Schiller:

National Poet Poet of Nations

61

Herausgegeben von

Gerd Labroisse
Gerhard P. Knapp
Norbert Otto Eke

Wissenschaftlicher Beirat:

Christopher Balme (Universiteit van Amsterdam)

Lutz Danneberg (Humboldt-Universitt zu Berlin)
Martha B. Helfer (Rutgers University New Brunswick)
Lothar Khn (Westf. Wilhelms-Universitt Mnster)
Ian Wallace (University of Bath)

2006

AMSTERDAMER BEITRGE
ZUR NEUEREN GERMANISTIK

Schiller:
National Poet Poet of Nations
A Birmingham Symposium

Herausgegeben von

Nicholas Martin

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006

Die 1972 gegrndete Reihe erscheint seit 1977 in zwangloser Folge in der
Form von Thema-Bnden mit jeweils verantwortlichem Herausgeber.
Reihen-Herausgeber:
Prof. Dr. Gerd Labroisse
Sylter Str. 13A, 14199 Berlin, Deutschland
Tel./Fax: (49)30 89724235 E-Mail: Gerd.Labroisse@t-online.de
Prof. Dr. Gerhard P. Knapp
University of Utah
Dept. of Languages and Literature, 255 S. Central Campus Dr. Rm. 1400
Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Tel.: (1)801 581 7561, Fax (1)801 581 7581 (dienstl.)
bzw. Tel./Fax: (1)801 474 0869 (privat) E-Mail: gerhard.knapp@m.cc.utah.edu
Prof. Dr. Norbert Otto Eke
Universitt Paderborn
Fakultt fr Kulturwissenschaften, Warburger Str. 100, D - 33098 Paderborn,
Deutschland, E-Mail: norbert.eke@upb.de

Friedrich Schiller, Hermenbste von Johann Heinrich Dannecker, 1805.

Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach am Neckar.
All titles in the Amsterdamer Beitrge zur neueren Germanistik
(from 1999 onwards) are available online: See www.rodopi.nl
Electronic access is included in print subscriptions.
The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of ISO
9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence.
ISBN-10: 90-420-2003-2
ISBN-13: 978-90-420-2003-0
Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam New York, NY 2006
Printed in The Netherlands

Inhalt/Contents

Nicholas Martin: Introduction: Schiller After Two Centuries

T. J. Reed: Wie hat Schiller berlebt?
Lesley Sharpe: A National Repertoire: Schiller and the Theatre of
his Day
Norbert Oellers: Schiller, der Heros. Mit ergnzenden Bemerkungen
zu einigen seiner Dramen-Helden
Jochen Golz: Monumente zu Lebzeiten? Schiller als Herausgeber
seiner Werke
K. F. Hilliard: Nicht in Person sondern durch einen Reprsentanten:
Problematik der Reprsentation bei Schiller
David Hill: Lenz and Schiller: Alls well that ends well
Steffan Davies: Schillers Egmont and the Beginnings of Weimar
Classicism
John Guthrie: Language and Gesture in Schillers Later Plays
Francis Lamport: Virgins, Bastards and Saviours of the Nation:
Reflections on Schillers Historical Dramas
Ritchie Robertson: Schiller and the Jesuits
Alexander Kosenina: Schillers Poetics of Crime
Jeffrey L. High: Schiller, merely political Revolutions, the personal
Drama of Occupation, and Wars of Liberation
Maike Oergel: The German Identity, the German Querelle and the
Ideal State: A Fresh Look at Schillers Fragment Deutsche Gre
David Pugh: Schiller and the Crisis of German Liberalism
Nicholas Martin: Images of Schiller in National Socialist Germany
Paul Bishop: The Schillerbild of Werner Deubel: Schiller as Poet
of the Nation?
Anhang/Appendix: Schillerjahr 2005. Selected Events and Publications
Personenregister/Index of Names
Register der Werke Schillers/Index of Schillers Works

7
23
35
53
73
89
107
123
139
159
179
201
219
241
257
275
301
321
333
339

6
Anschriften der Autorinnen und Autoren/List of Contributors
Prof. Dr. Paul Bishop
University of Glasgow, School of
Modern Languages and Cultures
UK Glasgow, G12 8QL

Dr. Nicholas Martin

University of Birmingham, Dept. of
German Studies
UK Birmingham, B15 2TT

Mr. Steffan Davies

University of Oxford, St. Hughs
College
UK Oxford, OX2 6LE

Prof. Dr. Norbert Oellers

Rheinische Friedrich-WilhelmsUniversitt Bonn, Germanistisches
Seminar
Am Hof 1d
D 53113 Bonn

Dr. Jochen Golz, Direktor

Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv
Hans-Wahl-Strae 4
D 99425 Weimar
Dr. John Guthrie
University of Cambridge, New Hall
UK Cambridge, CB3 0DF
Prof. Dr. Jeffrey L. High
California State University,
Long Beach
Dept. of Romance, German, Russian
Languages and Literatures
USA Long Beach, CA 90840
Prof. Dr. David Hill
University of Birmingham, Dept. of
German Studies
UK Birmingham, B15 2TT
Dr. K. F. Hilliard
University of Oxford, St Peters
College
UK Oxford, OX1 2DL
Prof. Dr. Alexander Kosenina
University of Bristol, Dept. of German
UK Bristol, BS8 1TE
Mr. Francis Lamport
University of Oxford, Worcester
College
UK Oxford, OX1 2HB

Dr. Maike Oergel

University of Nottingham, Dept. of
German
UK Nottingham, NG7 2RD
Prof. Dr. David Pugh
Queens University, Dept. of German
Language & Literature
Kingston
CA Ontario, K7L 3N6
Prof. T. J. Reed
University of Oxford, The Queens
College
UK Oxford, OX1 4AW
Prof. Dr. Ritchie Robertson
University of Oxford, St Johns
College
UK Oxford, OX1 3JP
Prof. Dr. Lesley Sharpe
University of Exeter, Dept. of
German
UK Exeter, EX4 4QH

Nicholas Martin

Introduction: Schiller After Two Centuries*

The third version of Goethes public lament for Schiller includes an emphatic
wish that posterity should celebrate Schiller and thereby not only fill the void
left by his untimely death but also in some sense complete his unfulfilled life:
So feiert ihn! Denn was dem Mann das Leben / Nur halb erteilt, soll ganz die
Nachwelt geben.1 The wish was granted, though had Goethe known precisely
what posterity had in store for Schiller, he might perhaps have been more careful in what he wished for. Even before the onset of the physical afflictions that
would eventually kill him, Schiller himself had commented in rather different
terms on the nature of his fame. In a letter to a friend in 1789 he wrote: Wenn
mich je das Unglck oder Glck trfe, sehr berhmt zu werden [], so seyen
Sie mit Ihrer Freundschaft gegen mich vorsichtiger. Lesen Sie alsdann meine
Schriften, und lassen den Menschen brigens laufen (NA 25. 209).2 By 1789
Schiller was already very famous, of course, and his fame was to increase
steadily until his death on 9 May 1805 at the age of forty-five. His posthumous
fame the Schiller legend in the various guises it has assumed over the past two
hundred years has dwarfed the fame he enjoyed during his relatively short
life. It is the nature of this posthumous fame that Schiller appears to be hinting
at in his remarks; for it is precisely in the elevation or mythologisation of the
man at the expense of his writings that Schillers reputation has suffered much
harm. Arguably, still more harm has been done over the years by the periodic
emphasis on alleged political and national(ist) messages in Schillers writings
to the near exclusion of reflections on his achievement as a dramatist and poet.
The two-hundredth anniversary of Schillers death was an important cultural
event yet it had to jostle for attention on a crowded stage, because 2005 was an
*

Schillers texts are quoted from Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Ed. by Julius Petersen,
Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff. Quotations from Schillers
verse plays are identified by line number, others by NA with volume and page numbers.
1
Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Epilog zu Schillers Glocke [1805/10/15]. In: Goethes
Werke. Ed. by Erich Trunz. 14 vols. Munich: Beck 12th edn 1981. Vol. 1. Pp. 256259.
Lines 9596.
2
To Caroline von Beulwitz. 25.2.1789. Schiller appears to have been in a particularly
despondent and self-critical mood that day, writing to another friend, Christian
Gottfried Krner: [] je mehr ich empfinde, wie viele und welche Talente oder
Erfodernisse mir fehlten, so berzeuge ich mich desto lebhafter von der Realitt und
Strke desjenigen Talents, welches, jenes Mangels ungeachtet, mich soweit gebracht
hat, als ich schon bin (NA 25. 212).

8
unusually busy year for round anniversaries. It saw the one-hundredth birthdays of Jean-Paul Sartre, Elias Canetti and Anthony Powell, the centenary of
the publication of Einsteins special theory of relativity, and the quatercentenary of the publication of the first part of Don Quijote. 12 August 2005 was the
fiftieth anniversary of Thomas Manns death, and the 150th anniversary of
Kierkegaards death was also commemorated in 2005. However, it was the
bicentenaries which seemed the most numerous. In addition to Schillers twohundredth Todestag, 2005 saw Hans Christian Andersens two-hundredth birthday, as well as the bicentenaries of the battles of Trafalgar (21 October) and
Austerlitz (2 December), and of the first performance of Beethovens Fidelio
(20 November). Anniversaries of Schillers birth or death have usually been
celebrated at fifty-year intervals.3 The Schillerjahr 2005 was the seventh of
these, after 1855, 1859, 1905, 1909, 1955 and 1959. In May 2005, the Austrian
public television channel 1 attempted to explain to its audience the significance of the Schiller anniversary: Jedes Jubilum ein runder Geburtstag
oder Todestag wurde schon immer zum Anlass genommen, die jeweils aktuelle
Sicht auf Person oder Werk eines Knstlers in Publikationen aller Art zu verbreiten. Jetzt ist Friedrich Schiller dran.4 This is quite correct, of course, but
tells only half the story. As important as the views expressed on Schiller is what
these views tell us about the individuals and cultures expressing them. The
major Schillerfeiern of the past two hundred years offer not only a picture of
the vicissitudes of the poets fame but also revealing snapshots of German
intellectual, political and popular culture. In the context of the present volume,
it seems appropriate to provide a brief sketch of Schillers reception as seen
through the prism of these formal celebrations and commemorations.
The high tides in Schillers reputation since his death have occurred during
the Wars of Liberation of 181314, the ensuing period up to and including the
1848 revolutions, and the anniversaries of 1859 and 1905. Periods during
which Schiller has tended to be out of favour include the years immediately
following his death (180512), the Grnderjahre of the Wilhelmine Reich,
the disillusioned anniversary of 1909, the First World War, as well as much of
the second half of the twentieth century.5 For better or worse, the Schiller we
know today is still to some extent the product of the 1859 centenary celebrations which set the tone for both the form and the rhetorical content of many
3
A glaring exception to this rule was 1934, when the Nazis thought it politically expedient to celebrate Schillers 175th birthday.
4
Anschreiben gegen Klischees. Friedrich Schiller zum 200. Todestag. http:// oe1.orf.
at/highlights/36500.html.
5
An authoritative guide to the history of Schiller reception in Germany is Schiller
Zeitgenosse aller Epochen. Dokumente zur Wirkungsgeschichte Schillers in
Deutschland. Ed. by Norbert Oellers. 2 vols. Frankfurt/M.: Athenum 1970. Munich:
Beck 1976.

9
events in subsequent Schillerjahre. In 1859 countless Festredner became
unsolicited marketing men for a certain idea of Schiller. This idea had three
aspects: Schiller the spiritual and, above all, political idealist; Schiller the moralist; and Schiller the patriot. Schillers humane cosmopolitanism was largely
ignored and this was to remain a feature of Schillerjahre until the 1950s.
Looking back, one commentator in 1959 observed: Weil gewisse Richtungen
den Kosmopoliten nicht wollten, feierte man den nationalen Dichter der
Deutschen in Schiller.6 Much of the rhetoric surrounding the extraordinary
celebrations of 1859, which tended to identify Schiller with not only a spirit of
national unity but also a particular self-image of the German Brgertum,
helped to shape the image of Schiller as an idealised and politically malleable
figure. The Austrian writer Franz Grillparzer was one of very few at the time
to recognise the dangers of this approach: Meine Herren! Lassen Sie uns
Schiller feiern als das, was er war: als groen Dichter, als ausgezeichneten
Schriftsteller und ihn nicht blo zum Vorwand nehmen fr wei Gott was fr
politische und staatliche Ideen.7
By the time of the next major Schillerjahr, the centenary of his death in
1905, a change in attitudes appeared to have taken place. In the years leading
up to the centenary, two impressive editions were published: Fritz Jonass critical
edition of Schillers letters, which appeared between 1892 and 1896 and, on the
eve of the centenary, Eduard von der Hellens sixteen-volume Skularausgabe
of Schillers works.8 Monumental scholarly achievements though both editions
are, they reveal that by 1905 Schiller had become more of an object of
academic study than of popular enthusiasm or literary engagement, though
the patriotic Schiller was still very much in evidence. In the words of
Hans Mayer:
Das Schiller-Jahr 1905 stand weitgehend im Zeichen offizieller Feiern des wilhelminischen Deutschland. Die literarischen Naturalisten und Impressionisten hielten sich zurck. [] Die Schiller-Feier von 1905 stand nach auen hin im Zeichen
der Behrden und der Universittsprofessoren fr neuere deutsche Philologie, nicht
der Schriftsteller.9
6
Rudolf Hagelstange: Friedrich Schiller und die Deutschen. In: Schiller. Reden im
Gedenkjahr 1959. Ed. by Bernhard Zeller. Stuttgart: Klett 1961 (Verffentlichungen
der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 24). Pp. 5375, here p. 74.
7
Franz Grillparzer: Smtliche Werke. Ed. by Moritz Necker. 16 vols. Leipzig: Hesse
1903. Vol. 14. Pp. 7980.
8
Schillers Briefe. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Ed. by Fritz Jonas. 7 vols. Stuttgart
Leipzig Berlin Vienna: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 189296. Schillers Smtliche
Werke. Skular-Ausgabe. Ed. by Eduard von der Hellen. 16 vols. Stuttgart Berlin:
Cotta 190405.
9
Hans Mayer: Schillers Nachruhm. In: Etudes Germaniques 14 (1959). Pp. 374385,
here p. 383.

10
Apart from an influential contingent of Gymnasiallehrer, few in 1905 still
clung to the idealised image of unser Schiller, which had characterised the
1859 celebrations. One of the more enduring tributes to Schiller in 1905 was
paid by Thomas Mann in his novella Schwere Stunde.10 It is an imaginative
reconstruction of Schiller working alone at night, wrestling with the conception and execution of his Wallenstein, racked by self-doubt as well as jealousy
of his friend and rival Goethe, and struggling with poor health. Schwere Stunde
is a celebration of heroism, but it is emphatically not the sentimental, pathosridden heroism hailed by those Schiller-Festredner who are detached from,
and largely out of sympathy with, their subject. Mann identifies strongly with
the Schiller he has created, with the struggling artist and suffering human
being. Manns novella celebrates the heroism born of weakness and adversity.
This, together with his sympathetic description of the process of suffering,
placed Schwere Stunde at several removes from the twin Schiller cults of patriotic adulation and sentimental reverence.
In general, however, Schiller had become a more controversial figure by
1905, whose spirit appeared to some to be out of place in the new Germany
which had taken shape since 1871: [After 1871] Schiller was no longer the
man of the hour []. The kingdom of the Germans was no longer a kingdom
of the air; Schiller the cosmopolitan enthusiast of the eighteenth century was
but indifferently adapted to be the representative poet of the real German
Empire.11 Schiller had also acquired a number of influential enemies. Chief
among them was Nietzsche, who in his youth held Schiller in high esteem only
to turn on him no less savagely than he did on his erstwhile father-figure
Wagner. Mischievously running together a view of Schiller as an insistent
moraliser and the title of a popular nineteenth-century poem, Nietzsche brutally characterised Schiller as der Moral-Trompeter von Sckingen.12 This
striking epithet was in fact more of an attack on Schillers nineteenth-century
admirers than on the poet himself.13 Another powerful antagonist was the
Goethe scholar Erich Schmidt whose 1905 Festrede at Berlin made no secret
10

Schwere Stunde was first published in Simplicissimus on 9 May 1905, exactly one
hundred years after Schillers death.
11
John G. Robertson: Schiller After A Century. Edinburgh London: Blackwood 1905.
P. 18.
12
Friedrich Nietzsche: Gtzen-Dmmerung [1888]. Streifzge eines Unzeitgemssen 1.
In: Nietzsche. Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino
Montinari. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter 1967ff. Vol. VI/3. P. 105. Nietzsche was
alluding to the title of an epic poem by Scheffel. Joseph Viktor von Scheffel. Der
Trompeter von Skkingen. Ein Sang vom Oberrhein. Stuttgart: Metzler 1854.
13
Nietzsches Diatriben gegen Schiller meinten im Grunde weniger den Dichter und
sein Werk, als dieses Olympiertum im Zeichen von Kaiser und Reich. Mayer (n. 9).
P. 383. For further discussion, see my Nietzsche and Schiller: Untimely Aesthetics.
Oxford: Clarendon Press 1996. Pp. 4552.

11
of his, and others, belief that Goethe was a greater figure than Schiller;
Schmidt pointedly framed his Schiller speech with paeans to Goethe.14 Other
enemies included many Naturalists and some Social Democrats, in whose eyes
celebrations of Schiller appeared to embody and perpetuate Germanys enduring political backwardness. Conversely, the way in which Schiller was taught
and idolised within the school curriculum one commentator has termed this
process die Verspieerung des Dichters15 reflected, many believed, the
worst kind of reactionary bourgeois complacency of the early twentieth century, remote not only from the world of politics and action but also from the
radical essence of Schillers character. There was also no place for Schiller in
Wilhelm Diltheys influential work Das Erlebnis und die Dichtung of 1906.16
Diltheys models, who allegedly combined lived experience with lived writing,
were instead Lessing, Goethe, Novalis and Hlderlin. And in 1910 Eugen
Dhring voiced disapproval of Schiller in cruder terms, when he articulated a
widely held sense that Schiller was little more than a Schieler und Schillerer,
a schulphil[o]sophirerischer Rauschlyriker.17 During the 1909 Schillerjahr
some voices were more critical still; one satirist was especially scathing,
though his accurate sniping was directed more at the stultifying rituals of the
Schillerfeier than at the man himself or his works:
Man wei seit dem Jahre 1859, wie sie zu verlaufen pflegt. Ein deutscher Professor
hlt die Festrede und schwelgt in Lobpreisungen des Idealismus; einige Schauspieler
tragen Schillersche Balladen vor (die Kraniche des Ibykus mssen stets herhalten), und ein Gesangsverein singt die Vertonung irgend eines Schillerschen
Textes. Das Publikum aber, das sich aus den besten Kreisen der Gesellschaft zusammensetzt, tut so, als wr es begeistert, whrend es sich langweilt. So war es, so ist
es, so wird es sein bis ans Ende der Tage. Gott! Schtze mich vor meinen
Freunden! wrde der groe Marbacher ausrufen, wenn er heute noch unter uns
weilte. [] Man sieht daraus, Schillern geht es genau so wie dem lieben Gott. Ein
jeder beruft sich auf ihn, wenn er sein Schfchen ins Trockne bringen will.18

The celebrations orchestrated by the Nazis in 1934 for the 175th anniversary of
Schillers birth, which are discussed in more detail elsewhere in this volume,
were arguably the shabbiest in a long history of not always distinguished treatments of the poet.
14
See Erich Schmidt: Rede bei der Schiller-Feier der Kniglichen Friedrich-WilhelmsUniversitt zu Berlin am 9. Mai 1905. Berlin: Schade 1905.
15
See Claudia Albert: Schiller im 20. Jahrhundert. In: Schiller-Handbuch. Ed. by
Helmut Koopmann. Stuttgart: Krner 1998. Pp. 773794, here p. 774.
16
Wilhelm Dilthey: Das Erlebnis und die Dichtung. Lessing, Goethe, Novalis,
Hlderlin. Vier Aufstze. Leipzig: Teubner 1906.
17
Qtd. in Oellers (n. 5). Vol. 2. P. 32. See also Albert (n. 15). P. 774.
18
Tarub: Die Schillerfeier. Mrz 3 (1909). No. 4. Pp. 310311.

12
The first post-war Schiller celebrations, in 1955 and 1959 respectively, were
to some extent influenced by the Cold War. To mark Schillers 150th
Todestag in 1955, important collections of speeches and essays were
published in both East and West Germany, with a degree of overlap and
co-operation between them.19 While both volumes contain, for the most part,
scholarly essays which focus on Schillers poetic achievement rather than his
contemporary political relevance, the division of Germany is never far away.
The preface to the West German volume declares that the volume needs no justification, refers to unser so unnatrlich gespaltenes Vaterland, and invokes
Schiller as, in the words of Carl J. Burckhardt, einer unserer groen
Nothelfer .20 Theodor Heuss, who in 1955 was in his second term of office
as the first President of the Federal Republic, shied away from direct political
use of Schiller: 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.21
Heuss did, however, point out that the date of his speech, 8 May 1955, was not
only the eve of a significant Schiller anniversary, it was also the tenth anniversary of the defeat of Hitlers Germany:
Es wre unredlich, dieser Assoziation der Gedanken und Gefhle auszuweichen:
[] der Tag [der 8. Mai 1945] mit seiner schmerzhaft tragischen Paradoxie, da
unser Staaten- und Volksschicksal vernichtet, unsere Seele aber befreit war, freilich
mit dem Auftrag, nun auch mit der Last der Scham fertig zu werden. Man mge das
nicht als eine Erfindung des Hinterher nehmen an diesem Tag, heute vor zehn
Jahren, gingen immer wieder, Trost, Mahnung, Sicherung, drei Zeilen Schillers durch
den Sinn: Strzte auch in Kriegesflammen / Deutsches Kaiserreich zusammen /
Deutsche Gre bleibt bestehen.22

In his Schiller address of May 1955, Thomas Mann made only passing reference to the division of Germany but, considering that he gave his speech on both
sides of the German-German border (first in Stuttgart and then in Weimar), it
was a powerful one. Recalling the great celebrations of 1859, Mann observed:
Es war ein nationales Fest, und das sei das unsrige auch. Entgegen politischer
Unnatur fhle das zweigeteilte Deutschland sich eins in seinem Namen.23
19

Schiller. Reden im Gedenkjahr 1955. Ed. by Bernhard Zeller. Stuttgart: Klett 1955
(Verffentlichungen der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 21). Schiller in unserer Zeit.
Beitrge zum Schillerjahr 1955. Ed. by Schiller-Komitee 1955. Weimar: Volksverlag
1955. The contributions by Thomas Mann (later published in revised form as Versuch
ber Schiller), Hans Mayer and Joachim Mller appeared in both volumes.
20
Der Vorstand der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft: Zum Geleit. In: Zeller (n. 19). Pp. 78.
21
Theodor Heuss: Schiller. In: Zeller (n. 19). Pp. 7989, here p. 82.
22
Ibid. Pp. 8788.
23
Thomas Mann: Versuch ber Schiller. In: Gesammelte Werke. 13 vols. Frankfurt/M.:
Fischer 1974. Vol. 9. Pp. 870951, here p. 950.

13
The East German Schiller volume of 1955 is, on the whole, as sober and
scholarly as its West German counterpart. However, the political statements it
contains are more overt. Invoking the title of the GDR national anthem (for
which he himself wrote the words), the GDRs first Minister of Culture,
Johannes R. Becher, opened his speech with the words: Das erste Mal in der
Geschichte unseres Volkes ist auferstanden aus Ruinen ein deutscher Staat,
der die Grundlage geschaffen hat, um Schillers Vermchtnis zu erfllen.24
Bechers address is rooted firmly in the (bourgeois) tradition of Schiller veneration but his appeal to the poet as a unifying figure is very much in line with
the official GDR vision of national unity:
Friedrich Schiller ist unser, weil er unsere Jugend, weil er unsere Heimat ist;
Friedrich Schiller bleibt unser, weil er unser Volk ist, weil er an das Beste rhrt, was
unser Volk hervorzubringen vermochte; Friedrich Schiller ist unser, weil er unser
ganzes Deutschland, unsere freie, wiedervereinigte deutsche Nation ist. Er ist und
bleibt unser, Friedrich Schiller, einer der grten Erzieher unserer Nation zum
Patriotismus und Humanismus.25

The Schiller anniversary of 2005 went largely unremarked outside the Germanspeaking world. In Britain it barely registered. Schillers death day on 9 May
2005 fell the day after the sixtieth anniversary of the end of the Second World
War in Europe, but this was not the main reason for the lack of attention paid
to it. A far more likely explanation was given a century ago by the British
Germanist J. G. Robertson:
Outside Germany [] Schiller is regarded with what might be termed objective
indifference, and there would seem to be no obstacles to an unbiased judgment of
his work, say, in France or England. [] In Germany, on the other hand, there can
be no question of indifference: by many of his countrymen Schiller is extolled as the
representative national poet, while others, again, regard him with antipathy, and
even animosity.26

During the interval of a performance of Verdis Don Carlo in 2005, BBC Radio
Three broadcast an appreciation of Schiller. Robertsons point about indifference
was borne out when Radio Three was asked if the talk could be made available
on its website and replied that there was insufficient interest to justify doing this.
Robertsons reservations notwithstanding, a century ago Schiller was an important cultural reference point throughout Europe, including Britain. Today, however, even well-educated Britons are unlikely to know much of his output in any
of the fields history, poetry, drama and philosophy in which he excelled. The
24

Johannes R. Becher: Denn er ist unser: Friedrich Schiller der Dichter der Freiheit.
In: Schiller-Komitee 1955 (n. 19). Pp. 4358, here p. 43.
25
Ibid. P. 58.
26
Robertson (n. 11). P. 4.

14
one thing that a lot of people are likely to know about Schiller is that he wrote the
Ode to Joy, which Beethoven set in the last movement of his ninth symphony and
which since 1985 has been the European national anthem.
There were two significant exceptions in 2005 to the rule that the Englishspeaking world tends to ignore Schiller. A highly successful revival of Don
Carlos was produced at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield at the end of 2004.
With Derek Jacobi as an impressively anguished Philip II, it transferred to the
Gielgud Theatre in London for three months in early 2005. The director, Michael
Grandage, successfully recreated the oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere of
the sixteenth-century Spanish court, a gilded cage in which the most powerful
man in the world is a prisoner of his own tyranny. Critics were impressed, admitting that this production forced them to revise their hitherto rather negative opinion of Schiller. Michael Billington in The Guardian began his review by asking,
Who would have thought it Schiller in Shaftesbury Avenue?, before paying
tribute to the brilliance of the production and concluding: The evening is a triumph that at last puts Schiller centre stage.27 The theatre critic of The Daily
Telegraph was, if anything, even more effusive. He, too, admitted to having held
a dim view of Schiller before seeing this production: In the past, I have struggled to understand why [] Schiller is so revered. Ive yawned through Maria
Stuart, nodded off in Wallenstein and almost erased the memory of an earlier
Don Carlos. This production made him see both the play and Schiller in a new
light. He describes Schillers tragedy as an entertaining classic, a work which
combines the personal and the political in a manner that can truly be described as
Shakespearean and which strikes powerful contemporary chords. [] This is
an absolutely spellbinding production of a masterpiece.28
Michael Grandage was also (as artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse in
London) behind the second, even more successful Schiller revival of 2005,
namely, Phyllida Lloyds production of Mary Stuart, with Janet McTeer as the
title character and Harriet Walter as Elizabeth. Mary Stuart was a sell-out at the
Donmar from July to September 2005. As this volume was going to press, the production had transferred to the Apollo Theatre in the West End for a three-month
run from 19 October 2005. The critics were once again enthusiastic and
slightly surprised. The Telegraph declared that [Lloyds] gripping production
[] exudes a sense of hurtling urgency and all-pervading danger and saluted
Grandages second unlikely Teutonic triumph,29 while the drama critic of
27

Michael Billington: Don Carlos. In: The Guardian. 4.2.2005.

Charles Spencer: Spellbinding clash with the dark forces of terror. In: The Daily
Telegraph. 4.10.2004.
29
Dominic Cavendish: Cutting to the heart of a deadly rivalry. In: The Daily Telegraph.
22.7.05. See also John Mullan: Downfall in a downpour. In: Times Literary
Supplement. 12.8.05.
28

15
The Times was so overcome that the final sentence of his review suffered a syntactical breakdown: Terrific acting, terrific theatre, terrific Schiller.30 The
success of these productions is all the more remarkable because, until 2005,
Schiller was widely regarded in the London theatre world as box-office poison.31
Unsurprisingly, Germany was the setting for the vast majority of Schiller
commemorations in 2005.32 While it is difficult to draw general conclusions
from the vast array of Schiller-related events which took place, three interconnected trends were detectable. The first was that, for the first time in a century
and a half, celebrations of Schillers life and work appeared to be largely free
of political appropriations or interference. This may have been due in part to
Germanys return to a position of relative normality in the community of
nations. Secondly, efforts were made to strip away traditional, idealised images
of Schiller by stressing his all too human financial worries, his tangled love life
and his battles against ill-health. Finally, determined attempts were made to
make Schiller more accessible. In the introduction to the catalogue of the 2005
anniversary exhibition in Marbach, the curators declare, Schiller [ist] mitnichten der groe, weltfremde Geist, das rein-genialische Individuum, zu dem
ihn die Mit- und Nachwelt gemacht hat,33 only to concede that the search for
the real Schiller behind the images of him created by posterity will always
remain fruitless: Am Ende bleibt das berhmte Individuum ein Rtsel. Wo
liegt die Grenze zwischen authentischer Person und literarisch vermittelter,
stilisierter Individualitt?34
The question of his contemporary relevance is invariably raised during
Schiller anniversary years. In 1905 the eminent Schiller scholar Albert Ludwig
hoped that the centenary celebrations of that year would help to ward off malicious assaults on Schillers reputation and establish his Stellung zur Gegenwart.
Kann er uns noch etwas sein?35 A rather predictable view today is the one
advanced by Johannes Lehmann in his disrespectful approach to Schiller: Man
ehrt ihn, aber man liest ihn nicht, man hlt ihn hoch, aber im Bcherschrank
30
Benedict Nightingale: Sisterly sweetness is crushed in Schillers terrific drama. In:
The Times. 21.7.05.
31
See Philip Oltermann: Thrillers from Schiller. In: The Times. 2.7.2005. Michael
Billington: The German Shakespeare. In: The Guardian. 29.1.2005.
32
For details of some of the events held to mark the 2005 Schillerjahr, see the
Appendix to this volume.
33
Frank Druffner and Martin Schalhorn: Gtterplne & Musegeschfte. Schiller
17591805. Marbach am Neckar: Deutsche Schillergesellschaft 2005 (Marbacher
Kataloge 58). P. 8.
34
Ibid. P. 9.
35
Albert Ludwig: Das Urteil ber Schiller im neunzehnten Jahrhundert. Eine Revision
seines Prozesses. Bonn: Cohen 1905. P. 107. This work became the basis of a monumental study published four years later, during the next Schillerjahr. Albert Ludwig:
Schiller und die deutsche Nachwelt. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung 1909.

16
fest verschlossen, ein klassisches Klassikerschicksal.36 On its website devoted
to the Schillerjahr 2005, the television channel 3sat posted a similar statement
which resembled an examination question: Schillers Werke verstauben in den
Regalen, man versteht seine Sprache nicht und seine Themen scheinen mit der
heutigen Zeit nichts mehr zu tun zu haben.37 There is, of course, some truth in
this view. Classic literary texts like Schillers are undoubtedly less central to
peoples everyday cultural awareness than they perhaps once were. Ironically, the
view that Schiller is remote and irrelevant was given fresh prominence in 2005 by
academics and journalists eager to stress how redundant this attitude has become.
The origin of this view is more difficult to trace. Schiller appears to have
anticipated to a certain degree the excruciating idealisation to which his work
and, more especially, character would later be subjected. In a letter to Krner
of 1802, he suggests that Germans have an unfortunate tendency to place great
works of literature (and their authors) on a quasi-religious pedestal: Es ist []
im Character der Deutschen, da ihnen alles gleich fest wird. [] Dewegen
gereichen ihnen selbst trefliche Werke zum Verderben, weil sie gleich fr
heilig und ewig erklrt werden (NA 31. 90). Perhaps Goethe is partly to blame
for the widespread view that Schiller is a remote, ethereal figure. Thomas Mann
certainly thought so. Towards the end of his Schiller Festrede in 1955, Mann
cited Goethes reaction when his daughter-in-law complained that she found
Schillers works rather tedious. In an attempt to defend Schiller, the elderly
Goethe apparently replied, Ihr seid alle viel zu armselig und irdisch fr ihn.38
Mann, who had re-read all of Schillers works and letters in preparation for his
ceremonial address, argued that Goethes dictum was well-meant but flawed:
Wir sollten uns alle frchten vor dieser Gebrde, diesem strafenden Wort des alten
Goethe und zusehen, da wir uns nicht als allzu irdisch-armselig erweisen vor ihm
[]. Denn da [Schillers] Andenken erlschen drfe, da er unzeitgem geworden
sei, uns nichts mehr zu sagen habe, ist Vorurteil und Wahn. Es ist eine Meinung von
gestern, sie ist veraltet. Wie stark, bei neu durcharbeitender Beschftigung mit seinem
Werk, habe ich das empfunden und da er, der Herr seiner Krankheit, unserer
kranken Zeit zum Seelenarzt werden knnte, wenn sie sich recht auf ihn besnne!39

The teaching methods of the proverbial Oberlehrer have been sharply criticised over the years, for allegedly helping to create a sense that Schiller and all
36
Johannes Lehmann: Unser armer Schiller. Eine respektlose Annherung. Tbingen:
Silberburg 2000. P. 296.
37
Schiller heute Revolutionr und Genie. Diskussion am 3sat-Stand. http://www.
3sat.de/3sat.php?http://www.3sat.de/kulturzeit/specials/77228/. 3sat is a satellite
channel, jointly owned by ZDF, ORF and the Schweizerische Radio- und
Fernsehgesellschaft.
38
Qtd. in Mann (n. 23). P. 946.
39
Mann (n. 23). P. 946.

17
his works are dull and boring. In that essay of 1905, written for the centenary of
Schillers death, Robertson laid the blame for the distorted contemporary
image of Schiller in Germany squarely at the door of her pedagogues. He declared
that even before the Centenary of 1859, Schiller was adopted by the German
schoolmaster as a means of instilling moral principles, self-denial, and patriotism into the minds of his pupils.40 Robertson also noted that there was
one hindrance to the German people arriving even yet at a final judgment of
Schillers position in the national literature, and that is the tradition kept alive in the
German school. [] [A]t the Centenary of 1859, Schiller was brought forward as
an educational factor perhaps the greatest misfortune that can befall a poet. []
The schoolman shows himself, for the most part, incapable of discriminating
between what in Schiller is poetry and what is merely rhetoric, [] or of understanding the movement of human ideas from the unnational humanitarianism of
Schillers epoch to the nationalism of Bismarcks. It is not to be wondered at that, as
soon as a young man escapes from the trammels of the gymnasium [sic] and begins
to think and read for himself, his first impulse is to become what Otto Brahm called
a Schiller hater.41

Fifty years later, in 1955, Gerhard Fricke also pointed the finger at the way
Schiller was taught to young people:
Fr Generationen heranwachsender Menschen, die bereits von vllig anderen
Erfahrungen und Problemen bewegt waren, wurde dieser Schul-Schiller zu einer
Art abgesunkenem Kulturgut, dessen Sentenzen, Charaktere und Grundgedanken in
jenen moralisierenden und klassifizierenden Vereinfachungen, wie sie im Unterricht
kaum vermeidbar sind, bis zum berdruss zerredet und zerschrieben wurden. Das
Ergebnis war hufig, dass diese Jugend, Generation um Generation, wenn sie die
Schule verliess, auch mit ihrem Schiller fertig war.42

It is unlikely that this deadening, schoolmasterly approach to Schiller persists

today. As a rule, schoolboys and schoolgirls in Germany are no longer exposed,
at too young an age, to Schillers ballads or his blank verse and they are therefore unlikely to cower at the mention of the name Schiller in the way that many
British schoolchildren recoil from the mention of Shakespeare. George Orwell
observed that the process of force-feeding great authors to schoolchildren
causes rebellion and vomiting, but it may have different effects in later life.43

40

Robertson (n. 11). Pp. 89.

Ibid. Pp. 1920.
42
Gerhard Fricke: Schiller. Rede zum 150. Todestag des Dichters. In: Alman dil ve
Edibiyati Dergisi. Ed by Gerhard Fricke and Burhanettin Batiman. Istanbul: University
of Istanbul 1955. Pp. 114, here p. 2.
43
George Orwell: Charles Dickens. In: Critical Essays. London: Secker and Warburg
1946. Pp. 756, here p. 44.
41

18
It seems unlikely that there is much rebelling against Schiller in German schools
today because, apart from having to read Kabale und Liebe and possibly some
extracts from Wilhelm Tell, most German school pupils are not exposed to
Schiller to the extent, or in the manner, that previous generations often were.
Whatever the situation in German schools, to judge by the vast and bewildering range of cultural events linked to the 2005 anniversary, Schiller appeared
to be alive and well (as it were) elsewhere in the German-speaking world.
There were many traditional forms of celebration or commemoration, including Festakte, conferences, poetry readings, concerts and exhibitions. There
were also many new and revived productions of Schillers dramas. Kabale und
Liebe (and Verdis Don Carlo) were performed in Weimar, Wilhelm Tell in
Mannheim, and in Meiningen there were performances of Don Carlos as well
as the world premiere of a dramatised version of Der Geisterseher. There was
also extensive coverage of the anniversary of the Todestag on German television and radio, with Schiller feature films (new and old), documentaries and
round-table discussions. And the television channel 3sat broadcast a different
Schiller play each month between May and October 2005. The titles of some of
the events linked to the 2005 Schillerjahr were quite striking. For example,
there was the whole series of cultural events in Jena (Jena schillert), Schiller
street theatre performed by children in Weimar (Schiller auf der Strae), the
Schillernder Maimarkt in Mannheim, the exhibition at Schillers Geburtshaus
in Marbach on Der Schiller-Comic, a theatre evening in Weimar in January
2005, entitled War Schiller sexy?, and the Schiller unplugged evening at
the Theater hinterm Eisernen in Leipzig in May, which depicted Schiller als
junger Wilder. Last but not least, a radio play on Schillers relationship with
Goethe was broadcast on SWR2 on 12 May, with the title Schne Schdeley.
Opinions naturally differ over whether such phenomena are signs of vibrant
life, of enduring and innovative engagement with Schiller, or whether they are
ephemeral and opportunistic attempts to breathe life back into a cultural
corpse. Whatever ones view of the nature of some of these Schiller events, the
absence of them would be far worse. It is refreshing to see how in 2005 Schiller
was at last unplugged from political currents of the kind that had run through
almost all previous Schillerjahre. He was discovered by new audiences during 2005, many of whom appeared to like what they saw. It is impossible to
know what Thomas Mann would have thought of War Schiller sexy?, for
example, but that fear he expressed in 1955, shortly before his own death, that
interest in Schiller was in terminal decline shows few signs of being realised.
Some twenty-five years earlier Mann had been asked by a newspaper in
Knigsberg to answer the question, Ist Schiller noch lebendig? After observing that only a German could ask such a question (it would never occur to a
Frenchman, he says, to ask if Corneille or Racine were still important figures),
Manns reply was succinct: Zu fragen, ob Schiller noch lebt, deutet auf

19
Mangel an Selbstbewutsein; es ist nicht viel anders, als fragten wir, ob wir ein
Kulturvolk sind. Man mte sehr bitter gelaunt sein, um Nein zu sagen.44
Vigorous signs of life could also be detected in the publishing marketplace
in 2005, where a huge number of Schiller-related publications emerged to
coincide with the anniversary. Some were entirely new, while others were
reissued or revised. One of the more significant was a new edition of the fivevolume Hanserausgabe, originally edited by Gerhard Fricke and Herbert
Gpfert and first published in 1958. It has been revised by three new editors
(Peter-Andr Alt, Albert Meier and Wolfgang Riedel) and includes some new
material as well as a wholly revised commentary.45 New biographies of Schiller
included those by Alt, Rdiger Safranski and Sigrid Damm, and a new study of
Schillers work by Norbert Oellers also appeared.46 To advertise its Schiller offerings in 2005, the publishing house Hanser produced a glossy brochure. The
first ten pages of the brochure, which bore the slightly alarming title Schiller
kommt, were devoted to announcing scholarly publications. On the next page,
however, there was an advertisement for elegant, Schiller-themed pralines, as
well as for a bust of Schiller, hand-sculpted from the finest chocolate. Goethe
and Schiller salt and pepper shakers were also on offer for 12.50 Euros: Schiller
was the salt, Goethe the pepper. This kind of marketing is admittedly mild in
comparison to the commercial exploitation of Schiller memorabilia in the nineteenth century but it nevertheless recalls Alexias words in Demetrius: Was doch
der Mensch nicht wagt fr den Gewinn (line 924).
A number of poetry anthologies were also published, or republished, particularly by Insel-Suhrkamp. These anthologies had a largely traditional format,
and in some cases traditional titles reminiscent of nineteenth-century SchillerAndacht, such as Die seligen Augenblicke or Schne Welt, wo bist du?47 Some
Schiller anthologies for children were also published, notably Peter Hrtlings
selection und mich mich ruft das Flgeltier.48 There was an entertaining

44

Thomas Mann: Ist Schiller noch lebendig? In: Gesammelte Werke. 13 vols.
Frankfurt/M.: Fischer 1974. Vol. 10. Pp. 909910, here p. 909.
45
Friedrich Schiller: Smtliche Werke. Neuausgabe. Ed. by Peter-Andr Alt, Albert
Meier and Wolfgang Riedel. 5 vols. Munich: Hanser/dtv 2004.
46
Peter-Andr Alt: Schiller. Leben Werk Zeit. Eine Biographie. 2 vols. Munich:
Beck 2nd edn 2004. Rdiger Safranski: Friedrich Schiller oder Die Erfindung des
deutschen Idealismus. Munich: Hanser 2004. Sigrid Damm: Das Leben des Friedrich
Schiller. Eine Wanderung. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2004. Norbert Oellers: Schiller. Elend
der Geschichte, Glanz der Kunst. Stuttgart Weimar: Metzler 2005.
47
Friedrich von Schiller: Die seligen Augenblicke. Ed. by Sigrid Damm. Frankfurt/M.:
Insel 2005. Friedrich Schiller: Schne Welt, wo bist du? Ed. by Thomas Rosenlcher.
Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2005.
48
Peter Hrtling: und mich mich ruft das Flgeltier. Schiller fr Kinder.
Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2004.

20
analysis of the question of Schiller for children in an article in the magazine Stern.49
Competition for the most improbably named Schiller publication, re-publication,
article or event of 2005 was stiff, but the title of another anthology, also from
Suhrkamp, seemed hard to beat: Schiller fr Gestrete.50
Albert Ludwig concluded his 1905 survey of attitudes to Schiller in confident
mood: die Feste, die wir [Schillern] feiern werden, mgen verrauschen, aber wir
werden gewi sein drfen, da an die Stelle einer Hochflut nicht wieder eine Ebbe
tritt.51 A century later, George Steiner was less optimistic. In his Festrede in
April 2005 to open the bicentennial exhibition at the Schiller-Nationalmuseum
in Marbach, Steiner argued that our distrust of rhetorical eloquence and of most
forms of optimism meant that Schiller was destined to remain much feted but
little read. Somewhat gloomily, he asked his audience a rhetorical question: Wird
es 2055 in Marbach eine Schiller-Feier geben oder, bestenfalls, ein Kolloquium
von Hochschulspezialisten?.52 This view seems unwarranted. The worst that
could be said of the 2005 Schiller commemorations is that they were too numerous. Overkill was part of the reason why Erich Kstner and others recoiled from
the Goethe anniversary of 1949. Adapting his words to the Schillerjahr 2005,
Kstners comment would read: [Schiller], wie er es verdiente, zu feiern,
mgen ein einziger Tag oder auch ein ganzes Leben zu kurz sein. Ein Jahr aber
ist zu viel.53 The Schillerjahr of 2005 was anything but the damp squib
which some had feared and others perhaps had hoped for. Schiller has more to
offer than entertainment but if 2005 saw an increasing awareness that he is a
master dramatist and entertainer, only either the dyed-in-the-wool Schiller
hater or the blinkered admirer of Schillers highbrow qualities could object.
Even before the wave of conferences held to mark the 2005 anniversary,
Schillers reputation in the academic world was assured, if not wholly unassailed. Measured in terms of the number of academic books and articles published in recent years, interest in Schiller is in rude good health. Between 1893
and 1958, a sixty-six year period, some 7,500 bibliographical items on Schiller are
listed (an average of 114 items per annum), while for the forty-five years between
1959 and 2003 the figure is 9,842 (219 items p.a.). This represents a 48 per cent
49

Susanne Gabriel: Schiller fr Kinder. Freiheitskampf light. Stern. 3.5.2005.

Schiller fr Gestrete. Poetisch-philosophische Gedanken. Ed. by Ursula MichelsWenz. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2005.
51
Ludwig: Das Urteil ber Schiller im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (n. 35). P. 107.
52
George Steiner: Das Klassische hat seine Glaubwrdigkeit verspielt. Warum es im
Jahr 2055 trotzdem eine Schiller-Feier geben sollte. Rede zur Erffnung der Marbacher
Sonderausstellung zu Schillers Leben und Werk, gehalten am 23. April 2005. Qtd. in
Die Zeit. 5.5.2005.
53
Erich Kstner: Das Goethe-Derby [1949]. Qtd. in Bettina Meier: Goethe in
Trmmern. Zur Rezeption eines Klassikers in der Nachkriegszeit. Wiesbaden:
Deutscher-Universittsverlag 1999. P. 86.
50

21
increase in average annual output in the period since Schillers two-hundredth
birthday in 1959.54 These production figures conceal a welcome lack of agreement over why Schiller is a significant figure in German cultural history and
over much of the detail of his artistic and philosophical achievement.
The essays collected in this volume are revised versions of papers presented
in June 2005 at the symposium Schiller: National Poet Poet of Nations,
which was hosted by the Department of German Studies at the University of
Birmingham. The essays assembled here, by leading Schiller scholars from
Germany, Canada, the U.K. and the U.S.A., shed important new light on
debates concerning Schillers position as a national or trans-national figure.
The essays by T. J. Reed and Norbert Oellers tackle and clarify questions (of
Schillers survival and his perceived heroism respectively) which have had a
significant impact on the way he and his work have been treated since his
death. Secondly, there are re-examinations by Lesley Sharpe and Jochen Golz
of Schillers activities as man of the theatre and publisher respectively in his
own (pre-)national context. A third group of essays presents fresh analyses of
Schillers poetic and dramatic achievements; with differing emphases and
methods of interpretation, K. F. Hilliard, David Hill, Steffan Davies and John
Guthrie examine elements of Schillers drama and poetry in their contemporary context, while Francis Lamport, Jeffrey L. High and Maike Oergel investigate (trans-)national dimensions of his work. Fourthly, there are essays which
explore hitherto relatively neglected aspects of Schillers writings: Ritchie
Robertson investigates Schillers attitude to Jesuits, and Alexander Kosenina
considers Schiller as a crime writer. Finally, the uses and abuses of Schillers
character and writings at critical moments, or by significant figures, over the
past two hundred years are analysed by David Pugh, Nicholas Martin and Paul
Bishop. From these various perspectives, the contributions to this volume illuminate Schillers achievements as poet, playwright, thinker and historian, and
bring acute insights to bear on both the history of Schillers impact in a variety
of contexts and on his enduring importance as a point of cultural reference.
I should like to thank colleagues and graduate students in the Department of
German Studies at the University of Birmingham for their enthusiastic support
of the Schiller symposium. I am very grateful to Joel Love for his assistance in
compiling the indexes to this volume. I also wish to record my gratitude to
Lesley Sharpe, for helping to provide the inspiration and encouragement necessary to organise an event of this kind.
54
Figures compiled from Schiller-Bibliographie 18931958. Ed. by Wolfgang Vulpius
im Auftrag der Nationalen Forschungs- und Gedenksttten der klassischen deutschen
Literatur in Weimar. Weimar: Arion 1959 and from the bibliographies, ed. by Ingrid
(Hannich-)Bode and Eva Dambacher, which have appeared at intervals in the Jahrbuch
der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft since 1957.

This page intentionally left blank

T. J. Reed

Wie hat Schiller berlebt?*

Schillers life had few easy times, as a brief conspectus shows. Just when things were
becoming stable and hopeful, in 1791, the disease struck which eventually killed him.
Why did it take so long, given that the author of the Obduktionsbericht was amazed a
body so far gone could have sustained life? Though the physical mechanism must remain
obscure, the Lebenssinn provided by Goethes friendship and their collaborative work,
as hinted at in the poem Die Ideale, is an answer. Goethes two poetic Nachrufe,
the Epilog zur Glocke and Im ernsten Beinhaus make Schillers exchange of life
and health for literary production into a case of Goethean metamorphosis.

Fragt man, wie Schiller berlebt hat, so lautet die Antwort: nur mit knapper
Not, und zwar gleich von Anbeginn. Man hatte Friedrich einen Tag nach der
Geburt eilig getauft so eine der neuen Biographien dieses Schillerjahres
denn das Kind war so schwchlich, da man frchtete, es wrde nicht berleben.1 Das war bekanntlich damals keine Seltenheit: in hnlicher Gefahr haben
zwei Zeitgenossen Schillers geschwebt, die fr ihn und nicht nur fr ihn wichtig
sein sollten. In den Eingangsstzen von Goethes Dichtung und Wahrheit ist von
den glcklichen astrologischen Aspekten die Rede, dank deren vielleicht der
Neugeborene gerettet wurde: denn durch Ungeschicklichkeit der Hebamme
kam ich fr tot auf die Welt, und nur durch vielfache Bemhungen brachte man es
dahin, da ich das Licht erblickte (HA 9. 10). So wre um ein Haar die Weimarer
Klassik mit einem Schlag, oder vielmehr mit zwei Schlgen, von vornherein
aus der Geschichte gestrichen worden. Bedenkt man obendrein, dass Immanuel
Kant, ein Winzling mit eingefallener Brust2 so eine Biographie aus dem
soeben verflossenen Kant-Jahr diesen ersten Schritt ins Leben ebenfalls
gerade noch geschafft hat, so wird klar, dass die geistige Landschaft des 18.
Jahrhunderts leicht anders htte aussehen knnen.
Auch das sptere Leben Schillers stand immer wieder im Zeichen des Prekren
und Gefhrdeten: konomisch, gesundheitlich, und bis zur Mitte seiner Laufbahn
*

Im Text werden folgende Abkrzungen verwendet: HA Goethes Werke. Hamburger

Ausgabe in 14 Bnden. Hg. v. Erich Trunz. Mnchen: Beck 12. Aufl. 1981; MA Johann
Wolfgang Goethe: Smtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens. Mnchner Ausgabe.
Hg. v. Karl Richter in Zusammenarbeit mit Herbert G. Gpfert, Norbert Miller u. Gerhard
Sauder. Mnchen: Hanser 198598; NA Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Begr. v.
Julius Petersen, seit 1992 hg. v. Norbert Oellers. Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff.
1
Rdiger Safranski: Schiller oder die Erfindung des Deutschen Idealismus. Mnchen
Wien: Hanser 2004. S. 17.
2
Manfred Geier: Kants Welt. Eine Biographie. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt 2003. S. 17.

24
auch noch im Schpferischen. Die Fakten von Schillers Leben sind wohlbekannt,
fasst man sie aber synoptisch zusammen, so wird klar, dass sein Lebenslauf
fast aus lauter Desastern besteht. Seine frhen Wnsche wurden vereitelt, seine
Plne und Hoffnungen gingen lange nicht in Erfllung. Er durfte sich nicht
zum Geistlichen ausbilden, sondern wurde schon frh als vielversprechendes
Material zu wrttembergischen Zwecken eingestuft und auf Befehl des Herzog
Carl Eugen in dessen kaderbildende Pflanzschule eingeliefert, wo er ohne
Neigung zum Fach zunchst Jura, dann Medizin studieren musste. Selbst sein
erster groer theatralischer Erfolg war zweischneidig: die sensationelle
Inszenierung seines Erstlings, Die Ruber, hat ihm paradoxerweise ein
Schreibverbot eingetragen, so dass er sich um berhaupt die Chance auf
Selbstbestimmung zu haben ins pflzische Ausland absetzen musste. Bei
allem schon bewiesenen Talent war er dem Mannheimer Theaterintendanten
Dalberg wegen der umstrzlerischen Tendenz der Ruber und des darauf folgenden Stcks Kabale und Liebe, sowie berhaupt als entlaufener Untertan des
Nachbarstaates, politisch unbequem. Bei den Schauspielern eckte er an, wurde
von ihnen in einem satirischen Stck als Dichter Flickwort lcherlich gemacht.
Seine neuen Dramen, Kabale und Liebe und Fiesko, kamen in Mannheim nicht
gut an, mit dem in Aussicht gestellten Dom Karlos konnte er Dalberg nicht fr
sich gewinnen. Der lie ihn fallen: Schillers Vertrag als Dramaturg am
Mannheimer Theater wurde nach dem ersten Jahr nicht verlngert.
Freiheit bedeutete also lange nicht Selbstndigkeit. Ironischerweise hatten
seine neuen Stcke gerade auf den Bhnen anderer Stdte Erfolg, wo man zu
keiner Tantiemenzahlung an den fernen Autor verpflichtet war. Als Schiller es
dann, wie so mancher hoffnungsvoller literarischer Anfnger der Zeit, mit der
Herausgabe einer literarischen Zeitschrift versuchte und an das Publikum
appellierte, das jetzt sein einziger Souvern3 werden solle, begab er sich blo in
eine neue Abhngigkeit, von Geschmack und Kaufkraft der Brgerwelt. Man
befand sich geschichtlich zwischen Tr und Angel, einen geregelten literarischen
Markt mit Urheberrecht gab es noch nicht, Schiller musste ohn Unterlass
schreiben, um sich ber Wasser zu halten. Das Publikum hat ihn im brigen
immer enttuscht, keine seiner Zeitschriften hat sich voll etabliert, geschweige
denn Gewinne gebucht. Das Herausgeben konnte er dennoch unerklrlicherweise nie lassen, er hat es neben der rein schpferischen Ttigkeit bis an den
Rand seines letzten Lebensjahrfnfts ununterbrochen man kann schon sagen:
unverbesserlich getrieben. Das Wirttembergische Repertorium, die Rheinische
Thalia, spter kurzweg Die Thalia, verschiedene historische Kollektaneen,
alljhrliche Poesie-Almanache, und gleichzeitig mit diesen im klassischen
Jahrzehnt drei Jahre lang Die Horen, und zwar allmonatlich. Wer irgendein

Ankndigung der Rheinischen Thalia. NA 22. 94.

25
Periodikum herausgegeben hat, wei ungefhr was das bedeutet. Schillers
Zeitschriften, die nie Geld gemacht haben, erforderten dafr vom Herausgeber
einen hohen Preis an Anspannung und Sorge: Sorge um Manuskripte, um
Drucktermine, um Papiersorten, um Korrektur, um Versand, um Honorare, um
die oft heiklen Beziehungen zu Verlegern und Beitrgern. Fehlten letztere,
musste man die Seiten selber fllen, und dazu die Poesie kommandieren.
Gut abgesetzt hat sich beim jungen Schiller einzig und allein die populre
Erzhlprosa: einmal die Geschichtsschreibung, die damals wie heute bei einem
nichtwissenschaftlichen Publikum gut ankam, zum anderen Der Geisterseher,
ein reierischer Roman, fast schon ein Krimi. So bestand die Gefahr die
Versuchung , sich aus Not zum bloen Popularschriftsteller zu machen. Aber
auf eine konomische Schriftstellerei, wie er es genannt hat, wollte sich
Schiller auf Dauer nicht einlassen, er wollte eben literarisch hher hinaus. Das
hat sich erst in seinem letzten Jahrfnft gerade noch gut genug bezahlt zu
machen begonnen, damit er sich beim Schaffen mehr Zeit lassen und so die
Qualittsspirale nach oben treiben konnte. Dass es ihm in der schweren Frhzeit
trotz allem nicht in erster Linie um Geld ging, beweist die Tatsache, dass er ber
seine populren Werke die Nase rmpfte, sie liegen lie, den Publikumserfolg
praktisch verschenkte. Dabei hatte er von der Drucklegung seiner frhen Dramen
her erhebliche Schulden. Kein Wunder, dass ihm 1788 einmal in Weimar alles
Geld bis etwa auf 2 Groschen ausgegangen war.4 Der Roman sowie die
Geschichtswerke blieben Fragment, diese allerdings in Stil und Substanz
beachtlich, vor allem das letzte, die souvern geschaute und hinreiend
geschriebene Geschichte des Dreiigjhrigen Krieges.
Schillers wachsender Ruhm als Historiker hat ihm zur Jenaer Professur und
damit zu einem gewissen gesellschaftlichen Status verholfen, aber auch das
akademische Amt hat nichts fr seine finanzielle Sicherheit getan. Fast zynisch
heit es in Goethes Empfehlungsschreiben an die vier herzoglichen Trger der
Universitt, Schiller in Jena zu fixieren, werde der Akademie neue Vorteile
verschaffen, auch sei die Acquisition ohne Aufwand zu machen.5 Also schon
damals die Hochschulpolitik, wie wir sie kennen: Groes haben wollen,
mglichst wenig dafr bezahlen. Den vllig unbezahlten Professor Schiller
haben die Einstandsformalitten der Universitt Jena sogar einen guten Batzen
gekostet: es war fr ihn, wie er sagte, ein teurer Spa. Selbst als er Jahre spter
zum Ordinarius ernannt wurde, schreibt er sardonisch an Goethe, er sehe sich
mit mehreren Wrden bekleidet, von denen ich mich nur wnschte, da
sie mich wrmer hielten (6.3.1798: MA 8/1. 544). Auch der legendre
Erfolg seiner Antrittsvorlesung, eine regelrechte Stadtsensation, war ebenso
4

An Goethe. 22.8.1795. MA 8/1. 101.

Zitiert in Sigrid Damm: Das Leben des Friedrich Schiller. Eine Wanderung.
Frankfurt/M. Leipzig: Insel 2004. S. 100101.
5

26
zweischneidig wie die Erstauffhrung der Ruber, denn sie hat ihm, wo nicht ein
Leseverbot, dann doch einen Rffel und eine peinliche Einschrnkung eingetragen: Schiller drfe sich nicht Professor fr Geschichte nennen, einen
ordentlichen gebe es bereits, der sich die Veruntreuung seines Titels nicht
gefallen lassen wollte. Da war sicherlich Handwerksneid mit im Spiel. Der
Geschmack an der Lehre ist Schiller ohnehin schnell vergangen; und als seine
Gesundheitsprobleme akut wurden, lie er sich zunehmend und am Ende vollstndig von den Lesepflichten dispensieren. Das Beste, was seine Professur
bewirkt hat, war die Nhe zu Dem dort drben in Weimar, zu Goethe, die
freilich sechs Jahre lang zu keinem engeren Kontakt fhrte. Als es jedoch so
weit war, wurde die endlich geschlossene Freundschaft mit Goethe fr das
berleben Schillers wichtig, womglich entscheidend. Dazu gleich.
Denn mitten in der Zeit der Kaum-bekanntschaft mit Goethe fllt 1791 das
nchste Desaster in Schillers Leben, seine erste schwere Krankheit. Sie war
auch seine letzte, denn eigentlich war es dieselbe Krankheit, die ihn fortan
ber anderthalb Jahrzehnte begleitete und endlich ttete. Hatten die Exzesse
der Jugend, von denen Zeugen zu berichten wissen, seine Gesundheit untergraben? Zu starker Kaffee-, Tabak- und Alkoholkonsum, dazu das ihm vom
Existenzkampf aufgezwungene unausgesetzte Arbeiten, oft bis tief in die
Nacht hinein. Oder lag es, wie spter Schillers Frau meinte, an den harten
Lebensbedingungen der acht in der Karlsschule verbrachten Jahre?6
Wie dem auch sein mag, gerade zu einem Zeitpunkt, da Schiller glauben konnte, ber den Berg zu sein, mit seiner Professur halbwegs Fu gefasst zu haben,
von der Zukunft alles hoffen und bald im vollen Genuss [s]eines Geistes
leben zu knnen so ein Brief an Krner vom 1. Januar 1790 (NA 25. 405)
ausgerechnet da hat sich der krperliche Zusammenbruch angekndigt. Schiller
ist erst einunddreiig. Als gelernter Arzt hat er den eigenen Zustand sicherlich
bald erkannt. Schon die ausf hrliche Schilderung des ersten Anfalls im Brief
an Krner vom 22. Februar 1791 sieht dem Ernst der Situation ins Auge (NA
26. 7475). Zwei Jahre danach wird er schreiben, die einzig zu erwartende
nderung sei die, da es zum Schlimmeren geht.7 Wie es spter in Goethes
Epilog zu Schillers Glocke heien wird, Er hatte frh das strenge Wort
gelesen, / Dem Leiden war er, war dem Tod vertraut (HA 1. 258). Wie es um
Schiller stand, wollte Goethe im Rckblick sofort eingesehen haben: Als ich
ihn zuerst kennen lernte, glaubte ich, er lebte keine vier Wochen so 1829 zu
Eckermann.8 Aus seiner Krankheit hat Schiller auch kein Hehl gemacht.
Goethe sollte vorneweg wissen, wie es um den neuen Freund und Verbndeten
stand. Als ihn Goethe bald nach dem Bekanntwerden auf zwei Wochen zu sich
6

Vgl. Damm (wie Anm. 5). S.179.

An Krner. 25.1.1793. NA 26. 175.
8
An Eckermann. 20.12.1829. MA 19. 341.
7

27
ins Haus einldt, bittet Schiller brieflich blo um die leidige Freiheit, bei
Ihnen krank sein zu drfen (7.9.1794: MA 8/1. 22). Da mischt sich ins Pathos
ein Schuss wehmtiger Humor. Im vorherigen Brief jedoch hatte er mit seinem
Zustand nicht kokettiert. Nach einem ausfhrlichen Bericht ber die eigene
geistige Entwicklung hie es ber die zweifelhafte Aussicht, sie weiterzufhren:
Eine groe und allgemeine Geistesrevolution werde ich schwerlich Zeit
haben, in mir zu vollenden aber ich werde tun was ich kann, und wenn endlich
das Gebude zusammenfllt, so habe ich doch vielleicht das Erhaltungswerte
aus dem Brande geflchtet (31.8.1794: MA 8/1. 1920). Aus diesem hinfort
bei beiden stillschweigend vorausgesetzten Wissen folgt ein einfacher und
selbstverstndlicher Schluss, der gleichwohl in der Sekundrliteratur kaum zur
Sprache kommt und doch grundlegend ist: die deutsche Hochklassik entstand
im Zeichen nicht nur der Freundschaft, sondern auch des Todes. Der Brand
schwelte, die Zeit drngte. Beide wussten es.
Was hatte es dann mit dieser Freundschaft auf sich? Zunchst ist zu sagen,
dass es eine echte Freundschaft war. Also nicht blo eine Partnerschaft, ein
Zweckbndnis, eine Arbeitsgemeinschaft, und schon gar nicht eine kaum
verdeckte Rivalitt oder eine einseitige Ausbeutung des einen durch den anderen.
Wer das vermeint, wie es in der Fachliteratur gelegentlich vorkommt, kann
brutal gesagt den Briefwechsel nicht wirklich gelesen haben. Denn da ist
mehrfach ausdrcklich von Liebe zueinander die Rede Leben Sie wohl und
lieben mich, es ist nicht einseitig, schreibt einmal ausgerechnet Goethe
(18.3.1795: MA 8/1. 71) und es kommen auf beiden Seiten in geradezu leitmotivischer Weise Formulierungen mit Sehnen und Verlangen vor. Auch
lsst sich an dem wiederholten Sich-treffen-wollen und der Frustration, wenn
dieses Vorhaben vereitelt wird, eine Intensitt der Neigung ablesen, wie man
sie gewhnlich nur in Liebesbriefen antrifft.
Wahr ist freilich, dass es einen dritten im Bund gegeben hat. Darunter ist der
gemeinsame Mastab zu verstehen, an dem beide sich selbst und den Anderen
geistig und knstlerisch gemessen, das Ziel, dem sich beide verschrieben
haben, oder ganz einfach (in einer Formulierung Goethes) [das], was wir lieben
und treiben:9 ein Liebesdreieck gleichsam, das jedoch keine Eifersucht kannte. (Amsant allerdings ist die Stelle, wo Schiller die Muse Goethes borgen
mchte, da dieser sie nicht gerade brauche!10) Den Forderungen dieser berpersnlichen dritten Instanz waren beide immer sofort bereit, Raum zu geben.
Wir wollen uns treffen, heit es aber ja nicht, wenn Sie (es heit brigens
immer Sie, nicht Du11) wenn Sie heute arbeiten wollen; oder: Danke, ich
9

An Schiller. 3.1.1795. MA 8/1. 54.

An Goethe. 30.11.1798. MA 8/1. 650.
11
Oder doch nur einmal, konventionsgem, im Gedicht Goethes Dem Herren in der
Wste. An Schiller. 15.6.1797. MA 8/1. 355.
10

28
htte Ihrer Einladung gerne Folge geleistet, bin aber mit der Arbeit im Rckstand.
Ah. Genug gesagt. Dann nicht.
Was es fr beide dann bringt, wenn sie doch zusammenkommen (sie haben
sich in zehn Jahren fast 600-mal getroffen, dabei oft den ganzen Tag miteinander
zugebracht und bis spt in die Nacht diskutiert) knnen wir nur mutmaen.
Goethe nennt es einmal Seelenspeise (12./14.5.1795: MA 8/1. 75). Diese
intensiv gefhrten Gesprche waren sicherlich das Beste der Freundschaft, sie
sind in alle Winde zerstoben. Die tausend erhaltenen Briefe bilden immerhin
deren Abglanz, und schon sie sind aufschlussreich genug. Sie enthalten
Diskussionen ber laufende Arbeiten und knftige Plne, gegenseitige detaillierte
Kritik, (Goethe spricht diesbezglich von einer warnenden Freundschaft12),
Klrung von Theoretischem, Betrachtungen ber die deutsche und europische
Literaturszene, und dem allem zugrundeliegend immer wieder Einblicke
in ihre eigenen divergierenden Seins- und Sichtweisen, in eine geistige
Gegenstzlichkeit, die beide von vornherein und andauernd fasziniert hat. Es
war die Attraktion des Ungleichen, wie sie dem Geschlechterverhltnis eigen
ist: ein geistiger Eros. So hatte die deutsche Klassik das Glck, zu ihren
Grndern zwei Menschen zu haben, deren Positionen mglichst weit auseinanderlagen, die mithin eine uerste geistig-knstlerische Vershnung zu erreichen imstande und auch guten Willens waren. Guter Wille war ja gefragt, denn
ihre diametralen Differenzen erforderten ein hohes Ma an Verstndnis,
Einfhlung, und Anerkennung des vom Gegenber Geleisteten und Gewollten.
Das war an sich bereits eine beispielhafte menschliche Leistung, bevor man
berhaupt von den konkreten literarischen Ergebnissen redet. Wo gibt es sonst
in der europischen Geistesgeschichte eine hnliche Harmonie zwischen
solchen Gren? Denn schpferische Gre ist gewhnlich egozentrisch und
unnachgiebig. Beide waren tolerant und menschlich reif genug dazu: es war ja
gut, hat Goethe einmal gemeint, dass sie erst spt ihre Freundschaft geschlossen
hatten.13 Frher waren nmlich auf beiden Seiten Verdacht und Vorbehalte
vorhanden gewesen, bei Schiller starke Impulse der Rivalitt, sogar der
Aggressivitt. Hinter diesen steckte aber eine potentielle Liebe, die nur auf ein
Zeichen des Entgegenkommens vonseiten Goethes wartete. Man zitiert gern,
als wre sie fr Schiller eine pltzliche Offenbarung gewesen, seine Einsicht
bei der Lektre von Goethes Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahren, dass es dem
Vortrefflichen gegenber keine Freiheit gebe als die Liebe (2.7.1796: MA 8/1.
187). Diesen subtilen psychischen Mechanismus hatte Schiller jedoch lngst
erfasst und im Drama auch eingesetzt lsst er doch seinen Carlos zum Freund
Posa sagen, es habe ihn als Knabe kein Schmerz gedrckt, als der, von deinem
Geiste / So sehr verdunkelt mich zu sehn, dass ich endlich / Mich khn
12
13

2. u. 7.7.1796. MA 8/1. 201.

An Schiller. 25./26.9.1797. MA 8/1. 424.

29
entschlo, dich grnzenlos zu lieben, / Weil mich der Mut verlie, dir gleich zu
sein (V. 209212: NA 7/I. 371). Nur wurde Schiller jetzt vom Freund gerade
Mut gemacht, auf seine sehr andersartige Weise ihm gleich zu sein. In solch
intimem Verhltnis, dem vielleicht wiederum nur die Ehe vergleichbar ist, geht
es vor allem um die liebende Besttigung vom Sein und Wesen des im vollen
Wortsinn Anderen. Hierzu das feinfhlige Wort des franzsischen Denkers
Alain, der zum Goethe-Schiller-Briefwechsel bemerkt hat: Chacun donne a
lautre le seul secours quune nature puisse attendre dune autre, qui est que
lautre la confirme et lui demande de rester soi. Cest peu de prendre les autres
comme ils sont, et il faut toujours en venir la; mais les vouloir comme ils sont,
voil lamour vrai.14 [Jeder gibt dem anderen die einzige Hilfe, die eine
Menschennatur von einer anderen erwarten darf, nmlich die, dass die andere
sie besttige und sie bitte, sie selber zu bleiben. Die anderen so zu nehmen, wie
sie sind, ist wenig, und man muss immer dahin kommen; aber sie so zu wollen,
wie sie sind, das ist die wahre Liebe.]
Soviel zur Freundschaft, das ist der eine Faktor, endlich ein nicht-desastrser,
der die zweite Lebenshlfte Schillers beherrscht und bedingt. Was hat es mit
dem zweiten, mit seiner Krankheit auf sich? Man kann sich in ganz banaler
aber aufschlussreicher Weise in Schillers Lage versetzen, indem man bedenkt,
wie einem bei Grippe, Erkltungen, oder Schlaflosigkeit zumute ist. Gewhnlich
nicht danach, groe schpferische Unternehmungen anzupacken, oder auch
nur sich auf die Lektre von Kants Kritiken einzulassen. Nun, solche Zustnde
waren Schillers Alltag. Er konnte von Glck reden, und hat es entsprechend im
Brief als Ereignis gebucht, wenn er einmal vierzehn Tage ertrglich wohl
gewesen sei.15 Die Dialektik von Leiden und Ehrgeiz, von Schaffenswillen und
Verzweiflung, hat Thomas Mann 1905 in der Kurzgeschichte Schwere Stunde
mit angemessenem Pathos evoziert. Da arbeitet der leidende Schiller nachts
am Wallenstein, kann den ausufernden Stoff nicht in den Griff bekommen,
berwindet schlielich seine Selbstzweifel, macht sich selber Mut. Angesichts der
immer wiederkehrenden Leiden Schillers haben die Zeitgenossen (der Herzog
Carl August etwa) gemeint, er tte vielleicht besser, sich mehr in die frische
Luft hinaus zu wagen, anstatt immer zu Hause eingesperrt zu bleiben.16 Andere
Wohlwollende haben zu einer Italienreise geraten, Schiller selber hat einmal
eine Ostseekur erwogen. Nichts von alldem hat sich verwirklicht, auch klingen
alle drei Rezepte recht trivial im Licht jener Schilderung des ersten ernsthaften
Krankheitsanfalls und im Schatten des bekannten Obduktionsberichts, laut
dem an Schillers Krper fast kein Organ mehr berhaupt funktionierte,
14

Alain [Emile Auguste Chartier]: Potes. In: Propos. Paris: Gallimard 1956
(Bibliothque de la Pliade 116). Pp. 523524.
15
An Goethe. 13.3.1798. MA 8/1. 548.
16
Vgl. Goethe an Schiller. 6.9.1798. MA 8/1. 620.

30
eigentlich nur noch der Magen und die Urinblase, alles andere Lunge, Herz,
Leber, Drme war faul, eitrig, aufgelst, verwachsen oder verknchert, so
dass der Arzt sich wunderte, wie der arme Mann so lange hat leben knnen.17
Whrend man von frischer Luft, von Italienreise und von Ostseekur redete,
starb Schiller bereits lngst.
Oder vielmehr: er starb eben nicht! So muss man mit dem verblfften medizinischen Zeitgenossen wieder die Frage stellen: Wie hat Schiller berlebt? Da
gilt es vielleicht die beiden Erscheinungen, Freundschaft und Krankheit, nicht
blo als getrennte Faktoren in Schillers Leben, sondern im urschlichen
Zusammenhang miteinander anzusehen. Wo es vorhin hie, das klassische
Jahrzehnt habe im Zeichen nicht nur der Freundschaft, sondern auch des Todes
gestanden, darf man den Gedanken umkehren und fragen, ob es nicht die
Freundschaft war, die dem Tod die Waage gehalten, ihn hinausgezgert hat.
Gerade in Schillers letztem Jahrzehnt schrieb ein anderer Mediziner, Christoph
Wilhelm Hufeland, Professor der Medizin in Jena, ein Buch ber die Kunst,
das menschliche Leben zu verlngern so der Untertitel, der Haupttitel hie
Makrobiotik. Das Buch enthlt vor allem praktische Vorschriften, versucht
aber zu deren Begrndung dem Rtsel des Lebens selbst auf die Spur zu kommen.
Hufeland vergleicht es einer unbekannten Gre, wie man sie in der Algebra
mit X bezeichnet; er gibt zu, man knne sie lediglich an ihren Wirkungen
erkennen. Er gibt ihr trotzdem die eigene Bezeichnung Lebenskraft und meint,
diese sei, das grte Erhaltungsmittel des Krpers, den sie bewohnt.18 Das
scheint nun eine reine Tautologie zu sein die Lebenskraft sei dasjenige, was
am Leben zu erhalten vermag! Die Bezeichnung hat aber immerhin den Nutzen,
dass sie den vielfltigen organischen Komplex des Menschen in ein einziges
ttiges Prinzip konzentriert. Nur kommt Hufeland gleich vom Begriff einer ttigen Wirkung ab, indem er die Lebenskraft quantitativ versteht: jeder Mensch
habe einen gewissen Vorrat daran, wenn dieser alle ist, stirbt man eben. Es gilt
also, ihn nicht zu schnell zu erschpfen. Ein Kranker knne paradoxerweise
lnger leben als der Gesunde, weil er seine Ration nicht so energisch aufbraucht. So bleibt Hufelands Betrachtung im Stofflichen stecken, anstatt nach
einer Einwirkung auf das Stoffliche zu fragen. Konkret gesagt: der Grund, aus
dem Schillers verfallener Krper weiterzumachen vermochte, konnte doch
17

Der Obduktionsbericht ist neu abgedruckt im kleinen Almanach auf 2005. Mit Goethe
durch das Jahr 2005. Hg. v. Jochen Klauss. Dsseldorf Zrich: Artemis & Winkler
2004. S. 140.
18
Christoph Wilhelm Hufeland: Makrobiotik oder die Kunst das menschliche Leben zu
verlngern. 4. vermehrte Auflage. Berlin: Wittich 1805. S. 23. Die Lebenskraft wird auch
der Grundquell genannt, aus dem alle brigen Krfte der physischen, wenigstens
organischen Welt flieen. Sie sei es, die alles hervorbringt, erhlt, erneuert. Allerdings
ist sich Hufeland nicht darber sicher, ob sie eine eigene Materie oder eine Eigenschaft
der Materie sei.

31
nicht in dessen verrotteten Organen liegen. Etwas Nicht-Verrottetes musste
vielmehr gegen den Verfall gewirkt, sich dagegen gestemmt haben. Was kann
das aber berhaupt gewesen sein, und wo, wenn nicht im Krperlichen selbst,
wre es zu verorten?
Man sieht, wir sind beim ewigen Problem der Geist-Krper-Beziehung
gelandet und werden es auch heute nicht lsen. Schillers Einstellung dazu
kommt in dem bekannten Spruch aus Wallensteins Tod zum Ausdruck, Es ist
der Geist, der sich den Krper baut (V. 1813: NA 8. 258), der ihn also wohl
auch erhalten kann. hnlichen Sinnes wie das in diesem Schiller-Jahr schon
etwas strapazierte Zitat ist die Formulierung im Gedicht Das Ideal und das
Leben: Nur der Krper eignet jenen Mchten, / Die das Schicksal dunkel
flechten (NA 2/I. 397). Schiller ist bekanntlich Idealist, nicht blo im Sinn
hochherzigen Strebens, sondern im philosophischen Sinn eines Glaubens an die
Unabhngigkeit oder gar die bestimmende Rolle des Geistigen im Verhltnis
zur Wirklichkeit. Bereits als Medizinstudent in der Carlsschule hatte er sich in
einer Dissertation ber die Philosophie der Physiologie mit dem unergrndlichen
Verhltnis von Geist und Krper herumgeschlagen, zwischen denen in ihrer
radikalen Andersartigkeit keine Wechselwirkung mglich sein sollte um
schlielich den gordischen Knoten mit der Formulierung zu zerhauen, Die
Erfahrung beweist sie. Wie kann die Theorie sie verwerfen? (NA 20. 14)
Zu dem in diesem Sinn die Wirklichkeit bestimmenden Bereich des Geistes
darf durchaus die Freundschaft mit Goethe gerechnet werden. Wenn sie bei
Schillers sonst kaum erklrlichem berleben tatschlich im Spiel, womglich
entscheidend war, so nicht weil sie eine zustzliche Portion Hufelandscher
Lebenskraft bereitstellte, sondern weil die ttige Zweisamkeit mit Goethe einen
Lebenssinn schuf. Genau in diese Richtung weist ein Schillersches Gedicht
Die Ideale, in dem der Verlust einer jugendlichen goldenen Zeit beklagt
wird, da man sich fr Liebe, Glck, Ruhm, und Wahrheit begeistern konnte.
Selbst die Hoffnung wirft fr den jetzt siebenunddreiigjhrigen Schiller nur
noch einen bleichen Schimmer [] auf den finstern Weg. Seine Frage lautet,
wer oder was von all dem rauschenden Geleite bleibe noch brig Und folgt
mir bis zum finstern Haus? Antwort: einmal die Freundschaft, zum anderen die
Beschftigung. Man darf das nicht trivial verstehen, als bedeute Freundschaft
blo jemanden zu haben, mit dem man gemtlich plaudern knne und als sei
Beschftigung eine bloe Ablenkung vom Todesgedanken, ein divertissement
im Sinne Pascals. Es ist vielmehr von einer Freundschaft die Rede, die des
Lebens Brden liebend teilet und von einer Beschftigung, die gern sich mit
ihr gattet, die also mit der Freundschaft eng verflochten ist, und die auch nie
ermattet, die also eine energische, zielgerichtete Ttigkeit darstellt (NA 1.
234237). Freundschaft und Beschftigung bilden so gesehen eine schpferische
Einheit. Auf welche Freundschaft Schillers das zutrifft, ist nicht weit zu suchen,
zumal das Gedicht fast genau zum ersten Jahrestag der Freundschaftsgrndung

32
mit Goethe entstanden ist. Wilhelm von Humboldt hat daraufhin an Schiller
geschrieben, das Gedicht schildere auf eine beraus eigentmliche Art Ihr
Leben, Ihre Individualitt, diese fortschreitende Geistesttigkeit, die keiner
Schwierigkeit erliegt, nie ermdet;19 das hie aber nur die Hlfte der
Konstellation, ja der Symbiose verstehen, die Schiller noch ein Jahrzehnt am
Leben erhalten hat. Diese These mag einem strengeren Geistes- und erst recht
einem Naturwissenschaftler beunruhigend mystisch klingen, rtselhaft ist die
Sache allemal. Analoge Flle sind aber auch heutzutage bekannt. Man kann
nur mit dem jungen Schiller sagen: Die Erfahrung beweist sie. Wie kann die
Theorie sie verwerfen?
Zum Schluss hat die Frage Wie hat Schiller berlebt? noch einen weiteren
Sinn und eine zweifache Antwort, einmal Schillerscher, einmal Goethescher
Prgung. Es handelt sich, nachdem Schiller schon mit fnfundvierzig oder,
wie man vielleicht jetzt sagen darf, erst mit fnfundvierzig gestorben ist, um
das Nachleben des Dichters und Denkers. Wie ist sein Bild auf uns gekommen
in der besonderen Form, in der wir ihn gemeinhin verstehen? Die erste Antwort
lautet in viel strkerem Ausma als gewhnlich bei Autoren: in der Form, die
er selber ihm gegeben hat. Denn gewhnlich stehen die Selbstdeutungen
der Knstler im Verdacht, die Dinge allzusehr zu ihren Gunsten zurechtgerckt
zu haben: ihr Selbstverstndnis ist eher Dichtung als Wahrheit, muss als solche
hinterfragt werden. Schiller aber hat, wiederum in ganz auergewhnlichem
Mae, das eigene Bild in ein viel greres eingebettet, die eigene Erfahrung
im Licht einer umfassenden literargeschichtlichen These verstanden, die durch
ihre Fundiertheit gegen willkrliche Akzentuierungen so ziemlich gefeit ist. Es
drfte nmlich kaum eine andere Deutung der europischen Literaturentwicklung
geben, die rhetorisch so wirksam und intuitiv so berzeugend war, wie Schillers
Abhandlung ber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung berzeugend in ihrer
psychologischen Tiefe, ihrer typologischen Schrfe, ihrer historischen Weitsicht,
und ihrer praktischen Anwendbarkeit als Instrument, den dichterischen Einzelfall
kritisch zu verstehen. In Schillers Essay stehen sich bekanntlich zwei Figuren
gegenber: der in seliger Unbewusstheit in die Natur integrierte Dichter der
Antike, dessen Typus in seltenen Fllen auch in der Neuzeit vorkommen soll;
und der normale neuzeitliche Dichter, der der verlorenen Natur nachtrauert
und den Verlust durch Reflexion wettzumachen versucht. In diesem Schema
hat fr den ersten Typus Goethe, als der spontane, tastsichere, aus unmittelbarem Naturkontakt schpfende Dichter Modell gestanden; als Idealfigur
beherrscht er das Mittelfeld des Bildes. Am Bildrand steht der spekulative,
reflektierende, auch ber Nutzen und Nachteil der Reflexion reflektierende
Dichter, fr den Schiller selbst Modell stand. Es ist aber wie bei so manchem
Renaissance-Gemlde: die Randfigur nimmt zwar eine bescheidenere Position
19

W. v. Humboldt an Schiller. 31.8.1795. NA 35. 315.

33
ein, das ist aber der Maler, der das Bild entworfen und uns die Dinge mit seinen
Augen zu sehen zwingt; er ist es also, der das Bild wirklich beherrscht.
Schillers geschichtlich-typologische Deutung des Freundes und seiner
selbst hat die Sicht auf beide nachhaltig bestimmt, sie ist auch heute nicht
als irrefhrend abzuschreiben. Sie hat als ersten Goethe selbst berzeugt,
vielleicht gar verzaubert, als er 1794 deren Urform als einen Geburtstagsbrief
erhielt20 wie sollte sie es nicht, erscheint Goethe doch darin in denkbar gnstigem Licht! Im Brief wagt es Schiller, der eben erst gemachten Bekanntschaft
deutend mit der Tr ins Haus zu fallen, ber Goethes persnliche Entwicklung
zu spekulieren sowie seinen kulturgeschichtlichen Ort zu bestimmen: Sie
ziehen, schrieb Goethe zurck, die Summe meiner Existenz (27.8.1794:
MA 8/1. 16).
Die Wirkung von Schillers Deutung hielt an. In den Jahrzehnten nach
dessen Tod hatte Goethe reichlich Zeit, ber das Verhltnis nachzudenken und
sein eigenes Bild des Freundes und der Freundschaft zu entwickeln. Er kam
aber auch dann nur schwer von Schillers Schema los, er hat sogar in einer
Flucht nach vorn das Schillersche Begriffspaar aufgegriffen und dessen Bezug
noch erweitert. Zu Eckermann soll er gesagt haben, die Gegenstze naiv und
sentimentalisch lgen der ganzen neueren Wertkontroverse zwischen Klassik
und Romantik zugrunde, wobei das Klassische das Gesunde, das Romantische
das Kranke sei.21 Das scheint Schillers sentimentalische Schaffens- und
Seinsweise in ein negatives Licht zu rcken, was in oberflchlichem Sinn seine
Krankheitsgeschichte nahelegen knnte. Aber krank zu sein bedeutet keineswegs
unbedingt, Krankhaftes zu schaffen; auch sind solche im Gesprch geklopften
Sprche, selbst wenn sie verlsslich berliefert worden sind, nicht der Wahrheit
letzter Schluss. Das tiefer reflektierte Urteil Goethes steht in den beiden
Gedichten, die er Schiller gewidmet hat; und in beiden geht es um die
schpferische berwindung der Krankheit und schlielich in gewissem Sinn
auch des Todes. Im Epilog zu Schillers Glocke (1805/1815) wird daran
erinnert, wie Schillers Routine Tag und Nacht verwechselte, wie er atemlos in
unsrer Mitte / In Leiden bangte, kmmerlich genas, was alles am Ende doch
sich und uns zu kstlichem Gewinne geschah allerdings um den Preis einer
vlligen Selbstaufopferung im Dienst der Arbeit: er wendete / Das Leben
selbst an dieses Bild des Lebens (HA 1. 256259). Es ist eine Ironie, dass der
groe Befrworter der Kunst als Mittel, die Menschen von einengenden
Bestimmungen zu befreien, selber aus materieller Not oder Arbeitssucht dauernd
an seinen Schreibtisch gekettet war.
Mit diesem harten Tausch von Leben gegen Werk sind wir jedoch nunmehr
voll auf Goetheschem Boden, denn es handelt sich um Verwandlung, um
20
21

An Goethe. 23.8.1794. MA 8/1. 1213.

Vgl. MA 19. 300 (2.4.1829).

34
Metamorphose. Im Epilog zur Glocke wird dieser Prozess zunchst auf
realistischer Ebene durch die Veranschaulichung von Schillers Lebens- und
Arbeitsweise gezeigt. Der grandiosen ffentlichen Deklaration dieses Gedichts,
das zum Zweck einer Schillerfeier geschrieben wurde, sollte durch die Gunst
des Zufalls eine viel tieferschrfende Meditation folgen. 1826 wurden Schillers
Gebeine aus einem gemeinsamen Begrbnisgewlbe umgebettet und Goethe
hatte den Schdel des Freundes eine Weile in seinem Haus. Da entstand ein
Gedicht, das die biographische Ebene des Epilogs weit hinter sich lsst und
ausgerechnet dieser konventionell schauderhaften Reliquie einen positiven
Sinn den Sinn von Schillers Dasein und einen sehr Goetheschen LebensSinn abgewinnt. Wo Shakespeares Hamlet, den Schdel des Hofnarren
Yorick in der Hand, bei der Erinnerung an den Menschen und dessen Scherze
nur Ekel empfindet angesichts des Totenkopfs also das Leben selbst glattweg
preisgibt lsst Goethe seinen Toten nicht so fallen. Er trotzt vielmehr der
Tradition des memento mori, getreu dem Grundprinzip seines ganzen Werks,
gedenke zu leben. Schon der erste Vers, Im ernsten Beinhaus wars (HA 1.
366), setzt ein Zeichen: auch und gerade hier lsst sich Lebensmut schpfen.
Das Gedicht stellt die Situation so dar, als habe Goethe selber Schillers
Schdel unter den wirr herumliegenden menschlichen Resten im Gewlbe
ausfindig gemacht, es wird erzhlt, wie er pltzlich Unschtzbar herrlich ein
Gebild gewahrte den Schdel eben so dass ausgerechnet hier, in des
Raumes Moderklt und Enge / Ich frei und wrmefhlend mich erquickte, / Als
ob ein Lebensquell dem Tod entsprnge (ebd.). Denn auch noch dieser Rest des
Menschen Schiller scheint, als Geschaffenes sowie als Gef der einstigen
Schaffenskraft, die gottgedachte Spur seiner Gre zu tragen. Was nach und
trotz der Verwandlung von Leben in Tod erhalten bleibt, wird am Schluss als eine
doppelte positive Verwandlung heraufbeschworen, die den Lebenssinn triumphal
rettet. Das Einzelleben ist zunchst in einen geistigen Ertrag bergegangen,
dieser Ertrag ist dann zum festen Bestandteil weiteren Lebens geworden: Wie
sie das Feste lt zu Geist verrinnen, / Wie sie das Geisterzeugte fest bewahre
(HA 1. 367).
Aus Schillers Krankheit ist damit eine groe Gesundheit geworden. So
berlebt er am Ende, nun gar nicht mehr nur mit knapper Not, als Vertreter der
Metamorphose, in der alle bedeutende geistige Arbeit besteht.

Lesley Sharpe

A National Repertoire: Schiller and the Theatre of his Day*

Though a much-performed playwright in his own day as well as after his death, Schiller
had an uneasy relationship with the contemporary theatre because his style ran counter
to its dominant trends. This essay examines his relationship, particularly with regard
to the development of the repertoire, with the Mannheim National Theatre (where
Lessings influence was still strong), the Weimar Court Theatre (where he collaborated
with Goethe) and the Berlin National Theatre (where his erstwhile Mannheim rival
August Wilhelm Iffland successfully staged his later dramas).

Schiller is a playwright who is associated with an instinctive and indeed flamboyant theatricality. Though his plays were not performed during his own lifetime
with the frequency of Ifflands or Kotzebues which are in any case far more
numerous they were none the less successful on the stage by the standards of
the day and quickly established their position as part of the classical German
repertoire in the nineteenth century. During his period of rapid productivity
from Wallenstein onwards, the premire of one of his plays at the Weimar theatre drew a capacity audience composed of the humble as well as the grand,
who all waited expectantly for the performance.1 Directors from the most
renowned theatres in Germany paid large sums for copies of the manuscript of his
most recent, as yet unpublished, play. But Schiller had an uneasy and ambivalent
relationship with the world of theatre, and, if we look back to the Mannheim
period in particular, the theatre had an uneasy relationship with him. The aim
of this essay is to examine that relationship in the light of Schillers ambitions
for the development of the German theatre and of the repertoire in particular.
I do this in the light of his experience with three theatres (Mannheim, Weimar
and Berlin) and in relation to two other playwrights Lessing and Iffland.
Mannheim, Weimar and Berlin were all important in establishing Schiller in
the contemporary repertoire. Lessing and Iffland were the two men who as
dramatists, and in Lessings case as critic, influenced more than any others the
wider theatrical environment in which plays were performed in the last two
decades of the eighteenth century.
*

The edition of Schillers texts referred to is Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Ed. by

Julius Petersen, Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff.
Quotations are identified by NA with volume and page numbers.
1
According to the Weimar actor, Anton Genast: Schillers Ruhm hatte sich nicht nur in
den Stdten Thringens, sondern auch auf den Drfern schon verbreitet, und selbst
Bauern sah man im Theater, wenn ein Schillersches Stck gegeben wurde. In: Eduard
Genast: Aus dem Tagebuch eines alten Schauspielers. 4 vols. Leipzig 1862. Vol. 1. P. 72.

36
When Schiller published his first play, Die Ruber, at his own expense in
Stuttgart the possibility of performance was far from his mind. However, the
Mannheim publisher Christian Friedrich Schwan, whom Schiller approached
in the hope of selling on his copies, interested the Intendant of the Mannheim
National Theatre, Wolfgang Heribert von Dalberg, in a production of the play.
Schwan, like Dalberg himself the author and translator of plays and librettos, a
strong supporter of the theatre and a fellow member with Dalberg of the
Kurpflzische Deutsche Gesellschaft, thus initiated an association of Schiller
with the Mannheim National Theatre that lasted about three years, from the
autumn of 1781, when Schiller was preparing the stage version of the play
Dalberg required, to the autumn of 1784.2 For the last of those years, from
September 1783 to August 1784, he was employed as Theaterdichter. One
might expect, and Schiller surely hoped, that the lavish and successful production
of Die Ruber would be the beginning of a fruitful and continuing association,
but in fact the Mannheim period led to Schillers disillusionment with and
rejection of further direct involvement with the world of theatre for more than a
decade.3 In fact when the great Hamburg Prinzipal Friedrich Ludwig Schrder,
whom Schiller admired, attempted to attract him to Hamburg in 1786 he was
unwilling to commit himself.4
The Mannheim National Theatre was founded in 1778,5 the name clearly
evoking the spirit of the Hamburg National Theatre project of the previous
decade. In fact, as the theatre was being set up, Lessing had been invited in 1777
to join it as Director but he was unwilling to take on more than an advisory
role.6 From the start it had strong links with the Kurpflzische Deutsche
Gesellschaft, founded in 1775. In 1778 the Elector Karl Theodor of the Palatinate
transferred his court to Munich on his accession to the throne of Bavaria and took
with him the company, Theobald Marchands, that had been playing at the theatre. One of the leading advocates of the theatre, Dalberg, successfully petitioned the Elector for the theatre to be maintained in order to preserve and
2
An excellent survey of the cultural life of Mannheim and its leading figures is to be
found in Lebenslust und Frmmigkeit. Kurfrst Karl Theodor (17241799) zwischen
Barock und Aufklrung. Handbuch und Ausstellungskatalog. Ed. by Alfried Wieczorek.
2 vols. Regensburg 1999.
3
See Herbert Stubenrauchs verdict on the Mannheim period: Mannheim [war] gleichsam der Ambo, auf dem das Schicksal mit harten, mitleidlosen Schlgen Daseinswillen,
Widerstandskrfte und Lebenseinsicht Schillers zurechtschmiedete. In: Mein Klima ist
das Theater. Schiller und Mannheim. Mannheim 1955. P. 53.
4
See Schrders letter to Schiller of 18.10.1786. NA 33/I. 108.
5
See Ute Daniel, Hoftheater. Zur Geschichte des Theaters und der Hfe im 18. und 19.
Jahrhundert. Stuttgart 1995 for details of the theatres creation.
6
A fascinating contemporary account of the setting up of the theatre, including
Lessings visit, is by one of its principal advocates, Stephan Freiherr von Stengel in his
Denkwrdigkeiten. Ed. by Gnther Ebersold. Mannheim 1993. Pp. 8083.

