber den Grund unseres Vergniigens an tragischen Gegenstdnden and Uber tragische Kunst (1792), as well as in his See also:correspondence with his friend Korner. Here Schiller arrives at his See also:definition of beauty, as Freiheit in der Erscheinung, which, although it failed to remove Kant's difficulty that beauty was essentially a subjective conception, marked the beginning of a new See also:stage in the history of German aesthetic theory. Uber Anmut and Wiirde, published in 1793, was a further contribution to the elucidation and widening of Kant's theories; and in the eloquent Briefe iiber die asthetische Erziehung des.Menschen (1795), Schiller proceeded to apply his new standpoint to the problems of social and individual life. These remarkable letters were published in Die Horen, a new journal, founded in 1794, which was the immediate occasion for that intimate friendship with Goethe which dominated the See also:remainder of Schiller's life. The two poets had first met in 1788, but at that time Goethe, fresh from Italy, felt little inclination towards the author of the turbulent dramas Die Rduber, Kabale and Liebe and Don Carlos. By degrees, however, Schiller's historical publications, and, in a higher degree, the magnificent poems, Die Goiter Griechenlands (1788) and Die Kunstler (1789), awakened Goethe's respect, and in 1794, when the younger poet invited Goethe to become a collaborator in the Horen, the latter responded with alacrity. In a very few weeks the two men had become friends. In the meantime a See also:holiday in Schiller's Wurttemberg See also:home had brought renewed health and vigour. An immediate outcome of the new friendship was Schiller's admirable essays, published in the Horen (1795-1796) and collected in 1800 under the title Ober naive and sentimentalische Dichtung. Here Schiller applied his aesthetic theories to that See also:branch of art which was most peculiarly his own, the art of poetry; it is an attempt to classify literature in accordance with an a priori philosophic theory of " ancient " and " modern," " classic " and " romantic," " naive and " sentimental "; and it sprang from the need Schiller himself felt of justifying his own " sentimental " and " modern " genius with the " naive " and classic " tranquillity of Goethe's. While Schiller's standpoint was too essentially that of his time to lay claim to finality, it is, on the whole, the most concise statement we possess of the literary theory which lay behind the classical literature of Germany. For Schiller himself this was the See also:bridge that led back from philosophy to poetry. Under Goethe's stimulus he won fresh laurels in that domain of philosophical lyric which he had opened with Die Kunstler; and in Das Ideal and das Leben, Die Macht des Gesanges, Wurde der Frauen, and Der Spaziergang, he produced masterpieces of reflective poetry which have not their equal in German literature. These poems appeared in the .iusenalmanach, a new publication which Schiller began in 1796, the Horen, which had never met with the success it merited, coming to an end in 1797. In the Musenalmanach were also published the " Xenien " (1797), a collection of distichs by Goethe and Schiller, in which the two friends avenged themselves on the cavilling critics who were not in sympathy with them. The Almanach of the following year, 1798, was even more noteworthy, for it contained a number of Schiller's most popular See also:ballads, " Der See also:Ring des Polykrates," " Der Handschuh," " See also:Ritter See also:Toggenburg," " Der Taucher," " Die Kraniche des Ibykus " and " Der Gang nach dem Eisenhammer;" " Der Kampf mit dem Drachen " following in 1799, and " Das Lied von der Glocke " in 1800. As a ballad poet, Schiller's popularity has been hardly less great than as a dramatist; the bold and See also:simple outline, the terse dramatic characterization appealed directly to the popular mind, which did not let itself be disturbed by the often artificial and rhetorical tone into which the poet falls. But the supreme importance of the last period of Schiller's life lay in the See also:series of See also:master-dramas which he gave to the See also:world between 1799 and 1804. Just as Don Carlos had led him to the study of Dutch history, so now his occupation with the history of the Thirty Years' War supplied him with the theme of his trilogy of Wallenstein (1798-1799). The plan of Wallenstein was of long See also:standing, and it was only towards the end, when Schiller realized the impossibility of saying all he had to say within five acts, that he decided to See also:divide it into three parts, a descriptive See also:prologue, Wallensteins Lager, and the two dramas Die Piccolomini and Wallensteins See also:Tod. Without entirely break- See also:peculiar force to the German people, especially in periods of political despondency. But since the re-See also:establishment of the German See also:empire in 1871 there has been, at least in intellectual circles, a certain waning of his popularity, the Germans of to-See also:day realizing that Goethe more fully represents the aspirations of the nation. In point of fact, Schiller's genius lacks that universality which characterizes Goethe's; as a dramatist, a philosopher, an historian, and a lyric poet, he was the exponent of ideas which belong rather to the See also:Europe of the period before the French Revolution than to our time; we look to his high principles of moral conduct, his See also:noble See also:idealism and optimism, rather as the ideal of an See also:age that has passed away than as the expression of the more material ambitions of the modern world. The first edition of Schiller's Samtliche Werke appeared in 1812–1815 in 12 vols. and was edited by Schiller's most intimate friend, C. G. Korner. Of the countless subsequent See also:editions mention need only be made here of the historisch-kritische Ausgabe by K. Goedeke and others (15 vols., r867–1876) ; the edition published by Hempel and edited by R. Boxberger and W. von Maltzahn (16 vols., 1868.-1874); that in Kurschner's Deutsche Nationalliteratur, vols. 118-129 (1882–189o), edited by R. Boxberger and A. Birlinger; and the latest See also:Cotta edition (Sakularausgabe), edited by E. von der Hellen and others (17 vols., 1904–1905). A See also:critical edition of Schiller's Briefe was published by F. See also:Jonas (7 vols.) in 1892-1896; the chief collections of his correspondence are: Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller and Goethe (1828–1829, edited by F. Muncker, 4 vols., 1893); Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller and W. von See also:Humboldt (183o, edited by F. Muncker, 1893) ; Schillers Briefwechsel mit Korner (1847, edited by L. Geiger, 1893); Schiller and Lotte (1856, 4th ed. 1893); Briefwechsel zwischen Schiller and Cotta, ed. by W. Vollmer (1876). The chief See also:biographies of Schiller are the following: T. See also:Carlyle, Life of Friedrich Schiller (1824, German See also:translation with an introduction by Goethe, 1830) ; See also:Caroline von Wolzogen, Schillers Leben (183o, 5th ed. 1876, cheap reprint, 1884); K. Hoff meister, Schillers Leben (1838–1842); G. Schwab, Schillers Leben (184o, 2nd ed. 1844); E. Palleske, Schillers Leben and Werken (1858-1859, 14th ed. 1894, En g. trans. 1885); H. Viehoff, Schillers Leben (1875, new ed. 1888); H. See also:Duntzer, Schillers Leben (1881) ; J. Sime, Schiller (1882) ; R. Weltrich, F. Schiller (vol. i., 1890) ; 0. Brahm, Schiller (vols. 1888–1892) ; J. See also:Minor, Schiller, sein Leben and See also:seine Werke (vols. i.-ii., 189o) ; J. Wychgram, Schiller (1895, 3rd ed. 1898, popular ed. 1905) ; O. See also:Harnack, Schiller (1898, 2nd ed. 1905); L. Bellermann, Schiller (1901); C. See also: See also: See also:Werder, Vorlesungen fiber Schillers Wallenstein (1889) ; A. See also:Koster, Schiller als Dramaturg (1891) ; L. Belling, Schillers Metrik (1883); K. See also:Fischer, Schiller-Schriften (1891–1892); J. W. Braun, Schiller See also:im Urteile seiner Zeitgenossen (3 vols., 1882) ; J. G. See also:Robertson, Schiller after a Century (1905). (J. G. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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