Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich Von (1759–1805)

SCHILLER, JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON (1759–1805)

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.

See also Drama: German ; German Literature and Language ; Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von .

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 MacDonald. 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