37
promote cultural life in Mannheim and was charged with engaging a company
to play. The company he engaged was that of Abel Seyler, previously a
Hamburg businessman who had been one of the financial backers of the
Hamburg National Theatre project and had lost a considerable amount of money
as a result. After its collapse he had formed his own company, for a time in conjunction with the renowned Hamburg actor Konrad Ekhof. Seyler was obliged to
leave Mannheim in 1781 but he helped Dalberg develop at the theatre what
would become a characteristic style, based on a belief in the need to achieve a
balance between a more natural style of playing and a certain nobility and idealisation. Dalberg himself was among a group of dedicated advocates of the
Mannheim theatre who supported the belief that standards of drama and performance could be raised and the theatre be a channel for enlightenment.
The young Schiller was of course familiar with Lessings work as a dramatist
and critic.7 What is also clear from an early stage in his dealings with Mannheim
is that he recognised and was responding to the importance of Lessings authority and the strength of the Hamburg tradition at Mannheim. Aligning himself
with Lessing was in other words a tactical move more than an expression of personal homage, for in this tactic Schiller surely saw the way to establish himself at
the theatre.8 There are numerous instances of echoes of Lessing in Fiesko and in
Kabale und Liebe. For example, Fiesko uses the Appius Claudius theme, as
Emilia Galotti, though for a different purpose, had done. Schillers next project,
Kabale und Liebe perhaps again prompted by Dalberg or by his own observation of the repertoire at Mannheim was his only brgerliches Trauerspiel,
with its clear parallels to Emilia Galotti. The early stages of work on Don Carlos
also suggest a consciousness of Lessings mediation of Diderots plays and dramatic theory in Germany and the wish to slot himself into the repertoire at
Mannheim by writing a play, albeit a historical drama, with the crowd-pleasing
designation of Familiengemlde.9 In the later stages of his engagement at the
theatre Schiller proposed to Dalberg a theatre journal to be named Mannheimer
Dramaturgie, which would promote the theatre nationally and raise its standard
by fruitful criticism.10 The famous speech to the Kurpflzische Deutsche
Gesellschaft, first published as Was kann eine gute stehende Schaubhne
eigentlich wirken?, was also designed to make Schiller appear as Lessings heir
7

His short essay ber das gegenwrtige teutsche Theater makes this clear. See also
Wolfgang Albrecht: Die Wirkung Lessings auf Schillers Dramatik. 2 vols. Diss.
Wittenberg 1978. Vol. 1. Pp. 78.
8
See my article: Schiller and the Mannheim National Theatre. In: Modern Language
Review 100 (2005). Pp. 121137.
9
See Schillers letter to Dalberg of 7.6.1784, in which he claims Don Carlos will be
ein Familiengemlde in einem frstlichen Haue. NA 32. 144.
10
After Schillers contract came to an end, the project was to be absorbed into his journal
the Rheinische Thalia but in effect was dropped.

38
to the members of the Kurpflzische Deutsche Gesellschaft, chief among them
being Dalberg himself.11 If Lessings sad comment on Hamburg was: ber den
gutherzigen Einfall, den Deutschen ein Nationaltheater zu verschaffen, da wir
Deutsche keine Nation sind!,12 Schillers reply was: wenn wir es erlebten eine
Nationalbhne zu haben, so wrden wir auch eine Nation (NA 20. 99).
Both Lessing and Schiller were critics as well as playwrights. From the time
of the Wirtembergisches Repertorium in Stuttgart, Schiller had shown that he
believed criticism had its place in helping to raise the standard of theatre, as
ber das gegenwrtige teutsche Theater, a much more sober and practical look
at the theatre than the Schaubhne speech, bears out. The Hamburg venture
was supported by private sponsors; Mannheim received a limited subvention
from the Elector Karl Theodor. Both theatres were very dependent on success
at the box office. But the context of theatre had changed quite considerably
between Hamburg in the late 1760s and Mannheim in the early 1780s, as an
examination of the repertoire shows. One of the striking differences between
the two repertoires is the fact that Hamburg did not offer operas or Singspiele
(though ballet was frequently performed), whereas at Mannheim about a quarter
to a third of all performances come under the heading of Musiktheater. Though
of course Musiktheater brought with it considerable costs, the Hamburg policy
clearly lost the theatre money, because there had been a rapid rise in the
demand for Musiktheater since the end of the Seven Years War. When Seyler,
for example, formed his company with Ekhof after the collapse of the
Hamburg venture he immediately began to offer opera and Singspiel and was
responsible in Weimar and Gotha between 1771 and 1775 for the enrichment
of the repertoire through works (such as Alceste with a libretto by Wieland and
Die Dorfgala with a libretto by Gotter) by the resident composer Anton
Schweitzer.13 Indeed, it showed Seylers acumen that he engaged such a person.
When he came to Mannheim he brought North-German opera and quickly
absorbed the German versions of French opras comiques that were particularly
popular there already. Musiktheater at Mannheim was, as at almost all German
theatres by this time, a mainstay of the repertoire. Another striking feature if
11

On 14 May 1784 Dalberg had invited the theatres Ausschu to respond to the following question: Was ist Nationalschaubhne im eigentlichsten Verstande? Wodurch
kann ein Theater Nationalbhne werden? Und gibt es wirklich schon ein deutsches
Theater, welches Nationalbhne genannt zu werden verdient? See Die Protokolle des
Mannheimer Nationaltheaters unter Dalberg aus den Jahren 1781 bis 1789. Ed. by
Max Martersteig. Mannheim 1890. P. 259. Schillers speech may have been a response
to this challenge.
12
G. E. Lessing: Hamburgische Dramaturgie. Ed. by Klaus L. Berghahn. Stuttgart
1981. 101.104. Stck. P. 509.
13
On Seylers development of Musiktheater, see Thomas Baumans groundbreaking
study North German Opera in the Age of Goethe. Cambridge 1985. Pp. 91131.

39
we compare the Hamburg and Mannheim repertoires is the decline in tragedy
and the rise of the Drama (sometimes designated Familiendrama) or Schauspiel.
A total of twenty-four tragedies were played at Hamburg in ninety-seven performances as against eighty-six comedies and four Dramen.14 In a comparable
period at Mannheim in 178182, only twelve tragedies were played as against
some seventy comedies and eighteen Schauspiele.15 The majority of serious
plays at Hamburg were translations from the French (forty-seven performances),
with Voltaire the most-performed tragedian. German tragedies were played on
thirty-four evenings, with Christian Felix Weisse the most-performed tragedian,
his Romeo und Julie enjoying nine performances. One of the most successful
plays at Mannheim in the early 1780s was Otto Freiherr von Gemmingens Der
teutsche Hausvater, loosely modelled on Diderots Le Pre de famille, which in
German translation as Der Hausvater had been a great and continued success
on the German stage in the 1760s and 1770s (it was performed twelve times at
Hamburg and was second only in numbers of evenings to Minna von Barnhelm
with fifteen). Shakespeare began to be introduced at Mannheim from its early
days onwards and was boosted by the visit of Schrder, who played his Hamlet
adaptation in 1780. What one does not find in Mannheim, in common with
most other theatres, is Sturm und Drang drama. Goethes Clavigo was played
and there was one performance in 1780 of Lenzs Der Hofmeister in Schrders
adaptation. When Die Ruber came along it was very much the exception to
the repertoire and had to be adapted to come closer to the audiences taste for
the Ritterstck and the Familiendrama.16
What is clear from this is that the early 1780s were a difficult environment
for a dramatist of Schillers talents, someone whose gift was for tragedy and
whose imagination strained against the confines of contemporary realism. The
introduction of Shakespeare had helped maintain some scope for tragedy on
the stage, though some of the adaptations, Schrders Hamlet for instance, had
non-tragic endings. Shakespeare had opened up another style of serious drama
from that of the French neo-classical. The Sturm und Drang, however, had created
a backlash, a rejection of the experimental in drama. Successful playwrights
14
The Hamburg repertoire is given alphabetically by Rudolf Schlsser: Vom Hamburger
Nationaltheater zur Gothaer Hofbhne 17671779. Leipzig 1895 (Theatergeschichtliche
Forschungen 13). Pp. 6668. A breakdown by type of play and partial repertoire is
given in Hamburgische Dramaturgie, pp. 627635.
15
For a chronological repertoire for the theatre from April 1778 to December 1803,
see Friedrich Walter: Archiv und Bibliothek des Groh. Hof- und Nationaltheaters in
Mannheim. Leipzig 1899. Vol. 2.
16
On Dalbergs requirements for the stage adaptation see Otto Schmidt: Die
Urauffhrung der Ruber ein theatergeschichtliches Ereignis. In: Schillers Ruber:
Urtext des Mannheimer Soufflierbuches. Ed. by Herbert Stubenrauch and Gnter Schulz.
Mannheim 1959. Pp. 151180.

40
such as Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter, an admirer of the French tradition, and professional theatre people such as Schrder believed the Sturm und Drang threatened all the progress that had been made towards raising the standard of theatre
and of acting in particular. Gotter assumed something like the role of honorary
adviser to the Mannheim theatre. He was a much-performed dramatist and librettist and strong supporter of the theatre at Gotha, his native town. He had been
instrumental in the engagement of some of Mannheims brightest acting talents
in 1779, when the Gotha court theatre closed and its actors, among them the
young Iffland, were available for engagement. Gotter immediately warned
Dalberg in his comment on the staging of Die Ruber: Die Ruber aufzufhren
war ein khnes Unternehmen, vielleicht nur in Mannheim mglich [] das
Stck [behlt] in der Gattung des Schrecklichen den Preis. Aber der Himmel
bewahre uns von mehr Stcken dieser Gattung.17 Schrder, the man who had
brought some of the plays of the Sturm und Drang to the Hamburg stage, wrote to
Dalberg: Wird der Geschmack an diesen Sturm und Drang-Stcken allgemein,
so kann kein Publicum ein Stck goutieren, das nicht wie ein Rarittenkasten
alle fnf Minuten etwas anders zeigt [] Wir werden in zehn Jahren keinen
Schauspieler haben; denn diese Sachen spielen sich selbst.18 Schrder fears not
only the decline of the art of the well-made play but also of the art of acting.
Added to this suspicion of the experimental was the taste for the sentimental, which could all too easily be fed on the grounds that the theatre was there
to edify spectators and show them examples of moral goodness. The decline in
popularity of tragedy opened up scope for sentimental drama, and this taste
was also boosted by the popularity of Musiktheater, for Musiktheater was also
often strongly sentimental in character. The Mannheimer Bhnenfassung of
Fiesko provides a good example of this moralising pressure. Fiesko had already
been published in 1783 with its original ending, in which Verrina kills Fiesko
when he refuses to renounce ducal power. Dalberg had rejected it for Mannheim
in the autumn of 1782, shortly after Schillers flight from Wrttemberg, and
Schiller had been forced to publish it to earn some money. When Schiller was
subsequently engaged at Mannheim he had to produce a version with a non-tragic
ending, an ending different, in other words, from the one already known to the
reading public. Fiesko is challenged by Verrina, who attempts to assassinate him,
only for Fiesko to renounce power voluntarily. Schiller prepares the audience for
the change in his Erinnerung an das Publikum by saying: Wenn jeder von uns
zum Besten des Vaterlands diejenige Krone hinweg werfen lernt, die er fhig
17
Letter to Dalberg. 24.3.1782. In: Rudolf Schlsser: Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter. Sein
Leben und seine Werke. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Bhne und Bhnendichtung im
18. Jahrhundert. Leipzig 1894 (Theatergeschichtliche Forschungen 10). P. 123.
18
Letter of 22.5.1784. In: Die Grenzboten. Zeitschrift fr Politik und Literatur 13
(1854). II. P. 436.

41
ist zu erringen, so ist die Moral des Fiesko die grte des Lebens (NA 21. 91).
We can sense the artificiality of this argument and indeed Dalbergs insistence
on changes robbed the play of its only logical dramatic outcome.
By stressing the role of theatre as a channel for Enlightenment in his
Schaubhne speech Schiller was arguably digging his own grave, for while
moralistic elements can be and were emphasised in his early plays they cannot
obscure the fact that the plays are far too complex and open to interpretation to
carry a simple moral message. Schiller always presents us with a world that
needs changing but also with flawed individuals, whose visions of a better order
cause chaos and destruction. These plays cast serious doubt on any secure moral
and religious presuppositions. Karl Moor or Ferdinand von Walter may call upon
Gods justice but heaven is silent and empty. As well as criticising a corrupt
order, the plays expose a powerless bourgeoisie in a world in which, as in Kabale
und Liebe, moral goodness offers no protection. Schiller was indeed Lessings
heir in so far as both men had a concern for tragedy as an art form. But the
playwright who was the logical endpoint of the Enlightenment debate on the
theatre was arguably August Wilhelm Iffland. His plays combined a successful
depiction of characters in recognisable milieux with a moralising streak that
provided instant audience satisfaction and the triumph of the solid bourgeois,
often over an effete aristocracy. Iffland also positioned himself at Mannheim as
Lessings heir. He had been trained by the great Ekhof and greatly admired
Schrder. His first play, which was a moderate but fleeting success, was entitled
Liebe und Pflicht im Streit, later renamed Albert von Thurneisen, and significantly subtitled Ein brgerliches Trauerspiel.
What had happened to the repertoire between Hamburg and Mannheim had
prepared for Iffland. As mentioned above, the most performed serious dramatists at Hamburg were Voltaire, with twenty-two performances and Christian
Felix Weisse with eighteen. Minna von Barnhelm was the single most performed play, with sixteen performances, followed by Diderots Der Hausvater
with twelve. What we see in Mannheim is a rise in the number of plays designated Schauspiel (which encompassed the Ritterstck as well as the Rhrstck)
or even Familiengemlde, the most successful being Gemmingens Der teutsche
Hausvater,19 and the important place now occupied by opera and Singspiel.
Weisse, for example had largely ceased to be performed as a tragedian by the
mid-1770s but his librettos Die Jagd, Lottchen am Hofe and Die Liebe auf dem
Lande, all adapted from French sources, made him still a much-performed
writer. At Mannheim Iffland was at a theatre where French opra comique was
19

Also very popular was Gromanns Nicht mehr als sechs Schsseln. Familiengemlde.
Other examples of Schauspiele performed in the early 1780s are: Brandes Die
Gefahren der Verfhrung; Maiers Der Sturm von Boxberg; Merciers Natalie and Die
drftige Familie; Sedaines Der Weise in der That; Plmickes Henriette.

42
very popular. Much opra comique transmitted certain core values, though
arguably they had a more critical edge to them in France: for example the contrast between town and country and between court and bourgeoisie; the education of one or more of the characters into right thinking; the idyllic nature of
country life. These elements quickly became the staples of Ifflands plays and
constituted the winning formula for plays such as Die Jger. Ein lndliches
Sittengemlde, which went on being performed until the middle of the nineteenth century. The birth of German family drama was at least in part from the
spirit of opra comique as well as from the French drame as exemplified by
Diderot. Almost thirty years ago Peter Michelsen explored in a groundbreaking study the possibility that the style of Die Ruber was inspired not so much
by the Sturm und Drang as by Schillers experience of opera.20 For almost
twenty years, from 1750 to 1769, Duke Karl Eugen developed and maintained
a lavish Italian opera at Stuttgart and Ludwigsburg, which Schiller attended in
his childhood. If Michelsen is correct we have in opra comique and Singspiel
a fitting counterpart to Italian opera seria in their inspiration to Schillers rival.
At the same time we have an indicator of how far Schillers style was out of
step with the theatrical environment at the Mannheim theatre.
Liebe und Pflicht im Streit was premired a few months before Die Ruber.
Iffland wrote at least two more plays that were not successful until he hit upon
the audience-pleasing formula with Verbrechen aus Ehrsucht. Ein ernsthaftes
Familiengemlde. Its premire on 9 March 1784, about a month before Kabale
und Liebe (Mannheim premire 15 April), was one of the events that sealed
Schillers fate at Mannheim. For, in Iffland, Dalberg had someone who could
write for contemporary taste, who was developing into a leading character
actor and who was clearly committed to helping shape the future of the theatre,
as the reports of the theatre Ausschu and Ifflands lively correspondence
with Dalberg make clear. The actor Ludwig Becks enthusiastic letter to
Ifflands sister Luise Eisendecher underlines the reasons for Ifflands success:
Noch nie hat etwas so die Stimme des Volks und die Stimme der Edlen so fr sich
gehabt als die [] Die Wrkung dieses Stcks ist von ungeheurem Vortheil:
erstlich ist es durch den ganz moralischen Inhalt classisch geworden; jeder behauptet,
da ein Mann, der ein solches Stck schreiben konnte durchaus ein guter Mensch
seyn mste, weil es so aus dem Herzen in das Herz geht.21

Schiller wrote plays that were difficult and controversial in content, hard to
stage and always in need of a Bhnenbearbeitung. It was clear which of the
two had a future at the theatre.
20

Peter Michelsen: Der Bruch mit der Vater-Welt. Studien zu Schillers Rubern.
Heidelberg 1979 (Beihefte zum Euphorion 16).
21
Qtd. in Ludwig Geiger: Schauspielerbriefe aus dem Ifflandkreise. In: Zeitschrift fr
Bcherfreunde 9 (190506). No. 2. P. 326.

43
Schillers disillusionment with the theatre was so great after Mannheim that
even an offer from the great Schrder in 1786 could not tempt him back into
active involvement with it. Schrder seems to have accepted this and was the
first director to stage Don Carlos in 1787, which he did in blank verse, playing
the role of Philipp himself. Although Don Carlos provoked a creative crisis in
Schiller and he had stopped writing plays, nevertheless the existing ones, not
least among them Don Carlos, continued to be successful in the theatre. They
were played, for example, in Weimar by Bellomos company in the 1780s 22 and
then by the Weimar Court Theatre from 1791 onwards at a stage when Schiller,
who in any case lived in Jena, had no connection with it.23
How then did Schiller find his way back to the theatre and how did his later
drama fit into the contemporary repertoire? From 1784 to 1791 the company of
Joseph Bellomo had played in Weimar to a very mixed reception. When Bellomo
moved on, Duke Karl August, perhaps spurred on by the creation elsewhere of
court theatres based in part on subsidy and in part on commercial enterprise,
brought the Weimar court theatre into being. Goethe was not enthusiastic about
being its first Director, but in spite of approaches to suitable candidates (for
example the Mannheim actor and playwright and friend of Schiller, Heinrich
Beck 24) no-one else could be found for the task. It was, after all, a small
provincial theatre with an uncertain future. It was subsidised by Karl August to
the tune of about a third of its costs but it had to find the rest of its income by
providing entertainment that attracted good audiences. There was a performance three evenings a week, the usual mix of comedy, Singspiel and opera and
some serious drama. In the early years Goethe left much of the day-to-day running to the Regisseur and to the treasurer, Franz Kirms, taking a more active
role only occasionally, as in the case of Shakespeares Knig Johann.25
For the first five years of the Hoftheaters existence Schiller was very distanced
from the theatre mentally and physically, being more concerned with historiography, aesthetics and his Horen project, and suffering two serious bouts of
illness in 1791 and 1792, as a result of which he led a very secluded life in Jena.
His ultimate aim was to return to dramatic writing, when he had achieved the
22

For example, Christoph Bertrams Ephemeriden der Literatur und des Theaters. 26.
Stck. Berlin 1786 gives Bellomos repertoire for the year and lists Die Ruber and
Kabale und Liebe (pp. 405409).
23
In the first five years of the Hoftheaters existence, Don Carlos was played eleven
times, Die Ruber seven times and Kabale und Liebe twice. Fiesko was not performed
until 1806 (twice). See Carl August Hugo Burkhardt: Das Repertoire des Weimarischen
Hoftheaters unter Goethes Leitung, 17911817. Leipzig 1891 (Theatergeschichtliche
Forschungen 1).
24
See Schillers letter to Krner. 12.1.1791. NA 26. 71.
25
The most detailed account of the early years of the theatre is Bruno SatoriNeumanns Geschichte des Weimarischen Hoftheaters unter Goethes Leitung. Erste
Periode 17911798. Berlin 1922.

44
necessary clarity about tragedy as an art form and about the role and significance of art in general, but he does not seem to have regarded direct practical
involvement with the theatre as a necessary part of that aim. He saw his future
dramas as making their lasting impact through the printed word and that medium
was what concerned him most. The precondition for his return to theatre work
was contact with Goethe, and his first involvement with the Weimar theatre was
his adaptation of Goethes Egmont for Ifflands Gastspiel in 1796. Goethe, who
by then was wanting to give up the post of Director, was hoping to attract Iffland
to take his place. Iffland was assumed to have an unbreakable contract with
Mannheim but the turbulence caused by the French Revolutionary Wars had
threatened the theatres existence.26 When he came to Weimar he was already in
negotiations with Berlin, where he finally went in December 1796. The Egmont
adaptation did not lead immediately to more theatre collaboration between
Schiller and Goethe. Rather it opened up differences in emphasis and approach
more likely to deter them. Goethe, who referred to the Bhnenbearbeitung
on several occasions as grausam,27 had a demonstration of Schillers pursuit
of bold theatrical effects, particularly in his introduction of the figure of der
Vermummte, who appears at the back of the stage to gloat over Egmonts
downfall when his death sentence is read to him and is unmasked by Egmont
as Alba himself. Iffland, who had played the title role, was also thought not to
have been a success in it and the adaptation was never repeated at Weimar
during Schillers lifetime.28
Egmont seems not to have reawakened in Schiller a desire to return to the
theatre, but it did give him a chance to work out his own problems of dramatic
composition at a stage when he was planning his Wallenstein. He had written
his critical review of the play in 1787 at a time when he was deeply troubled by
the compositional difficulties he had encountered in writing Don Carlos. He
knew that when he returned to dramatic writing he would face the challenge of
overcoming them. The Egmont adaptation gave him the chance to put into
26
The complex and protracted negotiations over Ifflands future at Mannheim between
1794 and 1796 can be found in his correspondence with Dalberg in Walter (n. 15). Vol. 1.
Pp. 340428.
27
See in particular Goethes extended discussion of the adaptation in his essay ber
das deutsche Theater (1815). In: Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Smtliche Werke nach
Epochen seines Schaffens. Mnchner Ausgabe. Ed by Karl Richter et al. Munich
198598. Vol. 11/2. Pp. 164166. This edition will be cited henceforth as MA with
volume and page numbers.
28
Goethe reversed some of Schillers changes for the 1806 production, which was then
repeated some twenty times at the Weimar theatre. On Iffland as Egmont see, for
example, the comment of Genast concerning rehearsals for Egmont: Goethe las den
Egmont, und abgesehen davon, da sein Vortrag etwas zu markiert war, habe ich nie
den Egmont so darstellen sehen, wie er ihn las: Iffland stand weit hinter der Auffassung
Goethes zurck. Genast (n. 1). Pp. 9697.

45
practice his concern with creating a coherent dramatic plot, in which the hero
is engulfed by circumstances and the consequences of his past actions.29 As
Wallenstein progresses there is little indication that Schiller saw its realisation
on stage as particularly important to him. Early in 1798 there was a suggestion
that Schrder might come to Weimar in the autumn to play the title role.
Schillers response was: Wenn ich berhaupt nur mit einigem Interesse daran
denken soll, fr das Theater zu schreiben, so kann es nur dadurch seyn, dass ich
fr Schrdern zu arbeiten denke. Denn mit ihm, frchte ich, stirbt alle
Schauspielkunst in Deutschland und noch weiter aus.30 When the plan looks
as though it will not come off, Schiller writes to Goethe: Ich weiss kaum wie
ich es mit Schrdern halten soll, und bin beinahe entschlossen, die ganze Idee
von der Repraesentation des Wallensteins fallen zu lassen. Then mentioning
various practical difficulties he says: Ich denke daher, meinen Gang frey und
ohne bestimmte Theaterrcksichten fortzusetzen und mir wo mglich die
Stimmung zu bewahren. Ist der Wallenstein einmal fertig und gedruckt, so
interessiert er mich nicht mehr, und alsdann kann ich auf so etwas noch eher
denken (4.5.1798: NA 29. 232). Writing to Krner in September 1798 about
his decision to divide the main action of the play into two parts, he says: Ohne
diese Operation wre der Wallenstein ein Monstrum geworden an Breite und
Ausdehnung, und htte, um fr das Theater zu taugen, gar zu viel Bedeutendes
verlieren mssen (NA 29. 280). He concedes that the three-part play will
make fewer demands on the theatre by requiring fewer actors at any given
moment, but this is clearly a secondary consideration and poetic quality takes
precedence over theatrical viability. Schiller knew that Wallenstein was his
great test as a dramatist. He simply would not let stage considerations and particularly not the limited resources of the Weimar stage determine his work.
Yet Schillers return to active involvement with the theatre was brought
about by the staging of Wallenstein. Goethe was keen to open the theatre, which
had been remodelled that summer along neo-classical lines, with Schillers
new play and that prospect clearly made Schiller anticipate the excitement of
performance. He also ventures to hope that public taste might be growing
weary of contemporary settings and thus not be altogether averse to his plays:
Ich freue mich den Theaterbau mitanzusehen und glaube Ihnen, da der Anblick der
Bretter allerlei erwecken wird. Es ist mir neulich aufgefallen, was ich in einer
Zeitschrift oder Zeitung las, da das Hamburger Publikum sich ber die
Wiederholung der Ifflandschen Stcke beklage und sie satt sei. Wenn dies einen
analogischen Schlu auf andere Stcke erlaubt, so wrde mein Wallenstein einen
gnstigen Moment treffen. Unwahrscheinlich ist es nicht, da das Publikum sich
29
See my article: Schiller and Goethes Egmont. In: Modern Language Review 77
(1982). Pp. 629645.
30
To Bottiger. 25.1.1798. NA 29. 193194

46
selbst nicht mehr sehen mag, es fhlt sich in gar zu schlechter Gesellschaft. Die
Begierde nach jenen Stcken scheint mir auch mehr durch einen berdruss an den
Ritterschauspielen erzeugt, oder wenigstens verstrkt worden zu sein, man wollte
sich von Verzerrungen erholen. Aber das lange Angaffen eines Alltagsgesichts mu
freilich endlich auch ermden.31

Wallensteins Lager opened the new season in October 1798. Then Schiller
spent five weeks in Weimar in early 1799 to assist with the rehearsals for Die
Piccolomini and Wallensteins Tod. Karl August expressed the hope of seeing
more of him in Weimar and Schiller found that, in spite of the secluded life he
lived in Jena, he could cope with the social commitments that went with life in
Weimar. So he petitioned the Duke for the necessary rise in pension to make a
move to Weimar possible, saying specifically that he wanted to be closer to the
theatre.32 This move then took place in December 1799. From then on he took
a very active role in the prestige productions.
Schiller now found himself in an ideal position as a dramatist with serious
literary ambitions who nevertheless wanted to be performed. He worked in
partnership with the Intendant, with whom he shared a wish to create a lasting
repertoire of international stature. He now had a theatre at hand that, though
modest in means, would perform his plays more or less exactly as he wrote
them, which would not ask him for a Bhnenbearbeitung and where the actors
would learn to speak verse. The speaking of verse was a matter particularly
close to Goethes heart also and it was with pleasure that both men grasped the
opportunity to train the actors in this almost lost art. Also, the Weimar audience,
though not large, would consist of a fair number of discerning people. He
developed the practice of not publishing his plays until about a year after they
had been premired so that he could allow a certain number of manuscripts to
be sent for a fee to selected theatres before the printed version made the new
play available to everyone. He could thus also use the Weimar Theatre as a
place to try out the text and amend it before it went into print, as was the case,
for example with the placing of the division between Die Piccolomini and
Wallensteins Tod.
It was Schiller who gave Goethe the impetus to try the non-naturalistic,
experimental style that became recognisably the Weimar style. Before Wallenstein
Goethes directorship of the theatre had not been marked by a strong will to
strike out on a distinctive path. Though Karl August gave a subsidy, the theatre
had to be financially viable. The repertoire resembled that of most theatres at
the time; in other words, as at Mannheim, about a third of all performances were
Musiktheater, about a third comedies and about a third serious dramas, among
which by the 1790s the plays of Iffland and Kotzebue were very numerous.
31
32

To Goethe. 31.8.1798. NA 29. 271272.

See his letter to Karl August. 1.9.1799. NA 30. 9394.

47
Before Wallenstein Goethe did not show an ambition to develop a distinctive
style or to improve the repertoire, though from the start of his directorship he was
concerned to improve the standard of acting and of speaking, which remained a
preoccupation of his, as we can see from the Regeln fr Schauspieler. One
wonders what direction the theatre would have taken if Iffland had not accepted
Berlins offer but had replaced Goethe as Intendant at Weimar. That Goethe
tried to attract an actor and director of Ifflands calibre and experience was a
highly practical move but also indicates an absence at that time of any ambition
to create a distinctive neo-classical stage. It is also very doubtful whether Schiller
himself would have been drawn back to involvement in the theatre without
Goethes presence. With his move to Weimar, however, the Weimar experiment
got under way.
Writing in his essay Weimarisches Hoftheater in 1802, Goethe looks back
at almost eleven years since the foundation of the theatre. He identifies phases
in its development. The first major theatre event is Ifflands Gastspiel in 1796,
when Ifflands example as an actor showed the way out of the banal realism of
much of the theatres playing, which was demonstrated in a falsch verstandener
Konversationston.33 The second is the reintroduction with Wallenstein of dramatic verse. This development led in turn to the capacity of the theatre to
broaden its repertoire and to move towards the stylisation needed to attempt
performances of classical plays in masks. Goethe therefore identifies Wallenstein
as a stylistic breakthrough in the theatres development. But just as the actors
have had to develop versatility in order to adapt to different kinds of play,
Goethe says, so the audience must develop the Vielseitigkeit, as he calls it,
to appreciate a more varied repertoire:
Jede Direktion durchblttere ihre Repertorien und sehe, wie wenig Stcke, aus der
groen Anzahl, die man in den letzten zwanzig Jahren aufgefhrt, noch jetzt
brauchbar geblieben sind. Wer darauf denken drfte, diesem Unwesen nach und
nach zu steuern, eine gewisse Anzahl vorhandener Stcke auf dem Theater zu fixieren
und dadurch endlich einmal ein Repertorium aufzustellen, das man der Nachwelt
berliefern knnte, mte vor allen Dingen darauf ausgehen, die Denkweise des
Publikums, das er vor sich hat, zur Vielseitigkeit zu bilden. (MA 6/2. 700701)

This was a challenge that by 1802 Schiller had already taken up through his
adaptations of works such as Nathan der Weise, Macbeth and Turandot, as well
as in his own plays. As soon as he returned to practical involvement with the
theatre Schiller planned to preserve the labour of the theatre and no doubt
make some money as well by publishing a series of plays and adaptations
from the theatres repertoire complete with critical commentary. The Berlin
publisher Unger was keen to take this on if Goethe and Schiller would be the
33

Weimarisches Hoftheater. MA 6/2. P. 694.

48
joint editors of the series.34 The plan never came to anything but it is a sign that
Schiller immediately saw how influential the Weimar theatre could be. It is a
scheme reminiscent of Gottscheds Deutsche Schaubhne in its aim to bridge
the gap between the reading and the theatre-going publics. Looking back in
1815 after the prolonged turbulence of the Napoleonic period Goethe confirms
in ber das deutsche Theater that Schillers aim was to preserve and adapt
drama of literary value and thus make it accessible to readers and to theatres.
What Goethe does not emphasise here, as he is concentrating on German theatre, is that he and Schiller wished to create a German repertoire that was both
German and international. The decline of tragedy and the dominance of the
Familiendrama at the end of the eighteenth century had led to some narrowing
of the repertoire, the patchy introduction of Shakespeare being the limited
exception to this trend.
The opportunity to influence the repertoire in a lasting way came from a different and unexpected direction, however, namely from Iffland. As soon as
Iffland knew that Schiller was at work on a new play he was keen to secure it
for Berlin and paid Schiller without demur a large sum for the right to perform
it. By this time Iffland was the author of over thirty plays but he by no means
aimed to put on only his and Kotzebues plays but rather to use the prominence
of Berlin to create a stage with truly national pretensions and a correspondingly varied international repertoire. He had, of course, to reconcile that ambition with his responsibility as a businessman to keep the theatre afloat
financially, and unlike many theatres, such as Weimar and Mannheim, the
Berlin Nationaltheater was open 362 days a year and so, in spite of a much
larger potential pool of theatre-goers, Iffland had to struggle to fill the house.
Schiller could help him do that and so the two men, once rivals, developed in
Schillers last years a relationship of mutual benefit.35 Schiller was in many
ways just the same as he was in the Mannheim years; he would make some
concessions to popular taste but he was determined to write what he wanted to
write. This attitude reflects not only literary ambition, indeed a sense of literary
calling, it also indicates a belief that his lasting reputation would be founded on
the sale of his printed work. It also springs from an awareness that the sale of
his printed work was vital to secure the future of his wife and children when he
was gone and he knew that that would be before he reached a great age. The
34

See Ungers letter to Schiller. 14.5.99. NA 38/I. 85.

On the relations between the Weimar and Berlin theatres during Goethes
Directorship see Werner Frick: Klassische Prsenzen. Die Weimarer Dramatik und das
Berliner Nationaltheater unter Iffland und Graf Brhl. In: Wechselwirkungen. Kunst
und Wissenschaft in Berlin und Weimar im Zeichen Goethes. Ed. by Ernst Osterkamp.
Bonn Berlin Brussels 2003. Pp. 231266. On Schiller and Iffland, see esp. pp.
244257.
35

49
early request from Iffland for an acting copy of Wallenstein helped open up to
him the potential profitability of his dramas as products for the stage as well as
for the bookshelf, a situation that contrasted starkly with his early experience
at Mannheim.
Schiller was naturally gratified to see his plays given the lavish productions in
Berlin that could never be afforded at the small and underfunded Weimar theatre.
When Weimar was planning the premire of Die Jungfrau von Orleans there
was a great problem in persuading the theatres business manager Franz Kirms
to provide a lavish enough cloak with a train for the coronation procession.
Anton Genast recalled:
Der Krnungsmantel war aber hauptschlich der Stein des Anstosses; dieser enormen Ausgabe widerstrebte Kirms, und da er Chef ber alle Vorrthe der Hofhaltung
war, suchte er zu diesem Zweck eine alte blauseidene Gardine hervor. Dagegen
protestierten aber Schiller und Goethe auf das bestimmteste, so, dass sich
schliesslich der gute Kirms fgen und, wenn auch mit verdriesslichem Gesicht,
seine Zustimmung zur Anschaffung eines rothen Krnungsmantels, versteht sich,
von unechtem Sammet, geben musste, der von nun an, wie in frheren Zeiten das
Brautkleid einer Grossmutter, von Knig zu Knig forterbte. Er wurde das einzige
kostbare Stck, welches die weimarische Hoftheatergarderobe aufzuweisen hatte.36

By contrast the Berlin Jungfrau von Orleans was very lavish, particularly the
coronation procession, so much so that when Schiller saw it in 1804 he is supposed to have told Iffland Sie erdrcken mir ja mein Stck (NA 42. 385). But
Iffland knew his audience. Die Jungfrau von Orleans was the single most performed play under Ifflands directorship, which lasted to his death in 1814.
With 137 performances it achieved more than double the number recorded for
its nearest rival, Kotzebues Die Unglcklichen.37
The correspondence between Iffland and Schiller includes some very frank
comment by the former on the constraints under which he worked and encouragement to Schiller to help him avoid conflict between art and profit. He wanted
more plays like Die Jungfrau von Orleans, offering spectacle, whereas an austere
play with a chorus such as Die Braut von Messina presented him with a challenge
artistically and commercially. The core of the audience in Berlin covered quite
a broad social spectrum, much broader than in Weimar. Only comparatively
few were regular attenders and so had to be attracted by appealing productions.

36

Genast (n. 1). P. 140.

See Hugo Fetting: Das Repertoire des Berliner Kniglichen Nationaltheaters unter der
Leitung von August Wilhelm Iffland (17961814) bei Bercksichtigung der knstlerischen
Prinzipien und kulturpolitischen Wirkungsfaktoren. Diss. Greifswald 1977. P. 70.
Fetting records Kotzebue as the most performed dramatist over all, with 1226 performances of a total of 86 plays. Schiller comes second with 430 performances of 13 plays,
including translations and adaptations (p. 65).
37

50
There was a large Parterre consisting of army officers who continued the tradition of letting the Intendant and the actors know if they did not approve of the
performance.38 Ifflands ambition was to capitalise on the example of Weimar
in experimenting with an international repertoire with literary pretensions. To
everyones surprise, Die Braut von Messina was a success in Berlin, but Iffland
was keen to secure the really the big success that would carry the rest of the
repertoire. He wrote to Schiller concerning the latters plans for Wilhelm Tell:
Wie ich mich des dip, des Tell freue, das werden Sie mir zutrauen. dip fr die
Auserwhlten, Tell fr alle. Um das letztere ist es mir zu tun. Nicht bloss als
Kaufmann, auch aus anderen Grnden. Ion, Regulus, Coriolan werden geachtet.
Eugenia wird von einer kleinen Zahl angebetet das Lustspiel sinkt die Oper,
wenn sie nicht das Zauberreich darstellt [] greift nicht. Das erstere ist selten, das
letztere kostet, wenn nicht mehr, doch so viel, als es trgt. Die Versstcke, welche
nicht fr das grosse Volk sind, nehmen im Einlernen mehr als die doppelte Zeit, die ein
anderes Stck fordert, wenn sie mit Kraft etwas wirken sollen, mssen die
Schauspieler vor- und nachher geschont werden. Hier aber muss alle Tage gespielt
werden [] Nicht also, was ich fhle, darf ich wollen, sondern es ist mein Weg, als
Kaufmann zu gehen und doch nicht dadurch den feinen Sinn mercklich zu verlieren.
Da wir bei der Braut von Messina nicht verloren haben, da dieses Werk stets auf
dem Repertoir bleiben wird, darf ich um so unbefangener von meiner Lage zu Ihnen
reden. (28.7.1803: NA 40/I. 98)

So when Schiller tells Iffland that Wilhelm Tell will be ein rechtes Stck fr
das ganze Publikum (9.11.1803: NA 32. 84) he knows he is telling Iffland
what he wants to hear. But Schillers slowness is another problem for the hardpressed director. If only Schiller could give him prior warning of when he will
finish a play; if only Schiller would send him the acts he has completed; if only
Schiller could at least tell him how many and specifically what sets he anticipates then Iffland could plan ahead and get the play on stage at a point when
it can draw the maximum audiences and bring in the most money.39 The ailing
poet understands and does his best.
Schiller of course made his own suggestions. He knew and admired some of
the company in Berlin and several times suggested who should play what role
in a production of one of his plays.40 Iffland did not feel bound at all to follow
these suggestions but used his own judgement, in which local politics at the
Berlin theatre played a part. Schiller not only gave his own plays to Iffland, he
also passed on his translations and adaptations Phdra, Macbeth, Iphigenie,
Turandot. And Iffland made concessions to high art by taking over a number of
38
Rudolf Weil: Das Berliner Theaterpublikum unter A.W. Ifflands Direktion (1796 bis
1814). Ein Beitrag zur Methodologie der Theaterwissenschaft. Berlin 1932. P. 113.
39
See, for example, his letter to Schiller of 28.7.1803. NA 40/I. 9899.
40
See, for example, his letter to Iffland of 22.6.1800 on the casting of Maria Stuart. NA
30. 163164.

51
the more experimental works tried at the Weimar theatre Schlegels Ion,
Goethes Voltaire adaptations Mahomet and Tancred and Terences The Brothers.
Though it was not warmly received, he also put on August Wilhelm Schlegels
blank-verse translation of Hamlet, an indication that he wished to keep in favour
with the influential Romantic circle in Berlin. Iffland did not adopt the Weimar
style of playing but Wahnrau disputes the widespread notion that the actors at
the Berlin theatre did not speak verse properly.41
On 28 May 1804 Schiller wrote to his friend Krner: Ohne Zweifel hast Du
indessen schon zu Deiner Verwunderung vernommen, dass ich in Berlin gewesen [] dass ich bei dieser Reise nicht bloss mein Vergngen beabsichtige,
kannst Du Dir leicht denken (NA 32. 132). In April 1804 Ifflands secretary
Pauly visited Weimar to clarify aspects of the Berlin premire of Wilhelm Tell
and at that time there had been discussions about a visit and a possible move to
Berlin. The visit then followed from 1 to 17 May, during which time Iffland put
on several of Schillers plays to honour his presence.42 A permanent move would
have been a great coup for Iffland and would have meant a significant rise in
income for Schiller, which, as he explains to Krner in the same letter of 28 May
1804, would benefit his children: Um meinen Kindern einiges Vermgen zu
erwerben mu ich dahin streben, da der Ertrag meiner Schriftstellerei zum
Kapital kann geschlagen werden, und dazu bietet man mir in Berlin die Hnde
(NA 32. 133).43 It is an indication of the intense restlessness of Schillers personality that, even allowing for his concerns for childrens future, he could contemplate such a move in his state of declining health. Karl August responded to
the possibility of losing Schiller by raising his income. In the end Schiller proposed a compromise to Berlin that would allow him to spend several months a
year in the city and to return to Weimar for peace to write. Perhaps understandably, no answer came to this suggestion and Schiller remained in Weimar.
Iffland helped establish Schiller as one of the mainstays of the repertoire not
only in Berlin but in Germany generally and did much to form a repertoire in
spoken drama that was predominantly German but also international. The
dominance of French drama in the German theatre that Lessing bemoaned at
the end of the Hamburgische Dramaturgie was giving way by the end of the
eighteenth century, of course in part through the plays of Iffland and Kotzebue,
to the dominance of popular German drama on stage. If we look at the repertoire
in the 1820s, Iffland and even more so Kotzebue were very popular still along
41

See Gerhard Wahnrau: Berlin. Stadt der Theater. 2 vols. Berlin 1957. Vol. 1. P. 249.
For an account of the visit and negotiations, see Michael Bienert, Frank Druffner and
Martin Schalhorn. Schiller in Berlin oder Das rege Leben einer groen Stadt.
Marbach/N. 2004 (Marbacher Magazin 106).
43
At that time Charlotte Schiller was expecting her fourth child, Emilie, who was born
on 25 July 1804.
42

52
with Johanna von Weissenthurn and various other contemporary dramatists.44
There were also quite a number of translations from French, English and Italian
sources, but there was a steady number of performances of Schiller, Lessing,
Goethe, Kleist and Grillparzer, as well as Shakespeare, Molire and Caldern,
surely a development Schiller would have seen as some kind of fulfilment of
his hopes for the theatre. As far as the establishment of his own plays in the theatre was concerned, Charlotte von Schiller, shortly after her husbands death,
paid tribute to Iffland: Durch Ihren Einfluss hat Schiller zum ersten Mal in
Berlin das belohnende Gefhl genoen, fr eine Nation gearbeitet zu haben.45

44

For repertoires of the 1820s see the three volumes by Oscar Fambach: Das
Repertorium des Hof- und Nationaltheaters in Mannheim 18041832. Bonn 1980; Das
Repertorium des Stadttheaters zu Leipzig 18171828. Bonn 1980; Das Repertorium
des Kniglichen Theaters und der Italienischen Oper zu Dresden 18141832. Bonn
1985. Also Bernhard Frank: Die erste Frankfurter Theater AG (17921842) in ihrer
Entwicklung von der Nationalbhne zur Frankfurter Volksbhne. Ein Beitrag zur
Erforschung von Schauspiel-Stil und -Regie des 19. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt/M. 1967
(Studien zur Frankfurter Geschichte 2). Pages 64 and 65 give a breakdown of performances each year by the most popular playwrights.
45
Letter to Iffland. 20.6.1805. In: Marbacher Schiller-Buch II. Ed. by Otto Gntter.
Stuttgart Berlin 1907. P. 403.

Norbert Oellers

Schiller, der Heros. Mit ergnzenden Bemerkungen

zu einigen seiner Dramen-Helden
Soon after his death Schiller was celebrated by many of his admirers, not least by writers and literary historians, as a hero (Heros), a Herculean demi-god as a heroic
figure who had succeeded in scaling Olympus, as a poet of the heroic, a heroic poet.
Unthinking veneration of Schiller, which lasted well into the twentieth century, took
precedence over attempts to understand his works. His works are barely concerned
with heroes (Heroen) in the Herculean sense and only rarely with heroes in the usual
sense of the word. Schillers dramatic heroes are human beings who are characterised as much by their weaknesses as by their strengths; on the whole they are very
close to their author. He did not wish to be a hero.

Das Denkmal, das in Warschau an den Ghetto-Aufstand von 1943 erinnert,

bei dem etwa 13.000 Menschen von den Nazis umgebracht und weitere 40.000
nach Treblinka verschleppt wurden, das Denkmal (das offiziell Denkmal der
Ghettohelden heit), vor dem Willy Brandt am 7. Dezember 1970 niederkniete,
zeigt, in einer Art von idealisierendem Realismus (inspiriert vielleicht von Rodins
Die Brger von Calais oder dessen Balzac-Denkmal, vielleicht auch von
sowjetischen Heldendarstellungen der nachrevolutionren Zeit), eine Gruppe
von Aufstndischen, in ihrer Mitte einen herausragenden Helden, den Heros,
anscheinend nachgebildet einem Fhrer der Aufstndischen, edel, streng und
stolz, sich erhebend ber das Unsgliche, das grausame Wirklichkeit war, noch
in der Welt, aber das Antlitz, leicht in eine Zukunft da oben gewendet, geprgt
von der Ruhe des Ewigen. Als ich die Gedenksttte Ende November 1981 (zwei
Wochen vor der Ausrufung des Kriegsrechts durch Jaruzelski) zum ersten Mal
besuchte, glaubte ich (und spter glaubte ich es wieder), fr diese Gestalt habe
der Bildhauer ein Modell benutzt: Heinrich Danneckers Kolossalbste seines
Freundes Friedrich Schiller.
Danneckers Bste, vielfach nachgebildet, ist ein fester Bestandteil der
Schiller-Rezeption, und was auf sie immer wieder verweist, ist weithin bekannt:
Schiller auf dem Podest, z.B. Bartel Thorwaldsens Schiller-Standbild fr Stuttgart
(1839), das von Reinhold Begas fr Berlin (1871) oder das Marbacher Denkmal
von Ernst Rau, das 1876 enthllt wurde: Der edle, der erhabene, der knigliche
Dichter und Denker, einem Halbgott gleich, der bei den Alten Heros genannt
wurde; Herkules ist das Muster.
Der Pole, dem nichts Jdisches anhaftet, und der Deutsche, der nicht als Christ
zu erkennen ist, vereint im Bunde der nicht nur menschlichen Geschpfe, also
geschaffen fr alle Zeiten, fr die Ewigkeit. Die Wirkungen waren und sind

54
betrchtlich. Denn so werden Helden gebildet auf doppelte Weise: vom
Knstler und von den Nachlebenden.
Dannecker, dem Schiller auf seiner Schwabenreise 179394 Modell gesessen
hatte, schrieb nach Schillers Tod an dessen Schwager Wilhelm von Wolzogen, wie
schwer ihn die Nachricht vom unerwarteten Ableben seines Freundes getroffen
habe. Und dann: Den andern Morgen beym erwachen war der gttliche Mann
vor meinen Augen, da kam mirs in den Sinn, ich will Schiller lebig machen, aber
der kan nicht anders lebig sein, als, Colossal. Schiller mu Colossal in der
Bildhauerey leben, ich will eine Apoteose.1 So entstand, sich hinziehend bis
1808, avec amour et avec douleur, wie Dannecker sagte,2 die aus carrarischem
Marmor geschaffene Bste des ins Ideale gesteigerten Dichters, die nicht wenig
dazu beigetragen hat, das Bild, das die Nachwelt immer wieder von Schiller entwarf, in wesentlichen Zgen zu formen. Ein Heros war er ja wohl, nach allem, was
von ihm bekannt geworden war; und da viele sein Werk kannten und glaubten, sie
seien mit ihm vertraut, mochten sie gewiss sein, an seiner Gre teilzuhaben.
Doch schon vor Danneckers Monumentalisierung Schillers war der Grund fr
eine Mythenbildung gelegt, die bis ins 20. Jahrhundert (mit den Hhepunkten
1859 und 1905) fast tropisch wucherte. Am 19. Mai 1805 teilte der weimarische
Hofmedikus und Leibarzt Huschke seinem Herzog Carl August das Ergebnis
der am 10. Mai, also einen Tag nach Schillers Tod, vorgenommenen Obduktion
mit, nach der sich ein Bild der Verwstung ergeben hatte. Angegriffen oder in
Auflsung begriffen waren fast alle Organe des Verstorbenen: Lunge, Herz,
Galle, Milz, Darm, Nieren. Der letzte Punkt des Berichts (der elfte) lautet:
Urinblase u. Magen waren allein natrl.. Huschke kommentierte den Befund:
Bey diesen Umstnden mu man sich wundern, wie der arme Mann so lange hat
leben knnen.3 Nach Verffentlichung des Berichts wunderte sich mancheiner:
Wie war Schiller, der ja offenbar nur durch seinen Geist solange (nmlich
45 12 Jahre) hatte leben knnen, berhaupt dem Tod anheimgefallen? Schon frh
kam hier und da der Verdacht auf, dass an Mord zu denken sei. Auch Herkules
war auf unnatrliche Weise, durch den vermeintlichen Liebeszauber seines
Nebenbuhlers Nessos, mit dem ihn seine Gemahlin in Berhrung gebracht
hatte, ums irdische Leben gebracht worden. Schillers Unsterblichkeit wurde
ihm nicht zuletzt wegen seines so merkwrdigen Todes gesichert.

1
Zitiert in Friedrich Schiller. Leben, Werk und Wirkung. Eine Ausstellung zum Gedchtnis
der 200. Wiederkehr seines Geburtstags. Marbach/N.: Schiller-Nationalmuseum 1959.
S. 149.
2
Nach einem Bericht in der Zeitung fr die elegante Welt. 25.11.1834.
3
Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff. Bd. 41/II
A. Nr. 535. Alle Schillerzitate des vorliegenden Aufsatzes werden nach dieser Ausgabe
(NA) wiedergegeben, und zwar ohne Quellennachweis, wenn die zitierten Stellen (wie
Briefe und Gedicht-Verse) mhelos aufzufinden sind.

55
Und dies noch: Goethe, der mit dem Tod Schillers die Hlfte seines Daseyns
verlor, wie er am 1. Juni 1805 an Zelter schrieb, besorgte im August 1805 in
Lauchstdt eine Totenfeier fr den Freund, die er, nach der szenischen Darbietung
des Lieds von der Glocke, mit der Rezitation seines Epilogs zu Schillers
Glocke abschloss. Er entwarf in dem Gedicht den Typus des leidenden und
ber das Leid triumphierenden groen Menschen, der Ins Ewige des Wahren,
Guten, Schnen vorangeschritten sei und das Gemeine hinter sich gelassen
habe. Er hatte frh das strenge Wort gelesen, / Dem Leiden war er, war dem
Tod vertraut. / So schied er nun, wie er so oft genesen; / Nun schrckt uns das,
wofr uns lngst gegraut.4 Goethes dreifaches Denn er war unser wurde
schnell variiert, indem die Erinnerung an das Gewesene zur Teilnahme am stets
Gegenwrtigen gewendet wurde: Er ist und bleibt unser. Welcher Schiller?
Goethes Apostrophe galt fast ausschlielich dem Menschen, nur am Rande dem
Dichter Schiller. So blieb es auch im wesentlichen, aber die Sprnge vom heroischen Menschen zum Dichter des Heroischen und dann zum heroischen
Dichter waren, je nach Bedarf und Stimmung, mal lang oder kurz.
Das Studium groer Teile der nach Schillers Tod verffentlichten Literatur ber
ihn macht deutlich, dass er bis in die zweite Hlfte des 20. Jahrhunderts wie selbstverstndlich mit Stereotypen charakterisiert wurde, die das Auergewhnliche
seiner Existenz betonen: Er galt als der edle (auch: keusche) Snger und der
unsterbliche Genius; er galt als Herold, Seher und Prophet, als Frst im Reich des
Geistes, als Apostel der Freiheit, als Johannes, der den Messias ankndigte, als
Held (Heros) und Titan. Goethe hat ihm im Brief an Zelter vom 9. November
1830 eine Christustendenz bescheinigt, und Sptere haben das gern bernommen. Der gelegentliche Vergleich mit Herkules fhrte auch dazu, dass nach
seinen Schillers zwlf Grotaten gesucht wurde, die sich etwa der Reinigung
des Augias-Stalls, der Ttung des Nemeischen Lwen und der Lernischen
Schlange oder der Besiegung des Hllenhundes Kerberos zur Seite stellen lieen.
Heilig wurde Schiller genannt, zuweilen auch gttlich, oft adelig und immer
wieder: hehr und erhaben. Verstndlich, dass gegen die Heroisierung und
Kanonisierung Schillers schon frh Protest laut wurde und dass in den letzten
Jahrzehnten des vergangenen Jahrhunderts der berschwang bei der Beurteilung
des Menschen und Dichters verbreitet in Geringschtzung umschlug. Kinder werden nun einmal mit dem Bade ausgeschttet. In den 70er und 80er Jahren des 20.
Jahrhunderts ist das Ansehen Schillers auf einen bis dahin nicht fr mglich
gehaltenen Tiefpunkt gesunken; er galt als in unserem Gedchtnis verschollen,
wie es 1984 Werner Strodthoff bndig formulierte,5 und es gab ernsthafte

4
Zitiert nach dem (unpaginierten) Erstdruck. In: Taschenbuch fr Damen auf das Jahr
1806. Tbingen: Cotta.
5
In: Klner Stadt-Anzeiger. 10./11.11.1984.

56
Empfehlungen, Schiller solle endlich aus den Schulen vertrieben werden (so
der Didaktiker Hans-Joachim Grnwaldt, Universitt Bremen, 1970 in einem
Aufsatz Sind Klassiker etwa nicht antiquiert? 6); und er wurde ja auch vielerorts
vertrieben. ber diesen Teil der Nachwirkung des antiquierten Klassikers ist
hier nicht zu sprechen, sondern ber den andern, der durch das Thema
vorgegeben ist.
Heroen vollbringen gewhnlich politische Taten. Schiller stand fast ein
Jahrhundert in hherer Gunst beim Publikum als Goethe, weil viele seiner
Dichtungen fr eminent politisch gehalten wurden, insbesondere als
Freiheitsmanifeste in unfreier Zeit. Heinrich Heine hat sich dieser Auffassung
billigend angeschlossen. In seiner Romantischen Schule (1835) hat er der
Mehrheitsmeinung (und das war auch die fast einhellige Meinung der geknechteten Juden, in der osteuropischen Diaspora so gut wie in Deutschland)
emphatisch Ausdruck verliehen:
Ihn, den Friedrich Schiller, erfate lebendig der Geist seiner Zeit, er rang mit ihm,
er ward von ihm bezwungen, er folgte ihm zum Kampfe, er trug sein Banner, und es
war dasselbe Banner worunter man auch jenseits des Rheines so enthusiastisch
stritt, und wofr wir noch immer bereit sind unser bestes Blut zu vergieen. Schiller
schrieb fr die groen Ideen der Revolution, er zerstrte die geistigen Bastillen, er
baute an dem Tempel der Freiheit, und zwar an jenem ganz groen Tempel, der alle
Nazionen, gleich einer einzigen Brdergemeinde, umschlieen soll [].7

So wird der Dichter historisiert; sein politisches Amt wiegt mehr als sein poetisches Vermgen. Wenn die Freiheit erstritten ist, die Arbeit getan ist, kann der
Mohr dann gehen? Nicht so schnell: Es bleibt noch Bewundernswertes: dass alles
so kraftvoll gesagt ist und fast immer verstndlich; und dass es auch um Privates
geht, um Tugenden und Glcksverlangen, um Bses, das bestraft, und Gutes, das
belohnt wird; die Jnglinge mgen es und die Frauen auch: Seid umschlungen,
Millionen! Wer ein holdes Weib errungen, / Mische seinen Jubel ein! Groe
Seelen dulden still. Ehret die Frauen! Sie flechten und weben / Himmlische
Rosen ins irdische Leben. Wohl dem, der frei von Schuld und Fehle / Bewahrt
die kindlich reine Seele. Drum prfe, wer sich ewig bindet, / Ob sich das Herz
zum Herzen findet. Raum ist in der kleinsten Htte / Fr ein glcklich liebend
Paar. In Bchmanns Geflgelten Worten, dem Zitatenschatz des deutschen
Volkes, wird Schiller vermutlich seine Spitzenposition behalten.
Aber zurck zum Thema. Schiller, der Liebling der Frauen, ist ja nicht
Schiller, der Heros. Zur problematischen Ehre dieser Benennung ist Schiller

Hans-Joachim Grnwaldt: Sind Klassiker etwa nicht antiquiert? In: Diskussion

Deutsch (1970). H. 1. S. 1631.
7
Heinrich Heine: Skularausgabe. Bd. 8. Bearb. v. Renate Francke. Berlin Paris:
Akademie-Verlag 1972. S. 34.

57
nicht so sehr seines Werkes wegen gekommen als vielmehr wegen seines Lebens,
dessen Schwere sptestens mit dem erwhnten Obduktionsbericht ins ffentliche
Bewusstsein rckte. In der Tat hatte er viel gelitten und sich dem Leiden, das oft
genug an den Rand des Todes fhrte, energisch widersetzt. In den letzten 14
Jahren seines Lebens, in denen seine Hauptwerke entstanden (so die fnf Dramen
von Wallenstein bis Wilhelm Tell ), war er ein Sterbender. Dies wurde durch die
Lebensberichte und Erinnerungen seiner Freunde (und der Schwgerin Caroline
von Wolzogen) bald deutlich, und Einzelheiten huften sich auf Einzelheiten:
Schon als Schler war Schiller nicht sonderlich gesund, epidemische
Krankheiten verschiedener Art, Fieberanflle und Zahnschmerzen plagten
bereits in regelmigen Abstnden den jungen Mann; in den letzten vier Monaten
des Jahres 1783 (in Mannheim) wehrte er sich (an Fiesko und Kabale und Liebe
arbeitend) gegen eine Malariaerkrankung (er frchte, schrieb er am 1. Januar
1784 einer Freundin, da mir dieser Winter vielleicht auf Zeitlebens einen Sto
versezt); der physische Zusammenbruch zu Beginn des Jahres 1791 war dann
tatschlich der Anfang vom Ende. Schiller wurde nie mehr gesund, es gab nur
noch Perioden eines relativen Wohlbefindens. Heroisch also wurde dieser Kampf
ums Dasein genannt; tapfer und energisch war er auf jeden Fall. Aber nicht nur
gegen die leiblichen Gebrechen mobilisierte Schiller heftigen Widerstand, sondern auch gegen Zwnge, die ihm sein Landesvater Carl Eugen in der MilitrAkademie und whrend der Regimentsmedicus-Zeit in Stuttgart auferlegte,
denen sich der Untertan im September 1782 durch die Flucht aus seinem
wrttembergischen Vaterland ins benachbarte Ausland (ins kurpflzische
Mannheim) entzog. Heroisch auch dies, wurde gesagt.
Schlielich ein weiterer Kampf: gegen die Armut. Der mittellose Schiller, so
ist immer wieder (nicht ganz korrekt) kolportiert worden, habe zeit seines
Lebens an Geldmangel gelitten und habe bis zur Erschpfung (und darber hinaus) schuften mssen, um sich und spter seine Familie ber Wasser zu halten.
Der arme kranke Dichter, stolz und von unbndiger Willenskraft, der gelehrige
Kantschler, stets das moralische Gesetz in sich und den bestirnten Himmel ber
sich, diesem das knigliche Antlitz (das Antlitz, das Dannecker geschaffen hatte)
zugewandt so wurde er stilisiert, idealisiert, und das war ja nicht vllig falsch,
aber auch nicht ganz richtig, und deshalb wurde der Verehrte eingeklemmt zwischen Baum und Borke; aber vielleicht hngt er ja nur zwischen Skylla und
Charybdis fest und hat, wie Odysseus, die Chance, hindurchzukommen.
Zu seiner Charakterisierung wurde gern zitiert, was er selbst in Versen gesagt
hat, die Eingangsstrophe aus Die Macht des Gesanges zum Beispiel:
Ein Regenstrom aus Felsenrissen,
Er kommt mit Donners Ungestm,
Bergtrmmer folgen seinen Gssen,
Und Eichen strzen unter ihm.
Erstaunt mit wollustvollem Grausen

58
Hrt ihn der Wanderer und lauscht,
Er hrt die Flut vom Felsen brausen,
Doch wei er nicht, woher sie rauscht;
So strmen des Gesanges Wellen
Hervor aus nie entdeckten Quellen.

Oder aus Das Ideal und das Leben:

Nur der Krper eignet jenen Mchten,
Die das dunkle Schicksal flechten,
Aber frei von jeder Zeitgewalt,
Die Gespielinn seliger Naturen
Wandelt oben in des Lichtes Fluren,
Gttlich unter Gttern, die Gestalt.
Wollt ihr hoch auf ihren Flgeln schweben,
Werft die Angst des Irdischen von euch,
Fliehet aus dem engen dumpfen Leben
In des Ideales Reich!

Gewiss: Schiller dachte bei der Macht des Gesanges so sehr an sich wie bei der
Aufforderung, aus dem engen dumpfen Leben zu fliehen, und nicht anders war
es, als er ber die Helden in der Abhandlung Ueber das Pathetische sagte:
Die Helden sind fr alle Leiden der Menschheit so gut empfindlich als andere, und
eben das macht sie zu Helden, da sie das Leiden stark und innig fhlen, und doch
nicht davon berwltigt werden. Sie lieben das Leben so feurig wie wir andern, aber
diese Empfindung beherrscht sie nicht so sehr, da sie es nicht hingeben knnen,
wenn die Pflichten der Ehre oder der Menschlichkeit es fodern. (NA 20. 198)

Und nicht weit davon entfernt ist die in derselben Abhandlung geuerte
berzeugung:
Die Poesie kann dem Menschen werden, was dem Helden die Liebe ist. Sie kann
ihm weder rathen, noch mit ihm schlagen, noch sonst eine Arbeit fr ihn thun; aber
zum Helden kann sie ihn erziehn, zu Thaten kann sie ihn rufen, und zu allem, was
er seyn soll, ihn mit Strke ausrsten. (NA 20. 219)

Schiller, der gelegentlich ber Kants Pflichtbegriff gespottet hat, war so pflichtbesessen, dass er, ein workaholic par excellence, der Arbeit um ihrer selbst willen
zuweilen die Qualitt der Arbeit aufgeopfert hat, immer dann, wenn er glaubte,
die Musen lieen sich kommandieren und wrden ihm bei Bedarf auf Befehl zur
Verfgung stehen. Betrblich fand Goethe dies: dass Schiller, der geborene
Poet,8 manches, was beym Dichter unbewut und freywillig entspringen soll,

Goethe im Gesprch mit Eckermann. 23.7.1827.

59
durch die Gewalt des Nachdenkens zwang,9 dass er zu sehr von der Idee
ausging10 und dass diese Idee ihn gettet habe; denn er machte dadurch
Anforderungen an seine physische Natur, die fr seine Krfte zu gewaltsam
waren.11 Goethe wusste: Ein Dichter sollte kein Held sein wollen, und die ihn
als solchen feierten, weil sie vermuteten, er habe einer sein wollen, konnten
ihn, da sie sich selbst feierten, leicht verfehlen.
Ein Blick sei nun noch geworfen auf die Schiller-Geschichte als die Geschichte
einer Helden-, ja Heroenverehrung (mit den, wie gesagt, Hhepunkten 1859 und
1905) und dann ein weiterer auf sogenannte Helden einige der Hauptfiguren
im dramatischen Werk des Dichters, in denen er sich spiegelte, ohne sie, auch
mit Blick auf sich selbst, zu heroisieren.
Aus der ersten Hlfte des 19. Jahrhunderts sei nur an ein Ereignis erinnert,
dessen Anlass in ganz Deutschland viele Federn und Druckpressen in Bewegung
setzte, um dem Dichter der Nation (als der Schiller landauf, landab galt) die fr
ntig gehaltene Bewunderung entgegenzubringen. 1835 hatte sich der dnische
Bildhauer Bartel Thorwaldsen bereit erklrt, eine berlebensgroe Schiller-Statue
zu fertigen, die im Zentrum Stuttgarts ihren Platz finden sollte. Sie wurde
1839 am 8. Mai (also am Tag vor Schillers Todestag) enthllt. Diese Feier
gehrt zu den Hhepunkten der Schiller-Verehrung und war ein Vorspiel zu
den Volksfesten, mit denen Deutschland 1859 den 100. Geburtstag seines
Lieblingsdichters beging. In dem angesehensten Periodicum der Zeit, den
Hallischen Jahrbchern fr deutsche Wissenschaft und Kunst, erschien darber
ein ausfhrlicher Bericht des Tbinger Strafrechtlers und Novellisten Christian
Reinhold Kstlin,12 in dem es heit, das ganze Volk, und um es noch deutlicher zu sagen, der dritte Stand habe dieses Fest als ein quasi religises
gefeiert: ein Zug von 1500 Sngern war es, der, einen reichen Flor von Frauen
und Mdchen in der Mitte, auf den Platz trat, um dem enthllten Bilde den ersten
Gru zuzurufen. [] Auer den Sngern [] war noch eine unbersehliche
Menschenmenge auf den Beinen, die in rhrender Stille des Augenblickes
harrte, wo von der Hand des Enkels [Friedrich Ludwig Ernst von Schiller, der
1826 geborene Sohn von Schillers ltestem Sohn Karl] gezogen die Hlle von
dem Standbilde des Dichters fallen sollte. Sehet da ein Volk die Hupter

Goethe. Werke. Hg. im Auftrage der Groherzogin Sophie von Sachsen. Weimar:
Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 18871919. Bd. 42 / 2 (1907). S. 443 (in Epoche der forcirten Talente).
10
Goethe im Gesprch mit Eckermann. 23.3.1829.
11
Goethe im Gesprch mit Eckermann. 18.1.1827.
12
Der Bericht, dessen Verfasser unter dem Pseudonym C. Reinhold schrieb, zog sich
durch sechs Nummern der Zeitschrift (Nr. 138143 vom 10.-15.6.1839); hier zitiert
nach Schiller Zeitgenosse aller Epochen. Hg. v. Norbert Oellers. T. 1. Frankfurt/M.:
Athenum 1970. S. 347361.

60
entblen! [] Seht diese Stadt, aus welcher einst der gefesselte Prometheus
[Schiller] unter Not und Gefahren entfloh, um den Funken gttlichen Geistes,
den er in sich trug, in einer freieren Luft zur Flamme zu blasen. Nun also
steht (er) [] in erhabener Majestt auf hohem Fugestell, vom Glanze der
Olympier umgeben []. Eine religise Empfindung, ein Gefhl heiligen
Schauers durchzuckte gewi jedes Herz, als die Glocken zu tnen begannen
und die Hlle von der edlen Gestalt fiel. Die Nhe des Ewigen lie sich spren
[]. Und Kstlin berichtete nicht nur das Erlebte, sondern kommentierte es
auch, indem er seiner eigenen berlegung Ausdruck gab, das Werk Schillers
in seiner hchsten Glorie musternd:
Nicht blo der vom Genius errungene Besitz, sondern auch der Kampf, durch den
er errungen wurde, wird zum teuren, unverlierbaren Schatze fr die Menschheit.
Wie herrlich die ruhige Glorie der Olympier sein mge, die Anschauung der wahren
Schpferkraft wird uns doch nur, wenn wir den Heros die Arbeit verrichten sehen,
durch welche es am Ende zu jener Glorie sich erhebt.

So ging es noch ziemlich lange weiter, mit solchen Stzen etwa: Dieses
Nationalfest war ein religises Fest, ein Fest, wodurch die Menschheit die
Offenbarung Gottes in einem Genius gefeiert hat. Einzig steht Schiller da, ein
voller ungeteilter Mensch in allem, was er ist und was von ihm ausgeht, ein
Mensch, dessen Handeln Poesie, und dessen Poesie Handlung ist. Am Ende
werden sie dann aufgerufen, die Schillers Gre kongenial erfasst haben: Goethe
mit seinem Epilog und Dannecker mit seiner unbertrefflichen und auch jetzt
unbertroffenen Bste des Dichters. Beugen wir uns [] vor dem, vor
welchem alle endliche Gre zu Staub wird. Wer fnde hnliche Worte in
dieser Zeit, vielleicht an einem 9. Mai, etwa auf einer der jhrlich stattfindenden Schillerfeiern, die der 1824 gegrndete Stuttgarter Liederkranz ausrichtet?
Die Schillerfeiern des Jahres 1859 gehren zu den gewaltigsten politischen Demonstrationen, die in Deutschland jemals geduldet wurden.
Vieltausendstimmig ertnte in Schillers Namen der Ruf nach nationaler Einheit;
in volksfestlichem Aufschwung wurde der Anbruch einer neuen Zeit gefeiert,
die ohne Schiller den Priester, den Seher, den Propheten, den Titanen und eben
auch Heros nicht htte anbrechen knnen. In Schulen, Universitten, auch in
Handwerksbetrieben und Kirchen erklang das Preislied zu Ehren des Dichters.
Die gesamte deutsche Nation, schrieb Berthold Auerbach Ende 1859, habe
Zeugnis abgelegt, wie sie sich zum deutschen Geiste bekennt, und Schiller ist
und bleibt der Fahnenruf zur schnen Menschlichkeit, zur deutschen Brderlichkeit und nationalen Kraft.13
1860 erschienen in zwei Bnden (Schiller-Denkmal betitelt) 340 Reden und
Gedichte, die am 10. November 1859 irgendwo vorgetragen worden waren.
13

Berthold Auerbach: Deutsche Abende. N. F. Stuttgart: Cotta 1867. S. 9798.

61
Der Berliner Buchhndler Riegel hatte sie aus 1643 eingesandten Beitrgen
ausgewhlt. Der Redaktor des Unternehmens, Karl Tropus, konnte einleitend
resmieren:
Schiller steht hocherhaben da, ein Vorbild uns Allen, denn er war der reinste, edelste, nur nach dem Hchsten strebende Charakter, dessen Energie wahrhaft bewundernswerth. Seine Strebelust und Geisteskraft hob ihn ber alles Widrige und Niedrige
hoch empor. Es gab nichts Kleines, Geringes fr ihn; was er erfate, wurde durch
ihn gro, bedeutend, erhaben. [] es galt [], den erhabensten Heros der Idealitt
zu verherrlichen; ja selbst Herrscher im purpurnen Knigsgewande neigten sich
still, stumm und andchtig vor diesem Knige der Geister.14

Die Lektre der Schiller-Denkmal-Bnde ermdet den Leser bald, weil sich in
den Wrdigungen des Menschen und des Dichters Schillers vieles wiederholt;
die Stereotypen jagen sich, und wer nach dem Heros oder Helden Ausschau hlt,
wird in reichem Mae fndig. Nur einige Belege seien angefhrt, besonders von
Vortragenden, die nicht zu den schwchsten Kpfen der Nation zu zhlen sind.
Bei einem Festbankett in Dresden hielt Karl Gutzkow eine Rede, in der es
heit:
Schillers sthlerne Kraft im zerbrechlichen Krper, sein energisches Wollen, im
Schaffen und Nutzen der Zeit sein unermdlicher Treuflei, bei jedem Beginnen
sein Priesterernst und an jedes Beginnen der Einsatz des Lebens, bis die heilige
Flamme, zu leuchtend fr die irdischen Bedingungen ihrer Nahrung, so rhrend
frh erlosch das ist das klingende Rauschen von Wehr und Waffen, mit denen die
That, das Leben des Helden dahinschreitet.15

Gustav Pfizer trug in Stuttgart ein langes Gedicht, Schillers Das Ideal und das
Leben nachgebildet, vor, in dem es, in bezug auf eine Apostrophe an den Helden
Herakles, heit:
Vor Allen im Heroenkreise
Von Hellas war Herakles gro;
Gefeiert hast in seinem Preise
Du, unbewut, Dein Thun und Loos,
Nur da des Raums, der Sinne Schranken,
Ein Geistgewaltger, Du zerschlugst
Und in die Lichthhn der Gedanken
Des Armes Wunder bertrugst.
Arbeiten zwlf hat ihm gesendet
Der harten Schicksalsmchte Groll;
Eh Du der Mannheit Bahn vollendet,

14
Schiller-Denkmal. Volksausgabe. 2 Bde. Berlin: Riegels Verlags Buchhandlung 1860.
Bd. 1. S. 8, 10.
15
Ebd. S. 253.

62
War Dir die gleiche Zahl schon voll;
Zwar hast Du nicht den Speer geschwungen
Und nicht gefhrt den Keulenschlag:
Doch Nchte durch hast Du gerungen,
Und kmpfend fand Dich jeder Tag.16

In den folgenden Strophen werden einige Taten Schillers mit denen des Herakles
in unmittelbare Beziehung gebracht; auch des Heroen Glck am Ende seines
Erdenlaufs wird auf den gefeierten Dichter bertragen: Und Hebe bleibt Dir
eigen immer!
Felix Dahn beklagte in Mnchen poetisch den frhen Tod Schillers, hatte
aber auch einen Trost parat:
Doch still! denn eines Halbgotts war sein Loos,
Wie Herakles Ein Kampf war all sein Leben,
Um endlich aus des Scheiterhaufens Schoo
Sich siegreich zum Olympos zu erheben.
So prangt er, seinem Volk ein Heiligthum,
Ein schnster Stern in Gottes Weltgebude,
Fr flchtig Weh ward ihm ein ewger Ruhm:
Kurz ist der Schmerz und ewig ist die Freude!17

An Versen vergleichbarer Art, oft von Studienrten gereimte, war 1859 kein
Mangel.
Auch die Deutschen im Ausland feierten am 10. November 1859, und die
Reden und Gedichte aus fernen Regionen klangen nicht viel anders als die in
der Heimat. Ein Dr. Lwe bekannte auf einer Feier in New York:
Schiller ist fr uns der Heros unserer klassischen Literatur, und dieser Literatur hat
die Nation ihre Auferstehung aus der tiefen Niederlage, welche ihr die gewaltigen
Kmpfe des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts beigebracht hatten, zu verdanken. [] wenn
wir uns als Deutsche hier in dieser erhabenen Feier versammeln, so mgen unsere
amerikanischen Brder wissen, da derselbe Geist, der die Grnder der Republik
beseelt, dieselben Prinzipien, die sie dabei niedergelegt haben, in Schiller ihren
besten Ausdruck gefunden haben und da sein Geist uns leiten wird bei der treuen
und aufrichtigen Hingebung an diese Institutionen.18

Schiller, der Homo politicus, der Tatmensch, dessen Freiheitsideale hier und da
schon Wirklichkeit geworden waren, in dessen Namen gewissermaen an seiner
Seite weiter zu kmpfen sei, das Heldenvorbild ihm galt 1859 die grte
Aufmerksamkeit eines schillerbegeisterten Volkes. berlegungen zur sthetischen
16

Ebd. S. 595. Das folgende Zitat S. 597.

Ebd. Bd. 2. S. 43.
18
Ebd. S. 731, 735.
17

63
Qualitt seiner poetischen Werke kamen dabei zu kurz, und auch SchillerVerse wie die Schlussstrophe des Gedichts Am Antritt des neuen Jahrhunderts
fanden kaum Beachtung:
In des Herzens heilig stille Rume
Mut du fliehen aus des Lebens Drang,
Freiheit ist nur in dem Reich der Trume,
Und das Schne blht nur im Gesang.

Und gar nicht passte zum heroischen Schiller seine tiefe Resignation: dass auch
der Gesang, dass auch das Schne nur endlich sei, preisgegeben dem Tod, wovon
die Elegie Nnie (das vielleicht geglckteste Gedicht Schillers) handelt:
Auch das Schne mu sterben! Das Menschen und Gtter bezwinget,
Nicht die eherne Brust rhrt es des stygischen Zeus.
Einmal nur erweichte die Liebe den Schattenbeherrscher,
Und an der Schwelle noch, streng, rief er zurck sein Geschenk.
Nicht stillt Afrodite dem schnen Knaben die Wunde,
Die in den zierlichen Leib grausam der Eber geritzt.
Nicht errettet den gttlichen Held die unsterbliche Mutter,
Wann er, am skischen Thor fallend, sein Schicksal erfllt.
Aber sie steigt aus dem Meer mit allen Tchtern des Nereus,
Und die Klage hebt an um den verherrlichten Sohn.
Siehe! Da weinen die Gtter, es weinen die Gttinnen alle,
Da das Schne vergeht, da das Vollkommene stirbt.
Auch ein Klaglied zu seyn im Mund der Geliebten ist herrlich,
Denn das Gemeine geht klanglos zum Orkus hinab.

Schiller schrieb diese Verse vermutlich, als seine Frau Charlotte im November
1799, einige Wochen nach der Geburt des dritten Kindes, mit dem Tod rang.
Ganz menschlich erscheint hier der Dichter, unheroisch, voll Verzweiflung und
mit etwas Hoffnung fr sich, dem das Klaglied gelingt.
Unter denen, die das Heldentum Schillers fr das den Dichter Auszeichnende
hielten, ragt ein bedeutender deutscher Schriftsteller hervor. Was er 1905 formulierte, gefiel einem groen Publikum, das, wie der Autor selbst, fest im 19.
Jahrhundert verwurzelt war. Und dem Autor gefiel auch noch nach einem halben Jahrhundert, was er da gesagt hatte. Vor fnfzig Jahren, sprach im Mai
1955 Thomas Mann in Stuttgart und dann in Weimar, habe ich in einer kleinen
Novelle den kranken Dichter bei nchtlich schwerem Ringen mit dem gewaltigen Vorwurf [des Wallenstein] gezeigt, und das war in seiner Beschrnkung auf
eine einzige Stunde seines heroischen Lebens eine leichtere Aufgabe als diese
Rede hier [].19 Die kleine Novelle, Schwere Stunde berschrieben, wird bis
heute hoch geschtzt und ist nicht nur den Kennern ihres Verfassers, sondern auch
19
Zitiert nach dem Erstdruck. In: Schiller. Reden im Gedenkjahr 1955. Hg. v. Bernhard
Zeller. Stuttgart: Klett 1955. S. 17.

64
denen Schillers vertraut, so dass eine kurze Erinnerung gengen mag: Schiller,
wie ein Verzweifelter, krank wie meistens, blickte mit einem raschen und
schmerzlich angestrengten Blinzeln hinber zu dem Werk, von dem er geflohen war, dieser Last, diesem Druck, dieser Gewissensqual, diesem Meer, das
auszutrinken, diesem Verhngnis von einer Aufgabe, die sein Stolz und sein
Elend, sein Himmel und seine Verdammnis war. Er denkt mit einer sehnschtigen Feindschaft nach Weimar hinber, wo Goethe alles gelang. Er sthnte,
prete die Hnde vor die Augen und ging wie gehetzt durch das Zimmer. Aber
er wusste auch: der Kampf und die Not, die Leidenschaft und der Schmerz
waren sein Teil, waren sein Sittliches. Er wusste, dass es notwendig sei, um seiner
gesuchten Gre willen sich uneigenntzig zu verzehren und aufzuopfern; er
wusste, dass der andere, der Schaffende, ein Gott, er selbst aber, der Erkennende,
zum Heldentum bestimmt war. Aber es war leichter, ein Gott zu sein als ein
Held! Und am Ende dann:
Und es wurde fertig, das Leidenswerk. Es wurde vielleicht nicht gut, aber es wurde
fertig. Und als es fertig war, siehe, da war es auch gut. Und aus seiner Seele, aus
Musik und Idee, rangen sich neue Werke hervor, klingende und schimmernde Gebilde,
die in heiliger Form die unendliche Heimat wunderbar ahnen lieen, wie in der
Muschel das Meer saust, dem sie entfischt ist.20

An solchen Stzen knnen Thomas Mann-Freunde Freude haben; den SchillerKennern sind sie ein wenig suspekt, weil sie ein Monument fingieren, das Sptere
ohne Mhe mit Lust destruieren konnten, whnend, sich damit Schillers aus guten
Grnden ein- fr allemal entledigt zu haben. Der Schaden, dem Schiller durch
seine Stilisierung zum Heros zugefgt wurde, ist betrchtlich.
Auch die beiden Nobelpreistrger Gerhart Hauptmann und Paul Heyse stieen
1905 ins Horn der Schiller-Held-Verehrer. Sie taten es in Versen. Gerhart
Hauptmann lie sein Gedicht am 22. Mrz 1905 auf einer musikalischen
Festveranstaltung in Wien vortragen. Als Probe seiner Huldigung mag es mit
vier (von etwa 60) Versen genug sein; sie sind ein wenig ungelenk und bedrfen keines weiteren Kommentars:
Erhebt die Herzen zum Heroendienst,
so wird der Heros euer Herz erheben,
der uns vom Himmel als ein Sternbild grt:
Uns! uns! Denn er war unser! 21

Paul Heyse schrieb einen gereimten Festspruch zur Schiller-Feier in Mnchen

(so der Titel des am 8. Mai 1905 in der Wiener Neuen Freien Presse erschienenen
20

Zitiert nach dem Erstdruck der spter leicht berarbeiteten Novelle. In: Simplicissimus.
Illustrierte Wochenschrift. 10. Jg. [1905]. Nr. 6 (Schiller-Nummer). S. 6263.
21
Zitiert in Schiller Zeitgenosse aller Epochen. Hg. v. Norbert Oellers. T. 2. Mnchen:
Beck 1976. S. 476.

65
Gedichts), aus dem unschwer abzulesen ist, dass der Feiernde zum Gefeierten
keine rechte Beziehung hatte. In der zweiten Strophe (von insgesamt neun)
heit es:
So heldenschn, wie seine Zeit ihn sah,
Nein, tausendmal glorreicher steht er da,
Ein Glanzgestirn, dess lang verschleiert Licht
Nur strahlender der Wolken Flor durchbricht,
Und wie es hoch in ewgen Bahnen kreist,
Den Irrenden das Ziel von neuem weist.22

Der neben Hauptmann beliebteste (also auch erfolgreichste) Dramatiker seiner

Zeit, Ernst von Wildenbruch, zollte ebenfalls 1905 seinem groen Vorbild den
gehrigen Tribut und kam, wen wunderts, nicht ohne das beliebte Klischee
aus. Heros, bleib bei uns! ist seine Reimerei berschrieben, die in der schon
damals ehrwrdigen Deutschen Rundschau Aufnahme fand und wenig spter
als Sonderdruck weite Verbreitung fand. Auch daraus, zum Verdruss oder zur
Belustigung, eine Kostprobe:
In Feuers Mitten, seine Plne schrend
Wie Gott Vulkan, der Gtterwaffen baut,
Freiheit und Recht zu Lebens Altar fhrend,
An ihn geschmiegt Begeisterung, die Braut,
Steht einer da, von Jugend berflossen,
Ein Adlerjngling, dem die Flgel sprossen.

Schlecht ging es Deutschland, heit es dann weiter, in der Mitte des 18.
Jahrhunderts, Als Botschaft kam zu schlafbetubten Ohren: / Ein Heros,
Deutschland, wurde dir geboren! Wieder sind, 1905, die Zeiten nicht die besten,
also (in Anspielung auf Luk. 24, 29): Heros, bleib bei uns: ber deutscher
Erden / Neigt sich der Tag, und es will dunkel werden.23
Was den Literaten recht war, war den Literaturwissenschaftlern, auch den
angesehensten unter ihnen, billig: zum 100. Todestag Schillers bedienten sie
sich gern des wirkungsvollen Topos Schiller der Heros der Deutschen so
nannte Richard Moritz Meyer, Professor fr deutsche Sprache und Literatur
in Berlin, seinen Festbeitrag, den er zu Schillers hundertstem Todestag in der
Zeitschrift Die Woche drucken lie. Nicht unkritisch ging er darin mit der
gedankenlosen Heldenverehrung des 19. Jahrhunderts um, doch pries er, dass
1859 Schiller der ganzen Nation neu geboren ward und dass nun daran zu
erinnern sei, da ein Heros seinem Volke nicht stirbt.24 Der bedeutende
22

Ebd. S. 482.
Ebd. S. 485486, 488.
24
Ebd. S. 183.
23

66
Schiller-Forscher Richard Weltrich betonte in seiner Mnchner Rede, dass in
Schillers Lebensgeschichte ein auszeichnender Zug hervortrete: ich meine
sein Heldentum. Denn ein Kmpfer wie wenige ist er gewesen, ein Feuergeist,
der in alles, was er ergriff, die Glut seiner Seele go, ein rastloser Arbeiter und
ein mutiger Dulder, ein in stets gespanntem Streben nach dem Hchsten ringender und sich aufzehrende Mensch, ein heroischer Willensmensch und schon
darum ein ewiges Vorbild fr die Jugend [].25
Es ging dann noch einige Jahrzehnte so weiter, etwas weniger pathetisch, aber
doch entschieden: Schiller, der Mensch: ein Heros; Schiller, der Dichter: der
Snger heldenhafter Kmpfer fr Freiheit und Brderlichkeit. (Dass er auch fr
die Egalit auf die poetischen Barrikaden gestiegen sei, wurde ihm, dem franzsischen Brger, kaum je, zum Lobe oder Tadel, nachgesagt.) Um den historischen berblick schnell abzuschlieen, sei noch angemerkt, dass mit dem
Heros Schiller auch der Zweite Weltkrieg gefhrt wurde, dass Bernhard Rust,
der Reichsminister fr Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung, dem 1943
erschienenen ersten Band der historisch-kritischen Schiller-Nationalausgabe ein
Geleitwort beigab, in dem von Schillers bestndige[r] Bereitschaft zum heroischen Kampf, zum tragischen Opfer die Rede ist, einer Eigenschaft, die nun
inmitten des hrtesten Kampfes um die deutsche Freiheit vom ganzen
deutschen Volke gefordert werde.
Im Jubeljahr 1955 wurde die Bewunderung fr den Heros Schiller deutlich
zurckgedrngt. Zu den wenigen Festrednern, die sich in diese Hhen verstiegen,
gehrte Thomas Mann, der keinen Zweifel daran hatte, dass Goethe in der klassischen Walpurgnisnacht des zweiten Teils seines Faust mit dem dort angerufenen Halbgott (Vers 7381: Von Herkules willst nichts erwhnen?) keinen
anderen als Schiller im Sinn gehabt habe, wie die Antwort Chirons verdeutliche:
O weh! Errege nicht mein Sehnen!
Ich hatte Phoebus nie gesehn
Noch Ares, Hermes, wie sie heien;
Da sah ich mir vor Augen stehn,
Was alle Menschen gttlich preisen.
So war er ein geborner Knig 26

Wer ist dieser Herkules? Man glaubt es zu wissen, man wei es. Und da
Goethe den verewigten Freund im Bilde des Herkules, des zu den Gttern
erhobenen Mannes der zwlf Taten sah, lt vermuten, dass er von dem Traume
wute, den Schiller gehegt hat: dem Traum einer olympischen Idylle [].27
25

Ebd. S. 222.
Wiedergabe der Verse nach dem Zitat in Thomas Manns Rede. Zeller (wie Anm. 19).
S. 21.
27
Ebd. Goethe wusste wahrscheinlich nichts von Schillers Idyllen-Plan (Die Vermhlung
des Herkules mit der Hebe), ber den der Dichter in seinem Brief an Wilhelm von
26

67
Und dies dann doch noch: Auch beim letzten groen Schillerjubilum,
1959, wurde der Dichter gelegentlich als Heros gefeiert. Emil Staiger etwa,
einer der angesehensten Literaturwissenschaftler seiner Zeit, schloss seine Rede
bei der akademischen Feier der Universitt Zrich mit der Bekundung, wir alle
seien (wie es Goethe gegenber seiner Schwiegertochter schon gesagt hat) zu
irdisch fr Schiller. Sein ganzes heroisches Leben und Schaffen verkndet mit
unverweslicher Schrift: Hier hat ein sterblicher Mensch in schwerster Prfung
die Not der Welt berwunden.28 Das sind starke Worte, die seither kaum noch
zu hren sind und auch im Schillerjahr 2005 so oder hnlich wohl nicht gesagt
werden. Es ist zu wnschen, dass anderes eindringlich bewusst gemacht wird:
dass Schiller so irdisch war wie wir, dass er ein groer Dichter (ein groer
Dramatiker vor allem), ein bedeutender Historiker und ein anregender Philosoph
war, dass die Erkundung seiner Modernitt fr alle, die sich verstehen wollen, als
ein zwar nicht leichtes, aber erfolgversprechendes Unternehmen, ein Abenteuer
vielleicht, erfahren wird. Die alte Oberlehrerfrage: Was sagt uns Schiller heute? ist
ja so tricht nicht. Bei der Antwort sollte auf die Begriffe Heldentum und Kampf
verzichtet werden; das lehrt die Vergangenheit, hier: die Rezeptionsgeschichte
Schillers, von der einiges berichtet wurde.
Die ergnzenden Bemerkungen zu Schillerschen Dramen-Helden sollen
ein Feld erffnen, das einmal grndlich zu ermessen (und zu bestellen) wre.
Hier dienen sie allein der Kontrastierung und damit Konturierung des zuvor
Gesagten. Um keine Missverstndnisse aufkommen zu lassen, sei das schon
Gesagte wiederholt: Schillers Leben war in der Tat ein ungewhnliches, ein
schwieriges, ein von Krankheiten gezeichnetes; und den Unbilden hat der Dichter
mit bewundernswerter Energie getrotzt. Seine Werke, vor allem die klassischen
seines letzten Jahrzehnts, hat er einem siechen Krper frmlich abgerungen, weil
er die Unsterblichkeit, weil er gro sein wollte ein Eiferer, ein Missionar in
aestheticis, getrieben auch von Ehrungen, die ihm Verpflichtung waren (Rat
und Hofrat, franzsischer Brger, Mitglied der schwedischen Akademie der
Wissenschaften, Mitglied anderer Gelehrten-Gesellschaften, geadelt vom Kaiser
in Wien). Schiller war so tapfer wie ehrgeizig. Er wnschte sich, wie er am 25.
Januar 1795 an Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi schrieb, zu keinem Volk und zu keiner
Zeit [allein] zu gehren, sondern im eigentlichen Sinne des Worts der Zeitgenoe
aller Zeiten zu seyn.
In seinen Figuren habe sich Schiller immer wieder gespiegelt: so wusste
es frher jedes Kind, und so gilt es denen, den ziemlich rar Gewordenen, die
sich mit diesen Figuren (ob lesend, hrend oder anschauend) beschftigen, auch
heute noch. Der in der Vergangenheit nicht selten vorgenommene Vergleich der
Humboldt vom 30.11.1795 rsoniert hat. Dass mit Chirons Versen auf Schiller angespielt wird, ist ebenfalls nicht wahrscheinlich.
28
Emil Staiger: Schillers Gre. In: Oellers (wie Anm. 21). S. 412423, hier S. 423.

68
literarischen Helden mit ihrem Autor, dem Heros Schiller, ist freilich zu korrigieren, auf jeden Fall zu modifizieren. Die Helden der Schillerschen Dramen
sind samt und sonders keine Heroen; sie sind nur Hauptfiguren, und was sie
kennzeichnet, ist hchst menschlich, wenn auch auf die Spitze getrieben; und so
treffen sie mit den Menschlichkeiten ihres Erfinders, des Nicht-Heros Schiller,
sehr wohl zusammen. Das ist anders als mit den Helden, die in Schillers nichtdramatischem Werk, in seinen Gedichten, in seinen bersetzungen aus dem
Griechischen und Lateinischen und in seinen historischen Schriften nicht selten anzutreffen sind: die Mnner der groen Taten, die Helden vor Troja, die
Helden der Geschichte (wie vor allem Gustav Adolph,29 aber auch Wallenstein
und Herzog Bernhard von Sachsen-Weimar) oder der tapfere Bezwinger eines
gefhrlichen Untiers, dem das Volk zujubelt: Und tausend Stimmen werden
laut, / Das ist der Lindwurm, kommt und schaut! / Der Hirt und Heerden uns
verschlungen, / Das ist der Held, der ihn bezwungen! So heit es in Der Kampf
mit dem Drachen (V. 1316), einer Ballade, die nicht zu den besten des Dichters
gehrt, was natrlich nichts mit der geschilderten Heldentat zu tun hat. Sie
hat immerhin im hier beobachteten Zusammenhang den Vorteil, aus einem
passenden inneren Monolog des ber die Quellen seiner Kraft berichtenden
Drachentters zu zitieren:
Und zu mir selber sprach ich dann:
Was schmckt den Jngling, ehrt den Mann,
Was leisteten die tapfern Helden
Von denen uns die Lieder melden?
Die zu der Gtter Glanz und Ruhm
Erhub das blinde Heidenthum?
Sie reinigten von Ungeheuern
Die Welt in khnen Abentheuern,
Begegneten im Kampf dem Leun
Und rangen mit dem Minotauren,
Die armen Opfer zu befrein,
Und lieen sich das Blut nicht dauren. (V. 7384)

Das heit: in puncto Heldentum sollten sich von Fall zu Fall die Christen ein
Beispiel nehmen an den Heroen der Antike.30 Freilich mssen sie an Gott glauben
und auf seinen Beistand hoffen. Diese Haltung lag Schiller ziemlich fern, so fern
wie das Vertrauen, mit dem sich seine Johanna von Orleans dem Gebot Gottes
unterwarf und deshalb als ein Werkzeug in dessen Hand in blutigen
Schlachten Frankreich von den Englndern befreite. Die Jungfrau, von der uns
29

Gustav Adolph wird in Schillers Geschichte des dreyigjhrigen Kriegs etwa 25mal
als Held apostrophiert.
30
Vgl. dazu auch das aphoristisch zugespitzte Jugendgedicht Die alten und neuen
Helden (Wie tief sank unser Sekulum herunter! / Da rhm ich mir die alte Welt! /
Giengs in die Schlacht, war jeder Held).

69
(wie den Autor) eben wegen ihrer himmlischen Beziehungen ein Erddiameter
trennt, ist die einzige Figur im dramatischen Werk Schillers, die im Sinne der
Alten als Heldin apostrophiert werden kann. Die Krieger im selben Stck (wie
Dnois und Talbot), die Helden genannt werden, sind dagegen nur tapfere
Mnner, die das Schwert zu fhren wissen, wie sie in der Geschichte immer
wieder mal auftauchen. Auch von diesen fhlte sich Schiller nicht sonderlich angezogen, wenn ihnen fehlte, was als Voraussetzung einer mglichen Identifikation
gegeben sein muss: Liebe und Hass, Wahrheit und Irrtum, Einsicht und
Verblendung, Selbstentuerung und Hybris; kurz: Menschliches, das keinem
fremd ist.
In der Vorrede zu seinem Fiesko (seinem zweiten Bhnenwerk) hat der
23-jhrige Schiller eine Vermutung geuert, die sich in seiner dramatischen
Praxis bis zum Schluss (bis zum Wilhelm Tell ) als berzeugung behauptete:
Wenn es wahr ist, da nur Empfindung Empfindung wekt, so mte, ducht mich,
der politische Held in eben dem Grade kein Subjekt fr die Bhne seyn, in welchem
er den Menschen hintansezen mu, um der politische Held zu seyn. Es stand daher
nicht bei mir, meiner Fabel jene lebendige Glut einzuhauchen, welche durch das
lautere Produkt der Begeisterung herrscht, aber die kalte, unfruchtbare Staatsaktion
aus dem menschlichen Herzen herauszuspinnen, und eben dadurch an das menschliche Herz wieder anzuknpfen den Mann durch den Staatsklugen Kopf zu verwikeln und von der erfindrischen Intrigue Situationen fr die Menschheit zu
entlehnen das stand bei mir.

So versuchte es Schiller immer wieder mit seinen dramatischen Figuren, den

sogenannten Helden, auch denen, die wie Franz Moor, Marquis Posa und Max
Piccolomini im Titel nicht genannt werden: sie menschlich zu zeigen und
deshalb zum Scheitern zu verurteilen. Und er schrieb nicht von hohem Thron, aus
einer himmelblauen Idealenwelt, frei imaginierend, sondern aus Erfahrung, mit
stetem Bezug auf sich selbst Held auch er, aber ganz anders, als die Nachwelt
ihn so gerne sah. Er stellte sich mit (und in) seinen Figuren auf die Bretter, die
ihm die Welt waren. (Vgl. An die Freunde, 1802.)
Selbst Franz Moor ist nicht nur Teufel, sondern auch Mensch: ausgestattet mit
der scharfen Intellektualitt, der radikalen aufklrerischen Haltung seines Autors,
dessen Sprachrohr er nicht weniger ist als sein Bruder, der Ruberhauptmann Karl
Moor, der die verlotterte Welt zerschlagen mchte, ohne zu wissen, wie sie wieder
aufzubauen wre. Die Brder sind partiell Selbtprojektionen des Dichters, der
gegen seine drei Vter gegen Johann Caspar, den leiblichen Vater, gegen Carl
Eugen, den Herzog, und gegen Gott den vergeblichen Aufstand probt. Er veranstaltet ein Colloquium ber die Willkr und Ungerechtigkeit von Herrschaft,
ber die Ausbeutung der Vielen durch Wenige, ber die Zuflligkeit von Natur,
Sein und Nichtsein. Die Spielregeln (nicht nur die der Bhne) verlangten die
Untergnge: Gott darf nicht geleugnet und die bse Tat nicht durch den guten
Zweck geheiligt werden.

70
Was aber zu tun sei, um die Welt zu retten, das war Schiller, wie seinen
Helden, noch nicht klar. Erst 15 Jahre spter entwarf er die Utopie von der allein
mglichen Verbesserung der Verhltnisse durch die Kunst. Seine Hoffnung, die
ihm in seinem letzten Jahrfnft freilich immer mehr abhanden kam, verlegte er in
seinen theoretischen Schriften (vor allem in Ueber die sthetische Erziehung des
Menschen und in Ueber naive und sentimentalische Dichtung) mit aller gebotenen Skepsis in die ferne Zukunft.
In seinem republikanischen Trauerspiel Die Verschwrung des Fiesko zu
Genua, einem der grandiosesten Spektakelstcke der deutschen Literatur, hat
Schiller seinen Helden mit vielen Zgen (die er menschlich nannte) ausgestattet, die ihn selbst, wenn auch in durchaus gemigter Form, prgten: Fiesko
ist ein Spieler der Macht und der Liebe, einer, der mit Tod und Leben spielt,
gromannsschtig, ein scheiternder Mchtegernrevolutionr, der seine eigenen Interessen als ffentliche vertritt, ein groer, rhetorisch hochbegabter
Maschinenmeister, dem alles zu gelingen scheint, weshalb er seine Ziele nicht
erreichen kann. Eine Verbrecherin ist meine Liebe, bekennt er der koketten
Grfin Imperiali, um die er, der seine Frau Leonore verrt, wie es ihm beliebt,
aus politischem Kalkl buhlt, aber eine Heldin zugleich, die khn genug ist,
die Ringmauer des Rangs durchzubrechen, und gegen die verzehrende Sonne
der Majestt anzufliegen (I. 4). Und mit theatralischer Geste, im Zentrum des
Stcks, in heroischer Pose (bei Schiller heit es: mit Ausdruk), die Bestimmung
des Groseins, von dem der junge Schiller trumte:
Gehorchen! Herrschen! ungeheure schwindlichte Kluft Legt alles hinein,
was der Mensch kostbares hat eure gewonnene Schlachten, Eroberer Knstler,
eure unsterblichen Werke eure Wollste, Epikure eure Meere und Inseln, ihr
Weltumschiffer. Gehorchen und Herrschen! Seyn und Nichtseyn! Wer ber den
schwindlichten Graben vom lezten Seraph zum Unendlichen sezt, wird auch diesen
Sprung ausmessen. (III. 2)

Noch in zwei weiteren Dramen hat Schiller seine literarischen Helden zu

Sprachrohren seiner selbst gemacht. Im Don Karlos ist es Posa, der
schwrmerische Weltbeglcker aus dem Geiste der Aufklrung, der nicht nur
scheitert, weil das Jahrhundert (das 16.) fr seine Ideen noch nicht reif war,
sondern auch, weil er sich in den selbstgesponnenen Netzen politischer Taktik
verfngt. Sein Versuch, den Freund durch ein Selbstopfer zu retten, musste dessen
Untergang beschleunigen, weil Posa vorbeischaute an der alles beherrschenden Macht der Inquisition, der Freiheitsparolen willkommene Anlsse waren,
ihre Macht zu stabilisieren. Am Ende des Stcks hat Schiller den Marquis weit
von sich abgerckt. (Seine Kritik an ihm hat er brigens in seinen Briefen ber
Don Karlos, die eine scharfsinnige Analyse und Beurteilung des Stcks enthalten,
nachdrcklich bekrftigt.) Und schlielich: Schiller ist nicht Wallenstein, nicht
Octavio Piccolomini und nicht Max Piccolomini; aber er hat sein Herzblut in

71
diesen infundiert und jene mit seiner Geschichtsphilosophie ausgestattet dass
der Welt, die Zufllen anheimgegeben ist (die euphemistisch als Schicksalsmchte
benannt werden mgen), nicht zu helfen ist; nicht durch den groen Einzelnen,
dessen erhabene Taten und Gesinnungen mit Verbrechen gepaart sind, nicht
durch den politischen Gerechtigkeitskrmer, dessen Korrektheit nur gemein ist,
und natrlich nicht durch den verstiegenen, weltfremden (und gerade deshalb so
anrhrenden) Idealisten, der, scheiternd, die ihm anvertrauten Pappenheimer
mit in den Tod reit. Hegel war nach der Lektre der Stcks aufs uerste
betroffen; es ende nicht als eine Theodicee, das Reich des Nichts, des Todes
behalte den Sieg. Die ist nicht tragisch, sondern entsetzlich!31 So hat es
Schiller wohl gemeint. wenn nur der Stoff (der Inhalt, die Handlung)
wahrgenommen wird und die heitere Kunst aus dem Blick gert.
Keiner der Schillerschen Theaterhelden ist ein Heros, so wenig, wie der
Dichter selbst einer war. Dass er dennoch nach dem Titel schielte (aber fr
andere Leistungen als die, die ihn in der Rezeption zum deutschen Heros werden lieen), verrt das Gedicht Shakespears Schatten, in dem der groe Brite
als Heros apostrophiert wird. Hatte sich da (1796) nicht schon erfllt, was der
Ruber-Rezensent Christian Friedrich Timme 1781 prognostiziert hatte: Haben
wir je einen teutschen Shakespear zu erwarten, so ist es dieser [Schiller]?32
Ansonsten: Heroen kommen in Schillers Werk kaum vor; sie sind dann die der
alten Welt, wie in den Gttern Griechenlandes (V. 37 der ersten Fassung) und
in den Knstlern (V. 216).
Goethe hat nicht nur in seinem Epilog zu Schillers Glocke dem toten
Freund ein poetisches Denkmal gesetzt, sondern auch in seinen im September
1826 geschriebenen Terzinen bei der Betrachtung von Schillers (mutmalichem)
Schdel; sie haben bei der Heros-Mythenbildung keine sonderliche Rolle
spielen knnen, weil sie auf nicht verwendbare Weise, gleichsam intim, von
der nicht auer-, aber doch bermenschlichen Gre, der Heldenhaftigkeit des
in die Gegenwart geholten Verstorbenen sprechen. Der Schluss dieses Gedichts
beschreibt die Wirkung, die von dem aus der Gruft zu Tage gefrderten Schdel
auf den Betrachtenden, der sich 21 Jahre nach dem Tod des Freundes noch
verlassen fhlt, ausgeht:
Wie mich geheimnivoll die Form entzckte!
Die gottgedachte Spur, die sich erhalten!
Ein Blick der mich an jenes Meer entrckte
Das fluthend strmt gesteigerte Gestalten.
Geheim Gef! Orakelsprche spendend,
Wie bin ich werth dich in der Hand zu halten?
31
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegels Werke. Bd. 17. Berlin: Duncker und Humblot 1835.
S. 411, 413.
32
Erfurtische Gelehrte Zeitung. 24.7.1781.

72
Dich hchsten Schatz aus Moder fromm entwendend,
Und in die freie Luft, zu freiem Sinnen,
Zum Sonnenlicht andchtig hin mich wendend.
Was kann der Mensch im Leben mehr gewinnen
Als da sich Gott-Natur ihm offenbare?
Wie sie das Feste lt zu Geist verrinnen,
Wie sie das Geisterzeugte fest bewahre.33

33
Zitiert nach dem Erstdruck. In: Goethes Werke. Vollstndige Ausgabe letzter Hand.
Bd. 23. Stuttgart Tbingen: Cotta 1829. S. 285286. Das Gedicht schliet die letzte
Fassung von Goethes Roman Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre oder die Entsagenden ab.

Jochen Golz

Monumente zu Lebzeiten? Schiller als Herausgeber

seiner Werke
German editions of the modern era have a tradition with roots in the early modern
period. Since the invention of printing, the aim had been to produce aesthetically
perfect copies of the aesthetically valid and timelessly important work of an author. In
the eighteenth century this classical principle (Klassizitt) was gradually replaced
by a historical principle (Historizitt). Historizitt meant documenting the working method and development of the author in the context of an edition. Using Schiller
as an example, this essay explains how both principles are reflected in his activities as
an editor. Schillers attitude is contradictory: on the one hand he wants to demonstrate
his own evolution as an author to the audience, while on the other hand he would like
to present himself as a classical author and publish only that selection of texts, which
matches the yardstick of Klassizitt. This essay documents Schillers contradictory
conduct as a publisher of his own writings.

Kunst und Handwerk des Edierens besitzen eine lange und ehrwrdige Tradition.
Als die Poeten und Gelehrten der europischen Renaissance auf die kulturellen
Traditionen der Antike schpferisch Bezug nahmen und der Buchdruck erstmals
zur Verfgung stand, erlebte das Genre der Werkausgabe eine erste neuzeitliche
Blte. Antike Klassiker vor allem wurden in textkritisch exemplarischen und
buchknstlerisch wegweisenden Ausgaben einer europischen Gelehrtenrepublik
allgemein zugnglich gemacht. Eine erste produktive Synthese von Editoren,
Schrifterfindern und -gestaltern, Druckern und Verlegern kam zustande, und dies
sollte sich in spteren geschichtlichen Epochen mutatis mutandis wiederholen.
Der bergreifende Begriff, unter dem sich diese erste Bltezeit moderner
Buchkultur subsumieren lt, heit Klassizitt. Was in Buchform vorgelegt
wurde, gehorchte dem Mastab des sthetisch Formvollendeten; es sollte
Mastbe setzen fr die Kunst der Gegenwart und Zukunft. Das galt in erster
Linie fr die Autoren der klassischen Antike, konnte in exemplarischen Fllen
aber auch fr Poeten in Anwendung kommen, die in den Augen der Zeitgenossen
selbst schon dem Anspruch auf Klassizitt, auf normative, zeitberdauernde
Geltung gerecht geworden waren. ber Jahrhunderte hinweg bildeten Klassizitt
und Normativitt das prgende Orientierungsmuster fr Schriftsteller und
deren Herausgeber, und auch die deutschen Klassiker, Schiller eingeschlossen,
haben sich bewusst in diese Tradition gestellt und sie zu einem leitenden
Prinzip bei der Gestaltung ihrer Werkausgaben erhoben. Auch sie wollten ein
Denkmal, dauernder als Erz, der Nachwelt hinterlassen. Der Gliederung einer
Ausgabe wurde in der Regel der aus der Antike tradierte Gattungskanon
zugrunde gelegt.

74
Zunchst lag allem Edieren das Verfahren zugrunde, angesichts einer berlieferungslage, die in der Regel auf Abschriften, nicht hingegen auf autoreigenen
Manuskripten beruhte, auf dem mhsamen Weg der Textkritik aus vielfltigen
Formen autorfremder berlieferung den jeweils besten Text zu konstituieren.
Auf diese Weise korrespondierten berlieferungslage und der Mastab der
Klassizitt gleichsam naturwchsig miteinander. Das begann sich allmhlich
zu ndern, als sich der Autor als Autorsubjekt konstituierte, in seinen Texten
sich die eigene Biographie und deren Entwicklung abbildete, so dass der
Zusammenhang von Biographie und Werkgenese objektiv zutage trat. Eine
vom Autor herrhrende autographe berlieferung bildete sich heraus, und
befrdert wurde damit auf dem Felde der Edition ein Prinzip, das in eine produktive Spannung zum Prinzip der Klassizitt treten sollte: das der Historizitt.
Erst das Bewusstsein von der Entwicklung alles Gewordenen, wie es sich in
der europischen Aufklrung herausgebildet hatte, machte es mglich, dass
auch die schpferische Leistung eines Knstlers als Ergebnis geschichtlicher,
im engeren Sinne lebensgeschichtlicher Entwicklung und Bildung verstanden
werden konnte. Nicht mehr nur das poetische Werk in seiner objektiven
Gltigkeit trat in Erscheinung, sondern auch die Persnlichkeit seines Autors
verschaffte sich in begleitenden Texten, in Ankndigungen und Vorreden
Geltung. Editoren von Werken lngst verstorbener Autoren machten sich ebenfalls historisch-genetische Grundstze zu eigen. Eine frhe Form historischkritischen Edierens liegt in der Martin-Opitz-Ausgabe der Schweizer Aufklrer
Bodmer und Breitinger vor.
So sehr auch das Bewusstsein von Historizitt das Handeln deutscher
Autoren in der zweiten Hlfte des 18. Jahrhunderts bereits formt und gestaltet,
es musste sich bewhren und behaupten angesichts eines Buchmarktes, der
Klassizitt als Verkaufsargument brauchte, der eigenen Gesetzen der Produktion
und Distribution gehorchte und einer Rechtspraxis unterlag, die ein eigenes
Urheberrecht noch nicht kannte. In dieses historische Umfeld treten Autoren,
die vom Ertrag ihrer Feder leben wollen wie z. B. Schiller und die gezwungen sind, sich Marktmechanismen und Rechtsverhltnissen anzupassen, wenn
sie Erfolg haben und Gewinn erzielen wollen. Autoren, Drucker und
Verlagsbuchhndler bilden eine Krftekonstellation, in der permanent
Interessenkonflikte ausgetragen werden. Zunchst ist der Autor vom Verleger
in starkem Mae abhngig; er ist es in der Regel, der ihm die Manuskripte
offerieren und dessen Bedingungen akzeptieren muss. In dem Mae freilich,
wie mit dem eigenen Ruhm auch der Marktwert steigt, kehrt sich das
Verhltnis zwar nicht vollstndig um, doch seine Akzente verschieben sich.
Nunmehr kann der Verleger zum Bittenden werden, er muss dem prominenten
Autor eine hohe Satz- und Druckqualitt, gutes Papier und schne
Illustrationen, eine ebenso elegante wie werkgerechte Typographie versprechen, wenn er sich gegenber Konkurrenten behaupten will. Im einzelnen

75
wre dies an den Verlegerbeziehungen Wielands oder Goethes zu entwickeln,
und Schiller hat es auf allen diesen Feldern zu wahrer Meisterschaft im Verhandeln gebracht.
Bei all dem ist auch zu bercksichtigen, dass die Buchkultur des 18.
Jahrhunderts im Zeichen des sthetischen Klassizismus einen Standard
erreicht hatte, dessen sich die Verleger einfallsreich zu bedienen wussten. John
Baskerville in England, Giambattista Bodoni in Italien, Franois-Ambroise
und Firmin Didot in Frankreich, Justus Erich Walbaum in Deutschland schufen
Antiqua-Schriften und eine damit sthetisch korrespondierende Buchtypographie,
die in Europa Mastbe setzten. Antiqua-Schriften blieben zunchst Ausgaben der rmischen Klassiker vorbehalten oder solchen Autoren, die dem Mastab
des Vollkommenen, berzeitlicher Geltung gehorchten. Deutsche Verleger folgten
dem Beispiel ihrer europischen Kollegen. Nicht allein Geschftsleute waren
sie, sondern in nicht wenigen Fllen auch Buchstheten und Buchknstler, wie
das Beispiel Gschens (der vom Jenaer Schriftsetzer Prillwitz eine Antiqua in
der Tradition Didots nachschneiden lie) oder des Berliner Verlegers Unger,
eines Verlegers Goethes und Schillers, zeigt, der eine Konzession fr DidotSchriften erworben, zugleich aber eine leserfreundliche Fraktur, die UngerFraktur, entwickelt hatte.1 Gleichsam naturgem leistete die hohe klassizistische
Buchkultur dem Willen des Autors Vorschub, in einer eigenen Werkausgabe
ein schnes Denkmal seiner selbst hinzustellen und damit der eigenen Klassizitt
vor Mit- und Nachwelt Geltung zu verschaffen. Damit verband sich zugleich
die Intention, das eigene Werk im Zeichen der Erhaltenswerten durchzumustern, einen Kanon des zu Bewahrenden aufzustellen, es in gltiger Gestalt der
Nachwelt zu hinterlassen und entsprechend die Ausgabe der eigenen Werke zu
organisieren und zu strukturieren; an die Stelle des Sammelbegriffs Schriften,
wie ihn noch Goethe fr seine erste Ausgabe bei Gschen 1787 zugelassen
hatte, trat allmhlich der Begriff Werke oder Gesammelte Werke. Das
Bewusstsein des Autors von der eigenen Historizitt, von der Bildungsgeschichte
der eigenen Individualitt, trat in mehrfacher Hinsicht in ein spannungsreiches
Verhltnis zum eigenen Willen zur Klassizitt. Wenngleich der Autor sich
selbst auf einer bestimmten Entwicklungsstufe dem Publikum als knstlerisch
reprsentativ darbieten wollte und zu diesem Zweck die eigenen Texte durch
Verbesserungen dem Mastab des Vollkommenen zu unterwerfen suchte, so
blieb doch bei ihm selbst und beim Publikum das Bewusstsein vorhanden,
dass jenem Vollendungszustand andere Werkfassungen vorangegangen waren,
die ihr geschichtliches Recht behaupteten, auch wenn sie jetzt gegenber dem
Letztgltigen als vorlufig erschienen. In Goethes berhmt gewordenem

Vgl. dazu insgesamt: Stephan Fssel: Schiller und seine Verleger. Frankfurt am Main
Leipzig: Insel 2005.

76
Urteil ber die Werkausgaben Wielands in seinem Aufsatz Literarischer
Sansculottismus gelangen Klassizitt und Historizitt zur Synthese:
Und nun betrachte man die Arbeiten deutscher Poeten und Prosaisten von entschiednem Namen! Mit welcher Sorgfalt, mit welcher Religion folgten sie auf ihrer Bahn
einer aufgeklrten berzeugung! So ist es zum Beispiel nicht zu viel gesagt, wenn
wir behaupten, da ein verstndiger fleiiger Literator durch Vergleichung der
smmtlichen Ausgaben unsres Wielands, eines Mannes, dessen wir uns, trotz dem
Knurren aller Smelfungen, mit stolzer Freude rhmen drfen, allein aus den stufenweisen Correcturen dieses unermdet zum Bessern arbeitenden Schriftstellers die
ganze Lehre des Geschmacks wrde entwickeln knnen. Jeder aufmerksame
Bibliothekar sorge, da eine solche Sammlung aufgestellt werde, die jetzt noch
mglich ist, und das folgende Jahrhundert wird einen dankbaren Gebrauch davon zu
machen wissen.2

Wieland, so schrieb der Weimarer Unternehmer Bertuch an Georg Joachim

Gschen, seinen Geschftspartner und Verleger der seit 1794 erscheinenden
groen Wieland-Ausgabe, sei ohnstreitig der erste klassische Dichter der
Nation; man wird ihn immer kaufen und jeder Teutsche, der mir ein paar
Bcher sammelt [], wird seinen Wieland so gut haben mssen, wie der
Franzo seinen Voltaire und der Englnder seinen Milton und Pope hat.3Als
Gschen am 14. April 1792 den Vertrag ber die Ausgabe unterzeichnete, tat er
dies in Gegenwart zweier Zeugen; es waren Friedrich Schiller und Wielands
Schwiegersohn Carl Leonhard Reinhold. In Wielands Ankndigung seiner
Ausgabe heit es, das Unternehmen sei
eine Pflicht, deren ich mich gegen meine Nazion noch zu entledigen schuldig bin
[] meine smmtliche Poetische und Prosaische Werke und Schriften nach einer
letzten, mit mglichster Strenge gegen mich selbst vorgenommenen Auswahl,
Verbesserung und Ausfeilung, in einer allgemeinen gleichfrmigen Ausgabe von der
letzten Hand, so vollendet als es in meinem Vermgen steht, meinen Zeitgenossen
und der Nachwelt zu bergeben.4

Schiller mag ein hnliches Ziel vor Augen gestanden haben. Mit Wieland war
er seit seinem ersten Weimarer Aufenthalt im Jahre 1787 in mehrfacher
Hinsicht verbunden. Durch seine Zeitschrift Teutscher Merkur nahm Wieland
eine einflussreiche Position im zeitgenssischen Literaturbetrieb ein, und
Schiller, der auf Einnahmen bedacht sein musste, suchte Wielands
Aufmerksamkeit zu erregen. Es gelang ihm, einige Texte im Merkur
2
Goethes Werke. Weimarer Ausgabe. I. Abtheilung. Bd. 40/I. Weimar: Bhlau 1901.
S. 201.
3
Zitiert nach Siegfried Unseld: Goethe und seine Verleger. Frankfurt/M. Leipzig: Insel
1991. S. 149.
4
Zitiert nach Thomas C. Starnes: Christoph Martin Wieland. Leben und Werk. Bd. 2.
Sigmaringen: Thorbecke 1987. S. 323.

77
unterzubringen, darunter das Gedicht Die Gtter Griechenlandes, seine
Jenaer Antrittsvorlesung oder die Briefe ber Don Karlos. Dankbar nahm
Schiller auch Wielands knstlerischen Rat in Anspruch. Es ist nicht bertrieben zu sagen, dass Schiller bei dem Herausgeber und Kritiker Wieland in
die Schule gegangen ist. Dass er auerdem gern so erfolgreich gewesen wre wie
Wieland, kann angesichts von Schillers miserablen Lebensumstnden nicht
berraschen. Wenn Goethe in seinem Aufsatz Literarischer Sansculottismus
gerade Wieland als einen unermdet zum Bessern arbeitenden Schriftsteller
rhmte, dann sprach er auch fr den neu gewonnenen Freund Schiller, mit dem
er mglicherweise seinen Text errtert hatte.
Als Wieland 1792 seine Ausgabe ankndigte, die den Zeitgenossen als
exemplarisches Beispiel eines editorischen Denkmals zu Lebzeiten erschien,
stand er im 59. Lebensjahr und konnte auf ein umfangreiches Werk zurckblicken, dessen Summe er als Herausgeber ziehen wollte. Schiller hingegen
war 26 Jahre jnger und hatte 1792 eben zehn Jahre als freier Autor hinter sich.
Was er bis dahin publiziert hatte, war teils im Selbstverlag (Die Ruber), teils
als Einzeldruck bei verschiedenen Verlegern erschienen oder in zahlreichen
Periodika verstreut verffentlicht worden.
Die Summe, die Schiller zu diesem Zeitpunkt ziehen konnte, war klein.
Lyrisches oder Dramatisches in Sammelbnden zu verffentlichen, htte sich
angesichts des bescheidenen Umfangs des Vorliegenden eigentlich von selbst
verboten. Hingegen lagen schon etliche Prosaarbeiten aus Schillers Feder vor:
Erzhlungen, historische und sthetische Abhandlungen. Dass Schiller Jahre
vorher schon den Plan gefasst hatte, seine prosaischen Schriften einem
Verleger anzubieten, spricht einerseits fr sein Selbstbewusstsein als Autor, lt
andererseits aber auch seine schlechte wirtschaftliche Lage erkennen; es waren
wohl in erster Linie materielle Grnde die Tilgung drckender Schulden ,
die ihn zu diesem Schritt der Zweitverwertung seiner Texte bewogen. Bereits
am 30. Mrz 1789 hatte er den Freund Christian Gottfried Krner von seinem
Plan unterrichtet, den er vermutlich am 16. Mrz 1789 schon dem Verleger
Crusius unterbreitet hatte, mit dem er durch Krner bekannt geworden war.
Bemerkenswert an diesem Brief des noch nicht einmal Dreiigjhrigen ist,
dass er damals bereits eine Publikation von einzelnen prosaischen Aufstzen
und Gedichte [] in 3 Bndchen5 ins Auge fasst; zeitlebens ist Schiller ein
groer Plneschmied und verheiungsvoller Ankndiger gewesen. Auf
Schillers Brief vom 16. Mrz 1789 hat Crusius (in einem nicht erhaltenen
Brief) offensichtlich sogleich zustimmend geantwortet, doch nun lie Schiller
eine lngere Pause eintreten: erst am 8. Oktober 1791 unterbreitete er Crusius
ein neues Angebot: Um jedoch einen Theil meiner Verbindlichkeit gegen Sie
5

Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe (im folgenden abgekrzt: NA, mit Band- und
Seitennummer). Bd. 25. Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 1979. S. 239.

78
abzutragen, wollen wir, wenn es Ihnen recht ist, zwey Bndchen meiner
Vermischten Prosaischen Schriften auf die nchste Ostermesse herausgeben
(NA 26. 102). Erschienen ist der erste Band dann im September 1792.
Der Vorbericht zum ersten Band, mit der Unterschrift Jena, in der Ostermesse
1792, ist der erste programmatische Text des Herausgebers Schiller. Er sei
hier zunchst im Wortlaut wiedergegeben:
Um dem Nachdruck zuvorzukommen und zugleich meinen Freunden in der
lesenden Welt eine Auswahl desjenigen in die Hnde zu geben, was ich unter
meinen kleinern prosaischen Versuchen der Vergessenheit zu entziehen wnsche,
habe ich diese Sammlung veranstaltet, auf welche, wenn sie anders Leser und
Kufer findet, in der Folge ein zweiter und dritter Teil nachgeliefert werden knnten, die verschiedne noch ungedruckte Aufstze enthalten wrden. Bei den
mehresten der hier abgedruckten Aufstze mchte, wie ich gar wohl einsehe, eine
strengere Feile nicht berflssig gewesen sein; und es war auch anfangs meine
Absicht, Ton und Inhalt meiner gegenwrtigen Vorstellungsart gemer zu machen;
aber ein vernderter Geschmack ist nicht immer ein besserer, und vielleicht htte
die zweite Hand ihnen gerade dasjenige genommen, wodurch sie bei ihrer ersten
Erscheinung Beifall gefunden haben. Sie tragen also auch noch jetzt das jugendliche
Geprge ihrer ersten zuflligen Entstehung und bitten dieser Ursache wegen um die
Nachsicht des Lesers. Nicht immer ist es der innere Gehalt einer Schrift, der den
Leser fesselt; zuweilen gewinnt sie ihn blo durch charakteristische Zge, in denen
sich die Individualitt ihres Urhebers offenbart; eine Eigenschaft, die oft gerade die
vollendetsten Werke eines Autors verleugnen. Fr Leser also, welche diese interessieren kann, die, wenn sie in dem Buche auch nicht mehr finden sollten als den
Verfasser selbst, mit diesem kleinen Gewinn sich begngen, sind diese Rhapsodien
bestimmt, und eine flchtige, fr ernsthafte Zwecke nicht ganz verlorene Unterhaltung
ist alles, was ich Ihnen davon versprechen kann. (NA 22. 102)

Als potentieller Wirkungsstratege erweist sich Schiller in diesem Text. Die eingangs geuerte Befrchtung, dem Nachdruck zuvorkommen zu mssen,
stellte sich als unbegrndet heraus und war von vornherein als geschickte
Spekulation auf das eigene Renomm zu verstehen; denn in der Regel suchten
die Nachdrucker vom konomischen Erfolg einer Originalausgabe zu profitieren, und dieser hatte sich bei Schiller bislang nicht eingestellt und war nach
Lage der Dinge von der neuen Ausgabe kaum zu erwarten.
Die Versprechung, es knnten in der Folge ein zweiter und dritter Band
nachgeliefert werden, die verschiedne noch ungedruckte Aufstze enthalten
wrden, konnte Schiller zumindest in direkter Folge nicht einlsen. Der
zweite und der dritte Band erschienen erst 1800 und 1801, und sie enthielten
bis auf eine Ausnahme lngst gedruckte Beitrge. Band 2 brachte Ueber naive
und sentimentalische Dichtung, Ueber Anmuth und Wrde und Ueber die
Grenzen des Gebrauchs schner Formen, Band 3 Ueber das Erhabene (als
einzigen bislang ungedruckten Text), Ueber die sthetische Erziehung des
Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen und Ueber das Pathetische.

79
Etwa in der Mitte seines Vorberichts kommt Schiller auf den entscheidenden
Punkt zu sprechen. Er muss einrumen, dass bei der Redaktion der Beitrge
eine strengere Feile nicht berflssig gewesen wre und es auch anfangs seine
Absicht gewesen sei, Ton und Inhalt seiner gegenwrtigen Vorstellungsart
gemer zu machen. Dass es vor allem pragmatische berlegungen waren,
die ihn zum unvernderten Abdruck bewogen (Zeitnot, Arbeitsberlastung,
Krankheit), gibt Schiller nicht zu erkennen. Er begrndet seine Entscheidung
historisch und stellt den normativen Aspekt zurck. Der Leser solle seine
Arbeiten in der Gestalt kennenlernen, in der sie bei ihrer ersten Erscheinung
Beifall gefunden haben. Schiller verstrkt dieses Argument noch, indem er
postuliert, dass seine Arbeiten den Leser gerade durch die charakteristischen
Zge fesseln sollen, in denen sich die Individualitt ihres Urhebers offenbare; eine Eigenschaft, die oft gerade die vollendetsten Werke eines Autors
verleugnen. Whrend Schiller 1791 in seiner Rezension von Gottfried August
Brgers Gedichten charakteristische Zge angekreidet und dessen
Individualitt scharf kritisiert hatte, pldiert er in seinem Vorbericht dafr, die
Texte in der Ausgabe als originre Dokumente seiner inneren Bildungsgeschichte
zu lesen. Whrend er in der Brger-Rezension die Forderung erhebt, der
Dichter solle seine Individualitt zur reinsten herrlichsten Menschheit (NA
22. 246) hinauflutern, sieht er hier im Vollendungsstreben eine Gefahr fr die
Individualitt von Autor und Werk. Individualitt, Bildung, Historizitt kontra
Klassizitt, auf diesen Gegensatz lt sich Schillers Argumentation bringen,
die sich im vorliegenden Kontext als Pldoyer fr Historizitt und gegen
Klassizitt erweist, der er hier noch absagt, noch kein Denkmal der vollendetsten Werke errichten will. Dass pragmatische berlegungen insgesamt
eine groe Rolle spielen, wird in Band 1 der Prosaischen Schriften selbst
erkennbar, denn whrend Schiller im Vorbericht den Verzicht auf Verbesserungen
begrndet, ist auf der Titelseite zu lesen: Aus mehrern Zeitschriften vom
Verfasser selbst gesammelt und verbessert.6 Diesen Widerspruch hat schon
der Rezensent der Gttingischen Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen unter dem 5.
Dezember 1792 bemerkt und spttisch kommentiert. Auch in den spter
erschienenen Bnden hat Schiller nur Streichungen angebracht und sich auf
wenige stilistische Vernderungen beschrnkt.
Insgesamt besitzen die vier Bnde der kleinern prosaischen Versuche
ein sehr unterschiedliches Profil. Whrend der erste Band als ausgewogene
Dokumentation von Prosaarbeiten aller Genres anzusehen ist es fehlen die
damals schon vorliegenden kleinen Abhandlungen des Historikers Schiller
ebensowenig wie seine sthetischen Schriften oder Texte des Erfolgsbelletristen
wie der Geisterseher und die Bnde 2 und 3 die groen sthetischen
Abhandlungen der klassischen Zeit bringen, geriet Schiller bei der Vorbereitung
6

So in Bd. 1 der Kleineren prosaischen Schriften.

80
des Bandes 4, der 1802 herauskam, in ein Dilemma, wie es sich gleichzeitig
auch bei der Ausgabe seiner Gedichte einstellte. Strker als ihm lieb war
musste er, um den Band zu fllen, auf frhere Arbeiten zurckgreifen, die er
im ersten Band nicht fr wert befunden hatte, die eigene Entwicklung zu dokumentieren; die Schaubhnenrede von 1784 z. B. war darunter. Um den Anreiz
fr die Kufer zu erhhen, verfuhr er nach dem Suhrkamp-Prinzip: er mischte unter das Bekannte einen noch unverffentlichten Text (Gedanken ber
den Gebrauch des Gemeinen und Niedrigen in der Kunst, mit dem ausdrcklichen Vermerk Ungedruckt) und gab so dem ganzen Band den Anschein des
Neuen. Dass am Schluss sogar das dramatische Fragment Der Menschenfeind
aufgenommen wurde, mag die pragmatischen Zwnge verdeutlichen, denen
Schiller bei der Zusammenstellung des vierten Bandes unterworfen war.
Anders lagen die Dinge fr den Dramatiker Schiller. Seine Stcke waren,
lt man die im Selbstverlag erschienenen Ruber beiseite, bei verschiedenen
Verlegern erschienen, die an ihren Rechten festhielten und im Falle des
Erfolges auch Neuauflagen mit dem Autor verabredeten, so Gschen 1802 im
Falle des Don Karlos. Zwar hatte Schiller 1794 mit dem Tbinger Verleger
Johann Friedrich Cotta weitreichende Absprachen getroffen, doch seine
Unabhngigkeit bei der Entscheidung fr einen bestimmten Verleger wollte er
nicht aufgeben. Die Jungfrau von Orleans z. B. erschien 1802 bei Unger in
Berlin. Die so entstehende urheberrechtliche Situation machte eine
Sammeledition von Schillers Dramen, an der sein Hauptverleger Cotta sehr
interessiert war, nicht einfacher. Vor der Vollendung des Wallenstein aber wre
ohnehin nicht daran zu denken gewesen, und nach dessen Abschluss hatte sich
Schiller vorgesetzt, jedes Jahr ein neues Stck zu schreiben; daneben war
wenig Raum fr die Realisierung eigener Gesammelter Werke, fr die
Schiller, reifer geworden, wohl auch aufgrund des eigenen Lebensalters den
Zeitpunkt noch nicht gekommen sah.
Eine zustzliche Einnahmequelle aber war ihm immer willkommen, und so
ging er bereitwillig auf Cottas Plan ein, eine Ausgabe seiner Stcke zu veranstalten; in seinem Brief an den Verleger vom 6. Januar 1805 schlug er als
Titel Theater von Schiller vor, nachdem er im Brief vom 13. Dezember 1804
bereits den Inhalt der einzelnen Bnde disponiert hatte. Fr Band 1 waren Don
Karlos und die Jungfrau von Orleans vorgesehen, deren textliche Revision in
den nchsten Wochen erfolgte, beiden vorangestellt Schillers 1804 entstandenes Festspiel Die Huldigung der Knste. Bei der Vorbereitung des
Bandes widmete Schiller, wie bei anderen Publikationen auch, der
Buchsthetik (Format, Papier, Typographie) besondere Aufmerksamkeit;
Blankverse sollten z. B. mglichst nicht auf zwei Zeilen verteilt werden. Auf
einen sorgfltigen Satz legte er stets groen Wert, und Mastab bei alledem
war ihm die letzte zu Lebzeiten erschienene Einzelausgabe des Don Karlos bei
Gschen.

81
Der erste Band des Theaters erschien nach Schillers Tod im Jahre 1805.
Cotta als Verleger steuerte eine Vorrede bei:
Der verewigte Schiller hat zwar die Erscheinung des ersten Theils seines Theaters
nicht mehr erlebt: da er aber nach seiner gewohnten Vorsicht die Einrichtung des
Ganzen, so wie die Verbesserungen der einzelnen Stcke, gleich bey dem Beginnen
des Drucks bestimmt hatte, so kann die Herausgabe vollkommen nach seiner
Angabe besorgt werden.
Diese vollstndige Sammlung aller seiner theatralischen Werke wird daher aus
fnf Theilen bestehen, jeder von 3540 Bogen. Fr den lezten Theil ist Demetrius
bestimmt ein Trauerspiel, das der unsterbliche Dichter dem Plane nach ganz entworfen, wovon er aber nur die beiden ersten Aufzge vollendet hat. Mchte der
Einzige, der das Fehlende in gleichem Geist vollenden knnte, seinem Freunde und
dem Publikum diesen groen Dienst erweisen!7

Wir wissen, dass dieser Einzige Goethe zwar den Plan zur Vollendung
des Demetrius gefasst hatte, dann aber davon Abstand nahm. In der Vorrede zum
fnften Band, 1807 erschienen, traf Cotta eine neue strategische Disposition:
Mit diesem Band ist Schillers Theater nun geschlossen, indem er alles enthlt, was
von dem verewigten Verfasser fr dasselbe bestimmt war, Demetrius allein
ausgenommen. Da dieses Trauerspiel nur als vollendetes Ganze fr diese
Sammlung gehrte, durch den schnellen Tod des Verfassers aber blos als
Bruchstck zurckblieb, so erfordert es die Pflicht, es nur in die nachgelassenen
Schriften aufzunehmen. Diese wird das Publikum sorgfltigst gesammelt von einem
der ltesten und vertrautesten Freunde des unsterblichen Dichters, dem die Familie
dieses Geschft anvertraut hat, erhalten, und sie werden mit seinen smmtlichen
Werken in meinem Verlage erscheinen.8

Damit war Cottas verlegerische Strategie bezeichnet, und zum editorischen

Testamentsvollstrecker Schillers wurde Christian Gottfried Krner bestellt.
Fr den Lyriker Schiller haben Publikationsbedingungen und -mglichkeiten
stets eine wichtige Rolle gespielt; zu den inneren Beweggrnden seines lyrischen
Schaffens standen sie in einem spannungsvollen Wechselverhltnis. Als der
junge Regimentsarzt mit seiner Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782 dem Schwbischen
Musenalmanach auf das Jahr 1782 von Gotthold Friedrich Studlin Paroli bot,
schuf er sich die Mglichkeit, bislang entstandene Gedichte zu verffentlichen, und zwar, um Autorenvielfalt vorzutuschen, unter verschiedenen
Pseudonymen, und zugleich die eigene Muse zu kommandieren. Innere
Disposition und uerer Publikationsdruck stimmten zusammen.
In den Jahren 17821788 schrieb Schiller nur wenige Gedichte, und auch
bei seinen Zeitschriftenunternehmungen wies er der Rubrik Gedichte und
7
8

Theater von Schiller. Bd. 1. Tbingen: Cotta 1805. S. v.

Theater von Schiller. Bd. 5. Tbingen: Cotta 1807. S. v.

82
Rhapsodien, Fragmente von dramatischen Stcken (NA 22. 98) z. B. in der
Rheinischen Thalia nur einen Randplatz zu. Im Hinblick auf die bei Gschen
erscheinende Thalia bedeutete er Wilhelm von Wolzogen im Brief vom 29.
Juni 1790, dass ihm politische, historische, belletristische Gegenstnde (nur
Gedichte ausgenommen) [] gleich brauchbar (NA 26. 28) seien. Schiller
wollte sich, wie sein Brief an Gschen vom 25. Februar 1793 bezeugt, nicht
vom literarischen Mittelma abhngig machen: Fr die Thalia will ich Sorge
tragen, da das Publikum wollen mu. Verfngliche Aufstze sollen weggelassen werden, und Gedichte nur dann, wenn sie es vorzglich wrdig sind,
einen Platz darinn finden. Zuweilen ist es mir begegnet, da ich den
zudringlichen Bitten eines armen Musensohns nachgab, und drucken lie was
ungedruckt htte bleiben sollen (NA 26. 218).
Das Bild nderte sich, als Schiller 1794 nach Jahren der Isolation in der
philosophischen Studierstube wieder Anschluss an das literarische Leben und
auch neue Erwerbsmglichkeiten suchte. Mit Johann Friedrich Cotta verabredete er die Grndung der Horen, mit dem Neustrelitzer Verleger Salomo
Heinrich Michaelis die Herausgabe eines Musenalmanachs, der 1796 ebenfalls
zu Cotta berging. Beide Periodika stattete Schiller mit eigenen Gedichten aus.
Den Horen blieben Gedichte mit hohem philosophisch-gedanklichen Anspruch
vorbehalten (z. B. Das Reich der Schatten, Natur und Schule, Elegie),
kleinere Beitrge, vor allem Epigramme, durfte Cotta als Lckenfller verwenden. Von 1796 an brachten die Horen nur noch vereinzelt Gedichte von
Schiller. Sein Interesse konzentrierte sich, was die eigene Dichtung betraf, auf
den Musenalmanach. Zum Jahresende 1797 mussten die Horen ohnehin ihr
Erscheinen einstellen.
Um den Musenalmanach mit eigenen Beitrgen zu fllen, musste Schiller
von 1795 an die Sommermonate ber als Redakteur und Autor unausgesetzt
ttig sein, denn nur pnktliches Erscheinen jeweils im September/Oktober
garantierte auch den konomischen Erfolg. Dem Jahrgang 1795 (fr das Jahr
1796) kam der reiche lyrische Ertrag des Sommers zugute; 1796 erschien der
Xenien-Almanach, 1797 der Balladen-Almanach. 1798 aber fehlte es Schiller,
wie er am 15. August 1798 an Krner schrieb,
an aller Lust zum lyrischen, ja ich habe sogar eine Abneigung dagegen, weil mich
das Bedrfni des Almanachs, wider meiner Neigung, aus dem beten Arbeiten am
Wallenstein wegrief. Ich hab es auch verschworen, da der Almanach auer dieser
nur noch eine einzige Fortsetzung erleben und dann aufhren soll. Ich kann die Zeit
die mir die Redaction und der eigne Antheil wegnimmt zu einer hhern Ttigkeit
verwenden []. (NA 29. 262)

Seine definitive Entscheidung, den Almanach aufzugeben, teilte Schiller

seinem Verleger Cotta am 10. Juli 1800 mit: Jezt aber kann ich Ihnen nicht
lnger verbergen, da es mir nicht mglich ist, Ihnen dieses Jahr den Almanach

83
zu versprechen. Zum lyrischen fehlt es mir gnzlich an Neigung und ohne diese
kann ich nichts leisten (NA 30. 170). Es klang wie ein Trost fr den Verleger,
wenn Schiller ihm am 25. September 1800 schrieb: Diese Calendermacherey
ist jezt auf einer so bertriebenen Hhe, da sie sinken mu, und ich lugne
nicht, da ich mich mit einer gewien innern Zufriedenheit aus diesem Felde
zurckziehe (NA 30. 200).
Schillers Plan einer mehrbndigen, alle Gattungen umfassenden Werkausgabe,
der schon 1789 entstanden war, lagen vor allem finanzielle Gesichtspunkte
zugrunde, wie sein Brief an Krner vom 30. Mrz 1789 zu erkennen gibt:
Wenn ich meine Gedichte sammle, blo mit Weglaung der ganz und gar
schlechten, so entstehen auch wohl 1012 Bogen. Wrde mir nun par Bogen
ein Carolin bezahlt, so wrde ich davon gegen 40 Carolin einzunehmen haben.
Nach dieser angestellten Berechnung schrieb ich an Crusius: Ich wolle meine
einzelnen prosaischen Aufstze und Gedichte sammeln und in 3 Bndchen
herausgeben [] (NA 25. 239). Gut 14 Tage spter, am 16. April 1789,
entwickelte der Publikationsstratege Schiller im Brief an Crusius den Plan
einer ersten Gesamtausgabe: Ich habe nun alles in Ordnung gebracht und
berechnet. Knftigen Posttag erhalten Sie fr zwey Bndchen Mscrpt., und das
brige erfolgt dann in wenigen Wochen nach. Einen Band, der grer ausgefallen ist, als ich dachte, habe ich theilen mssen. Der Erste enthlt also prosaische Schriften, der zweyte Theatralische Schriften und der dritte Gedichte.
Unter 20 gedruckten Bogen enthlt keiner (NA 25. 242).
Diese Ankndigung erwies sich, wie stets bei Schiller, zwar als vollmundig,
aber denkbar realittsfern; und vergleicht man die Bogenangaben zum
Gedichtband in beiden zitierten Briefen, dann hat Schiller Crusius gegenber
wider besseres Wissen krftig nach oben korrigiert. Der erste Teil der Kleineren
prosaischen Schriften erschien erst 1792, von den theatralischen Schriften war
nicht mehr die Rede, und auch mit der Zusammenstellung der Gedichte kam
Schiller nicht voran. Hufige Krankheit war der eine Grund, der ihn von dieser
Arbeit abhielt, der andere aber war das kritische Verhltnis zur eigenen
Jugenddichtung und das Bewusstsein, das bislang Entstandene berarbeiten zu
mssen. Ich frchte die Correctur wird sehr streng und zeitverderbend fr
mich seyn (NA 26. 239), schrieb Schiller am 5. Mai 1793 an Krner, vermutlich zur selben Zeit mit der Revision seiner Gedichte beschftigt. Vorher schon
hatte er im Brief vom 3. September 1792 Crusius den Wunsch nach einer
buchsthetisch makellosen Gedichtausgabe vorgetragen und dies wiederum
zur Beruhigung des Verlegers mit einer Terminzusage verbunden: Knftige
Ostern wollen Sie zuverlssig einen Band meiner Gedichte auf die Messe bringen []. Da ich bei der Sammlung meiner Gedichte alle mgliche uere
Eleganz beobachtet wnschte, so wre es mir sehr lieb, wenn Sie Sich mit einer
guten Parthie Schweitzerpapier dazu versehen wollten, und Herrn Gpfert
dazu vermchten, neue und feine Schrift dazu gieen zu lassen. [] Auch zu

84
Vignette und Kupfer werde ich Ihnen noch vor der Messe einige Ideen mittheilen (NA 26. 149).
Mit der Bestellung der guten Parthie Schweitzerpapier hatte es noch gute
Weile, denn weder das Manuskript noch die Ideen zur Illustration des Bandes
trafen bei dem ebenso langmtigen wie entgegenkommenden Verleger ein.
Erst im Herbst 1799 lie Schiller von einem Schreiber das Manuskript zusammenstellen. Eine Tagebuchnotiz Goethes vom 29. November 1799 (Abends
Schiller. Seine ltern Gedichte9) bezeugt, dass die Komposition des Bandes
im Gesprch mit dem Freund errtert wurde. Schiller konnte von den
Erfahrungen Goethes profitieren, der im August 1799 seine Gedichte fr Band
7 der bei Unger erscheinenden Neuen Schriften zusammengestellt hatte. Im
August 1800 lagen die Gedichte von Friederich Schiller. Erster Theil endlich
vor; Vorrede und Anmerkungen, im Brief an Crusius vom 6. Dezember 1799
noch zugesagt, fehlten.
Die nunmehr vorliegende Sammlung erwies sich als eine strenge und durchdachte Auswahl der klassischen Lyrik Schillers, wie sie in den Horen und in
den Musenalmanachen verffentlich worden war; aus dem Xenien-Komplex
stellte Schiller die Reihe Shakespeares Schatten und eine Auswahl aus den
Votivtafeln zusammen. Gerahmt wird das Ganze von Schillers Programmgedicht
Das Mdchen aus der Fremde und dem Abschied vom Leser, mit dem der
Musenalmanach fr das Jahr 1796 beschlossen worden war. Nur fnf der vor
1795 entstandenen Gedichte wurden in den Band aufgenommen: Die Blumen
(als einziges aus der Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782), Hektors Abschied, Der
Kampf , Die Gtter Griechenlandes und Resignation. Hinzu kamen zwei
bersetzungen nach Euripides (Die Hochzeit der Thetis) und Vergil (Die
Zerstrung von Troja), geschickt in die Sammlung hineinkomponiert.
ber seine Konzeption gab Schiller im Brief an Krner vom 3. September
1800 Auskunft:
Hier erhltst Du meine Gedichte. Du wirst manche vergeblich darinn suchen, theils
weil sie ganz wegbleiben theils auch weil es mir an Stimmung fehlte, ihnen nachzuhelfen. [] Auch in denen, welche eingerckt sind, wirst Du manches Einzelne, und
vielleicht ungern, vermissen; aber ich habe nach meinem kritischen Gefhl gehandelt
und der Rndung des Ganzen das einzelne, wo die strte, aufgeopfert. Besonders
habe ich die Gedichte von gewien abstracten Ideen mglichst zu befreien gesucht; es
war eine Zeit, wo ich mich allzusehr auf jene Seite neigte. (NA 30. 192)

In seiner Antwort vom 10. September monierte Krner vor allem das Fehlen
der Knstler und der Freude, doch Schiller rumte replizierend am 21.
Oktober zwar ein, dass er in einigen Fllen Skrupel gehabt und die Knstler
z. B. wohl zwanzigmale in der Hand herum geworfen habe, eh ich mich
decidierte, doch in der Sache blieb er fest: Ob ich gleich selbst nicht mit
9

Goethes Werke. Weimarer Ausgabe. III. Abtheilung. Bd. 2. Weimar: Bhlau 1888. S. 272.

85
allen ganz zufrieden bin, so kann ich doch der Maxime, die mich geleitet
haben, nichts vergeben (NA 30. 206207).
Als wesentliches Kriterium fr die Auswahl erwies sich 1799 Schillers
aktuelles, im Diskurs mit Goethe gereiftes Verstndnis von lyrischer Dichtung,
nicht die historische Dokumentation der eigenen Entwicklung. In diesem
Sinne revidierte Schiller seine Gedichte, wobei er unbefangen die zeitgenssische Kritik auswertete, mochte sie von Freunden oder Gegnern stammen. Mit
Blick auf unsere Ausgangshypothese: nicht das Bewusstsein von Historizitt,
sondern der Wille zu Klassizitt leitete Schiller bei der Komposition und
Revision seiner Gedichte.
Diesem Grundsatz musste Schiller beim zweiten Band jedoch untreu werden, zu dessen Zusammenstellung er sich Crusius gegenber verpflichtet und
diese Zusage durch den Untertitel Erster Theil auch dokumentiert hatte. 1802
nahm er beim Verleger einen Vorschuss auf die versprochene Fortsetzung, so
dass der uere Druck unabweisbar wurde. Um dem zweiten Band ungefhr
den Umfang des ersten geben zu knnen, musste Schiller, mehr als ihm lieb
sein mochte, auf Gedichte der Jugendzeit zurckgreifen. Der Inhalt der Sammlung setzt sich im wesentlichen aus drei Textgruppen zusammen: 1. aus einer
Reihe von Anthologie-Gedichten und Gedichten der achtziger Jahre, die Schiller
hufig radikal krzte; 2. aus Gedichten der Jahre 17951799, die Schillers
strengen Mastben fr den ersten Teil nicht gengt hatten, sowie mehreren
Epigrammreihen; 3. aus den zwischen 1800 und 1802 entstandenen Gedichten.
Die Gedichte aus den Jahren 18031805 fanden dann in der zweiten, verbesserten
und vermehrten Ausgabe des zweiten Bandes Aufnahme, die noch zu Schillers
Lebzeiten 1805 erschien. Der Rechtfertigung von Schillers historischem
Verfahren diente die Vorrede, die den im Frhjahr 1803 erschienenen Band
einleitete:
Vielleicht htte bei Sammlung dieser Gedichte eine strengere Auswahl getroffen
werden sollen. Die wilden Produkte eines jugendlichen Dilettantisms, die unsichern
Versuche einer anfangenden Kunst und eines mit sich selbst noch nicht einigen
Geschmacks finden sich hier mit solchen zusammengestellt, die das Werk einer
reifern Einsicht sind. Aber bei einer Sammlung von Gedichten, welche sich grtenteils schon in den Hnden des Publikums befinden, konnte der poetische Wert
nicht allein in Betrachtung kommen. Sie sind schon ein verjhrtes Eigentum des
Lesers, der sich oft auch das Unvollkommene nicht gern entreien lt, weil es ihm
durch irgendeine Beziehung oder Erinnerung lieb geworden ist, und selbst das
Fehlerhafte bezeichnet wenigstens eine Stufe in der Geistesbildung des Dichters.
Der Verfasser dieser Gedichte hat sich, so wie alle seine brigen Kunstgenossen,
vor den Augen der Nation und mit derselben gebildet; er wte auch keinen, der
schon vollendet aufgetreten wre. Er trgt als kein Bedenken, sich dem Publikum
auf einmal in der Gestalt darzustellen, in welcher er nach und nach vor demselben
schon erschienen ist. Er freut sich, da ihm das Vergangene vorber ist, und insofern
er sie berwunden hat, mag er auch seine Schwchen nicht bereuen. Mchte diese
rechtmige, korrekte und ausgewhlte Sammlung diejenige endlich verdrngen,

86
welche vor einigen Jahren von den Gedichten der Verfassers in drei Bnden
erschienen ist und ungeachtet eines unverzeihlich fehlerhaften Drucks und eines
schmutzigen uern zur Schande des guten Geschmacks und zum Schaden des
rechtmigen Verlegers dennoch Kufer findet. (NA 22. 12)

Wenngleich dieses Bekenntnis fr sich genommen durchaus plausibel

erscheint, so muss es doch vor dem Hintergrund von Schillers klassischer
sthetik und deren rigorosem Qualittsanspruch als pragmatisch-diplomatisches
Ausweichmanver erscheinen. Whrend in der hnlich angelegten Vorrede zu
den Kleineren prosaischen Schriften, ein Jahrzehnt frher entstanden, Standort
des Autors und Auswahlprinzip noch sinnvoller miteinander korrespondierten,
steht hier die historisch-biographische Argumentation des Dichters im
Widerspruch zu seiner Werksthetik und dem davon herzuleitenden kritischen
Verhltnis zur eigenen vorklassischen Dichtung. Die Zeitgenossen nahmen
die in der Vorrede vorgebrachten Entschuldigungsgrnde denn auch mit
Skepsis auf.
Ein letztes editorisches Projekt Schillers ist noch vorzustellen, die sogenannte Prachtausgabe seiner Gedichte. Der Ansto dazu ging von Crusius aus,
der in seinem Brief vom 8. Januar 1803, durch den guten Absatz der Gedichte
ermutigt, Schiller vorschlug, eine Prachtausgabe in gro Format zu veranstalten, die einige Kupfer von unsern vorzglichsten Meistern zieren sollten, zu
denen die Sujets mir Dero Gte entwerfen wrde. [] Zu dieser Ausgabe, so
fhrt Crusius fort, wnschte ich aber, da Dieselben mir erlauben mchten,
lateinische Lettern nehmen zu drfen (NA 40/I. 4). Ein solches Anerbieten
musste dem Dichter willkommen sein, weil er sich von einer solchen Ausgabe
reichlichen Gewinn und Befreiung von einer drckenden Schuldenlast
erhoffte. Seit den neunziger Jahren erschienen ihm die in der Didot-Antiqua
gesetzten Ausgaben, wie sie Gschen von den Werken Klopstocks und
Wielands und 1802 auch vom eigenen Don Karlos veranstaltet hatte, als Ideal
buchknstlerischer Harmonie. In den folgenden Wochen wurden in der
Korrespondenz zwischen Autor und Verleger Knstlernamen diskutiert,
Schrift- und Satzproben ausgetauscht. Schon aus Umfangsgrnden wollte
Schiller, seinem Brief an Crusius vom 3. April 1803 zufolge, den Ersten und
Zweiten Teil der Gedichtsammlung verschmelzen. Ich habe, so argumentierte er weiter, dazu noch einen andern und wichtigeren Grund, denn ich
mchte gerne die Gedichte, welche in dem nehmlichen Geist geschrieben sind
oder zu einer Klae gehren auch in Einem Bande verbinden (NA 32. 29).
Schiller legte die neue Ausgabe mit Umsicht und Sorgfalt an, wie der Brief
an Crusius vom 3. Oktober 1803 bezeugt:
Um ganz gewi zu wissen, welche Rume auszufllen sind, lasse ich jetzt ein
Exemplar der Gedichte fr die Prachtausgabe in der Ordnung und nach der
Auswahl, wie die Gedichte aufeinander folgen sollen, abschreiben [durch den

87
Diener Rudolph], wobei ich mich streng an den Probebogen halte, den Sie mir im
Frhjahr zugeschickt. Weil es Verse sind und weil das Format so breit, da kein Vers
braucht gebrochen zu werden, so lt sich alles bis auf die Zeile berechnen, und ich
werde in der Anordnung dafr sorgen, da die Zierrathen, welche auf den leeren
Rumen unter den Gedichten angebracht werden sollen, sich gleich und verhltnimig ber das ganze Werk verteilen (NA 32. 75).

Vier Bcher in der Ordnung, die ich fr die schicklichste hielt und deren
jedes im Durchschnitt 10 Bogen oder 80 Quartseiten hlt,10 waren so
zustande gekommen.
Die im selben Brief angekndigte Manuskriptsendung lie freilich auf sich
warten; zu Lebzeiten Schillers ging Crusius leer aus. Um die Rechte an den
Gedichtausgaben (den Plan der Prachtausgabe eingeschlossen) entspann
sich nach Schillers Tod ein unerfreulicher Streit zwischen Crusius auf der
einen und Schillers Witwe sowie Cotta auf der anderen Seite, in dessen
Ergebnis Crusius 1807 auf seine Rechte (und auch auf die Prachtausgabe)
verzichten musste; 1904 erst wurden Schillers Gedichte zum ersten Mal in
Anordnung und Textgestalt der Prachtausgabe von Eduard von der Hellen in
der Skularausgabe verffentlicht. Fr Cotta trat Krner als Herausgeber der
Gedichte auf den Plan.
Das Manuskript der Prachtausgabe, von Schillers Diener Rudolph
sorgfltig geschrieben, ist im Weimarer Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv berliefert. Schiller hat darin nicht nur eigenhndig korrigiert, sondern auch nach
Vollendung der Abschrift ein Inhaltsverzeichnis der knftigen Ausgabe
angelegt. Das erste Buch enthlt Lieder oder liedhafte Gedichte, das zweite
bringt Balladen und Romanzen, das dritte umfasst die hexametrischen Elegien
und Epigramme, das vierte die programmatischen Gedichte zu Kunst und
Weltanschauung, wobei in gewisser Weise die Grenzen zwischen den Bchern
I und IV flieend sind. Den Anfang sollte, wie im Ersten Teil der Gedichte
auch, Das Mdchen aus der Fremde bilden. In neuer Auswahl und
Anordnung wurden die Votivtafeln vorgelegt.
Bei dem Urteil ber den Zustand des Manuskripts darf man sich von
Schillers zweckhaft-euphorischen uerungen nicht tuschen lassen. Es weist
noch einen gewissen offenen Charakter auf. So hat Schiller z. B. fr den
Beginn des ersten Buches noch eine andere Anordnung erwogen, und zwei
eingelegte leere Doppelbltter mit der berschrift Die Knstler erweisen,
dass dieses Gedicht umgearbeitet werden sollte. An mehreren Stellen sind
zudem Umstellungen erwogen worden. Im Inhaltsverzeichnis ist der Schluss
des vierten Buches weggeschnitten; man darf vermuten, dass die folgenden, im
Manuskript in einem besonderen Umschlag aufbewahrten Gedichte (Sngers

10

Schiller an Crusius. 21.11.1804. NA 32. 169.

88
Abschied [Abschied vom Leser]; Poesie des Lebens; Hoffnung;
Breite und Tiefe; Spruch des Konfuzius [1795]; Licht und Wrme;
Spruch des Konfuzius [1799]; Die Gunst des Augenblicks) an den Schluss
des vierten Buches gehren. Mithin sind keine definitiven Aussagen ber den
Abschluss der Prachtausgabe zu treffen.
Es ist hier nicht der Ort, all die heiklen Fragen zu errtern, die im Zusammenhang mit einer historisch-kritischen Edition von Schillers Gedichten zu
stellen sind, wie sie heute in der Nationalausgabe vorliegt in einer Anordnung
und Textgestalt, die selbst ein Stck Editionsgeschichte darstellen und von der
Schwierigkeit der Aufgabe Zeugnis ablegen. Allgemein formuliert: wer Schillers
Gedichte chronologisch edieren will, sollte die Erstfassungen wiedergeben,
wer sich an Schillers Gedichtausgaben oder an der Prachtausgabe orientiert,
muss mit Anhngen arbeiten. Nach meiner Auffassung kann der Prachtausgabe nur eingeschrnkt der Status einer Ausgabe letzter Hand zuerkannt
werden. Dagegen sprechen die Offenheit des Manuskripts ebenso wie das strenge
Auswahlprinzip, das dem Grundsatz der Klassizitt verpflichtet ist. Dafr
spricht der Umstand, dass Schiller tatschlich letzte Hand an das Manuskript
gelegt und ihm den Charakter einer sorgfltig komponierten, auf das in seinen
Augen Gltige und Bewahrenswerte zielenden Sammlung gegeben hat, die
berdies durch eine sorgfltige Typographie, die dem Gedicht seine monadische Existenz belie, und durch Illustrationen in den Rang eines klassischen
Gesamtkunstwerkes erhoben werden sollte.
Schillers frher Tod hat verhindert, dass ihm zu Lebzeiten eine seinem Rang
geme Ausgabe von Gesammelten Werken zuteil werden konnte. Doch so
wie der Ruhm des Toten sich sehr bald unaufhaltsam verbreitete, so stellte sich
auch rasch die Forderung nach Smtlichen Werken ein, wie sie vor allem von der
Trinitt Charlotte von Schiller, Johann Friedrich Cotta und Christian Gottfried
Krner erhoben wurde. Als Krner dann 1809 50 Jahre nach Schillers Geburt
die Herausgabe der Smtlichen Werke bernahm, wurde der Grundstein gelegt
fr eine beispiellose Vermarktung des im Licht der Verklrung stehenden
Nationaldichters. Das aber wre ein neues Thema.

K. F. Hilliard

Nicht in Person sondern durch einen Reprsentanten:

Problematik der Reprsentation bei Schiller
The essay examines the difficulties inherent in the idea of representation, as they were
dealt with by Schiller. The chief danger is that representatives and representations will
usurp the place rightfully belonging to the thing or person they are standing in for, and
thus block their effects and purposes. Since unmediated access to them is impossible,
we seem to be condemned to a perpetual displacement of substance by its shadow. On
rational grounds alone, the difference between representatives or representations, and
the things or persons they represent, cannot be overcome. But it can be overlooked in a
playful regression to pre-rational modes of thought, in which the representation magically is what it represents. This resolution of a semiotic difficulty has far-reaching ethical consequences. Only on condition of imaginative regression can the beneficent
impulses of nature be represented within culture and thus replenish the resources of our
moral life. A reading of Die Kraniche des Ibycus illustrates this outcome.

Wenn gefragt wird, wie Reprsentationsverhltnisse funktionieren, ist die Antwort

schnell parat: durch Konvention. Dass z. B. ein Verkehrsschild ein bestimmtes Verkehrsverhalten vorschreibt; dass eine bestimmte Folge von Tnen am
Telefon anzeigt, dass der Anschluss nicht hergestellt werden kann; dass eine
Ehrenbezeichnung an eine Krperschaft durch einen Vertreter derselben entgegengenommen wird all das beruht auf allseitig verstandenen gemeinschaftlichen Pakta, auf Konventionen also.1
Die Reprsentation stellt die Philosophie vor Probleme, sobald man fragt,
worauf denn nun ihrerseits die Konvention beruhe. Aber weder die allgemeine
philosophische (zeichentheoretische) Fragestellung noch die etwaige philosophische Lsung dieser Probleme interessiert mich hier. Vielmehr geht es mir
um eine zeit- und kulturspezifische Krise des Reprsentationsverhltnisses in
der zweiten Hlfte des 18. Jahrhunderts. Bei vielen bedeutenden Zeitgenossen
ging nmlich die schne Selbstverstndlichkeit verloren, mit der man sich auf
die Behelfskonstruktion der Konvention verlassen konnte, um die Verbindung
zwischen der reprsentierenden und der reprsentierten Sache zu garantieren.
Hier ist eine der Stellen bezeichnet, wo eine noch rational-logische Frh- und

Franz Moor in den Rubern, I. 1. Friedrich Schiller: Smtliche Werke. Hg. v. Gerhard
Fricke u. Herbert G. Gpfert. 5 Bde. Mnchen: Hanser 3. Aufl. 1962. Bd. 1. S.
491618, hier S. 500. Im weiteren Verlauf wird auf diese Ausgabe unter der Sigle SW
mit rmischer Bandziffer verwiesen.

90
Hochaufklrung in eine durchgehend empfindsam-sensualistische Sptaufklrung
bergeht.2
Die Verstrung ging aus von einem zutiefst in der Aufklrung verwurzelten
Prinzip: dem Begriff der Natur. Und zwar wirkte dieser Begriff doppelt
beunruhigend. Einmal weil es sich die Aufklrung programmatisch zum
Ziel gesetzt hatte, mglichst viele, wenn nicht alle Erscheinungen des Lebens
als natrliche zu erklren. Es folgte daraus, dass Erscheinungen, die nur durch
Konvention ihr Bestehen hatten, und nicht auf natrliche Ursachen und Prozesse
zurckgefhrt werden konnten, ipso facto unter dem Verdikt standen, als blo
knstliches Flickwerk keine eigentliche Daseinsberechtigung zu besitzen.
Auf Abruf waren sie damit entlegitimiert. Wenn sie neu zu legitimieren waren,
musste es natrlich ohne Appell an die Konvention geschehen, denn gerade
diese war ja knstlich und damit als Erklrungsprinzip unzulssig. Alle
Erklrungsmuster mussten vielmehr aus dem Repertorium der Natur gezogen
werden, was zur Folge hatte, dass psychologische, anthropologische und utilitaristische Erklrungen nun Konjunktur hatten.
Der Naturbegriff bedeutete zweitens fr die Begrndung der Reprsentation ein Problem, sobald man ihn nicht nur als oberste wissenschaftliche
Erklrungsinstanz verstand, sondern als ethische Norm, in deren Namen die
menschlichen und gesellschaftlichen Verhltnisse zu reformieren waren. In
deren Namen denn dass die Natur selbst im menschlichen Zusammenleben
wirksam wrde, war nicht zu erwarten, zumindest nicht auf ganzer Linie. Die
moderne Welt war nun einmal eine knstliche, und so musste man hoffen, dass
die Natur da, wo sie nicht selbst agierte, zumindest gltig reprsentiert wrde,
d. h. innerhalb der knstlichen Welt Vertreter fnde, die ihre Sache zu der ihren
machten und vorantrieben.
Gerade da standen und stehen die Dinge misslich. Fr den Verstand ist prinzipiell nicht einzusehen, wie berhaupt zwei Sachen ohne den Kitt der Konvention
in ein Reprsentationsverhltnis treten knnen. Es gehrt zum Wesen der
Reprsentation oder der Darstellung, dass darin sowohl eine Gleichheit als
auch eine Ungleichheit enthalten sind. Eine Sache vertritt eine andere und
erhebt damit den Anspruch auf quivalenz. Der Stellvertreter kann aber per
2

Stellvertretend seien hier (auf die spezielle Frage der Konventionalitt sprachlicher
Zeichen bezogen) auf der einen Seite Locke, auf der anderen Herder genannt. John
Locke: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Hg. v. Peter H. Nidditch. Oxford:
Clarendon Press 1979. S. 405 (3. Buch. 2. Kap.). Johann Gottfried Herder: Abhandlung
ber den Ursprung der Sprache. In: Frhe Schriften 17641772. Hg. v. Ulrich Gaier.
Frankfurt/M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag 1985 (Bibliothek deutscher Klassiker 1). S.
695810, hier S. 725, 736, 739. Freilich setzt gerade bei Locke die sensualistische
Wende der Aufklrung ein; nur ist der Sensualismus bei ihm nicht konsequent zu Ende
gedacht. Vgl. Panayotis Kondylis: Die Aufklrung im Rahmen des neuzeitlichen
Rationalismus. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 1981. S. 287290.

91
definitionem nicht derselbe sein wie der, an dessen Stelle er tritt; er ist ein
anderer. Man kann z. B. von der Bezeichnung ebenso gut behaupten, dass sie
die Sicht auf das Bezeichnete hin freigibt, als dass sie uns die Sicht darauf verstellt, indem sie sich davor schiebt; jede Bezeichnung ist damit auch eine
Verzeichnung,3 jede Darstellung eine Entstellung des Gemeinten. So auch in
nicht-sprachlichen Reprsentationsverhltnissen. Durch die dienende Gebrde
des Reprsentanten kann eine schleichende Usurpation kaschiert und befrdert
werden: noch und gerade indem er die Sache des Reprsentierten vertritt,
erteilt er sich alle Vollmacht, an seine Stelle zu treten, fr ihn zu sprechen und statt
seiner zu agieren. Wer das Wort fhren will, muss die anderen zum Verstummen
bringen; mit jeder Vormundschaft geht eine Entmndigung einher. In der Person
des Volksvertreters kommt das Volk an die Macht und wird zugleich von der
Macht ferngehalten.
Wie Schiller diese Klippe als Gefahr erkannte, sie aber auch zu umschiffen
versuchte, ist der Gegenstand folgender berlegungen. Ich habe in der soeben
aufgestellten Beispielsammlung mit Absicht Begriffe aus verschiedenen
Gebieten vermengt aus der sthetik, der Linguistik, dem Rechtswesen, der
Politik. Mit Absicht: denn eine solche Begriffsberschneidung kennzeichnet auch
Schillers Denken. Das drfte nicht weiter berraschen, wollte er doch auf breiter Front psychologische, moralische, sthetische und politische Fragen zugleich
angehen. Die eine Fragestellung vertritt immer auch die anderen mit. Wie sich
die Gemtskrfte in der Seele zueinander verhalten, so auch die verschiedenen
Instanzen im Staat. Solche Analogien haben ja im brigen eine lange Tradition.
Sie erlauben immer wieder Metaphernbildungen, in denen das eine sich im
andern spiegelt, wobei nur zu beachten ist, dass die Bedeutungsverhltnisse
sich immer auch umkehren lassen: wird an einer Stelle mit einer politischen
Begrifflichkeit ein seelischer Vorgang veranschaulicht, so kann man sicher
sein, dass umgekehrt auch der seelische Vorgang der Erhellung politischer
Verhltnisse dienen kann.
Dass solche Begriffsberschneidungen bei Schiller kein Symptom von
Begriffsverwirrung sind, ist darauf zurckzufhren, dass ihnen zuletzt die
primre binre Logik zugrundeliegt, auf die meine einfhrenden Bemerkungen
hingewiesen haben. Immer sucht Schiller, die Natur der Kultur gegenber ins
Recht zu setzen, ohne andererseits der Kultur etwas zu vergeben und in ihren
Ansprchen zu beschneiden. Ich will im Folgenden an einigen Punkten ansetzen, wo sich dieses Grundproblem einer Vermittlung von Natur und Kultur als
Reprsentationsvorgang artikuliert. In einem ersten Schritt soll das Versagen
der Reprsentation bzw. der Darstellung (Schiller verwendet beide Termini)
3
Vgl. das Wortspiel nachzeichnen/verzeichnen in Kafkas Ein Bericht fr eine Akademie.
In: Die Erzhlungen und andere ausgewhlte Prosa. Hg. v. Roger Hermes.
Frankfurt/M.: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag 6. Aufl. 2001. S. 322333, hier S. 325.

92
skizziert werden. Dann will ich zeigen, wie Schiller sie als Schein, als
Rollenspiel, im Modus des So-Tun-Als-Ob also, positiv zu begrnden versucht.
Eine Sache fr eine andere zu nehmen und auf nichts anderem beruht
fr Schiller die gelungene Reprsentation verlangt nmlich immer ein
Hinwegsehen ber ihre faktische Nicht-Identitt. Gerade diese Verleugnung
des Tatschlichen erweist sich aber als die Bedingung fr das Wirklichwerden
des Mglichen, sowohl im seelischen Haushalt des Menschen als auch in
seinem gesellschaftlichen Zusammenleben. Fr Schillers Kulturprogramm hat
damit das in der Reprsentation entdeckte positive sthetisch-psychologische
Potential eine bedeutsame Funktion. Es geht hier nicht blo darum, eine technische Schwierigkeit zu beheben. Es stehen vielmehr ethisch-menschliche
Grundsatzfragen auf dem Spiel.
Das zeigt sich ex negativo in den Fllen, wo die Reprsentation versagt. Um
ein Versagen im etymologischen Sinn geht es in dem bekannten Distichon
Sprache von 1796:4
Warum kann der lebendige Geist dem Geist nicht erscheinen!
Spricht die Seele, so spricht ach! schon die Seele nicht mehr.5

Dem naiven Optimismus des spten Herder, fr den, im gleichen Jahr, die Rede
[] Ausdruck der Seele, ein darstellendes Bild aller unsrer Gedanken und
Empfindungen ist,6 setzt Schiller das tragische Bewusstsein entgegen, dass der
Ausdruck gerade durch das, was ihn ermglicht, zugleich auch verhindert wird.
Die Sprache spricht in fremdem Auftrag, und hat dabei allen guten Willen, sich
selbst zur bloen Handlung der Seele, zum bloen Prdikat der seelischen
Substanz zu machen. Doch es gelingt ihr nicht. Sie besitzt dafr zuviel an
eigener Substanz. Sie macht sich wortreich breit, wo eigentlich ein in Worten
nicht zu Fassendes zur Entfaltung kommen sollte. Nur in dem einzigen
ohnmchtigen ach!, das sich als Interjektion nach der Zsur hren lsst,
4

Gerhard Kaiser hat sich intensiv mit dem Gedicht auseinandergesetzt. Kaiser:
Augenblicke deutscher Lyrik. Gedichte von Martin Luther bis Paul Celan. Frankfurt/
M.: Insel 1987. S. 3153. Ders.: Geschichte der deutschen Lyrik von Goethe bis Heine.
3 Bde. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp 1988 (suhrkamp taschenbuch 2087). Bd. 1. S. 4156.
5
Friedrich Schiller: Werke und Briefe in zwlf Bnden. Hg. v. Otto Dann u.a. Frankfurt/
M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag 19882004. Bd. 1. S. 181. Im weiteren Verlauf wird auf
diese Ausgabe unter der Sigle FA mit Band- und Seitennummer verwiesen.
6
Johann Gottfried Herder: Examen 1796 [Von der Ausbildung der Rede und Sprache in
Kindern und Jugendlichen]. In: Journal meiner Reise im Jahr 1769. Pdagogische
Schriften. Hg. v. Reiner Wisbert. Frankfurt/M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag 1997
(Bibliothek deutscher Klassiker 147). S. 723734, hier S. 725. Freilich setzt sich
Herder mit dieser Affirmation der humanistischen Gleichsetzung von ratio und oratio
ber die Sprachskepsis seiner Frhzeit hinweg: Eine ausgedrckte Empfindung ist ein
Widerspruch. Herder: Von der Ode. In: Frhe Schriften 17641772 (wie Anm. 2).
S. 5799, hier S. 66.

93
gleichsam, als ob hier die Seele sich der Vergeblichkeit ihres Tuns auf einmal
bewusst wrde, und deshalb auf halbem Wege stehen bliebe, um dann doch,
notgedrungen, dem Zwang der Syntax machtlos ausgeliefert, den Satz zu Ende
zu fhren und damit ihre eigene Niederlage zu besiegeln nur in diesem ach!
ist ein letzter verhallender Ton der Seele noch zu hren. Es ist nicht bertrieben,
in diesem Laut einen Sterbeseufzer zu vernehmen. Denn indem die seelische
uerung blockiert wird, stirbt die zwischenmenschliche Kommunikation berhaupt ab: der lebendige Geist kann dem Geist nicht erscheinen. Drastischer
hatte Schiller diese Einsicht schon einmal formuliert, in einer zuletzt gestrichenen
Stelle aus dem Don Carlos, die er mehrfach in seinen Briefen zitierte:
O schlimm, da der Gedanke
Erst in der Sprache todte Elemente
Zerfallen mu, die Seele zum Gerippe
Absterben mu, der Seele zu erscheinen [].7

Diese melancholische Einsicht in die Vergeblichkeit nicht nur der sprachlich

vermittelten Darstellung, sondern der medialen Reprsentation berhaupt,
wird im letzten Kallias-Brief systematisch ausgebaut. Schiller will dort das
Verhltnis zwischen dem Gegenstand der knstlerischen Darstellung, dem
Medium der Darstellung, und der Subjektivitt des darstellenden Knstlers
klren. Es sind demnach dreierlei Naturen, die bei der knstlerischen Reprsentation miteinander ringen.8 Den Primat msste dabei eigentlich die Natur
des Gegenstands haben: Es ist [] blo die Natur des Nachgeahmten, was
wir in einem Kunstprodukt zu finden erwarten (FA 8. 324). In Wirklichkeit
wird der Gegenstand blo durch die dritte Hand vor die Einbildungskraft
gestellt, da sich die fremde Natur des Mediums und die eben so fremde Natur
des Knstlers dazwischenkommt (FA 8. 323): Die Natur des Reprsentierten
erleidet von dem Reprsentierenden Gewalt, sobald dieses seine Natur dabei
geltend macht (FA 8. 324). Nun knne zwar der Knstler, vorausgesetzt, er
bringt dazu die Selbstberwindung auf, seine Natur ablegen oder verleugnen
(FA 8. 325); das Medium hingegen lsst sich nicht so leicht besieg[en] und
vertilg[en] (FA 8. 324).
Besonders widerspenstig ist dabei wieder das Medium der sprachlichen
Knste. Hier muss das
darzustellende Objekt [], ehe es vor die Einbildungskraft gebracht und in
Anschauung verwandelt wird, durch das abstrakte Gebiet der Begriffe einen sehr
weiten Umweg nehmen, auf welchem es viel von seiner Lebendigkeit (sinnlichen
Kraft) verliert. []
7
Siehe die Briefe an Krner vom 15.4.1786, an Charlotte von Lengefeld vom
24.7.1789 und an Wilhelm von Humboldt vom 1.2.1796 (FA 1. 977).
8
Kallias, oder ber die Schnheit. FA 8. 276329, hier S. 323.

94
Die Sprache stellt alles vor den Verstand, und der Dichter soll alles vor die
Einbildungskraft bringen (darstellen); die Dichtkunst will Anschauungen, die
Sprache gibt nur Begriffe.
Die Sprache beraubt also den Gegenstand, dessen Darstellung ihr anvertraut wird,
seiner Sinnlichkeit und Individualitt, und drckt ihm eine Eigenschaft von ihr
selbst (Allgemeinheit) auf, die ihm fremd ist. (FA 8. 328329)

Indem die oratio, Medium und Ausdruck der gemeingeistigen ratio, den
konkret-sinnlichen, gleichsam vorzivilisatorischen seelischen Regungen
bergestlpt wird, bt sie eine glttende, normierende Zensur aus, bei der
gerade das Wesentliche, das Unwiederholbare, Einmalige, Lebendige des individuellen So-Seins auf der Strecke bleibt.
Fr die Verdrngung der Anschauungen durch die Begriffe, der
Naturgegenstnde durch die konventionellen Sprachzeichen, und damit, um es
gleich auf die allgemeinsten Begriffe hochzurechnen, der Natur durch die
Kultur, scheint mir der Begriff der Usurpation nicht zu weit hergeholt, obwohl
er hier nicht expressis verbis auftaucht. Despotisch ist jedoch die sich in der
Sprache uernde Macht der Kultur allemal. Von fremder Gewalt, von
Raub war ja soeben die Rede gewesen. Noch indem die Kultur sich der Natur
annimmt, tut sie ihr Gewalt an. Das entbehrt wie gesagt nicht einer gewissen
Tragik. Indem sie bei jeder (sprachlichen) Darstellung der Natur sich immer
schon als ein Fremdkrper an ihre Stelle gesetzt hat, vereitelt die Verstandeskultur
immer wieder, auch ungewollt, die Mglichkeit ihrer eigenen Verjngung aus
dem Geiste der Natur. Und gerade diese Erneuerung war ja bei der Hinwendung
zur Natur beabsichtigt gewesen.
Wie auch in zahllosen hnlichen Klagen ber die Unzulnglichkeit der
Sprache bei den Zeitgenossen9 drckt sich hier symptomatisch das empfindsame Unbehagen an Kultur und Moderne berhaupt aus. Nun ist aber das
Spannende bei Schiller, dass er nicht bei diesen doch etwas wohlfeilen Klagen
stehenbleibt. In der berzeugung, dass ein stabiles Verhltnis zwischen
Reprsentiertem und Reprsentierenden, zwischen Geist und Wirklichkeit
mglich ist, widersteht Schiller der naheliegenden Versuchung, das Problem
durch einen Gewaltstreich zu lsen, bei dem entweder die Kunst auf die Natur
reduziert wrde, womit aller Reprsentation ein Ende gemacht wre, oder
umgekehrt die Natur auf die Kunst, womit alles Bezeichnete im Zeichen
aufginge, das Reprsentierte in der Reprsentation, der Inhalt in der Form.10
Auch wenn sich ein utopisches Ende der Reprsentation, ein reines, durch
keine Zeichen oder Anschauungen vermitteltes Sich-Enthllen (etwa im Sinne
9
Vgl. oben Anm. 6 zu Herder; oder den berhmten Brief vom 10. Mai [1771] im
Werther. Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Die Leiden des jungen Werthers. Text und
Kommentar. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp 1998 (BasisBibliothek 5). S. 910.
10
ber die notwendigen Grenzen beim Gebrauch schner Formen. FA 8. 677705, hier
S. 694695.

95
einer Heideggerschen Unverborgenheit) der Wahrheit denken liee, entsprche
sie fr Schiller nicht dem gemischten, vernnftig sinnlichen Wesen des
Menschen.11 Denkbar, aber denkbar schlecht ist umgekehrt die Vorstellung
einer reinen Reprsentation ohne Inhalte. Schiller prgt dafr den Begriff einer
leeren Darstellung: denn wo [] der Inhalt sich nach der Form richten
mu, da ist gar kein Inhalt; die Darstellung ist leer, und es bleibt blo ein
frivoles Spiel brig.12 (Die Anwendung auf gewisse Erscheinungen der
Postmoderne liegt auf der Hand.)
Es geht hier um weit mehr als abstrakte Probleme der Zeichentheorie.
Darauf zu verzichten, das in der Natur gespeicherte Potential schner
Menschlichkeit in der Reprsentation Wirklichkeit werden zu lassen denn nur
so ist es in vollem Mae bertragbar hiee Natur und Menschlichkeit verstummen zu lassen, whrend die Kunst in der so entstandenen Leerstelle ihr
leeres Spiel triebe. Trotz aller Hindernisse, die sich der bertragung naturhaft
seelischer Inhalte in den Weg stellen, die auch prinzipiell bestehen bleiben, und
schon gar nicht durch einen Handstreich sich beseitigen lassen, bleibt es Schillers
Anliegen, zwischen Natur und Kultur zu vermitteln und die Inhalte der einen
in den Gestalten der anderen zur Anschauung zu bringen. Mag auch unser
ganzes Wissen [] auf eine konventionelle Tuschung hinaus[laufen],
mgen auch unsre reinsten Begriffe [] keineswegs Bilder der Dinge, sondern
blo ihre notwendig bestimmte und koexistierende Zeichen sein: solange
die Kraft der Seele, die sich an diesem [W]illkrliche[n] uert, sich
selbst gleich gleich bleibt, ist auf die prstabilierte Harmonie zwischen dem
menschlichen Geist und den Erscheinungen der ueren Welt, zwischen
Zeichen und Bezeichnete[m] zu vertrauen.13 Die Reprsentation behlt
damit ihren problematischen Auftrag, fr der Krfte Tausch zu sorgen, ohne
die der Mensch vereinsamt verkmmern msste.14
Der Schein wrde also trgen, wenn man meinte, beim jungen Schiller finde
eine Reduktion der Kunst auf die Natur, und beim klassischen Schiller
umgekehrt eine Reduktion der Natur auf die Kunst statt. Das lsst sich an
einem kleinen Beispiel aus der Bhnenkunst veranschaulichen. Zugleich
11

ber Anmut und Wrde. FA 8. S. 330394, hier S. 367. Vgl. Philosophische Briefe:
Unser Gehirne gehrt diesem Planeten (FA 8. 208233, hier S. 230). Siehe auch
Das verschleierte Bild zu Sais, das vor dem Anblick der unverhllten Wahrheit warnt
(FA 1. 242244).
12
ber die notwendigen Grenzen beim Gebrauch schner Formen. FA 8. 694. Der
leeren Darstellung entspricht in der Gesellschaft die reine Reprsentation des Adels.
Ebd. S. 695. Anm. 2.
13
Philosophische Briefe. FA 8. 230. Zum philosophischen Hintergrund, vgl. Wolfgang
Riedel: Die Anthropologie des jungen Schiller. Zur Ideengeschichte der medizinischen
Schriften und der Philosophischen Briefe. Wrzburg: Knigshausen und Neumann
1985 (Epistemata Reihe Literaturwissenschaft 17). S. 213229.
14
Der philosophische Egoist. FA 1. 111112, hier S. 112.

96
werden wir darin den entscheidenden psychologischen Mechanismus blolegen knnen, den Schiller ins Spiel bringt, um den Sinnverlust wettzumachen,
der mit der Umsetzung seelischer Zustnde in sprachliche und andere Zeichen
einherzugehen droht.
In seinem Erstlingsdrama, den Rubern, behauptete Schiller, er wolle die
Natur der Kunst unmittelbar einschreiben: [Ich habe] nur die Natur gleichsam
wrtlich abgeschrieben, wie es in der Vorrede zur ersten Auflage heit. Die
Verwurzelung der Natur im Kunstprodukt nahm dabei scheinbar unfreiwillig
komische Formen an. Die Bhnenanweisung [Ruber Moor] wider eine Eiche
rennend hat schon manche Leser des Stcks belustigt.15 Man fragt sich, wie
dieser Zusammenprall tatschlich ber die Bhne zu bringen wre, falls man
ihn wirklich ausfhren wollte, wie es die Regieanweisung vorschreibt. Die
Eiche ist Natur so sehr Natur, dass der Darsteller des Karl Moor nach der
ersten Vorstellung eine schne Beule davontragen, und sptestens nach der
dritten mit einer Gehirnerschtterung im Krankenhaus liegen drfte, zumal
er schon vorher wider [eine] Wand hatte anrennen mssen.16 Aber wenn man
sich ber die Stelle lustig macht, indem man sie und die Eiche so wrtlich
nimmt, hat man sie eigentlich falsch verstanden. Im Grunde geht es nicht um
die physische Wirklichkeit der beschriebenen Handlung. Sondern es ist eher
als Appell an die Einbildungskraft des Lesers, aber auch des Zuschauers, des
Regisseurs und des Mimen zu verstehen, so zu tun, aber wirklich so zu tun, als
ob eine wirkliche Eiche auf der Bhne stnde. Schiller will damit allen
Beteiligten ein Zeichen setzen. Es ist im Grunde eine magische Beschwrung:
seht, das ist kein auf Leinwand gemalter Baum, kein Baum aus Pappmach,
sondern ein wirklicher! Aus einem kindlichen Staunen heraus soll der
Zuschauer hier wie an anderen markanten Stellen des Schauspiels, das ihm von
der Bhnenkunst geboten wird, die berzeugung gewinnen, dass ebenso alles
andere an der Darbietung wohl Natur sein msse. Nur durch Natur nmlich
wird er sich rhren lassen. Die so verstandene Natur ist aber, auf seiten der
Darsteller eine gemimte, und auf seiten des Zuschauer eine eingebildete, also
auf beiden Seiten eine reprsentierte. Karl Moors Eiche knnte in Marianne
Moores Garten stehen: wo die amerikanische Dichterin die Gebilde der Poesie
15

Die Ruber. V. 2. SW 1. 613.

Ebd. IV. 3. SW 1. 580. In einer Parodie der im letzten Jahrzehnt des 18. Jahrhunderts
auf der englischen Bhne modisch gewordenen deutschen Stcke machen sich George
Canning and George Ellis u. a. ber deren krperliche Drastik lustig. In einer Szene
singt ein inhaftierter junger Draufgnger ein Klagelied, das er mit einer entsprechend
verzweifelten Krpersprache unterstreicht: During the last stanza, Rogero dashes his
head repeatedly against the walls of his prison; and, finally, so hard as to produce a
visible contusion. George Canning and George Ellis: The Rovers; or, The Double
Arrangement (1798). Auszug in: The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth Century Verse.
Hg. v. Roger Lonsdale. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1987. S. 826827, hier S. 827.
16

97
als imaginary gardens with real toads in them definiert, haben wir es bei
Schiller mit einem wirklichen Baum in einem imaginren Wald zu tun, wobei
aber dialektisch der Baum nur in der Imagination wirklich geworden ist, um
dann umgekehrt den Wald und alles drum herum mit seiner Wirklichkeit
anzustecken. Und auch wir haben dabei, wie Marianne Moores echte Dichter,
literalists of the imagination zu sein.17
Das Bekenntnis zur Unwirklichkeit der Bhnenkunst im Prolog zum
Wallenstein, in der Abhandlung ber den Gebrauch des Chors in der Tragdie,
oder dem Gedicht An Gthe. Als er den Mahomet von Voltaire auf die Bhne
brachte, ist nur scheinbar der Bhnenpraxis des jungen Schiller entgegengesetzt.
Und das nicht nur, weil hier weiterhin an die Einbildungskraft als vermittelnde
Instanz appelliert wird, die die Reprsentation belebt und zur Illusion erhebt,
sondern vor allem deswegen, weil auch hier die Scheinwelt der Bhne nicht im
Schein ihren Zweck hat. Schiller hat die Naturempfindsamkeit nicht verabschiedet und durch ein lart pour lart ersetzt. Sondern es geht ihm geradezu
darum, Natur und Empfindung zu retten: Nichts sei hier wahr und wirklich
als die Trne heit es in An Gthe (Hervorhebung d. Verf.).18 Dieser kleine
Zusatz enthlt die Essenz des Gedichts. Die Trne ist das Destillat unserer
besseren Natur, der Ausfluss schner Menschlichkeit, die ewige / Beglaubigung
der Menschheit.19 Dem Zuschauer soll sie nach wie vor entlockt werden.
Gerade das Versagen eines plumpen Naturalism20 macht die Aufgabe
umso dringlicher. Nach wie vor geht es um die Rettung der Natur in einer
berfeinerten Zivilisation. Diese ist aber nur mit den Mitteln der Kunst zu vollbringen. Die bessere Natur, die schne Natur, die Natur, in der unsere
Menschlichkeit aufgehoben ist, ist ihrerseits nur in der Kunst aufgehoben.
Die Kunst entwirft einen Roman der Natur, um einen Begriff des 18.
Jahrhunderts aufzugreifen, damit uns das wiedergegeben werde, was eine
drftige empirische Wirklichkeit uns vorenthlt. Was sich nie und nirgends hat
begeben, kann auf den Brettern, die die Welt bedeuten, in einer Welt des
Scheins, sinnvoll, still an uns vorbergehn:21 nicht anders als in den Rubern
findet in der Unwirklichkeit szenischer Darstellung, im fiktionalen Raum der
Kunst, die Wiederbegegnung mit der verlorenen Natur statt, und ebenso wie es
in der Schaubhnen-Abhandlung ist es die Bhne, die uns unsere Menschheit
wiedergibt.

17

Marianne Moore: Poetry. In: The Poems of Marianne Moore. Hg. v. Grace
Shulman. London: Faber and Faber 2003. S. 135.
18
FA 1. 156159, hier S. 158.
19
Don Carlos. II. 2. SW 2. 7219, hier S. 46.
20
ber den Gebrauch des Chors in der Tragdie. SW 2. 815823, hier S. 819.
21
An die Freunde. FA 1. 206207, hier S. 207. Vgl. auch die berhmten Schlusszeilen
der Gtter Griechenlands (in der 2. Fassung). FA 1. 162165, hier S. 165.

98
Der Unterschied zwischen der Bhnenkunst des jungen und des reifen
Schillers besteht also hchstens in einer Akzentverschiebung. Wichtig ist aber
vor allem das Fazit, das wir aus beiden Beispielen ziehen knnen: nmlich dass
die Einbildungskraft der Umschlagplatz ist, auf dem wir die Mnze der Kunst
gegen das Kapital der Natur eintauschen, indem wir das eine fr das andere
nehmen, auf Kredit, naiv, in schner Gutglubigkeit. Die Bhne eignet sich gut
zur Veranschaulichung dieses Sachverhalts, weil auf und vor ihr das So-TunAls-Ob und die Illusion so recht zuhause sind. Unser Krper selbst, schreibt
Schiller in den Philosophischen Briefen, stimmt sich [] in die Gebrden
des Schauspielers, wie ebenso auf diesen selbst die Gebrden und Gemtsbewegungen der dargestellten Person sympathetisch bergreifen (FA 8. 220). Im
Grunde aber lassen sich alle im Theater gewonnenen Einsichten auch auf
andere Knste, ja sogar auf nicht zur Kunst gehrige Lebenssituationen
ausweiten. Wenn Schiller im letzten Kallias-Brief noch einmal fragt, wie denn
der Gegenstand rein wirken knne, da er selbst nicht einmal da ist, sondern in
einem andern blo nachgeahmt wird; da er nicht in Person sondern durch einen
Reprsentanten sich vorstellt (FA 8. 222), dann liegt, auch wenn es von Schiller
an dieser Stelle sicher nicht so gemeint war, die rettende Antwort als
Orakelspruch just in diesem Sich-Vorstellen verrtselt. Denn nicht nur, dass
wir als Rezipienten bereit sind, in dem Reprsentanten die reprsentierte
Person, in der Nachahmung den nachgeahmten Gegenstand uns vorzustellen,
so dass beide in einem augenblicklichen Tausch der Persnlichkeit, eine[r]
Verwechslung der Wesen ineinanderflieen;22 auch dem umgekehrten, produktionssthetischen Verhltnis der Person zum Reprsentanten, in dem er
sich vorstellt, liegt ein Akt imaginativer Projektion zugrunde, ein Wille, den
faktischen Unterschied zwischen natrlichen Personen zugunsten der (juridischen oder mimischen) Fiktion ihrer Identitt aufzuheben, bzw. den analytisch
trennscharfen Unterschied zwischen Zeichen und Bezeichnetem zu verwischen
und im System der Zeichen ein Analogon, eine Nachahmung, ein gleichsam phasenversetztes Abbild seiner selbst oder seines Gegenstands zu geben.23
Um ber die Diskrepanz zwischen Reprsentiertem und Reprsentanten
hinwegzusehen, der fr den analytischen Verstand klar und deutlich zutage
liegt, wird eine ganz besondere Geisteshaltung erfordert. In den sthetischen
Briefen wird diese mit dem Begriff des Spieltriebs umschrieben. Damit verweist Schiller auf das entspannende und kindliche Moment, das der imaginativen Identifikation des Nicht-Identischen innewohnt. Getragen werden die
naiven Analogiebildungen der Einbildungskraft nicht so sehr von einem
aktiven, produktiven Willen, sondern von einer negative capability, wie es

22
23

Philosophische Briefe. FA 8. 222.

Analogon und Nachahmung. Vgl. Kallias. FA 8. 281.

99
Keats formuliert.24 hnliches ist mit Coleridges so bekanntem wie treffendem
Wort von der willing suspension of disbelief gemeint.25 Aktiv ist das
Auseinanderhalten der Dinge, sind die einschneidenden Begriffsbestimmungen,
die uns die moderne Skepsis und das moderne Wissen abverlangen. Passiv ist
das far niente des Feiertags, den wir uns von Zeit zu Zeit gnnen, um von der
Anstrengung des zivilatorischen Alltags auszuruhen; der ersparte Aufwand
macht die Begriffsverwirrung zum Fest. Die Vernunft lsst dabei die Zgel
schleifen und gibt der Seele freien Lauf, kindlich-sinnlich zu urteilen und einem
primitiven Animismus walten zu lassen. In dieser spielerischen Regression
lsen sich die Gegenstze auf, nicht nur der zwischen Zeichen und Bezeichnetem,
Reprsentantem und Reprsentiertem, sondern ganz allgemein sowohl innerseelische als auch zwischenmenschliche Konflikte. Im So-Tun-Als-Ob lsen sich
die einander fremd gegenberstehenden Parteien aus ihrer Starrheit und sind
willens, sich selbst im anderen zu erkennen und damit den anderen als seinesgleichen, als Vertragspartner, ja als Stellvertreter seiner selbst zu respektieren.
Ein ebenso schnes wie skurriles Beispiel ist das des Rocks in den KalliasBriefen, der in der sthetischen Welt den Anspruch erhebt, als moralische
Person angesehen zu werden:
In dieser sthetischen Welt, die eine ganz andere ist als die vollkommene
Platonische Republik, fodert auch der Rock, den ich auf dem Leibe trage, Respekt
von mir fr seine Freiheit, und er verlangt von mir, gleich einem verschmten
Bedienten, da ich niemanden merken lasse, da er mir dient. Dafr aber verspricht
er mir auch reziproke, seine Freiheit so bescheiden zu gebrauchen, da die meinige
nichts dabei leidet; und wenn beide Wort halten, so wird die ganze Welt sagen, da
ich schn angezogen sei. (FA 8. 312)

Bei aller Verspieltheit entwirft Schiller hier ein Modell, wie der
Gesellschaftsvertrag, der in der Theorie wie in der Wirklichkeit des Absolutismus
nichtig ist (der Staat ist vielmehr eine Maschine, in der der Untertan ebenso
unbelebt ist wie der Rock), im Schein wieder instauriert, indem beide Seiten einen
neuen Vertrag eingehen, so zu tun, als ob der Gesellschaftsvertrag Gltigkeit
bese.26
Diese friedfertige, von der Einbildungkraft vermittelte reziproke Anerkennung
von Souvern und Untertan, von Geist und Materie, von Kultur und Natur
24

I mean negative capability, that is, when man is capable of being in uncertainties,
mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason. John Keats:
Brief an George u. Tom Keats, 21.12.1817. In: Romanticism. An Anthology. Hg. v.
Duncan Wu. Oxford: Blackwell 1996. S. 1015.
25
Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Biographia Literaria. Hg. v. George Watson. London: Dent
1975. S. 169.
26
Vgl. ber Anmut und Wrde: Wenn ein monarchischer Staat auf eine solche Art
verwaltet wird, da, obgleich alles nach eines Einzigen Willen geht, der einzelne
Brger sich doch berreden kann, da er nach seinem eigenen Sinne lebe, und blo
seiner Neigung gehorche, so nennt man dies eine liberale Regierung. FA 8. 361.

100
liee sich nun anhand der sthetischen Schriften nher auseinanderlegen, allen
voran der Briefe ber die sthetische Erziehung des Menschen. Auch auf ihre
Gefahren wrde man mit Schiller hinweisen mssen; denn die animistisch und
nach dem Mastab der Analogie,27 sympathetisch und damit lax urteilende
Einbildungskraft, die berall gern ein Auge zudrckt und fnf gerade sein
lsst, kann die Gefahr nicht endgltig bannen, dass aus dem Sich-Vorstellen
der Person im Reprsentanten ein usurpierendes Sich-Davorstellen des Reprsentanten und damit eine Veruntreuung seines dienenden Auftrags wird.
Besonders die Grenzen schner Formen sind von einer strengen Philosophie
argwhnisch zu bewachen, damit die Reprsentation des Sittengefhls durch
das Schnheitsgefhl nicht zur Gewohnheit wird. Ungleich sicherer ist es also
fr die Moralitt des Charakters, wenn die Reprsentation des Sittengefhls
durch das Schnheitsgefhl wenigstens momentweise aufgehoben wird, wenn
die Vernunft fters unmittelbar gebietet und dem Willen seinen wahren
Beherrscher zeigt.28 Das ist die Stunde des Erhabenen, wo allem Schein von
Liberalitt29 und Herablassung zum Trotz gezeigt wird, wer Herr im Hause ist.
Ebenso wren die Dramen heranzuziehen, wo zumeist das Scheitern der
Reprsentation dargestellt wird. Veruntreut nicht Fiesko den Auftrag, im
Verein mit anderen zur Wiederherstellung der Verfassung zu wirken, indem er
unter der Maske des Republikaners die Alleinherrschaft fr sich beansprucht?
Ist nicht Posa, als selbsternannter Abgeordneter der ganzen Menschheit,30
ein Reprsentant, der zum Selbstzweck erhebt, was blo Mittel sein sollte der
staatsklug intrigiert, wo er menschlich handeln sollte? Ist nicht Wallenstein das
dienende Glied, das sich zum Stellvertreter, zum Statthalter, ja zum Herrscher
aufwirft? Ist nicht Demetrius geradezu ein Paradebeispiel fr die Macht und
die Gefahr der Einbildungskraft, die den Prtendenten so lange trgt und die
Anhnger mit dem unbedingten Glauben an seine Identitt mit dem rechtmigen Thronfolger beseelt, bis die Wahrheit dazwischentritt und den Schein
zerstrt woraufhin aus dem in wohlttiger Tuschung von seiner Mission
Erfllten ein wissender Despot wird?
Eine weitere Ausfhrung dieser Andeutungen wrde den Rahmen der
gegenwrtigen Abhandlung sprengen. Statt mit diesen abschreckenden
Beispielen mchte ich mit einigen berlegungen zu einer Ballade schlieen, in
der wieder die positive Leistung der Reprsentation zum Tragen kommt. Es
handelt sich um Die Kraniche des Ibycus.31
27

Vgl. Kallias. FA 8. 292.

ber die notwendigen Grenzen beim Gebrauch schner Formen. FA 8. 704.
29
ber Anmut und Wrde. FA 8. 361.
30
Don Carlos. I. 2. SW 2. 13.
31
FA 1. 9196. Im Folgenden werden im fortlaufenden Text durch Versangaben auf den
Text verwiesen.
28

101
Zur Vorbereitung fasse ich den bisherigen Gedankengang noch einmal
zusammen, und schmcke ihn gleichzeitig mit einigen vorausdeutenden
Hinweisen aus. In dem durch das Spiel der Einbildungskraft vermittelte
Verhltnis gelungener Reprsentation sind bestimmte Momente hervorzuheben.
Subjektiv gekennzeichnet ist es durch einen zwischen dem So-Tun-Als-Ob
und der Illusion schwebenden Gemtszustand, in dem objektiv die Dinge austauschbar erscheinen, so dass die Vorstellung fr die Wirklichkeit gesetzt und
genommen wird. In diesem Zustand und durch dieses quid pro quo werden
die Unterscheidungen des Verstandes unterlaufen. Es findet eine wohlttige
Regression statt, in der wir hinter das Wissen des neuzeitlichen Menschen
zurckfallen und dieses ausblenden. Vielmehr lassen sich Sinn und Empfindung
durch Analogie und Sympathie leiten, magisch-animistisch zu schlieen. Die
Reprsentation, die Vorstellung, wird zur Sache selbst. Potenziert wird die illusionierende Wirkung solcher imaginativer Ineinssetzungen, wenn sich an
ihnen auch andere sichtbar beteiligen (wie es paradigmatisch im Theater der
Fall ist). Jeder einzelne erkennt in den anderen die eigene Reaktion wieder. Durch
diese gleichsam stereophone Verstrkung wird die Illusion doppelt wirklich.
Und indem sie zu einem kollektiven Akt wird, bekommt sie auch eine gemeinschaftsstiftende Funktion. Das ist ihr gesellschafticher Mehrwert: durch eine
Solidarisierung der Einbildungskraft32 wird aus zersplitterten, argwhnisch die
eigene Identitt htenden Individuen eine gemeinschaftlich empfindende
Menschheit.
Was sich so diffizil anhrt, wird in der Ballade in schner Selbstverstndlichkeit Gestalt. Steht die Kunstballade berhaupt auf der Schwelle zwischen modernem und vormodernem Denken, soll ihr Hrer oder Leser sich im
sthetischen Spiel auf eine Welt naturmagischer Zusammenhnge einlassen, so
spiegelt sich dieses Verhltnis in der Binnenwelt der Kraniche in dem dort
aufgestellten Bild des griechischen Theaters wider. Beim Auftritt des Chors,
der die Eumeniden vertritt, schwebet noch zwischen Trug und Wahrheit
[] / zweifelnd jede Brust (V. 1456). Zweifelnd denn die Griechen sind
schlielich aufgeklrte Leute, die sehr wohl zwischen einer Reprsentation und
der Wirklichkeit unterscheiden knnen; und dann wre auerdem noch die
Frage, ob sie zu dem gewhlten Zeitpunkt berhaupt an das Dasein ihrer eigenen Gtter glaubten,33 scheinen diese doch aus der Wirklichkeit und sogar aus
den Tempeln auf die Schaubhne geflchtet zu sein. Doch noch indem die
Brust sich in solchen aufgeklrten Zweifeln wiegt, bebet (V. 146) sie
32
Manfred Engel: Trume und Feste der Vernunft. Zur Vorgeschichte des romantischen
Projekts einer Neuen Mythologie in der Aufklrung. In: Jahrbuch der Deutschen
Schillergesellschaft 36 (1992). S. 4783, hier S. 69.
33
Vgl. Paul Veyne: Les Grecs ont-ils cru leurs mythes? Essai sur limagination
constituante. Paris: Edition du Seuil 1983.

102
schon in atavistischem Schrecken. Indem die Gewalt der Erscheinung ber die
Zuschauer hereinbricht, sind sie keine migen Zuschauer mehr, sondern
wohnen als Glubige einer kultischen Handlung bei, in der sie der furchtbarn
Macht der Rachegttinnen huldigen (V. 147). Coleridges suspension of
disbelief ist hier auch theologisch zu verstehen, als Absehen vom religisen
Unglauben, um zumindest zeitweilig gleichsam dem Glauben wieder Glauben
zu schenken.
Wie von diesem durch die Kunst erneuerten Glauben erweckt, tut sich alsbald die Wirkung der Eumeniden kund. Der Unglubigste unter der versammelten Menge, der Mrder, der an keine Nemesis und keine Gtter glaubt
Er geht vielleicht mit frechem Schritte
Jetzt eben durch der Griechen Mitte,
Und whrend ihn die Rache sucht,
Geniet er seines Frevels Frucht.
Auf ihres eignen Tempels Schwelle
Trotz er vielleicht den Gttern, mengt
Sich dreist in jene Menschenwelle,
Die dort sich zum Theater drngt (V. 7380)

dieser dreiste, unerschrockene, aufgeklrte Frevler gibt auf dem Theater

(und nicht etwa im Tempel!), unter dem Schock der auf ihn eindringenden
Darstellung, in der Verwirrung der Sinne, mit seinem unwillkrlichen Ausruf
ber die so ominse Erscheinung der Kraniche seine Verstrickung in den Mord
am Ibycus preis und liefert sich damit der Nemesis und der Justiz aus.
Fr den sich so sicher whnenden Freigeist ist das ein doppelter Rckfall
in den sinnlich-animistischen Aberglauben. Zunchst kann er ebenso wie
die anderen Zuschauer nicht umhin, der theatralischen Reprsentation der
Eumeniden Glauben zu schenken. Unter dem aufwhlenden Eindruck dieser
Darstellung muss er daraufhin in der Erscheinung der Zugvgel die nach dem
Mastab der Vernunft unmgliche, aber in ihrer sinnlichen Evidenz dennoch unabweisbar wirklich gewordene Erfllung der magisch-poetischen
Beschwrung des Ibycus sehen, die Kraniche mgen, wenn keine andre
Stimme spricht (V. 46), den an ihm verbten Frevel an den Tag bringen.34
Damit geraten auch wir in den Sog des magischen Weltbilds. Nchtern
betrachtet wrden wir, als Menschen des aufgeklrten 18. oder 21. Jahrhunderts,
in dem Vorberflug der Kraniche nur einen Zufall sehen, zumal es hchst
34
Man knnte hinzufgen, dass in den Auspizien der Antike der Vogelflug berhaupt
bedeutsam war. Die jahreszeitliche Migration, in der Naturauffassung der Neuzeit eine
bloe Naturerscheinung, erweist sich in der naturmagischen Welt der Ballade als
schicksalhaftes Zeichen. Schillers Ballade wei brigens sehr gut, warum die Kraniche
in Wirklichkeit in den Sden ziehen (vgl. V. 15); nur wird diese wissenschaftliche
Erklrung durch die Ereignisse ausgeblendet und berspielt.

103
unwahrscheinlich ist, dass es sich beide Male um dieselben Kraniche handeln
knne. Die in einer pathetischen Apostrophe an die Vgel vorgetragene
Beschwrung des Ibycus wrden wir somit nur dem Pathos des Augenblicks
sowie der Tatsache zugute halten knnen, dass er eben ein altgriechischer
Dichter ist, der seinem vorwissenschaftlichen und poetischen Weltbild gem
nicht davon lassen kann, sich die Natur als beseelt vorzustellen und als solche
auch anzureden.35 Seinem entzckten Sinn (er ist, wie die erste Strophe vermeldet, des Gottes voll, V. 8) gelten die Kraniche gleich von Anfang an als
Begleiter und befreundte Scharen (V. 1718). Auch wenn wir sonst
geneigt wren, eine solche Naivitt blo gut- bzw. wehmtig zu belcheln, sind
wir als Leser einer Ballade dazu bereit, unsere sptzeitliche Skepsis fahren zu
lassen, in diesem Falle also in Ibycus tatschlich einen Inspirierten zu sehen,
der in den von ihm apostrophierten Kranichen zurecht mitfhlende Empfindung
erkennt, so dass es uns dann zwar immer noch verwunderlich, aber ebenso richtig
erscheint, wenn sie seiner Beschwrung Folge leisten und damit zu Werkzeugen
der Nemesis werden. Wir lassen uns gerne auf diese Vorstellungen ein und
sei es auch nur, weil sonst Stimmigkeit und Reiz der Erzhlung dahin wren
(denn die Dichtung bringt uns schon allein durch ihre narrative Struktur und
ihre Spannungselemente dazu zu wnschen, dass etwas wahr sein mge, auch
wenn wir eigentlich wissen, dass es nicht so ist). Wir machen uns damit die
poetisch-animistische Weltansicht des Ibycus zueigen so dass wir am Ende
nicht nur Zeugen der illusionierenden Wirkung des Theaters geworden sind, sondern auch fr die Dauer des Gedichts von der Wahrheit der lyrischen
Naturbeseelung und -beschwrung durchdrungen werden. Lie sich die halluzinierende Wirkung der theatralischen Darstellung noch psychologisch erklren, befinden wir uns hier, wo durch die beschwrende Anrufung in hchster
Not eine Korrespondenz zwischen den Naturerscheinungen und dem Walten des
Schicksals hergestellt wird, nunmehr vollends in der Welt des Aberglaubens, in
der jede Sache auf jede andere Sache verweisen, sie vertreten, ja mit ihr auf
geheimnisvolle Weise identisch sein kann. In diesem Sinne ist die Antwort auf
die Frage der Menge zu verstehen: Was ists mit diesem Kranichzug? (V.
168), fragen sie, und antworten sogleich Das ist der Eumeniden Macht (V.
172) so direkt, so unvermittelt, drckt sich das eine im andern aus.
In doppeltem Sinne stellt sich also in den Kranichen des Ibycus die
Nemesis nicht in Person, sondern durch einen Reprsentanten vor: einmal
im Chor der Eumeniden, auf dem Theater, in der Welt des knstlerischen
Scheins, und dann wieder in der naturmagischen Erscheinung des Vogelzugs.

35
Vgl. die Gegenberstellung der modernen Naturwissenschaft und der poetischen
Welt der Antike, in der was nie empfinden wird, empfand. In: Die Gtter
Griechenlands. FA 1. 162.

104
Bei der einen wie der anderen Reprsentation geht nichts von der Wirkung
verloren; es gibt auf dem Umweg ber die Reprsentation keinen
Bedeutungsverlust zu beklagen.36 Im Gegenteil, die gttliche Gewalt wird erst
wirkungsmchtig, indem sie sich in der Natur wie in der Kunst verkrpert. In
diesen ihren Reprsentanten beherrscht sie Sinn und Gemt auch des verstockten Rationalisten, der sich in die Sicherheit des Verstands gewiegt und es dem
aufgeklrten Unglauben abgenommen hatte, dass Gtter und Natur und Kunst
nur Kindermrchen seien. Im Zusammenspiel von Kunst und Natur vermag
die Nemesis ihren dritten und eigentlichsten Reprsentanten, das fast verschttete menschliche Gewissen, wieder zu schrecklich-heilsamem Leben zu
erwecken. Als Schuldbewute (V. 180) geben sich die eben noch freche[n]
(V. 73) und gottlosen Mrder am Schluss zu erkennen. So kann auch die Justiz,
die ohne diese Hilfe von oben nicht in der Lage gewesen war, der Tter habhaft
zu werden, zuletzt wieder in ihre Rechte treten:
Man reit und schleppt sie vor den Richter,
Die Szene wird zum Tribunal,
Und es gestehn die Bsewichter,
Getroffen von der Rache Strahl. (V. 1814)

Zur Beruhigung des aufgeklrten Lesers dient es, dass die Mrder nicht einfach auf der Szene gelyncht werden (was man eigentlich befrchten knnte,
hatte doch, als der Leichnam des Ibycus gefunden wurde, die Wut des Volkes
[ge]fodert, das Verbrechen mit des Mrders Blut zu shnen (V. 49, 624)),
und dass am Ende die an sich recht schwache Indizienkette juristisch sauber durch
ein Gestndnis vor dem Richter besttigt wird. Doch dieses willkommene
Zugestndnis an die formale Rationalitt sollte die eigentliche Botschaft nicht
verdunkeln, dass ohne den vorrationalen Zauber der Bhne und dem naturmagischen Eingreifen der Zugvgel Religion wie Justiz machtlos gewesen wren,
die Tter zu berfhren: dass also die Institutionen der modernen Gesellschaft
ohne Rckhalt im archaischen Bewusstsein ins Leere greifen mssten.
Diese Wendung der Dinge wird durch romanhafte, eben balladeske Ereignisse
herbeigefhrt. Die Zeugen innerhalb der Ballade brauchen dabei blo ihren
Augen zu trauen. Wir hingegen mssen einer Wundermr Glauben schenken
(wie es in der Brgschaft heit)37 bzw. unseren Unglauben suspendieren
(Coleridge). Aber die Kunstballade Schillers hat geradezu die Aufgabe, das vom
Fortschritt diskreditierte Whnen zu rehabilitieren, den Wahn in Glauben
zu verwandeln.38 Nicht in Person sondern durch einen Reprsentanten tritt uns
die schne Menschlichkeit hier entgegen. Der Dichtung kommt die Aufgabe zu,
unsere utopischen Hoffnungen zu reprsentieren. Aber nur indem wir den dort
36

Kallias, oder ber die Schnheit. FA 8. 328.

FA 1. 2630, hier S. 30.
38
Die Brgschaft. FA 1. 29, 30.
37

105
in der Fiktion reprsentierten Idealen die liebende Treue halten und ihnen
Glauben schenken, knnen wir uns, wenn auch nur asymptotisch, ihrer
Verwirklichung nhern.
Prinzipiell und fr den Verstand ist damit nichts gelst. Fr den Verstand
bleibt die Ballade nur ein Ammenmrchen. Sobald der Glaube aus der Welt
verschwunden ist, kann ihn der Schein nicht reprsentieren; denn auch die
Reprsentation wird sofort als betrgliches Spiel durchschaut. Und so auch
mit allen Reprsentationsverhltnissen. Die Sprache kann die Seele nicht wirklich zur Erscheinung bringen. Die Bretter der Bhne bedeuten nicht wirklich
die Welt. Die schnen Sitten knnen die wahre Sittlichkeit nicht wirklich ersetzen. Kunst und Natur knnen sich nicht wirklich ineinander abbilden.
Der Mglichkeit einer Vermittlung durch die Reprsentation beraubt, bliebe
in der Welt des Verstandes nichts brig als die leere Form, eine geknebelte
Natur, und eine willkrliche, blinde oder zynische Gewalt. Aus dieser Welt
msste sich das bedrngte Ich in die einsame Zwingburg des Erhabenen flchten.
Doch der abseits stehende philosophische Egoismus, der nirgends seinesgleichen erkennt, heroisch allein sich nur aus sich selbst erhalten will, brchte
letztlich eine Verarmung der Menschheit mit sich.39 Nur in einer
Wiederverzauberung durch die Einbildungskraft kommen die heilsamen Mchte
der Seele und der Natur in gltigen Reprsentationen allgemein wieder zur
Geltung und machen die Welt damit wieder bewohnbar. Bei allen Gefahren, die
diesem Prozess auch innewohnen, beruht fr Schiller die wahrhafte Zivilisation zuletzt auf der imaginativen Verwechslung von Reprsentiertem und
Reprsentanten.

39

Der philosophische Egoist. FA 1. 111112, hier S. 112.

This page intentionally left blank

David Hill

Lenz and Schiller: Alls well that ends well

Although often grouped together under the heading Sturm und Drang, the plays of Lenz
and those of the early Schiller reveal fundamentally different attitudes to play-writing.
One feature they share is an apparent uncertainty about how to end their plays: somehow they both wanted to build an optimistic, forward-looking conclusion onto a play that
had presented apparently unresolvable contradictions. A comparison of Der Hofmeister
and Die Soldaten with Die Ruber and Kabale und Liebe, reflecting particularly on the
relationship between the final scenes and the plays as a whole, will illuminate some of
the similarities and differences between these two playwrights.

I.
The extent to which Lenz and Schiller knew each others work, or knew of each
others work, remains unclear. Details of Lenzs later life remain unclear, but
scholars have found no evidence of his having known Schillers writing, and
indeed his attention was turning away from the German literary scene by the
time that Schiller began publishing. On the other hand the young Schillers
immersion in the culture of the 1770s makes it likely that he would have known
at least some of Lenzs work from a relatively early stage. Nevertheless there is
a notable absence of identifiable references or borrowings and the only concrete evidence we have dates from the mid-1790s. In 1796 Schiller wrote to
Cotta asking to be sent copies of Der Hofmeister and Die Soldaten, and in the
following year he persuaded Goethe to release various manuscripts for publication in Die Horen. The few comments by Schiller that have survived provide
no clear evidence of his attitude to Lenzs work, over-determined as they are by
the need to approach Goethe with delicacy over these potentially embarrassing
texts, but on the other hand it seems entirely plausible that he would have been
a willing participant in the pathologising of Lenz that was to become codified
for future generations in Dichtung und Wahrheit. Taking his cue from Goethes
word wunderlich,1 Schiller stressed that the Lenz texts contained sehr tolles
Zeug but thought them worth publishing because they had an interest that lay
in their biographischen und pathologischen Werth.2
The critical literature on Schillers early plays is full of references to Lenz,
which are used in order to indicate a Sturm und Drang style with which Schiller
1

Letter to Schiller. 1.2.1797. Qtd. in Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz im Urteil dreier
Jahrhunderte. Ed. by Peter Mller and Jrgen Sttzer. Berne: Lang 1995. Vol. 1. P. 360.
2
Letter to Goethe. 2.2.1797. Qtd. in Mller and Stotzer (n. 1). Vol. 1. P. 360.

108
was familiar, but there appear to be none of the many direct quotations or
semi-quotations that reveal Schillers close knowledge of, for example, Klinger,
Leisewitz or Goethe. There are some overlaps in their use of sources and motifs,3
but the similarities are of a general nature and do not imply anything more than
a common cultural background. This essay will therefore leave on one side the
question of influence and turn to something unashamedly comparative. Comparisons are, we know, odious and usually reach a conclusion no more startling
than that A was A and B was B and C, too, would have been C if it had been
introduced into the debate. Nevertheless comparisons can throw light on the individual specificity of A and B if there are sufficient similarities for the salient
differences to stand out.
Comedies (if Lenzs plays are comedies) and tragedies (if Die Ruber and
Fiesko are tragedies) clearly belong to different traditions, but the conceptions
of drama held by Lenz and the young Schiller have more fundamental similarities. Both lie on the periphery of the Sturm und Drang. Both challenged the
abstractions of neo-classicism and strove to re-engage represented reality with
a social and historical continuum. Instead of the refined abstraction of verse,
they offered the grittiness of prose, with emotional extremes leading to the transgression of propriety. Both Lenz and Schiller had the anti-Aristotelian realism
and the intensity that have often been seen as hallmarks of the Sturm und Drang,
and often subordinated the spoken word to the action on stage. However, neither of them regarded intensity and authenticity of expression as a sufficient
legitimation for drama but turned, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, to an aesthetic that is in a sense educational. In both cases this educational purpose has
often been identified as political, as exposing the consequences of the abuse of
social power. However, they shared aspects of a Pietist background which not
only fuelled the emotional intensity of their writing and alerted them to questions of injustice but also affected their understanding of drama as something
that had a moral purpose. Both of them are regarded as having gone further than
most of their contemporaries in showing the dependence of human behaviour
on material circumstances, that is to say on social and psychological processes,
but both also went further than most of their contemporaries in rejecting the
most radical form of this tendency, namely, the materialism found in the French
Enlightenment.
The starting-point of this essay is the observation of the difficulty that students and audiences, not to mention critics, have often had in accepting that the
3

Lenz wrote a poem on the Semele story and a play about the estrangement of two brothers (Die Kleinen), neither of which Schiller could have known; both Der Hofmeister
and Die Ruber are built around versions of the story of the Prodigal Son, as is Kabale
und Liebe; in both Die Soldaten and Kabale und Liebe the plot revolves around the attitudes of characters from different social classes to the reliability of written documents.

109
endings of the plays of the young Schiller are convincing. Why, they ask, does
the dying Ferdinand reach out his hand in a gesture of forgiveness to the man
to whom he has been most fundamentally opposed throughout the play if that
is indeed what is happening? Why does the Prsident, who has hitherto shown
little moral awareness, value the forgiveness of his son if that is indeed what
is happening? And why does he hand himself over to the authorities on the mere
threat of exposure by Wurm? And if these motifs are all so integral to Schillers
conception of the play, as Schillers advocates then try to argue, why did he drop
them in the stage version? And then there is the question of that bandit who kills
the woman he loves out of loyalty to his colleagues and then a few minutes later
hands himself over in the name of justice to a political system that has been shown
to be anything but just. In both cases and one might add the stage version of
Fiesko to the set the plays end with an upbeat gesture that can appear forced.
The question of the sense in which the endings fit their respective plays is perhaps
a nave one, but it may help to identify aspects of the dramatic language of the
young Schiller and at the same time to refine the commonly made distinction
between open and closed forms of drama.4 And because questions of style
are so difficult to pin down, a useful point of comparison may be provided by the
two best-known plays of Lenz, for which the tension between the body of the
play and its ending has been considered constitutive. The title of this essay does
not, then, refer specifically to Shakespeares play but to the way in which several
plays by Lenz and the young Schiller share a similar pattern: by means of a
tightly managed constellation of social, psychological and other motifs they
bring the characters to the brink of catastrophe, but then at the last moment the
play manages to twist itself round and leave the audience with a positive gesture. It is the nature of these upbeat endings that is the object of this essay: how
they work, how they relate to the plays they conclude, and what they tell us
about the ways in which these two authors conceived of drama.

II.
Among other things, dramas are, it seems, in their own way, philosophical
statements. In presenting characters and actions they tend to imply an interpretative framework against which the characters and actions have meaning (even
if that meaning is the absence of meaning), and it is the integration of characters and actions into this framework that gives a drama its coherence. Particular
events acquire a necessity that correlates with their incorporation into a repeatable
4

See Volker Klotz: Geschlossene und offene Form im Drama. Munich: Hanser 1975. A
valuable discussion of the relevance of Klotzs categories to Lenz is provided by John
Guthrie: Lenz and Bchner: Studies in Dramatic Form. Frankfurt/M. Berne New
York: Lang 1984 (Historisch-kritische Arbeiten zur deutschen Literatur 5).

110
and therefore timeless aesthetic object. This framework may, for example,
consist of a fatalism of one kind or other, or it may consist of poetic justice.
Schiller in his Ueber das gegenwrtige teutsche Theater of 1782 takes up an
argument of Lessings5 when he writes about the way in which the drama, while
portraying particular what the Leibnizian Lessing would call accidental
events, needs to pay attention to the moral or philosophical framework that they
imply.6 The dramatist transforms reality when creating a drama, but Schiller
insists that the more limited perspective then offered by the drama must not distort the relationship between the elements that exists in the larger real world. He
compares the audience with insects who can see only one small part of an architectural ensemble, which is to say that, as witnesses of particular events, our
limited vision prevents us from seeing the larger pattern which gives them their
meaning. Schiller therefore argues that it is the duty of the author somehow to
make the audience experience the internal relationships of this larger structure:
der Dichter male fr Ameisenaugen, und bringe auch die andere Hlfte in unsern
Gesichtskreis verkleinert herber; er bereite uns von der Harmonie des Kleinen auf
die Harmonie des Grossen; von der Symmetrie des Theils auf die Symmetrie des
Ganzen, und lasse uns leztere in der erstern bewundern. (NA 20. 83)7

In this enterprise the endings of plays tend to have a particular weight and have
tended to attract particular critical attention. They leave a lasting image in the
minds of the audience, or the final words sum up a comment on the action that
the audience has witnessed. That is to say, the angle on the world that the play
has adopted is often formulated with particular sharpness at the moment when
the world of the play comes to an end and the audience is returned to its own
world: the last few scenes conventionally present the crisis of the play and its
resolution or precisely its non-resolution.
A conventional gesture that was used to round off plays in classical times was the
deus ex machina, when the appearance of a divine being from outside the action
was used by the playwright to disentangle a plot that could no longer be resolved in
its own terms. To modern audiences such an intervention seems arbitrary, and
when it used in a modern play, as for example in Kleists Amphitryon or Brechts
Der gute Mensch von Sezuan, it tends to act as a comment on the falseness of the
resolution that the divine being is imposing. However, as long as a belief in such
divine beings formed part of the philosophical framework of the play, the use of
the deus ex machina was entirely consistent.
5
See Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Werke. Ed. by Herbert G. Gpfert et al. Munich:
Hanser 197079. Vol 4. P. 598.
6
Both Lessing and Schiller are thinking primarily of the problem of using a historical
subject as the basis of a drama, but the point remains the same.
7
References in this form are to Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Ed. by Julius Petersen,
Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff.

111
In the eighteenth century, when attempts were being made to interpret the
world this world as a coherent autonomous system, that is to say, when divine
intervention of this kind became problematic (see Nathan der Weise), the framework of the play had, it seems, to take the form of a system of ideas and moral
values, and in practice the consequence was a tradition of plays which concluded
with the punishment and/or the sentimental transfiguration of key characters.
The tendency was for plays to end with a tableau. Significant characters who
bear the main themes of the play are disposed on stage dead or alive so as to
give enduring weight to the concluding words and gestures. It is often as if the
final scene were written with the future engraving in the authors mind, complete with the quotation, the sententia, which summarises the timeless truth to
be drawn from it. A moral order is restored to the disordered world of the drama:
alls well that ends well.
At least in the last third of the century, however, we increasingly find plays
which pay homage to this tradition but where the relationship between the
tableau and the action of the play is problematic. In Gtz von Berlichingen,
Emilia Galotti or Egmont, for example, there has been much critical debate
revolving in effect round the question what the sententia is: what exactly is the
relationship in these plays between the events we have witnessed and the
framework in which the author is setting them? That is to say, the concluding
tableau is as much a problem as a resolution and this applies in particular but
different ways to the plays that both Lenz and Schiller wrote when in their
twenties.
All of the plays that will be discussed in this essay end with a final tableau
which takes the story briefly beyond its crisis and introduces the vision of an order
within which such crises have no place. They have all among other things
traced the consequences of the abuse of social power, but they all resolve this
problem differently. In both Die Soldaten and Kabale und Liebe the middleclass father, whom one might call the secondary victim, is paid off and we turn
for the last word to a male aristocrat, the character who, if any, is the source of
power. In the final scene of Die Soldaten the middle-class characters, Marie
and Wesener, are left behind and become the object of a discussion between
Graf von Spannheim and Grfin de La Roche, and the play ends with a rousing speech by the Graf which is delivered with a rhetorical flourish embellishing his proposal for state brothels as if this were the concluding moral the
audience were to remember on their way home from the theatre: Die durch
unsere Unordnungen zerrttete Gesellschaft wrde wieder aufblhen und
Fried und Wohlfahrt aller und Freude sich untereinander kssen (WB 2. 246).8

References in this form are to Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz: Werke und Briefe in drei
Bnden. Ed. by Sigrid Damm. Leipzig: Insel 1987.

112
One imagines the Graf turning towards the audience, almost leaving his role,
as he urges on them the universalistic conclusion he draws from the particular
events he and we have witnessed. The problem is that there is a tension between
the Grafs proposal and the view of the world that the play has revealed: state
brothels are surely not to be understood as an appropriate response to the moral
and psychological complexities of the world we have witnessed, based as it is
on the multiple abuse of systems of power rooted in social class, gender and
generation, which such a scheme would only perpetuate. Although Lenz did
believe that institutional reform could transform society and not by eliminating power but by using it as an integrative force it became increasingly clear
to him that the kind of reform advocated by the Graf was either ineffective or
counter-productive, and revised the final scene by giving the Grfin, who had
initially supported the Graf, an oppositional voice. She, as an aristocrat but also
a woman, criticises the Graf in the penultimate speech of the play for neglecting
the womans perspective: Wie wenig kennt ihr Mnner doch das Herz und die
Wnsche eines Frauenzimmers (WB 2. 734). In the revised version, then, the
Graf s final words remain, with minor alterations, but the significance of this
final gesture changes. Whereas in the first version the audience might have
retained a certain critical distance from the Graf, that critical distance is now
represented on stage in the person of the Grfin: the final tableau is now opened
up because it consists of the Graf drawing his universalising conclusions at the
same time as the Grfin looks on disapprovingly, her silence perhaps an eloquent
representation of the silence to which the oppressed have been condemned
throughout the play the silence to which Stolzius was condemned when surrounded by the bullying soldiers in the coffee house in Act II, and the silence
to which the audience is condemned.
At the level of characterisation, too, there are reasons for not taking the
Grafs technocratic enthusiasm as that of the play as a whole. He has appeared
only once before, in the discussion of soldiers morals of Act I, scene 4. Here
his only positive contribution to the discussion was to defend the behaviour of
soldiers by casting aspersions on Eisenhardts moral strictures and denying that
middle-class families suffer from the seduction of their daughters, saying that
a girl who becomes pregnant deserves everything she gets. This is precisely the
blindness that the play is criticising, and that the Grfin is criticising. That is to
say: despite his rousing rhetoric, the little we have earlier seen of the Graf predisposes us not to accept his final words uncritically. Eisenhardt and the Grfin
have both been presented more sympathetically, although their good intentions
are shown to lead nowhere.
Similarly, in Der Hofmeister Lenz subverts the convention of the concluding
tableau by exaggerating it as a gesture, and again the action turns away from the
main lower-class protagonist. Luffer is left to his own problematic happy end,
enjoying castrated married bliss in rural idiocy. The other characters are led by

113
reunion piled on reunion, reconciliation piled on reconciliation, and through an
extraordinary series of coincidences9 including a lottery win and a good deal
of manipulation the play staggers to its happy end. Like Die Soldaten, it ends with
an optimistic look into the future as Fritz kisses the baby and assures the reassembled family that he has learnt his lesson: never to employ a private tutor. Once
again, though, the message with which the play leaves us does not quite fit the
action we have witnessed, which revealed much more fundamental flaws in the
characters and the society. In terms of characterisation there is little preparation
for the outbreak of reconciliation and the learning of lessons that spreads through
the final scene, and infects even Ptuss father, a character who appears to be
introduced into the play for this sole purpose. And to the extent that there is psychological preparation for the conclusion, for example in the manipulativeness of
the Geheimer Rat, it throws doubt on the meaning of the conclusion. There seems
every reason to believe Lenzs much later comment that his intention here
was to criticise abuses of the private tutor system, not the system as such,10 and
thus that Fritzs concluding words to Gustchen, which take up the sub-title of the
play, represent the failure of the characters in the play to understand what has happened to them: Dies Kind ist [] ein trauriges Pfand der Schwachheit deines
Geschlechts und der Roheiten des unsrigen: am meisten aber der vorteilhaften
Erziehung junger Frauenzimmer durch Hofmeister (WB 1. 123).11 Lenz adopts
the formal gestures of the author whose final words confirm the moral the audience have learnt from the play only to undercut them and to question whether the
ending is as happy as the characters think it is and whether the moral is the one the
characters think it is. All is not as well as it seems to be.
If there are internal reasons for suggesting that there is something arbitrary
about the final scene of Die Soldaten, that is further confirmed by Lenzs revision of the scene, his suggestion to Herder that he might like to tack on a different ending,12 and his subsequent proposal to drop the scene altogether. The
reason is not, it seems, that Lenz changed his mind about the meanings he
wanted the play to explore but because he changed his mind about the best way
of advancing his own proposals for social reform. His own scheme, as formulated for example in ber die Soldatenehen, is quite different from that of the
Graf and does in some way deal with the Grfins objections, but the publication and performance of the scene would have made his public role as advocate
of his own scheme more difficult. What is important in the present context is,
9

See Guthrie (n. 4). Pp. 6263.

See Lenzs Brief vom Erziehungswesen an einen Hofmeister. In: Heribert Tommek:
J.M.R. Lenz. Sozioanalyse einer literarischen Laufbahn. Heidelberg: Synchron 2003.
Pp. 415419.
11
See Guthrie (n. 4). P. 64.
12
See Lenzs letter to Herder of 20.11.1775. WB 3. 353354.
10

114
however, that the suggestion of dropping the final scene makes it clear that it
was a kind of add-on, a comment on the action and not strictly integral to it.
Are the sometimes rather abrupt positive endings of Schillers early plays
of the same kind as Lenzs? All three of them end with tableaux that interpret
the psychological and philosophical conclusions of the play, and in all three
Schiller had second thoughts about these conclusions and changed the
endings in the versions he prepared for stage performance. In the Schauspiel
version of Die Ruber the robbers are on stage and the play ends when Karl
leaves, whereas the Trauerspiel version focuses on the inner world of Karl,
who is at the end alone, having dismissed the robbers. More importantly
perhaps, the Trauerspiel version is less secure in its handling of Karls recognition of worldly authority; Schiller adds the gestures of him presenting his
robber friends with an estate, telling them to be gute Brger (NA 3. 235), and
instructing the robbers to serve a king who fights for the rights of man. There
is a potential problem at the end of Die Ruber in that Schillers conception
requires the victory of a political as well as a moral order,13 whereas the political order has been shown to be one where human rights are not upheld and
gute Brger do not thrive; in trying to solve this problem by being more concrete, the Trauerspiel version perhaps draws attention to Schillers difficulties in negotiating the join between idea and reality.
Critics have been equally doubtful about the changes that Schiller made in
the stage version of Fiesko, which ends with Fiesko being reconciled with
Verrina instead of being murdered by him. They have thought that there is a tension between this sentimental ending and the layout of the play as a tragedy.14
And in the case of Kabale und Liebe, too, Schiller had second thoughts about
the ending, for the version of the play prepared for performance in Mannheim
omits the final reconciliation between Ferdinand and his father. By stopping at
the moment when Wurm is taken off threatening revenge, the play is more openended, since the audience is less certain of the outcome, either in terms of story
or in terms of character development. But does this mean that the last few lines
of the printed version are an add-on in the same sense as the last scene of Die
Soldaten? More fundamentally: is the kind of criticism Schiller later made of
the ending of Egmont as imposed and stylistically heterogeneous applicable to
the ending of Kabale und Liebe, or indeed to Die Ruber or Fiesko?
The revisions of the stage versions in general point to Schillers concern
for concentrated dramatic action, and his cutting of the final lines of Kabale und
13

Klaus R. Scherpe writes of a moralischer berkonstruktion . Die Ruber. In:

Schillers Dramen. Neue Interpretationen. Ed. by Walter Hinderer. Stuttgart: Reclam
1979. Pp. 936, here p. 28.
14
See Helmut Koopmann: Die Verschwrung des Fiesko zu Genua. In: Schiller-Handbuch.
Ed. by Helmut Koopmann. Stuttgart: Krner 1998. Pp. 354364, here pp. 360361.

115
Liebe probably reflects his desire for a dramatic, short, sharp ending. It may also
imply that he was unconvinced by the psychological likelihood of such a rapid
change of heart on the part of either the Prsident or Ferdinand. But even if Schiller
did have such reservations, which is by no means clear, there seems little doubt
that the extended ending of the printed version is to be understood as integral.
Firstly, the gestures demanded by the stage-directions underline the intensity
and authenticity of the feelings expressed in the words.15 The characters would
have to be acted as thoroughly themselves, even when they are deceiving other
people or deceiving themselves. The words of the Prsident when he begs his
son for forgiveness might be open to malicious interpretation as read on the
page, Soll kein Blik mehr zu meiner lezten Erquickung fallen? (NA 5. 192),
but surely not when spoken on stage in a performance that respected the stagedirection, in der schreklichsten Quaal vor ihm niederfallend (NA 5. 192). The
word Quaal indicates an inner process that Lenz typically avoids, for example
when Marie and Wesener fall into each others arms: Beide wlzen sich halb
tot auf der Erde (WB 1. 245). Both when he is in more satirical mode and
when, as here, he is portraying extreme emotional states, Lenz tends to make his
characters enact gestures, but not to tell us what the gestures mean: where is
halb tot on the scale from horror to relief, or is it so intense that none of
these labels is appropriate? Or what is the relationship in the opening scene of
Der Hofmeister between Luffers gesture, his viele freundliche Scharrfe,
and his words, Der Kerl hat etwas in seinem Gesicht, das mir unertrglich ist
(WB 2. 42)? One might be tempted to say that the spoken words express the true
self and that the gesture is the act of deception, i.e. that Lenz was inverting the
eighteenth-century trope that the body is a more reliable expression of the self
than our words, but he goes beyond this alternative and raises questions about
the true self. The servile gesture expresses the truth of Luffers social situation,
expresses his true social self, while his words express his incoherent and
ambivalent longing to be free of this situation.
A similar phenomenon is the use of silence. The crisis of Kabale und Liebe
in the penultimate scene is marked at the start of the scene by the stagedirection in exceptional bold type, Groes Stillschweigen, das diesen Auftritt
ankndigen mu (NA 5. 176, 177), and the dialogue begins with three speeches
by Louise, each of which is followed by a pause. Silence here encapsulates both
the dramatic action and the idea of the play.16 It is an intensifying dramatic
15
See Alexander Kosenina: Anthropologie und Schauspielkunst. Studien zur eloquentia
corporis im 18. Jahrhundert. Tbingen: Niemeyer 1995 (Theatron 11), esp. pp. 247266.
16
See John Guthrie: Schiller, Kabale und Liebe. In: Landmarks in German Drama. Ed.
by Peter Hutchinson. Oxford Berne: Lang 2002 (Britische und irische Studien zur
deutschen Sprache und Literatur 27). Pp. 3145. See also the extended silence at the
beginning of Act V, scene 3.

116
representation of the lack of communication between Ferdinand and Louise,
which is reflected in her silence over the letter and contrasts with the eloquence
she shows in discussion with Lady Milford.17 More fundamentally this silence
represents the absolute incompatibility of the values identified with Ferdinand
and Louise, in whatever terms we define these. But it is also an eloquent
expression of the emotional states of the two protagonists. Louise, weighed
down by the knowledge of what she has done, namely, signed the letter, retreats
into formalities peppered with French Fremdwrter, while Ferdinand,
weighed down by the knowledge of what he has just done, namely, poisoned
the lemonade, is typically more radical and refuses to accept these formalities.
The final Act of Die Soldaten is punctuated by moments of silence, but here the
emotional states are not made clear. At most one could say that silence reflects
the characters and the audiences incomprehension of the enormity of what
they have witnessed. The Grfins silence, which is the concluding gesture of the
play, is preceded by the silence of Mary as the poisoned Desportes clutches his
throat (steif den Blick auf Stolzius geheftet ohne ein Wort zu sagen (WB 1.
243)) and the silence of Marie (schweigt stille (WB 1. 245)), as she realises
that the man she is importuning is her father.
The effect of all this is that Lenzs characters are problematic ciphers.
Schillers psychology is more fully worked out and is used to drive the plot.
Schillers medical studies had shown him something of the complexity of the
relationship between bodily states and mental states, and his characterisation
depends on this vision of a whole human being who has a physical, a mental
and a moral existence. In the preface to Die Ruber he talks about his concern,
ganze Menschen hinzustellen (NA 3. 7). How does he attempt to do this?
However unscrupulous and cynical the Prsident has been shown to be,
there were signs even in Act I, in the first scene where we saw him together
with his son, that he is not wholly unscrupulous. Schiller lays a trail that leads
to his final change of heart when he has the Prsident admit at this early stage
the moral cost of his intrigues at court, asking his son, Wem zu lieb bin ich auf
ewig mit meinem Gewissen und dem Himmel zerfallen? (NA 5. 36). And
again the accompanying stage-direction ernsthaft (as also shortly before,
NA 5. 28) tells Ferdinand and the audience that his words are to be taken at face
value. The Prsident has a suppressed bad conscience which in the last scene
an actor has to show breaking to the surface. Ferdinands gesture of reconciliation is similarly prepared for because his forgiveness is partly an expression
of his devotion to Louises last words and partly because the play has shown
how many of the values of the court he shares, despite appearing to revolt
17
See Bruce Duncan: An Worte lt sich trefflich glauben. Die Sprache der Luise
Millerin. In: Friedrich Schiller. Kunst, Humanitt und Politik in der spten Aufklrung.
Ed. by Wolfgang Wittkowski. Tbingen: Niemeyer 1982. Pp. 2631.

117
against them. His misinterpretation of Louises refusal to elope with him betrays,
for example, a great deal of his fathers attitude towards love relations, and so
it is appropriate that he should die reaching his hand out to his father. Like his
father he first declares himself innocent and off-loads the responsibility, before,
after a moment, accepting his share of the guilt.18 The values of the court
represented jointly by the Prsident and his son seem to be cracking. By this
means Schiller shows how the characters behave in terms of their psychology
at the same time as allowing them to round off the play by their acceptance of
guilt and therefore endorsement of its moral framework. Moreover, the conclusion is tied into the play by a network of ideas and images, not only the parallelism between father and son, which takes up the father motif and all it stands
for in the play, as well as resituating the aristocratic pair within the private realm
(albeit in front of an audience of Volk): it also extends the plays figurative
sub-structure, which is built on a reworking of biblical motifs.19
Much the same applies to Die Ruber, which also involves an individual
subjecting himself to the State legal system but at the same time, in a gesture
of atonement, to a moral law against which he has offended. Again, the ending
of the play is arranged as a gesture, a tableau, as Karl realises that a moral, that
is in this case, economic, injustice can be righted at the same time as he gives
himself up for his offences against the law of the land. And again, even though
his changes of mood in the final scene may appear rather abrupt, there is no
doubt that Karls increasing revulsion with the way of life that he has chosen
motivates his decision to leave the robbers and that his final gesture of generosity reflects an element of selfless humanity that was always part of his robber
life. Similarly the death of Schweitzer in the Schauspiel version highlights the
motif of mutual obligation that dominates the final scene involving the death of
Amalia and Karls final decision, while Franzs pangs of conscience, though not
leading to remorse like the Prsidents, in their own way also confirm the moral
framework of the play.
The force of Schillers dramatic language is matched by the intensity and
coherence with which he has thought through the endings of these plays in
terms of characters and imagery, but particularly in terms of ideas. The victory
at the end of Kabale und Liebe is similarly the victory of the values to which
the characters aspire but which they never attain; one might call it the victory
of love, to which Ferdinand and his father pay homage in their last moments. It
is the coherence of the plays at this level, even of the two versions of Fiesko,
18

See Joachim Wich: Ferdinands Unfhigkeit zur Reue. Ein Beitrag zur Deutung von
Schillers Kabale und Liebe. In: Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch der GrresGesellschaft N.S. 15 (1974). Pp. 115.
19
R. B. Harrison: The Fall and Redemption of Man in Schillers Kabale und Liebe. In:
German Life and Letters 35 (1981). Pp. 513.

118
that in the end integrates Schillers plays, more firmly indeed than the psychological motivation, which is certainly thought through but can strike a modern
audience as thought rather than felt. One might even argue that, inasmuch as
their endings remain problematic, this is because of the difficulty of making
this integrative structure work at the same time through plot and characterisation, especially because there is a tension between the logic of the idea and the
logic of plot and characterisation.20 However, even if we therefore feel that many
actors would be hard pressed to manage the dramatic switches of mood, there is
none of the disjunction between the ending and the body of the play that is typical for Lenz, where what appears to be a dnouement is more of a side-long
comment on the action of the play. Schillers endings are not separate comments
on the foregoing action in the way that even that of Der Hofmeister is.
There are two further points that follow from this. Firstly there is the question of the relation of adjacent scenes to each other. The final scene of Die
Soldaten is set against the preceding action rather like the soldiers discussion
of womanising in Act I, scene 4: this scene does not develop the plot from the
preceding scene but offers comments on it, and the comments themselves are
not in the form of a simple verdict but of a debate, so that the audience have, as
it were, to stand back and decide what the relationship between the scenes is.
An extreme case is presented by the final two scenes of Der neue Menoza,
which have absolutely no connection with the plot of the play up to this point.
These are particularly clear examples of Lenzs practice of offering the audience fragments, moments, but leaving them with the task of co-ordinating
them because there is no explicit continuity in terms of character, plot or idea.
Such contrasts are effectively underlined by contrasts of place, and a refusal to
follow the unity of place becomes something of a principle for Lenz. Schiller
was equally unwilling to submit blindly to the allzuenge Pallisaden des
Aristoteles und Batteux (NA 3. 5), and he often thought of Die Ruber in
terms of narrative forms; but continuity of place, or controlled disunity of
place, is used by him to provide coherence and focus. Both Die Ruber and
Kabale und Liebe revolve round contrasted social milieux, the Bohemian
forests and the castle in Franconia, or the worlds of the Prsident, Lady Milford
and the Millers within a single court. And within each milieu Schiller tends to
use a smaller number of longer scenes or sets of scenes in order to unfold the
character-structures and ideas that form the basis of the play. It is true that he
often achieves dramatic effect by contrasting scenes, for example the change of
setting in Act I, scene 5, of Kabale und Liebe, but there is little doubt that there
20

Francis Lamport makes very much the same point in the second part of his essay in
the present volume, when he argues that there is a tension in Die Jungfrau von Orleans
between the reliance of the play on psychology and the fact that its religious framework
is one that in the last resort dispenses with psychology.

119
is a precisely controlled continuity of argument or idea from one scene to the
next: Ferdinands conception of love leads on to, and in fact lives from, its
antithesis, the Prsidents conception of love. The intensity and sharpness of
Schillers focus contrasts with the fragmentation of Lenz.
The second point is connected to the first and relates to the way an audience
experiences a scene. Both Lenz and Schiller make use of a tradition of emphatic
play-endings, but they use literary tradition differently: in their different ways, the
endings of Die Ruber, Fiesko and Kabale und Liebe all gain in force by being
placed at the culmination of a dnouement, whereas the finales of Der Hofmeister
and Die Soldaten know, as one might say, that they are finales and question
rather than intensify the significance of the plot. A glance through the notes
to these plays in modern editions reveals how drenched Schillers writing is in
general in references, quotations and semi-quotations, but these are integrated into
the texture of his writing and seemingly have the function of giving it intensity
by mobilising other texts texts by Shakespeare, Goethe, Leisewitz and many
others which could lend to it some of their force. In the case of Lenz, there are
fewer quotations, but the ones that are there are presented in the knowledge that
they are quotations. When Romeo and Juliet is quoted in Der Hofmeister (WB
1. 6869), Lenz is not infiltrating Shakespearean energy or authority into his text
but offering further thoroughly problematic perspectives from which the action
can be observed. And the allusions to the story of the Prodigal Son (WB 1. 118)
are more off-hand than Schillers reflections on the same theme in Die Ruber.

III.
Finally it is possible to see connections between these two kinds of dramatic language and theoretical statements by Lenz and the young Schiller. Even though
neither wrote anything like a coherent formal statement of their theoretical
principles, and what they did write was primarily affected by the circumstances to
which they were responding, there are significant differences in their approaches.
Firstly, although Lenz and Schiller think of the divine in different ways, they
both find a legitimation of art in the way that it reflects Creation. For Schiller,
the passage quoted above from Ueber das gegenwrtige teutsche Theater
makes it clear that the dramatist produces a work whose fictional world imitates the structure of the real world created by God: it is the divine symmetry
of the created work of art that in one sense provides the legitimacy of drama,
that is to say, the management of plot and character so that they are integrated
into a larger philosophical framework. For Lenz, on the other hand, it is the
freedom inherent in the process of creation, by which the artist makes use of
that divine spark within himself in imitation of the activity of God: wir sind
oder wollen wenigstens sein, die erste Sprosse auf der Leiter der freihandelnden
selbststndigen Geschpfe, und da wir eine Welt hie da um uns sehen, die

120
der Beweis eines unendlich freihandelnden Wesens ist, so ist der erste Trieb,
den wir in unserer Seele fhlen, die Begierdes ihm nachzutun (WB 2. 645).
For Schiller it is the product and the way it is constructed; for Lenz it is the
process, the freedom found in the act of creation, that connects mankind to the
transcendental.
This combination of similarity and difference is reflected in the attitudes of
Lenz and Schiller to the specific moral purpose of drama. Schillers startingpoint in his reflections Was kann eine gute stehende Schaubhne eigentlich
wirken? is the idea of punishing vice and exalting virtue (NA 20. 93).
Admittedly he moves on, as also in Ueber das gegenwrtige teutsche Theater,
to qualify this and doubt the number of people who have actually been cured of
a vice through the theatre, but even when he goes on to write about the cultural
or ideological value of drama his argument still revolves round the idea of
learning from what happens to the vicious and the virtuous. Here, too, one
has to qualify and admit that Schiller is anxious to point out that the dividingline between vice and virtue is less clear than it is often assumed to be, and that
he is concerned to portray the mechanism, the Rderwerk (NA 3. 6), that lies
behind vice and virtue, but it is nevertheless at this level that his theory operates. For Lenz the moral purpose of drama lies less in any particular vices or
virtues that the characters demonstrate or fail to demonstrate than in its ability
to teach the principle that for Lenz lies behind vice and virtue, namely, freedom. A tragedy, like Gtz von Berlichingen, has for him the function of inspiring the audience by showing them a character who resists the pressures on him,
refuses simply to be a machine, or a cog in a machine, eine vorzglichknstliche
kleine Maschine, die in die groe Maschine, die wir Welt, Weltbegebenheiten,
Weltlufte nennen besser oder schlimmer hineinpat (WB 2. 637). For Lenz
comedy has the function of demonstrating the folly of those who are unfree,
who submit to circumstance and inclination. He called Der Hofmeister and Die
Soldaten comedies not because they have an optimistic view of the world but
because they show characters who act in absurd ways inasmuch as they fail to
rise above their circumstances. It is these circumstances, not (as in Schiller)
character, that is allowed to drive the action.
What is perhaps most striking is that, although the practice is so different, in
terms of theory it is the mature Schiller and not the young Schiller to whom
Lenz has the greatest affinity, using the idea of freedom to address the idea of
morality rather than addressing particular forms of moral or immoral behaviour. And the link between Lenz and the mature Schiller is Kant. Lenz himself
admitted that he was temperamentally unsuited to sustained philosophical
reflection,21 but he was a devoted student of Kant when he attended university
at Knigsberg in the period 176871, and this was precisely the time when
21

See his letter to Johann Daniel Salzmann of October 1772. WB 3. 285.

121
Kant was evolving into the Kant of the three Critiques, as student lecture notes
show.22 There are too many strands in Lenzs thought for one to be able to claim
that he was a Kantian, but there seems little doubt that certain concepts, notably
the concept of freedom that he uses in the same way as Kant and that is central to
his dramatic theory, is dependent on his knowledge of Kant. That is reflected in
the unfreedom of his characters, their willingness to subordinate themselves to the
pressures of the world, to be cogs in a machine, which makes them in his specific
sense comic characters. The characters in Schillers early dramas strive in different ways for freedom, and one could argue that the tragedy of the characters
lies in the way that they entangle themselves in circumstances or encounter existential situations from which they cannot then free themselves, but Schillers
dramatic language presents them to us as people who struggle with their fate.
The plays of Schiller both the early and the mature Schiller tend to end
with gestures indicating that the struggle can be won, that the hero or heroine
is approaching the realm of freedom. Because he is at the same time committed to the tight organisation of plot and the full motivation of human behaviour,
there is a tension between freedom and necessity. Put negatively, it might be
argued that the upbeat endings of Schillers plays betray a will rather than an
ability to overcome the categorical, qualitative divide between freedom and
necessity. On the other hand for Kant it is only through the will that it is ever
possible to breach the gap between the two realms and, put more positively, one
can say that it is the force of Schillers vision, the power of his dramatic language, which allows him to explore these borderlands so searchingly. Lenz
focuses almost exclusively on the realm of necessity, relying on the realm of
freedom to assert itself ex negativo. Lenz asks questions whereas Schiller proposes answers, or at least offers answers for our inspection and inspiration.

22
See Bert Kasties: J.M.R. Lenz unter dem Einflu des frhkritischen Kant. Ein Beitrag
zur Neubestimmung des Sturm und Drang. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter 2003
(Quellen und Forschungen zur Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte 23/257).

This page intentionally left blank

Steffan Davies

Schillers Egmont and the Beginnings of Weimar Classicism*

This essay examines Schillers stage version of Goethes Egmont, which was performed in
Weimar in April 1796 and which Schiller described as gewissermaasen Gthens und
mein gemeinschaftliches Werk. Beginning with his review of Egmont in 1788 the essay
demonstrates some of the principles on which Schiller amended the text, and then shows
that these match changes in Goethes own writing by the mid-1790s. On this basis it evaluates the correspondence between Goethe and Schiller, and other biographical texts, to
reconsider the view that Goethes misgivings about the adaptation marked a low-point in
their relationship. It argues that Schillers work on Egmont instead deserves to be seen as
a constructive experience in the development of the Weimar alliance.

I.
Schiller had spent three weeks in Weimar watching performances by Iffland
and his visiting theatre company when he wrote a letter to Krner on 10 April
1796. His aim: to persuade Krner to join him for Ifflands last performance,
Goethes Egmont, which he had adapted for the stage. He sounds happy with
his stay and with his work, describing the new Egmont as gewissermaasen
Gthens und mein gemeinschaftliches Werk (NA 28. 210211). Goethe,
Schiller and Iffland surely Krner would not want to miss experiencing such
a combination of talents.1
* Schillers texts are quoted from Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Ed. by Julius
Petersen, Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff. Quotations
are identified by NA with volume and page numbers. Quotations from Goethes Werke.
Hamburger Ausgabe. Ed. by Erich Trunz. 14 vols. Munich: Beck 12th edn 1981 are
identified by HA. Quotations from Goethe: Werke. Weimarer Ausgabe. Weimar:
Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 18871919 are identified by WA. Goethe ber seine
Dichtungen. Versuch einer Sammlung aller usserungen des Dichters ber seine poetischen Werke. Ed. by Hans Gerhard Grf. Frankfurt/M. 190114 is cited as Grf with
volume and page numbers, Publications of the English Goethe Society as PEGS. This
paper was first delivered on 18 May 2005 in Weimar at the Symposium junger
Goetheforscher of the Goethe-Gesellschaft; an abridged version will be submitted for
publication in German in the Goethe-Jahrbuch. My thanks are due in particular to Jim
Reed and Stephen Mossman for their help in reading and commenting on it.
1
Originally scheduled for performance on 20 April 1796, Egmont was eventually performed on 25 April and was not repeated, as Iffland was leaving Weimar the following
day. See NA 13. 324. Except where indicated otherwise, this paper refers to the manuscript version of Egmont which Hans Heinrich Borcherdt reproduces in NA 13 and designates there as h1. This is the only extant manuscript which can be confidently

124
The nature of Schillers work on Egmont in those few weeks in March and
April 1796 defines some of the nature of the greater gemeinschaftliches Werk
of Weimar Classicism. It contributed to that work in that it confirmed the two
mens cooperation thus far, it opened new avenues in their work on theatrical
adaptation, and as Schiller put it in the letter to Krner, it was of no little use
in the shaping of the Wallenstein trilogy. Despite its importance Peter-Andr
Alt has described the performance on 25 April as one of the Sternstunden des
Weimarer Theaters 2 Schillers Egmont, and these aspects of it in particular,
have received relatively little critical attention among the mass of research on
Weimar Classicism. This is not least because Schillers view of Goethes text is
generally judged to have been hostile, an attitude which Goethe then reciprocated in kind towards Schillers adaptation.3
Assessments of Goethes feelings are based largely on statements he made
long after the event, and they will be discussed later on. The basis for Schillers
opinion is his anonymous review of Goethes text when it was published in
1788 (NA 22. 199209). Here Schiller was indeed largely critical of the text,
but the reasons for this were understandable. Schillers feelings for Goethe
seem to have been at low ebb (if also at high intensity) in 178889.4 Moreover
the publication of Egmont threatened to eclipse Schillers own untidy Don
Karlos, which had appeared in book form in 1787, and his history of the Revolt
of the Netherlands, which was published only weeks after the review. Part of
the reviewers dissatisfaction with inaccuracies in the play can be read as an
historians tour de force to demonstrate his own superior familiarity with the
same material.5 Even regardless of such jealousy, Schiller saw Egmont in the
attributed to Schiller and connected with the 1796 performance without later emendations. NA 13. 326334 summarises the manuscript and published versions of Schillers
Egmont, as does David G. John: Images of Goethe through Schillers Egmont. Montreal
Kingston 1998. Pp. 2632. Johns main aim is to consider the later Mannheim manuscript (Borcherdts h2), which he reproduces in full, and the performance of Egmont.
2
Peter-Andr Alt: Schiller. Leben Werk Zeit. 2 vols. Munich 2000. Vol. 2. P. 391.
3
Apart from John (n. 1), important studies of Schillers Egmont are Harold Alexander
Walter: Kritische Deutung der Stellungnahme Schillers zu Goethes Egmont. Dsseldorf
1959; Lesley Sharpe: Schiller and Goethes Egmont. In: Modern Language Review 77
(1982). Pp. 629645; and Sigrid Siedhoff: Der Dramaturg Schiller. Egmont. Goethes
Text Schillers Bearbeitung. Bonn 1983 (Mitteilungen zur Theatergeschichte der
Goethezeit 6). See also the commentary and bibliography in Friedrich Schiller: Werke
und Briefe in zwlf Bnden. Vol. 9. Ed. by Heinz Gerd Ingenkamp. Frankfurt/M. 1995.
Pp. 836849, 12601261.
4
On the two mens brief encounter in 1788 and its aftermath, see (for example) Hans
Pyritz: Der Bund zwischen Goethe und Schiller. Zur Klrung des Problems der sogenannten Weimarer Klassik. In: Hans Pyritz: Goethe-Studien. Ed. by Ilse Pyritz.
Cologne Graz 1962. Pp. 3451, esp. pp. 3537.
5
See A. G. Blunden: Schillers Egmont. In: Seminar. A Journal of Germanic Studies 14
(1978). Pp. 3144.

125
light of problems in his own Don Karlos, and the discussion of Goethes text
follows on from the Briefe ber Don Karlos in raising the question of where
next? in his crisis of dramatic creativity.6 None of these seem to be reasons to
assume that Schiller rejected Egmont in the long term. Indeed on a contrasting
high in his letter to Krner from Weimar, he suggested that the role of Egmont
was so special that only Iffland could do justice to its demands: Egmont kann,
wenn Ifland fort ist, nicht wieder gegeben werden, und das Stck muss dann
solange liegen bleiben, biss man einen neuen Schauspieler hat, der seine Rolle
spielen kann (NA 28. 210).7
The main theme of Schillers review is that there is insufficient tragic motivation for Egmonts fall:
Hier ist keine hervorstechende Begebenheit, keine vorwaltende Leidenschaft, keine
Verwickelung, kein dramatischer Plan, nichts von dem allem; eine bloe
Aneinanderstellung mehrerer einzelnen Handlungen und Gemlde, die beinahe
durch nichts als durch den Charakter zusammengehalten werden, der an allen Anteil
nimmt, und auf den sich alle beziehen. (NA 22. 200)

Schiller sees nothing fundamentally wrong with this: he does not criticise
Shakespeares Macbeth and Richard III, which he names as the first such character dramas. Indeed he praises the way in which Egmont is reflected by the
nuclear configuration of characters around him. But he is unconvinced that
Goethes Egmont is a figure who can meet the genres requirements. He is too
balanced, too moderate, too equivocal, and too humane. His involvement with
Klrchen allows him to run away to his lover when tragic form requires him to
stay and face tough decisions instead.
It was not only in the Egmont review that Schiller was concerned to see dramatic characters clearly and logically motivated. In his essay ber die tragische
Kunst, published in 1792 (NA 20. 148170), he maintained that tragedy has a
clear, single purpose: to evoke pity by appealing to human reason. Tragedy is
not a presentation of characters and themes which the audience can take or
leave as it pleases; selection and planning are the dramatists task. Although he
may have been piqued in 1788 about the historical inaccuracies in Egmont, that
was not the main point; the demand here is that on the stage, any empirical fact
is not an end in itself but must serve tragedys purpose. Indeed the practice of
history had been a crucial step for Schiller towards these very ideas. Just a year
before he began to formulate them in 1790, he had offered a similar definition

See Sharpe (n. 3). Pp. 630632.

Goethe, on the other hand, appears to have considered Johann Heinrich Vohs for the
part of Egmont instead of Iffland, who eventually did play the role. See NA 13.
323324; also Gnter Schulz: Zwei Schiller-Autographien. In: Jahrbuch der
Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 3 (1959). Pp. 1933, esp. pp. 2730.
7

126
of the historians task in his inaugural lecture in Jena (NA 17. 359376). The
historian is faced with a mass of facts and must choose which ones to marshal
for his particular purpose in Schillers opinion, the teleology which has led
humanity forward to its present-day state (NA 17. 371). There is a great difference
between the Gang der Welt and the Gang der Weltgeschichte (NA 17. 372:
Schillers emphasis). History is no longer just the pre-existing Kette der
Begebenheiten which Schiller described in the Rheinische Thalia preface to
Don Karlos (1785: NA 6. 345). Rather the historians task, like the tragedians, is
to construct the chain: indem [der philosophische Verstand] diese Bruchstcke
durch knstliche Bindungsglieder verkettet, erhebt er das Aggregat zum System,
zu einem vernunftmig zusammenhngenden Ganzen (NA 17. 373).

II.
Let us return to the adaptation of Egmont. Some of Schillers changes were
entirely practical. He clarified stage directions, and tidied up some of the language for speaking on the stage. To give a perhaps extreme example,
Goethes line, Ich wnsche [] selbst, da [Oliva] auf seine Bedenklichkeiten
was recht Beruhigendes geschrieben wrde was turned by Schiller into the
simple command Beruhige ihn! (NA 13. 17). But apart from such practical
changes, the main theme of Schillers adaptation is that he consistently worked
to motivate his characters clearly and from within.8 So for example, he pared
away any implication of events which do not bear immediate relevance to the
dramas action. In the opening scene, the reference to Egmonts victory at the
battle of St Quentin was removed, as his greater heroism at Gravelines is
enough to describe his character (NA 13. 5). Schiller cut the speculation about
a royal visit from Spain a location outside the plays geographical horizon
from the dialogue between Silva and Gomez in Goethes Act IV (Schiller II/13:
NA 13. 43), and likewise the references to foreign enemies in the dialogue
between Egmont and Alba (NA 13. 4950). Action seen live on stage was preferred to action described in words: Schiller cut many of the cases on which
Goethes Egmont adjudicates by letter (Goethe II/Egmonts Wohnung; Schiller
I/7), and instead shows him delivering justice on the rabble-rouser Vansen in
a previous scene (pp. 1420).9 Revealingly Schillers Egmont asks his secretary to give him just the edited highlights das Ntigste from his
correspondence (NA 13. 16).
8

An early study of Schillers stage adaptations identified Schillers emendations as

motivirend, ergnzend und erklrend. Albert Kster: Schiller als Dramaturg.
Beitrge zur deutschen Litteraturgeschichte des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts. Berlin
1891. P. 8.
9
Herbert Cysarz judged that in his work on Egmont Schiller setzt Erzhlung in
Handlung [] um. Herbert Cysarz: Schiller. Halle/Saale 1934. P. 416.

127
Thus Schillers version lessened the very sense of an outside world which
exists in parallel to the dramatic action. This also underlay the removal of
Margarete von Parma and her adviser Machiavell. Goethes Margarete reflects
much of what happens to and concerns Egmont on a wider political level. The
discussion in her first dialogue with Machiavell shows that Egmont is relevant
in wider political terms. We see him as a figure open to disputed interpretation:
Machiavell protests his conscientious loyalty to the Crown, whereas Margarete
suspects him of covertly stirring up the crowd to rebellion. Moreover
Margarete is Egmonts parallel; notably she is one of the few characters with
whom Egmont never speaks on stage. (Brackenburg, his parallel suitor, is
another.) Like Egmont, she is powerful in appearance but inert in practice; she
has treated the rebels mildly and conscientiously, just as Egmont mildly judges
the misdeeds of his subjects; appearing in hunting garb in her first scene, she
too knows the value of pleasure outside the political sphere; she, like Egmont,
has plenty to fear from the arrival of Alba in Brussels. Schillers determination
that Egmonts tragedy should be motivated from within allowed no such
prolonged reflection of his character from the outside.
Schillers tightening also extended to the scope of the historical time and
causation suggested beyond the action of the drama. Open-ended causes and
consequences were reined in; speculative comments were weeded out. Egmonts
dialogue with Oranien lost the Regents reported comment da nichts einen
erwnschten Ausgang nehmen wolle and the speculation as to whether she
will leave Brussels; later in the same dialogue Schiller removed Egmonts
dreamy statement that Bei so groer Gefahr kommt die leichteste Hoffnung in
Anschlag (NA 13. 20, 24). From Egmonts claims that the prince must know
die Gesinnungen, die Ratschlge aller Parteien, or that man seeks freedom
um jeden seiner Wnsche befriedigen, jeden seiner Gedanken ausfhren zu
knnen, Gesinnungen and Gedanken were cut but Wnsche and
Ratschlge remained (NA 13. 21, 51). Schiller cut some verbal references to
the broad political categories of people (Volk) and nobility, and in his search
for clear lines of motivation he would not have missed Margaretes memorable
image of great men bobbing about helplessly on an uncontrollable tide of
humanity (HA 4. 377).
In Schillers version, action has a purpose. There is greater emphasis on the
essentials of the plot, on the here and now of the political situation. In the opening
scene from which he cut several historical references, he in fact expanded slightly
on the news that iconoclasts have plundered churches in Flanders. For Goethes
question Ists denn wahr, da sie die Kirchen in Flandern geplndert haben?
Schiller substituted a short dialogue in which the Carpenter (Zimmermeister)
reports: Wie? Wit ihr noch nicht? Die Unsinnigen! Da sie in Flandern sich
zusammenrottiert, da sie katholische Kirchen geplndert haben? This causes
a crowd to gather around him; Soest and Jetter reinforce what he has said with

128
the questions Wer? Die Aufrhrer? Die von der neuen Lehre? The Carpenter
then continues his story with Goethes original speech, Ganz und gar gerichtet
haben sie Kirchen und Kapellen [] (NA 13. 9). Attention is thus focused on
one specific salient point in the dramas historical background.10
In two places in particular Schiller uses Egmonts secretary, Richard, to
interrupt Goethes scenes with news which forces this greater concentration on
the here and now. Instead of Oraniens claim in his dialogue with Egmont,
Alba ist unterwegs, Richard whom Egmont was not expecting to see again so
soon11 appears with the specific information that Alba has reached the border
of Brabant with ten regiments. As Lesley Sharpe has pointed out, the discussion
is now no longer theoretical but rather about how to act in a real situation.12
In Goethes original, the news is only confirmed in the following scene, and
even then it is by letter and in the future tense. In Schiller, the impact of the
news is focused on Egmont and demands an immediate answer. A parallel is
the soliloquy which Schiller invented for Brackenburg (II/22), in which he
states as a fact his realisation that Klrchen loves Egmont rather than him.
In the second of these scenes Richard interrupts Egmont and Klrchen with
the news that Alba has summoned Egmont to see him. This marks a decisive
change in the run-up to Egmonts capture. In Goethes version the audience is
in suspense as to whether Egmont will really fall into Albas trap until he actually appears on stage in Albas palace. He may have said previously to Oranien
that he will go to Alba if ordered to do so (II/Egmonts Wohnung), but that
scene comes some time before his capture in Act IV, and Egmont treats the
question in hypothetical terms. Of course the audience knows that Egmont is
in danger the burghers have talked about it (IV/Strae) and the palace has
been set up for his capture but it is not until Alba goes to the window and sees
him approaching that we really know that the plan has worked (IV/Wohnung
des Herzogs von Alba). Schiller, on the other hand, consistently kept the
increasing danger to Egmont at the forefront of the drama.13 In his version, the
scenes in which the burghers discuss Albas new repressive decrees (II/13)
precede the Klrchen scenes (II/411), so that what was an idyllic interlude is
10
Schiller repeatedly used the term punctum saliens in discussions of dramatic structure: see Wolfgang Grohmann: Prgnanter Moment und punctum saliens. Zwei
Begriffe aus Schillers Werkstatt. In: Acta Germanica. Jahrbuch des Sdafrikanischen
Germanistenverbandes 7 (1972). Pp. 5976, esp. pp. 7076.
11
At the end of the dialogue with Richard (Goethe II/Egmonts Wohnung; Schiller I/7)
Schillers Egmont dismisses his secretary with the new instruction that he can be found
bei meiner Klara [], wenn etwas vorfllt (NA 13. 20).
12
Sharpe (n. 3). P. 638.
13
Sharpe speaks of Schillers wish to impose some greater sense of inevitability on the
play. Lesley Sharpe: Friedrich Schiller: Drama, Thought and Politics. Cambridge
1991. P. 220.

129
now framed by the new realities of the political situation. In between the two
(after II/3), to ram the point home, troops parade across the stage: Spanish
force is not a matter of talk and speculation, it is a real presence. At the end of
the Klrchen scenes Richard relays Albas command, and Egmont indicates
that he will obey. So as Alba and his henchmen prepare the palace for Egmonts
capture (II/1319), there is no room to speculate as to whether Egmont will
turn up or not. The focus is far more on how he will respond when he does.
Moreover, Klrchen is a party to this new dialogue between Richard and
Egmont. She is no longer the liebes Mdchen who swoons over old battle
plans or placidly listens to Egmonts views of the Regent at one remove
(Goethe I/Brgerhaus and III/Klrchens Wohnung: HA 4. 387, 413). She is
dismayed that she has been kept out of the picture so far Egmont has not told
her that Oranien has fled and she insists that Egmont must now flee too (NA
13. 4142). Schiller politicised Klrchen from the start. She does not provide
an idyll away from the affairs of state; she no longer sings the song which her
mother and presumably, Schiller dismisses as Heiopopeio (NA 13. 35).
Her relationship with Brackenburg is substantially altered, prefiguring the
changed relationship with Egmont. Now it is Brackenburg who asks Klrchen
if he can hold the twine for her to wind, not vice versa as in Goethes original;
she commands him to rediscover patriotic fervour and to behave like a man
(Ermannt Euch!: NA 13. 3233).
The removal of conjecture and doubts about fact thus shifted the emphasis
onto the characters response to reality. As a result it also gave personal tensions and conflicts a greater part in the drama. With less scope to argue about
the facts, the dialogue between Egmont and Oranien is all the more about the
differences between their characters. Likewise the conflict between Egmont
and Alba: the conflict of ideas in Goethe shifted some way in Schiller towards
the personal conflict of a character with his antagonist. In his new dialogue
with Richard and Klrchen, Egmont shows that he is determined to confront
Alba because he, Egmont, is the better man: Vor diesem Alba soll ich mich
verkriechen, durch meine Flucht des Stolzen bermut noch mehren? Und
meine Klara ists, die mir dies rt? Oh, denke nicht so klein von deinem Egmont!
Ich bleibe werde hren, was er will! (NA 13. 42). Alba, too, became a
slightly deeper and more complex character in Schillers version: he speaks the
brief soliloquy which Goethe gave Silva, so that he now privately expresses
doubt about the prospects for his enterprise:
Ich traue es mir nicht zu denken, aber meine Hoffnung schwankt. Ich frchte, es
wird nicht werden, wie ich wnsche. Ich sehe Geister vor mir, die still und sinnend
auf schwarzen Schalen das Geschick der Frsten und vieler Tausende wgen.
Langsam wankt das Znglein auf und ab; tief scheinen die Richter zu sinnen; zuletzt
sinkt diese Schale, steigt jene, angehaucht vom Eigensinn des Schicksals, und
entschieden ists. (NA 13. 45)

130
Later Alba is present, in disguise, when Egmonts death sentence is read to him
in prison (Schiller III/56). By the time Egmont is left alone with Ferdinand
and this masked figure, he strongly suspects that what he tells Ferdinand about
his father is in fact going straight to the ear of Alba himself. So Goethes text is
turned into a brief, one-sided second dialogue with Alba. When Egmont then tears
off the mask, the conflict is not about ideas and historic freedoms, but about
personal integrity: O des klglichen Tyrannen Todesurteile kann er schreiben,
aber den Blick des besseren Mannes kann er nicht aushalten. Zu Ferdinand. Stehst
du noch hier? Warum folgst du ihm nicht? Schme dich nur schme dich fr
den, den du gerne von ganzem Herzen verehren mchtest (NA 13. 66).
Schiller thus attempted to turn the character drama of the Sturm und Drang into
something new.14 He sought to develop it by keeping the emphasis on character
but attempting to lock these characters into clear, consistent and purposeful chains
of motivation. By analogy history no longer had a place on the stage if it meant
recounting impressive but disjointed facts such as the lives of great men chronicled in Karl Moors copy of Plutarch (NA 3. 20) but it was still entirely welcome
if it contributed specific complexes and problems to the dramas core concerns.

III.
It comes as no surprise that Schiller should have moved Egmont away from the
Sturm und Drang. Ten years younger than Goethe, he had, in Reeds phrase,
[begun] writing when the Sturm und Drang [had] tailed off into silence; he
[was] influenced by it but not of it.15 But this classical aesthetic: a small number
of characters who react to each other, representing certain principles rather than
referring to them; motivation of characters from within rather than reflection from
outside; and a plot which develops tightly, centred within the drama this aesthetic had also become Goethes. It is the pattern for Iphigenie auf Tauris (1787)
and Torquato Tasso (1790), both of which comfortably pre-date the alliance with
Schiller. Goethe had turned his back on the Sturm und Drang long before Schiller
pushed Egmont in the same direction. Theodor Adorno commented in his essay
Zum Klassizismus von Goethes Iphigenie (1967) that these two plays demonstrate die bestimmende Macht der Realitt, vor welcher der Sturm und Drang
sich die Augen verband.16 Moreover, it was partly from Goethe that Schiller
14
On differences between Goethes character tragedies Gtz and Egmont and
Schillers dramas, see F. J. Lamport: The Charismatic Hero: Goethe, Schiller, and the
Tragedy of Character. In: PEGS 18 (1988). Pp. 6283.
15
T. J. Reed: The Classical Centre: Goethe and Weimar 17751832. Oxford 1986.
P. 39. See also Alan Leidner: Schiller and the End of the Sturm und Drang. In:
Literature of the Sturm und Drang. Ed. by David Hill. Rochester (NY), Woodbridge
2003 (Camden House History of German Literature 6). Pp. 275287.
16
Theodor Adorno: Gesammelte Schriften 11. Noten zur Literatur. Ed. by Rolf
Tiedemann. Frankfurt/M. 1974. Pp. 495514, here p. 499.

131
learned his classicism. As he turned his search for literary models towards ancient
Greece in the late 1780s, he reviewed not only Egmont but also Iphigenie. His
own reading and translation of Euripidess Iphigenia at Aulis in 178889 led him
to argue that the ancients could teach him mehr Simplicitt in Plan und Stil.17
In Goethes Iphigenie he saw this ideal Greek aesthetic transferred onto the modern German stage. He found in it die imponierende groe Ruhe, [] die Wrde,
den schnen Ernst (NA 22. 212) which characterised the drama of antiquity and
offered him a model towards which to strive.18
Thus Schillers changes were in the spirit of Goethes classicism. His treatment of the theme of freedom in Egmont is another example. Freiheit was a
watchword of the Sturm und Drang, but a largely rhetorical one. It was a stirring
but loose motif ideally suited as an emotionally laden gesture expressing frustration; it was used as a term of impatient, negative protest against the limitation
and constriction of the individual rather than as a positive principle on which to
base social or political change.19 This still holds true for Goethes Egmont.
Freedom is much talked about but little is done to realise it; it is more evident in
its absence than by its presence; and if the Netherlanders really want to achieve
their historic political freedoms, then, as has often been pointed out, Egmont is a
poor choice of leader.20 Schiller could never, of course, remove the concept of
freedom entirely from the play nor was that remotely his intention but a pattern is discernible nonetheless. His editing left in the many qualified references
to freedom in the play, those where it goes hand in hand with lawfulness and
peace and quiet, where it hints at the complex clash of rights and might to which
he would later return in his own dramas.21 The showdown between liberal
traditions and arbitrary authority in Egmonts dialogue with Alba (Goethe
IV/Wohnung des Herzogs von Alba; Schiller II/19) was preserved largely intact.
On the other hand he tended to cut or alter the text where the concept stood alone
17
Letter to Krner. 9.3.1789. NA 25. 221; see also letter to Krner, 12.12.1788. NA 25.
158159.
18
See Lesley Sharpe: Schiller and Goethes Iphigenie. In: PEGS 54 (198384).
Pp. 101122, esp. pp. 103104, 107108.
19
David Hill: Die schnsten Trume von Freiheit werden ja im Kerker getrumt: The
Rhetoric of Freedom in the Sturm und Drang. In: Hill (n. 15). Pp. 15984, here p. 160,
also p. 165.
20
Ibid. P. 173. Martin Swales judges that Egmonts political awareness is very halfhearted. His criteria for rejecting a certain course of action, a certain mode of behaviour, are exclusively personal. M. W. Swales: A Questionable Politician: A Discussion
of the Ending to Goethes Egmont. In: Modern Language Review 66 (1971). Pp.
832840, here p. 835; for Lamport, Egmont is a tragedy of the unpolitical man caught
up in a political situation. F. J. Lamport: Entfernten Weltgetses Widerhall: Politics
in Goethes Plays. In: PEGS 44 (1974). Pp. 4162, here p. 44.
21
The range of meanings attached to freedom in Goethes Egmont is described by
Elizabeth M. Wilkinson: The Relation of Form and Meaning in Goethes Egmont. In:
PEGS 18 (1949). Pp. 149182, esp. pp. 167170.

132
and hinted at the Promethean visions of the Sturm und Drang. In his opening
scenes froh und frei sein [], leben und leben lassen was allowed to stay, likewise, Sicherheit und Ruhe, Ordnung und Freiheit and the combination of freedom with historic privileges (NA 13. 8, 13), but not das freie Leben which
characterises Egmont (NA 13. 5).22 Egmont no longer dreams in prison of riding
frisch hinaus ins Feld, [] wo das Verlangen, vorzudringen, zu besiegen, zu
erhaschen, seine Faust zu brauchen, zu besitzen, zu erobern, durch die Seele des
jungen Jgers glht; wo der Soldat sein angebornes Recht auf alle Welt mit raschem
Schritt sich anmat und in frchterlicher Freiheit wie ein Hagelwetter durch Wiese,
Feld und Wald verderbend streicht und keine Grenzen kennt. (HA 4. 438439)

Rather he now describes a tamer, almost pastoral vision: the rider goes frisch
hinaus ins Freie, wo der Mensch erleichtert alle Fesseln von sich wirft und an
dem Mutterbusen der Natur sich frei und froh und selig wiederfindet (NA 13.
63). Despite his earlier distaste for Goethes salto mortale in eine Opernwelt
(NA 22. 208), Schiller could hardly do away entirely with Egmonts final vision
of Klrchen (Goethe V/Gefngnis; Schiller III/8).23 But whereas Goethes
Klrchen appears on stage and lends her traits to an image of freedom,24 in
Schiller (where she famously appears only to Egmont, who then reports his
dream) she offers him a symbol of freedom and a vision of the Netherlanders
triumph over tyranny, but she appears as an embodiment of his country.25
This in part reflects a generally more cautious attitude towards freedom
on Schillers part than Goethes: Posas plea for Gedankenfreiheit (NA 6.
191) means precisely that, and no more.26 Like many others, Schiller had been
horrified by the excesses committed in the name of high ideals during the Reign
of Terror. But Goethe, too, had come to criticise unreflektierte Freiheitsrhetorik
22
Schiller grouped Goethes early Brgerszenen (I/Armbrustschieen and II/Platz in
Brssel) together to make an unbroken sequence of opening scenes (I/15).
23
See Christoph Michel: Sinnbild Kulissenzauber. Zur Kontroversen Rezeption
des Egmont-Schlusses. In: Spuren, Signaturen, Spiegelungen. Zur Goethe-Rezeption in
Europa. Ed. by Bernhard Beutler and Anke Bosse. Cologne Weimar Vienna 2000.
Pp. 7792; also Swales (n. 20), pp. 837840.
24
Die Freiheit in himmlischem Gewande, von einer Klarheit umflossen, ruht auf einer
Wolke. Sie hat die Zge von Klrchen und neigt sich gegen den schlafenden Helden
(stage direction); Die gttliche Freiheit, von meiner Geliebten borgte sie die Gestalt
(HA 4. 453).
25
Sie schwang den Hut der Freiheit mir entgegen zeigte mir von fern ein frhlich Volk
zum lauten Ufer wimmelnd und Segel zahlenlos im Winde flatternd und drckte leise
mir den Lorbeer auf das Haupt. Es war mein Klrchen, war mein Vaterland. Zusammen
in ein Bildnis flossen sie, die beiden schnsten Freuden meines Herzens (NA 13. 71).
26
See Helmut Koopmann: Freiheitssonne und Revolutionsgewitter. Reflexe der
Franzsischen Revolution im literarischen Deutschland zwischen 1789 und 1840.
Tbingen 1989. P. 32; and T. J. Reed: Talking with Tyrants: Dialogues with Power in
Eighteenth-Century Germany. In: The Historical Journal 33 (1990). Pp. 6379, esp. p. 66.

133
even if, like Schiller, he still laid great importance on the term.27 In his poem
Ilmenau (1783) he laments that he used to sing so navely of unfettered,
Promethean freedom;28 a Xenion from his Nachla claims in the light of the
French Revolution that freedom steht [] wahrlich nicht jeglichem an (HA
1. 230). When he reworked Gtz von Berlichingen for the stage in 1804 one of
his revisions was to cut indeterminate invocations of political freedom, leaving
it as a personal concept which applies to the characters immediate situations.29
Following the same trend the texts of Egmont performed in Mannheim and
Weimar as France tightened its grip on Germany in 1806 further cut and qualified appeals to freedom which Schiller had maintained from Goethes original.30 O unsre Freiheit (Goethe IV/Strasse, Schiller II/1) became O unsre
gute alte Verfassung, da ich nach Freiheit winsle, trume (Goethe
V/Klrchens Haus, Schiller III/1) became da ich nach Rettung winsle,
trume; jedes Herz, das unsere Verfassung liebt was substituted for jedes
Herz, das nach der Freiheit sich regt (Goethe V/Klrchens Haus, Schiller III/2);
Klrchen offers Egmont a Siegespalme rather than the Hut der Freiheit
(Schiller III/8).31 In the Mannheim text the repeated cry of Ordnung und
Freiheit! (Goethe I/1, Schiller I/1) became Ordnung und frei Gewissen! and
Ordnung und Gewissensfreiheit! The later manuscripts also substitute patriotism for freedom as the cause for which Egmont lays down his life: Frs
Vaterland sterb ich, dir, fr das ich ich sonst gelebt, gehandelt, bring ich mich
jetzt leidend zum Opfer.32 Schiller, and those who revised the drama after him,

27
See John Erpenbeck: Freiheit/Notwendigkeit. In: Goethe-Handbuch in vier Bnden.
Ed. by Bernd Witte et al. Stuttgart 199699. Vol. IV/1. P. 322.
28
Und wenn ich unklug Mut und Freiheit sang / Und Redlichkeit und Freiheit sonder
Zwang, / Stolz auf sich selbst und herzliches Behagen, / Erwarb ich mir der Menschen
schne Gunst; / Doch ach! ein Gott versagte mir die Kunst, / Die arme Kunst, mich
knstlich zu betragen. / Nun sitz ich hier, zugleich erhoben und gedrckt, / Unschuldig
und gestraft, und schuldig und beglckt (HA 1. 110). There is also a note of cynical
regret in the notion that such qualities as honesty, bravery and freedom can only be
expressed artificially.
29
See my own article: Goethe, Theatre and Politics: Gtz von Berlichingen from 1771
to 1804. In: PEGS 70 (2000). Pp. 2945, esp. pp. 3638.
30
The manuscripts in question are the Mannheim theatre manuscript (see n. 1) and the
Weimar theatre directors book, which Borcherdt (in NA 13) designates h2 and h4
respectively. See also Siedhoff (n. 3), p. 232.
31
NA 13. 335347.
32
Schillers version of this line (Fr die Freiheit sterb ich! Ihr, fr die ich sonst gelebt,
gehandelt, bring ich mich jetzt leidend zum Opfer) changes the emphasis of Goethes
original (Ich sterbe fr die Freiheit, fr die ich lebte und focht, und der ich mich jetzt leidend opfre). The first published edition of Schillers adaptation (1857) reverted to Goethes
sentence but still substituted Vaterland for Freiheit: ich sterbe fur das Vaterland, fr
das ich lebte und focht, und dem ich mich jetzt leidend opfre. NA 13. 72, 347.

134
shifted Egmonts political emphasis more squarely onto themes of communal
patriotism and emergent nationhood, away from the cry of Freiheit! Freiheit!
on Gtz von Berlichingens dying lips (HA 4. 175).

IV.
The proximity of Schillers Egmont to Goethes classicism requires us to ask
again about its place in the Weimar project. All too often a cursory glance at
comments Goethe made later has led commentators to see this work either as
insignificant, or as a crisis point in the two mens fledgling relationship. It has
been described as a severe test;33 it is said that it fand nicht sonderlich die
Zustimmung Goethes.34 There has been an underlying tendency to take Goethes
text as a lofty norm which Schiller did not understand and could not equal.35 A
review of a rare production of Schillers version in Leipzig in 1985 labelled the
text half-hearted and declared it to be long since forgotten and dismissed by
literary criticism.36
Goethes uncomplimentary remarks are not difficult to find, and they are also
easy to quote in isolation.37 Referring to the adaptation in conversation with
Eckermann he is said to have criticised Schillers Sinn fr das Grausame. The

33

F. J. Lamport: German Classical Drama: Theatre, Humanity and Nation 17501870.

Cambridge 1990. P. 100.
34
Helmut Koopmann: bersetzungen, Bhnenarbeitungen. In: Schiller-Handbuch. Ed.
by Helmut Koopmann. Stuttgart 1998. Pp. 729742, here p. 736.
35
Jeffrey Sammons, for example, claims (in discussing the alteration of the final
vision) that Schillers own preconceptions about historical tragedy obscured his comprehension of Goethes original. Jeffrey L. Sammons: On the Structure of Goethes
Egmont. In: Journal of English and Germanic Philology 62 (1963). Pp. 241251, here
p. 247. Sharpe claims that Schiller never succeeded in grasping the nature of Goethes
play nor in perceiving the use Goethe was making of dramatic form. Sharpe (n. 3).
P. 643. To this Lamport responds that on the contrary, [] he understands Goethes
intentions very well, but quite deliberately rejects them. Lamport (n. 14). P. 69.
36
Matthias Frede: Optimistische Tragdie? Bearbeitung einer Bearbeitung: Egmont
nach Goethe und Schiller in Leipzig. In: Theater der Zeit 40 (1985). No. 2. Pp. 1617,
here p. 16.
37
Borchmeyer writes that [Goethe hat] Schillers Redaktion als grausam bezeichnet. Dieter Borchmeyer: Weimarer Klassik. Portrait einer Epoche. Studienausgabe.
Weinheim 2nd edn 1998. P. 167. Although he then points out that Goethe maintained several features of the adaptation after Schillers death, his quotation does not communicate the more balanced sense of his source, ber das deutsche Theater (1815), where
Goethe observes da auch Schiller bei seiner Redaktion grausam verfahren, [] und
doch ist in Schillers Arbeit eine solche Consequenz, da man nicht gewagt hat, [die
Regentin] wieder einzulegen, weil andre Miverhltnisse in die gegenwrtige Form
sich einschleichen wrden (WA I/40. 91). Alt cites both Grausam[keit] and
Konsequenz in his summary of the same passage. Alt (n. 2). Vol. 2. P. 485.

135
removal of Margarete showed that he hatte in seiner Natur etwas Gewaltsames
and too often acted according to preconceived ideas.38 To others Goethe
claimed that he was unhappy with the alteration of Egmonts vision at the end,
and with Albas appearance in the prison scene.39 In 1813 he even claimed that
he had fortunately been away in Ilmenau when Schillers adaptation was performed,40 though his diary entry for 25 April 1796 Egmont suggests otherwise (WA III/2. 43).
These are not comments which we should try to explain away. Nor should
we ignore the fact that Schillers adaptation was not performed again in Weimar
during his lifetime, or that in 1800 Goethe was again looking in desperation for
ways to adapt Egmont satisfactorily for the stage.41 But what Goethe said later
in life must be put in that same context. He knew he had an audience for his comments, and he deliberately projected for that audience the image of a partnership of very different but entirely complementary characters.42 To reverse a
sentence from Rdiger Safranskis recent biography of Schiller: Wenn Goethe
ber Schiller schreibt, so ist dabei doch auch immer von ihm selbst die Rede.43
In 1817 Goethe wrote in his journal Zur Morphologie that they had sealed
durch den grten, vielleicht nie ganz zu schlichtenden Wettkampf zwischen
Objekt und Subjekt, einen Bund, der ununterbrochen gedauert, und fr uns und
andere manches Gute gewirkt hat (Glckliches Ereignis: HA 10. 541). He published their correspondence, which Schiller had initiated with the idea of himself
as a speculative thinker and Goethe as intuitive (23.8.1794: NA 27. 26) in
182829. Schiller was presented as the planner who gave form to Goethes
more spontaneous ideas. The critical comments on Egmont fit the image.
The sources on Goethe and Schillers relationship from the mid-1790s tell a
different, more positive story. This was a moment of intense cooperation between
them, on Die Horen and Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre; their letters to each other
are testimony to their warm relationship and mutual encouragement to write.
Asking someone else to edit or criticise ones own work demands a good deal

38
Conversations with Eckermann, 24.2.1825 and 19.2.1829. Johann Peter Eckermann:
Gesprche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens. Ed. by Ernst Beutler.
Munich 2nd edn 1999. Pp. 144 and 320321.
39
Conversations reported by Stephan Schtze, 12.11.1806, and Heinrich Schmidt,
24.12.1806. (Grf II/1, 235239). Eckermann, too, reports Goethes dissatisfaction
with the prison scene in the conversation of 18.1.1825. Eckermann (n. 38). P. 144.
40
Conversation with Friedrich de La-Motte Fouqu, 3.12.1813 and following: Grf
II/1. 261262.
41
See Goethes letter to Friederike Unzelmann. 16.12.1800. WA IV/15. 160.
42
See Hans Mayer: Goethe. Ein Versuch ber den Erfolg. Frankfurt/M. 1973.
Pp. 5765.
43
Rdiger Safranski: Schiller, oder die Erfindung des Deutschen Idealismus. Munich
Vienna: 2004. P. 405 (Wenn Schiller ber Goethe schreibt).

136
of trust and common ground: Goethe had been sending Schiller parts of Wilhelm
Meister to read in 1795 and found his comments stimulating, and had himself
reciprocated with suggestions about some of Schillers texts. Goethe had been
dissatisfied with Egmont almost as soon as he had finished writing it;44 he first
offered it to Schiller in 1794 as he did not dare to adapt it further himself.45
In anticipation of the production some eighteen months later he said that
Schiller and Iffland were returning to him a play which in more than one
respect I had long since given up.46 He told J. H. Meyer in a letter of 18 April
1796 that Schillers revision of the play would make it possible to perform it
(WA IV/11. 54). The day after the performance he wrote excitedly to Charlotte
von Kalb that he would now like to see others of his dramas on the stage.47
The Egmont adaptation marks two milestones in sealing the Weimar alliance.
First it developed and confirmed the emerging pattern of reading and working
on each others texts, of learning productively from each others comments, and
of sometimes agreeing to disagree. Early in the previous year Goethe had
expressed his relief that Schiller had turned down an invitation to a chair in
Tbingen with the words: ich hoffe, wir wollen noch manches zusammen
treiben und ausarbeiten (21.2.1795: WA IV/10. 236). Second and more specifically, the Egmont adaptation created a momentum for cooperation and mutual
encouragement in the production of drama. Goethes contributions to Wallenstein,
for example, are well known, and far from rejecting Schillers perspective after
Egmont, Goethe solicited his views on Faust in 1797. In so doing, he mused to
him on the benefits of cooperation: Wir werden wohl in der Ansicht dieses
Werkes nicht variieren, doch giebts gleich einen ganz andern Muth zur Arbeit,
wenn man seine Gedanken und Vorstze auch von auen bezeichnet sieht, und
Ihre Theilnahme ist in mehr als Einem Sinne fruchtbar (24.6.1797: WA IV/12.
168). Goethe continued to maintain that Schillers editing had made Egmont
feasible to perform: after all, the letter to Friederike Unzelmann in 1800 (cited
above) states the impossibility of staging the original text.48 He later entrusted
44

See HA 11. 459, and Goethes letter to Carl August. 28.3.1788. WA IV/8. 365366.
See Schillers letter to his wife. 20.9.1794. NA 27. 49.
46
Goethe to Iffland. 30.3.1796. WA IV/30. 59. English translation in Nicholas Boyle:
Goethe: The Poet and the Age. Volume 2: Revolution and Renunciation (17901803).
Oxford 2000. P. 360.
47
The letter also alludes mysteriously to eine trbe Vorstellungsart ber gewisse
Verhltnisse, which prevented him from carrying out this wish, but the cause of
Goethes displeasure is unclear. WA IV/11. 58.
48
In ber das deutsche Theater Goethe discusses Egmont and then turns to Stella,
welche Schillern gleichfalls ihre Erscheinung auf dem Theater verdankt. WA I/40.
94. When Karl von Holtei dared to criticise Schillers version to his face in 1828,
Goethe is said to have retorted: Was wisst ihr, Kinder! Das hat unser grosser Freund
besser verstanden, als wir. Grf II/1. 274.
45

137
other dramas to Schillers pen and learned from him: Schiller appears to have
had a hand in the Gtz adaptation, and to have adapted Stella on similar principles to Egmont (WA I/40. 94, 99); he made minor changes to Iphigenie for
performance in 1802.
Finally Schillers work on Egmont stands in the background to Wallenstein,
one of the high points of Weimar Classicism, even if exact links are difficult to
pinpoint.49 The crowd scenes, for example, have often been seen as broad precursors of Wallensteins Lager.50 They serve a similar purpose an introduction
to the general situation and a discussion of the hero before he appears on stage.
The effect in Wallenstein, that Wallenstein turns out to be a lesser man than the
Lager leads us to expect, is also true to some extent of Goethes Egmont, whose
past reputation as a hero is greater than his present will to fight. Schillers work
brings Egmont closer to Wallenstein in this respect, by grouping together the
crowd scenes and thus concentrating their impact: in the absence of Margarete
and with Klrchens entrance kept until later, only the perspective of the burghers
now serves as an introduction to Egmont himself.
Schillers work on Egmont confirmed insights into drama which were important again in the genesis of Wallenstein: another reason, indirectly, for seeing
Wallenstein as the product of cooperation between Goethe and Schiller. The
emphasis on clear motivation, for example, recurred in a comment on Aristotles
Poetics: Da [Aristoteles] bei der Tragdie das Hauptgewicht in die
Verknpfung der Begebenheiten legt, heit recht den Nagel auf den Kopf
getroffen (NA 29. 74.).51 Perhaps most importantly, Egmont gave Schiller
practice in working on historical tragedy again after the crisis of Don Karlos.
He went straight back to work on Wallenstein after Egmont. In the 1788 review
he had complained that the historical Egmont was unsuited to tragedy as he
was, and he implied that Goethes solution the focus on character had been
unsatisfactory. Working on Wallenstein he now famously wrestled with the
same problem, how to convert a historical figure into a tragic hero: sein
Character endlich ist niemals edel und darf es nie seyn, und durchaus kann er
nur furchtbar, nie eigentlich gro erscheinen (NA 29. 17).52 But he now
felt that he was equal to the task, and he was no longer interested in the
straightforward nationales Heldengedicht which he had thought of writing
about Gustavus Adolphus exactly five years earlier (NA 26. 113).53 And so on

49

Sharpe comments on some of the thematic links between Schillers Egmont and
Wallenstein. Sharpe (n. 3). Pp. 639643.
50
See, for example, Benno von Wiese: Friedrich Schiller. Stuttgart 1959. P. 627; also
editorial comments by Borcherdt (NA 13. 305).
51
Schiller to Goethe. 5.5.1797.
52
Schiller to Krner. 28.11.1796.
53
Schiller to Krner. 28.11.1791.

138
2 October 1797, about a year and a half after Iffland had come to Weimar, he
could write another letter with an upbeat tone, this time to Goethe, telling him
with pride that he had achieved for Wallenstein what he had attempted with his
classical Egmont: das Ganze ist poetisch organisiert, und ich darf sagen, der
Stoff ist in eine reine tragische Fabel verwandelt (NA 29. 141).

John Guthrie

Language and Gesture in Schillers Later Plays

Schillers language is deeply engrained in the German cultural heritage. It has also
sometimes proven to be controversial. This essay argues that it is the key to understanding his dramatic art. Traditional approaches, linked with a rigid notion of classicism, often start with the premise that the verbal text, particularly in the case of the late
plays, is primary, unambiguous and illustrates ideas from his theoretical writings. The
approach taken here emphasises that the verbal text produces and explores paradoxes
or contains ambiguities which are complemented by the non-verbal element of gesture.
Schiller is experimental throughout his career; heterogeneity and diversity are as
important as the archetypal and exemplary.
Jeder Deutsche kennt und bewundert Hrn. S. meisterhafte Behandlung der
Sprache []1
Welche seltsame Bewegung! (Agnes Sorel to Johanna. Die Jungfrau von
Orleans. IV. 2) 2

My starting point is the importance of language for the interpretation of

Schillers plays. It is often neglected, taken for granted, and misunderstood.
From the appearance of Don Carlos onwards, there is, in contemporary
reviews, often more detailed attention to Schillers language and particularly to
the handling of verse. In respect of the later plays, contemporaries recognised
that Schillers language was an important ingredient in the milestone that his
drama was. Judgement of the later plays is on the whole more favourable than
that of the early plays. There is a considerable degree of interaction between
Schiller as dramatist on the one side and the theatre-going and reading public
and actors on the other. Schiller profits from a more positive attitude to verse
drama and his own close association with the theatre; audience and actors
profit from Schillers refinement of the German language. Although sententiousness is sometimes singled out as a negative quality of Schillers style and
1

Gttingsche Anzeigen von gelehrten Sachen. 19.11.1801. Qtd. in Julius W. Braun:

Schiller im Urtheile seiner Zeitgenossen. Berlin 1883. Vol. I/3. P. 98.
2
Schillers texts are quoted whenever possible from Friedrich Schiller: Werke und
Briefe in zwlf Bnden. Ed. by Otto Dann et al. Frankfurt/M.: Deutscher Klassiker
Verlag 19882004. Quotations from verse plays are identified by line number, others
by FA with volume and page numbers. When necessary, reference is made to Schillers
Werke. Nationalausgabe. Ed. by Julius Petersen, Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar:
Hermann Bhlaus Nachfolger 1943ff. References are identified by NA with volume
and page numbers.

140
of drama in general (as an intrusive, a retarding factor), it is, by contemporaries, also singled out as a positive quality (it is seen to be characteristic of serious drama). Here begins one of the themes of debate concerning Schillers
style that recurs after his death. About gesture there is little, but there are clues
to the importance Schiller was attempting to invest it with. Although Amalie
von Voigt in her account of the premiere of Wallensteins Lager in Weimar
mentions that Schiller himself Frs Gruppiren u. dergl. [] berhaupt kein
solches Talent hatte wie Goethe, the overall effect of the production was
plastisch und malerisch.3 There is, however, seldom detailed discussion in contemporary reviews of the interrelationship between gesture and the verbal text.
Scholars have often approached the style of Schillers later plays in a teleological fashion, viewing it as the culmination of a process, as the curbing of
earlier excesses and the overcoming of the Sturm und Drang, the putting into
practice of classical principles, rhetorical precepts, ideas from Schillers aesthetic writings. This approach tends to see language, and verbal language
alone, as action. It insists on the primacy, indeed the monopoly, of dialogue
on the Alleinherrschaft des Dialogs the Hegelian concept taken over by
Peter Szondi in his influential study of modern drama.4 It is an approach that
finds clarity, unequivocality, rationality, Eindeutigkeit der Rede, in Schillers
plays.5 Klaus Berghahn, who takes this approach, pays only lip service to gesture. J. G. Robertson took the opposite view and emphasised what he saw as the
deterioration of Schillers style as he advanced. In the later plays Schiller forgot all that he had gradually learned in the art of pregnant dramatic expression. The characters of Don Carlos [] delight in vague and general
sentiments, and the bombast which, in prose, Schiller was gradually eliminating from his work, returns again in the form of a glittering rhetoric.6 Similar
views were expressed recently on the popular television programme, Das literarische Quartett.7
We can, on the other hand, take an approach to Schillers style which emphasises both the differences between early and late plays and elements of continuity. The elements of continuity are clearer when we consider gesture. One
feature of this style is diversity and heterogeneity, which in the later plays
3

Amalie von Voigt: Erinnerungen. In: Morgenblatt fr gebildete Stnde 16 (1822).

Pp. 890892. Cited in FA 4. 799.
4
Peter Szondi: Theorie des modernen Dramas. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp 1963. P. 15.
5
Klaus Berghahn: Die Dialogfhrung in Schillers klassischen Dramen. Ein Beitrag zur
Poetik des Dramas. Mnster: Aschendorff 1970. P. 13.
6
J. G. Robertson: Schiller After a Century. London: Blackwood 1905. Pp. 5051.
Robertsons criteria are Shakespearean drama (from which Schiller mistakenly distanced himself ) and the French classical style (which he mistakenly imitated).
7
Sonderausgabe zum 200. Todestag Friedrich Schillers. Das literarische Quartett.
Bcher-Magazin. Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen. 1.5.2005.

141
exerts itself despite the uniformity and elevation. For diversity, and the merging of different media, is also a principle of Schillers aesthetic writings. In
the sthetische Briefe we read that individualism shall not be eliminated in the
Aesthetic State.8
No discussion of this diversity can ignore gesture. Gesture plays a key role
in Schillers dramatic style. Like other dramatists of the period, Schiller uses a
relatively narrow range of gestures which are derived broadly speaking from
the neo-classical tradition. In some cases, especially the early plays, the stage
directions describe extreme forms of standardised gestures, which use exaggeration and repetition. Schiller sticks to the same repertoire of gestures. They
become less explosive and are more carefully, strategically placed, their symbolic interaction with the plays formal structure more significant. There is,
however, also the characteristic ambiguity of gesture that remains in the later
plays and which Schiller has no desire to eradicate for the sake of the clarity
that some have sought and found in them on the interpretative level. Here are
a couple of examples to illustrate this continuity before we look more closely
at each of the late plays in turn.
The stage direction stampft auf den Boden followed by the exclamation
Unertrglich! is not taken from Die Ruber, but from Act IV, scene 12 of
Maria Stuart (Elisabeth). The line Der Ritter sprengt so eben in den Hof ,
refers not to Ferdinand in Kabale und Liebe but to La Hire in Die Jungfrau von
Orleans (I. 4). And the character who, more desperate than any of Schillers
heroes, finds himself in frchterlichem Kampf, mit den Hnden zuckend, und
die rollenden Augen bald auf den Landvogt, bald zum Himmel gerichtet is
Wilhelm Tell in Schillers last completed play. There, in the penultimate scene,
we also find the gesture of covering the face, a gesture which Schiller uses in
every one of his plays and to which we shall return.
When we turn to Maria Stuart and approach its style as full-blown exemplary
classicism with elevation of tone, its dominance of symmetry and balance, we
can neglect the element of spontaneity and dynamism that accounts for its success in the theatre. No sooner has Schiller reached the heights of Classicism
than he experiments, rather than following a programme or attempt to put into
practice a set of aesthetic theories. In an important sense Maria Stuart is a play
about language, not in the sense that the exemplarity of its diction lends it
quotability, but because it demonstrates how language is used in a political
8
der sthetische Staat allein kann sie [die Gesellschaft] mglich machen, weil er den
Willen des Ganzen durch die Natur des Individuums vollzieht. (27. Brief: FA 8. 674).
Other ideas that point in this direction are the aesthetic state being described as Null, the
notion of freedom of form, the discussion of dance, the terms bergang and Sprung.
Schillers notion of form is open-ended, evolving rather than formalistic and prescriptive.

142
context, and it is this that makes it continually relevant. Tieck criticised the language of Maria Stuart as sententious.9 This made the play undramatic in his
view. The idea comes back again and again to haunt the plays reputation. Even
Garland, in his sensitive analysis, tells us that in Marias final tragic scene, the
sententiae come thick and fast,10 (without further comment). On closer examination, this does not appear to be the case, and although the first occurs after
a dozen lines, the further the action proceeds, the more we sense the link
between general aphoristic statement and dramatic situation. It is wrong to dissociate the apparently general statement from its context. If the line Das Wort
ist tot, der Glaube macht lebendig (line 3600), is taken as a statement of
general truth and then applied to Marias death, rather than words of consolation offered by a Catholic priest before death, we get no further than the traditional interpretation of the play as Luterungsdrama.
The line just quoted is an example of antithesis. Antithesis, not sententiousness, is by far the most prevalent feature of the plays style. It is the most compressed and succinct of rhetorical devices, typically encompassing one line. It
can also expand and in a sense turn back upon itself in the form of chiasmus.
Schiller uses antithesis as an expansive form. It expands to encompass every
theme in the play: past and present, innocence and guilt, life and death, childhood and adulthood, captivity and freedom, hope and despair, legitimacy and
illegitimacy, impotence and power, peace and war, love and hatred, passion and
discipline of the emotions, truth and deception, silence and eloquence, male
and female, earth and heaven. The list is long but could be expanded. How,
though, do we approach this antithetical quality of Schillers style, which pervades the play at all levels? For some commentators, it is a Baroque or classical
feature that seems stark and static. Hence we read of the classical precision of
Schillers tragedy with its white and black, good and evil, spirit and body, sublime and demonic, ideal and realwhite queen-black queen opposition.11 But
Schillers concept of opposition is dynamic and expanding, not static and
wooden. This is grounded in his aesthetic writings where opposites do not so
much cancel and destroy each other entirely or produce an ultimate synthesis, but
oppose, mutually fructify and modify each other, giving rise to another set.12
9

See Ludwig Tieck: Die Piccolomini. Wallensteins Tod [1825]. In: Schiller.
Zeitgenosse aller Epochen. Teil I: 17821859. Ed. by Norbert Oellers. Frankfurt/M.:
Athenum 1970. P. 168.
10
See Henry Garland: The Dramatic Writer. A Study of Style in the Plays. Oxford:
Clarendon Press 1969. P. 205.
11
Kari Lokke: The Historical Sublime and the Aesthetics of Gender. In: Monatshefte 82
(1990). Pp. 123141, here p. 136.
12
This idea was explored in a paper given by Manuel Dries at a conference at the Institute
of Germanic and Romance Studies, 2728 January 2005: Friedrich Schiller. Poetry,
Drama, Ideas, entitled Oscillation versus Annihilation in Schillers Aesthetic Letters.

143
There is no telos. In Maria Stuart, it is not the heroines transcendence that is
the issue, but the political situation that arises after it: the problem of the
monarchs legitimacy is not solved by her death. This view of the plays conclusion gives greater weight to the role played by the plays language, in particular to the opposition of contradictory arguments over Marias fate which it
begins. It is the opposition of these arguments which spark off the heftige
Passionen in heroine and audience and inhibit the weiche Stimmung that
Schiller feared.13
Besides arousing strong passions, which Schiller had always wanted,
antithesis is a distancing device and requires the intellect because it structures,
creates parallels and contradictions. We find ourselves in a similar position to
Hanna Kennedy when she says: Ich kann diesen Widerspruch nicht reimen
(line 2129), but we also stand outside Marias predicament and perceive how
the contradictions within the political situation lead to her death.
But antithesis, because based on contradiction and producing new ones, also
creates ambiguity. We find this hinted at in Elisabeths words:
Ich wei nicht, was ich sagen soll. Ich glaub euch,
Und glaub euch nicht. Ich denke, ihr seid schuldig,
Und seid es nicht! (lines 301619)

The feeling that political events are ambiguous is reinforced through gesture. The
most significant feature of non-verbal behaviour in the play is the glance. The
face for Schiller betrays not moral character (as for Lavater) but dynamic psychological processes. Observation of what happens on someones face betrays
something about the observer and the observed. Glances of suspicion, mistrust, glances of surprise, consternation and horror are frequent. The emotions
evident in facial expression are evoked not for their own sake as they sometimes are in the early plays, but as a function of the tension of the political
situation. It is a recurrent theme of Schillers since Don Carlos and a reminder
that mind and body are linked. The glance reaches its high point in the meeting
of Act III, prior to which Marias eyes feast briefly on freedom. In the meeting,
Elisabeths gaze becomes progressively more tense, contemptuous, furious.
This is echoed in the verbal text. At the climax gesture transmutes into words,
Maria appeals to the creator of the basilisques deathly gaze to provide her with
venomous tongue. This, too, is antithesis: Marias freedom is curtailed, her eloquence silenced, her fate sealed. At this point Elisabeth turns away from Maria.
The gesture of turning away is the counterpoint to the glance. Schiller uses
this gesture strategically in the final stages of the tragedy. It occurs several
times in the communion scene. If we read the plays conclusion with this gesture in mind, we may be less inclined to stress the idealistic interpretations of
13

Letter to Goethe. 18.6.1799. NA 30. 61.

144
the play that build connections with Schillers theoretical writings theories of
resolution (whether they stress the sublime or schne Seele). In these readings, Marias heavenward gaze is triumphant, wholeness is achieved in another
world and this is seen to occur before our eyes. More sceptical readings stress
that Maria is pulled by different impulses to the last, obtaining glimpses of the
spiritual but rooted in the earthly (the mention of her Prachtgert, the lines:
Vergnne mir noch einmal / Der Erde Glanz auf meinem Weg zum Himmel
(lines 35489), and the expression of feelings for Leicester). By the same
token, the keyword Tausch and Hanna Kennedys paraphrase of ideas from
Schillers ber das Erhabene in Act V, scene 1 (lines 340217), can be interpreted to mean not a complete exchange of the earthly for the spiritual, but a
partial and continuous exchange. This is supported by the role attributed to
vision. The execution is presented teichoscopically, not principally for reasons
of classical decorum. First, Leicester states he shall witness the beheading,
expressing this in a rhyming couplet (which brings Iago to mind). It is built on
antithesis: Verstumme Mitleid, Augen, werdet Stein, / Ich seh sie fallen, ich will
Zeuge sein (lines 385960). The stage direction indicates that he reverses his
decision. Er geht mit entschlossenem Schritt der Tre zu, durch welche Maria
gegangen, bleibt aber auf der Mitte des Wegs stehen. In effect, Leicester turns
away. This is not only because he is the coward that he is. His turning away has
deeper significance. Shrewsbury, too, covers his face when news of Marias execution arrives, a further expression of the general sense of horror. Elisabeth, in a
gesture which links her with Leicester, attempts to turn away from her responsibility. Leicester, finally, turns his back on England. These examples of turning
away, both physical and metaphorical, add up to an expression of guilt, of horror,
of tacit acknowledgement that a stain remains on the political carpet. They are
personal and political expressions of defeat, not of triumph. The gesture of turning away, which is used melodramatically for shock effect in the plays is here
woven with great subtlety into the fabric of the political and historical themes.
Many contemporary critics praised Schillers poetic achievement in Die
Jungfrau von Orleans. Die betrbte deutsche Sprache ist in die schnste
Melodie gezwungen said Carl August.14 The plays enormous popularity in
certain periods, based on the idea of patriotism and the heroines transcendence
in death, has been a factor in seeing the plays language as unified, uniform,
beautiful and pure. Even Karl Guthke, who takes an iconoclastic view of the
heroine, also finds Stilreinheit, but a thin line between that and Kitsch.15 It
seems to me that a more sceptical view of the heroines transcendence, which
14

To Caroline von Wolzogen. May 1801. Qtd. in FA 5. 646.

Karl S. Guthke: Die Jungfrau von Orleans. In: Schiller-Handbuch. Ed. by Helmut
Koopmann. Stuttgart: Krner 1998. Pp. 442466, here p. 443.
15

145
has gained more credence in recent years, needs to be complemented by an
understanding of the role of language. Experimentation continues in Die
Jungfrau von Orleans. Tragedy is a constantly developing form.16 The experimental side of Die Jungfrau von Orleans has been recognised to some extent.
It was an unsuccessful experiment for some.17 The charge of formlessness has
been levelled against it.18 The early admiration for the plays language has not
always been echoed.19 For others like Thomas Mann it is principally a foray
into the operatic, Schillers Wort-Oper.20 But in its technique, it is not pointing back to Baroque opera or even forward to Verdi as much as it is to Wagner
and the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk: through its diversity and expansiveness, its marriage of different media. These help to create irony and ambiguity,
shifting perspectives. This can be seen on one level in the way allusions to different types of literary works continue to jostle for position: Homeric, biblical and
Shakespearean allusions, the formal alongside the more direct and homely.21
The linking of different elements and levels of style, and the qualities of
expansiveness and diversity, can be demonstrated by studying the use of the
most common word in the language, und. While its use can be emphatically
elevated in the figure of epiphrasis or hyperbaton, a device used extensively in
Die Braut von Messina,22 it can also point towards the vernacular. It is used in
Die Jungfrau von Orleans in all its normal grammatical functions as conjunction, copula, but more strikingly as part of polysyndeton, as in Thibauts
description of his dowry: Ich gebe jeder dreiig Acker Landes / Und Stall und
Hof und eine Herde (lines 378). It is also used rhythmically, as a musical
16

Die Idee eines Trauerspiels mu immer beweglich und werdend sein. Schiller to
Krner. 28.7.1800. Qtd. in FA 4. 622.
17
See Garland (n. 10). Ch. 7.
18
See Julius Petersen: In: Schillers Smtliche Werke. Skular-Ausgabe. Ed. by Eduard
von der Hellen. Vol. 6. Maria Stuart. Die Jungfrau von Orleans. Stuttgart Berlin:
Cotta n.d. Pp. xxviixxx.
19
See the views of Bertold Auerbach and Otto Ludwig quoted in NA 9. 448. Fontane
was divided. In a review of a production in 1878 he felt justice had not been done to the
plays language. He could explain its effect in Schillers day but thought it now pass
(Herbstwind). Qtd. in Wolfgang Freese and Ulrich Karthaus: Schiller. Die Jungfrau
von Orleans. Erluterungen und Dokumente. Stuttgart: Reclam 2002. Pp. 9496.
20
Thomas Mann: Versuch ber Schiller. In: Thomas Mann: Leiden und Gre der
Meister. Gesammelte Werke. Ed. by Peter de Mendelssohn. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer 1982.
P. 415.
21
Thomas Mann pointed out the range of different styles in the play, the use of alle
Register der Sprache, different metres and strophic forms, and calling it ein stilistisches
Wunder which combined elements of Classicism and Romanticism. Ibid. Pp. 415416.
22
For example, Don Cesar: Gleichgltig war und nichts bedeutend mir / Der Frauen
leer geschwtziges Geschlecht (lines 14834). Wotans words, weichherziges
Weibergezcht come to mind. In: Richard Wagner: Die Walkre. III. 2. Munich:
Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag 1978.

146
leitmotif.23 Overlapping with this is the extensive use at the beginning of a line.
In Raouls account of Johannas appearance on the battlefield (lines 94184)
we find it eight times in this position. In the middle of this account we
encounter a further use of und, which is as a hinge for oxymoron. The phrase
schn zugleich / Und schrecklich (lines 9567) points to the antithetical
qualities of Johannas character and raises the question of the perspective from
which she is to be viewed. The most common of words is the crux of some of
the plays most important lines, which are at the same time its richest and most
ambiguous. Another occurs later: Der Mensch braucht wenig und an Leben
reich / Ist die Natur (lines 312930). Is there a symbiotic relationship implied
by this or is it a non-sequitur? Man and nature are linked but the nature of their
relationship is left open. There is dependence on the one hand implied by the
richness of nature; independence on the other, contained in the notion that he
can manage with little. The plays final line is similar: Kurz ist der Schmerz und
ewig ist die Freude (line 3544), suggesting not an unambiguous transition
from one stage to another, a progression, but complementarity and simultaneity.
Diversity and heterogeneity can also be seen on the level of metre and rhyme:
Schiller uses iambic pentameter that occasionally rhymes. Whereas in Maria
Stuart this generally takes the form of the curtain-closing couplet of Shakespearean provenance at the end of a scene,24 in Die Jungfrau, Schiller is not content with the regular rhyming couplet, which he uses but three times.25 Thus he
uses, for example, alternately rhyming lines. Or, by way of variation, the original pattern:
DNOIS.
Ganz Frankreich
Bewaffne sich! Die Ehre ist verpfndet,
Die Krone, das Palladium entwendet,
Setzt alles Blut! Setzt euer Leben ein!
Frei mu sie sein, noch eh der Tag sich endet! (lines 331924)

Here there are three lines that rhyme, enclosing a fourth that doesnt, but that,
in turn rhymes internally with the next. Schiller sometimes uses couplets with
internal rhymes or with alliteration to conclude scenes (I. 3; I. 4).
KARL [] Und mnzet es satt Goldes! Blut hab ich
Fr Euch, nicht Silber hab ich, noch Soldaten! (lines 599600)
KARL Willkommner Bote! Nun so werden wir
Bald wissen, ob wir weichen oder siegen. (lines 6723)
23
See Jean M. Woods: A Rhythmic Theme in Schillers Die Jungfrau von Orleans. In:
German Studies Review 1 (1978). Pp. 139149.
24
For example: dringen / klingen (lines 4312); schlagen / sagen (lines 145960);
Schranken / wanken (lines 24523); Klarheit / Wahrheit (lines 31956).
25
II. 3 (Isabeau), III. 9 (Johanna), V. 5 (Johanna).

147
Or, there are extended passages of alliteration:
JOHANNA Du tatst dem Himmel diese zweite Bitte.
Wenn es sein hoher Schlu und Wille sei,
Das Zepter deinem Stamme zu entwinden,
Dir alles zu entziehen, was deine Vter,
Die Knige in diesem Reich besaen,
Drei einzge Gter flehtest du ihn an
Dir zu bewahren, die zufriedne Brust,
Des Freundes Herz und deiner Agnes Liebe. (lines 103340)

Such passages hark back to Germanic Stabreim. (This musical use of

German consonants points directly to Wagner, who was so deeply affected by
the play.) Similarly, anaphora is sometimes introduced for variety and emphasis.
At the end of Act I, scene 3 (lines 34080), half the lines begin with the letter
d (usually the definite article), Johanna using it at one point six times.
If we look at the sections of the play that are most influenced by classical
models, the scenes using trimeter (III. 911, based on Achilles meeting with
Lykaon from Homers Iliad, Book XXI) and the ottava rime sections (IV. 1),
we find that Schiller has, according to Norbert Gabriel, used the irregular or
false trimeter in order to underline the unstable, ambiguous and paradoxical
aspects of Johannas nature. The formal dignity and uniformity of classical
style is undermined.26
Furthermore, Johannas monologue at the beginning of Act IV, which begins
firmly in ottava rime (for four stanzas), modulates into two four-line stanzas of
trochaic verse, each with a different rhyming scheme, followed by another of
five lines, then by stanzas of eleven and seven lines with different rhyming
schemes and concluding with four more stanzas of trochaic verse, all with different rhyming schemes. There is, I think, no pattern to this, but rather a sense
of flux and confusion, which is part of the message. The soft, melting melody
that Johanna hears confuses her senses and creates melancholy.
Die Musik hinter der Szene geht in eine weich schmelzende Melodie ber.
Wehe! Weh mir! Welche Tne!
Wie verfhren sie mein Ohr!
Jeder ruft mir seine Stimme,
Zaubert mir sein Bild hervor. (after line 2250; lines 22514)
[]
Die Flten wiederholen, sie versinkt in eine stille Wehmut. (after line 2582)

26
Vielleicht hat gerade diese Doppelnatur des deutschen Trimeter Schiller gereizt. Auf
der einen Seite die klassische Strenge, die Ordnung und Statik, auf der anderen Seite
das berstrmend Rednerische dieses Verses. Norbert Gabriel: Furchtbar und sanft.
Zum Trimeter in Schillers Die Jungfrau von Orleans (II. 68). In: Jahrbuch der
Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 29 (1985). Pp. 125140, here p. 126.

148
The expansiveness and diversity pointing to ambiguity that can be seen in the
plays language can also be found in the plays non-verbal language. The question
of vision and insight has been much discussed but has focused too narrowly on
the heroine. At the one extreme is the acceptance of her visionary powers as
divine, consistent with the interpretation that saintliness is ultimately achieved
(after temptation, failure and rejection). At the other extreme, stress is placed
on the ambiguous origins of her powers, the psychological aspect of her
Messianic drive. This reading can be supported by a consideration of the plays
proxemic aspect, its creation of space and perspective.
The creation of space takes place on two levels. One is the broader level
associated with the expansiveness of the action. Schiller uses indirect means to
achieve this impression, especially the device of teichoscopy. Instead of being
a device of ordering and reckoning, it creates a sense of disorder, chaos, arbitrariness. The indirect portrayal of action is complemented by the direct portrayal, which made heavy demands on the theatre of Schillers day in terms of
numbers of characters and the diversity of settings. Much of this action focuses
on Johanna but it does not provide clear answers.
What we conclude about the heroine depends on which perspective she is
viewed from. Perception is partisan and fluctuates. The origins of her powers
are ambiguous: both divine and demonic. Karl says to her Du sieht mein
Antlitz heut zum erstenmal, / Von wannen kommt dir diese Wissenschaft?
(lines 101011) and states that he believes her to be inspired by god, but his
gestures, like Agnes Sorels, show fear and astonishment (stepping back and
covering the face). Johannas absolute faith in the power of her vision and
action leads to the denigration of the power of verbal and rational discourse, to
the destruction of dialogue. Die Kunst der Rede ist dem Munde fremd (line
1793). The triumph of action leads to Johannas undoing. Sight leads to its own
negation, to the accentuation of the auditory and to confusion of the senses.
The destruction of dialogue can be illustrated through the significance of one
line. Garland singles it out as one of the worst Schiller ever wrote: Und einen
Donnerkeil fhr ich im Munde (line 1798).27 It is, however, an example of the
use of catachresis. It bespeaks action of an aggressive kind which has the
potential to destroy the communicative power of the word. It is the plays
supreme dramatic irony that Johanna is later apparently rebuked and silenced
by thunder. With this coincides the negation of her visionary powers and the
wish not to be seen at all, by family, king or countrymen, manifested in her
retreat into the wilderness.
Is Johanna to be viewed as a saint? Generations of critics have seen her thus.
Those around her see her as angel, but before we accept that this is Schillers

27

Garland (n. 10). P. 230.

149
perspective we should ask if the final stage direction in sprachloser Rhrung
does not leave it open. Music, as ingredient of a triumphant operatic conclusion, is noticeably absent. Matthias Luserke draws attention to the stage direction sinkt tot,28 which can in my view be linked with the Kings gesture of
turning away, mit abgewandtem Gesicht, which points back to the gestures in
the scene when he was first confronted by the maid. There is suffering and guilt.
(The other characters to do this are Johanna and, at one point, Agnes.) Johanna
herself does not know where she is, and her words: Nein, ich bin keine
Zauberin! Gewi / Ich bins nicht, may be seen as a desperate attempt to convince herself that she is not the witch she has been seen as. She does not know
her whereabouts; she hallucinates. Her final words are words of desperation. It
is a case of Schmerz und Freude: dualism, paradox, simultaneity, rather than
progression to a higher state. Carl August seems to have sensed this when he
discussed the plays language: Die betrbte deutsche Spracheund die der
deutschen Muse angeborene Herrlichkeit hat Schiller so veredelt wirken lassen,
da man zwischen Erhabenheit und Herzlichkeit schwebt, wenn man dieses
Gedicht liest.29
Schillers penultimate play, Die Braut von Messina, has many classical features
which owe much to the inspiration he took from ancient Greek drama: formal
patterning and symmetry, choice imagery, elevation, austerity, and what has
recently been called minimalism.30 A linguistic hallmark of that style is the
anastrophe that Schiller uses in abundance. While the play owes much to
ancient drama, it has also been seen as a synthesis of Shakespearean and Greek
styles.31 It is clear from Schillers preface that an experimental cross-fertilisation
of different forms is envisaged. Beneath the classical features the experimental
is again in evidence, beneath clarity and resolution, there is disruption and
tension.
It is well established that one of the ways in which Schiller departs from his
Greek models is in the role given to the chorus. The chorus could not be more
different from its counterpart in ancient drama, where it plays the role of detached
observer, standing outside the action and commenting on it. In Schillers play,
it is involved in the action and takes sides. As if to make this clear, Schiller has
the elders of Messina, who might have constituted a chorus in an ancient
drama, appear in the first scene, then depart. It is not a single entity, representing
the armies of the two feuding brothers. It is a chorus that is split in two, but it
28

See FA 5. 663.
Qtd. in FA 5. 646.
30
As Luserke argues in his commentary to the play. FA 5. 722.
31
See Friedrich Sengle: Die Braut von Messina. In: Der Deutschunterricht 12 (1960).
Pp. 7289, esp. pp. 7980.
29

150
also merges into one and divides into individuals.32 It is at times unified, at
other times in conflict with itself, fragmented. It is chameleon-like, changing its
point of view as events develop. Youth stands alongside age, hope alongside
pessimism. The nature of its statements changes, as does the language in which
they are expressed. At times it reflects on the action, at times it anticipates what
is to come. At other times it seems spontaneous, unreflective, mechanical, platitudinous. Variety and transformation are the key to its role.
The mechanical aspect is illustrated by the way the two half-choruses initially
arrange themselves symmetrically on stage. They enter from different points,
march round it and stand opposite each other. Their first speeches take us through
a range of conflicting and contradictory attitudes. There is praise of their leader
and of peace (first chorus), followed by averment of the possibility of recurrence
of violence from the second. Their role appears mechanical, yet they become
deeply involved in the developing action. They resent the foreign domination
that has resulted in the people of Messina playing a subservient role, yet they
praise the natural cycle of events and the fairness of nature in all things. They
are the wild bands that follow their leaders, the hasty servants of their anger and
yet they stand outside the action and pass judgement on it. They thrive on conflict,
without which their existence is meaningless. When conflict subsides they
express themselves in platitudes: Etwas frchten und hoffen und sorgen / Mu
der Mensch fr den kommenden Morgen (lines 8656), Auf den Wellen ist alles
Welle (line 937), Bse Frchte trgt bse Saat (line 959). Out of context, these
platitudes seem exceedingly trite. In the context of the action, they have a clear
function, which is to suggest emptiness, monotony, repetition and the stasis that
arises when conflict is absent. After Don Manuels death, conflict re-emerges
and the choruses again express conflicting attitudes. The first chorus impulsively
desires revenge; the second sees the murder as resolution and fulfilment: Der
lange Zwiepalt ist geendigt (line 1907). It is an event they have anticipated
(Lngst wohl sah ich im Geist), they evoke the horror of death and the
irony of the fact that Don Manuel is now dem Staube vermhlt (line 1967)
instead of wedded to Beatrice, and yet they see his death as the fulfilment of a
natural process: Und alles ist Frucht und alles ist Samen (line 2003). In the final
stages of the play, after the appearance of Don Manuels corpse, they express a
general sense of despair. They stand above the action but then interact with the
32

In Weimar, Schiller had the part of the chorus spoken in turn by different individuals:
Der Chor hat sich bereits in einen Cajetan, Berengar, Manfred, Bohemund, Roger und
Hyppolyt, sowie die 2 Boten in einen Lanzelot und Olivier verwandelt, so da das
Stck jetzt von Personen wimmelt. Letter of 8.2.1803. See Anton Sergl: Das Problem
des Chors im deutschen Klassizismus. Schillers Verstndnis der Iphigenie auf Tauris
und seine Braut von Messina. In: Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 42
(1998). Pp. 165194, esp. p. 191.

151
main characters. They advise Don Cesar against committing suicide and urge
him to put his hope in the future. In doing so, they put paid to the notion that
his suicide represents a spiritual resolution, a transcendence of suffering along
the lines of Schillers theory of tragedy on which many interpretations of the
play are based. The choruss final words show them to be less than certain
about the value of life and aware simply of the negative value of guilt.
Erschttert steh ich, wei nicht, ob ich ihn
Bejammern oder preisen soll sein Los.
Dies eine fhl ich und erkenn es klar,
Das Leben ist der Gter hchstes nicht,
Der bel grtes aber ist die Schuld. (lines 28359)

There is no celebration here of Don Cesars decision to commit suicide and

expiate his guilt. The final attitude of the chorus is one of perplexity. It is the
culmination of the many different contradictory attitudes they have adopted in
the course of the drama.
The choruss shifting perspective and attitude to events, its failure to offer us
an overview, a conclusion, a moral, is a result of Schillers reassessment of the
role of the chorus in modern tragedy. It is symptomatic of the plays modernity.
Schiller creates this new role for the chorus and reinforces it through language.
The language of the chorus is not consistent or predictable, it does not fit into
a framework that is recognisable and which reassures us that there is source of
certainty. On the one hand, the language of the chorus seems elevated and formal. The chorus has celebratory, ceremonious functions to perform and this is
reflected in its language. Its vocabulary and imagery reflect a society with
established laws and customs: Its opening lines show this clearly:
ERSTER CHOR
Dich begr ich in Ehrfurcht
Prangende Halle,
Dich meiner Herrscher
Frstliche Wiege,
Sulentragendes Dach. (lines 1326)

The chorus is versed in mythology and allegory; it endorses the rulers of the land;
its language seems ordered and regular; it exudes confidence in function and
form; it uses the metres of elevated poetry, especially dactyls and trochees. This
lends its language an atmosphere of the majestic, the mellifluous, the memorable.
The main feature of the choruss language, however, is its diversity, variety and
unpredictability. While on the one hand the language is concrete, for example,
in the descriptions of nature, which are often enhanced by alliteration and onomatopoeia (lines 242ff., 259ff.), there is also language which is reflective and
abstract (Doch es wird sich noch eh wir uns trennen entscheiden, line 336).

152
While the style is majestic and uplifting, there is also the mechanical aspect of
repetition and platitude. Its very first appearance provides an example of repetition. The first chorus addresses the following words to the second:
Aber treff ich dich drauen im Freien,
Da mag der blutige Kampf sich erneuern,
Da erprobe das Eisen den Mut. (lines 1724)

These words are then immediately repeated by the entire chorus. Soon afterwards, the second chorus speaks the words:
Aber wir fechten ihre Schlachten,
Der ist kein Tapfrer, kein Ehrenmann,
Der den Gebieter lt verachten (lines 1879)

which are also immediately repeated by the entire chorus. An impression of

symmetry and parallelism arises, coupled with a mechanical attitude, the
monotonous and repetitive, encouraged by obedience and linked to the brutality of conflict.
The choruss language is strongly rhythmic. It speaks with the pounding
rhythms of ritualistic dance rather than with the grace and lightness of lyric
poetry. Trochaic and dactylic metres constantly resurface. But there is also a
high degree of variation and unpredictability.
After Don Manuels murder the chorus reveals its desire for revenge in language which is strongly alliterative and repetitive:
Aber wehe dem Mrder, wehe,
[]
Hinab hinab in der Erde Ritzen
Rinnet, rinnet dein Blut. (lines 19847)

The language is incantatory and ominous. A variety of techniques are used:

rhyme, both pure and impure, short lines mixed with long lines, alliteration and
anaphora, repetition of individual words, phrases and ideas:
EIN ZWEITER Nimmer erweckt ihn der frhliche Reigen,
Denn der Schlummer der Toten ist schwer.
GANZER CHOR Schwer und tief ist der Schlummer der Toten,
Nimmer erweckt ihn die Stimme der Braut,
Nimmer des Hifthorns frhlicher Laut (lines 19559)

The variety has an effect akin to a verbal firework display. Underneath, there
are dark and disturbing undertones. The incantatory element heightens the
emotions on the one hand, but points to the limitations of purely rational language to encompass suffering on the other. The effect created is that of the
body overtaken by the extremities of emotions: All mein Blut in den Adern

153
erstarrt / Von der grlich entschiedenen Gegenwart (lines 19389). It is fitting that in a Berlin production in the 1990s, the lines of the chorus were
adapted to resemble pure sounds without meaning.33 The order and symmetry
of dance is met by the intensity of emotions which threaten to explode form.
Paradox is at the heart of this scene. On the one hand, it creates a sense of order
and symmetry. The heightened language has a musical effect. There is a sense
of the mechanical and yet of the presence of the unpredictable. We are confronted with the paradox that the choruss language presents us with deductions and conclusions about the action, running parallel to it but at the same
time deeply involved in it.
A striking contrast to some of the lyrical passages of the chorus is the
extended passage of stichomythia in which the two choruses confront each
other when Don Manuels chorus arrives with presents for the wedding. They
are barred entry by Don Cesars chorus and for over thirty lines engage in a
verbal contest with them before this culminates in the drawing of swords. Each
is acting on instructions from its leader: Mein Herrscher sendet mich, Don
Manuel / Ich stehe hier auf meines Herrn Befehl (lines 171213). The language is sometimes aphoristically pointed (line 1715: Dem Erstbesitzenden
gehrt die Welt), sometimes direct and almost indistinguishable from the colloquial (line 1718: Find ich dich berall in meinen Wegen?), but terse and
abrupt. Throughout this scene, the language has a rigid and brutal quality. It
shows the choruses at their most aggressive und uncompromising. The effect is
strengthened by the extended length of the stichomythic passage.34
After the murder of Don Manuel, the choruses react strongly, contrastingly,
seeking revenge, or hailing the end of conflict. The chorus as a whole takes a
more measured, contemplative view, as it describes its anticipation of the
event. But it, too, is then filled with horror; Dennoch bergiet mich ein
Grauen (line 1934). Individual speakers emerge from the choruses to express
their lament. The language becomes strongly rhythmic once again:
Lasset erschallen die Stimme der Klage!
Holder Jngling,
Da liegt er entseelt (lines 19402)

33
See the adapted text in Die Braut von Messina oder die feindlichen Brder. Ein
Trauerspiel mit Chren von Schiller. Bearbeitet von Karl Mickel. Marbach/N.:
Deutsche Schillergesellschaft 1989.
34
Francis Lamport suggests that this passage of rhymed stichomythia is probably
unique in German literature and indicative of the plays modernity. F. J. Lamport:
Schiller and Euripides. The Translations of 1788 and Schillers Later Plays. In: German
Life and Letters 58 (2005). Pp. 247270, here p. 257. The rhyme scheme itself is irregular, combining rhyming couplets and impure rhymes with triple rhymes and rhymes
embracing two lines.

154
There is an element of childlike simplicity:
Wir kommen, wir kommen
Mit festlichen Prangen
Die Braut zu empfangen
Es bringen die Knaben
Die reichen Gewnde, die brutlichen Gaben (lines 194852)

The whole chorus repeats lines of individual speakers (Second Chorus/Whole

Chorus), individual speakers repeat their own lines, individual speakers repeat
key words, use alliteration and anaphora:
Aber wehe dem Mrder, wehe,
[]
Hinab hinab in der Erde Ritzen
Rinnet, rinnet dein Blut.
[]
Wehe wehe dem Mrder, wehe,
Der sich gest die tdliche Saat!
Ein andres Antlitz, eh sie geschehen,
Ein anderes zeigt die vollbrachte Tat.
[]
Und er erkannte die furchtbaren Jungfraun,
Die den Mrder ergreifend fassen,
Die von jetzt an ihn nimmer lassen,
Die ihn mit ewigen Schlangenbi nagen,
Die von Meer zu Meer ihn ruhelos jagen (lines 1984, 19867, 20036, 20226)

The effect is that of the increasing intensity of emotion in the face of death and
of inscrutable forces propelling events. Later we find this effect enhanced by
the use of alliteration.
Strzet ein ihr Wnde,
Versink o Schwelle
Unter der schrecklichen Fe Tritt!
Schwarze Dmpfe entsteiget, entsteiget
Qualmend dem Abgrund! Verschlinget des Tages
Lieblichen Schein. (lines 24205)

Schiller exploits the musical sounds of the German language, but it is music
that is strong and suggestive of violence rather than sweet and mellifluous as we
find it in other passages. In short, he gives us a chorus that is a linguistic
chameleon. In every scene, there is something different in the language from what
had used before. The choruss language is an ever-changing thing, like its point
of view. In placing this emphasis on variety in language, Schiller has moved a
great distance from the chorus of ancient drama with its clear antiphonal structure and attempted to express what he saw as the divided spirit of his age.

155
The variety and diversity we find in the language of the chorus and choruses
can also be seen in that of the principal characters. Don Manuels statement of his
intention to visit the bazaar to purchase garments for Beatrice develops into a celebration of female beauty, proving a moment of light and Ruhe (lines 812). But
the flowing, enjambed lines also register the impossibility of the permanent
retrieval of beauty. We find the same variety and hints of turbulence in Beatrices
monologue (lines 981) which, though initially reminiscent of Iphigenies opening monologue in Goethes Iphigenie auf Tauris, soon acquires a different character. Her words, Und mich ergreift ein schauderndes Gefhl evoke Iphigenies:
Tret ich noch jetzt mit schauderndem Gefhl. Iphigenie speaks in the same
measured blank verse throughout her monologue, which describes her oppressive separation from her family and her heritage. Beatrice, by contrast, speaks initially (three stanzas of eight lines) in blank verse, which, however, rhymes. It is
measured, but hints at turbulence beneath the surface and within her. This turbulence comes closer to the surface as her language becomes more excited, the lines
shorter, the rhythms (trochees and dactyls) stronger, using impure rhymes
(Zelle/Hlle; befreie/Reue) before grinding to a halt with the rhyme on
Herz and Schmerz. The change in her language expresses the paradox of her
situation, strongly drawn as she is to Don Manuel, yet conscious of her guilt in
being so passionately aroused. She reverts to the more reflective blank verse to
consider the man who has taken over her control of her imagination. These four
stanzas also use impure rhyme before the monologue concludes with the longest
section, consisting of shorter lines which make use of alliteration and repetition.
Weh mir! Weh mir! Wo er weilet?
Mich umschlingt ein kaltes Grausen!
Immer tiefer
Sinkt die Sonne! Immer der
Wird die de! Immer schwerer
Wird das Herz wo zgert er? (lines 10627)

Beatrice, too, creates an image of her lover that is like a statue: Schn wie ein
Gott und mnnlich wie ein Held (line 1031), but beneath that ideal mental
picture we sense, particularly in the more rhythmic sections of her monologue,
tension and turbulence.
Linguistic variety and virtuosity are at the heart of Schillers play, but
silence and non-verbal language are also significant. Silence, both literal and
metaphorical, is at the heart of Die Braut von Messina, and in its non-verbal
language, we find the same paradoxes, contradictions and ambiguities that are
evident on the verbal level. The elders of Messina arrive, listen silently to
Isabella, then depart. Her silence about her the fate of her daughter is the cause
of her sons conflict and deaths. Their initial reconciliation is expressed in an
embrace, which, however, is accompanied by ominous silent glances. The

156
embrace of Beatrice and Don Manuel arouses the jealousy and hatred of Don
Cesar and he kills his brother without asking for an explanation. Towards the
end of the play, the gesture of turning away acquires increased significance: the
chorus, on being asked about the whereabouts of Don Manuels corpse, Beatrice
when confronted by it, Don Cesar when his mother embraces him: all turn away.
Don Cesar kills himself in an embrace with Beatrice: as he dies, he falls to the
ground and turns away from his sister and mother as they embrace and thus
turn away from him. The choruss final words underline the ambiguity of
human affairs encapsulated in these final gestures: the despair allied to the
glimmer of hope that must come from recognition of guilt.
Traditional productions of Schillers last play, Wilhelm Tell, have a long history
of emphasising patriotism, optimism, the progression of history and moral
freedom. Last years production on the Rtli raised the perennial political issues,
as well as questions about language. The natural setting produced a superabundance of realistic dialogue that came across as monotone[s] Geplapper.35 It
urged the critic of the Neue Zrcher Zeitung to remark on what was missing:
die Wirkungsmacht des Schauspiels geht zuallererst von der Sprache aus.36
Schillers style in Wilhelm Tell is again experimental. Classical elements
continue to be present in the symbolism and texture of the plays language
(e. g. anastrophic genitives). Combined with these elements is naturalness and
authenticity. One contemporary reviewer thought that Schiller must have spent
his entire life in Switzerland, a testimony to the way he had converted Tschudis
chronicle into dramatic form.37 It is of course an effect of enhanced naturalism
that Schiller achieves, for example, through the use of alliteration.38 Added to
35

Die Zeit. 29.7.2004.

Barbara Villiger Heilig: Natur pur. Schillers Wilhelm Tell auf dem Rtli. Neue
Zrcher Zeitung. 26.7.2004.
37
Der Dialog ist krzer, krniger und theatralisch-interessanter, als in den frheren
Jambenstcken des Dichters [] Am meisten mu man, besonders wenn man an die so
ganz undeutsche, bergriechische Form der Braut von Messina zurckdenkt, die
Geschmeidigkeit, Biegsamkeit und Energie bewundern, womit sich Sch. so rasch in
das innerste Wesen des Schweitzer-Costuums, der Schweitzer-Sitte und Sprache zu
versetzen gewut hat. Man sollte glauben, er habe sein ganzes Leben zwischen den
Alpen zugebracht und vertraut ist ihm alles. Oberdeutsche allgemeine
Litteraturzeitung. 12.1.1805. Cols. 8189, here col. 87.
38
Wer solch ein Herz an seinen Busen drckt,
Der kann fr Herd und Hof mit Freuden fechten,
Und keines Knigs Heermacht frchtet er
Nach Uri fahr ich stehenden Fues gleich,
Dort lebt ein Gastfreund mir, Herr Walter Frst,
Der ber diese Zeiten denkt wie ich.
[] ein wirtlich Dach
Fr alle Wandrer, die des Weges fahren. (lines 3305, 3478)
36

157
this is the heterogeneity of Schillers style. It uses actual musical effects. It is
not so much the structuring of dialogue or monologue along operatic lines that
points in that direction (a Baroque element), but the addition of music (as in
the opening scene) or an interlude which fulfils a quasi-musical function: the
eruption of the storm has been compared to the effect achieved in Beethovens
Fidelio with the arrival of the minister after the prisoners chorus.39
Critics of Schillers language have consistently drawn attention to the plays
sententiousness. The list of pithy sayings one could compile is considerably
longer that in Die Jungfrau. For traditional interpretations this does not represent
a problem: it reflects the proverbial wisdom of the Swiss and particularly Tells,
which is ultimately seen to be vindicated. But the simplicity has another side.
Tell is on the one hand a simple man, close to nature. This is captured in his
language. At times his wisdom borders on the trivial. Wos not tut,
Fhrmann, lt sich alles wagen (line 136). But his nature has the germ of
complexity. He has a restlessness that is similar to Fausts.
Zum Hirten hat Natur mich nicht gebildet,
Rastlos mu ich ein flchtig Ziel verfolgen,
Dann erst genie ich meines Lebens recht,
Wenn ich mirs jeden Tag aufs neu erbeute. (lines 148790)40

We sense the limitations of proverbial wisdom in the exchange with

Stauffacher:
TELL Das schwere Herz wird nicht durch Worte leicht.
STAUFFACHER Doch knnen Worte uns zu Taten fhren.
TELL Die einzge Tat ist jetzt Geduld und Schweigen.
STAUFFACHER Soll man ertragen, was unleidlich ist?
TELL Die schnellen Herrscher sinds, die kurz regieren. (lines 41822)

Neither is right or wrong. The notion that the outcome of the play vindicates
Tells wisdom his patience and silence is erroneous. Rather, the appleshooting scene produces a crisis in Tell as a result of which he has to consider
his own position. The Knacht monologue provides not a justification of murder, but shows the attempt to come to terms verbally with what he, Tell, feels
compelled to do. He becomes linguistically a different person, conscious of the
corruption of his simple lifestyle. The key gesture of this monologue is not the

39

See Gtz Lothar Darsow: Friedrich Schiller. Stuttgart: Metzler 2000. P. 220.
Compare Goethe. Faust II. Lines 115756: Nur der verdient sich Freiheit wie das
Leben, / Der tglich sie erobern mu.
40

158
shooting of Geler, but Tells sitting down as wanderers pass by which is followed by him ruminating on wandering and homelessness.41
Auf dieser Bank von Stein will ich mich setzen,
Dem Wanderer zur kurzen Ruh bereitet
Denn hier ist keine Heimat (lines 260911)

Tell is not only the wanderer but the wanderer who feels compelled to murder.
The significance of this idea is enhanced by the alliteration of the sound w.42
(Alliteration is used parallel to rhyme, then takes over from it.) This motif
harks back to the Faustian restlessness suggested earlier on and points forward
to the Parricida scene. Paradox, the compulsion to murder, is at the heart of this
scene, Tells heilge Schuld.
Before we come to the plays conclusion it is important to note that the
imagery of light and darkness has been key throughout the play, notably on the
Rtli scene, where darkness is associated with political oppression, light with
nature and divine beneficence. There is on the one hand a clear progression
from one to the other and this is associated with Tells vision, which is important in a literal sense. His acuteness of sight saves his countrymen from further
oppression. But Tell does not have an inward vision. Nor does he, I would
argue, acquire one. He is not shown as triumphant hero and his absence in this
role is as important as his silence. The plays optimistic conclusion on the political level is not without darker undertones, if that is the right word for silence
and gesture. The gesture of embrace significant on the Rtli and in the final
scene is counterpointed by other, disjunctive gestures: the rolling of the eyes
(Tell), sitting down alone, and by turning away. In the penultimate scene, Tell
receives no embrace from his wife when he returns home. In the dialogue with
Parricida which follows, it is Tell who covers his face when he asks Parricida
to leave. This can only mean that Tell feels sympathy with Parricida whom he
has condemned to be a wanderer.43 The path he sends him on is one with which
he is intimately familiar not only from the topographical point of view, but in a
spiritual sense. Tells final words are a warning to his wife not to look too
deeply into her soul lest she see the path that Parricida has to follow, the route
that Tell knows, the route of the lonely wanderer. His plea to his wife to turn
away expresses his own fear, his own guilt. It explains his final silence.

41

Wallenstein does this in Act II, scene 7 of Die Piccolomini.

Wanderer Waidwerk Wilden Weg (lines 262730), Wild Winters
(Strenge) Wagesprung [glatten] Wnden (lines 26359).
43
See Karl Guthke: Schillers Dramen. Idealismus und Skepsis. Tbingen: Francke
1994. P. 301.
42

Francis Lamport

Virgins, Bastards and Saviours of the Nation: Reflections on

Schillers Historical Dramas*
The topic of national liberation or regeneration is present in all the historical dramas
of Schillers maturity. Interest is concentrated on figures who assume or believe themselves, legitimately or otherwise, to be entrusted with this national mission Wallenstein,
the two queens in Maria Stuart, Johanna in Die Jungfrau von Orleans, Wilhelm Tell,
Demetrius. In all cases, the assumption of this mission involves some loss of innocence
or personal integrity. Related themes are also present in Die Braut von Messina,
though here more than elsewhere they appear to be subordinate to a purely aesthetic
design.

[] Paul taught long that day.

He spoke of God the Father, God the Son,
Of world made, marred, and mended, lost and won;
Of virtue and vice; but most (it seemed his sense)
He praised the lovely lot of continence:
All over, some such words as these, though dark,
The world was saved by virgins, made their mark []
(G. M. Hopkins, St. Thecla)

I.
I do not know whether Schiller, good Protestant agnostic that he was, knew
about St Thecla of Iconium.1 I have never seen her mentioned in connection
with the saintly heroine of Wallenstein; it seems that Schiller got the name
from Benedikte Nauberts popular historical novel Grfin Thekla von Thurn.2
In any case, Schillers Thekla is, I am afraid, not going to save the world by her
renunciation of it. Her world has been marred past mending by the death of her
* Editions of Schillers works cited are abbreviated as follows: FA Friedrich Schiller:
Werke und Briefe in zwlf Bnden. Ed. by Otto Dann et al. Frankfurt/M.: Deutscher
Klassiker Verlag 19882004. HA Friedrich Schiller: Smtliche Werke. Ed. by Gerhard
Fricke and H. G. Gpfert. Munich: Hanser 1958. (The revised edition, ed. by Peter-Andr
Alt et al., Munich: Hanser 2004, is identical in text and pagination in all cited instances.)
1
See the Oxford Dictionary of Saints for the colourful career of this dubious saint,
whose cult was suppressed by the Roman Catholic Church in 1969. Prior to this, she was
popular in many parts of Catholic Germany. See Jakob Torsy: Lexikon der deutschen
Heiligen, Seligen, Ehrwrdigen und Gottseligen. Cologne: J. P. Bachem 1958. P. 516.
2
See FA 4. 10701072.

160
beloved Max, she has no desire but to follow him in death, and she does not
care what else may happen:
Sein Geist ists, der mich ruft. Es ist die Schar
Der Treuen, die sich rchend ihm geopfert.
Unedler Sumnis klagen sie mich an.
Sie wollten auch im Tod von ihm nicht lassen,
Der ihres Lebens Fhrer war Das taten
Die rohen Herzen, und ich sollte leben!
Nein, auch fr mich ward jener Lorbeerkranz,
Der deine Totenbahre schmckt, gewunden (Wallensteins Tod, lines 315562).

Max himself has chosen to preserve his virginity in death: ostensibly doing his
duty and serving his Emperor, he is in fact looking for an excuse to die: Mein
Unglck ist gewi, und Dank dem Himmel! / Der mir ein Mittel eingibt, es zu
enden (lines 23978). His death achieves nothing, except to precipitate the
death of the man who might have brought about the peace which Max on his
first appearance had so passionately and eloquently advocated.3 Nor is Max
the only one who sees in Wallenstein einen Friedensfrsten / Und einen Stifter
neuer goldner Zeit (lines 321718), but at the end of the tragedy it is as true
as it was at the beginning that keine Friedenshoffnung strahlt von fern
(Prolog, line 83). In fact Wallenstein, the would-be saviour of the nation
(Mich soll das Reich als seinen Schirmer ehren (Die Piccolomini, line 835))
has blown his chances by failing to act in time, although, or perhaps because,
he realises that effective action demands the surrender of ones innocence (cf.
Wallensteins Tod, lines 80009), and remains to the last reluctant to pay the
price. His opponent Octavio is, in principle, willing to pay it
Mein bester Sohn! Es ist nicht immer mglich,
Im Leben sich so kinderrein zu halten,
Wies uns die Stimme lehrt im Innersten []
Wohl wr es besser, berall dem Herzen
Zu folgen, doch darber wrde man
Sich manchen guten Zweck versagen mssen. (Die Piccolomini, lines 244758)

which is one reason why he wins at any rate the immediate victory. One never
knows in practice, of course, what the price will be; perhaps we can hear in
Octavios final schmerzvoller Blick gen Himmel a silent echo of Wallensteins
3

Cf. Michael Hofmann: Die unaufhebbare Ambivalenz historischer Praxis und die Poetik
des Erhabenen in Friedrich Schillers Wallenstein-Trilogie. In: Jahrbuch der Deutschen
Schillergesellschaft 43 (1999). Pp. 241265, esp. pp. 262264; Jochen Schmidt: Die
Geschichte des Genie-Gedankens in der deutschen Literatur, Philosophie und Politik
17501945. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1985. Vol. 1. P. 456.

161
closing speech to Gordon:
Htt ich vorhergewut, was nun geschehn,
Das es den liebsten Freund mir wrde kosten,
Und htte mir das Herz wie jetzt gesprochen
Kann sein, ich htte mich bedacht kann sein
Auch nicht (Wallensteins Tod, lines 365761)

But the realist is judged by success; the idealist can afford the luxury of sublime failure, and still be assured of at least some degree of moral approval even
if his actions have undesired or even disastrous consequences. As Schiller
wrote of Wallenstein himself: Er kann sich nicht, wie der Idealist, in sich
selbst einhllen, und sich ber die Materie erheben, sondern er will die Materie
sich unterwerfen, und erreicht es nicht.4 I think the disparity, the usually irreconcilable disjunction of practical (political, historical) and moral judgments
the clash of empirische and moralische Notwendigkeiten, to adopt Peter
Pfaff s formulation5 is one of the great underlying theme of all Schillers historical dramas. (For a strict Kantian, moralische Notwendigkeiten should
surely be something of a contradiction in terms.6) In Wallenstein and the later
plays, he shows us again and again characters who are, or believe themselves
to be, called upon to carry out missions of historic and specifically national
significance, and struggling to do so while at the same time preserving their
personal innocence (or indeed their literal virginity). A related issue, of particular relevance to the Europe of Schillers day when the old order was, as the
Prologue to Wallenstein reminds us (lines 7074), visibly falling to pieces is
that of the legitimacy of power. In Maria Stuart the question of legitimacy is
crucial, at any rate to the action at the political level. And Schillers last, unfinished masterpiece is the story of a man who loses his innocence when he discovers that he is not the legitimate prince he believes himself to be and that his
supposed historic and patriotic mission is therefore founded on a delusion.
Schillers three greatest historical dramas, Don Carlos, Wallenstein and Maria
Stuart, are all about the struggle between the old order (the ancien rgime) and the
new, or as Mainland put it with reference to Maria Stuart, between tradition
and experiment.7 In this play, the new order has already been established, or
4

Letter to Humboldt. 21.3.1796.

Peter Pfaff: Knig Ren oder die Geschichte. In: Schiller und die hfische Welt. Ed. by
Achim Aurnhammer et al. Tbingen: Metzler 1990. Pp. 407421, here p. 407.
6
See especially the essays ber den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie gut sein,
taugt aber nicht fr die Praxis (1793) and ber ein vermeintes Recht, aus Menschenliebe
zu lgen (1797). In: Immanuel Kant: Werke in sechs Bnden. Ed. by Wilhelm
Weischedel. Wiesbaden: Insel 195664. Vol. 6. Pp. 127172, Vol. 4. Pp. 637643.
7
See W. F. Mainland: Schiller and the Changing Past. London: Heinemann 1957. Pp.
5786.
5

162
re-established after the relapse of der spanischen Maria blutge Zeiten (line 102),
but is still not entirely secure and still faces formidable counter-challenges.
Cast in the role of saviour of the nation is Elizabeth, Englands virgin queen. Not
only, at least ostensibly, jealous of her virginity (which does not stop her flirting
with Leicester or trying to bribe Mortimer with hints of sexual favours), she is
also very reluctant to lose her political innocence, and seeks with increasing
desperation to avoid responsibility for what she subsequently described in a
letter to Marys son James as the miserable accident of his mothers execution.8
She is also of course acutely aware of der Zweifel meiner frstlichen Geburt
(line 3245), regarded as she is by at least half the world as a bastard the ominous
word recurs several times in the course of the play , and it is because of this
illegitimacy that although she is apparently successfully presiding over the
emergence of a new form of monarchy by popular consent, she can ultimately
maintain her authority only by force. (Similarly, in Demetrius, both Godunow
and Demetrius himself successively try, and for a while manage, to rule justly
and fairly, but ultimately fall back on force, and in both their cases perish by it,
because they lack the essential sanction of hereditary legitimacy.)
Mary Stuart has in practical terms failed in the task of ruling; she has been
verjagt von ihrem Volk, des Throns entsetzt (line 99); she has, according to
Elizabeth, wilfully neglected her strenge Knigspflichten [] weil sie sich nur
befli, ein Weib zu sein (lines 19846); and yet she is a legitimate hereditary
monarch, she is still in her own eyes Queen of Scotland and indeed, in her own
eyes and a good many others, Queen of England too, simply because she is:
Regierte Recht, so lget Ihr vor mir / Im Staube jetzt, denn ich bin euer Knig
(lines 24501). Schillers Maria is of course not a virgin queen: quite the
reverse, she is, as Schiller wrote to Goethe (18 June 1799), ein physisches
Wesen, whose fate is heftige Leidenschaften zu erfahren und zu entznden,
even if most modern biographers would probably agree with her that Das rgste
wei die Welt von mir und ich / Kann sagen, ich bin besser als mein Ruf (lines
24256). But she has at any rate fulfilled one of the duties of an hereditary
monarch, the very one in which Elizabeth has conspicuously failed, the one which
indeed, despite repeated urgings from the likes of Burleigh, she has persistently
refused to perform: she has married and produced an heir. Who knows, perhaps
she too would have preferred to have remained a virgin queen or at any rate a
virtuous, childless widow after her brief (and, according to some, unconsummated)
marriage to the French Dauphin; if she had kept her maidenhead she might have
kept the head on her shoulders too, but then her fathers reported prophecy would
have come true, that the Stuart line came with a lass, and would pass with a lass.9
8
Qtd. in Jane Dunn: Elizabeth and Mary. Cousins, Rivals, Queens. London: HarperCollins
2003. P. 498.
9
Qtd. in Dunn (n. 8). P. 44.

163
As it was, her son James was to fulfil her ambition, die Kronen / Schottland und
England friedlich zu vermhlen (lines 8378), in fact to begin the (relatively)
peaceful conquest of England by the Scots which has continued steadily down
to the present day. Perhaps in the longer run Mary has won not only the moral
but the political victory as well.
The shifting verdicts of history add an ironical undertone to the ends of all
these plays. Wallenstein ends with the immediate victory of the Imperial forces,
but the unter dem Namen des Westflischen berhmte[r], unverletzliche[r] und
heilige[r] Frieden, which concluded the war, represented with all its compromises a defeat for Habsburg territorial ambitions and for Ferdinand IIs dreams
of restoring a universal Catholic Imperial monarchy. (And already when Schiller
wrote the last-quoted words at the end of the Geschichte des dreiigjhrigen
Kriegs (HA 4. 745), the dispositions of the Peace of Westphalia had by no
means remained unverletzt.) A similar historical irony overshadows the
apparently triumphant conclusions of Die Jungfrau von Orleans and Wilhelm
Tell. France was in 1801 no longer the victim, but the perpetrator of imperialistic aggression, and as Schiller observed to Wilhelm von Wolzogen on 27
October 1803, jetzt besonders ist von der schweizerischen Freiheit desto mehr
die Rede, weil sie aus der Welt verschwunden ist.

II.
Both Schillers romantic historical plays, Die Jungfrau von Orleans and
Wilhelm Tell, do however depict, at least on the surface, the deliverance of a
nation, in both cases a newly emergent one, from foreign oppression. In Die
Jungfrau von Orleans, the eponymous virgin warrior comes to the rescue of an
angestammte[r] Knig (line 805), a legitimate hereditary monarch who has,
like Mary, been neglecting his strenge Knigspflichten in favour of a life of
pleasure (albeit of a very civilised kind) and has been deposed by his Parliament,
deserted by most of his people and even disowned (bastardised!) by his own
mother, but is still, despite everything, the only rightful King of France. The
virgin warrior is in this case ably supported by Frankreichs Brustwehr, / Der
heldenmtge Bastard (lines 2689), Graf Dunois, and virgin and bastard
are ultimately victorious. He claims a natural affinity with her Sie ist das
Gtterkind der heiligen / Natur, wie ich, und ist mir ebenbrtig (lines 18445)
but he wants to spoil it by marrying her. Perhaps that is why Schiller denies
him a place at her final apotheosis: he has been carried off schwerverwundet
from the battlefield, after enthusiastically rallying the French troops (lines
331823) to attempt Johannas rescue. (In historical fact, Dunois was good for
almost another forty years, dying only in 1468.) In Wilhelm Tell the liberating
mission is carried out, not admittedly by a virgin, but by an innocent almost
a kind of tumber Tor like Parzival (Wr ich besonnen, hie ich nicht der Tell

164
(line 1871)), perhaps again a Gtterkind der heiligen Natur. The two saviours have much in common, and in both plays their innocence is threatened,
but in the one case the successful carrying out of the mission seems to be
dependent on its preservation, or recovery, in the other on its surrender.
Both these plays are complex and many-layered. Both are, first and foremost and most obviously, about national liberation, and that, in keeping with
the theme of the present symposium, is my principal interest here. Both are also
much concerned with the psychology, the inner development, of their eponymous
protagonists: after the more Aristotelian dramaturgy of Wallenstein and Maria
Stuart, they both, especially Die Jungfrau, revert in considerable measure to the
Lenzian, Sturm und Drang principle that der Held allein ist der Schlssel zu
seinen Schicksalen.10 They have also, as it is hardly necessary to mention, been
interpreted by many critics in the light of Schillers anthropological and poetological theories; these dimensions I do not intend to discuss on this occasion. But
finally, they are both extremely exciting plays, full of colour and movement and
spectacle, together with a good deal of sheer linguistic virtuosity, which might
tempt one to the Staigerian view11 that all the thematic elements, historical, political, psychological, symbolic, allegorical or whatever, are really only ingredients
in a grand stew of culinary theatre (as the Direktor says in the Vorspiel to
Faust, solch ein Ragout, es mu euch glcken!), or material for the construction of abstract art, as Gerhard Storz maintained of that superficially very different play which comes between them in Schillers dramatic output, Die Braut
von Messina.12 This is a tempting view to take, not least because it enables one
to brush aside awkward questions of interpretation. As Schiller himself said of
Die Jungfrau, Dieses Stck flo aus dem Herzen, und zu dem Herzen sollte es
auch sprechen:13 perhaps we should not ask awkward interpretative questions,
but just take what happens at face value and enjoy it. Some of the awkward questions, the inconsistencies, incoherences even, arise simply because the plays are
so rich and many-layered: the different levels do not always mesh together.
Schillers Johanna and Wilhelm Tell are both characters with historic, patriotic
missions, both saviours of their nation, and frequently and explicitly referred to
as such (Retter, Retterin). Both missions appear to be objectively, even
divinely validated (whatever we may think the term divine actually means for
Schiller). Johanna herself invests her mission with divine legitimation, and though
one can go a considerable distance in psychoanalysing it away, I think the end
10
J. M. R. Lenz: Anmerkungen zum Theater. In: Sturm und Drang. Dichtungen und theoretische Texte. Ed. by Heinz Nicolai. Munich: Winkler 1971. Vol. 1. P. 859.
11
Emil Staiger: Friedrich Schiller. Zurich: Atlantis 1967. Cf. also Jutta Linder:
Schillers Dramen. Bauprinzip und Wirkungsstrategie. Bonn: Bouvier 1989.
12
See Gerhard Storz: Der Dichter Friedrich Schiller. Stuttgart: Klett 1959. P. 373.
13
Letter to Gschen. 10.2.1802.

165
of the play must be taken in some sense to validate her claim. Tell, on the other
hand, though cast by his countrymen from the beginning in the role of universal saviour and triumphantly acclaimed as such at the end Es lebe Tell, der
Schtz und der Erretter! (line 3281) comes to accept this role only gradually
and with a good deal of reluctance, because he realises that to carry out this
necessary mission he has to become a murderer: he is caught between
empirische und moralische Notwendigkeiten, and this causes a protracted
crisis from which he emerges not entirely unscathed. Johanna embraces her
mission with unbridled enthusiasm, has no compunction about slaughtering
her enemies (face to face too, rather than ambushing them, an aspect of Tells
deed to which some critics have taken exception), and only when the mission
is well on the way to completion does she undergo a sudden crisis, not to do
with the validity of the mission or its necessary adjuncts (i.e. killing), but with
her own fitness or ability to carry it out. The crisis takes a different form, but it
is as with Tell a crisis of self-awareness, which has to be worked through before
the earlier state of nave self-confidence can, if at all, be recovered.
Both Johanna and Tell are nave characters in a literal sense, simple country
people carrying out historic missions of a kind traditionally associated with
figures of elevated rank, and neither can return to what they were before the
mission has its price. Johanna, despite succumbing momentarily to the sndgen Flammen eitler Erdenlust (line 412), does remain the virgin warrior, the
reine Jungfrau who vollbringt jedwedes Herrliche auf Erden (lines 10878),
but she dies, and even if she were to survive, one can hardly imagine her
returning to the life of a humble shepherdess, however much she might have
wished she could. Tell does survive, but the simple Alpine huntsman who had
said Mir fehlt der Arm, wenn mir die Waffe fehlt (line 1536) has laid aside
his crossbow, and the man who had said Zum Hirten hat Natur mich nicht
gebildet (line 1486) is going to have to adopt some new calling among the
Volk der Hirten in the new society he has decisively helped to create: he cannot simply in die Idylle zurckkehren as, for example, Fritz Martini and
Gerhard Kaiser have maintained.14
The basic psychological fact about Johanna is that, as Raimund says, ihre
Brust verschliet ein mnnlich Herz (line 196). She resists her fathers pressure to marry like her sisters, she is indifferent to their embraces and to his
reproaches, and throughout this opening scene we are told that she has still
und ohne Anteil auf der Seite gestanden (s.d. at line 162). She is only roused
when Bertrand appears with the mysterious helmet, which brings to the surface
14

Fritz Martini: Wilhelm Tell, der sthetische Staat und der sthetische Mensch. In: Der
Deutschunterricht 12 (1960). Pp. 90118, here p. 117. Gerhard Kaiser: Vergtterung
und Tod. Die thematische Einheit von Schillers Werk. In: Von Arkadien nach Elysium.
Schiller-Studien. Gttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht 1978. Pp. 1144, here p. 36.

166
her dreams of living and proving herself as a man, fighting not just the wolves
which are ravaging the flocks but the English who are ravaging France. It is
indeed the helmet which, as Raimund says, sie so kriegerisch beseelt (line
329). In the monologue which concludes the Prologue she then claims divine
authority for her patriotic mission. Here it is the Old Testament God of Battles
who she claims has spoken to her aus dieses Baumes Zweigen (line 407); to
the Dauphin in Act I, scene 10 she tells a different story, saying that after hearing of the English depredations she herself took the initiative, appealed to the
Mother of God (line 1059) and was granted in response a vision of the Virgin
who entrusted her with her mission. So it would appear that the divine authority for the mission is invented ex post facto and indeed modified as she goes
along. This does not, however, make her, as the rationalist Talbot claims, eine
Gauklerin, die die gelernte Rolle / Der Heldin spielt (lines 15467), for it is
her own deepest desires which are being acted out and validated here.15
The first hint of crisis comes in Act III, scene 4, when she returns from her
triumphs on the battlefield (including the killing of Montgomery) not quite to
the heros welcome she might have expected, but at best to a heroines, with
Dunois and La Hire competing for her hand, the King as eager as her own father
to marry her off, and Agnes and the Archbishop joining in the universal chorus
of voices urging her to be a woman and do what a woman should. Small wonder
that she jumps for joy on hearing that the English are on the move again, and
rushes off begeistert crying Schlacht und Kampf! / Jetzt ist die Seele ihrer
Banden frei (lines 22723, the verbal image anticipating what actually happens
on stage in the closing scene). We next see her confronting the Black Knight,
and even this scene, for all its overtly supernatural character, can be regarded
psychologically as a theatrical externalisation of her growing self-awareness
and consequent faltering self-confidence. It is followed immediately by the
meeting with Lionel, in which Johanna, in her own terms, breaks the vow
of chastity which is the condition of her mission: Gebrochen hab ich mein
Gelbde! (line 2482); in other words, she succumbs to, or admits to herself,
or becomes for the first time aware of, her own sexuality. And like Lessings
Emilia Galotti discovering her own sexuality in her encounter with the Prince,
she is shocked, horrified, and rendered temporarily incapable of action. But again
like Emilia Galotti she is, to adapt the words of Emilias mother, ihrer ersten
Eindrcke [nicht] mchtig, aber nach [einiger] berlegung , in alles sich findend,
auf alles gefat; and so at her second meeting with Lionel, however much she
15
Robin Harrisons argument that the Christian and pagan references in the play allude
respectively to true (selfless) and false (selfish) concepts of mission has met with little favour among the critics. See Robin Harrison: Heilige oder Hexe? Schillers
Jungfrau von Orleans im Licht der biblischen und griechischen Anspielungen. In:
Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 30 (1986). Pp. 265305.

167
had dreaded it and said she would rather die (line 32267), sie hlt [ihn] in
einer Entfernung; sie spricht mit ihm in einem Tone 16
So far, so psychologically explicable. But then comes the concluding miracle.
Chained up in dreifache Fesseln (line 3393), she hears the report of the battle
which is taking place offstage and of the apparent victory of the English. Gott!
Gott! she cries (line 3449), so sehr wirst du mich nicht verlassen! The biblical echo (Matt. 27.46, Mark 15.34) is unmistakable. Taunted by Isabeau (as the
priests taunted the crucified Christ, Mark 15.31, and as Geler will taunt Tell),
Jetzt ist es Zeit! Jetzt, Retterin, errette!, she prays to be given strength like
Samson to break her bonds and destroy her enemies; and her prayer is granted.
What happens now is a kind of practical apology on Schillers part for his earlier
criticism of Goethes Egmont. Goethe had shown his hero going to his execution
as if he were leading his countrymen into battle, assured in a dream of the eventual victory of their cause. Schiller, who had harshly criticised Goethe for that
Salto mortale in eine Opernwelt (HA 5. 942), here goes one better and gives us
the dream for reality. Johanna breaks her chains and leads her countrymen to triumph on the battlefield, and does die gloriously on the battlefield rather than suffer whatever grausenvolle[r] Tod (line 3317) her enemies may be preparing for
her. (The stake is not actually mentioned in the text; in Verdis operatic version it
is set up on stage in the courtyard of Joans prison.) And we have to believe it, for
no less hard-bitten and cynical a witness than Queen Isabeau declares, Nicht
glauben wrd ichs einer ganzen Welt, / Htt ichs nicht selbst gesehn mit meinen
Augen (lines 348142). But with this, it seems to me, the whole psychological
interpretation of the play, however plausible it is up to this point, simply falls to
the ground. Karl Guthke calls his chapter on Die Jungfrau Ein psychologisches
Mrchen,17 but it seems to me that ultimately the two are totally incompatible:
we simply have to accept the Mrchen, Schillers invented Heiligenlegende,
almost as fantastic as St Theclas, on its own terms. And when La Hire comes in
and says to Isabeau Knigin, unterwerft Euch / Der Allmacht (lines 3499500),
and when heaven itself takes on a rosigte[r] Schein to illuminate Johannas
apotheosis, the divine character of her mission is finally validated.
I think the reason why Die Jungfrau von Orleans is so unsatisfactory, unless
we are just prepared to enjoy it and not ask awkward questions, is that Schiller
16

Emilia Galotti. IV. 8. In: Lessing: Werke. Ed. by H. G. Gpfert et al. Munich: Hanser
197079. Vol. 2. P. 191. Cf. the (ultimately unpersuasive) argument of Clark S.
Muenzer: Virginity and Tragic Structure. Patterns of Continuity and Change in Emilia
Galotti, Iphigenie auf Tauris and Die Jungfrau von Orleans. In: Monatshefte 71 (1974).
Pp. 117130.
17
Karl S. Guthke: Schillers Dramen. Idealismus und Skepsis. Tbingen and Basle:
Francke 1994. Pp. 235257. Peter Pfaff also criticises those who do not believe Schiller
capable of dialektische Psychologie. But as I argue here, the psychology and the
legendary or mrchenhaft elements of the play are just not compatible. Pfaff (n. 5). P. 417.

168
has put so much psychology into a play which ultimately rejects it; and the
awkward question is why he has done it. The whole Lionel episode is Schillers
invention, or at any rate the whole inner crisis to which it gives rise. (Lionel
was actually the name of Joan of Arcs English captor.) As in all his other historical plays, Schiller seems to have found it necessary to introduce a fictitious
love-story into the Staatsaktion (Max and Thekla in Wallenstein, Leicester,
Mary and Mortimer in Maria Stuart, Berta and Rudenz in Wilhelm Tell),
to provide the human interest in which, following Lessing (Hamburgische
Dramaturgie, No. 14), he held political subjects in themselves to be lacking.
Specifically in the present instance, although he is concerned to vindicate Joan
from the calumnies of Shakespeare and Voltaire, he is still writing a tragedy,
and so he needs to furnish his heroine with some sort of hamartia, some kind
of guilt, without which her fate (in accordance with Lessings interpretation of
Aristotle) would not be properly tragic in the dramatic sense. But also, as I
have already hinted, I do not think that Schiller really believes, however much
he may have wanted to, that the world was saved by virgins, or, to put it slightly
differently, that the providential purposes of history, if such there be, do require,
as Johanna had thought, ein blindes Werkzeug (line 2578) for their execution.
Human beings have to open their eyes, surrender their innocence, and know what
they are doing. Schillers Johanna must confront Lionel (and everything he
stands for) before she can once again confront the English army and at last put
them, as we are surely intended to believe, definitively to flight.
It does seem, however, that Johanna has actually been summoned by some
mysterious if not actually superhuman destiny to emerge from her innocent
rural obscurity to play her part in history. She might have gone on privately
entertaining her masculine and patriotic fantasies if they had not been brought
to the surface and stirred into action by that helmet, with its mysterious origins.18 In some sense or other it is true that, as Johanna says, addressing her
destiny in the person of her patroness, the Virgin Mary,
[] du rissest mich ins Leben,
In den stolzen Frstensaal,
Mich der Schuld dahinzugeben,
Ach! es war nicht meine Wahl! (lines 261013)

Wilhelm Tell could, and indeed does, address very similar words to his historic
destiny, though not in the form of a heavenly vision but in that of his all-toohuman adversary and violator of his innocence, Landvogt Geler:
Du hast aus meinem Frieden mich heraus
Geschreckt, in grend Drachengift hast du
18

Cf. Bertrands account (lines 163190), which calls forth Johannas first words in the
play, Gebt mir den Helm! (line 191).

169
Die Milch der frommen Denkart mir verwandelt,
Zum Ungeheuren hast du mich gewhnt (lines 25714)

If Wilhelm Tell is, as I believe, a better play than Die Jungfrau von Orleans, it
is because there is not that awkward break, that incompatibility, between the
human psychology the story of Tells emergence from innocence, his crisis and
its overcoming, his dawning awareness of his historic mission and its eventual
execution and the level of Mrchen or legend or even, if you will, of historical metaphysics. It is a curious paradox that Schiller has turned Joan of Arc,
who was after all a real, historically documented individual, into a picture-book
saint almost as dubious as St Thecla (Joan was of course not actually canonised
until 1920), but has turned Tell, who is probably a figure of legend who never
actually trod the Swiss mountains, into a real human being.19 The Swiss certainly claim, or appeal to, divine authority in support of the justice of their cause,
and the priest Rsselmann plays an active part among the patriots; but nobody
claims to have seen any heavenly visions. There is even a rosigter Schein
(Morgenrte, s.d. at line 1442) to illuminate the end of the Rtli scene, and
while it is clearly regarded by the patriots as a kind of symbolic legitimation of
their deliberations Bei diesem Licht, das uns zuerst begrt / Von allen
Vlkern, die tief unter uns / Schweratmend wohnen in dem Qualm der Stdte
(lines 14435)20 it is perfectly acceptable in naturalistic terms, and does not
appear gratuitously symbolic like that at the end of Die Jungfrau von Orleans.
Tell himself is repeatedly invoked as Retter a saviour of individuals, a
potential saviour of the nation but he does not from the outset claim any such
role for himself, let alone claim divine inspiration; though he does invoke
divine aid, again in a perfectly plausible, realistic fashion: In Gottes Namen
denn! Gib her den Kahn, as he says when about to rescue Baumgarten (line
151). This rescue is the first of a number of feats he performs in the course of
the play which may appear superhuman or, in a loose sense, miraculous, but
are not actually supernatural. First comes the rescue Wohl bere Mnner
tuns dem Tell nicht nach, / Es gibt nicht zwei, wie der ist, im Gebirge (lines
1634) , then the Apfelschu (when Tell is arrested after navely answering
Gelers question about the second arrow, Stauffacher protests So knntet Ihr
an einem Manne handeln, / An dem sich Gottes Hand sichtbar verkndigt?
(lines 206970), to which Geler blasphemously replies La sehn, ob er ihn
zweimal retten wird), and then Tells escape from Gelers ship, which does
indeed prompt the fisherman and his boy to cry out in chorus, Befreit!
19

See my article: The Silence of Wilhelm Tell. In: Modern Language Review 76 (1981).
Pp. 857868, here pp. 862863. My thanks to Guthke for pointing out that die
Naivitt des Ausdrucks ist nur scheinbar. Guthke (n. 17). P. 295, footnote.
20
Cf. Die Braut von Messina, line 2584.

170
O Wunder Gottes! (line 2206). Like Johanna, Tell is captured, blasphemously
mocked by his captors, imprisoned and bound, and has to escape from his
bonds in order to perform his final act of liberating others, but his escape,
remarkable as it is, is not quite of the explicitly miraculous order of Johannas.
Johanna, as I have said, enthusiastically, even innocently embraces her mission, undergoes and somehow resolves her crisis, and after it is seemingly
restored fully to her previous condition: given a sword, she could now doubtless finish off Lionel with as little compunction as she did Montgomery in Act
II. Tell has no sense of historic mission before his encounter with Geler in Act
III; indeed, one could almost say that he has no sense at all beyond the immediate, practical demands of the moment. He is, as I have said before, a simple
man who does not put two and two together. That is his innocence, his moral
virginity if you will: his belief that Dem Friedlichen gewhrt man gern den
Frieden (line 428), which is shattered by Gelers challenge. And when Geler
says, (nach einigem Stillschweigen). Du bist ein Meister auf der Armbrust,
Tell (line 1873), the challenge, the summons of history, is totally motivated,
totally comprehensible, totally human even without little Walters boast about
his fathers marksmanship, which Goethe claimed to have made Schiller add at
this point. (Schiller has already motivated Gelers peculiar resentment of Tell,
and his desire to humiliate him at the earliest possible opportunity, by the
admittedly somewhat implausible encounter in the mountains of which Tell
tells Hedwig in Act III, scene 1.) It is not as if someone were to appear out of the
blue bearing a mysterious crossbow, which Tell then were instantly to recognise
as the symbol of his destiny, as does Johanna with the helmet.
When Geler has issued his challenge, Tell knows what he has to do, and
what he has to do next: we see him come to that realisation when he takes out
the second arrow. He knows what he has to do, and he knows, this hitherto
totally private man, that it will be a public deed with public consequences: tell
Frst and the men of the Rtli, he says to the fisherman in Act IV, scene 1,
Sie sollen wacker sein und gutes Muts, / Der Tell sei frei und seines Armes
mchtig, / Bald werden sie ein Weitres von mir hren (lines 22968). He
knows that the death of Geler is an empirische Notwendigkeit, even if
morally its name is murder. And in his great monologue in the Hohle Gasse,
after uttering that dread name five times, he proudly embraces his deed and
declares that heute will ich / Den Meisterschu tun und das Beste mir / Im
ganzen Umkreis des Gebirgs gewinnen (lines 264850). But when he speaks
in such terms of the murder as winning a supreme prize, we are reminded of
Wallensteins declaration that
Den Edelstein, das allgeschtzte Gold
Mu man den falschen Mchten abgewinnen,
Die unterm Tage schlimmgeartet hausen.

171
Nicht ohne Opfer macht man sie geneigt,
Und keiner lebet, der aus ihrem Dienst
Die Seele htte rein zurckgezogen. (Wallensteins Tod, lines 8049)

As I have said, I do not agree with Fritz Martini that Tell can simply in die
Idylle zurckkehren; but nor do I agree with those other critics who see him
at the end of the play as entering the spiritual abyss of guilt and despair21 a
reading apparently endorsed in the Weimar Nationaltheaters much-hyped
bicentennial performance on the Rtli, in which Tell left the stage to accompany Parricida into banishment. He knows the name of his deed, but he also
knows that, unlike Parricida, he had to do it.
In both these plays, great deeds are done by ordinary people, not kings or
queens or great men and women in the traditional sense. Johanna and Tell are
both popular, even, specifically at the historical moment of the plays composition, revolutionary heroes. They are both charismatic figures, both possessed
of that mysterious defining quality of Aueralltglichkeit, as Max Weber called
it.22 Weber saw charismatic authority as essentially innovatory, revolutionary
even, fundamentally opposed to das ewig Gestrige, which Wallenstein, in the
great monologue in which he reflects upon his loss of innocence, identifies as his
own deadliest enemy (Wallensteins Tod, line 208). But for Schiller, charisma only
works when it is allied to traditional legitimate authority.
Wallenstein retains his charisma only as long as he remains loyal to the
Emperor: once he definitively breaks with his legitimate overlord, his charisma
deserts him, and the army on which his power rests lie ihn nicht einmal zum
Worte kommen (Wallensteins Tod, line 2365).23 Both Johanna and Tell, on the
other hand, put their charisma at the service of traditional authority. Joan comes
to the rescue of the Dauphin, Frances angestammter Knig. Tell is acclaimed
as the hero of a revolution which insists on its legitimate, conservative credentials:
Wir stiften keinen neuen Bund, declares Stauffacher, es ist / Ein uralt Bndnis
nur von Vter Zeit / Das wir erneuern (lines 11546). The Swiss patriots also
protest their loyalty to the Empire and, in principle, to the Emperor, though not
to the Archduke of Austria who happens, inconveniently, to be the same person
and, as Stauffacher admits after the news of his murder is proclaimed, der
Freiheit grter Feind (line 3019). A new Emperor will come to reign: his crown
is elective rather than hereditary, but it still represents a form of traditional
21

Alan Best: Alpine Ambivalence in Schillers Wilhelm Tell. In: German Life and
Letters 37 (1984). Pp. 297306, here p. 305.
22
Max Weber: Soziologie, Universalgeschichtliche Analysen, Politik. Ed. by Johannes
Winckelmann. Stuttgart: Krner 1973 (Krners Taschenausgabe 229). Pp. 159, 163,
433, etc.
23
Dieter Borchmeyer: Macht und Melancholie. Schillers Wallenstein. Frankfurt/M.:
Athenum 1988. Pp. 159160; Schmidt (n. 3). Vol. 1. P. 456.

172
legitimacy. Wohl uns, says Walter Frst, da wir beim Reiche treu gehalten, /
Jetzt ist zu hoffen auf Gerechtigkeit (lines 30256). There is a certain amount
of double-think here, as the patriots so easily resolve the demands of
empirische und moralische Notwendigkeit, and one might think that Schiller
is ironising them: but if there is irony here, I think it is benevolently rather than
satirically intended on Schillers part, and reflects if anything the ambivalence
of his own political views, at this time of the breaking and making of nations, to
which several critics have drawn attention in connection with his later dramatic
work.24 Perhaps of all the plays Die Jungfrau von Orleans offers the most
unequivocal defence of traditional legitimacy, just as it does more than any other
apparently affirm that eine reine Jungfrau / Vollbringt jedwedes Herrliche auf
Erden, even that innocence lost can be miraculously regained. Perhaps these
are further reasons why of all Schillers mature historical dramas it is, for all its
theatrical merits, to me the most problematic.

III.
It can hardly be mere coincidence that during these years when Schiller was
producing a series of dramatic variations on these themes and motifs in quick
succession (as well, as it happens, as working on his adaptation of Goethes
Iphigenie auf Tauris for the Weimar theatre), Goethe was labouring to complete his own great counter-revolutionary dramatic trilogy, with its heroine
who, although of noble parentage, is actually illegitimate, and who even in
marriage insists on maintaining the virginity which is, as it appears, the essential condition for the carrying out of her historic redemptive mission. Clearly
these motifs were felt capable of bearing profound symbolic significance at
this particular time.25 It seems actually to have been through Schiller, or at any
rate on a visit to Schillers house in November 1799, that Goethe first encountered the memoirs of Stphanie-Louise de Bourbon-Conti which were to serve

24
See, for example, Borchmeyer (n. 23). Pp. 160163; Jens F. Dwars: Dichtung in
Epochenumbruch: Schillers Wallenstein im Wandel von Alltag und ffentlichkeit. In:
Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 35 (1991). Pp. 150179.
25
See Sigurd Burckhardt: Die natrliche Tochter: Goethes Iphigenie in Aulis? In: The
Drama of Language: Essays on Goethe and Kleist. Baltimore and London: The Johns
Hopkins Press 1970. Pp. 6693; and on Goethes sacral virgins (Iphigenie, Prinzessin,
Eugenie) in general, Theodore Ziolkowski: The Imperilled Sanctuary: Toward a Paradigm
of Goethes Classical Dramas. In: Studies in the German Drama. A Festschrift for
Walter Silz. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1974. Pp. 7187 (the
designation is proposed on p. 79). On Die Braut and Die natrliche Tochter see
also Georg-Michael Schulz: Die Braut von Messina oder die feindlichen Brder. In:
Schiller-Handbuch. Leben Werk Wirkung. Ed. by Matthias Luserke-Jaqui. Stuttgart
and Weimar: Metzler 2005. Pp. 195214, esp. pp. 200201.

173
as the principal source for Die natrliche Tochter. (Perhaps Schiller even
passed the subject on to Goethe, as Goethe later claimed he had passed on
the subject of Wilhelm Tell to Schiller;26 but according to Charlotte Schiller,
Auch Schiller hat es nicht gewut, da Goethe [] mit einer solchen Arbeit
beschftigt war.27) But as we know, the trilogy was never completed, and the
one play as we have it ends mysteriously, even ominously, with Eugenie entering upon the uncertain future of her not-to-be-consummated marriage. (This
must surely be the only self-professed Trauerspiel to end with a betrothal.)
Beatrice, the eponymous Braut von Messina, also faces an uncertain future
at the end of Schillers last completed tragic drama, even though it is not she,
the titular heroine, who suffers tragic death. This play also treats the theme of
conflict between an indigenous population and their alien rulers, though in this
case the conflict is presented from the perspective of the latter.
As has been mentioned, Gerhard Storz already in 1959 described Die Braut
von Messina as abstrakte Kunst, and the majority of recent critics seem to
be in agreement that Der entschiedenen Absage an jedwede Form einer
ideengeschichtlichen oder religionsgeschichtlichen Interpretation des Stcks
kann man auch heute noch zustimmen:28 that Die Braut is not actually about
anything at all, except perhaps simply tragedy;29 that here more than anywhere
else Schiller has achieved what in the sthetische Briefe he dubiously claimed
to be the true poets aim, da er den Stoff durch die Form vertilgt (22. Brief:
HA 5. 639, Schillers emphasis), or as the preface to Die Braut has it, dem
Naturalismus in der Kunst offen und ehrlich den Krieg zu erklren (HA 2. 819).
Perhaps this is what Schiller meant when he wrote to Krner on 28 March
1803, after the first performance, da ich in der Vorstellung der Braut von
Messina zum ersten Male den Eindruck einer wahren Tragdie bekam. But
this would in effect make it a piece of culinary theatre in the sense suggested
above: one designed no doubt to be savoured by the most sophisticated of
palates, but caviar to the general, more likely to be appreciated more widely (if
at all) simply as a sensational thriller, its implausibilities and even absurdities,
to which many recent critics have drawn attention, to be ignored or even themselves accepted and acknowledged as necessary features of the genre.30

26

To Eckermann. 6.5.1827. Qtd. in HA 2. 1283.

Charlotte Schiller to Fritz von Stein. 31.3.1803. Qtd. in Johann Wolfgang Goethe:
Smtliche Werke. Briefe, Tagebcher und Gesprche. Ed. by Dieter Borchmeyer et al.
40 vols. Frankfurt/M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag 1985ff. Vol. 6. P. 1118.
28
Matthias Luserke. FA 5. 720.
29
Cf. Georg-Michael Schulzs formulation: eine poetische Konstruktion, die tragische Konstellationen erlaubt (note the quotation marks!). Schulz (n. 25). P. 199.
30
As suggested by Norbert Oellers: Schiller. Elend der Geschichte, Glanz der Kunst.
Stuttgart: Reclam 2005. P. 282.
27

174
There have of course been attempts to interpret the play as a parable of history, albeit reduced to a level of symbolic abstraction approaching that of Die
natrliche Tochter.31 Schiller has, unlike Goethe, given his abstractions a local
habitation and a name, but his Messina bears little more resemblance to its real
geographical or historical namesake than does Frischs Andorra. (Schillers own
explanation of his chosen Ideenkostme, that in Messina sich Christentum,
griechische Mythologie und Mahomedanismus wirklich begegnet und vermischt
haben, and that Die Vermischung dieser drei Mythologien, die sonst den
Charakter aufheben wrde, wird also hier selbst zum Charakter32 itself only
emphasises that the Stoff of the tragedy is only to serve as the basis of poetic
tranformation; it is not really to be taken seriously in its own right, as is the
co-presence of the three religions in the Jerusalem of Lessings Nathan der Weise.)
One point of such resemblance, however, which does, as we have mentioned,
link Die Braut to its more truly historical neighbours in Schillers dramatic output, is the conflict between the indigenous Sicilian population and its foreign
(Spanish?) rulers.33 As noted above, the conflict is here presented from the point
of view of the rulers rather than the ruled inevitably, for, as one would expect
in accordance with the traditional conventions of high tragedy, the protagonists
are all of elevated rank. The conflict is also latent rather than actual, bubbling
beneath the surface like the subterranean fires of Etna. But at least in the opening scenes the threat seems a real one, even if the Messenians seem more likely
to seek the protection of other foreign rulers than to declare their own independence, as Isabella tells us in her opening address to the Elders:
Ihr kamt zu mir und sprach dies harte Wort:
Du siehst, da deiner Shne Bruderzwist
Die Stadt emprt in brgerlichem Streit,
Die, von dem bsen Nachbar rings umgarnt,
Durch Eintracht nur dem Feinde widersteht []
31

Kaiser: Die Idee der Idylle in der Braut von Messina. In: Kaiser (n. 14). Pp.
137166; Rolf-Peter Carl: Sophokles und Shakespeare? Zur deutschen Tragdie um
1800. In: Deutsche Literatur zur Zeit der Klassik. Ed. by Karl Otto Conrady. Stuttgart:
Reclam 1977. Pp. 296318 (on Die Braut, pp. 301306); Beatrix Langner: Der Name
der Blume. Schillers Trauerspiel Die Braut von Messina als Dramaturgie der
geschichtlichen Vernunft. In: Schiller als Historiker. Ed. by Otto Dann et al. Stuttgart
and Weimar: Metzler 1995. Pp. 219242.
32
Letter to Krner. 10.3.1803.
33
It seems to be generally assumed that the play is set in the Norman-ruled Sicily of the
eleventh or twelfth century, but the Spanish names of the protagonists rather suggest
the successive Spanish dynasties which had ruled the island in later times, down to
Schillers own day. More Norman-French, if anything, are the names which Schiller
gave to the individual members of the Chorus and the two messengers when these had
to be differentiated for the purposes of stage presentation: cf. his letter to Goethe.
8.2.1803. Qtd. in FA 5. 691. Full details in NA 10. 315340.

175
Wir wollen uns selbst raten ohne sie,
Und einem andern Herrn uns bergeben,
Der unser Bestes will und schaffen kann. (lines 6274)

And the Chorus appear to accept their subordinate role with cynical servility:
Hret der Mutter vermahnende Rede,
Wahrlich, sie spricht ein gewichtiges Wort!
Lat es genug sein und endet die Fehde,
Oder gefllts euch, so setzet sie fort.
Was euch genehm ist, das ist mir gerecht,
Ihr seid die Herrscher und ich bin der Knecht. (lines 4338)

Previously they had consoled themselves with the thought that Die fremden
Eroberer kommen und gehen, / Wir gehorchen, aber wir bleiben stehen (lines
2534). The brothers, for their part, with as Georg-Michael Schulz observes geradezu lustspielhafter Borniertheit,34 blame their subordinates for the trouble:
DON CESAR (lebhaft). So ists, die Diener tragen alle Schuld!
DON MANUEL. Die unser Herz in bitterm Ha entfremdet (lines 48990).

This seems to be borne out to some degree by what happens in the climactic
garden scene, where the two semi-choruses engage in furious stichomythic
argument (lines 170638) before either of the brothers appears. But as the
action develops, the political aspect seems to be completely displaced by the
private (erotic) rivalry of the two brothers. However, the rivalry of the brothers
is of course the reason for Isabellas fears for the future of the ruling house; and
her hopes for its salvation are invested in the virgin Beatrice, kept apart (like
Johanna and Tell!) until the moment should come for her to emerge from concealment to fulfil her redemptive destiny. And it is to be fulfilled, so Isabella in
her foolishly optimistic reading of her prophetic dream believes, in bringing
about, or setting the seal upon, the reconciliation of her brothers:
[] Genesen wrd ich einer Tochter,
Die mir der Shne streitende Gemter
In heier Liebesglut vereinen wrde (lines 134951).

But Beatrice is not to fulfil her role, of effective saviour of the dynasty, in marriage, as is the happy lot of Claudine von Villa Bella, the heroine of Goethes
cheerfully optimistic variant of that familiar Sturm und Drang motif of fraternal
hatred.35 In fact the prophetic words prove true in a far different sense, for the
34

Schulz (n. 25). P. 208.

In Claudine von Villa Bella (1776/88) the dynasty of Villa Bella is also threatened
with extinction, as Don Gonzalo (Alonzo in the revised version) has no male heir; but
it is rescued through the betrothal of his daughter Claudine to the admirable Don Pedro,
35

176
brothers heie Liebesglut brings about their destruction, and they are united
only in death. The Chorus, still evidently unwilling to stand entirely free on their
own feet, plead with Don Cesar not to carry out his plan of expiatory suicide:
Zum Herrn bist du dich schuldig dem verwaisten Land,
Weil du des andern Herrscherhauptes uns beraubt.

But they receive a dusty answer:

Zuerst den Todesgttern zahl ich meine Schuld,
Ein ander Gott mag sorgen fr die Lebenden. (lines 26425).

Gerhard Kaiser claims that Aber nicht nur die Familie der Herrscher, auch das
Land wird vom freien Tod Don Cesars befriedet. Die fremde Herrschaft hrt
auf; es ist sich selbst zur Mndigkeit bergeben.36 But there is little evidence
in the text that the people will rise to the occasion; it seems more likely that, as
was the case of France in the sthetische Briefe, der freigebige Augenblick
findet ein unempfngliches Geschlecht (5. Brief: HA 5. 580). It is not even
clear that the family is truly befriedet: the extinction of the curse, promised by
Don Cesar (line 26401), is only possible through the extinction of the family.
As the curtain falls on Cesars suicide, Isabella and Beatrice are left behind in
an embrace of grief and despair. Theirs is perhaps the true tragedy, in that they
are left alive after witnessing the horrors. Beatrice, potential virgin saviour, has
failed in the mission which her mother falsely believed to be her destiny: the
conclusion seems almost a parody of the apotheosis of Die Jungfrau von
Orleans. We should not speculate on what may happen to Beatrice after the curtain falls, but she appears at least to be spared the madness or death which are
the fate of her Sturm und Drang sisters, Blanka in Julius von Tarent and Amalia
in Die Ruber. Perhaps she will survive as a sad old maid, like the Princesses of
Salina in that other, greatest of Sicilian tragedies, Lampedusas The Leopard.
It is indeed not easy to make coherent interpretative sense of Die Braut von
Messina. But it is nevertheless of interest to see that the Stoff which Schiller
has here so successfully vertilgt embodies a number of motifs which in the
other plays of his maturity are treated seriously in their own right: the national
and political crises which echo those of Schillers own times, and the hope,
however faint, that these crises could somehow be resolved, and the marred
and he and his wild brother Don Carlos (alias (C)Rugantino) are happily reconciled.
The setting is also Sicily (albeit only identified in the 1788 version) and the names are
also a mixture of Italian and Spanish; there are one or two other points of motivic
resemblance to Die Braut von Messina. Cf. my article: Claudine von Villa Bella and the
Hostile Brothers of the Sturm und Drang. In: Goethe and Schubert: Across the Divide.
Ed. by Lorraine Byrne and Dan Farrelly. Dublin: Carysfort Press 2003. Pp. 127136.
36
Kaiser (n. 14). P. 158.

177
world mended, by some kind of regenerated or recovered human innocence.
Despite Schillers declared satisfaction that in Die Braut von Messina he had
experienced zum ersten Male den Eindruck einer wahren Tragdie, the
experiment in tragic abstraction was not repeated. Indeed, Schiller had also
recognised in his review of Matthissons poetry, for all the insistent demand for
idealisation, that the first requirement of a serious work of art is after all that
it should in some sense take its subject seriously:
Von jedem Dichterwerke werden also folgende zwei Eigenschaften unnachllich
gefodert: erstlich: notwendige Beziehung auf seinen Gegenstand (objektive
Wahrheit) [] (HA 5. 996)

And this is the course to which he returned in Wilhelm Tell and Demetrius.

This page intentionally left blank

Ritchie Robertson

Schiller and the Jesuits*

Starting from the historical figure of Father Lamormain, who is significantly mentioned
in Wallenstein, this essay examines the references to Jesuits in Schillers works, particularly Fiesco, Maria Stuart, Der Geisterseher, and Jesuitenregierung in Paraguay,
and shows that Schiller, in addition to his anti-Catholic prejudice, was sharply aware
of the Jesuits reputation for unscrupulous intrigue, which provided material for a conspiracy theory. To place Schiller in his Enlightenment context, his attitude to Jesuits is
compared to those of Voltaire, DAlembert and Nicolai, showing that Schiller, like Voltaire but unlike the others, was relatively unconcerned about real conspiracies imputed
to Jesuits or ex-Jesuits, but very ready to use such material for fictional works.

Wohl ausgesonnen, Pater Lamormain! is Wallensteins immediate reaction

(line 1233) when Questenberg, in Act II of Die Piccolomini, gives him the
Emperors order to supply eight cavalry regiments to accompany the Spanish
Kardinal-Infant with his army from Milan to the Netherlands. We have already
learnt this news from the soldiers in Wallensteins Lager, who realise that it is
intended to weaken Wallensteins forces and nip in the bud any independent action
he may wish to undertake. The key role played by Father Lamormain at the
Imperial court has been intimated earlier in the same Act, when the Duchess of
Friedland reports to her husband, Wallenstein, on the cool reception that she has
found in Vienna. The gracious and friendly treatment she received in the past
has been replaced by chilly formality and oppressive silence. Nobody spoke
of Wallenstein, even to criticise him. The only explanation for this reserve came
from Father Lamormain. As soon as this persons name is mentioned, Wallenstein
cuts in quickly: Lamormain! Was sagt der? (line 690). Apparently Lamormain
revealed that Wallenstein was charged with disobeying orders and was in danger
of again being dismissed from his post, as happened in 1630 at Regensburg,
only this time with still more disgrace. Even if we know nothing else about
Father Lamormain, we can tell that he is a key figure at the Viennese court, privy
to the most secret information, and authorised to impart it, albeit indirectly by
hints (Winke, line 690). More than that, Wallensteins response to Questenberg
implies that Lamormain not only communicates policy but devises it, that he
* Schillers texts are quoted whenever possible from Friedrich Schiller: Smtliche
Werke. Ed. by Gerhard Fricke and Herbert G. Gpfert. 5 vols. Munich: Hanser 1958.
Quotations from verse plays are identified by line number, others by HA with volume
and page numbers. Letters from and to Schiller are quoted from Schillers Werke.
Nationalausgabe. Ed. by Julius Petersen, Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar: Hermann
Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff. They are identified by NA with volume and page numbers.

180
not only advises the Emperor but guides him, with a cunning that arouses
Wallensteins reluctant admiration: Wr der Gedank nicht so verwnscht
gescheit, / Man wr versucht, ihn herzlich dumm zu nennen (lines 12345).
Father Lamormain, familiar to historians as the Jesuit confessor to the
Emperor Ferdinand II, is one of many Catholic characters who are negatively
portrayed in Schillers works. In Die Ruber, Franz Moor appears to be a
Catholic: he threatens to put Amalia in a convent; while Karl is anti-Catholic,
burning down a town which is twice described as bigott. This town sends out
the bullying Pater who tells Karl that if he gives himself up to the civil
authorities, they will, in their great mercy, do nothing more than break him
on the wheel. In Don Carlos Schiller exploits to the full the Black Legend
of Spain as a country not only in economic decline but in servitude to rigid
ceremonial and religious bigotry.1 The Inquisition is in full swing, and about
to extend its operations to the Spanish Netherlands. The King is shown to
be under the thumb not only of his confessor Domingo but of the entirely
inhuman Grand Inquisitor. The fanaticism shown in Don Carlos by Alba, Des
Fanatismus rauher Henkersknecht (line 162), is transferred in Maria Stuart to
Mortimer and his unseen backers, the Guise family in France, who were partly
responsible for the Massacre of St Bartholomews Night. Mortimer and his
bravos will stop at nothing to rescue Maria and have been absolved in advance
for whatever crimes they may commit. There is also a strong element of fanaticism in Schillers Joan of Arc, who, inspired by her voices and visions, slaughters
every Englishman (and Welshman) in her path (unlike her historical prototype,
who encouraged the troops but did not fight, let alone kill) until she is stopped
in her tracks by her love for Lionel and her realisation that she has overstepped
the divine command. And in Schillers fiction, we have in Der Geisterseher a conspiracy, masterminded by an Armenian, to secure a princes fortune by inducing
him to become a Catholic.2
To make his allegiances even clearer, Schiller regularly contrasts his Catholic
fanatics with morally upright Protestants. The greatest Protestant hero in his
1

See Barbara Becker-Cantarino: Die schwarze Legende. Ideal und Ideologie in Schillers
Don Carlos. In: Jahrbuch des Freien Deutschen Hochstifts (1975). Pp. 153173.
2
Considering its prominence in his works, remarkably little has been written about
Schiller and the Catholic Church. Jeffrey L. Sammons: Mortimers conversion and
Schillers allegiances. In: JEGP 72 (1973). Pp. 155166, is perceptive and still invaluable, as is Jill Bermans study of the psychology of Mortimers conversion: Mortimer
and the gods of Italy. In: Oxford German Studies 8 (197374). Pp. 4759. Yet both are
absent from the bibliography of Manfred Mischs chapter: Schiller und die Religion. In:
Schiller-Handbuch. Ed. by Helmut Koopmann. Stuttgart: Krner 1998. Pp. 198215,
which does not discuss Schillers attitude to Catholicism. This chapter is largely though
not wholly identical with Misch: Schiller und die Religion. In: Schiller heute. Ed. by
Hans-Jrg Knobloch and Helmut Koopmann. Tbingen: Francke 1996. Pp. 2743.

181
work is Gustav Adolf, King of Sweden, who is presented in the Geschichte des
dreiigjhrigen Krieges as the greatest military commander of his century, as
a responsible leader who goes to war only after unbearable provocation, as
sharing the privations of his soldiers, and, above all, as leading a disciplined and
devout army which, unlike the Imperial forces, refrains from plundering, and
which forms a circle round its preacher every morning and evening. Gustav
Adolfs spontaneous piety, his ungeknstelte lebendige Gottesfurcht, is placed
in sharp relief against the superstitious devotion of the Emperor Ferdinand
der kriechenden Andchtelei eines Ferdinands, die sich vor der Gottheit zum
Wurm erniedrigt und auf dem Nacken der Menschheit trotzig einherwandelt
(HA 4. 497). Gustav Adolf does not appear in Wallenstein, for he was killed in
battle some fifteen months before the action of the play begins, but his representative is the Swedish Colonel Wrangel, who in Act I, scene 5 of Wallensteins
Tod engages in tough negotiations with Wallenstein and has too much integrity
to hide his disapproval of the latters proposal to lead an entire army away from
their legitimate ruler. Earlier, in Die Ruber, the ranting Pater is contrasted
with the dignified Pastor Moser, who tries in vain to induce Franz Moor to
repent; and in Maria Stuart Mortimer cuts a poor figure beside his uncle, Sir
Amias Paulet, a staunch old Puritan who indignantly rebuffs Burleighs
suggestion that he should make away with Maria in prison.
Although Schillers characters are much too lifelike to be called stereotypes,
many of them do have their origins in religious stereotypes that were current in the Enlightenment. Thus the Pater, and still more the Capuchin in
Wallensteins Lager, represent a variety of popular preaching that was considered
by the Aufklrer to be hectoring, intellectually trivial, and full of tasteless puns.
The model that Schiller drew on was Abraham a Sancta Clara, the Viennese
preacher (actually from Bavaria) who for many years chastised his flock entertainingly for their faults; another figure often pilloried by the enlightened was
Pater Cochem, a seventeenth-century devotional writer from the Rhineland,
whose colloquial life of Christ and collections of legends were hugely popular
throughout Catholic Germany even at the end of the eighteenth century. Priests
who meddled in politics, like Domingo in Don Carlos, had many prototypes.
One example, featured briefly but vividly in the Geschichte des dreiigjhrigen
Krieges, was Pre Joseph, the Capuchin who was Cardinal Richelieus diplomatic
emissary, and who encouraged Ferdinand II to dismiss Wallenstein, thus weakening the Imperial cause, while actually promoting an alliance between France
and the Empires arch-enemy Sweden (HA 4. 488489). But the most popular
stereotype, the one surrounded by the most sensational stories and the most productive one for literature, was that of the scheming Jesuit, who could also be a
political conspirator and a terrorist. Enlighteners in both Protestant and Catholic
countries regarded the Jesuits with a horrified fascination which went back to
the sixteenth century and was to become even more intense in the nineteenth.

182
The Jesuits were originally a group of students at the University of Paris
centering on Ignatius de Loyola.3 His name was really Iigo Lopez de Loyola,
but when he matriculated it was wrongly transcribed as Ignatius. As the Society
of Jesus, dedicated to propagating the Catholic faith through education and
missionary work, they were officially founded by a Papal bull in 1540. In the
1560s they assumed the additional task of combating Protestantism. Sinister
stories about them soon sprang up. They were said to be organised on the lines
of an absolute monarchy or military regiment, and to use their educational system to brainwash their members into a condition of blind obedience. One of the
main charges against them was moral laxity. In the seventeenth century many
Jesuits maintained the doctrine of probabilism, which said that when you had
to choose between two courses of action, either of which was probably but not
certainly right, you could choose the one that suited you best, even if it was less
probably right than the other.4 This doctrine was opposed and satirised by Pascal
in the Lettres provinciales. Jesuits were thought to defend themselves under
interrogation by equivocation, and under oath by mental reservations. They
were also credited with encouraging tyrannicide. The Jesuit Juan de Mariana in
De Rege et regis institutione (1599) argued that a legitimate ruler who persistently abused his power could be killed by an individual. This was a highly
unpopular doctrine in the age of absolutism, when divinity was thought to hedge
a king, and the Parlement de Paris had Marianas book burned by the public
hangman on 8 June 1610. Jesuits were also credited with the doctrine that the
end justifies the means, another view combated by Pascal. By putting forward
these lax doctrines, it was argued, the Jesuits made themselves popular as confessors and gained positions of influence, for it was thought that a confessor
3

For the history, political philosophy and mythology of the Jesuits, I have drawn heavily on the following: J. C. H. Aveling: The Jesuits. London: Blond & Briggs 1981; John
W. OMalley: The First Jesuits. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press 1993; Harro
Hpfl: Jesuit Political Thought: The Society of Jesus and the State, c. 15401630.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004; Robert Bireley: The Jesuits and the
Thirty Years War: Kings, Courts, and Confessors. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press 2003; Richard van Dlmen: Antijesuitismus und katholische Aufklrung in
Deutschland. In: Religion und Gesellschaft: Beitrge zu einer Religionsgeschichte der
Neuzeit. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer 1989. Pp. 141171; Derek Beales: The suppression of
the Jesuits. In: Prosperity and Plunder: European Catholic Monasteries in the Age of
Revolution, 16501815. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2003. Pp. 143168;
Peter Burke: The Black Legend of the Jesuits: an essay in the history of social stereotypes. In: Christianity and Community in the West: Essays for John Bossy . Ed. by Simon
Ditchfield. Aldershot: Ashgate 2001. Pp. 165182; Geoffrey Cubitt: The Jesuit Myth: Conspiracy Theory and Politics in Nineteenth-Century France. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1993.
4
The best explanation of probabilism that I have found is in Henry Charles Lea: A
History of Auricular Confession and Indulgences in the Latin Church. London: Swan
Sonnenschein 1896. Vol. 2. Pp. 285411.

183
could even direct the public policy of his charge. Voltaire wrote of the typical
Jesuit confessor (noting that Jesuits were also popular because princes did not
need to worry about rewarding them with bishoprics): Cest un ministre secret
qui devient puissant proportion de la faiblesse du prince.5
In 1614 a book appeared called the Monita secreta Societatis Iesu, purporting
be a set of secret rules governing the Jesuits pursuit of power, influence, and
wealth. It was in fact written by a renegade Polish Jesuit called Zaharowski as a
satire, and its satirical intention is, or should be, obvious, though it was widely
taken as serious. For example, it advises Jesuits to cultivate rich widows, who
must be prevented from remarrying and induced to leave their property to the
Order. If they have daughters, these must be encouraged to become nuns; it is
recommended to make the mother embitter her daughters life by scolding her
and by telling her of the hardships of marriage. Sons, if at all suitable, should
be encouraged to enter the Order, with the aid of a sympathetic tutor. Young men
should not be admitted to the Order until they have received the inheritances
which they can then give to the Order.6
It was widely believed that the Jesuits put their lax morals and their theory of
tyrannicide into practice. They were thought to be behind the murders of William
the Silent in 1584 and Henri III of France in 1588, the assassination attempts
on Henri IV in 1593 and 1594, the successful murder of Henri IV in 1610, and
the attempt by Damiens to assassinate Louis XV in 1757. They were thought to
have murdered two Popes (Clement VIII and Clement XIV) and to have poisoned
Cardinal Tournon with chocolate at Macao in 1709. In 1758 an attempt to assassinate King Dom Jos of Portugal, probably by the jealous husband of his mistress, gave the enlightened minister Pombal a pretext to crush the Jesuits by
implausibly charging them with complicity.7 In Britain, they allegedly instigated the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and the Popish Plot in 1678. On the Continent,
they were blamed for helping to cause the outbreak of the Thirty Years War.
For a handy summary of these allegations, one need look no further than the
article Jsuite in that central Enlightenment text, the Encyclopdie.8
When such charges were widely believed, it is not surprising that satire
against the Jesuits should be vitriolic. A notable English example is Donnes
5

Voltaire: Essai sur les murs. Ed. by Ren Pomeau. Paris: Garnier 1963. Vol. 2. P. 287.
There have been many editions; I used Geheime Vorschriften des Jesuiter-Ordens. Aus
dem Lateinischen. No place [Vienna] 1782.
7
See Kenneth Maxwell: Pombal: Paradox of the Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press 1995. Pp.7986.
8
See the Encyclopdie ou Dictionnaire raisonn des sciences, des arts et des mtiers.
Neuchtel: Faulche 1765. Vol. 8. Pp. 512516. The author of the article was Jean
dAlembert. These and other charges were systematically examined and rejected in:
Bernhard Duhr, S.J., Jesuiten-Fabeln: Ein Beitrag zur Culturgeschichte. Freiburg i.Br.:
Herder 1891.
6

184
essay Ignatius his Conclave, in which the soul of Ignatius is represented in
hell, competing with other dead villains for Lucifers favour, and which already
denounces the Jesuites Assassinates, and King-killings.9 Another is John
Oldhams Satyrs upon the Jesuits, first published in full in 1679, in one of
which the ghost of Henry Garnett, who was hanged for alleged involvement in
the Gunpowder Plot, appears to later conspirators and encourages them in all
wickedness:
The blackest, ugliest, horridst, damnedst deed,
For which Hell flames, the Schools a Title need,
If done for Holy Church is sanctified.
This consecrates the blessed Work and Tool,
Nor must we ever after think em foul.10

These myths were still powerful in the nineteenth century. They appear in the
Schiller-Lexikon published at Berlin in 1869, on the eve of unification and the
Kulturkampf . The entry on Jesuiten tells us that the society has a monarchical constitution (eine vollkommen monarchische Verfassung), and exercises influence by installing its members as confessors and tutors to princes;
moreover: In dem Grundsatz: der Zweck heiligt die Mittel fanden sie eine
vollkommene Beschnigung fr die abscheulichsten Handlungen.11
Where did these notions come from? One cannot but notice their similarity
to fantasies that later circulated about Jews. Both Jesuits and Jews have been
supposed to form a huge monolithic international organisation, plotting to
dominate the world by unscrupulous means. Even the Monita secreta have
their more recent counterpart in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. We have in
fact a fully developed conspiracy theory, whose only relation to empirical reality
is that tiny grains of truth are magnified into a huge paranoid structure which
is ultimately self-confirming. The various murders, for example, have only the
remotest link to the Jesuits. Before Baltazar Gerard murdered William the
Silent, he had told a Jesuit in Trier of his intention, so the Jesuits were held
responsible. The first of Henri IVs would-be assassins, Pierre Barrire, said
under interrogation that he had been encouraged by the Jesuits; the second,
Jean Chastel, had studied at the Jesuit college of Clermont. Franois Ravaillac,
who did kill Henri IV in 1610, had tried to enter the order, but been turned down;
from the records of his interrogation, he sounds like the type of emotionally

9
John Donne: Ignatius His Conclave. Ed. by T. S. Healy, S.J. Oxford: Clarendon Press
1969. P. 61.
10
The Poems of John Oldham. Ed. by Harold F. Brooks and Raman Selden. Oxford:
Clarendon Press 1987. P. 21.
11
Ludwig Rudolph: Schiller-Lexikon: Erluterndes Wrterbuch zu Schillers
Dichterwerken. Berlin: Nicolaische Verlagsbuchhandlung 1869. Vol. 1. P. 458.

185
disturbed lone killer who often undertakes assassinations at the present day.12
Henry Garnett seems to have known some months in advance about the
Gunpowder Plot and to have done nothing to prevent it, but he was certainly
not its instigator.13
As for meddling in politics, some Jesuits did, some didnt. The official view of
the Society in the seventeenth century was that they should stay out of politics.
In 1602 its General, Acquaviva, published an Instruction for Confessors of
Princes (De Confessariis Principum) intended to preserve the advantages of
gaining princes support for the Society but to avoid harming the Societys reputation by interfering in politics: the confessor was not to become involved in
political matters or court factions, not to exercise any political power, and to
require the prince to hear him out if he criticised abuses in the princes government. However, it was difficult to draw a clear line between private and political
issues, and difficult also to resist the temptation to steer political discussions in
a direction favourable to the Church in general and the Society in particular.
Father Lamormain seems seldom to have resisted. He was an international
figure, born in Luxembourg and educated in Prague, whose name is variously
given as Wilhelm Lamormain or Guillaume Lamormaini. C. V. Wedgwood
describes him as a lean, tall man with an ugly limp, the deformity which had
driven him as a boy into the shelter of the seminary. His manners were austere,
his habits simple, his convictions fanatical.14 As early as 1615, when he was
rector of the University of Graz, the papal nuncio in Graz, Paravicini, wrote
angrily of him: Er ist ganz und gar politisch eingestellt, and fifteen years
later Eggenberg, the Imperial first minister, complained to Vitelleschi, the
General of the Jesuits, that Lamormaini interfered too much in politics.15 He
was confessor to the Emperor from 1624 until the latters death in 1637. He
managed to ensure that no Jesuit other than himself had access to the Emperor.
Such was his influence that even the Emperors brother, when seeking a favour,
wrote to Lamormain asking him to put his request to the Emperor. His influence over Ferdinand was assisted by the latters extreme piety. Schiller quotes
Lamormain, without naming him, in the Geschichte des dreiigjhrigen
12
See Roland Mousnier: LAssassinat dHenri IV: Le problme du tyrannicide et
laffermissement de la monarchie absolue. Paris: Gallimard 1964. These associations
are listed in Burke (n. 3). P. 173.
13
Mark Nicholls: Investigating Gunpowder Plot. Manchester: Manchester University
Press 1991. P. 72.
14
C. V. Wedgwood: The Thirty Years War. London: Cape 1938. P. 166.
15
Qtd. in Andreas Posch: Zur Ttigkeit und Beurteilung Lamormains. In: Mitteilungen
des Instituts fr sterreichische Geschichtsforschung 63 (1955). Pp. 375390, here
p. 378; Robert Bireley: Religion and Politics in the Age of the Counterreformation:
Emperor Ferdinand II, William Lamormaini, S.J., and the Formation of Imperial Policy.
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1981. P. 94.

186
Krieges: Nichts auf Erden, schreibt sein eigener Beichtvater, war ihm
heiliger als ein priesterliches Haupt. Geschhe es, pflegte er zu sagen, da ein
Engel und ein Ordensmann zu einer Zeit und an einem Orte ihm begegneten,
so wrde der Ordensmann die erste und der Engel die zweite Verbeugung von
ihm erhalten (HA 4. 489). This is taken from the eulogy of the Emperor that
Lamormain published after his death (Ferdinandi II Virtutes, 1638).16
Initially Lamormain got on well with Wallenstein, who was a generous benefactor to the Jesuits and in 1628 was named, at Lamormains urging, a Founder
of the Society, which entitled him to a special share in the Societys prayers.
However, at the Electoral Convention at Regensburg in 1630 Lamormain supported Wallensteins dismissal, because he feared that the Catholic Electors
would otherwise break with the Emperor. He was an extreme supporter of
the Edict of Restitution which so antagonised the Protestant princes. After
Wallenstein was recalled, Lamormain tried to repair his relations with
Wallenstein, but Wallenstein continued to resent the Jesuits share in his dismissal. Schiller makes his Wallenstein tell the Mayor of Eger, Ich hasse / Die
Jesuiten (Wallensteins Tod, lines 25956). Lamormain was party to the decision, reached early in 1634, that Wallenstein should be removed from office for
insubordination, and, if he refused to come under guard to Vienna for a hearing, then killed along with his fellow-conspirators. He reassured Ferdinand that
his conscience could permit Wallensteins execution. He shared the widespread
view that Wallenstein had become too powerful and was a threat to the
Emperors authority, and indeed was part of a conspiracy to seize power in the
Habsburg lands and depose the Emperor. His letter to Vitelleschi, setting this
out, is an important source of information about Wallensteins downfall.17
We must imagine Father Lamormain, therefore, as an important person
behind Schillers scenes. Just as Wrangel stands for the Protestant spirit best
represented by Gustav Adolf, so Lamormain stands for a large body of Jesuit
intrigue, to which Schiller refers in the Geschichte des dreiigjhrigen Krieges.
There we are told that after the Treaty of Augsburg, divisions between
Lutherans and Calvinists were exploited by the Machinationen der Jesuiten
(HA 4. 381). Rudolf IIs melancholy temperament and Spanish upbringing
exposed him to den schlimmen Ratschlgen der Jesuiten (HA 4. 384). Protestant
suspicions of Catholic good faith were increased by [d]as unbesonnene Eifer
der Jesuiten (HA 4. 395). The Jesuits were expelled from Bohemia and
16
See the anonymous German translation, P. Wilhelm Lamormaini: Ferdinand II. Ein
Tugend-Spiegel fr alle Stnde. Vienna: Ueberreuter 1857. P. 41. The quotation comes
from Chapter 9, Seine Ehrerbietung gegen den Priesterstand.
17
The letter (in Latin) is reproduced in Heinrich Ritter von Srbik: Wallensteins Ende:
Ursachen, Verlauf und Folgen der Katastrophe. Salzburg: Mller 2nd edn 1952.
Pp. 310313. A partial translation appears on pp. 108109.

187
believed to be the Urheber of its misfortunes (HA 4. 423). Ferdinand, educated
by the Jesuits at Ingolstadt (HA 4. 427), is described as der Sklave Spaniens
und der Jesuiten (HA 4. 432). Maximilian of Bavaria was persuaded partly by
die Eingebungen der Jesuiten (HA 4. 437) to support Ferdinand in 1619, and
Ferdinand is swayed by die giftvolle Beredsamkeit der Jesuiten (HA 4. 565);
indeed Schiller speaks in one breath of the Gunst des Kaisers und der Jesuiten.
And since Lamormain and the Jesuits have turned against Wallenstein, we may
assume that when, shortly before his death, he says: Von falschen Freunden
stammt mein ganzes Unglck (line 3511), he is referring to them as well as to
Octavio.
There is a final association between Wallenstein and the Jesuits. I mentioned
that they were widely blamed for the assassination of Henri IV in 1610. On the
evening of his death, Wallenstein is thinking about this very event, which has
long been on his mind:
Es machte mir stets eigene Gedanken,
Was man vom Tod des vierten Heinrichs liest.
Der Knig fhlte das Gespenst des Messers
Lang vorher in der Brust, eh sich der Mrder
Ravaillac damit waffnete. Ihn floh
Die Ruh, es jagt ihn auf in seinem Louvre,
Ins Freie trieb es ihn, wie Leichenfeier
Klang ihm der Gattin Krnungsfest, er hrte
Im ahnungsvollen Ohr der Fe Tritt,
Die durch die Gassen von Paris ihn suchten (lines 34909)

Although Wallenstein denies feeling any similar premonition, he is clearly

uneasy. This is not the first time he has compared himself to other historical
figures. He justified his plans to revolt against the Emperor by recalling how
Caesar led the legions against Rome (lines 8359). And he accepted Wrangels
double-edged comparison of him to the military leaders Attila and Pyrrhus (line
287). The comparison with Henri IV is in one way inappropriate: Wallenstein
is not a king, and his assassination is not regicide; he is, rather, an over-mighty
subject whose murder is being plotted by his monarch.18 In evoking Henri IV,
he is inadvertently confirming his own ambitions. Moreover, he is referring to
someone who resembles himself in several respects. Henri IV, like Wallenstein,
converted to Catholicism. He brought peace to France after prolonged religious wars, as Wallenstein imagines doing for the Empire. And he was thought
to have fallen victim to reactionary Catholic forces including the Jesuits. The
18
This point is made by Ilja Mieck: Lassassinat de Wallenstein. In: Complots et conjurations dans lEurope moderne. Ed. by Yves-Marie Berc and Elena Fasano Guarini.
Rome: Ecole franaise de Rome 1996. Pp. 507534, see p. 507. A closer analogy would
be with Henri IIIs decision in 1588 to have the Guise brothers assassinated as rebellious
subjects.

188
same is being suggested about Wallenstein: the Empire, a force for unenlightened conservatism, with Jesuits among its politicians, ensures his downfall.
Lamormain is not the only scheming priest mentioned in the play. There is
also Father Quiroga, who pops up briefly when one of the attendants at the banquet of Wallensteins supporters in Die Piccolomini, Act IV, says to another:
Pass ja wohl auf, Johann, dass wir dem Pater
Quiroga recht viel zu erzhlen haben.
Er will dafr uns recht viel Ablass geben (lines 21279)

In being paid for their information in indulgences, these servants contribute to

Schillers portrayal of pitiable and ignorant Catholic superstition, as do Devereux
and Macdonald later when, in order to overcome the charm that supposedly
makes Wallenstein invulnerable, they decide to ask an Irish Dominican to dip
their swords and pikes in holy water. The Imperial side relies heavily on priests:
when Isolani goes to Vienna to ask for new horses for his regiment, he is amazed
to find himself required to deal with the incongruous figure of a Capuchin
(Die Piccolomini, line 173); and the courier who brings Octavio news that
Wallensteins messenger Sesina has been captured has been admitted privately
by Capuchin monks through a little door in their monastery (lines 258990).
The motif of Jesuit intrigue points both backwards and forwards through
Schillers work. The clerics in Don Carlos are Dominicans, as the name of the
Kings confessor, Domingo, indicates, though in the Mannheim production of
the play, Dalberg, to Schillers annoyance, made him into a Jesuit, thus causing
the audience to suspect an allusion to the powerful and arch-conservative Jesuit
Father Ignaz Frank, confessor to the Elector of Bavaria and the Palatinate.19
But the most Jesuit-like character is the Marquis Posa, even though, at first
glance, nobody could seem less like a Jesuit schemer. He is avowedly an anachronistic figure, a man of the Enlightenment who (as Hans-Jrgen Schings has
shown) has read deeply in the political theories of Montesquieu.20 The sixteenth century is not yet ready for his ideal. He considers himself a citizen of
future centuries (lines 30768). The intrigue he initiates, with Carlos as its
instrument, is intended to liberate the Dutch, the Spaniards, and ultimately the
whole of humanity from the despotism of the Catholic Church. Yet, as Schiller
himself points out in the Briefe ber Don Carlos, Posas noble intentions lead
him astray into Wahn and Verblendung (HA 2. 245, 246). Moreover, the goal
that Posa seeks to accomplish single-handed, that of placing an enlightened
19
See Schillers letter to Krner of 25.4.1788. NA 25. 49 (and note). I thank Lesley
Sharpe for drawing this to my attention.
20
Hans-Jrgen Schings: Die Brder des Marquis Posa: Schiller und der Geheimbund
der Illuminaten. Tbingen: Niemeyer 1996. Pp. 101129. Schiller associates Posa with
Montesquieu in the Briefe ber Don Carlos. HA 2. 258.

189
monarch on the throne, is that which the Masons and Illuminati of Schillers
day tried to achieve through their international network (durch eine geheime
Verbindung mehrerer durch die Welt zerstreuter ttiger Glieder (HA 2. 257)).
And the methods of the Illuminati, many of whom Schiller knew personally,
were modelled on those of the Jesuits. Thus the founder of the Illuminati,
Adam Weishaupt, required all the members to spy on one another, a practice
imitating the Jesuits use of the confessional for mutual surveillance.21 Schiller
expressly associates Posas methods with those ascribed to the Jesuits when the
Queen, having learnt about his plans, exclaims: Kann / Die gute Sache schlimme
Mittel adeln? The doctrine that the end justifies the means has been attributed
to the Jesuits at least since Pascal.22 Schillers friend Krner alluded to it when
warning Schiller against attempts to recruit him for the Masons or the Illuminati:
Der edelste Zweck in den Hnden einer Gesellschaft, die durch Subordination
verknpft ist, kann nie vor einem Misbrauch gesichert werden, der den Vortheil
weit berwiegt (18.9.1787: NA 31. 145146).
The Jesuits also appear in Maria Stuart. Telling Maria about his conversion,
Mortimer not only describes how her uncle, the Cardinal de Guise, persuaded
him that reason could only lead people astray, that the Church needed a visible
head in the Pope, and that the early Church councils had been inspired by the
spirit of truth; he also recounts how he was sent from Rome to the English
College at Rheims: Wo die Gesellschaft Jesu, fromm geschftig, / Fr Englands
Kirche Priester auferzieht (lines 4945). There he was shown the picture of
Maria, told about her unjust captivity, and eventually encouraged to go to
England in the hope of liberating her. He and his twelve companions have
received the sacrament; all the crimes they may commit are forgiven in advance,
including Mortimers projected murder of his uncle. This last is tantamount to
parricide, since Amias Paulet is his zweiter Vater (line 2520). Parricide is
the most heinous of sins in Schillers moral universe.23 It tears apart the natural bond between father and son; it is committed by his greatest villains, from
Franz Moor to Johannes Parricida, and its counterpart, the killing of a son by
his father, is commanded at the end of Don Carlos by the Grand Inquisitor. It
seems that the Jesuits have trained Mortimer not only in dissimulation (der
Verstellung schwere Kunst, line 545), but also in political assassination. The
attempt on Elisabeths life is carried out by a Barnabite monk, a member of
another of the religious orders founded in the Counter-Reformation (at Milan
in 1530; the orders official name is the Clerks Regular of St Paul). Having
21

See Schings (n. 20). P. 27.

See Pascal in Les Provinciales, letter 7, where a Jesuit is made to say: nous corrigeons le vice du moyen par la puret de la fin. In: uvres compltes. Ed. by Jacques
Chevalier. Paris: Gallimard 1954. P. 729. Schings (n. 20) points out that this is a Devise,
stereotyp den Jesuiten zugeschrieben (p. 121).
23
Sammons (n. 2). P. 162.
22

190
heard that Elisabeth was excommunicated by the Pope, this monk, who apparently became dangerously introspective (tiefsinnig, line 2625), concluded
that he should free the Church from its enemy and gain the crown of martyrdom by killing her.24 We have here an allusion to the doctrine of tyrannicide
and a figure who recalls the series of political assassins such as Clement and
Ravaillac who were supposed to have been prompted by the Jesuits.25
There are further, fleeting allusions to Jesuit intrigue in an earlier play, Die
Verschwrung des Fiesco zu Genua, published in 1783. Fiescos factotum, the
semi-comic villain and arch-intriguer Muley Hassan, is repeatedly associated
with the Jesuits. In Act II, scene 4 he mentions that a Jesuit has been cunning
enough to see through Fiescos pretended indifference to Genoan politics (Ein
Jesuit wollte gerochen haben, da ein Fuchs im Schlafrocke stecke), to which
Fiesco replies: Ein Fuchs riecht den andern (HA 1. 354); the Jesuits thus
appear exceptionally sly. Later he is found trying to set fire to a Jesuit church
(HA 1. 741) and we are reminded later that he was hanged next to it (HA 1.
749). Schiller had no need to mention the Jesuits: at the date of Fiescos conspiracy, January 1547, the church which Schiller twice calls the Jesuiterdom,
to the right of the ducal palace, was dedicated to St Ambrose; only after being
rebuilt by the Jesuits, at the expense of the wealthy Genoese nobleman and
Jesuit priest Marcello Pallavicino, between 1589 and 1637 did it become known
as the Chiesa del Ges, and a church belonging to a religious order would not,
strictly speaking, be a cathedral (Jesuiterdom is the word Schiller twice uses);
but the crucial point is the firm association in Schillers mind between Jesuits
and intrigue.
Schiller wrote more fully about Catholic intrigue in his unfinished novel
Der Geisterseher, which he began in July 1786 and published in instalments in
his journal Thalia between 1786 and 1789. The central figure of this tantalising
fragment is a Protestant German Prince who is induced by an elaborate intrigue
to enter the Catholic Church, evidently with the prospect of placing a Catholic
on the throne of a German principality. The Princes conversion is assisted by
his lack of religious and moral principle. Brought up in a gloomy version of
Protestantism to view God as a Schreckbild (HA 5. 105), he encounters in
24

The word tiefsinnig, associated with Anwandlungen des Wahnsinns, is also

applied to Wallenstein just before his conversion to Catholicism (Wallensteins Tod,
lines 25645). Grimms dictionary uses the quotation from Maria Stuart to illustrate
the words use besonders von trbsinnigen, schwermtigen gedanken und von personen, die sich solchen hingeben, darin versunken sind, melancholicus.
25
Allowing for Schillers bias, he may still have captured something of the atmosphere of
Elizabethan conspiracy. In 1584 a spy reports a would-be assassin declaring that if he
kills Queen Elizabeth for the sake of the Catholic religion, his soul will go straight to
heaven. Even if slanderous, this report had to be plausible. See John Bossy: Giordano
Bruno and the Embassy Affair. New Haven London: Yale University Press 1991. P. 112.

191
Venice a society of libertines and materialists whose doctrines bring him to a state
of despair. The society includes a wealthy Cardinal and the latters debauched
nephew who encourages the Prince to lose his money by gambling and thus
makes him financially dependent. But the presiding figure of the intrigue is a
mysterious Armenian who first arranges for the Prince to attend an apparent
necromantic conjuration, then induces him to fall in love with a beautiful
woman, the illegitimate daughter of a German nobleman, after whose death the
despairing Prince enters the Church. The Jesuits are referred to only once,
when an Englishman suggests that the necromancer should summon up Papst
Ganganelli who can explain how he met his death (HA 5. 61); Ganganelli is
the family name of Pope Clement XIV (reigned 176974) who in 1773 dissolved the Jesuit order and was rumoured to have been murdered by the Jesuits.
The story was written at the height of anxieties about the Illuminati in Germany,
and soon after the Diamond Necklace affair in Paris had been revealed. Fear of
Jesuits mingled with other anxieties: Das Wort Krypto-Katholik wurde das
neueste Schlagwort, und mit einer geradezu fieberhaften Angst witterte man
berall verkleidete Jesuiten.26 The storys genesis is surrounded by fears of
Jesuit plots. Schillers native Wrttemberg was ruled by the Catholic Duke
Karl Eugen, who, being childless, would be succeeded by his Protestant younger
brother; of this brothers children, however, two girls converted to Catholicism,
and one son (the third, Friedrich Eugen) was thought in danger of being persuaded by the Jesuits to convert likewise. One reason for these suspicions was
that in July 1786 Friedrich Eugen published in the Berlinische Monatsschrift
an essay defending the conjuration of spirits on religious grounds. Two months
earlier, in May 1786, the Berlinische Monatsschrift contained an essay on
Cagliostro by Elisa von der Recke, accusing him not only of charlatanry but of
being secretly in league with the Jesuits, and another essay on secret societies
which warned against the Jesuits influence.27 Schillers Venice is not only full
of monks and friars (Benedictines, Minorites, Carmelites and Dominicans all
feature) but is the setting for precisely the kind of politically motivated intrigue
ascribed to the Jesuits.
The course of the Princes conversion also bears a remarkable resemblance
to Mortimers. Mortimer tells Maria how he was brought up in strengen
Pflichten, and was glad to escape Der Puritaner dumpfe Predigtstuben. Soon
after his conversion, he was shown Marias picture and told her story, which
26

Adalbert von Hanstein: Wie entstand Schillers Geisterseher? Berlin: Duncker 1903.
P. 45.
27
See Marion Beaujean: Zweimal Prinzenerziehung: Don Carlos und Geisterseher.
Schillers Reaktion auf Illuminaten und Rosenkreuzer. In: Poetica 10 (1978). Pp. 217235,
esp. p. 218. Extracts from some of these publications are now available in Friedrich
Schiller: Werke und Briefe. Ed. by Otto Dann et al. Vol. 7: Historische Schriften und
Erzhlungen II. Frankfurt/M.: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag 2002. Pp. 10211023.

192
made him resolve to free her from her martyrdom. His enthusiasm clearly
results from sensual excitement in religious guise. The Prince, on seeing the
beautiful woman, is reminded of a painting of the Madonna by a Florentine artist
who also painted an Heloise and an almost naked Venus (HA 5. 132). This
reminds us of the well-known aesthetic problem that Catholic religious art
appeals to the senses in a way that has sometimes been called distractingly
irreligious.28 The beautiful woman is praying; the Princes feelings for her are
sensuality disguised as religious devotion: Sie betete zu ihrer Gottheit, und ich
betete zu ihr Ja, ich betete sie an (HA 5. 133). In both cases, the convert moves
from an unattractive version of Protestantism via sensuality to a Catholicism
that seems deficient in morality and philosophy.
Soon after beginning Der Geisterseher, Schiller wrote explicitly about the
Jesuits in a short article for the Teutscher Merkur, published in October 1786
under the heading Jesuitenregierung in Paraguay. It recounts an episode from
the history of the Jesuit reductions in Paraguay.29 Over a vast area, covering not
only modern Paraguay but much of southern Brazil and northern Argentina, the
Jesuits, from 1610 onwards, established settlements for the Indians in order to
save them from the forced labour and slavery imposed by the Spanish and
Portuguese colonists. In 1750 Spain ceded a large territory to Portugal, including
seven Jesuit towns with over 30,000 Indians. All were ordered to move to
Spanish territory. Although the Jesuits reluctantly tried to persuade the Indians
to obey royal orders, the Indians tried to defend their homes by fighting the combined Spanish and Portuguese forces. They were defeated, and by the end of
May 1756 all the seven towns were conquered and occupied. Many strange stories about these events reached Europe. It was widely believed that the Jesuits
held a vast and wealthy empire with an Indian as its nominal ruler, and that the
Jesuits had commanded the Indian army. These slanders were enthusiastically
propagated by Pombal, the enlightened autocrat of Portugal, and his ally Count
Aranda in Spain. Voltaire drew on them in Chapter XIV of Candide, where the
hero arrives in Paraguay among wealthy Jesuits holding military rank, and has
to kiss the Jesuit colonels spurs when he returns from the parade. Schiller also
exploited them. In the story he tells, two Europeans fighting on the Indian side
are captured by Spanish forces and turn out, under interrogation, to be Jesuits.
One of them has a notebook with coded but decipherable principles for governing the Indians. The Indians are to believe that the Jesuits are superhuman
28

See David Freedberg: The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of
Response. Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1989. Pp. 345346.
29
See Philip Caraman: The Lost Paradise: an account of the Jesuits in Paraguay
16071768. London: Sidgwick & Jackson 1975; and (for a more critical view) Gilberto
Freyre: The Masters and the Slaves: A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization. Trans. by Samuel Putnam. New York: Knopf 1956.

193
beings and that obedience to them will be rewarded with eternal life in which
the Indians can have all the women they want. This story, much too good to be
true, is taken from the Brunswick professor Johann Christoph Harenbergs
encyclopaedic Pragmatische Geschichte des Ordens der Jesuiten, a relatively
sober account of the Jesuits which nevertheless finds room for many historical
slanders.30 In fact, the war was carried on by the Guaran Indians without Jesuit
assistance. The Austrian Jesuit chronicler of these events, Martin Dobrizhoffer,
says that the lack of Jesuit leadership is proved by the failure of the Indians
campaign: If the Guarany insurgents were indeed encouraged by the Jesuits,
could they not have effected more against the royal forces? Destitute of the
counsels and presence of the Fathers, they did their business stupidly and
unprosperously.31 Schiller, like Voltaire, has uncritically accepted the stories
circulating in Europe about the Jesuits Paraguayan empire, and is using them
for a journalistic item.
The comparison between Schiller and Voltaire is worth pursuing, because it
allows us to locate Schiller more precisely within the Enlightenment and in
relation to other Enlighteners. Voltaire knew a great deal about the Jesuits at
first hand. Having been educated by Jesuits at the college of Louis-le-Grand,
Voltaire respected their excellent education, and long remained loyal to them.
On 14 December 1749 he wrote to Father Vionnet: Il y a longtemps que je suis
sous ltendard de votre Socit. Vous navez gure de plus mince soldat, mais
vous nen avez pas de plus fidle.32 However, Voltaire came out openly against
the Jesuits in 1759, when official permission to publish the Encyclopdie was
withdrawn as a result of Jesuit lobbying (though it continued surreptitiously),
and he himself was attacked as an enemy of religion and the state in the Jesuits
Journal de Trvoux. In 1759 he published the Relation de la maladie, de la confession, de la mort et de lapparition du jsuite Berthier, in which Father Berthier,
editor of the Journal, is supposed to die of poison emanating from its pages, and
to be denied the sacraments by a Jansenist, on the grounds that his journal has
stirred up hatred and he himself has read so many bad Jesuit books.33
30

Johann Christoph Harenberg: Pragmatische Geschichte des Ordens der Jesuiten, seit
ihrem Ursprunge bis auf gegenwrtige Zeit. Halle and Helmstdt: Carl Hermann
Hemmerde 1760. Pp. 22432249. Schiller has simply abridged the section headed
Neueste Relation von der Schlacht in Paraguay 1759. 1. Oct. zwischen der jesuitischen
und den vereinigten spanischen und portugiesischen Armeen. Aus dem Spanischen
bersetzt.
31
Martin Dobrizhoffer: An Account of the Abipones, an Equestrian People of Paraguay.
Trans. by Sara Coleridge. London: John Murray 1822. Vol. 1. P. 27.
32
Voltaire: Complete Works and Correspondence. Ed. by Haydn Mason et al. Oxford:
Voltaire Foundation 1968ff. Vol. 95. P. 210. Henceforth cited as CW.
33
See Voltaire: Mlanges. Ed. by Jacques van den Heuvel. Paris: Gallimard 1961.
Pp. 337346.

194
Even so, Voltaire did not support the expulsion of the Jesuits from France in
1762. His essay on the occasion, entitled Balance gal, cites, half-jokingly,
twelve reasons for removing the Jesuits for education, the first being that some
have sexually abused boys, a standard accusation against Jesuits.34 Others are
charges of instigating assassinations and provoking revolt in Paraguay. Then follow seven reasons for keeping them: they themselves expel pederasts if major
scandal threatens; they no longer plot assassinations; they can be kept under control, and punished if necessary by the law; and they are good teachers. Finally, a
balance must be kept between two extreme religious groups, the Jesuits (or more
generally Molinists, adherents of the doctrine of free will) on the one hand, and
Jansenists on the other. The Jansenists, after all, had made great claims for the
sanctity of the convulsionaries who, in 173132, had gone into fits in the cemetery
of Saint-Mdard and in some cases performed or undergone miraculous cures.35
Are Jesuits any worse than convulsionaries? Les jsuites flattent les passions
des hommes, pour les gouverner par ces passions mmes: les St. Mdardiens
slvent contre les gots les plus innocents, pour imposer le joug affreux du
fanatisme.36 And although Voltaire shared the Enlightenments disapproval of
Jesuit rule in Paraguay, he was prepared to admit that although it amounted to
slavery, it was also humane: quelques gards le triomphe de lhumanit.37
Some of Voltaires best friends were Jesuits. Not only did he stay in touch with
his old schoolteachers, but at Ferney he made friends with four local Jesuits who
were good at chess. One of them, Father Antoine Adam, became his personal
priest and stayed in his house for some fourteen years until his abrupt and
unexplained dismissal, though even then Voltaire gave him a pension of 700
livres. Admittedly, Father Adam seems to have been a somewhat delinquent
Jesuit and on bad terms with his order: when he visited his superiors at Dijon they
refused to receive him, and he was rumoured to have a mistress in the village.
Voltaire made fun of him, and used to introduce him with the words: Voici
Adam, le premier et le dernier des hommes.38 He presented him to James
Boswell in English as a broken soldier of the Company of Jesus.39
34

See [Johann Pezzl]: Briefe aus dem Novizziat. No place [Zrich] 1780, 1781. Vol. 2.
P. 88; [Johann Friedel]: Heinrich von Walheim oder Weiberliebe und Schwrmerey.
Frankfurt/M. Leipzig 1785. Vol. 1. Pp. 5253.
35
For a short account, see Ronald Knox: Enthusiasm. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1950.
Ch. XVI.
36
Balance gal (1762). In: CW 56A. Pp. 241246, here pp. 245246.
37
Voltaire: Essai sur les murs (n. 5). Vol. 2. P. 387.
38
See Jean Orieux: Voltaire ou La Royaut de lesprit. Paris: Flammarion 1966. P. 594.
For the rumoured mistress, see Ian Davidson: Voltaire in Exile: The Last Years, 175378.
London: Atlantic Books 2004. P. 222.
39
See Boswell on the Grand Tour: Germany and Switzerland, 1764. Ed. by Frederick A.
Pottle. London: Heinemann 1953. P. 274.

195
The touchstone for ones attitude to the Jesuits was ones belief about the
assassination of Henri IV. If one believed that Ravaillac had been set up by
the Jesuits, then one was opening the door to the kind of conspiracy theory
represented by Nicolai and earlier by dAlemberts article in the Encyclopdie.
Although Henri IV was among his heroes, Voltaires stance on this question was
much more judicious. His Dissertation sur la mort de Henri IV dismisses as
unproven all suggestions that Ravaillac was part of a conspiracy. Monkish ideas
about tyrannicide, combined with fanaticism, were sufficient: il suffisait alors
davoir t moine, pour croire que ctait une uvre mritoire de tuer un prince
ennemi de la religion catholique (CW ii. 344). Similarly in the Essai sur les
murs, Voltaire examines the assassination of Henri IV at some length, but is certain that Ravaillac was a lone, insane killer, un furieux imbcile,40 inflamed
by monks and preachers, but without accomplices: On voit par les actes de son
procs, imprims en 1611, que cet homme navait en effet dautres complices
que les sermons des prdicateurs, et les discours des moines; Ravaillac ne fut
que linstrument aveugle de lesprit du temps, qui ntait pas moins aveugle.41
And in Dialogue entre un brachmane et un jsuite Voltaire uses Ravaillacs
deed to illustrate determinism, or the idea that all events form part of a chain
of cause and effect, in contrast to the Jesuit doctrine of free will: the Brahmin
maintains that he himself caused Ravaillacs deed by beginning a stroll on the
Malabar coast with his left foot instead of his right.42
Voltaires balanced and differentiated attitude to the Jesuits contrasts with
that of some other lumires, notably Jean dAlembert, author not only of the
article about them in the Encyclopdie but of a treatise, Sur la Destruction des
Jsuites en France, published in 1765, at a time when the order had been suppressed in France but its members were allowed to stay there as secular priests
(a concession withdrawn in 1767). In his preface, DAlembert claims to be
detached and impartial. He avoids speculation about the Jesuits association
with Ravaillac, though he charges them with involvement in several attempts
to assassinate Henri IV. He gives the Jesuits full credit for their excellent educational methods and their achievements in literature and science. Yet he also
hesitates uneasily between ridicule and fear. The founder of the Society, Ignatius
of Loyola, is mocked for having his head turned by chivalric romances and books
of devotion and for resolving to become le Don Quichotte de la Vierge.43 Yet
the organisation he founded is said to be a perfectly constructed monolith, le
chef duvre de lindustrie humaine en fait de politique.44 However much
40

Voltaire: Essai sur les murs (n. 5). Vol. 2. P. 555.

Ibid. Pp. 556, 557.
42
Voltaire: Mlanges (n. 33). Pp. 311315, here p. 312.
43
Jean dAlembert: Sur la Destruction des Jsuites en France. [Paris] 1765. P. 11.
44
Ibid. P. 12.
41

196
they may hate one another, Jesuits can be relied on to unite against an enemy,
and to sacrifice their own members ruthlessly to the common good. As an elite
corps, he compares them to the Janissaries who guard the Ottoman Sultan, and
he attributes to them the goal of world domination: Gouverner lunivers, non
par la force, mais par la religion, telle parait avoir t la devise de cette socit
ds son origine.45 DAlembert did far more than Voltaire to assemble a repertoire of images and concepts that sustained fear of Jesuits.
One might have expected, however, that the Jesuits would vanish from peoples
minds after the dissolution of their order in 1773. Surely they were no longer
of any interest except as characters in a historical drama? Far from it. To many
writers of the Enlightenment, the Jesuits had become more dangerous, not less,
since the dissolution of their order. They still existed as Exjesuiten, still
formed an international network, and were still gathering influence in the hope
of returning to power under some future Pope (as indeed did happen in 1814).
The Austrian poet Joseph Ratschky, in his mock-heroic poem Melchior Striegel
(179395), developed the widespread comparison of the Jesuits to the Jews
in exile:
So harrt des Messias ein Israelit,
Und ein gebeugter Exjesuit
Der Wiedergeburt der Jnger Loyolens,
Die Ganganelli nolens volens
Gleich irrenden Schfchen weit und breit
Zerstreute, doch nur auf kurze Zeit.
Bald werden sie Knigen wieder ad latus
Sich setzen; bald wird durch ihren Status
In Statu von neuem (wie sichs gebhrt,
Wenns gut gehn soll) die Welt regiert.46

In North Germany, the most dedicated, indeed obsessive opponent of the Jesuits
was the militant spokesman of the Berlin Enlightenment, Friedrich Nicolai.
His enormous account of his travels through the Catholic regions of Germany
includes many warnings against them. His fears were strengthened during his
three-week stay in Vienna in 1781, when his main local contacts, Tobias von
Gebler and Heinrich von Bretschneider, both immigrants from Prussia, fed his
paranoia to an extent that some other Viennese writers thought absurd.47 By
training their pupils in blind obedience, the Jesuits seek to found a state within
the state and enrich their order at the expense of the countries they inhabit.
45

Ibid. P. 14.
Joseph Franz Ratschky: Melchior Striegel. Ed. by Wynfrid Kriegleder. Graz:
Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt 1991. P. 91.
47
See the introduction to Aus dem josephinischen Wien: Geblers und Nicolais
Briefwechsel whrend der Jahre 17711786. Ed. by Richard Maria Werner. Berlin:
Hertz 1888. Pp. 1118.
46

197
Ihr blinder Gehorsam gegen ihre Obern, der Esprit de Corps, der ihnen von Jugend
auf zur andern Natur geworden ist, ihr Zusammenhang von einem Ende der Erde
zum andern, ihre vielen ffentlichen und geheimen Verbindungen, die feine Politik
und das tiefe Geheimni mit dem sie ihr Hauptgeschft die Fortpflanzung ihres
Ordens betreiben, machen ihr Institut zum merkwrdigsten, aber zum schdlichsten
fr die menschliche Gesellschaft.48

In the preface to the fifth and sixth volumes, Nicolai quotes a letter from an
unnamed friend in Vienna, warning him that the Jesuits, who murder kings and
popes, may also murder him for what he has said about them (p. xiii). His
obsession came to be called Jesuitenriecherei and got him ridiculed in Faust
I as der steife Mann whose constant snuffling is explained thus: Er sprt
nach Jesuiten (lines 431922).
But Nicolai was only repeating what many representatives of the Enlightenment, especially in Austria, maintained. He derived much information from a
book by Johann Rautenstrauch which gives a systematic account of the Jesuits
immoral theory and practices, under the title Jesuitengift, wie es unter Clemens
XIII. entdeckt, unter Clemens XIV. unterdrkt, und unter Pius VI. noch fortschleicht, oder der Jesuit in fnferlei Gestalten, allen Christen zur Warnung,
vorgestellt, als Probabilist, Beichtvater, Ketzermacher, Frstenhasser und pbstlicher Soldat.49 From the innumerable denunciations of Jesuits written in the
1780s, I will quote a sample of the more hysterical style:
Der ganze Erdboden ist voll von ihnen, ihr Gift fliegt wie eine pestilenzialische
Seuche von einem Pol zum andern, berall wirkt es, nur geheimer hier, und dort
ffentlicher. Ganganelli konnte diesem zahllosen Heer von Heuschrecken wohl die
uerliche Hlle abstreifen, aber die immer aus ihrem eignen Blut fortwachsende
Hydra konnte er nicht bis auf den letzten Kopf erschlagen. Diese Hydra ist noch
so vielkpfig als sie sonst war, sie hat Frstenkpfe, Ministerkpfe, Papstkpfe,
Bischofskpfe, Weibeskpfe, Pfaffenkpfe, Judenkpfe, Banditenkpfe, Hurenkpfe
mit einem Worte, Kpfe von allen Orden, Stnden, Geschlechtern, Znften, Innungen
aller Provinzen und Nationen.50

Meanwhile in Germany this view of the Jesuits found expression in the huge
history of the Society by Philipp Wolf, who retails all the familiar slanders.51
48

Friedrich Nicolai: Beschreibung einer Reise durch Deutschland und die Schweiz im
Jahre 1781. Nebst Bemerkungen ber Gelehrsamkeit, Industrie, Religion und Sitten.
Berlin and Stettin 178387. Vol. 5. P. 163.
49
Published anonymously at Philadelphia, i.e. Vienna, 1784.
50
Anon. [Leopold Aloys Hoffmann]: Zehn Briefe aus Oesterreich an den Verfasser der
Briefe aus Berlin. Gedruckt an der schlesischen Grnze 1784. Pp. 135136.
51
Peter Philipp Wolf: Allgemeine Geschichte der Jesuiten von dem Ursprunge ihres
Ordens bis auf gegenwrtige Zeiten. 4 vols. Lisbon: bei Pombal und Compagnie 1792. The
place of publication and the publisher are clearly fictitious: Pombal was the enlightened
Portuguese minister who expelled the Jesuits from his country.

198
This book provided the basis for the long article Jesuiten in the encyclopaedia
by Ersch and Gruber which was a standard account for the nineteenth century.52
And to see how long-lived fears of Jesuits were, one need only read Eugne
Sues enormously long but engrossing novel Le Juif errant (The Wandering Jew),
serialised in the Liberal paper Le Constitutionnel from June 1844 to June 1845.
Against this background, we can certainly ascribe to Schiller a lasting
suspicion of organised Catholicism and a recurrent interest in supposed Jesuit
conspiracies. But this interest appears to have been primarily literary. In real
life he was far less worried about Jesuits and ex-Jesuits than Nicolai was. In
September 1787 the prominent Illuminatus Joachim Christoph Bode arrived
in Weimar and told Schiller how the Jesuits, in alliance with the Moravian
Brethren, were hard at work wrecking the Enlightenment in Berlin. Schiller
seems to have been astonished but not very concerned:
Er [Bode] ist sehr mit den Berlinern ber die drohende Gefahr des Catholizismus
einig. Ich habe aber schon vergeen, was er mir alles darber gesagt hat. [] Die
Jezige Anarchie der Aufklrung meynt er wre hauptschlich der Jesuiten Werk. Die
Jesuiten und Herrnhuter behauptet er wren von Anfang an verbndet gewesen.53

As for Nicolai, Schiller and his friends were willing to joke about the Berlin
critics obsession with Jesuits. Ludwig Ferdinand Huber warned Schiller in
1786 that if a recent letter, written in a mystical vein, were to fall into Nicolais
hands, he would undoubtedly think Schiller a secret Jesuit (11.5.1786: NA 31.
99). Schillers interest in Jesuits was primarily literary. Their sinister reputation
added spice to plays that expressed Schillers fascination with conspiracies.
Thus in March 1783 he wrote from Bauerbach to the Meiningen librarian
Wilhelm Reinwald, requesting books about Jesuits and similar topics to
provide material for a tragedy:
Die Bcher, wovon wir sprachen ber Jesuiten, und Religionsvernderungen
berhaupt, ber den Bigotismus und seltne Verderbnisse des Karakters, suchen Sie
mir doch mit dem bldsten zu verschaffen, weil ich nunmehr mit starken Schritten auf
meinen Friderich Imhof los gehen will. Schriften ber Inquisition, Geschichte der
Bastille, dann vorzglich auch (was ich vorgestern vergeen habe) Bcher worinn
von den unglklichen Opfern des Spiels Meldung geschieht, sind ganz vortreflich in
meinen Plan. (NA 23. 6970)

Though nothing more is known of this abortive Imhof, it sounds, with its
themes of moral corruption, debauchery, and conversion, like a prelude to
Der Geisterseher. Seeking sensational material for plays and fiction, Schiller
52

J. S. Ersch and J. G. Gruber: Allgemeine Encyklopdie der Wissenschaften und

Knste. 181992. Reprint Graz: Akademisches Druck- und Verlagshaus 1981. Vol. 15
[1838]. Pp. 427461.
53
Letter to Krner. 10.9.1787. NA 24. 153.

199
readily thought of Jesuits among other topics. Similarly, Voltaire exploits slanders
against the Jesuits in fiction, as when he introduces the allegedly warlike and
oppressive Paraguayan Jesuits into Candide, but is decidedly balanced and judicious when writing about the Jesuits real activities in a discursive context.
With the help of the triangle of Schiller, Nicolai and Voltaire, we can draw some
tentative conclusions, not only about Enlightenment attitudes to the Jesuits, but,
more generally, about the genesis and development of conspiracy theories.54
First, the paranoia which finds expression in conspiracy theories easily accompanies the practice of Enlightenment in unfavourable conditions. In the eighteenth century, Enlighteners disseminated doctrines that were unpopular with
the state and the Church, and formed societies to discuss and pursue their aims.
While some of these societies belonged to the growing public sphere, others,
notably the Freemasons and the Illuminati, were partially or entirely secret.
Their founders may have believed that secrecy would allow them to spread
Enlightenment ideals without interference by the authorities, but in fact secrecy
enormously increased both danger and the consciousness of danger, for a
secret organisation was liable both to be infiltrated by spies and to be betrayed
by disaffected ex-members. If one creates a conspiracy, one must live in dread
of counter-conspiracies. It appears that in the early 1780s Nicolai was actively
involved with the Illuminati,55 while Schiller, though he received overtures
from their emissaries, remained at a critical distance and was able not only to
portray the moral double-dealing of a high-minded conspirator in Don Carlos
but to comment on their practices in the Briefe ber Don Carlos. Both Nicolai
and Bode illustrate how someone involved in a conspiracy can become credulous and even paranoid about other conspiracies.
Secondly, conspiracy theories are excellent material for fiction. The connection between plot meaning conspiracy and plot meaning a fictional narrative
is accidental, but significant. A plot is an admirable basis for a plot. Schillers
work in particular deals in plots and conspiracies with exceptional frequency.
Two of his plays have such words in their titles (Die Verschwrung des Fiesko
zu Genua and Kabale und Liebe). Others too turn on plots and counterplots:
Franz Moors plot to disinherit his brother, Posas plot to save the Netherlands,
54

On this surprisingly neglected subject, see above all: Changing Conceptions of

Conspiracy. Ed. by Carl F. Graumann and Serge Moscovici. New York Berlin:
Springer 1987; also G. T. Cubitt: Conspiracy myths and conspiracy theories. In: JASO:
Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 20 (1989). Pp. 1226. There is much
valuable information in Johannes Rogalla von Bieberstein: Die These von der
Verschwrung 17761945: Philosophen, Freimaurer, Juden, Liberale und Sozialisten
als Verschwrer gegen die Sozialordnung. Berne: Peter Lang 1976; Conspiracies and
Conspiracy Theories in Early Modern Europe. Ed. by Barry Coward and Julian Swann.
Aldershot: Ashgate 2004.
55
See Schings (n. 20). P. 42.

200
Wallensteins intrigues with the Swedes, the Imperial Courts schemes to disempower him, Mortimers plot to rescue Maria Stuart, and the (fragmentary)
plot involving the manipulation of Demetrius. Der Geisterseher can be assigned
to the then popular genre of the Geheimbundroman, traces of which can be
found in Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre. Subsequent popular novels, especially
thrillers, turn on conspiracies. The most familiar model is that in which the villain
is plotting world domination and the hero is either counter-plotting against him
or by-passing intrigue through decisive action. Fictional conspiracies can provide material for supposedly real ones: the most striking example is the novel
Biarritz (1868) by Sir John Retcliffe (Hermann Goedsche), containing an
account of a secret conspiratorial meeting in the Jewish cemetery at Prague,
which was reprinted in St Petersburg as a pamphlet allegedly based on fact, and
was later adapted by the Tsarist secret police as The Protocols of the Elders of
Zion, the infamous exposure of a Jewish world conspiracy.56
While most readers can of course distinguish fiction from extra-textual reality, fictional plots and narrative structures provide us with models which can
help to shape our experience of reality. There is an interplay, though a difficult
one to track, between fictional structures and the structures by which we interpret the world around us. The conspiracy is such a structure. In complex modern
society, it is easy to believe that the world is controlled by authorities who keep
their activities secret. Such beliefs offer the reassurance that someone is in
charge, a sense of the connectedness of things, and sometimes (as in the Cold
War) clear binary patterns which simplify the confusion around us. In Schillers
work we can see real-life beliefs about conspiracies providing material not
only for openly fictional works such as Der Geisterseher but also for historical
works such as Wallenstein which suggest that plot and counter-plot are major
motive forces in history.

56

See Norman Cohn: Warrant for Genocide: The myth of the Jewish world-conspiracy
and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode 1967.

Alexander Kosenina

Schillers Poetics of Crime*

This essay introduces the tradition of Histoires tragiques in the seventeenth century and
of Pitavals Causes clbres in the eighteenth as a basis for Schillers interest in the
genre of crime literature. From the start Schiller employs a variety of genres drama,
prose, poetry and essay to treat the sort of sensational crime more commonly
recorded in popular leaflets, chronicles, anthologies of legal cases or other historical
sources. This literary practice is taken as a starting point for the development of a
poetics of crime, based primarily on Schillers introductions to Die Ruber, Der
Verbrecher aus Infamie and his German edition of Pitaval. Sensationalism is the premise of this poetics (1), the human soul its object (2), the aesthetics of representation its
method (3), the legal education of the public its aim (4), and popular literature its
medium (5).

Schiller was a crime writer of considerable standing. Neither the fact that he
composed relatively few works in prose nor the fact that crime literature as a literary genre was still in its infancy can seriously undermine this claim. After all,
his dramas after Die Ruber owe their success to plots centred on major
crimes, tyrannicide, assassination and elaborate romantic intrigues and all of
this combined with a wealth of collateral damage.1 It is not only the theatre,
however, which becomes a test bed for the new Gerichtsbarkeit der Bhne
(FA 8. 190),2 which uses literature as a tool of instruction. Many of Schillers
poems, ballads and essays also deal with the question of the law and its boundaries, a preoccupation found even in Schillers use of metaphors. In short, the

* A shorter version of this paper was first published under the title Tiefere Blicke in
das Menschenherz: Schiller und Pitaval. In: Germanisch-Romanische-Monatsschrift
55 (2005). Heft 4. Schillers works are quoted whenever possible from Friedrich
Schiller: Werke und Briefe in zwlf Bnden. Ed. by Otto Dann et al. Frankfurt/M.:
Deutscher Klassiker Verlag 19882004. Quotations are identified by FA with volume and
page numbers. In a few instances quotations are from Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe.
Ed. by Julius Petersen, Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff.
They are identified by NA with volume and page numbers. I wish to thank Louise
Hughes for her splendid assistance in the preparation of this translation.
1
See Klaus Lderssen: Da nicht der Nutzen des Staats Euch als Gerechtigkeit
erscheine. Schiller und das Recht. Frankfurt/M. Leipzig 2005. Udo Ebert: Schiller
und das Recht. In: Schiller im Gesprch der Wissenschaften. Ed. by Klaus Manger and
Gottfried Willems. Heidelberg 2005. Pp. 139169.
2
Schiller: Was kann eine gute stehende Schaubhne eigentlich wirken? (1785): Die
Gerichtsbarkeit der Bhne fngt an, wo das Gebiet der weltlichen Gesetze sich endigt.

202
common subject of these works is tragedy, except that, historically, this term
cannot be limited to the Aristotelian definition of the genre.
It is rather more appropriate to refer here to the Romance tradition of the
Histoires tragiques, much-loved since the Renaissance, which encompasses
popular collections of grisly chronicles or tragic, sensationalist tales. Such collections crossed both language barriers and geographical borders and circulated
throughout Europe. Titles like the following reveal this understanding of
tragedy to be a realistic, sensational theatre of crime and atrocity in the Early
Modern period: Franois Rossets Histoires tragiques (1605), Martin Zeilers
Theatrum tragicum (1628), Jean Pierre Camus Les Spectacles dhorreur (1630),
Georg Philipp Harsdrffers Grosser Schau-Platz jmmerlicher Mord-Geschichte
(164952), Johann Mercks Trauer-Schau-Bhne (1669), Erasmus Franciscis
Hoher Trauer-Saal (1669), Jean Nicola de Parivals Sinnreiche / Kurtzweilige
und Traurige Geschichte (1671), Johann Samuel Adamis Theatrum Tragicum
(1695), Johann Christoph Beers Neu-erffnete Trauer-Bhne (170831).3
This article argues that Schiller knew much more than has previously been
thought about the genre in its transition from documentation to fiction, from
the historia or chronica to the fabula, from the legal species facti to the
use of actual criminal cases as a basis for literary works. This is rendered particularly obvious by the later, but nevertheless enormously influential, collection
of authentic court cases which the French lawyer Franois Gayot de Pitaval
published in twenty volumes under the title Causes clbres et intressantes
(173443). The success of the genre can be compared with the popularity of
modern Reality TV. In todays book market, topical casebooks of forensic
medicine and criminal history can be found next to a Berlin, Dresden or Pflzer
Pitaval even a publication on the Washington sniper of 2002 is advertised
as a Pitaval case. Between 1734 and 1789 eighteen publishers produced nine
different versions of the Causes Clbres in twenty-five editions, totalling 253
volumes.4 Among these are, most importantly, the revised editions, continuations and adaptations of Franois-Alexandre Garsault (1757), Jean-Claude De
La Ville (176669), Robert Estienne (176970), Franois Richer and NicolasToussaint Le Moyne Des Essarts (177289). Translations into German began
to appear from 1747, resulting after a hundred years in sixty impressive volumes of Der Neue Pitaval under the editorship of Julius Hitzig und Willibald
Alexis. These sixty volumes were used by many crime writers as a source for
their stories. Pitaval became the name of an entire genre his terrific claim that
3
See Alexander Halisch: Barocke Kriminalgeschichtensammlungen. In: Simpliciana
21 (1999). Pp. 105124.
4
See Hans-Jrgen Lsebrink: Kriminalitt und Literatur im Frankreich des 18.
Jahrhunderts. Literarische Formen, soziale Funktionen und Wissenskonstituenten im
Zeitalter der Aufklrung. Munich Vienna 1983. Pp. 104172, here p. 104.

203
he was revealing to the general public the secrets of jurisprudence became a
model for crime literature.5
Schiller was already familiar with Pitavals collection long before he provided in 1792 an introduction to the German translation of Pitaval by Friedrich
Immanuel Niethammer (4 vols. 179295)6 after having seen Carl Wilhelm
Franzs translation (Jena 178292). Schiller, who had just earned his doctorate
in medicine, provides Franz Moor with a plan to kill his father through a psychophysical and emotional reaction: Ich mchte es machen wie der gescheide
Arzt, (nur umgekehrt) (FA 2. 53). An allusion to Pitaval can be found in a
footnote to Die Ruber (II. 1) which explains this method of murder. The commentaries in the Nationalausgabe and the Frankfurter Ausgabe both miss the allusion to Pitaval, which refers to a notorious woman in Paris who prepared poisons.
Sie soll es durch ordentlich angestellte Versuche mit Giftpulvern so weit
gebracht haben, da sie den entfernten Todestag mit ziemlicher Zuverlssigkeit
voraus bestimmen konnte (FA 2. 54). This is clearly a reference to the spectacular case of the Marquise de Brinvilliers, found in the first volume of Pitaval as well
as in the third volume of Schillers selection from Pitaval. It was later used by
E. T. A. Hoffmann in Das Frulein von Scuderi (1819) and similarly by Alexandre
Dumas the Elder in his Crimes clbres (183941). Independent of such detailed
allusions, Karl Moor has occasionally been called an Entlehnung7 from Pitaval,
where there is certainly no shortage of stories about bandits.8
In a general sense as well, the appearance of the Schillers first drama can be
linked to the Pitaval tradition, since documented court cases were used alongside
literary models. Of particular interest, of course, are the details surrounding
traces of the Sonnenwirt Johann Friedrich Schwan, who was broken on the
wheel on 30 July 1760 in the Swabian town of Vaihingen. The delinquent Schwan
was interrogated by the father of Jakob Friedrich Abel who was Schillers
teacher at the Hohe Karlsschule. From this, Schiller fashioned in 1785 his
only true crime story, Verbrecher aus Infamie (1786; 1792 under the new title of
Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre).9 Shortly afterwards Abel produced his
version of the same case: Geschichte eines Rubers, published in Abels
Sammlung und Erklrung merkwrdiger Erscheinungen aus dem menschlichen
5

Pitavals formulation from the new edition in 1739 is taken from Rainer Maria
Kiesow: Das Alphabet des Rechts. Frankfurt/M. 2004. P. 197.
6
A selection from this edition is now available: Oliver Tekolf: Schillers Pitaval.
Merkwrdige Rechtsflle als ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Menschheit, verfat, bearbeitet und herausgegeben von Friedrich Schiller. Frankfurt/M. 2005.
7
Otto W. Johnston: Schillers poetische Welt. In: Schiller-Handbuch. Ed. by Helmut
Koopmann. Stuttgart 1998. Pp. 4468, here p. 47.
8
See the analysis by Lsebrink (n. 4). Pp. 152158.
9
See my article in: Schiller-Handbuch. Leben Werk Wirkung. Ed. by Matthias
Luserke-Jaqui. Stuttgart Weimar 2005. Pp. 305311.

204
Leben (1787).10 A wanted poster for the arrest of Schwan (Fig. 1) lends
added weight to the authentic content of this wahre Geschichte, as Schiller
subtitled his short story. As in Die Ruber, it links the Verbrecher more closely
still with the tradition of the Early Modern portrayal of crime, which long
before Pitaval was based on widely distributed leaflets of this kind. Since c. 1600
illustrated popular pamphlets portray crimes which, in an almost emblematic
structure, combine a sensational caption with a series of pictures and often a
versified text, which was then performed by minstrels in market squares (Fig. 2).
The didactic and entertaining element the bringing together of Horaces
prodesse and delectare becomes visible here.11 The extent to which the
close connection between entertainment and instruction is central to Schillers
poetics of crime will be explored below.
Fascinating in this context is the discovery of a Swiss popular leaflet which
reports on the Schaudervolle Begebenheit of a bandit, Carl Moor, who was executed in Zurich during the 1730s. This flyer is worthy of attention, firstly on
account of its formal combination of prose with a Lied in eight stanzas and,
secondly, because of striking similarities in content to Schillers drama. The
Swiss Carl Moor is not only a dishevelled student who squanders his money
and eventually joins a band of thieves who then make him their leader. Carls
father, der alte Moor, also plays a central role. He is captured by the bandits
and held in a dungeon with meagre food provisions until his son discovers him.
The joy he feels at this reunion results in his death.12 That it has hitherto not
been possible to prove whether Schiller knew of this document naturally weakens
any attempt to establish a direct source, but not, however, the present attempt to
investigate the principle that there are reciprocal interactions between literary
and documentary material in the genre. A further example relating to Die Ruber
points in this direction; it confirms Franz Moors method of murder by means
of the heat of emotion. The Scottish philosopher and anthropologist Henry
Home, whom Schiller admired, cited the following case in his Sketches of the
10

The annotated text is easily accessible in Kletts Editionen fr den Unterricht. Ed. by
Bernd Mahl. Stuttgart 1983.
11
On this tradition, see Ulrike Landfester: Das Recht des Erzhlers. Verbrechensdarstellungen zwischen Exekutionsjournalismus und Pitaval-Tradition 16001800. In:
Literatur, Kriminalitt und Rechtskultur im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert. Ed. by Uwe Bker
and Christoph Houswitschka. Essen 1996. Pp. 155183. Alexander Kosenina: Recht
gefllig. Frhneuzeitliche Verbrechensdarstellung zwischen Dokumentation und
Unterhaltung. In: Zeitschrift fr Germanistik N.F. 15 (2005). Pp. 2847.
12
The pamphlet is stored in the Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv in Weimar (call number:
83/47,4). A facsimile was produced with an introduction by Jochen Golz: Jahresgabe
der Nationalen Forschungs- und Gedenksttten der Klassischen Deutschen Literatur in
Weimar. Weimar 1979. The text is now easily accessible in Matthias Luserke-Jaqui:
Friedrich Schiller. Tbingen Basle 2005. Pp. 374377.

205
History of Man (1774) in support of his theory that occasionally even a guilty
conscience, i.e. the imagination, can punish a delinquent severely: Francis
Duke of Brittany, who tries to starve his brother to death, is seized by sudden
terror as a result of the latters threat that he will have to appear before God in
forty days. He dies in frightful agony, albeit without any sign of real illness,
within the stipulated period of time.13 Abel adds this example in German translation to his Dissertatio de origine characteris animi (1776) in order to illustrate
that an emotionally charged idea makes a deep impression and can have fatal
consequences.14
These few examples of actual legal cases, which place Schillers Die Ruber or
his Verbrecher aus Infamie in the general context of the Pitaval tradition, will
not be expanded upon at present. This would, however, be an important undertaking, considering that the possible adaptations from the Causes clbres or
from Schillers selection have not hitherto been researched in detail. Only the
Geschichte der Johanne von Arc oder des Mdchens von Orleans from the
third volume of Schillers edition is an obvious source.15 Other dramas, however,
like Don Carlos, Maria Stuart or Wilhelm Tell (with the Parricida episode in
Act V, scene 1) deal with material that can also be found in the Causes clbres.
In the fragments of the dramas Die Polizey and Die Kinder des Hauses the historical background is provided by Pitaval in the form of the French justice system
under the feared Marc Ren dArgenson.16 Like other dramatisations of cases
found in Pitaval, Schillers planned adaptation of Pitavals Marquise von Gange,
on which Marquis de Sades last novel (1813) was based, never materialised.
These projects are documented in a list by Schiller.17
Instead of dealing with such possible influences, the following will be concerned with attempting to characterise what could be termed a Schillerian
poetics of crime. This poetics is not limited to a particular genre, but expressly
13
Henry Home: Sketches of the History of Man. Vol. 4. London 1993 [Reprint of the
2nd edn 1778]. Pp. 5657.
14
See Jacob Friedrich Abel: Eine Quellenedition zum Philosophieunterricht an der
Stuttgarter Karlsschule (17731782). Ed by Wolfgang Riedel. Wrzburg 1995. P. 163.
15
In the commentary to the Frankfurter Ausgabe this is the only text mentioned explicitly as a source (FA 5. 616); for Die Kinder des Hauses (FA 10. 803) Pitaval is mentioned in connection with the historical background.
16
It is of great importance that Hofmannsthal stresses this detail in a short newspaper
article for Schillers hundredth birthday, attributing it to Pitaval: Als der Tod ihn umwarf,
lagen da die Entwrfe zu zehn Stcken: [] eines war das Gemlde des unterirdischen
Paris, gezogen aus dem Pitaval, ein Gewebe aus Verbrechen, Familie, Polizei, ein
antizipierter Balzac. Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Gesammelte Werke in zehn Einzelbnden.
Ed. by Bernd Schoeller. Frankfurt/M. 1979. Vol. 8 (Reden und Aufstze I). Pp. 351356,
here p. 353.
17
FA 10. 107, 803. See Oliver Tekolfs introduction (n. 6). Pp. 440441. Pitavals text
can be found on pp. 79119.

206
includes drama, prose and ballads. Consequently, Peter-Andr Alts at first
glance plausible suggestion that Schiller never developed a theory of prose
needs to be qualified.18 Certainly, a comprehensive theory in the strong sense
of the word cannot be assumed. Nonetheless, if one can talk of Bchners aesthetics on a basis of the Kunstgesprch in his Lenz, then the following attempt
to derive an anthropological poetics from Schillers prefaces to Die Ruber,
Verbrecher aus Infamie, and Pitaval cannot be rejected out of hand. This topic
will be dealt with in the following five sections:
(1) Prerequisite: The interest in the Leichenffnung des Lasters (FA 7. 565)
as an anthropological law.
(2) Subject: Psychological Blicke in das Menschen-Herz (FA 7. 451).
(3) Method: The poetics of representation.
(4) Aim: The Enlightenment in legal matters the readers right, selbst zu
Gericht zu sitzen (FA 7. 564).
(5) Style and genre: Unterhaltung with Gewinn [] fr die Wahrheit
(FA 7. 450).

(1) Prerequisite: The interest in the anatomy of crime as an

anthropological law
The premise for Schillers poetics of crime states that the enjoyment of observing
and imagining a crime is a kind of natural constant and that the need for sensationalism can only be renounced with difficulty. In the introduction to Pitaval,
Schiller speaks of an allgemeiner Hang der Menschen zu leidenschaftlichen
und verwickelten Situationen (FA 7. 449). Moreover, he explains this principle
in his essay ber die tragische Kunst (1792) as ein allgemeines psychologisches
Gesetz which explains why everyone gathers voll Erwartung um den Erzhler
einer Mordgeschichte. This creates in the viewer a curious need to pay close
attention to the expression of suffering. Schiller recognises ein neugieriges
Verlangen bei dem Zuschauer, Aug und Ohr auf den Ausdruck seines Leidens
zu richten (FA 8. 251252), an urge which is even stronger in a real situation,
for example, that of a criminal on his way to the scaffold. This is not a new
observation. For Edmund Burke and other theorists of the sublime, there is no
doubt what an audience will choose when given a choice between a theatre performance and a public execution.19 Long before Schiller himself contributed
to this discourse in his writings about the sublime, the essential features of his
two-tier catastrophe training from emotional empathy to intellectual distance,
18

See Peter-Andr Alt: Schiller. Leben Werk Zeit. Vol. 1. Munich 2000. P. 474.
See Carsten Zelle: Strafen und Schrecken. Einfhrende Bemerkungen zur Parallele
zwischen dem Schauspiel der Tragdie und der Tragdie der Hinrichtung. In: Jahrbuch
der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 28 (1984). Pp. 76103.
19

207
reflection and relief are recognisable. The introduction to Die Ruber already
serves not only to propagate the concealment of das Laster in seiner nackten
Abscheulichkeit something that, aesthetically, would be merely shocking or
gruesome but also to reveal vice in its entire innern Rderwerk (FA 2. 1516).
Metaphors made up of mechanics and anatomy did not happen by chance,
but rather exist as a leitmotif in all three prefaces. Everywhere the language
used includes: tausend Rderchen (FA 2. 15), Triebfedern (FA 7. 450),
Mechanik (FA 2. 16; 7. 562), Machinationen des geistlichen sowohl als
weltlichen Betruges (FA 7. 450), Leichenffnungen and Sektionsberichten
(FA 7. 562, 565), skelettisier[en] and auseinander [] gliedern (FA 2. 16).
This vocabulary assumes a logic of crime that, although it works in a machine
or hidden under the skin, can only be uncovered by means of technical, scientific and scrutinising methods. Behind all of this, however, there lies the traditional motor of Sophoclean tragedy, which generates tension, albeit with two
crucial differences: firstly, the analytical question of Oedipus Rex (What happened?) becomes a question about causes (How and why has this happened?). Secondly, a plot pushing from the prgnanter Augenblick to a
Punctum saliens,20 is no longer limited to tragedy. With his new dramatic
method to observe the soul during its most secret operations, Schiller does not
wish to be confined to die Schranken eines Trauerstcks. He also refused to
accept the Palisaden des Aristoteles und Batteux (FA 2. 15). In the suppressed
preface to Die Ruber, references to overcoming the limits of the genre are
more explicit still: Ich kann demnach eine Geschichte dramatisch abhandeln,
ohne darum ein Drama schreiben zu wollen. Das heit: Ich schreibe einen
dramatischen Roman, und kein theatralisches Drama (FA 2. 162).
Crossing genre boundaries, Schiller attempts to push the readers Erwartung
aufs hchste and in doing so gives der Divinationsgabe des Lesers eine
angenehme Beschftigung (FA 7. 450451). From the point of view of technique, Pitaval was a good model, owing above all to the continuing refinement of
the narrative organisation in an increasing deviation from the original in the form
of sequels, revisions and translations. The realisation that suspense can only be
created by omitting information shifts the genre from the protocol-like species
facti, whose goal, which is clear from the outset, is the condensation of
facts,21 to the fluently narrated crime story. The magic formula found in the

20

See Wolfgang Grohmann: Prgnanter Moment und punctum saliens. Zwei Begriffe
aus Schillers Werkstatt. In: Acta Germanica 7 (1972). Pp. 5976.
21
See Eckhardt Meyer-Krentler: Geschichtserzhlungen. Zur Poetik des Sachverhalts im juristischen Schrifttum des 18. Jahrhunderts. In: Erzhlte Kriminalitt. Zur
Typologie und Funktion von narrativen Darstellungen in Strafrechtspflege, Publizistik
und Literatur zwischen 1770 und 1920. Ed. by Jrg Schnert. Tbingen 1991. Pp.
117157.

208
preface to Richers collection and even more clearly in Der Neue Pitaval, reads
as follows: arranger les faits.22 The focus is increasingly transferred to the
story behind the story of a trial.23 Of more interest than this somewhat obvious technique of representation is the derivation of suspense from theory and
psychology by the popular-philosopher Christian Garve, with whom Schiller
was probably familiar through his teacher Abel. In a long article in the Neue
Bibliothek der schnen Wissenschaften und der freyen Knste entitled Einige
Gedanken ber das Interessierende (1771), Garve explains the problem of the
creation of suspense from a psychological perspective.24
If a book grips us completely, if we read um zu wissen, was gesagt und was
folgen wird, ohne weiter an seinen Gebrauch zu denken, then Garve describes
it as interest. As an explanation of this effect, Garve offers the following: Die
Begierde der Seele geht eigentlich immer auf etwas Knftiges.25 No other literary genre relies so heavily on the dual principle of anticipation and omission
than the crime story, to which, to use Schillers words, the Divinationsgabe
des Lesers corresponds. In addition there is the powerful emotional excitement created by the representation of the crime and, when necessary, of torture
and punishment. Garve deals with these two areas by using two terms:
Wibegierde and Affekt. According to him, the greatest interest is aroused
by (1) natural affairs and personal experience, (2) description of human beings,
their customs and fate, (3) portraits of people who are most similar to us.26 For
many crime stories of the period, especially case histories in the Magazin zur
Erfahrungsseelenkunde of Karl Philipp Moritz (who was to psychology what
Pitaval was to law) or in August Gottlieb Meiners collection of crime stories,
these three criteria would be comparatively valid. In his enthusiasm for the
great crime Schiller deviates more from the third point, at least as far as the
exaggerations in Die Ruber are concerned. However, he brings his narrative
back to Garves call for the refined psychology his story needs; namely, to
convey die Sache durch gemigte, aber unbemerktere geheimere Zge and
to raise it aus dem Grunde der Seele.27
22

Edgar Marsch: Die Kriminalerzhlung. Theorie Geschichte Analyse. Munich 1983.

Pp. 117125, here p. 123.
23
See Joachim Linder: Deutsche Pitavalgeschichten in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts.
Konkurrierende Formen der Wissensvermittlung und der Verbrechensdeutung. In:
Schnert (n. 21). Pp. 313348, here pp. 315316.
24
I am grateful to Peter-Andr Alt for this information. Cf. Alt (n. 18). P. 469.
25
Christian Garve: Popularphilosophische Schriften ber literarische, sthetische und
gesellschaftliche Gegenstnde. Ed. by Kurt Wlfel. Vol. 1. Stuttgart 1974. Pp.
161347, here pp. 164166.
26
Ibid. Pp. 183, 188, 192.
27
Ibid. P. 214. For further discussion of the term fundus animae, taken from Garve,
see Wolfgang Riedel: Erkennen und Empfinden. Anthropologische Achsendrehung und

209
(2) Subject: Psychological Blicke in das Menschen-Herz
The restrictions in the relative validity of Garves criteria arise from the object
of the crime itself. Also this genre deals with mglichen Menschen der wirklichen Welt (Blanckenburg),28 who, due to unfortunate circumstances, have
become involved in criminal activity. Such anthropological interest is not
directed at the criminal act itself, but rather at the delinquents inner motivation, at the Quellen seiner Gedanken, not at the deeds Folgen, as Schiller
stresses in the preface to the Verbrecher (FA 7. 564). The separation of the
imputatio juridica from the imputatio moralis demanded by Meiners
strict differentiation zwischen dem Richter, der nach Thaten, und demjenigen
der nach dem Blick ins Innerste des Herzens urtheilt29 is the prerequisite for
the cool insight into the nature of man, which the doctor in Schiller unreservedly pursues. As in Die Ruber, Schiller is at pains to observe die Seele
gleichsam bei ihren geheimsten Operationen (FA 7. 15), an approach which
yields the most fruit, when dealing with Homo extremis. Moritz, therefore,
already discovers the Geschichte der Missetter und Selbstmrder as a
source of rich material30 for his project of establishing an empirical psychology. Schiller as Menschenforscher also places his full trust in documents
from Gefngnissen, Gerichtshfen und Kriminalakten and repeats almost
identical sentiments in the preface to the Verbrecher: In der ganzen Geschichte
des Menschen ist kein Kapitel unterrichtender fr Herz und Geist als die
Annalen seiner Verirrungen (FA 7. 562).
Using the programmatic title of Schillers dissertation, one might further argue
that crimes committed in the heat of passion are guided by the animal nature of
man, who has lost control of his intellectual nature. The consequences for the contemporary discussion regarding the inability to understand or take responsibility
for ones own actions, which was initiated by the new discipline of criminal psychology at the end of the eighteenth century,31 are obvious. While the dissertation
Wende zur sthetik bei Johann Georg Sulzer. In: Der ganze Mensch. Anthropologie
und Literatur im 18. Jahrhundert. Ed. by Hans Jrgen Schings. Stuttgart Weimar
1994. Pp. 410439.
28
Friedrich von Blanckenburg: Versuch ber den Roman. Faksimiledruck der
Originalausgabe von 1774. Mit einem Nachwort von Eberhard Lmmert. Stuttgart
1965. P. 257.
29
August Gottlieb Meiner: Ausgewhlte Kriminalgeschichten. Ed. by Alexander
Kosenina. St. Ingbert 2003. P. 10 (Vorrede von 1796).
30
Karl Philipp Moritz: Vorschlag zu einem Magazin einer Erfahrungs-Seelenkunde
[1782]. In: Werke in zwei Bnden. Ed. by Heide Hollmer and Albert Meier. Vol. 1.
Frankfurt/M. 1999. Pp. 793809, here pp. 793 and 796.
31
See Unzurechnungsfhigkeiten. Diskursivierungen unfreier Bewutseinszustnde
seit dem 18. Jahrhundert. Ed. by Michael Niehaus and Hans-Walter Schmidt-Hannisa.
Frankfurt/M. Berne 1998.

210
concerns itself solely with the principles of the psychophysical connection
between mind and body in the psychology of crime Schiller discovers a new
opportunity for the Menschenforscher, [] manche Erfahrung aus diesem
Gebiete in seine Seelenlehre herber[zu]tragen und fr das sittliche Leben [zu]
verarbeiten (FA 7. 562). In the announcement of the Rheinische Thalia in which
the Verbrecher aus Infamie was first published, the Gemlde merkwrdiger
Menschen und Handlungen is declared to be a main subject in order to keep the
magnetic needle pointed at the human heart. From here one could explore neugefundene Rder in dem unbegreiflichen Uhrwerk der Seele (NA 22. 95). Schiller
expands upon these thoughts in the preface to the tale about his vision of classifying people according to Trieben und Neigungen (FA 7. 563) on the model of
Carl von Linns classification of plants and animals. Such classification should
include also vices and deviations. Crucial to the Enlightenment understanding of
crime, or even of insanity, is the indisputable unity of human nature. In sharp contrast to Pitavals description of the perpetrator as a monster, who avoids all
questions for social and psychological causes,32 Schiller (like Meiner and others) speaks of dem Unglcklichen, der doch in eben der Stunde, wo er die Tat
beging, so wie in der, wo er dafr bet, Mensch war wie wir. He adheres to this,
even when the delinquent may appear to the angry, ignorant observer like ein
Geschpf fremder Gattung (FA 7. 563). Once again, Schillers preface to Pitaval
makes this point clearly: even the most intricate web of malice can work to the
advantage of Menschenkenntnis und Menschenbehandlung, if the inner
thoughts are allowed to reveal themselves (FA 7. 451).

(3) Method: The poetics of representation

Schillers poetics of crime clearly moves past the obvious technique of omission
as he says himself, die letzte Entwickelung zu verstecken und dadurch
die Erwartung aufs hchste zu treiben (FA 7. 451). He values the new aesthetics of representation, which in contrast to the report of an omniscient
narrator (a portrayal from outside, i.e. demonstratio) represents the innere
Geschichte des Menschen (Blanckenburg).33 This new understanding of
Darstellung brings the internal development of a character to life, supplying
him with his own voice and an individual body language (significatio).
Johann Georg Sulzer and Johann Jakob Engel term this Ausdruck in contrast to
Malerei. In the first instance the object itself is the primary focus; in the second,

32

Lsebrink (n. 4). P. 116.

Blanckenburg (n. 28). P. 391: Dem Romanendichter aber ist die Vernderung des
innern Zustandes seiner Personen eigenthmlich. Die innre Geschichte des Menschen,
die er behandelt, besteht aus einer Folge abwechselnder und verschiedener Zustnde.
33

211
the psychological disposition linked to the object moves into the foreground.34
In the suppressed preface to Die Ruber about the way he writes, which as
seen above is not limited to drama as a genre, Schiller uses a turn of phrase
about his literary technique, which indicates that he is familiar with this discourse.35 Of dramatic method, it says:
Da sie uns ihre Welt gleichsam gegenwrtig stellt, und uns die Leidenschaften und
geheimsten Bewegungen des Herzens in eigenen uerungen der Personen
schildert, so wird sie auch gegen die beschreibende Dichtkunst um so mchtiger
wrken, als die lebendige Anschauung krftiger ist, denn die historische Erkenntnis.
(FA 2. 161)

Dramatic method, self-representation, vivid imagination in contrast to

historical understanding the concept of the aesthetics of representation could
hardly be outlined more succinctly.36 Engel adds to this in his essay ber
Handlung, Gesprch und Erzehlung (1774) through the call for dramatisation
and dialogisation of prose. In this way characters are given their own authentic
voice and we can become witnesses to the gradual taking shape of their
thoughts and actions (Engels die Vernderungen werden sehen anticipates
almost Kleists sense of an allmhliche Verfertigung der Gedanken beim
Reden).37 Throughout Engels text this process, in which the seed of any given
action germinates and grows is highlighted by the use of bold type. This feature bears a striking resemblance to Schillers emphasised formulation in the
preface to Die Ruber, namely, that one should see the hero as seine
Handlung nicht blo vollbringen, sondern auch wollen (FA 7. 564). In order
for such performative representations to be expressed, Schiller uses modern literary techniques such as personal narrative stance, real-time speech or time
34

Johann Georg Sulzer: Allgemeine Theorie der schnen Knste. Vol. 1. Leipzig 1773.
Pp. 581582: Entweder hngt der Dichter dem Gegenstand allein nach, betrachtet ihn
von allen Seiten, und drkt durch die Rede das aus, was er sieht; oder er hngt nicht so
wol dem Gegenstand nach, der ihn rhret, als der Wrkung, die er davon empfindet. Im
erstern Fall mahlt der Dichter den Gegenstand, im andern seine Empfindung darber.
Eine dritte Art des Stoffs zum Gedicht, kann nicht erdacht werden. Johann Jakob
Engel: Ideen zu einer Mimik. Vol. 1. Berlin 1785. P. 79: Malerey ist mir auch hier
wieder jede sinnliche Darstellung der Sache selbst, welche die Seele denkt; Ausdruk
jede sinnliche Darstellung der Fassung, der Gesinnung, womit sie sie denkt.
35
The commentary in the Frankfurter Ausgabe (FA 2. 1117, 1119) rightly refers directly
to this.
36
See Dieter Schlenstedt: Art. Darstellung. In: sthetische Grundbegriffe. Historisches
Wrterbuch in sieben Bnden. Vol. 1. Ed. by Karlheinz Barck et al. Stuttgart Weimar
2000. Pp. 831875.
37
Johann Jakob Engel: ber Handlung, Gesprch und Erzhlung. Faksimiledruck der
ersten Fassung von 1774 aus der Neuen Bibliothek der schnen Wissenschaften und der
freyen Knste. Ed. by Ernst Theodor Voss. Stuttgart 1963. P. 15.

212
lapses.38 He quickly switches between the perspectives of the characters, the
narrator or the court, sometimes almost to the point of blurring the relationships between the pronouns. To assess what his beloved means, one has to
realise that only the hunter Robert calls the object of desire Hannchen,
whereas Christian Wolf addresses her as Johanne. The characters and the
narrators speech occasionally switch between one sentence and the next. In
addition, mood and tense change continually, allowing the present to make situations appear even more present and more general whereas the imperfect
allows the person reporting to interpret himself. The detailed slow-motion
used in the depiction of Wolfs fatal shot into his rival Robert is superb and
partly in the immediate present: a deadly coldness shoots through Wolfs
limbs, his arm trembles, his teeth clenched together like in a chilled fever, his
breath is congested. Rache und Gewissen rangen hartnckig und zweifelhaft,
eventually he hears himself like a stranger say Mrder, involuntarily he
lets out a nervous laugh. Es fing mir an, seltsam zu werden. [] Ich begriff
gar nicht, wie ich zu dieser Mordtat gekommen war (FA 7. 572573). Such
Schauer, die denjenigen ergreifen, der auf eine lasterhafte That ausgeht, oder
eben eine ausgefhrt hat, are also developed in the dissertation (FA 8. 146).

(4) Aim: The Enlightenment in legal matters the readers right,

selbst zu Gericht zu sitzen
Through the shift from outside to inside as a consequence of the aesthetics of
representation, the reader is given the chance to assume a completely new,
active role. Supplanting the commentating, moralising narrator, the recipient
can now become an expert, a juror or a philosophical doctor who forms his
own opinion. Schiller expressly promotes this perspective. The republikanische Freiheit des lesenden Publikums (FA 7. 564) is the highest good and must
be preserved. Its preservation is not ensured by Belehrung or a Schule der
Bildung, but rather by the evocation of curiosity. Whilst it should encourage
emotional sympathy, the readers cool thinking should not be corrupted durch
hinreienden Vortrag in the manner of the speaker or literary writer. On the
contrary, curiosity should serve as the instigator of the analytical insight of the
Geschichtsschreiber, into the unvernderliche Struktur der menschlichen
Seele and the unvernderlichen Bedingungen of the criminal act (FA 7. 564).
The old curiositas therefore undergoes not only reinterpretation in the secular
sense of the fathoming of hidden connections, but is also attracted sensuously

38

See Achim Aurnhammer: Engagiertes Erzhlen: Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre.
In: Schiller und die hfische Welt. Ed. by Achim Aurnhammer et al. Tbingen 1990. Pp.
254270.

213
by the strange, dark and mysterious39 Horaces prodesse unfolds into a skilfully disguised accompaniment to the delectare and movere. Like his later
theory of the sublime, Schillers poetics of crime is focused on a smooth mediation of the facultates inferiores with the facultates superiores (Baumgarten),
sensation with cognition (Herder), der tierischen Natur des Menschen mit
seiner geistigen (to quote again the title of Schillers dissertation).
In 1774 Blanckenburg also modified the principle of all writers, durch
Vergngen zu unterrichten, into a turning away from the didacticism and to
the inclusion of the reader. The poet, he explains: mu sich nicht geradewegs
zum Lehrer aufwerfen; noch weniger mssen es seine Personen. Wir selbst,
ohne sein Vordociren, mssen an ihm lernen knnen; und wir werden desto
sichrer und berer lernen, wenn wir Gelegenheit gehabt haben, durch sein
Werk unsre eignen Lehrmeister zu werden.40 Accordingly, correct and effective instructions can not be imposed from outside but, rather, can be achieved
in the process of independent thought, precisely along the lines of Lessings
well-known Enlightenment principle: Nicht die Wahrheit, in deren Besitz
irgend ein Mensch ist, oder zu seyn vermeynet, sondern die aufrichtige Mhe,
die er angewandt hat, hinter die Wahrheit zu kommen, macht den Werth
des Menschen.41 In the late Enlightenment period the realisation gradually
dawned that this independent process of reflection is most readily set in motion
when the index finger of didacticism is lowered.42 Its purpose may hide discreetly behind the desire to please and parade as an apparently coincidental
insight. Schiller explicitly allies himself with this strategy in the Pitaval preface. Entertainment as a genre is justified in his eyes, particularly when the
thinking of the reader is led with useful knowledge towards a noble goal. He is
not to be confronted only by closed court cases and unquestionable sentences,
but also by that Zweifelhaftigkeit der Entscheidung, welche oft den Richter in
Verlegenheit setzte (FA 7. 451).

(5) Style and genre: Entertainment with an impact on truth

In a letter to Krner regarding a jointly edited journal in June 1788, Schiller
reflects on the realisation that gaining a large readership is only possible by
using truly sensational and popular topics. He mentions geheime Chronicken,
39
U. Schnpflug: Art. Neugierde. In: Historisches Wrterbuch der Philosophie. Vol. 6.
Ed. by Joachim Ritter. Darmstadt 1984. Col. 732742.
40
Blanckenburg (n. 28). Pp. 249 and 253.
41
G. E. Lessing: Smtliche Schriften. Ed. by Karl Lachmann. 23 vols. Stuttgart
18861924. Vol. 13 (1897). Pp. 2324.
42
See Gisbert Ter-Nedden: Das Ende der Rhetorik und der Aufstieg der Publizistik. Ein
Beitrag zur Mediengeschichte der Aufklrung. In: Kultur und Alltag. Ed. by HansGeorg Soeffner. Gttingen 1988. Pp. 171190.

214
piquante Erzhlungen as well as das Bizarre und Fremde in general, for example Meissnerische Dialoge as well as erdichtete moralische Erzhlungen
(FA 11. 306307). In the same genre belongs Schillers Pitaval edition, which,
in his letter to Krner, he warmly recommended to Krners wife and sister-inlaw, presumably because it is best suited to entertaining ladies (FA 11. 610).
The preface begins with a long paragraph on entertaining (unterhalten) the
readership.43 Schiller has in mind the rapid increase of new audiences, which
he wishes to poach from mittelmigen Skribenten und gewinnschtigen
Verlegern with the intention of leading them to guten Schriftstellern zu
edleren Zwecken (FA 7. 449). Admittedly, his derogatory remarks on
Romane, dramatisierte Geschichten and the womens literature found in the
Lesebibliotheken (FA 7. 449) can be read as a mere advertising strategy. It is
directed against a competition which, in part, was to be taken very seriously.
Schiller is well versed in the field of entertainment literature. The same is true
of Heinrich von Kleist, who later ridiculed a library in Wrzburg because,
instead of Goethe, Schiller or Wieland, he could only find lauter
Rittergeschichten, rechts die Rittergeschichten m i t Gespenstern, links o h n e
Gespenster.44 Schiller knows that Meiners dramatised crime narratives or
Christian Heinrich Spies biographies of the insane and those who committed
suicide for example are essentially comparable with his poetics of crime.45 He
cannot, however, publicly acknowledge such similarly orientated, but incomparably successful authors. At most, he can assure them that he will learn from
their Kunstgriffe (FA 7. 450).
As a journal editor, Schiller has reluctantly to admit that without popular
authors, one cannot acquire new readers, or indeed keep existing ones. At a
later point, he does in fact invite a group of German popular-philosophers to
contribute to the Horen, a group with whom he ultimately shares more than he
wishes to admit. He calls upon Christian Garve in 1794, for example, to develop
das Verhltni des Schriftstellers zu dem Publikum und des Publikums zu
dem Schriftsteller from an anthropological point of view, since a majority of
people receive their education from reading (FA 11. 733). In doing so, Schiller
may have remembered Garves Gedanken ber das Interessierende, which
43

Only after the completion of my reflections an essay appeared which places this
aspect into the wider context of authorship, criminality and economics. Steffen Martus:
Verbrechen lohnt sich. Die konomie der Literatur in Schillers Verbrecher aus
Infamie. In: Euphorion 99 (2005). Pp. 243271.
44
Kleist to Wilhelmine von Zenge. 14.9.1800. In: Heinrich von Kleist: Smtliche Werke
und Briefe in vier Bnden. Vol. 4 (Briefe von und an Heinrich von Kleist 17931811).
Ed. by Klaus Mller-Salget and Stefan Ormanns. Frankfurt/M. 1997 (Bibliothek
deutscher Klassiker 122). P. 121.
45
See my introduction to the new edition of Christian Heinrich Spie: Biographien der
Selbstmrder. Gttingen 2005. Pp. 245271.

215
were outlined in section (1) above. The Pitaval edition prefaced by him points
in a similar direction, for it too, like other adaptations, follows this trend
towards popularising literature. The sole review, in the Gothaische gelehrte
Zeitung, states that in the interests of greater readability many details viele
zum Theil geschmackwidrige Verzierungen und Schnrkel (FA 7. 941) had
been excised.
In conclusion, the question still remains as to whether Schillers clear plea
for Enlightenment independence of thought present in his anti-didactic poetics
of crime is not actually contradicted by the morals stated at the conclusion of
Die Ruber and the Verbrecher aus Infamie. In both cases, the delinquents surrender themselves; they step in the dramatic words of the Ruber preface
wieder in das Geleise der Gesetze: Die Tugend geht siegend davon (FA 2. 19).
In the face of this apparent restoration of order, unease remains as to whether
this really arises so inevitably from the inner workings of the soul, or the pragmatic narrative technique to the total exposure of all psychological causes and
effects. Whether one deems the decisions of Karl Moor and Christian Wolf
heroic, sublime or simply affirmative, they still remain vexing. Ich will dem
Ausspruch des Lesers nicht vorgreifen (FA 7. 565) Schillers statement at
the beginning of his narrative reveals itself to be true for the Verbrecher aus
Infamie, but not for Die Ruber. The questionable moral outcome of the drama
is already anticipated in the preface. This formula can be extended to sum up
Schillers poetics of crime: create tension and excitement, understand the
crime, and let the reader be the judge.

216

Abb. 1 (Steckbrief) The original wanted poster for Friedrich Schwan of 1758
(Reutlingen Municipal Archive) illustrates Schillers playing with fact and fiction.
Der originale Steckbrief gegen Friedrich Schwan von 1758 (Stadtarchiv Reutlingen)
verdeutlicht Schillers Spiel mit Faktum und Fiktion.

217

Abb. 2 (Flugblatt) Woodcut by the Augsburg printer Lucas Schulte (1616) showing the
murders of family members, committed by the smith Michael Mosentheuer.
Der Holzschnitt des Augsburger Druckers Lucas Schultes aus dem Jahre 1616 zeigt
den mehrfachen Mord des Schmieds Michael Mosentheuer an Familienangehrigen.

This page intentionally left blank

Jeffrey L. High

Schiller, merely political Revolutions, the personal

Drama of Occupation, and Wars of Liberation*
The majority of Schillers dramatic works are informed first by the selection and mechanism of expository situation, namely, some form of private or public usurpation.
Beginning with Don Karlos (1787), Schiller employed the highly topical situation of
occupation as an expository conflict in five of his last six completed dramas, each of
which features a rapid transition from the situational exposition conflicts to the actual
personal main conflicts that replace them. In contrast to his often disorienting portrayal of morally ambivalent characters in the second through fourth acts of these
dramas, in the expository acts Schiller invokes occupation formulaicly to establish the
compelling initial moral cause of the occupied population and its representatives.

I.
In an article written for the centennial of Schillers death in 1905, Albert Pfister
drew a line of great war authors from Aeschylus to Shakespeare to Schiller and
cited Die Jungfrau von Orleans in posing the uncomfortable question: Was
ist unschuldig, heilig, gut, wenn es der Kampf nicht ist ums Vaterland? 1
Pfisters nationalistic lack of subtlety regarding the distinction between actual
war and the portrayal of a liberation movement for dramatic effect belies his
aesthetic insight. If, as Schiller wrote to Caroline von Beulwitz in 1788, Die
Geschichte ist berhaupt nur ein Magazin fr meine Phantasie [],2 then
Schiller was not merely flipping though the pages, but diligently seeking the
most effective dramatic devices and theatrical effects, sublime acts and tragic

Schillers texts are quoted whenever possible from Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe.
Ed. by Julius Petersen, Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff.
Quotations are identified by NA with volume and page numbers. Occasional reference
is made to Friedrich Schiller. Smtliche Werke. Ed. by Gerhard Fricke and Herbert G.
Gpfert. 5 vols. Munich: Hanser 1962. Quotations are identified by HA with volume
and page numbers.
1
Friedrich Schiller: Die Jungfrau von Orleans. Act II, scene 10. Qtd. in Albert Pfister:
Schiller als Kriegsmann. In: Marbacher Schillerbuch. Stuttgart Berlin: Cotta 1905.
Pp. 6172, here p. 61.
2
Letter to Caroline von Beulwitz. 10.12.1788. NA 25. 154.

220
pathos, to evoke the fear and sympathy of the audience.3 Indeed, in contrast to
Schillers consistent disorienting portrayal and scientific analysis of morally
ambivalent characters in the second through fourth acts of his dramas, and the
moral-political dead ends and triumphs characteristic of his final acts, in the
expository acts Schiller formulaicly invokes foreign occupation (often combined with native oppression) and nascent liberation movements, to establish
the compelling initial moral high ground of the general will of the occupied
population and its representatives.4 Beginning with Don Karlos (1787),
Schiller employed this highly topical situation of occupation as an expository
conflict in five of his last six completed dramas.
Whether or not, as Goethe remarked, Schiller was a new man every eight
days,5 the forked moral-aesthetic thesis of his drama-theoretical strategy
regarding the mechanisms of mere politics versus the act of liberation can be distilled from his earliest theoretical work Gehrt allzuviel Gte, Leutseeligkeit
und groe Freygebigkeit im engsten Verstande zur Tugend? (1779), where
Schiller first scoured history Ich schaue in die Geschichte (NA 20. 4) to
contrast political actions driven by perversions of reason (Ravaillac, Catilina,
Caesar) (NA 20. 5) with Socrates harmonic demonstration of entsetzliche
Freiheit (NA 20. 34) in reaction to practical necessity,6 and traced to his latest,
pre-eminently Ueber das Erhabene (1795). On another Schiller anniversary, in
1959, Walter Grossmann compared Schillers view of history in Ueber das
Erhabene, Schillers most mature and most concise formulation of his thoughts
on the historical world,7 and Otto Hintzes Zur Theorie der Geschichte. For
3
See Schillers letter to Goethe of 15.12.1797: Ich habe schon fters gewnscht, da
unter den vielen schriftstellerischen Spekulationen solcher Menschen, die keine andere
als kompilatorische Arbeit treiben knnen, auch einer darauf verfallen mchte, in alten
Bchern nach poetischen Stoffen auszugehen, und dabei einen gewissen Takt htte, das
Punctum saliens an einer an sich unscheinbaren Geschichte zu entdecken. [] Mir
deucht, ein gewisser Hyginus, ein Grieche, sammelte einmal eine Anzahl tragischer
Fabeln entweder aus oder fr den Gebrauch der Poeten. Solch einen Freund knnte ich
brauchen. NA 29. 169.
4
See Robert L. Jamisons discussion of Rousseau and the general will. Robert L.
Jamison. Politics and Nature in Schillers Fiesco and Wilhelm Tell. In: Friedrich
Schiller. Kunst, Humanitt und Politik in der spten Aufklrung. Ein Symposium. Ed.
by Wolfgang Wittkowski. Tbingen: Niemeyer 1982. Pp. 5968, here p. 65.
5
Alle acht Tage war er ein anderer und ein vollendeterer; jedesmal wenn ich ihn
wiedersah, erschien er mir vorgeschritten in Belesenheit, Gelehrsamkeit und Urteil.
Conversation with Eckermann. 18.1.1825. In: Johann Peter Eckermann. Gesprche mit
Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens. Ed. by Fritz Bergemann. 2 vols. Frankfurt/
M.: Insel 1981 (insel taschenbuch 500). Vol. 1. P. 133.
6
See Jeffrey L. High: Schillers Rebellionskonzept und die Franzsische Revolution.
Lewiston (NY): Mellen 2004. Pp. 2228.
7
Walter Grossmann: On Freedom and Necessity: Schillers and Hintzes Reflections on
the Historical World. In: Monatshefte 51 (1959). Pp 283291, here p. 283.

221
Hintze, as for Schiller, there are two strata of historical occurrences; one ruled
by the natural-instinctive factor (natrlich-triebhaft), including the eternal
struggle for existence, the other ruled by spiritual-cultural forces (geistigkulturell).8 Grossmann concludes of Schillers invocation of history: The
reflection on history is made as an incidental remark to bring out the importance of leading man to the sublime through poetic speculation, since empirical
life has so few examples to offer.9 In a phrase that describes Schillers portrayal of Socrates from 1779 as well as the subject at hand, Grossmann concludes: Well-doing is the order of the day; the categorical resistance to fate
wherever the moral law requires it.10 Here, the practical necessity of Schillers
earliest theoretical works converges with the moral-aesthetic of resistance in
Ueber das Erhabene. Schiller argues, as he did in the first Karlsschulrede, that
as an aesthetic phenomenon, the act of practical necessity, resistance to oppression, is sublime, and, conversely, in what Robert Jamison has called the eternal struggle of anti-nature and nature in Schillers works,11 abstract reason has
almost no positive results to show.12
When history does in fact produce those rare opportunities for sublime
action or for tragic pathos,13 it is foremost in struggles for hereditary rights and
wars for liberation. Whereas political events driven by personal disagreement,
reason, or personality (vernunftgeleitet) frequently displace the expository
situation and take center stage in Schillers dramas (i.e. Don Karlos),14
Schillers works are informed first by the selection and mechanism of expository situation, namely some form of private or public usurpation, that, even
portrayed in the smallest microcosm, affects a population as a whole.15 The
8

Ibid. P. 285.
Ibid. P. 284.
10
Ibid. P. 291.
11
See Jamison (n. 4). P. 64.
12
So weit die Geschichte bis jetzt gekommen ist, hat sie von der Natur (zu der alle
Affekte des Menschen zu zhlen werden mssen) weit grere Thaten zu erzhlen, als
von der selbststndigen Vernunft []. Ueber das Erhabene: NA 21. 49.
13
Aus diesem Gesichtspunct betrachtet [] ist mir die Weltgeschichte ein erhabenes
Object. Die Welt, als historischer Gegenstand, ist im Grunde nichts anders als der
Konflikt der Naturkrfte unter einander selbst und mit der Freyheit des Menschen und
den Erfolg dieses Kampfes berichtet uns die Geschichte. Ibid.
14
Schiller articulated this perversion from noble goal to tragic execution most clearly
in the eleventh of the Briefe ber Don Karlos in his explanation of Posas devolution
from idealist to narrow-minded conspirator: Durch praktische Gesetzte, nicht durch
geknstelte Geburten der theoretischen Vernunft soll der Mensch bei seinem moralischen Handeln geleitet werden. NA 22.171.
15
See David Pugh: I would submit that the dialectic of usurpation and insurrection provides a useful map to the terrain of Die Ruber, Don Carlos, Maria Stuart, and to a
lesser extent, of Wallenstein. David Pugh: Schiller and Revolution. In: The French
Revolution. Ed. by Gerhart Hoffmeister. Hildesheim: Olms 1989. Pp. 3150, here p. 42.
9

222
most demonstrable, accessible, and radically threatening such situation, that
which affects and threatens a group as diverse as a theater audience, is the loss
of autonomy through foreign occupation.
In his Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten Niederlande von der spanischen
Regierung (1788), Schiller articulates the dualistic distinction between the
drama of the individual in the affairs of state, that is, the historical action driven
by anti-nature (Vernunft) on the one hand, and nature (praktische Not) on
the other. Schillers approach to history as an aesthetic phenomenon makes the
concrete case that resistance born of practical necessity is more suited to elicit
a feeling of the sublime than are the most spectacular acts driven by reason:
Wenn die schimmernden Thaten der Ruhmsucht und einer verderblichen Herrschbegierde auf unsere Bewunderung Anspruch machen, wie viel mehr eine Begebenheit,
wo die bedrngte Menschheit um ihre edelsten Rechte ringt, wo mit der guten Sache
ungewhnliche Krfte sich paaren, und die Hlfsmittel entschloner Verzweiflung
ber die furchtbaren Knste der Tiranney in ungleichem Wettkampf siegen. (NA 17.10)

Tellingly, Schiller is not primarily interested in a moral-philosophical formula, but

in the aesthetic effect of the liberation movement unsere Bewunderung. From
a reception standpoint, both situations, the hunger for fame and power as well as
the struggle for autonomy, instill wonder in the reader or audience, but the liberation action die gute Sache more so. As unpredictable as the foreground events
are which drive the individual rebels, and as morally complicated as the main
characters may become in the course of their reactions, the basic situation of
tyrannical occupation, violation of hereditary rights, and liberation movement
that initially produces them is not. From a dramatic composition standpoint, the
backdrop of the war of liberation or rebellion against usurpation substitutes for the
classic congenital defect of, for example, a Richard III or a Franz Moor, as motivation and at least partial justification for what follows, only with one great
advantage: not only does the audience want Posas Netherlands, Joan of Arcs
France, and Tells Switzerland to liberate themselves, they both enter and leave
the theater fully aware that this was in fact the case, regardless of whether the
author intends to incorporate the final success into the story. From this point of
disembarkation, the fate of the main characters is rendered potentially great
and/or tragic firstly by the back story of their initial involvement in a just cause
and only then fulfilled by their contribution or alternately the damage that they
have done to the cause. If history indeed provides few examples of sublime
resistance, where die Not das Genie erschuf and Helden machte,16 Schiller
sought those few programmatically and mined them for the raw materials of
his dramas and historical works several of them repeatedly.

16

Abfall der Niederlande. NA 17. 1011.

223
II.
Before Schiller ever planned to write his first works as an historian, he served as
the editor of a planned multi-volume edition of essays on remarkable historical
rebellions and conspiracies. His call for contributions to Geschichte der merkwrdigsten Rebellionen und Verschwrungen aus den mittlern und neuern Zeiten
in the 18 October 1786 edition of the Gothaische gelehrte Anzeigen solicits historical essays depicting remarkable personal events, while dismissing merely
political revolutions: Blo politische Revolutionen werden ausgeschlossen
sein, Privatbegebenheiten hingegen, welche sich in dieser Gattung durch irgendeine interessante Merkwrdigkeit auszeichnen, darin aufgenommen werden
(HA 4. 1008).17 In a letter to Schiller of 11 May 1786, Ludwig Ferdinand Huber
provides insight into the literary-strategic motivation and focus implicit in
Schillers emphasis on peculiar private occurrences over merely political occurrences (within the notable rebellions and conspiracies), when he compares
Thomas Otways (165285) dramatisation of the Marquis Bedemar Venice conspiracy, Venice preservd, or a plot discovered (English 1676, German 1757) with
Abb St. Rals portrayal of the same in Conjuration des Espagnols contre la
rpublique de Venise en lanne MDCXVIII:
In der That, hab ich ie ein Faktum so beschrieben gelesen, dass es alle meine
Forderungen erfllte und einen wahren Enthusiasmus in meiner Seele zurckliesse,
so ist es diese Verschwrung von Saint Ral. [] Der Otway ist ein Wahrer Snder
da er diesen vortreflichen Stof so ganz und gar nicht gefat hat []. Dabei hab ich
auch gefhlt wie dankbar fr den Erzhler ein solches einzelnes Faktum aus der
Geschichte wuchert, das so meteorisch hervorleuchtet und dem das Schiksal selbst
so bequeme Schranken gesezt hat, da es da steht und zu warten scheint bis es aus
dem Chaos der Weltgeschichte hervorgerissen wird. Vorzglich macht es einen
interessanten Anblik mit welcher Zauberei ein grosses weitlufiges Verbrechen wie
dieses, so gewaltige Krfte wekt und in Thtigkeit sezt die gewis ohne dasselbe ewig
geschlafen htten. Aus dem unscheinbarsten, grbsten Stoff wchst oft kolossalische Grsse hervor wenn das Schiksal nur den Samen dazu hineingeworfen hat.
[] er spinnt ihre Handlungen aus ihrer eigenen Seele heraus [] Kurz, ich mchte
noch eine Verschwrung erleben. (NA 33/I. 99100)

Otways sin as narrator lies in his inability to extract the meteorlike glow of
such an exceptional historic event in all its fateful poignancy and simplicity from
the chaos of history, and in his failure to articulate to his readers why it is in fact
so exceptional.18 St. Rals version, on the other hand, has fulfilled all of Hubers
demands and left him thankful and with a true enthusiasm of the soul. In his
response of 17 May 1786, Schiller applauds Hubers discovery and encourages
him to continue to investigate the vergeene[n] Perle[n] in dem Reich der
17
18

See also NA 19/I. 184.

Otway also wrote a drama entitled Don Carlos (1676).

224
Geschichte (NA 24. 54). From the context of Schillers description of the project
and his reply to Hubers letter, it is evident that human interest and the potential
to excite readers, not historical significance that is, innere Wahrheit, die
philosophische und knstlerische Wahrheit, not die historische, as he wrote in
a letter to Caroline von Beulwitz in 1788 is the first goal of Schillers project.19
The conspiracy volume appeared at the end of October 1788 comprising
three essays, two by Huber and one by Schillers brother-in-law William
Reinwald.20 The titles of the three works confirm the influence of St. Ral (and
Lessing) and establish the consistent focus of the works as the drama of the
individual before the backdrop of a liberation movement, each title comprising
an historical uprising attached to the name of the lead conspirator.21 Schiller
confirms this focus in a letter to Reinwald, in which he somewhat emptily compliments Reinwalds historical accuracy: Mit Deiner Verschwrung bin ich recht
gut zufrieden. Sie ist einfach, gedrngt; ein bischen weniger Gewienhaftigkeit
und historische Treue htte sie vielleicht anziehender gemacht, und um dewillen
19
Schiller goes on: [] Ich werde immer eine schlechte Quelle fr einen knftigen
Geschichtsforscher sein, der das Unglck hat, sich an mich zu wenden. Aber ich werde
vielleicht auf Unkosten der historischen Wahrheit Leser und Hrer finden und hie und
da mit jener ersten, philosphischen zusammentreffen. Die Geschichte ist berhaupt nur
ein Magazin fr meine Phantasie, und die Gegenstnde mssen sich gefallen lassen,
was sie unter meinen Hnden werden. Letter to Caroline von Beulwitz. 10.12.1788.
NA 25. 154. See also Ueber das Pathetische: Noch mehr wird man sich davon
berzeugen, [] wie wenig die poetische Kraft des Eindrucks, den sittliche Karaktere
oder Handlungen auf uns machen, von ihrer historischen Realitt abhngt. Unser
Wohlgefallen an idealischen Karakteren verliert nicht durch die Erinnerung, da sie
poetische Fiktionen sind, denn es ist die poetische, nicht die historische Wahrheit, auf
welche alle sthetische Wirkung sich grndet. Die poetische Wahrheit besteht aber
nicht darinn, da etwas wirklich geschehen ist, sondern darinn, da es geschehen
konnte []. NA 20. 218.
20
The contents included: I. Revolution in Rom durch Nikolaus Rienzi, im Jahre 1347;
II. Verschwrung des Marquis von Bedemar gegen die Republik Venedig, im Jahre
1618 (nach St. Real); and III. Die Verschwrung der Pazzi wider die Medici in Florenz
im Jahre 1478. NA 19/I. 184. Schiller described the contents in a later announcement,
explaining that yet a fourth history intended for this volume, that of Fiesko in Genua,
would be postponed for the second volume due to space considerations, though this
second volume never materialised. The few letters surrounding Hubers questionable
rise to editor of the second volume are of anecdotal interest. See Schillers letter to
Crusius of 21.2.1792. NA 26. 134. Hubers involvement in a truly peculiar rebellion,
the Mainz Republic, in effect ended the project. Schiller himself continued to investigate tales of rebellion for Gschens series of historical calendars.
21
See NA 19/I. 370. Schiller continued in this vein in a letter of 6.11.1792 when he
asked Krner to write a history of the Kromwellische Revolution. NA 26. 164. In
this regard, Schillers interest parallels that of his immediate inspiration, St. Ral
(163992), whose historical novels exhibited a clear, almost anecdotal primacy of
character and situation over relative historical significance or indeed accuracy.

225
htte ich sie Dir vergeben. So aber hat sie das Verdienst strenger Wahrheit, und
dem mu dann der Flitterruhm des anderen weichen (NA 25. 78). Schillers faint
praise obscures his point; Reinwald had failed at the primary task, politely
restated here by Schiller as that of making the conspiracy more attractive
through less conscientiousness and historical accuracy. In short, Reinwald had
come close to writing a merely political report on what could have become a
compelling and intimate moral intrigue before the backdrop of an historical
liberation movement.

III.
Die Verschwrung des Fiesko zu Genua, one of the most political and perhaps
least morally compelling of Schillers dramas (along with Wallenstein), which
prefigures the conspiracy volume already in the form of its title, was outfitted
with a foreword addressing specifically the difference between merely political and exceptional private occurrences:
Wenn es wahr ist, da nur Empfindung Empfindung wekt, so mte, ducht mich,
der politische Held in eben dem Grade kein Subjekt fr die Bhne seyn, in welchem
er den Menschen hintansezen mu, um der politische Held zu seyn. Es stand []
bei mir [] die kalte unfruchtbare Staatsaktion aus dem menschlichen Herzen herauszuspinnen, und eben dadurch an das menschliche Herz wieder anzuknpfen
den Mann durch den Staatsklugen Kopf zu verwikeln []. Mein Verhltni mit der
brgerlichen Welt macht mich auch mit dem Herzen bekannter als dem Kabinett,
und vielleicht ist eben diese politische Schwche zu einer poetischen Tugend
geworden. (NA 4. 910)22

Fiesko, as well as Schillers other dramas of the native political conspirator,

provides a significant link to the majority of Schillers dramas that disembark
from an occupation by foreign usurpers. As Lesley Sharpe has pointed out,
Fiesko has the distinction of being the only so-called historical drama to be
written before Schillers serious study of history, and to display a clear focus on
character portraiture over situation, which is further evidence of Schillers
desire to drag the historical Fiesko from his merely political into Schillers
moral-aesthetic realm.23 Tellingly, the exchange of political weakness for
poetic virtue, the attempt to shift the focus from the merely political to a portrayal of the plausible practical necessity of Fieskos conspiracy, begins with
Fieskos initial role as a rebel against the ostensible usurper, the republican
doge Doria. More specifically, Fiesko first appears as a rebel against Dorias
22
I have italicised the words politisch, kalt, and Staatsaktion to facilitate comparison of this text with a later letter by Schiller regarding Wallenstein.
23
See Lesley Sharpe: Schiller and the Historical Character: Presentation and Interpretation in the Historiographical Works and in the Historical Dramas. Oxford:
Clarendon Press 1982. P. 6.

226
despotic nephew Gianettino,24 with the only visible goal of a somewhat preemptive liberation from the rising despot and already rapist Gianettino and
restoration of the threatened republic. Thus, the initial conflict of the exposition
is a just conspiracy against the threat of despotism to what remains of once republican institutions. Beginning with Fiesko, however, the majority of Schillers
dramas exhibit a bait and switch strategy, featuring a rapid transition from
the situational exposition conflicts (practical necessity vs. cold affairs of state) to
the actual personal main conflicts that replace them (the flawed individuals who
react to the situation). In Fiesko, Schiller begins with a conflict that will appeal
to the broadest audience and proceeds to the plausible collapse of the rebellion
due to the very characters who pursue it.25
Over a decade later, the one drama perhaps most informed by Schillers historical studies quite literally evokes the same discomfort with a merely political tale of the cold affairs of state. In a letter to Christian Gottfried Krner
of 28 November 1796, Schiller wrote of Wallenstein:
Der Stoff ist, ich darf wohl sagen, im hchsten Grade ungeschmeidig fr einen
solchen Zweck, er hat beynahe alles, was ihn davon ausschlieen sollte. Es ist im
Grund eine Staatsaction und hat, in Rcksicht auf den poetischen Gebrauch, alle
Unarten an sich, die eine politische Handlung nur haben kann, ein unsichtbares
abstractes Objekt, kleine und viele [Schillers italics] Mittel, zerstreute Handlungen,
[] eine (fr den Vortheil des Poeten) viel zu kalte, trockene Zweckmigkeit ohne
doch diese bi zur Vollendung und dadurch zu einer poetischen Gre zu treiben;
denn am Ende mislingt der Entwurf doch nur durch Ungeschicklichkeit. [] Mit
einem Wort, es ist mir fast alles abgeschnitten, wodurch ich diesem Stoffe nach
meiner gewohnten Art beykommen knnte [] (NA 29. 17)

Here Schiller employs precisely the same terms, kalt, politisch, and
Staatsaktion, with which he described the challenge of Fiesko twelve years earlier, and which correspond to the merely political revolutions paradigm of 1788.
Again, Schiller points out the problem inherent to writing the tragedy of a scheming historical national political failure, namely, the primacy of the political exposition conflict (tyranny, conspiracy, rebellion) and subsequent lack of tragic depth,
in short, the lack of the eternal struggle of anti-nature and nature.26
24

See Jamison (n. 4). P. 62.

This is a process that dashes the hopes in a number of the dramas, and one could
argue that a similar dynamic muddies the outcome of Wilhelm Tell.
26
Jamison (n. 4). P. 64. Certainly, Schiller himself wrote a significant number of dramas
that portray the political individual in a foremost political context in a clearly political
form of rebellion. However, due to the human interest story, that is, the situation and
character studies, in Fiesko, Don Karlos, Maria Stuart and Wallenstein, these are not
merely political actions when Schiller is finished with them. Significantly, all four of
the dramas have in common that each of the main characters is either initially introduced as a victim of a usurper or occupier or represents a larger group of victims before
their personal actions bring about the actual drama.
25

227
The dramaturgic challenge of the progression from Staatsaktion to poetischer Gre presented by Wallenstein mirrors that cited by Schiller in his discussion of Fiesko, the progression from Staatsaktion to poetische Tugend. In
both Fiesko and Wallenstein, Schiller explores similar and, for him, familiar complexities of moral ambivalence and the often hopeless entanglements of history,
but not nach meiner gewohnten Art.27 The phrase nach meiner gewohnten Art
is significant, since it implies a theater-strategic link to at least some of the earlier
works, in which the concrete violation of the protagonists autonomy is in the
foreground. Indeed, though the same complexity of the potentially destructive
aspects of the idealist hero28 is common to Fiesko and Wallenstein; as well as to
the historical works such as Abfall der Niederlande and Des Grafen Lamoral von
Egmont Leben und Tod, and to the occupation and liberation dramas to be
discussed; the latter play out before a morally uncomplicated indeed, onesidedly natural and moral backdrop, the practical necessity of liberation from
a foreign oppressor. With this established context, Posa as representative of the
Netherlands, Joan of Arc, Tell et al., are free to be as tragically flawed as the
dramatist wants them to be, since the ostensible end of the original project
remains morally compelling regardless of individual intentions and means.29
Here, their imperfections serve to humanise and simultaneously depoliticise the
protagonists, since it situates them and their ideals in a familiar camp with everyone else who acts out of conviction; perhaps noble, but with a limited and selfrighteous perspective, and likely to violate the autonomy of others.30

27
Herbert Lindenberger: Historical Drama. The Relation of Literature and Reality.
Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press 1975. P. 37. See also Sharpe (n. 23).
P. 7.
28
Sharpe (n. 23). P. 9.
29
In his negative analysis of the flawed revolutionary and conspiratorial characters in
his own works (Karl Moor, Fiesko, Posa, Wallenstein), and in his criticism of the historical French Revolution, Schiller displays a consistently ambivalent attitude toward
political revolution. Conversely, Schiller has only praise for historical wars of liberation.
30
Schiller describes this phenomenon in the eleventh of the Briefe ber Don Karlos:
Nennen Sie mir [] den Ordensstifter oder auch die Ordensverbrderung selbst, die
sich bei den reinsten Zwecken und bei den edelsten Trieben von Willkrlichkeit
in der Anwendung, von Gewaltttigkeit gegen fremde Freiheit, von dem Geiste der
Heimlichkeit und der Herrschsucht immer rein erhalten htte? Die bei Durchsetzung
eines, von jeder unreinen Beimischung auch noch so freien moralischen Zweckes,
insofern sie sich nmlich diesen Zweck als etwas fr sich Bestehendes denken und ihn
in der Lauterkeit erreichen wollten, wie er sich ihrer Vernunft dargestellt hatte, nicht
unvermerkt wren fortgerissen worden, sich an fremder Freiheit zu vergreifen, die
Achtung gegen Anderer Rechte, die Ihnen sonst immer die heiligsten waren, hintanzusetzen und nicht selten den willkrlichsten Despotismus zu ben, ohne den
Zweck selbst umgetauscht, ohne in ihren Motiven ein Verderbnis erlitten zu haben.
NA 22. 171172. See also Sharpe (n. 23). P. 20.

228
IV.
Schillers interest in usurpation, occupation, Belagerung, and liberation movements, as well as that of his audience, was not limited to moral-aesthetic formulae and drama theory. On the contrary, it was mirrored by current world events
and colored by intimate personal experience. Schillers own contribution to
Geschichte der merkwrdigsten Verschwrungen und Rebellionen was to be a history of the Dutch War of Liberation against Spain, or as Schiller called it in letters
to Crusius, meine Rebellion.31 However, after having read parts of his essay to
friends, Schiller suddenly asked Crusius to publish Abfall der Niederlande as a
separate book, and simultaneously raised the price. Published in 1788, Abfall der
Niederlande along with the nearly synchronous Don Karlos, became the first two
in a long run of Schillers works to be driven firstly by the context of foreign occupation and war of liberation, with a conscious and important link to Schillers
own time and the autonomy discourse of the late eighteenth century. In the
foreword to Abfall der Niederlande (1788), Schiller concluded his introduction
to the history of the Dutch war of liberation with a decidedly rebellious declaration: Die Kraft also, womit es handelte, ist unter uns nicht verschwunden;
der glckliche Erfolg, der sein Wagestck krnte, ist auch uns nicht versagt,
wenn die Zeitlufte wiederkehren und hnliche Anlsse uns zu hnlichen Taten
rufen (NA 17.11). The often misunderstood line has a clear frame of reference
in the context of the text; similar impulses refers to foreign occupation and its
traditional familiars, oppression, intolerance, mistreatment, and the general loss
of hereditary rights to at least one unattractive traditional mode of selfdetermination, even if that is only absolutism from within. Here, through the
power of Vereinigung (NA 17. 10), wo die Not das Genie erschuf, und die
Zuflle Helden machte (NA 17. 11), ein friedfertiges Fischer- und
Hirtenvolk (ibid.) free themselves from foreign yoke. In the Dutch context,
this results in the formerly splintered provinces forming a newly unified republic. Thus, the line wenn [] hnliche Anlsse uns zu hnlichen Taten rufen
(ibid.) in Abfall der Niederlande describes a violation of hereditary rights by a
foreign occupier, unity through practical necessity, and war of liberation.
As an isolated statement, Schillers provocative proclamation of the modern
readers potential to achieve the nave heroism of the Dutch rebels would constitute a perhaps unremarkable contribution to the canon of Age of Revolution
rhetorical flourishes. However, the right to the war of liberation and the belief
in the healing power of national war against oppressors informs not only
Schillers historical works but also his letters and the philosophical and dramatic works dating back to his college years. By the time of his writing of the
Abfall der Niederlande, the 28-year-old Schiller could look back on a decade
31

Letter to Crusius. 5.11.1787. NA 24. 175176. See also NA 19/I. 360.

229
of his own thoughts revolving around the subject of occupation and liberation.
During his studies and the period of his friendship with revolutionary Stuttgart
publisher Christian Daniel Friedrich Schubart, Schiller wrote his first dissertation, Philosophie der Physiologie (1779), in which he described the human
mind and association: Gesezt also ich sehe das Meer. Das Meer erinnert mich an
ein Schif. Das Schif an den amerikanischen Krieg (NA 20. 24). For Schiller,
the American War is more than a mere historical allusion. Four years later, as
he begins work on Don Karlos, in a letter to Henriette von Wolzogen of 8
January 1783, Schiller declares that he intends to move to the United States if
the War of Independence is successful: Wenn Nordamerika frei wird, so ist es
ausgemacht, da ich hingehe (NA 23. 60).32 In his third drama, Kabale und
Liebe (1784), Schiller portrayed the historical Ochsenfurt Mutiny of German
mercenaries of 10 May 1777, ending with the troops ironic recognition of
defeat, Juchhe nach Amerika! (NA 5. 2829), invoking the sale of German
mercenaries to Britain and their bleak prospects in North America.33
In Schillers fourth drama Don Karlos (1787), written between 1783 and
1787, in the wake of the American War of Independence and Schillers notion to
travel to North America, Marquis Posa speaks to Philipp II of his dream vision
of a new state, at once pleading for a more humane Spain and prophesying the
Union of Utrecht in 1579, the Oath of Abjuration in 1581 (the precursor to the
American Declaration of Independence), and the Dutch War of Independence in
1588, through which the seven previously distinct northern Low Countries
formed the Republic of the United Netherlands. It takes Posa thirteen lines
sixty-nine words to get to this point in Act I, scene 2; [ein] unterdrcktes
32
In 1785 Schiller met with Major Heinrich von Kalb, who observed the American War
of Independence as a French officer. Ursula Wertheim wrote in 1967 that Kalb reported
his recent first-hand observations of the American War of Independence to Schiller:
Die Wendung des dritten Fiesko-Schlusses, die 1785 entstand, bekundet bereits das
neue Interesse fr die Rolle der Volksmassen in der Geschichte, das die aktuellen revolutionren Ereignisse in Nordamerika noch besonders erhht hatten. Durch Major von
Kalb hatte Schiller aus dem Munde eines Kriegsteilnehmers ber die Ereignisse einen
Augenzeugenbericht erhalten. Die sogenannten Rebellen hatten bewiesen, da
Kmpfe, die als nationale Verteidigungs- und Unabhngigkeitskriege gefhrt werden
mssen, von einer breiten patriotischen Volksbewegung getragen sind. Staunend hatte
die Welt gesehen, wie diese unvorbereiteten, schlecht gersteten Kolonisten acht Jahre
lang unverdrossen ihre konomische und politische Unabhngigkeit verteidigten und
das Gesetz des Handelns diktierten. Diese aktuellen Erfahrungen und Erkenntnisse
wirkten sich neben dem Studium der vergangenen Geschichte auf die Gestaltung des
groen Freiheitsdramas [Don Karlos] aus. Ursula Wertheim: Friedrich Schiller.
Dichter der Nation. 17591805. Berlin: Verlag Neues Leben 1967. Pp. 2930.
33
See Horst Dippel: Germany and the American Revolution, 17701800: A Sociohistorical Investigation of Late Eighteenth-Century Political Thinking. Trans. by
Bernhard A. Uhlendorf. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press 1977. P. 124.

230
Heldenvolk has sent him as Abgeordneter der ganzen Menschheit to save them
from Fanatismus and spanischen Gesetzen (NA 6. 16). The Posa-Philipp
audience scene also mirrors the then recent attempts of Thomas Jefferson and
Benjamin Franklin in print and in person to convince George III of a similar
inevitability, couched likewise in the thesis of the violation of hereditary rights
and the right to choose another form of rule.34 Thus in Don Karlos, the dramatic
backdrop (the Netherlands) and immediate historical backdrop (the American
War of Independence) are two wars of liberation, in which formerly divided
provinces unite to end foreign rule and form new republics.35
If Spanish occupations provide the most prominent literary foils (while a
British colonial war resonates behind them) for the first decade of Schillers
portrayal of liberation movements, French occupations provide either the dramatic or immediate historical backdrop for his last decade. After several years
of conspicuous silence, Schiller had mostly only negative things to say about
the French Revolution, revealing three primary concerns; violence, violations
of the young French constitutions, and the threat to German autonomy. His letters on his plan to write a defense of Louis XVI in the fall of 179236 make clear
his concern that the unconstitutional trial and violence of the revolution will
negate its greatest accomplishment by ignoring its own constitution in its first
important tests of constitutional resolve.37 During this same period, Schillers
selection of historical sources bears witness to a steady feel for the pulse of the
present. His impassioned letter to Gschen of 14 October 1792 to request that
the pro-revolutionary and religious Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi not be chosen

34

See Jeffrey L. High: Edinborough Williamsburg Ludwigsburg. From Teaching

Jefferson and Schiller Scottish Enlightenment-Happiness to the American War and
Don Karlos. In: Jahrbuch fr Internationale Germanistik, Reihe A, Band 72. Berne:
Lang 2005. Pp. 281314.
35
From the same period and research, if on a smaller scale, Schillers historical anecdote, Herzog von Alba bei einem Frhstck auf dem Schlosse zu Rudolstadt im Jahr
1547 (1788), revolves around the unfailing courage (entschlossener Mut) of the
heroine, Duchess Katharina von Schwarzburg, in morally upstaging the terrible Duke
Alba and the occupying Spanish army. In response to the mistreatment of local peasants, Katharina invites Alba and his officers to breakfast, then holds them at gunpoint
until the peasants cattle are returned. NA 16. 32.
36
See Jeffrey L. High: Schillers Plan, Ludwig XVI. in Paris zu verteidigen. In:
Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft 39 (1995). Pp. 178194.
37
As the National Assembly member Morrisson put it: If we want to punish him
[Louis Capet] under new laws, then through him we will become no less murderers
than he. This Girondist position clearly parallels Schillers constitutional positions,
whereas the idea of progress at any price contrasted with Schillers concepts of civilisation, social contract, and human rights. See Jeffrey L. High: Schiller, the French
Revolution, and the Sources. In: Die Goethezeit: Werke Wirkung Wechselbeziehungen.
Ed. by Jeffrey L. High. Gttingen: Schwerin Verlag 2001. Pp. 100141, esp. pp. 117118.

231
to write an article on the Reformation at this critical point in the reception of
the French Revolution states that the eventual author could play a world historical role at this point in history (NA 26. 158159). Less than a month later,
on 6 November 1792, Schiller writes to Krner in very similar terms that
Krner should write a history of the Kromwellrevolution in England, also for
Gschens calendar, this time also with a reference to its importance gerade in
der jetztigen Zeit (NA 26. 164).38 This is evidence of a pattern to the choice
of historical materials, based on present relevance that is consistent with the
earlier and later dramas involving occupation and liberation movements.
Not surprisingly, Schillers interest in modern France and French involvement in occupation as a metanarrative subject increases in the wake of the invasion and ostensible liberation, then occupation of Mainz and the declaration of
the Mainz Republic under Georg Forster. Schiller and his circle were appalled
by the Mainz occupation for a number of reasons that Schiller, Wilhelm von
Humboldt, and Krner39 articulate as the loss of national sovereignty, violence,
and the hypocrisy of a feigned constitutional mission as justification for abetting an invasion. In a letter to Krner of 21 December 1792, Schiller wrote:
Forsters Betragen wird gewi von jedem gemibilligt werden; und ich sehe voraus,
da er sich mit Schande und Reue aus dieser Sache ziehen wird. Fr die Mainzer
kann ich mich gar nicht interessiren; denn alle ihre Schritte zeugen mehr von einer
lcherlichen Sucht sich zu signalisieren, als von Gesunden Grundstzen, mit denen
sich ihr Betragen gegen die Andersdenkenden gar nicht reimt. (NA 26. 171)

There is no ambivalence toward the French occupation, as Schiller wrote to

Gschen on 15 March 1793: Wir wollen hoffen, da Ihnen [den Franzosen]
das deutsche Brod bald verleidet werden soll (NA 26. 232). Similarly, Goethe
spent a very unhappy winter on the French border chronicling the battles that
dislodged the French Revolutionary occupation of the West bank of the Rhine,
eventually leading to the short-lived Peace Treaty of Basle of 15 April 1795,
which secured the ceasefire between Prussia and France. In spite of Schillers
explicit hopes,40 for most of the German-speaking states the treaty was of little
long-term consequence. In the summer of 1796, Schiller produced a series of
letters to Goethe and others on the renewed French occupation in southern
Germany, documenting his personal thoughts on foreign occupation. In early

38

See High (n. 6). Pp. 6364.

Krner wrote to Schiller of Forsters involvement in the Mainz Republic: Meines
Erachtens wre es ein sehr unkluger Streich. NA 34/I. 208.
40
See Schillers letter to Krner of 5.4.1795: Hier spricht man sehr decidiert da zwischen Preussen, Hannover, Cassel und den Franzosen der Friede geschloen sey. []
Die Nachricht ist von einer sonst guten Quelle. Mchte sie wahr seyn, so wre bald eine
Nachfolge vom ganzen Deutschland zu hoffen. NA 27. 171.
39

232
July, French troops commandeered the Solitude residence of Duke Carl Eugen
in Stuttgart, where Schiller had once studied, and where his family had now
taken refuge from the French. In his letter to Goethe of 23 or 25 July 1796,
Schiller describes the march of French troops into Stuttgart: Die politischen
Dinge, denen ich so gern immer auswich, rcken einem doch noch gerade sehr
zu Leibe. Die Franzosen sind in Stuttgardt, wohin die Kaiserlichen sich
anfangs geworfen haben sollen, so da jene die Stadt beschieen muten
(NA 28. 269). On 25 July, Schiller hears from Dannecker in Stuttgart: Es frchtet
sich jederman vor den Franzosen (NA 36/I. 245) and Cotta writes almost
daily of the worsening situation. On 31 July, Schiller wrote to Goethe that he
had no idea where his family was (NA 28. 275). In a letter of 20 July 1796,
Schillers sister Christophine details how the Schiller family, including the terminally ill father, packed their valuables, but could not flee due to the fathers
condition. On 1819 July, she reports, French troops plundered the city, poked
the Schillers with rifles and stole some of the clothing right off their bodies,
and Schillers sisters spent a day hiding in a cave to avoid being raped
(NA 36/I. 277278). Christophine goes on in a letter of 21 and 22 July to
describe the indignities of the occupation, including the theft of a blind beggars shoes (NA 36/I. 280). In a letter to Reinwald of 15 August 1796, Schiller
reports that Schwaben und Franken von Soldaten wimmeln and that his sister Christophine could not travel ohne Gefahr der rgsten Mihandlungen
(NA 28. 286).41 Not surprisingly, the occupation and plunder of the region
where Schiller grew up and his family lived, combined with later cases of
Roheit and Vandalism der Franzosen (NA 29. 193),42 failed to light a
flame under Schillers love for the French concept of German liberation.43
In September 1796, Goethe and Schillers parodistic distichs, the Xenien,
were published, including Schillers scathing, if also humorous attacks on erstwhile literary ally Georg Forsters involvement in the French occupation of
Mainz. The overwhelming thrust of the Forster-Xenien is Schillers concern for
German autonomy. The title of one of the most biting, Phlegyasque miserrimus
omnes admonet,44 refers to the warning of punishment in hell in the sixth book
of Virgils Aeneid, where it reads: To tyrants others have their country sold,
41
It is important to note that at this time, Christophine did not want to return to
Reinwald, and that Schiller may have been using the French occupation as an excuse
for postponing his sisters return. Schillers arguments are nonetheless consistent with
his other statements on the French occupation of Stuttgart.
42
Schiller refers again to the French habit of filling their museums with war booty in
his poem fragment Deutsche Gre. NA 2/IIB. 261.
43
Schillers many letters on the topic during 1796 include those of 22 July to Cotta
(NA 28. 267), 23 July to Krner (NA 28. 270), to Luise von Lengefeld of 26 July
(NA 28. 272) and of 15 August to Reinwald (NA 28. 285).
44
Phlegyasque miserrimus omnes admonet: O ich Tor! Ich rasender Tor! Und rasend
ein jeder, / Der, auf des Weibes Rat horchend, den Freiheitsbaum pflanzt! NA 1. 351.

233
Imposing foreign lords, for foreign gold.45 Thus, Forster endangered the autonomy of his own countrymen and subsequently, Schiller implies, went to hell
after his death in 1794. Importantly, Schillers criticism is not an example of his
oft-invoked lack of insight into the significance of the French Revolution of
1789 (practical necessity), which is a very different topic than a military invasion of a German state in 1792 (cold affair of state). On the contrary, his focus
is exclusively on the collaboration of a German with an invading occupying
force concerned primarily with expansion and national defense, if under the
guise of regime change and constitutionalism.46

V.
Schillers concrete discussions of occupation in the aftermath of the French occupation of Mainz come just before his work on a series of dramas that take place
before the backdrop of occupation and liberation. In the specific context of
French occupation, the prologue to Wallenstein, which was written in October
1798, is incomprehensible without knowledge of recent French aggression; the
rise of Napoleon to commander in Italy in 1796, the invasions of Italy, Hesse,
Franconia and southern Germany, then Mainz again in 1797 and Egypt in 1798:47
Und jetzt an des Jahrhunderts ernstem Ende,
Wo selbst die Wirklichkeit zur Dichtung wird,
Wo wir den Kampf gewaltiger Naturen
Um ein bedeutend Ziel vor Augen sehn,
Und um der Menschheit groe Gegenstnde,
Um Herrschaft und um Freiheit wird gerungen,
Jetzt darf die Kunst auf ihrer Schattenbhne
Auch hhern Flug versuchen, ja sie mu,
Soll nicht des Lebens Bhne sie beschmen. (NA 8. 45)

Read to the public at the performance on 12 October 1798 at the reopening of

the Weimar Theater, the timely implication is that the struggle for power and
45

vendidit hic auro patriam dominumque potentem / inposuit; [] Virgil, Aeneid. Trans.
by John Dryden. The Harvard Classics, Vol. 13. New York: P.F. Collier & Son 1909. Cf.
NA 2/II. xxx: Dieser verkaufte fr Gold sein Vaterland, half dem Tyrannen / also zur
Macht [].
46
Importantly, the Xenien that do in fact target German supporters of the French
Revolution have one important universal commonality; the target of each of them was
not only a supporter of the French Revolution in 1789, a position shared by many of
Schiller and Goethes closest friends and collaborators, but a supporter of the idea of an
imported French Revolution for the German states between 1792 and 1796, a position
long since abandoned by most.
47
The Hanser edition concludes that this does not mean Napoleon, since Goethe had
described General Dumouriez in similar terms to Meyer in a letter of 6.7.1797. HA 2.
1237. Although there is no reason why it cannot refer to both, it is entirely more likely
that it refers to Napoleon. See also Pfister (n. 1). P. 70.

234
for freedom is that between the French armies and anyone who happens to be
in their way, including foremost the German states. Having established yet
another link between current events and his war dramas, it is unavoidable that
Schillers late dramas from this point on will be informed, if not inspired, by the
series of occupations and struggles for freedom from occupation that ensue.48
Wallenstein becomes the second after Don Karlos in a series of five out of six
consecutive dramas to begin with the depiction of an occupied area, as
Wallensteins Lager disembarks from the portrayal of starving peasants and
whores attempting to live off yet another in a series of occupying troops.49
Given the pattern of dramas to follow, a drama about two cursed brothers
who hate each other would appear to disrupt the rhythm. However, the backdrop for the Die Braut von Messina (1802) is the twelfth-century Norman
occupation of Sicily, and actually gets to the theoretical point faster than the
others. In the first line of the play, Isabella approaches the elders of Messina
with a plea, specifically invoking her Schillerian moral credentials, namely
that she speaks out of practical necessity, not personal agenda: Der Not
gehorchend, nicht dem eignen Trieb, in response to the elders accusation:
Du siehst, dass deiner Shne Bruderzwist / Die Stadt emprt in brgerlichem
Streit, / Die, von dem bsem Nachbar ringsum umgarnt, / Durch Eintracht nur
dem Feinde widersteht (NA 10. 2223). Almost immediately thereafter, a
chorus member summarises the dramatic backdrop: Und jetzt sehen wir uns
als Knechte / Untertan diesem Fremden Geschlechte (NA 10. 28). A second
chorus member corroborates: Sklaven sind wir in den eigenen Sitzen, / Das
Land kann seine Kinder nicht schtzen (NA 10. 28). Here, the keywords are
Eintracht and Zweitracht (NA 10. 28) until, during the brothers brief reconciliation, Don Manuel speaks: Wir sind nicht mehr getrennt, wir sind vereinigt (NA 10. 39), and the chorus follows: Sind sie Brder durch Blutes
Bande, / Sind wir Brger und Shne von einem Lande (ibid.). In the final
scene, Isabella begs Don Cesar: Lebe, mein Sohn! La deine Mutter nicht /
Freudlos im Land der Fremdlinge zurck (NA 10. 122). But, her plea goes
unanswered, and so the division that first led to the occupation subsequently
leads to the deaths of both the heirs to the throne.
Based on this series of drama topics, it is no leap to propose that the French
liberation of Switzerland in 1798,50 Napoleons coup in 1799, and the by then
48
Here, too, in the prologue to Wallenstein, Schiller addresses the problem of portraying the political actor as tragic: Doch euren Augen soll ihn jetzt die Kunst, / Auch
eurem Herzen, menschlich nher bringen. NA 8. 6.
49
The concept behind the only completed exception, Maria Stuart, dates back to before
Don Karlos, though the opening bears thematic similarity to the others, given that it
begins with a Scoto-Gallic Queen in an English prison.
50
See Schillers letter to Goethe of 13.3.1793, in which Schiller cheers the Swiss resistance against the French occupation. NA 29. 218.

235
ironic French co-option of Wilhelm Tell may have made the decision to work on
an actual French liberation hero, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, in 1800 and then a
Swiss Wilhelm Tell in 1802 that much more relevant.51 Die Jungfrau von
Orleans (1801) and Wilhelm Tell (1804) disembark from nearly identical situations in which, like the Netherlands and the American colonies, formerly
divided and here even enemy rebels come together in a war for independence
and are transformed in the process into a successful political entity. The opening scene of the Die Jungfrau von Orleans, begun just after the French invasions
of southern Germany in 1798, is as Swiss as it is French. An idyllic, yet hopeless, mountain shepherd village, betrayed by opportunistic traitors (reminiscent
of Schillers view of Forster as well as his portrayal of Rudenz in Tell), needs a
hero to free the nation from foreign occupation. The opening speech, it follows,
is the universal lament of the invaded and soon to be oppressed: Heute sind wir
noch / Franzosen, Freie Brger noch und Herren / Des alten Bodens, den die
Vter pflgten; / Wer wei, wer morgen ber uns befiehlt! (NA 9. 167).
The opening scene of Wilhelm Tell, written just after the French defeat of
the Germans and march into Switzerland, brings this Swiss Idylle of the
Jungfrau von Orleans to Switzerland, specifically to the German-speaking
states (Uri, Schwyz, Unterwalden), where a fisher boy sings of paradise among
peace-loving shepherds only to be interrupted by an Austrian police action.
Imperial occupation forces are chasing the rebel Baumgarten, who fought back
when his wife was sexually assaulted by the emperors castellan, a characteristic violent gesture of occupation recalling Schillers story of his sisters hiding
in a cave from French troops. Again, the violation of traditional rights and natural law serves to inspire a just resistance. As was the case with Joans transformation from a rather questionable apolitical holy puppet to autonomous
national freedom fighter, so Tell acts in the self-interest of the threatened individual, perhaps somewhat coincidentally, toward the end of national freedom,
though, as was the case with Baumgarten, this line is more blurred than it often
appears.52 As was also the case with Die Jungfrau von Orleans, the Tell story
is retarded by the slow turning wheels of rebel politics and the tale of the traitor Rudenz, but the liberation movement, such as it is, achieves its zenith in
Tells nave act of practical necessity, the rage of a protective father, husband,
and free member of a nation against abusive treatment at the hands of foreign
occupiers. The political message in the context of the early nineteenth century
51
See Ursula Wertheim: Schillers Auseinandersetzung mit den Ereignissen der
Franzsischen Revolution. In: Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift Jena 8 (195859).
Pp. 429449, esp. p. 446.
52
Tells wife Hedwig asks him: Dachtest du denn gar nicht / An Kind und Weib? and
Tell answers: Lieb Weib, ich dacht an euch, / Drum rettet ich den Vater seinen
Kindern. NA 10. 195.

236
is compelling; if there is anything holy about Joan of Arc, then the French
should be the first to recognise what it is her calling to national liberation and
autonomy; and if there had been any articulate reason for Tell to be a symbol
of the French Revolution, it lies in the same defiance of tyrannical rule, here in
the form of foreign occupation. Schillers ostensible warning shots at the
French are not entirely likely to have fallen on deaf ears. Certainly, the German
response to both dramas was nearly euphoric, due to the likelihood that the rest
of the fragmented German states would soon face a similar fate to Tells fragmented Switzerland, or to Joan of Arcs fragmented France, a fate which
indeed came to pass the year after Schiller died, when Napoleon conquered
(ironically) Schillers Jena, then the rest of Germany in 1806.
There is enough concrete evidence that Schiller was fully aware of the significance of Wilhelm Tell for a likely German war of liberation against France. On
page three (Blatt 2) of the Wilhelm Tell Aschaffenburger Manuskript, Schiller
wrote a personal dedication to the Elector Duke of Mainz, Karl Theodor von
Dalberg, dated 22 April 1804, first clearly criticising the French Revolution,
Wenn rohe Krfte feindlich sich entzweien
Und blinde Wut die Kriegesflamme schrt,
Wenn sich im Kampfe tobender Parteien,
Die Stimme der Gerechtigkeit verliert,
Wenn alle Laster schamlos sich befreien,
Wenn freche Willkr an das Heilge rhrt,
Den Anker lst, an dem die Staaten hngen,
Das ist kein Stoff zu freudigen Gesngen. (NA 10. 468)

then praising the Swiss war of liberation:

Doch wenn ein Volk, das fromm die Heerden weidet,
Sich selbst genug, nicht fremden Guts begehrt,
Den Zwang abwirft, den es unwrdig leidet,
Doch selbst im Zorn die Menschlichkeit noch ehrt,
Im Glcke selbst, im Siege sich bescheidet,
Das ist unsterblich und des Liedes werth.
Und solch ein Bild darf ich Dir freudig zeigen,
Du kennsts, denn alles Groe ist Dein eigen. (ibid.)

Schillers statement that Dalberg, who had been repeatedly run out of Mainz by
French forces between 1792 and 1803, and indeed any German reader, will
recognise himself in the story of liberation from a foreign occupation in 1804,
implies that Schiller expects and encourages Dalberg to do the same.53
53
Further, the line is a near paraphrase of the line from Abfall der Niederlande cited
above: Wenn die schimmernden Thaten der Ruhmsucht und einer verderblichen
Herrschbegierde auf unsere Bewunderung Anspruch machen, wie viel mehr eine

237
Though the appeal of both Jungfrau and Tell dramas in the German-speaking
states is clear, the likelihood of Schillers hope for resonance in France is not to
be overlooked. Schillers plan in late 1792 to travel to Paris to present a legal
defense of Louis XVI was inspired by the French National Assemblys decision
to award him French citizenship in 1792 for serving the cause of freedom
through his dramas, pre-eminently Die Ruber, which was performed weekly
at the Marais Theater as a canonical revolutionary work. The fact that William
Tell was the poster boy of the French Revolution could hardly be lost on any of
the principals. However, in the context of Schillers Wilhelm Tell in 1804, there
can be no doubt that the Swiss have clearly again displaced the French as Tells
rightful heirs, and the French have assumed the role of the modern embodiment of Austrian imperialism, all disingenuous claims to antifeudal mission
aside.

VI.
Schillers dramas, historical writings and theoretical works, as well as his letters as cited above, reveal a striking consistency in the belief in the positive
influence of the power of unity (Vereinigung) in the face of foreign occupations.54 Just as striking is the logical and leitmotivistic connection between the
lack of national unity and the historical situation of the German states in
Schillers time; seldom in modern history were the conditions of a cultural
group more precariously similar to the three successful wars for independence
(Swiss, Dutch, and American) that inspired Schiller as in the German states at
the end of the eighteenth century. Consequently, and tellingly, Schillers invocation of the moral high ground of the occupied against the usurper-occupier
has repeatedly brought about its intended audience reception whenever the
reappearance of a parallel usurper-occupier political context delivered a receptive
audience. This ironic reversal of liberator and usurper was replayed by the French
during the Ruhr crisis in the early 1920s when German Wilhelm Tell-reception

Begebenheit, wo die bedrngte Menschheit um ihre edelste Rechte ringt, wo mit der
guten Sache ungewhnliche Krfte sich paaren, und die Hlfsmittel entschloner
Verzweiflung ber die furchtbaren Knste der Tiranney in ungleichem Wettkampf
siegen. NA 17. 10.
54
See Abfall der Niederlande (NA 17. 10) and Die Braut von Messina (NA 10. 28, 39)
among many others. If Pfister is incapable of seeing the Schillerian war of liberation
forest for his own Blut und Boden trees, he was able to distill the point that unity and
political freedom are common by-products of war: Wenig spter aber holt er im Tell
die Lehre fr sein Volk nach, da auch ideale Gre der Nation nicht bestehen knne
ohne die Einheit der Nation, ohne das aus der Einheit hervorgehende, dem Geist dieser
Nation entsprechende Staatswesen, ohne politische Freiheit, die ihrerseits ersteht aus
den Flammen des heiligen Krieges. Pfister (n. 1). P. 72.

238
became too boisterous for French Ruhr Valley occupiers,55 and the French, precisely as an insightful reading of the drama dictates, forbade the performance
of Tell. Shortly and shortsightedly thereafter, the Nazis adopted Schiller and
his Wilhelm Tell in the early 1930s only to ditch them in the early 1940s, when
they realised that Hitler was no longer seen as Tell, but Geler, whom Tell murdered. Finally, the Deutsches Theater was threatened by GDR officials when
performances of Wilhelm Tell became subversive events in 1989.
As Dieter Borchmeyer concluded in 1982, Schillers upbringing in repressive
eighteenth-century Wrttemberg indeed fostered an early fascination with the
legal and moral high ground of rebellion against oppressors.56 As Schillers
choice of material throughout his career and particularly in the final decade indicates, the most consistent source of moral high ground against the usurper is foreign oppression and the unified war of liberation against a tyrannical occupying
force, Schillers strategic moral, anthropological, and drama-theoretical counterpiece to the merely political action. However, Schillers interest was not merely
sublimated in philosophical abstraction, as indicated by that line, wenn [] hnliche Anlsse uns zu hnlichen Taten rufen (NA 17. 11), which was not written
by Schiller the poet or philosopher, nor really even Schiller the historian, but in the
first person in his foreword to Abfall der Niederlande. Here, Schiller stressed the
situational characteristics that would inform the expositions to the majority of
his later dramas: the necessity of unity, transcending class and local political
rivalry, in which an unpolitical for Schiller purely motivated people, their
motivations clearly within traditional rights and natural law, act in the common
interest to liberate themselves and found a new republic. Schillers works that
exhibit this war of liberation metanarrative, consumed as they were preeminently by his contemporary German readers, ultimately do not merely portray
historical foreign struggles for liberation, but also by obvious association
invoke German prospects for nationhood. In the draft to his poem, Gedicht
zur Jahrhundertwende, a.k.a. Deutsche Gre, Schiller explicitly links the
common expository conflict of his later dramas to the German situation:
Darf der Deutsche in diesem Augenblicke,
wo er ruhmlos aus seinem trnenvollen
Kriege geht, wo zwey bermthige Vlker57
ihren Fu auf seinen Nacken setzen,
55

See L. A. Willoughby: Schiller in England and Germany. In: Publications of the

English Goethe Society N.S. 11 (1935). P. 5.
56
See Dieter Borchmeyer: Altes Recht und Revolution. Schillers Wilhelm Tell.
In: Wittkowski (n. 4). Pp. 69113.
57
In his notes on the project, Schiller offers a more specific alternative: Wo der Franke /
wo der Brite / Mit d stolzen Siegerschritten / Herrschend sein Geschick bestimmt? /
Ueber seinen Nacken tritt! NA 2/I. 431.

239
und der Sieger sein Geschick bestimmt
darf er sich fhlen? Darf er sich seines
Namens rhmen und freun? Darf
er sein Haupt erheben und mit Selbstgefhl auftreten in der Vlker Reihe? (NA 2/I. 431)

Given Schillers other insights into the near future based on his universal historical model, it is altogether likely that Schiller considered a German war of
independence not only inevitable, but also as a plausible hope for German
nationhood and constitutionalism some time before the German states were
actually occupied.
In spite of the minimal Befreiungskrieg-discourse in Schiller scholarship,
one little-known Schiller expert proposed a reception history from Don Karlos
to Wilhelm Tell that, he posited, informed the German War of Liberation in
1813, and bemoaned the irony of Germanys failure to follow Schillers formula from the war of liberation to enduring national political unity and constitutionalism. In a speech at the 9 May 1905 Schillerfeier in Dsseldorf, Paul
Cauer delivered a speech entitled Schiller ein Befreier:
In den glorreichen Kriegen, durch die das deutsche Volk den Druck fremder
Gewaltherrschaft abschttelte, waren es Schillersche Gedanken, an denen sich die
Begeisterung entzndet hatte. Das strenge Wort, da eine Nation nichtwrdig ist, die
nicht ihr alles freudig setzt an ihre Ehre, die Mahnung des sterbenden Edelmannes an
sein Volk, einig zu sein, einig aus Schillers Dichtung klangen sie hervor und weckten Kampfeseifer und Tatkraft. Auf den Sieg folgte eine Periode, deren wir noch
heute mit schmerzlicher Beschmung gedenken: ein Zustand der Erschlaffung []
damals lebte ein Geschlecht, das sich von Schiller abgewandt hatte.58

Stripped of its patriotic pathos, Cauers contention is entirely plausible. Following

Cauers and my own readings to their ends, the invasion and occupation of
Schillers Jena in October of 1806, seventeen months after Schillers death on
9 May 1805, indeed mirrors the first acts of Don Karlos, Jungfrau von Orleans,
58
Paul Cauer: Schiller ein Befreier. Rede bei der Schillerfeier zu Dsseldorf im
Kaisersaale der Stdtischen Tonhalle. In: Sonderdruck aus Evangelisches Schulblatt.
Gtersloh: Bertelsmann 1905. P. 3. Cauer goes even further when he expands the war of
liberation motif to include all of Schillers dramas under the umbrella of any act of liberation, foreshadowing similar, if more complicated theories on usurpation by Lesley
Sharpe and David Pugh cited above: Don Carlos selbst, sein edler Freund, Wallenstein,
die Jungfrau von Orleans, Wilhelm Tell. berblickt man diese Reihe und gedenkt im
Fluge der Taten und Schicksaale, die durch die Namen angedeutet werden, so zeigt sich,
hnlich wie im eigenen Entwicklungsgange des Dichters: das Treibende ist berall der
Drang nach Befreiung; sei es die Befreiung eines Volkes von fremdem Joche oder einer
Glaubensrichtung, von unterdrckenden Gesetzen oder eines durch innere Kraft zur
Herrschaft berufenen Mannes aus der immerhin dienenden Stellung, in der uere
Umstnde ihn festhalten. Aber die Befreiung gelingt nicht, oder doch nicht rein. Ibid.

240
Die Braut von Messina, and Wilhelm Tell, as well as the historical French invasion of Stuttgart in 1796, from which Schillers family had attempted to flee. In
1806, Schillers family was again forced to flee, this time from his home in
Weimar, where Johann Gotthard Mllers 1801 engraving of John Trumbulls
painting of the Battle of Bunker Hill in Boston hung.59 Since occupations
(hnliche Anlsse and Not) and subsequent liberation movements (hnliche Taten) provide the moral backdrop and not the main conflict of the
dramas discussed here, this expository situation, if not the eventual success of
the German War of Liberation against France in 1813 or the merely political
German failure of the Vienna Congress of 1815, is the historical stuff
(Magazin fr meine Phantasie) of a Schillerian Act I.60

59

See Schillers letter to Mller of 3.1.1802. NA 31. 84.

I would like to thank Friederike von Schwerin-High (Pomona College), Jennifer M.
Hoyer (University of Minnesota) and David Pugh (Queens University) for their input
during the writing of this article.
60

Maike Oergel

The German Identity, the German Querelle and the Ideal State:
A Fresh Look at Schillers Fragment Deutsche Gre*
The essay (re)locates Schillers controversial fragment Deutsche Gre, and the
German identity it presents, within the contemporary intellectual context (and within
Schillers own work) by relating it to late eighteenth-century German discussions
regarding ancient and modern culture. Crucial parallels emerge between the German
identity presented and Schillers own cultural and aesthetic theories developed in ber
nave und sentimentalische Dichtung and the sthetische Briefe. A comparison with
key ideas put forward in Fichtes Reden an die deutsche Nation highlights Schillers
social and political intentions. The essay argues that Schiller presents a post-national
German identity that does not contradict his cultural and aesthetic theories.

The title Schiller: National Poet Poet of Nations suggests a tension, or possibly a connection, between the national and the cosmopolitan, between the particular and the universal. And it no doubt refers to the widely diverging
interpretations of Schiller during 200 years of Schiller reception. Unlike in the
later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Schiller has in the last fifty years
or so not often been considered to have had overtly national intentions, and certainly not nationalistic ones. In a recent essay Peter-Andr Alt ascribed to Schiller
kosmopolitische Mastbe and weltbrgerliche Perspektiven.1 In this more
recent context Deutsche Gre is a difficult text. While it was enthusiastically pieced together, edited and received after it was discovered towards the end
of the nineteenth century,2 after 1945 it appeared to contradict what from then
* The edition of Schillers works referred to is Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Ed. by
Julius Petersen, Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff.
References are in the form NA, followed by volume and page numbers.
1
Peter-Andr Alt: Auf den Schultern der Auf klrung. berlegungen zu Schillers
nationalem Kulturprogramm. In: Prgnanter Moment. Studien zur deutschen
Literatur der Aufklrung und Klassik. Festschrift fr Hans-Jrgen Schings. Ed. by
Peter-Andr Alt, Alexander Kosenina et al. Wrzburg 2002. Pp. 215237, here p. 219.
2
What is known today under Bernhard Suphans title Deutsche Gre Schiller had
left the fragment untitled was put together from manuscripts over a period of several
decades. Karl Goedeke first published extant sections without a title in his critical
Schiller edition of 1871. When Bernhard Suphan edited the fragment in 1902, it was
enthusiastically received by academic circles and the general public alike. More sections were discovered by Edward Castle in 1937. All these pieces now form the basis of
the text in the Nationalausgabe, which I use for my discussion here. See Hans A.
Kaufmann: Nation und Nationalismus in Schillers Entwurf Deutsche Gre und im
Schauspiel Wilhelm Tell. Frankfurt/M. 1993. Pp. 3841.

242
on became defined as the general direction of Schillers thinking. What delighted
in 1902 was now embarrassing, because Deutsche Gre contains ideas that
seem to put forward notions of a German identity that has all the hallmarks of
the infamous and dangerous German hubris, which, resulting from an experience of (national) inferiority, produced a compensatory superiority complex.
There is plenty of scope to argue that this text is insignificant: Schiller did
not complete it, in fact it is hardly a fragment, but only a first outline, the poetic
execution of which had not really been begun. As such it was not published,
and perhaps Schiller would not have wished it to be placed in the public arena.
It is well known that Schiller was repeatedly asked to write on national topics
with national intentions and he is on record as having been been reluctant to do
so.3 This reluctance has frequently been put down to sentiments such as are
expressed in the famous Xenion 96: Zur Nation euch zu bilden, ihr hofft es,
Deutsche, vergebens; / Bildet, ihr knnt es, dafr freier zu Menschen euch
aus. Such pronouncements are frequently taken as evidence that Schiller
would never seriously have wished to write a poem promoting German nationality. Indeed, when his publisher Gschen (very cautiously) suggested to
Schiller in a letter dated 16 February 1801 that he might like to write a poem
celebrating the recent Lunviller Frieden (9.2.1801), which Gschen could
publish to commemorate the event (NA 39/I. 19), Schiller replied on 26
February that he could not (NA 31. 10). Nevertheless I do not think that the
ideas expressed in Deutsche Gre and Xenion 96 are as contradictory as
they at first appear. In this context the reasons Schiller gives for his refusal are
important. Initially he reminds Gschen that he has turned down similar
requests from Cotta three times, his refusal thus appears as polite courteousness. But then he goes on to say, more interestingly, that he does not feel able
to write such a poem because ich frchte, da wir Deutschen eine schndliche
Rolle in diesem Frieden spielen werden without elaborating (NA 31. 10).
Deutsche Gre has not been securely dated, but on the available evidence
is likely to have been written in 1801.4 As such the Lunville Peace referred to in
the above letter is its most probable historical background. There is also a conceptual connection between the letter and the fragment.5 Schillers comments
3

At least two instances of such reluctance are documented. In 1794 he refused to compose a poem celebrating the imminent Peace of Basle, and in 1797 his attitude
remained the same regarding the Treaty of Campo Formio. See Alt (n. 1). P. 226.
4
Suphans conclusions, suggesting 1801 as the likely date of composition, have not
been convincingly challenged. Cf. NA. 2/IIB. 257.
5
Kaufmann suggested an antagonistic relationship between the fragment and the letter,
when he proposed the interpretation that Schillers remark that such an Ode [sich] unter
den Hnden des Poeten in eine Satyre auf das deutsche Reich verwandeln mte (which
concludes Schillers sentence in the letter) indicates that Schiller was turning his back
on the Deutsche Gre project. Kaufmann (n. 2). P. 74. I do not think this is likely.

243
in the letter link up with ideas expressed in the fragment. The shameful role
mentioned in the letter may well be an expression of Schillers view that the
Germans are not performing their historical role as Schiller sees it and as he
outlines it in the fragment. The schndliche Rolle in the letter would then be
related to the shame and humiliation due to the deutscher Sohn 6 in the fragment, who rejects his historical role, der die hohe Krone seines Menschenadels
schmht (DG. 433. 34). In this light the fragment could be seen as Schillers
effort to remind and educate his fellow countrymen regarding who they are and
what their historical task is. In this it would be in intention not dissimilar to
Fichtes later Reden an die deutsche Nation (1808), with which it shares key
parallels and which I will discuss below. Whether Schiller simply did not have
time to finish it or whether he thought better of it, we do not know. But what I
think can be shown is that the ideas put forward in this fragment are no aberration or insignificant asides within Schillers work, and that it is difficult to
argue that Schiller is not serious about these ideas. However, they do not, the
post-1945 reader may be relieved to hear, necessarily contradict what has been
called his cosmopolitan perspectives.
Alt goes on to grant Schiller a Kulturnationalismus.7 In terms of cultural
and aesthetic theory at the turn of the nineteenth century, this must be considered a contradiction in terms. In contemporary, and especially Schillers, terminology the cultural was the defining feature of humanity, the ability to have
culture was the single most prominent feature of the Reinmenschliche. And the
latter tends to be seen as the opposite to the national. But in its attempt to relate
the (German) national and the (culturally) human, this term may well hit the nail
on the head when it comes to relating those cosmopolitan tendencies and his
claims regarding the German identity.
Intent on minimising Schillers national intentions and perspectives,8 Alt
defines his outlook as focused on gesamteuropische Themen and the
Komplexitt des abendlndischen Fortschrittsprozesses.9 But this is only
partially weltbrgerlich in perspective, because it refers very specifically to
6

NA 2/I. 433. 1. Deutsche Gre is reprinted on pp. 431436 of this volume. The line
numbering of each page starts at 1. Henceforth references to this fragment will be given
in the form DG, followed by the NA 2/I page and line numbers.
7
Alt (n. 1). P. 215.
8
Alt does not deal with Deutsche Gre in his otherwise detailed two-volume study
of Schiller (Peter-Andr Alt: Schiller. Leben, Werk, Zeit. Munich 2000) and does not
discuss Schillers national intentions in any detail. It appears he addresses this omission
in the article cited in note 1. But his interpretation insists on a rejection of any politically oriented concept of a German identity on Schillers part. Direct political involvement is subject to a Vermeidungskodex to which, he argues, Schiller subscribed. See
Alt (n. 1). P. 229.
9
Alt (n. 1). P. 219.

244
abendlndisches Europa. Although the general Euro-centricity of the time
could be taken to suggest that this amounts to a weltbrgerlich approach, it
must be noted that occidental Europe refers to a particular culture and identity based on the same religion and, in general outline, the same cultural and
intellectual history. Schiller himself defines this specific culture and identity
with great care: it is what he calls modernity. Schillers and the general
contemporary investigation of modernity is conducted in the context of the
German Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes, the analysis of the differences
between the ancient and modern cultures, which in Germany was taken up
from the 1770s onwards and reached a defining moment in the mid-1790s,
when Schillers and Friedrich Schlegels essays on the topic (ber nave und
sentimentalische Dichtung and ber der Studium der griechischen Poesie)
were written and published.
The analysis of modern culture and its problems entailed a definition of the
nature of modernity, which initially, and traditionally, set modernity in contrast
to antiquity. But especially in Friedrich Schlegels and Schillers own analyses
modernity acquired a prospectively synthetic nature: modernity has the capacity to include antiquity (not just a remembered past) but to assimilate and
regenerate it on a historically more advanced level. This inclusion was conceived as a process of approximation that may be completed, or approximated,
in the fullness of time. This approach to historical development forms part of
the newly emerging theories of world history based on historical transformation. It is this notion of a prospective all-inclusive synthesis achieved through
ongoing historical assimilation and transformation that forms the link between
Deutsche Gre and the historical and cultural theories that underlie the
ideas presented in ber nave und sentimentalische Dichtung and the sthetische Briefe. It is the link between Schillers concept of modernity and the
German identity that he defines in his fragment.
The nature of modernity presented in ber nave und sentimentalische
Dichtung and the nature of Germanness presented in Deutsche Gre are
very similar. By the same token, the experience of being modern is very similar to the experience of being German. Both entail experiencing present misery
and the promise of future glory. Both identities are defined, initially negatively,
against an Other that is the identitys opposite. In the case of modernity this
Other is, obviously, antiquity. Although its status as an unsurpassable ideal of
cultural achievement had long been questioned, it had retained much of its
effective prescriptiveness, to which Winckelmann had recently added the
newly desirable qualities of natural harmony and unity, which modernity had
lost. In the case of the German identity, this Other are other nations, in particular the British and the French, who are seemingly more successful in political
and military terms, in terms of power and material possessions. So deficiency
seems to lie at the heart of these two definitions of identity. In the case of

245
modernity this deficiency results from the dominance of the rational and the
abstract, which has all but destroyed the natural and alienated the thinking
human being from his sensual side, which in turn has resulted in an unhappy
consciousness of inner division and a painful haunted striving to regain the lost
equilibrium. In the case of the German existence this deficiency is the lack of
concrete (military and political) power, which humiliates them in the contemporary European arena of national power politics. But in both cases this initial
deficiency turns out to be a vital advantage.
Modernity redeems itself through its striving combined with its high level of
intellectual reflexivity, which results from its highly developed rational capacity. It has the potential to push on through to a higher level of intellectual naturalness, in which the old contrasts are synthesised.10 In historical terms, or at
least in terms of intellectual history, modernity has the potential to synthesise
the ancient and modern peculiarities and achieve a consummate humanity.
These same principles apply to the conception of the German identity. It, too,
has the potential to synthesise peculiarities (national ones in this case) and
achieve consummate humanity. Its lack of political and material (and perhaps
cultural) fixation renders it open and absorbent, it distils and conserves the
finest achievements of humanity. Thus the bearers of this identity become
equipped to bring final clarity and enlightenment into the world.
Er [der deutsche Sohn] ist erwhlt von dem Weltgeist, whrend / des Zeitenkampfs /
an dem ewgen Bau der Menschenbildung / zu arbeiten, / zu bewahren was die Zeit
bringt [] Alles was schtzbares bei andern Zeiten / u: Vlkern aufkam, mit der
Zeit / entstand und schwand, es ist ihm unverloren [] doch / der Tag des Deutschen
ist die rnte der / ganzen Zeit [] (DG. 433. 1734)

Modernity and Germanness not only share key features, in Deutsche Gre
they are also historically linked. Historically transformed modernity is to lead to
consummate humanity. And the modern condition is most likely to achieve this
10
Schiller wrote in ber nave und sentimentalische Dichtung: Jene Natur, die du dem
Vernunftlosen beneidest, ist, keiner Achtung, keiner Sehnsucht wert. Sie liegt hinter
dir []. Verlassen von der Leiter, die dich trug, bleibt dir jetzt keine andere Wahl mehr,
als mit freyem Bewutseyn und Willen das Gesetz zu ergreifen. [] La dir nicht mehr
einfallen, mit ihr [der Natur] tauschen zu wollen, aber nimm sie in dich auf und strebe,
ihren unendlichen Vorzug mit deinem eigenen unendlichen Prrogativ zu vermhlen
und aus beyden das Gttliche zu erzeugen. NA 20. 428429. And further down: Ist
der Mensch in den Stand der Kultur getreten, und hat die Kunst ihre Hand an ihn gelegt,
so ist jene sinnliche Harmonie in ihm aufgehoben, und er kann nur noch als moralische
Einheit, d.h. als nach Einheit strebend sich uern. Die bereinstimmung zwischen
seinem Empfinden und Denken, die in dem ersten Zustande wirklich stattfand, existirt
jetzt blo idealisch; sie ist nicht mehr in ihm, sondern auer ihm. Als ein Gedanke, der
erst realisirt werden soll. [] Durch das Ideal kehrt er zur Einheit zurck. NA 20.
437438.

246
transformation towards the prospective synthesis in a German context. The text
provides a number of pointers for this claim: The German language can express
the jugendlich griechische as well as the modern ideelle (DG. 432. 256),
the Germans strive for the natural (die Natur) as well as the ideal (433. 910).
The Germans are presented as the quintessential moderns, but as the moderns
that have the potential to transcend their own (deficient) modernity by integrating into it the essence of antiquity. Their successful and productive relations
with the ancient, i.e. their successful historical synthesis, make them not only
the harvest of time (DG. 433. 3334), the fruit (432. 13), but also the Kern of
humanity (433. 15). The German identity integrates the opposites of the
Querelle, and of European cultural history.
It is becoming evident that the concept of the prospective synthesis, which
is achieved through historical assimilation and transformation, is key. The synthetic process relies on qualities which the modern and the German identity share
and which mark the crucial qualitative difference to their respective Others. In
the case of the modern identity it is the quality of the restless striving, in the case
of the German identity it is the quality of being alive, what Schiller calls das
Lebendige. Both qualities share the dynamic ability to develop. Their animate
dynamic characteristics guarantee progress, which makes them the basis for the
new synthesis. By definition, this makes the Other limited and un-dynamic. If at
the beginning of Schillers cultural definitions in ber nave und sentimentalische
Dichtung it appears as if antiquitys glorious ideality was still intact, Schillers
final analysis of the nature of antiquity defines the latter as limited and limiting.11 Antiquity has achieved its own particular perfection, but because it lacks
the modern capacity for reflexivity it cannot reflect on itself and the Other in
a manner required for assimilation and transformation , it cannot produce any
form of historical synthesis.12 And yet the limiting qualities of the Other must
not be obliterated, they need to be integrated into the prospective synthesis.
11

Einig mit sich selbst und glcklich im Gefhle seiner Menschheit, mute er [der
Grieche] bey dieser als seinem Maximum stillestehen. NA 20. 431. Schiller is
unequivocal regarding which state in superior: Das Ziel, zu welchem der Mensch
durch Kultur strebt, [ist] demjenigen, welches er durch die Natur erreicht, unendlich
vorzuziehen. [] Insofern aber das letzte Ziel der Menschheit nicht anders als durch
jene Fortschreitung zu erreichen ist, und der letztere [the modern] nicht anders
fortschreiten kann, als indem er sich kultivirt und folglich in den erstern bergeht, so
ist keine Frage, welchem von beiden in Rcksicht auf jenes letzte Ziel der Vorzug
gebhre. NA 20. 438.
12
This difficulty in Schillers theoretical work (especially in ber nave und sentimentalische Dichtung), where an apologia of modernity turns into its apotheosis has
struck attentive readers for decades. It was the basis for Peter Szondis famous conclusion that das Nave ist das Sentimentalische in 1972: das Sentimentalische [wird]
nun, unter den Bedingungen der Reflexion, als das Nave selbst erkannt. Peter Szondi:
Das Nave ist das Sentimentalische. In: Euphorion 66 (1972). Pp. 174206, here p. 204.

247
The limiting qualities of the Other of Germanness, i.e. of the successful
(West-) European nations, are their political and material interests. Schiller
defines their successes as decorative, yet as essentially superficial, and somewhat illegitimate. The artistic treasures the British steal from all over the world
will only be lifeless exhibits in their new environment, and the French are not
entitled to, and in fact make a mockery of, wearing the freie Brgerkrone
(DG. 434. 123). Their successful political and material strategies are conceptualised around terms such as Kampf (DG. 431. 11) and Krieg (431. 3),
Reich/Imperium in the political sense (431. 13, 19, 33), Frst (431. 16),
and combative violence, as expressed in zu erobern mit den Flotten (434.
bottom 6) and obzusiegen mit dem Schwert (435. 9). These terms are taken
from the semantic field of violent power struggles, hierarchical power structures, and political organisation. In their particular (British and French) contexts these struggles and structures are employed to further negative concepts
such as a Philosophie des Eigennutzes (DG. 435. 35), materialism (sic)
(435. 36), Witz (435. 38 and 434. 17), Tyrannei (of aristocratic and metropolitan taste) (432. 29), and general decadence (as expressed in Schooss der
Verderbnis (435. 32)).13 Nevertheless these very terms of struggles and structures resurface in Schillers description of a future German and eventually
international organisation, where they have been integrated into the dynamic
realm of culture, spirit and ideas to set up a new politics of intellectual power,
liberation and re-organisation. The fragment evinces a tension between an
(inferior) Germany measured against other nation states and an envisaged
(much improved) situation judged by a different kind of yardstick, for which
the foundations are already in place. How is this integrational historical transformation conceived? I will briefly look at two examples.
During the process of transformative integration Reich / Kaiserreich, for
example, turns into Geisterreich (DG. 435. 10), where the Germans successfully fight Schiller uses the same terminology of war and victory that he used
above to describe the successes of Britain and France for justice, truth and
reason. This shift is largely due to the Reformation. Considered a key event in
intellectual history around 1800, the Reformation had come to represent not
just religious reform, but intellectual and moral liberation leading to self-critical
moral and political responsibility. For Schiller it dispels prejudice and Wahn
(illusion, un-truth, madness, i.e. all that has no foundation in reality or truth),
13
The Germans cannot compete with these zwey bermtige Vlker (DG. 431. 3) in
war or power politics. They have been militarily defeated, the German political rulers
are disconnected from the true Germanness of their subjects and the political organisation of the old Empire shows signs of extreme deterioration. (The collapse of
the Empire is still an Irrealis for Schiller here, but its reality is only five years
away.)

248
and is the basis for a new international jurisdiction everlasting, based on the
thus achieved freedom of reason.
In das Geisterreich zu dringen / Vorurtheile zu besiegen / Mnnlich mit dem Wahn
zu kriegen / das ist [des Deutschen] Eifers werth. / Schwere Ketten drckten alle /
Vlker auf dem Erdenballe / Als der Deutsche sie zerbrach / Fehde bot dem
Vatikane / Krieg ankndigte dem Wahne / Der die ganze Welt bestach. / Hhern
Sieg hat der errungen / Der der Wahrheit Blitz geschwungen, / Der die Geister selbst
befreit, / Freiheit der Vernunft erfechten, / Heit fr alle Vlker rechten, / Gilt fr
alle Ewigkeit. (DG. 435. 1026)

Philosophical and moral liberation (and education, which is the dissemination

of this liberation) need to precede any lastingly beneficial political activity.
The same idea that culture, and with it an awareness of the defining nature of
the spiritual in the human make-up, needs to precede politics for socio-political
changes to be viable is more elaborately expressed in the sthetische Briefe of
179495, the opening letters of which amount to one long explanation of why, in
Schillers view, the French Revolution has failed: although the Enlightenment
had brought a clear idea of the need for change, there had been no sustained
period of spiritual regeneration to direct political change.14
Thus, on the road from politisches Reich to Geisterreich, Kampf and
Krieg, once symbolising military slaughter in the service of selfish materialism, have been transformed into the purposeful fight for human and civil
rights. The wars between particular nations or factions turn into the panorama
of the historical struggles of humanity for liberation and enlightenment, in
which the Germans are engaged in a constructive project of education.
Another example of a similar transformation of a negative political concept
into a reformed one is contained in the relationship between the terms Frst
and Krone. Frst is negative; right at the beginning the (German) princes
are dissociated from the German nation (DG. 431. 1516) and associated with
14
Der Mensch ist aus seiner langen Indolenz und Selbsttuschung aufgewacht, und
mit nachdrcklicher Stimmenmehrheit fodert er die Wiederherstellung in seine unverlierbaren Rechte. Aber er fodert sie nicht blo; jenseits und diesseits steht er auf, sich
gewaltsam zu nehmen, was ihm nach seiner Meinung mit Unrecht verweigert wird. Das
Gebude des Naturstaates wankt, seine mrben Fundamente weichen, und eine physische Mglichkeit scheint gegeben, das Gesetz auf den Thron zu stellen, den Menschen
endlich als Selbstzweck zu ehren und wahre Freyheit zur Grundlage der politischen
Verbindung zu machen. Vergebliche Hoffnung! Die moralische Mglichkeit fehlt, und
der freigebige Augenblick findet ein unempfngliches Geschlecht. 5. Brief: NA 20.
319. And further down: So mu man jeden Versuch einer solchen Staatsvernderung
solange fr unzeitig [] erklren, bis die Trennung in dem inneren Menschen wieder
aufgehoben und seine Natur vollstndig genug entwickelt ist, um selbst die Knstlerinn
zu seyn und der politischen Schpfung der Vernunft ihre Realitt zu verbrgen. 7.
Brief: NA 20. 328329.

249
the (negatively presented) entities of political and material empires. The negative evaluation of Frst is also palpable in the unsavoury connotations given
to Hof (the habitat of the prince), which is linked to corruption and prostitution, it is feil (DG. 435. 33), and to tyranny (432. 2829). Frst and Hof
stand for selfish absolutism and despotism, which is undoubtedly an allusion
to the ancien rgime. The crown, on the other hand, appears in the section
defining the role in history of those with German identity. It is the entitlement
of the German son who has Menschenadel rather than inherited aristocratic privileges (even if at the moment he does not quite realise what to do
with it). He is capable of preserving the best in humanity in order to educate
the human race further, which is conceived as an altruistic activity. This transformation suggests a shift from personalised absolute rule to a depersonalised
concept of rulership, based on the defined function of an office, with even a
hint of egalitarian rulership.15
The limiting qualities of the political and the material are presented as being
underpinned by negative, and undesirable, concepts, such as selfishness, materialism, (hollow) wit, and decadence, in the service of which current power
structures are being abused. These negative concepts have in-built national
connotations. They re-enact a Franco-German Querelle, which had been going
on since the 1770s. By 1801 these concepts and characteristics had been elements of German identity-building for some thirty years. They are the stock
qualities of a (French) anti-identity, derived from a rejection of what were considered over-dominant French values. Since the Sturm und Drang these concepts have at the same time been the signature of the over-civilised, over-rational
culture of (deficient) advanced modernity and form part of late eighteenthcentury Zivilisations- und Vernunftkritik. So when Schiller invokes them, they
have, rather like the qualities shared by the modern and the German identity,
both a national (French vs. German) and a more generally historical dimension. Again the definition of modernity and the definition of a German identity
are linked. The criticism of modernity broadens the argumentative spectrum
beyond national rivalry into an analysis of European, even general intellectual
history. This dual focus of the German identity, national on the one hand, and
representative of an advanced level of human intellectual history (modern) on
the other, which already begins to emerge towards the end of the 1770s,
becomes more sharply defined in the 1790s and the first years of the new century. It is the basis for the prospective historical synthesis. Through its particular connection to modernity (being aware of its debility and sharing its future
potential) the German identity acquires its inclusive, historically conditioned
15
However, Schiller appears to have remained undecided whether to drop the notion of
genetics determining nobility entirely. Two versions remained on the sheet: this crown
was either to be angebohren or hoch. DG. 433. 23.

250
human nature that is essentially post-national, superseding narrow national
particularity. This definition attempts to link the particular with the universal,
the national with the reinmenschlich in a cultural-historical identity of
modernity. This attempt relies on the integration into the historical process of
modernity and the function of the Germans within modernity.
The priority of development is clearly a key feature here. It underlies the
preoccupation with historical syntheses and transformation and derives from
the contemporary pre-occupation with historicity, with temporal impermanence.
In the newly dynamic universe nothing is static. Schiller realised this historical
dynamic through different mechanisms in different texts. In this fragment
Schiller employs the imagery of organic development. In his theoretical treatises
he employed dialectics. Both mechanisms share a self-prompting dynamic, which
is based not on a mechanical-physical reaction, but on an internal creativity.
Integration and transformation occur due to a dynamic progressive element
(das Lebendige, das Streben), which will achieve the synthesis of the rational and
the sensual-emotional as well as of the instinctive-natural and the abstractconceptual. Linked to this dynamic is the cultural. Schiller asserted that the
human being can only progress through culture and education (see note 11).
Because of its synthetic nature, culture will in turn achieve an integration and
synthesis: that of the cultural and the political. This line of thought of course
also informs the idea that spiritual and cultural regeneration needs to precede
any successful political reorganisation, which was discussed in relation to
Schillers view of the Reformation.
Evidently the ideas that underpin the definition of the German identity in
Deutsche Gre grow directly out of Schillers theoretical work on the
Querelle and on aesthetic education. Schillers ideas are also in tune with then
current notions of the German, which derive from the same intellectual (and a
similar political) context. The parallels to Fichtes definitions in his Reden an
die deutsche Nation (1808), one of the most famous pronouncements of the
time on what defines Germanness, are rather striking. These parallels illuminate Schillers deeply political and social ambitions and their relation to his
concept of the German identity. The parallels lie in the shared conviction that
education (Bildung in its most general sense) is the basis for any successful
socio-political re-organisation of humanity. Specifically, Schiller and Fichte
see the German language and the Reformation as the basis for launching a new
education and social organisation. Both the language and the Reformation are
indicative of the German purpose. Both Fichte and Schiller maintain (Fichte
actually argues) that the German language possesses superior qualities, which
predestine the German speakers for their world-historical role as intellectual,
cultural and moral leaders. Both suggest that the German instigation of the
Reformation is evidence of this special nature of the Germans. It is an example
of their achieving cultural and intellectual progress, which is the basis for

251
socio-political reform. Fichte devotes an entire address to the German language.16 It is an Ursprache, which represents and reflects the development of
its community in accurate detail. It is hence fully understood by all speakers
and a suitable instrument for intellectual enquiry and communication, it is suitable for true philosophy and thorough understanding.17 It is responsible for the
successful completion of the Reformation, the stepping stone for further
moral, philosophical and eventually political progress, on which he elaborates
in his sixth address.18 As we have seen, Schiller puts forward similar ideas. I
have already discussed the function of the Reformation in Deutsche Gre.
He expresses similar ideas regarding the clarity and expressiveness of the
German language, and also suggests that language reflects the essence of the
community of its speakers.
Das kstliche Gut der deutschen Sprache / die alles ausdrckt, das tiefste und / das
flchtigste, den Geist, die Seele, / die voll Sinn ist. / [] Die Sprache ist der Spiegel
einer / Nation, wenn wir in diesen Spiegel / schauen, so kommt uns ein groes / trefliches Bild von uns selbst daraus / entgegen. Wir kennen [sic] das jugendlich /
griechische und das modern ideelle / ausdrcken. (DG. 432. 1527)

Both Schiller and Fichte prioritise education as the most important social obligation. Both Schiller and Fichte are interested in the ideal state, the ideal social
organisation that will allow human beings to realise their capacity for freedom
and reason in harmony with their fellow humans. For Schiller this is the aesthetic state, for which the aesthetic education he outlines in his sthetische
Briefe is a preparation. For Fichte it is the new social organisation for which the
education he outlines in the Reden is a preparation. Both are after the fruitful
and unrestricted co-existence of (individual) freedom and (communal) reason.19 Schiller thought that under current circumstances this was only possible
through the aesthetic experience of the beautiful, which would in turn make
possible the aesthetic state. Fichte thought that human beings needed to be
educated in such a way that they would freely choose that which communal
reason demanded. This connection always creates the problem that, from the
vantage point of omniscience, communal reason, and the universal historical
16

See Johann Gottlieb Fichte: Reden an die deutsche Nation. Mit einer Einleitung von
Reinhard Lauth. Hamburg 1978. 4. Rede. Pp. 5874.
17
A. W. Schlegel presented very similar ideas regarding the German language in his
Berliner Vorlesungen of 180203. See Geschichte der romantischen Literatur. In:
Kritische Schriften und Briefe. Vol. 4. Ed. by Edgar Lohner, Stuttgart 1965. Pp. 3236.
And so does Aurelie in Goethes Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre.
18
Fichte (n. 16). Pp. 91105.
19
One difference is that for Fichte this new state is to have political reality, whereas
Schillers appears in political reality as a beautiful dream, in which the human being
practises human perfection under the aegis of Schein.

252
process, ultimately dictate what happens.20 So freedom is a sham.21 The problem with Schillers and Fichtes freedom is that it is not real: Schillers is only
a pretend game, and Fichtes is potentially a device to enable complete brainwashing, (because one might argue that really Fichtes pupils are manipulated
or indoctrinated to want the right thing). This vantage point of omniscience,
however, ignores the individual perspective, from which freedom is actually
experienced. Schiller and Fichte suggest that the experience of freedom is real.
Both are deeply suspicious of prescription, indoctrination and coercion, they
are the opposite to what they wanted to achieve. In the Reden Fichte insists:
Jenes Vermgen, Bilder, die keineswegs bloe Nachbildung der Wirklichkeit seien,
sondern die da fhig sind, Vorbilder derselben selbstttig zu entwerfen, wre das
erste, wovon die Bildung des Geschlechts durch die neue Erziehung ausgehen
mte. Selbstttig zu entwerfen, habe ich gesagt, und also, da durch eigene Kraft
sie sich erzeuge, keinesweges aber, da er nur fhig werde, das durch die Erziehung
ihm hingegebene Bild, leidend aufzufassen, es hinlnglich zu verstehen, und es,
also wie es ihm gegeben ist, zu wiederholen, als ob es nur um das Vorhandensein
eines solchen Bildes zu tun wre.22

Schiller, too, wanted to avoid any form of coercion. He writes in the sthetische Briefe:
Mitten im furchtbaren Reich der Krfte und mitten in dem heiligen Reich der
Gesetze baut der sthetische Bildungstrieb unvermerkt an einem dritten frhlichen
20

Bernd Fischer has outlined how this (old Enlightenment) idea has influenced the educational theories of most Eastern European totalitarian states, where it served to enable
indoctrination and intellectual manipulation starting at an early age. Fischer argues that
this kind of manipulation was in line with Fichtes intentions. See Bernd Fischer: Das
Eigene und das Eigentliche: Klopstock, Herder, Fichte, Kleist. Episoden aus der
Konstruktionsgeschichte nationaler Intentionalitten. Berlin 1995. Pp. 253254: Am
treffendsten greift hier m.E. der Begriff des indoktrinierten, ideologischen Fanatismus,
den Fichte hier [] von der religisen Ebene auf die Ebene der Politik hebt. [] Fichte
hat dabei keineswegs eine Nation von hrigen, leicht verfhrbaren unselbstndigen
Schlern im Sinn. [] [Fichte] fordert eine Erziehung zur Selbstttigkeit. Vor allem
mu der Zgling selbstttig die Utopie der neuen Nation entwerfen knnen. [] Der
Rest an Freiheit [] besteht darin, dass der Einzelne selbst darauf kommen mu, was
die Geschichte mit der Gattung plant, und welche Handlung darum im jeweils gegebenen Augenblick fr ihn vernnftig und sittlich ist []. Gerade in diesem Rest an
Freiheit, der selbstttigen Setzung, die den Kern von Fichtes Kognitionstheorie ausmacht, besteht in dieser gedanklichen Wendung das eigentlich totalitre Element des
Erziehungsprogramms. Denn erst wenn der Zgling die Lehre selbst als die einzig
mgliche Daseinsweise selbstttig entwickelt, gibt es kein anderes Wollen, und damit
keinen Ort des Widerstandes mehr, selbst nicht den der passiven Verweigerung.
21
This (dialectical) problematic of freedom and necessity is of course common among
Idealist thinkers. It is the crux of Hegels List der Vernunft and Schellings ultimate
identity of freedom and necessity in his System des Transzendentalen Idealismus.
22
Fichte (n. 16). 2. Rede. Pp. 3132.

253
Reiche des Spiels und des Scheins, worin er dem Menschen die Fesseln aller
Verhltnisse abnimmt und ihn von allem, was Zwang heit, sowohl im Physischen
als auch im Moralischen entbindet. [] Freyheit zu geben durch Freyheit ist das
Grundgesetz dieses Reiches.23

Both Fichte and Schiller hold that the development of spiritual morality
(Sittlichkeit) is the essential prerequisite for any ideal, or good, state, and both are
very clear that this morality can only be reliably developed in the pupil without
resorting to manipulation or even advice. Fichte wishes the pupil to acquire a
self-generated Sittlichkeit, which makes him or her do the good and right thing
for the sake of it, learn for its own sake through the independent imagining of the
right and good. Schiller wishes his imagined pupil to experience true freedom
from physical and moral coercion through the aesthetic experience of the beautiful and in the state of play [Der Spieltrieb] wird also, weil er alle Zuflligkeit
aufhebt, auch alle Ntigung aufheben und den Menschen sowohl physisch als
auch moralisch in Freiheit setzen which will give him the opportunity to
experience his true and complete humanity (14. Brief: NA 20. 354).
Both education projects are based on an independent, pure creativity. This
needs to be awakened in the pupil, because it is required to overcome current
political and intellectual ills. The pupil is to be educated out of any short-sighted
entanglement in selfish sensual or material gratification and hence outgrow the
need for the punitive enforcement of morally correct choices. This focus on
the independent creativity of the individual is related to the internal creativity
of the historical process, to the self-prompting dynamic discussed above. Independent creativity was a new key concept.24 The self-prompting dynamic of
independent (individual and historical) creativity is a key feature of both striving modernity and the lebendige nature of the German and the cultural.
To sum up so far: the German identity is the quintessentially modern identity, which can achieve historical syntheses through dynamic creativity by
assimilating and transforming (historical) opposites. This process is eventually
to lead to an ideal socio-political organisation based on education, which will
make possible responsible free choice.
Is this really a new politics? If yes, what kind of politics does Schiller
present? That these cultural-intellectual-aesthetic theories carry socio-political
concepts has not escaped astute observers. But this dimension has been predominantly identified as conservative and backward-looking in political and
historical terms. Alt concludes that Schillers ideal state is wie die Vision vom
ganzen Menschen ein Anachronismus, der die Bestriebsschden der
23

27. Brief: NA 20. 410.

It is a key marker of the shift from earlier Enlightenment ideas of mechanical
processes governed by the laws of physics towards productive (organic) processes
based on more bio-chemical notions or dialectical methodology.
24

254
Modernisierung aufheben soll: eine konservative Antwort auf eine avancierte
Zeitdiagnose.25 Equally, the (cultural) notion of the German nation presented
by Schiller has been found to be out of time. Hans Kaufmann attests a dominance in Schillers thinking of a vorpolitisch-ausserstaatliche, genealogischethnische Bedeutung des Nationsbegriffes which was no longer in tune with
political developments and historical trends.26 In my view, however, Schillers
vision of a German-led social and political re-organisation was anything but
old-fashioned. It aimed at a post-national (rather than pre-national) and postmodern (in the literal sense, i.e. overcoming debilitating modernity) historical
situation. But even though it aims beyond the national, it does not ignore the
national phase in history. Nations, with their individual and limited identities,
are required to have existed. Even if their importance is fragmentary and preliminary, they need to make a historical contribution.
From the sthetische Briefe it is clear that Schiller was rather sceptical
regarding the merits of any sort of modern state.27 He considered the modern
state as relying on dehumanising and limiting coercion, based on laws of either
physical power (in the Naturstaat or the dynamische Staat) or on controlling punitive ethics. These reservations appear to have applied to the nationstate, too. The national itself is limiting, transitory and accidental. He famously
wrote to Krner on 13 October 1789:
Es ist ein armseliges kleinliches Ideal, fr eine Nation zu schreiben, einem
philosophischen Geiste ist diese Grenze durchaus unertrglich. Dieser kann bey einer
so wandelbaren, zuflligen und willkrlichen Form der Menschheit, bey einem
Fragmente (und was ist die wichtigste Nation anders?) nicht stille stehen. Er kann sich
25

Alt (n. 1). P. 231.

Damit kann fr Schiller die Dominanz einer vorpolitisch-auerstaatlichen,
genealogisch-ethnischen Bedeutung des Nationsbegriffes behauptet werden []. Ein
solcher Nationsbegriff war aber in Europa um 1800 keineswegs selbstverstndlich. In
Frankreich wurde sptestens mit der Franzsischen Revolution ein Einschnitt in der
begriffsgeschichtlichen Kontinuitt seit der Antike erkennbar. Dort hatte die seit
Jahrhunderten sich mehr und mehr ausweitende Herrschaft der Pariser Zentralmacht die
Vorstellung von einer Identitt von Nation und territorialer politischer Herrschaft
befrdert. So konnte Abb Sieyes 1788 in seiner Kampfschrift Was ist der dritte Stand? die
Nation als Organisation gleichberechtigter Brger definieren. Kaufmann (n. 2). P. 46.
27
In his Reden, Fichte, on the other hand, is outspoken regarding the need for a political framework for the German nation, because by 1807 he has become convinced that
without political independence, which he could only see guaranteed through a nation
state at this time, the German identity would disintegrate and disappear without having
the chance to fulfil its world-historical task. But even for Fichte, the nation state is
clearly only a means to an end, not the fulfilment of history (see 12. Rede). Fichte formulates these ideas after the important caesura of the debilitating defeat of Prussia at
Jena and Auerstedt in 1806, which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and
gave Napoleon control over Central Europe, and occasioned a swing towards more
politically oriented considerations regarding the German nation.
26

255
nicht weiter dafr erwrmen, als soweit ihm diese Nation oder Nationalbegebenheit
als Bedingung fr den Fortschritt der Gattung wichtig ist. (NA 25. 304)

Schiller evidently thinks of nation in terms of what Friedrich Meinecke over a

century later so influentially defined as a Staatsnation.28 Most quotations given
as evidence of Schillers weltbrgerlich non- or anti-national stance when he
belittles the concept of the nation as he does above refer to the nation in this
context. In Schillers view, the Staatsnationen, limited and limiting entities,
must become integrated into the greater whole of humanity. Alt takes Schillers
dismissal of the modern state as limiting and dehumanising, as evidence of
Schillers backward-looking conservative political attitude. Kaufmann regards
Schillers concept of the nation as dated because Schiller takes culture, not the
state, as the defining feature of the German nation. These two verdicts suggest
that Schiller simply did not grasp the importance of modern statehood at the turn
of the nineteenth century. Taking Schillers prioritising of culture and his rejection of the modern (nation-)state as evidence of his backward-looking conservatism are interpretations that are, again, indebted to Meinecke. They hold on
to Meineckes notion that the Kulturnation essentially originates in an unconscious and vegetative, i.e. pre-modern, phase of nation-building.29 Schiller,
however, makes it repeatedly clear that his criticism of the (nation-)state aims
at eventually overcoming this political concept in the name of progress, not at
re-establishing an earlier form. In a lecture of 1789 he declared:
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 andrer, als Ausbildung aller Krfte des Menschen, Fortschreitung.30

He was certainly intent on remedying the ills of modernity and modernisation, but
by moving forwards, beyond the (nation-)state. Schiller, it appears, had considered
the newly developing notion of the Staatsnation and rejected it on both counts
(both nation and state were ultimately too limiting) in favour of a newly defined,
i.e. historically transformed, form of the (albeit older) Kulturnation. (In the
course of the nineteenth century, during which the nation-state became identified
as the purpose of history, this idea became of course increasingly impossible to
take seriously.) This is another example of Schillers belief in the power and
necessity of historical synthesis: the older, less specified cultural community is
regenerated through synthetic historical transformation: it incorporates and integrates elements of the historically more advanced, but debilitatingly one-sided,
28
Friedrich Meinecke: Weltbrgertum und Nationalstaat. Studien zur Genesis des
deutschen Nationalstaates. Munich Berlin 1908.
29
See ibid. Ch. 1.
30
Schiller: Die Gesetzgebung des Lykurgus und Solon. NA 17. 423. Qtd. in Alt (n. 1).
P. 229.

256
state-political community. Despite his dislike of its coercive structures, when
referring to the intellectual realm in Deutsche Gre Schiller employs the statepolitical terminology of social power structures: there is to be a (German)
Herrschaft des Geistes 31 (and of the German language) which is to lead to a
lebendig Reich (DG. 436. 78). The state-political national must be delimited
by the dynamising power of culture. This will in turn empower culture and das
Geistige. This new breed of intellectual politics represent a final age (Endzeit),
and a new eternity of universality. Regenerating the old through historical transformation and thereby delimiting the old and the new32 to achieve a successful historical synthesis is Schillers key theme. It is evident in all structures
discussed here: ancient and modern, political and cultural-geistig, national and
universal. In all cases the limited needs to be brought into contact with its opposite, which results in a dynamic reaction that creates something new, the synthesis. Synthesising opposites or differences occurs in a temporal, i.e. historical,
framework.
Schillers concepts of the German identity and the ideal community based on
the achievement of (political and moral) freedom through culture, as suggested
in Deutsche Gre, are national in the German post-national sense of the
composite universality of the German identity that Schiller defines here. The
Germans bring the necessary prerequisites to this post-national project. Their
expressive language and absorbent culture possess the crucial quality of being
alive and self-prompting. This makes them capable of the multi-faceted historical synthesis Schiller envisages. The Reinmenschliche will be achieved by the
cultural nation and cultural state. This brings me back to Kulturnationalismus,
the contradiction in terms from the beginning. It denotes exactly this progressive integrating of the universal and the particular, the human-cultural and the
particular-national without fully obliterating opposing particularities, and sets
itself in a place, which, as Leo Kreutzer has recently formulated in relation to
Goethes concept of Weltliteratur, is diesseits und jenseits der Nation.33
31

Dem, der den Geist bildet, beherrscht, / Mu zuletzt die Herrschaft werden, [].
DG. 432. 12.
32
Old and new are vague concepts in this context and can be confusing. The old can,
for example, be something that has historically deteriorated into a limiting/limited state
(the ancient) or it can, like the cultural, be something has been displaced by a new, more
limiting concept. Likewise the new can have a dynamising power (the modern) or a
limiting effect (the political). The key feature is the oppositeness of the two entities.
33
Die Hypothese einer ersten nationalgesellschaftlichen und einer zweiten weltgesellschaftlichen Moderne beruht auf einem Antagonismus zwischen National- und
Weltgesellschaft, wie ihn Goethe und andere deutsche Autoren seiner Zeit entschieden
zurckgewiesen haben. Goethes Humanismus[] hat diesem antagonistischen Konzept
das Projekt einer Moderne gegenbergestellt, das auf einer Dialektik von Ethnizitt und
Humanitt beruht. Leo Kreutzer: Sprache und Literatur diesseits und jenseits der Nation.
In: Interkulturelle Texturen. Afrika und Deutschland im Reflexionsmedium der Literatur.
Ed. by M. Moustapha Diallo and Dirk Gttsche. Bielefeld 2003. Pp. 267283, here p. 276.

David Pugh

Schiller and the Crisis of German Liberalism*

This examination of Schillers relation to liberalism falls into two parts. It deals with
some of the peculiarities of Schillers political utterances in relation to his contemporary context as well as to the liberal movement of the nineteenth century. Next it looks
at the change in the reception of Schiller caused by the growing conservatism of
middle-class opinion after 1848. The essay concludes by recommending caution when
invoking Schiller in relation to modern political debates.

There is general agreement among literary scholars and historians of ideas that
it makes sense to think of Schiller as a liberal. Rudolf Vierhaus cites Schillers
uses of the term liberal early in his article in Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe,1
and Frederick Beiser allocates a prominent chapter to Schiller in the section
devoted to liberals in his recent Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism.2
In line with the recent tendency among scholars to pluralise familiar abstractions, it seems appropriate if as a first step we try to think in terms of different
liberalisms existing in different countries and different times. As there was not
one singular Enlightenment but rather a multiplicity of notions of what
Enlightenment represented, it should also be stressed that, of all the different
people whom we retrospectively classify as liberals, each one conceived of the
ethical and political mandates facing his generation in an individual way. When

Schillers texts are quoted whenever possible from Friedrich Schiller: Smtliche
Werke. Ed. by Gerhard Fricke and Herbert G. Gpfert. 5 vols. Munich: Hanser 1958.
Quotations from verse plays are identified by line number, others by HA with volume
and page numbers. Letters from and to Schiller are quoted from Schillers Werke.
Nationalausgabe. Ed. by Julius Petersen, Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar: Hermann
Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff. They are identified by NA with volume and page numbers.
1
Rudolf Vierhaus: Liberalismus. In: Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe. Historisches
Lexikon zur politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland. Ed. by Otto Brunner et al.
8 vols. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta 197297. Vol. 3. Pp. 741785.
2
Frederick C. Beiser: Enlightenment, Revolution, and Romanticism: The Genesis of
Modern German Political Thought, 17901800. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University
Press 1992. Pp. 84110. Beiser disputes the traditional view, held for example by Aris
and Sell, that Schiller was an apolitical humanist rather than a political thinker.
Reinhold Aris: History of Political Thought in Germany from 1789 to 1815. London:
Cass 1936. Pp. 191202. Friedrich Sell: Die Tragdie des deutschen Liberalismus.
Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1953. P. 37. Beiser stresses that for Schiller the
pursuit of art and the study of aesthetics had political consequences. I am not certain,
however, that that is enough to qualify Schillers sthetische Briefe as a work of political theory.

258
we thus speak of an intellectual movement, particularly one that has not yet
been organised into political parties with agreed platforms, we are condensing
a plurality of outlooks into a single essence, and, while this procedure is no
doubt unavoidable, we should remember that it is also a heuristic device. There
is no universal essence of liberalism, and the statement Schiller was a liberal
is not self-explanatory. The questions I want to ponder here are, first, what kind
of liberal Schiller was; second, what is the relation between Schillers liberalism and the peculiar nature and fate of German liberalism. I shall be looking
first at some of Schillers own statements in their political context, then at the
shift in Schillers image later in the nineteenth century.
But first some preliminaries: liberalism proper, that is, liberalism as a selfconscious political movement of people who thought of themselves as liberals,
emerged in the 1820s, that is, twenty years after Schillers death. The intervening years had seen the occupation of Germany by the French, the Prussian
reform movement, the war of liberation, the Vienna peace settlement, the
restoration of the old order in the Deutscher Bund, and the imposition of the
Karlsbad decrees. The chief aspirations of the liberal movement that started to
form in the 1820s concerned the unity of the German nation and the limitation
of royal absolutism by constitutional rule. These goals reflect the new reality of
post-Napoleonic Europe, and so it is not surprising that they do not feature in
Schillers outlook. He had little interest in the German nation, and, as Safranski
has pointed out well in his recent book, he was less concerned with forms of
government than with the moral qualities of individuals.3 This pedagogic tendency went along with a neglect of the institutional aspect of political life, and
was an aspect of the German political culture of the eighteenth century. This
culture imposed constraints even upon those people who, like Schiller, were
partly aware of its shortcomings and tried to see beyond it.
However, as the historians also point out, the political liberalism of the nineteenth century did have a strong prehistory in cultural developments, both religious and secular, of the previous centuries, and, if it is a little anachronistic to
call Schiller a liberal in the nineteenth-century sense, it is reasonable to think
of him as a precursor of that liberalism, not least since that is how the liberals
of that age saw him. Guido de Ruggiero, the historian of liberalism, sees the
Protestant Reformation as the decisive breakthrough of a mentality that, while in
many ways the antithesis of liberalism, gave rise in the course of secularisation
3

See, for example, Safranskis description of Schillers assessment of Ludwig Huber, a

former friend who became involved with the German Jacobins in Mainz: Er nahm ihn
als Beispiel dafr, da die gegenwrtige Revolution nicht die innerlich freien
Menschen anzieht, sondern die Aufgeregten, wie sie Goethe nannte; getriebene und
umgetriebene Menschen, nicht charakterfest genug, um ihr Leben in Ordnung zu bringen. Rdiger Safranski: Friedrich Schiller oder Die Erfindung des Deutschen
Idealismus. Munich: Hanser 2004. P. 366.

259
to the doctrines of freedom of conscience and individual rights. However, the
more aggressive strain of the new faith, the one with the more direct connection to secular liberalism, was not the German but the Genevan one. As
Ruggiero also points out, the Lutheran reform stopped half-way along the
path of negation, and coming early under the control of political interests
ended by consecrating a half-servile political consciousness.4 Schiller was
often compared to Luther in the nineteenth century. Do these strictures, we
wonder, apply to him also? Again, Ruggiero sees the work of Descartes as contributing to liberalism, not in the sense that this was Descartes own political
stance, but rather that the sceptical mentality fostered by his philosophy could
not but undermine the existing socio-political order.5 If we take up the antithesis that was formerly used by Marxists, it is reasonable to say that a thinker
could be objectively a liberal even if subjectively he was not. By this we would
mean that his ideas contributed to the growth of a liberal or pre-liberal mentality even though that was not his conscious intention. Even so, however, and in
view of the plurality of liberalisms that I mentioned, this does not tell us what
kind of liberal Schiller may have been.
Equally complicated was the changing social situation in the three centuries
after Luther. Ruggiero shows how the power relations between the throne, the
aristocracy and the bourgeoisie varied between England and France, with a resulting difference between the class allegiances in each country. Liberals, or preliberals, were able variously to look for inspiration to the traditional freedoms
of the aristocracy from royal domination or to the rationalising function of the
absolute monarchy. In England, the bourgeoisie formed an alliance with the
aristocracy, leading to the supremacy of Parliament. In France, the bourgeoisie
allied itself with the centralising monarchy, an alliance that only broke down in
1791.6 Germanys situation was of course unique, with the heritage of the
Empire imposing its own constraints. On the whole, however, Germany resembled France more, with the absolute princes attracting the qualified bourgeois
to work in their administrations. It has always struck me in this connection that
a different author might easily have written Goethes Gtz von Berlichingen
from the point of view of Weislingen. (Indeed, as Nicholas Boyle hints,
Weislingen has at least as much affinity with his author as does Gtz.7) Gtz,

4
Guido de Ruggiero: The History of European Liberalism. Trans. R. G. Collingwood.
Boston: Beacon 1959. Pp. 1415.
5
Ibid. Pp. 2023.
6
Ibid. Pp. 113.
7
Gtz and Weislingen are in a sense different aspects of the same person, representing
different possible reactions to the same threat to the way of life in which they were both
brought up []. Nicholas Boyle: Goethe: The Poet and the Age. Vol. 1. Oxford:
Clarendon Press 1991. P. 118.

260
who dies with the word Freiheit on his lips, has struggled for his traditional
independence from princely control. The Weislingen figure might have been
made into someone like Count Mirabeau, a renegade nobleman who champions reason and the rights of the citizen. This character strives to help a modernising monarchy impose its will on traditionalist diehards whose freedom is
another name for privilege and in practice is not far removed from banditry.
The roots of German liberalism, before the impact of the years 180613, are to
be found in this complicated background which, I shall argue, throws light on
some of Schillers statements.
Before doing so, however, I shall mention two further authorities who can
help us to contextualise Schillers political standpoint. In a demanding but brilliant book of 1957, Leonard Krieger argues that, in the period of absolutism,
German political thinkers customarily associated freedom with the freedom of
princes under the imperial constitution.8 The resulting pattern, manifesting
itself in different ways in each individual thinker, was a conflation of the freedom of the individual with the states freedom of action and a tendency to confer an absolute moral authority on the existing state. This confusion, which
Krieger even detects in Kants political writings, became an even more significant factor after 1813, for, in addition to its duty of representing the citizens
freedom, liberals attributed to the state the obligation to embody the freedom
of the nation. The result was a confusion of the issues of individual freedom,
the powers of the state, and the nations right to self-determination. Kriegers
analysis tallies broadly with the argument of Isaiah Berlins influential lecture
Two Concepts of Liberty of 1958.9 Berlin distinguishes between a negative
liberty, which consists in permitting people to do what they want, and a positive liberty, which means allowing people to realise themselves by carrying out
the will of their higher selves and suppressing the desires of their lower selves.
The exemplars for this second kind of moral theory, which Berlin describes as
an inner emigration, are the Stoics and, in modern times, the German idealists,
with their precursors in the German absolutist states.
Both arguments find confirmation in Schillers theory of the state in the
fourth of the sthetische Briefe (HA 5. 577). The state here is said to embody the
collective will of the citizens, and hence to exert unlimited authority. However,
this will is not the sum of their empirical wills but the epitome of their higher
moral will. To the extent that they act in accordance with the states wishes, that
is, in accordance with their own moral will, the state will treat them generously.
To the extent that they remain slaves to their lower desires, the state can permit
8

Leonard Krieger: The German Idea of Freedom: History of a Political Tradition.

Boston: Beacon 1957.
9
Reprinted in Isaiah Berlin: Four Essays on Liberty. Oxford: Oxford University Press
1969. Pp. 118172.

261
them no latitude but must crush them: so wird auch der Staat gegen den
Brger den strengen Ernst des Gesetzes annehmen, und, um nicht ihr Opfer zu
sein, eine so feindselige Individualitt ohne Achtung darniedertreten mssen
(HA 5. 579). Though Schiller is cited neither by Krieger nor by Berlin, there
can be little doubt that his argument here in the fourth Brief supports both of
their analyses: a state that permits people to be violently suppressed in the
name of their own freedom is a good instantiation of Berlins positive liberty,
and the transference of the citizens morality to an essentially despotic state
would surely have been recognised by Krieger as an example of what he meant
by the German idea of freedom.
When we think of Schiller as a liberal, what probably occurs to most of us
first is the three occurrences of the term in his aesthetic essays: first, his outline of a liberal state in ber Anmut und Wrde in which the citizens act in
obedience to the state while also believing that they are following their own
desires;10 second, his compliment that the Duke of Augustenburg is ein liberaler
Weltbrger (HA 5. 573); third, his statement in the twenty-fifth sthetischer
Brief that contemplation is the first liberal relation in which man stands to his
environment.11 We must bear in mind that there was not yet an organised
movement calling itself liberalism, and that these uses are all pre-political in
meaning. This liberalism of the 1790s perhaps the right noun is liberality is
primarily a personal quality, meaning freedom of thought, generosity, tolerance,
freedom from prejudice.12 A cosmopolitan, a Weltbrger, is inherently liberal in that he is free of the prejudices of a particular nation. A liberal aristocrat
has the breadth of mind that frees him from class arrogance and religious bigotry; hence Schiller praises his Dukes dedication to the good of humankind:
ein[] Herz[], das sich dem Wohl der Menschheit sich weiht (HA 5. 573).
Contemplation is a liberal relation between man and his environment because
a contemplative man is no longer at the mercy of his impulses and appetites.
10

Wenn ein monarchischer Staat auf eine solche Art verwaltet wird, da, obgleich
alles nach eines Einzigen Willen geht, der einzelne Brger sich doch berreden kann,
da er nach seinem eigenen Sinne lebe und blo seiner Neigung gehorche, so nennt
man dies eine liberale Regierung (HA 5. 460).
11
Die Betrachtung (Reflexion) ist das erste liberale Verhltnis des Menschen zu dem
Weltall, das ihn umgibt (HA 5. 651). See Vierhauss interpretation of the concept of
liberalism in this quotation and in the phrase liberaler Weltbrger: eine intellektuelle Freiheit im Sinne der Unabhngigikeit von Zwngen und Vorurteilen und die
Fhigkeit, von sich selber abzusehen. Vierhaus (n. 1). P. 747.
12
Erst whrend der Epochenschwelle um 1800 wird liberal aus ihrer Bezeichnung
fr eine Tugend und persnliche Haltung zu einem politischen Richtungs- und
Erwartungsbegriff []. An die Stelle von libralit tritt jetzt mehr und mehr libralisme als Programm und Titel fr politische Parteien. Quoted from Liberalismus.
In: Historisches Wrterbuch der Philosophie. Ed. by Joachim Ritter and Karlfried
Grnder. Vol. 5. Basle: Schwabe 1980. P. 256.

262
Instead of compulsively obeying them, he has acquired the mental strength to
reflect for himself on whether he will pursue them or resist them.
A liberal government, in the sense of ber Anmut und Wrde, is one in which
the citizen is treated generously, is kept on a loose rein so that he can be himself,
can do and believe what he wants without being harassed and ordered around.
As is made clear in Schillers letter of 13 July 1793 to the Duke of Augustenburg,
such a government is possible only when the individual has learnt to discipline
himself; only after his baser passions have been conquered can the state afford
to keep him on a loose rein. The breakdown of the French Revolution into anarchy proves incontrovertibly, Schiller writes to the Duke of Augustenburg, da
das liberale Regiment der Vernunft da noch zu frhe kommt, wo man kaum
damit fertig wird, sich der brutalen Gewalt der Thierheit zu erwehren (NA 26.
262). This kind of statement has nothing to do with precise demands such as
parliamentary representation, free trade or the abolition of class restrictions,
but concerns rather the moral and psychological character of a government; it
is not tyrannical or arbitrary, but mild and tolerant. Schillers essay of 1790,
Die Gesetzgebung des Lykurg und Solon, is a systematic development of the
distinction between liberal and illiberal rule in this older sense. The essay casts
a revealing light on the fourth sthetischer Brief, where the outline of the
Staatsknstler corresponds closely to the portrait of Solon.13 This suggests
that in political matters Schillers essential orientation was towards the ancient
rather than the modern world, and that Plutarch, on whom his portrait of Solon
is based, was as important a source for his political views as Montesquieu or
Adam Ferguson.
To return now to the distinction between objective and subjective uses of a
term, we can say that liberalism or liberality of this personal kind, though
barely having any political quality, might nonetheless be objectively liberal in
the political sense in the same way as the thought of Calvin or Descartes was
objectively liberal, i.e., it contributed, regardless of its originators intentions,
to the growth of individual freedom and the relaxation of traditional social
constraints, a process that flowed into the liberal movement of the nineteenth
13

Solons political strategy closely resembles that of Schiller himself in the sthetische
Briefe: Frhe schon legte [Solon] sich auf die Dichtkunst, und die Fertigkeit, die er
darin erlangte, kam ihm in der Folge sehr zustatten, moralische Wahrheiten und politische Regeln in dieses gefllige Gewand zu kleiden (HA 4. 823). Further examples of
liberal statesmanship are given in the Kallias letter of 23.2.1793 (HA 5. 425426):
Cimon and Caesar possessed this kind of liberality, Phocion and Cato lacked it. The
metaphor of the loose rein, which I have used above, is used by Schiller in the Solon
essay: Seine Gesetze waren laxe Bnder, an denen sich der Geist der Brger frei und
leicht nach allen Richtungen bewegte und nie empfand, da sie ihn lenkten; die Gesetze
des Lykurgus waren eiserne Fesseln, an denen der khne Mut sich wund rieb, die durch
ihr drckendes Gewicht den Geist niederzogen (HA 4. 832).

263
century. Schillers ideas are, I think, objectively liberal in this sense.14 This is
what Heine meant when he wrote in the first book of Die Romantische Schule
that Schiller was motivated by the spirit of the French Revolution and that his
ideas continue to inspire the political struggles of the Vormrz: Ihn, den
Friedrich Schiller, erfate lebendig der Geist seiner Zeit, er rang mit ihm, er
ward von ihm bezwungen, er folgte ihm zum Kampfe, er trug sein Banner, und
es war dasselbe Banner worunter man auch jenseits des Rheines so enthusiastisch stritt, und wofr wir noch immer bereit sind, unser bestes Blut zu
vergieen.15 Even though, as we now know, Schillers personal attitude to the
French Revolution was reserved at best, it still makes sense to assert that his
works reflect the revolutionary spirit. Moreover, while in our seminars on
Schillers dramas we may urge our students not to take individual speeches or
scenes out of context, the actual process of literary reception has no such scruples. The scholarly debate may still rage over how exactly we ought to understand the Marquis Posa, but Heine was surely speaking for the majority of
German readers and theatre-goers when he wrote that Schiller ist selber jener
Marquis Posa, der zugleich Prophet und Soldat ist, der auch fr das kmpft was
er prophezeit, und unter dem spanischen Mantel das schnste Herz trgt, das
jemals in Deutschland gelebt und gelitten hat.16 This is the broad-brush
approach that led to the formation of Schiller committees and the erection of
statues and monuments during the Vormrz. The liberals who sponsored such
steps were not concerned with the complexities of the eighteenth-century environment, let alone with the close reading of literary texts. They were interested
in what would have a practical effect in their immediate situation.
Still, it is worth our while to look deeper into the matter. For example, it is
by no means clear what kind of a liberal or pre-liberal the Marquis Posa might
be. Is he more like Gtz or Weislingen, i.e., is he a traditionalist or a reformer?
He has elements of both, it seems to me. In his audience with King Philipp in
Act III he affirms a kind of cosmic laissez-faire, which would justify a loose
kind of monarchic rule:
Sehen Sie sich um
In seiner herrlichen Natur! Auf Freiheit
Ist sie gegrndet und wie reich ist sie
Durch Freiheit! (lines 321518)
14

A possible link between the older liberality and the new liberalism can however be
found in the Solon essay, where Schiller stresses that Solon rejected the position of
Herrscher and was only prepared to accept powers that were constitutionally defined.
See HA 4. 823.
15
Heinrich Heine: Smtliche Schriften. Ed. by Klaus Briegleb. Frankfurt/M.: Ullstein
1981. Vol. 5. P. 393.
16
Ibid.

264
This kind of monarchy would allow freedom to noblemen to live according to
their traditional liberties. On the other hand, in his scene with the Queen in Act IV,
Posa seems to think of the ideal state as something that is created by an enlightened ruler. His hope is not so much to allow this state to come into existence
but rather to call it into existence, not so much by laissez-faire as by an act of
princely dirigisme. Similarly with Wilhelm Tell, Schiller has the best of both
worlds, in that his Swiss rebels start by suing for a renewal of their contractual
privileges against a reforming monarchy, with Geler in the role of Weislingen.
It is only when their petition has been rejected that they start to talk about their
abstract and non-specific rights, that is, they shift towards the modern and
revolutionary version of the old doctrine of natural law.17
But even this is only to scratch the surface of Schillers complexity. If we
return to his sketch of a liberal state in ber Anmut und Wrde, you will recall
that this is advanced as an analogy for the beautiful soul. Though Schiller does
not use the term, it would thus be accurate to say that this liberal state is also a
beautiful one. However, Schillers thought observes a powerful two-stroke pattern,
in which his beautiful constructs function as proposals that are immediately
answered by a riposte from the sublime side. The beautiful soul is complemented by a sublime disposition, and we have to expect that there will be a sublime state to complement the beautiful one. As Schiller writes in a later passage
of ber Anmut und Wrde, in the sublime disposition the mind rules as a master (Herrscher) that asserts its autonomy over impulse (Trieb). This brings us
back to the situation of the end of the fourth sthetischer Brief, in which the
rational state is given the right to crush a sensual populace. It is Schillers theory of the sublime that gives rise to such drastic scenarios. If we are going to
credit Schiller with a liberal outlook based on his beautiful state, consistency
requires us to give equal status to his sublime state and to grant that he had his
less liberal moments as well.
In reality, we do well to recall that both beautiful and sublime states are not
proposals for action but constructs of Schillers imagination. They are extensions of his essentially metaphysical theories of the beautiful and sublime,
which he conceives respectively as harmonious and disharmonious relations
between mind and nature. These theories thus do not have any close relation to
any modern political theory that I know of; Schillers systematic parallel between
the composition of the human psyche and the form of the state is actually more
17
On the eve of the American and French Revolutions the theory of natural law had
been turned into a theory of natural rights. The old notion which lawyers, philosophers
and political writers had used down the ages had become [] a liberating principle,
ready to hand for the use of modern man in his challenge to existing institutions. A. P.
dEntrves: Natural Law: An Introduction to Legal Philosophy. London: Hutchinson
1951. P. 60.

265
reminiscent of Platos Republic than of any ideas of the eighteenth century.
Indeed, it was perhaps an inherent feature of German culture under absolutism
that political philosophy (as opposed to the practical discipline of Kameralistik)
was bound to remain so speculative precisely because there was so little chance
of its being put into effect. There is thus no point at all in castigating Schiller
for being disconnected from political practicalities, or to expect him to have
somehow transcended the constraints of the society that he lived in. But it is
legitimate, perhaps, if we speculate a little in our turn as to the latent political
contents or associations of these two concepts in relation to the three-way
social division I have outlined between crown, aristocracy and populace.
The beautiful state is the outcome of aesthetic education, thanks to which
the citizens achieve a moral condition that enables them to be governed liberally in the sense described above. The notion of aesthetic education, in the form
of cultivation of the personality and manners, is, as a number of scholars have
spotted, an essentially aristocratic notion, going back to earlier ideas of how
young noblemen were to be educated.18 If, then, Schiller is proposing the aesthetically cultivated personality as a third force to mediate between nature and
mind, this theory bears a family resemblance to the traditional justification of
the aristocracy as a buffer between the crown and the populace. The freedom
that this form of personality confers, then, could be seen as being a speculative
equivalent of the contractual freedom of the nobleman. Alternatively, one
could bring it into connection with another buffer between individual and state,
namely, the modern concept of civil society, which would mean that the aesthetic personality achieved, within himself and in isolation, the kind of rich and
varied life that a developed civil society offers its members through participation in collective activities.19 Whichever comparison we choose to stress, however, the freedom conferred by aesthetic education would appear as being akin
to Berlins negative freedom, and if it resembles a form of liberalism, it is that
type of liberalism that derives from aristocratic liberties vis vis the throne.
18
See especially Heinz Otto Burger: Europisches Adelsideal und deutsche Klassik. In:
Dasein heit eine Rolle spielen: Studien zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte. Munich:
Hanser 1963. Pp. 211232. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgartens account of the training of
the felix aestheticus in his Aesthetica (175058) has a strongly aristocratic note. See
Baumgarten: Theoretische sthetik. Ed. and trans. by H. R. Schweizer. Hamburg:
Meiner 2nd edn 1988, esp. sections 45 and 50.
19
Civil society is defined by Gellner as that diverse set of non-governmental institutions which is strong enough to counterbalance the state and, while not preventing the
state from fulfilling its role of keeper of the peace and arbitrator between major interests, can nevertheless prevent it from dominating and atomizing the rest of society.
Ernest Gellner: Conditions of Liberty: Civil Society and its Rivals. London: Hamilton
1994. P. 5. Schiller would have been familiar with the concept through his reading of
Fergusons Essay on the History of Civil Society.

266
The sublime personality and the sublime state have no truck with beautiful
refinement and are concerned solely with the end result. The state that crushes the
sensual populace is a modern state that has identified itself with the collective
moral will of the citizenry and that recognises no restrictions to its power based on
any traditional or legal claims. The freedom at issue here is akin to Isaiah Berlins
positive freedom. The state that expresses it could be viewed as an ideal version
of the absolutist state of Louis XIV or Frederick the Great, though it also recalls
the powers assumed by the Committee of Public Safety that ruled France in
179394, powers that were exercised in the name of virtue. The liberalism represented by the sublime state is thus that which is brought about by the concentration of all power in one sovereign and the elimination of all diversity of legal status
among the citizens. Where the beautiful state, in a word, has some commonality
with the state of Gtz, the sublime one resembles that of Weislingen. Such resemblances are only very distant, however, for these states are aesthetic constructs.
The most that could reasonably be claimed is that they reflect through a glass
darkly the actual options facing Germany in the political context of the 1790s.
Now Schiller of course posits at the end of ber Anmut und Wrde an ideal
synthesis of beautiful and sublime souls (HA 5. 481), and the pattern is repeated
at the end of ber das Erhabene (HA 5. 806807), where the complete aesthetic education is said to involve both beautiful and sublime components.
Similarly, then, the ideal state must be both beautiful and sublime; it must find
a way to reconcile the strength to enforce the uniform moral law with the generosity to permit room for individual self-development. The closest Schiller
comes to sketching this ideal is the picture of the aesthetic state in the twentyseventh sthetischer Brief, a state in which the liberal component is restricted
to the realm of ceremony and etiquette while the actual power remains firmly
with the crown.20 While this notion could never become the model for any
actual political practice I have argued elsewhere that it looks like Burkes picture of the Ancien Regime21 it remains a deeply interesting one, in that it
reveals an ambivalence towards the state, a mixture of reliance and distrust,
that, according to the historian James Sheehan, was to be a hallmark of
German liberalism in the nineteenth century. This is just one of a number of
noticeable affinities between Schiller and the liberals of the Vormrz, which
strike one as one reads Sheehans study.22 For example, these early liberals had
20

See also the anticipations of the aesthetic state in Schillers Kallias letter to Krner
of 23.2.1793: In der sthetischen Welt ist jedes Wesen ein freier Brger [] (HA 5.
421); and in ber Anmut und Wrde: In dieses Reich [des Geschmacks] tritt auch der
Knig sobald er von seinem Throne herabsteigt [] (HA 5. 480).
21
David Pugh: Dialectic of Love: Platonism in Schillers Aesthetics. Montreal:
McGill-Queens University Press 1996. P. 411. N. 3.
22
James J. Sheehan: German Liberalism in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press 1978.

267
a strong dislike of party or faction, which led to a vagueness over whether they
wished to represent the entire people or only a part of it; this led in turn to a
tension between the universalism of their moral claims and their actual distrust
of the uneducated populace. Further Schillerian features of this movement
were its tendency to think of progress in terms of spiritual Bildung rather
than as a struggle for political rights, and its fixation on the old craft-based
economy of the Mittelstand (think of Das Lied von der Glocke). The latter
attitude was to hamper the German liberals in coming to terms with the emerging capitalist economy and prevented them from recognising the legitimacy of
working-class politics. Despite the differences between Schillers world and
that of the Vormrz, these continuities would seem to support the claim that the
nascent liberal movement did not just admire Schiller but had absorbed something of his spirit. In the remainder of this essay, however, I want to look
beyond the Vormrz and see what became of Schillers legacy in the second
half of the century. As we shall see the vital antithesis is no longer that between
the beautiful and the sublime, but between the realist and the idealist.
The crisis of German liberalism that I refer to in my title is the massive
reversal that took place in the 1860s as the liberals, demoralised by their lack
of success and by Bismarcks triumph, threw in their hand and decided they
needed to acknowledge the power of facts and the facts of power. The most
influential documents of this historic volte-face, which was accompanied by
two splits in the liberal movement and the foundation of the National Liberal
Party, are Ludwig August von Rochaus Grundstze der Realpolitik (1853, second part 1869) and Hermann Baumgartens Der deutsche Liberalismus: Eine
Selbstkritik of 1866.23 The latter work has been aptly linked by Christian
Grawe to the great Schiller festival of 1859, in which he sees a watershed
between two eras of Schiller reception. The festival and the two pamphlets
marked the shift in the attitudes of the liberal middle class, from opposition to
the authoritarian state, through resignation after 1848, to enthusiastic acceptance of the need for Prussian Realpolitik.24 In terms of Schillers reputation,
23

There are modern editions of both works. Ludwig August von Rochau: Grundstze
der Realpolitik: Angewendet auf die staatlichen Zustnde Deutschlands. Ed. by HansUlrich Wehler. Frankfurt/M.: Ullstein 1972. Hermann Baumgarten: Der deutsche
Liberalismus: Eine Selbstkritik. Ed. by Adolf M. Birke. Frankfurt/M.: Ullstein 1974. On
Rochau and Baumgarten, see Krieger: (n. 8). Pp. 353356, 440441. Kriegers overall
argument can be exemplified in his concluding assessment of Baumgarten, who, he
writes, had formally transferred the liberal as well as the national function of his political ethic into the charge of the established authorities (p. 441). In this Baumgarten was
at one with the group Krieger terms the Old Liberals, who were always ready to infiltrate their ideal of an ordered freedom into the order of the state (p. 439).
24
Betrachtet man sie [die Schillerfeier von 1859] [] nicht im Rckblick auf ihre liberalen Wurzeln, sondern im Vorblick auf die nun folgende politische Entwicklung;

268
this was the moment when his image as a champion of freedom gave way to
that of a prophet and soldier of the unified nation.
Baumgarten himself tends to see Schiller and his milieu from the negative
point of view. For all its splendid achievements, he writes, this group conformed to an ancient cultural pattern of German withdrawal from reality,
thanks to which it failed to protect the nation from the calamity of 1806:
Es kann doch [] nicht in Abrede gestellt werden, da der Grundzug unserer
klassischen Literatur dahin ging, der geistigen Bildung, dem Erkennen, Denken,
Empfinden eine bertriebene Bedeutung beizulegen, die dem Handeln zugekehrte
Seite unserer Natur zu vernachlssigen und sich mit jener Geistigkeit in eine exclusive Sphre zurckzuziehen, in einen antiken Idealismus zu versteigen, der zu den
Grundbedingungen des modernen, speziell des germanischen Lebens nicht pat.25

It is a uniquely German prejudice, writes Baumgarten, that poets can have nothing to do with politics. This is eine Vorstellung, die lediglich den krankhaften
Abstraktionen unserer kmmerlichen Zwergstaaterei entnommen ist und in der
ganzen Geschichte aller Vlker kaum eine einzige Parallele zu ihrer Sttze
entdecken drfte.26 Baumgarten finds particular fault with Wilhelm von
Humboldts Ideen zu einem Versuch, die Grenzen der Wirksamkeit des Staates
zu bestimmen (1792), which subordinates the role of the state to the individuals right to self-development. However, that was Humboldts view and not
necessarily Schillers, even though Schiller published parts of it in the Thalia.
Humboldts minimal state is, in Schillers terms, a beautiful one. As we have
seen, however, Schiller himself was equally able to conceive of a strong one.
In passing, Baumgarten mentions Schillers short-lived plan to write an epic
poem about Frederick II of Prussia. This reminds us that in Schillers dramatic
work we find not only idealists, that the idealists that we do come across are
not portrayed in an exclusively positive light, and also that, in the portrayal of
the realist and the idealist that concludes ber nave und sentimentalische
Dichtung, it is far from obvious that the idealist comes out ahead. If we are
right to think of Schillers beautiful and sublime states as essentially projections of his imagination rather than designs for implementation, it is no less
important to recall that Schiller wrote dramas rather than monologues, and that
his realists have just as much dramatic reality as his idealists, Franz Moor as
much as Karl, King Philipp as much as Posa, Grfin Terzky as much as Max
betrachtet man nicht ihre uerlichen liberalen Gesten, sondern die Substanz der
unendlich vielen uerungen zu ihrem Anla, dann ist sie weniger demokratischer
Epilog als nationalistisch-konservativer Prolog. Grawe: Das Beispiel Schiller: Zur
Konstituierung eines Klassikers in der ffentlichkeit des 19. Jahrhunderts. In:
Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Germanistik im 19. Jahrhundert. Ed. by J. Fhrmann and
W. Vokamp. Stuttgart: Metzler 1994. P. 644.
25
Baumgarten (n. 23). P. 29.
26
Ibid. P. 30.

269
Piccolomini. Moreover, some of his greatest characters mingle realism and idealism in a way that militates against any simple-minded view of them, Wallenstein
being the obvious example.
While Rochaus book contains less direct reference to Schiller than
Baumgartens, his terms of reference and his rhetoric are fairly similar. The antiWeimar note is evident enough in a chapter title Das deutsche Einheitsstreben:
Wahrheit gegen Dichtung, and he begins the chapter with a swipe against
Schiller:
Die deutsche Einheit ist keineswegs eine Sache des Herzensdranges der Nation. Bei
Musik und Becherklang, bei Turn- und Schtzenfesten und berhaupt in Stunden
schwunghafter Stimmung mag man alle Millionen deutscher Brder mit gleicher
Liebe umschlingen, im Gefhle der allgemeinen deutschen Stammesgenossenschaft
schwelgen und von Sehnsucht nach unzertrennlicher Vereinigung der vielfach
gespaltenen Nation berflieen. Das ist eine dichterische Selbsttuschung, die vor
einer nchternen Betrachtung der Wirklichkeit keinen Augenblick standhlt.27

German unity, Rochau argues, will be founded not on poetic enthusiasm but on
a cold calculation of interest. In his next chapter, with its Schillerian title Der
politische Idealismus und die Wirklichkeit, we seem to be entering Wallensteins
camp. Idealism is equated with immaturity, and, like the generals Machiavellian
sister-in-law, Rochau urges an adult Germany to discard the Studentenpolitik
of the Vormrz period and to acknowledge this truth: der vernnftige Zweck
der staatlichen Ttigkeit kann kein anderer sein als die wirksame Behandlung
der ffentlichen Verhltnisse, der politische Erfolg.28
In fact, as we read Baumgartens and Rochaus pleas to Germany at last to
descend from the clouds and get to grips with reality, it is possible to feel that,
despite their criticism of Schiller, they have not really succeeded in escaping
from a Schillerian framework for formulating the issues facing the country.
Indeed, Bismarcks famous words about blood and iron, which provided the
motto for a generation, might easily have been spoken by Wallenstein. In a letter to Heinrich von Treitschke of August 1866, Baumgarten writes:
Es scheint mir ein Bedrfnis, einmal in grerem Zusammenhang nachzuweisen,
da und wie sehr wir mit unserer bisherigen Art, Politik zu machen, auf dem
Holzweg waren, da nicht ein blinder Zufall, sondern die innere Notwendigkeit die
groe rettende Tat der letzten Monate, wie oft sie vielfach die Gedanken des
Liberalismus realisierte, in einen scharfen Gegensatz zu demselben stellte und da
uns eine grndliche vollstndige Umkehr in unserem politischen Denken sowohl
wie in unserem politischen Tun not ist.29
27
Rochau (n. 23). P. 230. This is one of the chapters added in 1869. The reference to
Schillers An die Freude here (Seid umschlungen, Millionen) is actually unfair,
because the poem calls for a unification not of the German people but of all mankind.
28
Rochau (n. 23). P. 255.
29
Quoted in Baumgarten (n. 23). P. 153.

270
Had Baumgarten perhaps been reading Wallenstein before he wrote this? In
Act II of Wallensteins Tod, the protagonist also resorts to the concepts of
chance and necessity: Es gibt keinen Zufall; / Und was uns blindes Ohngefhr
nur dnkt, / Gerade das steigt aus den tiefsten Quellen (lines 9435). He
develops the thought further:
Des Menschen Taten und Gedanken, wit!
Sind nicht wie Meeres blindbewegte Wellen.
Die innre Welt, sein Mikrokosmus, ist,
Der tiefe Schacht, aus dem sie ewig quellen.
Sie sind notwendig, wie des Baumes Frucht,
Sie kann der Zufall gaukelnd nicht verwandeln. (lines 9538)

The passage, to be sure, concerns not the justification for Wallenstein's rebellion, but the loyalty of Octavio Piccolomini. Nonetheless, this vision of nature
governed by occult forces and impervious to morality has a great deal to do
with Wallenstein's belief in his own destiny. In his scene with Max, he dismisses moral scruples as the fantasies of youth.
Eng ist die Welt, und das Gehirn ist weit,
Leicht beieinander wohnen die Gedanken,
Doch hart im Raume stoen sich die Sachen,
Wo eines Platz nimmt, mu das andre rcken,
Wer nicht vertrieben sein will, mu vertreiben,
Da herrscht der Streit, und nur die Strke siegt. (lines 78892)

This is Wallensteins philosophy, not Schillers, of course. However, something

very like it is offered to us in Das Ideal und das Leben where, in the
metaphor of a chariot race, Schiller describes the world as a Darwinian struggle for survival:
Mut allein kann hier den Dank erringen,
Der am Ziel des Hippodromes winkt;
Nur der Starke wird das Schicksal zwingen,
Wenn der Schwchling untersinkt. (lines 5760)

This is one of the stanzas from the poem where Schiller sketches his philosophy of the sublime, which is answered in the succeeding stanzas by the philosophy of the beautiful. In both Kant and Schiller, of course, the theory of the
sublime involves a component of moral idealism. But what triggers the sublime
impulse is the realistic recognition that the world is a hostile place as epitomised
in the shipwreck and the avalanche, the usual topoi of the sublime. It is an arena
where the weak and the strong duel for mastery and submission. As Schiller
writes in Die Worte des Wahns, Nicht dem Guten gehret die Erde, words
that are matched by Wallensteins Dem bsen Geist gehrt die Erde, nicht /
Dem guten (lines 7989). This is the world that Baumgarten enthusiastically
embraces when he urges his readers to ignore the legal rights and wrongs of the

271
Schleswig-Holstein dispute, or when he praises Bismarcks unscrupulousness.
As Grfin Terzky tells Wallenstein:
Entworfen blo, ists ein gemeiner Frevel,
Vollfhrt, ists ein unsterblich Unternehmen;
Und wenn es glckt, so ist es auch verziehn,
Denn aller Ausgang ist ein Gottes Urtel [sic]. (lines 4703)

As one reads what critics had to say about Schiller during the Kaiserreich, it is
often possible to hear echoes of this philosophy, though stripped of the final
Aufschwung that is essential to the sublime. The great political paradigm is
no longer Posa pleading with Philipp for freedom of thought, but rather the
Countess telling Wallenstein to stop dithering, or Wallenstein telling Max that
it is time he outgrew his moral idealism.
Further evidence that Wallensteins story was becoming a general paradigm
for the advance of Germany to world power can be found in a book of 1897 by
Carl Weitbrecht. Even in his introductory chapter he is praising Schiller as ein
ganz moderner realistischer Geist whom only the dim-witted have taken for
an idealist.30 Interestingly, he contrasts Schillers mature masculinity not only
with the immaturity of the male idealist but also with femininity, which he sees
exemplified in Goethe and his modern admirers. Schiller, writes Weitbrecht,
was a mnnliche Willensnatur whose element was not contemplation but action
and conflict. Naturally enough it is the Wallenstein trilogy in which these qualities are said to emerge most strongly. Wallenstein himself is a Herrschernatur
like his author, and only the small-minded could find fault with his mighty ambitions. Weitbrecht goes further than other critics, both in praising the Countess
for her realism and in drawing parallels between the action of the play and the
events of Germanys recent history. In his strictures against the Capuchin friar
in the Lager, for example, it is hard not to hear echoes of Bismarcks antiCatholic Kulturkampf . More significantly, Weitbrecht justifies his praise for
Wallensteins intended secession by arguing that his alliance with the Emperor
had been formed at the expense of Germany. His rebellion, Weitbreicht argues,
thus resembles Bismarcks war against Austria in that both rode roughshod
over petty moral considerations in order to strike a blow for the German nation.
But Weitbrecht is not completely uncritical of Schiller. The romantic subplot
with Max and Thekla he finds unsatisfactory, but he even manages to bring this
into line with his broader argument. The subplot, he concedes, was popular
when the work first appeared, but that was merely a reflection of Germanys
political impotence at that time. In the new age of patriotism and realism in
30

Carl Weitbrecht: Schiller in seinen Dramen. Stuttgart: Fromann 1897. Pp. 2223. For
his discussion of Wallenstein, see pp. 157208.

272
which Weitbrecht is so proud to live, only the immature are capable of being
impressed by such a jnglingshaft figure as Max Piccolomini.
Eight years after Weitbrecht, Eugen Khnemann constructs his study of
Schiller, a representative product of the anniversary year 1905, around the division between the works of Schillers youth and those of his Mannesalter, and
the portrayal of the mature Schiller is now positively dripping in testosterone:
Je mehr man zu Schillers Gedanken ber sich selbst und den eigenen Beruf kommt,
um so mehr erkennt man die herbe Mnnlichkeit dieses Dichters, seinen
untrglichen Realistenblick fr die Wirklichkeit dieses Lebens, freilich bei der
groen Sicherheit ber die ewigen Ziele. Hier ist alles so anders, als in dem
herkmmlichen Schillerbilde angenommen wird. Hoffentlich lst alsbald der
Schiller fr Mnner den Schiller fr Knaben ab.31

There is a clear parallel intended both here and in a sentence from the previous
page between Schillers mature development into a realist and the mission of
the German people to battle for its proper place among the Great Powers: Er
ist der Philosoph der sich kultivierenden Seele und der groe Kndiger der
schweren Kmpfe und Schden, welche die Kulturarbeit mit sich bringt. Sie
sind seitdem nur hrter und schwieriger geworden. In such sentences, we can
hear how the German Bildungsbrgertum, having been converted to the doctrines of national self-assertion and Realpolitik, seeks to recast Schiller from
a champion of the old liberal values into a German hero for the age of imperialism. In his concluding pages, Khnemann repeatedly calls Schiller ein germanischer Held, who has led the Germans aus ihrer brgerlichen Enge in die
groen Verhltnisse des Lebens.32 This image, developed in the years of the
Kaiserreich, needs only a small additional dose of racism to produce the
Schiller image of the Nazi years.
What lessons can we draw from this story? I shall leave you with two
thoughts, one about Schiller and one about Germany. First, Schiller is a less simple writer than many thought him and perhaps still think him to be. Not only, as
a dramatist, was he a practitioner of the genre that best enables the author to conceal his personal opinions, Schillers philosophical thought also has a dramatic
quality in its debate between the constructs of the beautiful and the sublime. His
beautiful and sublime states, like the human personalities that they symbolise,
are aesthetic designs; they represent imaginative possibilities rather than prescriptive models, and the constant shifting of ground in these essays, which
makes them so taxing from the logical point of view, should warn us against trying to fix Schillers opinion by reference to any single passage. Critics who fasten upon passages from a Schillerian philosophical work or from a drama or
31
32

Eugen Khnemann: Schiller. Munich: Beck 5th edn 1914. P. 369.

Ibid. P. 602.

273
poem are thus most likely to trip themselves up. If the admiration for Posa before
1848 is succeeded by an affinity for Wallenstein after 1866, this is not just
Wallensteins Doppelsinn des Lebens (Wallensteins Tod, line 161), but also the
Doppelsinn of the dramatic genre itself. Schiller, like most good dramatists, is
going to be on both sides of most issues. This is why we find Hermann
Baumgarten using the realist Schiller as a stick with which to beat the idealist.
Second, while Schillers admirers in the nineteenth century looked to him as
a leader out of the countrys unsatisfactory political condition, it is surely more
accurate to see Schiller, both the man himself and the public institution, as
belonging to that condition. He could not offer a way out of the German
predicament since he was part of it. By this I mean first that, as a result of the
cultural and political environment that constrained him, his own political statements were couched in a speculative and non-committal mode. These statements reflected actual options only hazily and could not serve as the basis for
political activity. But I also mean that it was a feature of the German culture of
the nineteenth century to view political issues through cultural lenses. That is
how the Bildungsbrgertum thought. There is thus something peculiarly
German in the adoption of Schiller, a creative writer, as the inspiration for a
political movement, and it is not entirely surprising that this movement should
have turned out to be so unsuccessful. The ease with which a nationalistic and
militaristic image of Schiller was constructed and propagated in Germanys
bad half-century should perhaps deter us from trying to reconstitute him as a
liberal icon now. Drafting writers of the past into combat in modern culture
wars is always a suspect and opportunistic game, and it is particularly ironic
that Schiller, the author of the doctrine of aesthetic Schein, should have suffered this fate so egregiously. As we celebrate the bicentenary of his death, let
us, rather than exploiting him for our ends, do him the courtesy of trying to
understand him in his own terms.

This page intentionally left blank

Nicholas Martin

Images of Schiller in National Socialist Germany*

The essay analyses attitudes to Schiller in Germany between 1933 and 1945 in order to
establish to what extent his character and work, however interpreted, provided a rallyingpoint for endorsers of the National Socialist regime as well as for some of its opponents.
The nature of these attitudes is investigated, together with the related question of
Schillers political and ideological malleability. Analysis of engagements with Schiller
in this period reveals that there was no single, monolithic National Socialist
Schillerbild. While Nazi treatments of Schiller were manipulative in the extreme and
drew heavily on existing myths surrounding the poet, they were anything but consistent
or uniform.

Postwar commentators have tended to regard the Nazi regimes treatment of

Germanys cultural past in general, and of Schiller in particular, as little more
than a dark aberration, a perversion of humane ideals which were cynically
channelled into the service of barbarism. It is difficult to argue with the essence
of this judgment. However, it tends to assume that Nazis held a monolithic
Schillerbild. By examining specific instances of engagement with Schiller
during the Third Reich, this essay will argue that, while National Socialist
treatments of Schiller were manipulative in the extreme, they were anything
but consistent or uniform. The aim is to present a picture of attitudes to Schiller
in Germany between 1933 and 1945 and to challenge the notion that there was
a single, undifferentiated National Socialist Schillerbild. A related concern
is to establish the extent to which Schillers character and work, however interpreted, provided a rallying-point for endorsers of the regime as well as for
some of its opponents.1
It is important to recognise that for Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels,
who held a doctorate in German literature from Heidelberg, as well as for
many professors of German during the Nazi period, Schiller was not the most
*

Schillers texts are quoted from Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Ed. by Julius
Petersen, Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff. Quotations
from Schillers verse plays are identified by line number, others by NA with volume
and page numbers.
1
A useful study of approaches to Schiller in Nazi Germany is Georg Ruppelt: Schiller
im nationalsozialistischen Deutschland. Der Versuch einer Gleichschaltung. Stuttgart:
Metzler 1979. For the raw material of my analysis I have drawn heavily on the documentation contained in Ruppelts survey and on pointers contained in a review of his
findings. Lesley Sharpe: National Socialism and Schiller. In: German Life and Letters
36 (198283). Pp. 156165.

276
mobilisable of figures.2 He was not central to either the cultural policy of the
Third Reich or to the research and teaching conducted in German universities
at this time. In the words of a recent commentator: Die Schiller-Forschung
stand nicht im Zentrum der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft in den Jahren der
Vergewaltigungen des Geistes durch die politische Macht []. Der Dramatiker
Schiller wurde weit hinter Kleist, der Lyriker Schiller weit hinter Hlderlin
eingeordnet; und Goethe leuchtete weit voran.3 Engagements with Schiller
nevertheless played an important ancillary role in attempts by National Socialists
to align German culture with their political ends.
Echoing the first line of Brechts exile poem An die Nachgeborenen, some
postwar views of Schiller interpretation during the Third Reich have been
expressed under banners such as Klassiker in finsteren Zeiten.4 A difficulty
with such banners is that they run the risk of obscuring the variety of engagements with Schiller in Germany between 1933 and 1945, both inside and outside
the official cultural organs of the National Socialist state. These engagements
ranged from, at one extreme, Goebbels extraordinary Festrede on Schillers
175th birthday in 1934 to the enlistment of Schillers moral support by the
Weie Rose resistance group at the other.5 Between these extremes lay interpretations of Schiller by Germanists broadly sympathetic to the National
Socialist regime, disputes within Nazi cultural officialdom over the ideological
suitability of certain Schiller plays, and implicit criticism of the regime on the
part of a few Schiller scholars.
2

Goebbels was nominally a student of Friedrich Gundolf s at Heidelberg, although in

practice Max von Waldberg was his supervisor. Goebbels retained a great admiration
for these professors, both of whom were Jewish. He wrote his dissertation on the
Romantic dramatist Wilhelm Schtz (17761847). Paul Joseph Goebbels: Wilhelm von
Schtz als Dramatiker. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Dramas der Romantischen
Schule. Diss. Heidelberg 1922.
3
Schiller Zeitgenosse aller Epochen. Dokumente zur Wirkungsgeschichte Schillers in
Deutschland. Ed. by Norbert Oellers. 2 vols. Frankfurt/M.: Athenum 1970. Munich:
Beck 1976. Vol. 2. P. xlix.
4
Wirklich, ich lebe in finsteren Zeiten! Bertolt Brecht: An die Nachgeborenen. In:
Gedichte. Ed. by Elisabeth Hauptmann. Vol. 4. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp 1961. P. 143.
See Klassiker in finsteren Zeiten 19331945. Ed. by Bernhard Zeller. 2 vols.
Marbach/N.: Deutsche Schillergesellschaft 1983 (Marbacher Kataloge 38).
Beschdigtes Erbe. Beitrge zur Klassikerrezeption in finsterer Zeit. Ed. by Horst
Claussen and Norbert Oellers. Bonn: Bouvier 1984.
5
In their first pamphlet in May 1942, the Munich students reproduced the section of
Schillers 1789 Jena lecture Die Gesetzgebung des Lykurgus und Solon, in which he
criticises political systems that elevate the state above the individual: [] Der Staat
selbst ist niemals Zweck, er ist nur wichtig als eine Bedingung unter welcher der
Zweck der Menschheit erfllt werden kann [] (NA 17. 423). Qtd. in the first of the
six Weie Rose pamphlets, dated 31.5.1942. In: Die Weie Rose und ihre Flugbltter.
Ed. by Hinrich Siefken. Manchester: Manchester University Press 1994. Pp. 2223.

277
I.
Whether to celebrate his birth or mark his death, Schillerjahre have usually
been celebrated at fifty-year intervals, but soon after the Nazis came to power
Goebbels recognised the potential of the 175th anniversary of Schillers birth,
which was to fall in 1934, as a means not only of promoting the notion of
Volksgemeinschaft but also of providing the new regime with some muchneeded cultural and historical legitimacy. If National Socialism had no
(respectable) tradition to draw upon, it would have to invent one.6 Celebrations
of Schillers 175th birthday in 1934 were extended and elaborate. As an exercise in mobilising or exploiting the poet for political and self-congratulatory
ends, they would appear at first sight to have much in common with the festivities held in 1859 to celebrate the centenary of Schillers birth. Siegbert Prawer
has characterised the quasi-religious significance of Schiller in those earlier
celebrations as follows: As a unifying force, Schiller seemed particularly
potent because he was also, in the eyes of the celebrants of 1859, a figure representative of the German Brgertum. The middle-class intellectuals were in
fact paying tribute to themselves. Schiller and the characters of his plays and
ballads were glorified as possessing all the virtues regarded as peculiarly
German.7 Prawer goes on to list the virtues which Schillers character and works
were held to represent: patriotism, decency, fidelity, manly courage, willing
subordination to established authority, industry and application.8 These are, of
course, the stereotypical virtues of the hard-working, non-political German
Brger of 1859. In 1934 Goebbels and others were able to present Schiller
and his work in an almost identical light, as the embodiment of those virtues
celebrated in 1859, while simultaneously applying another layer of paint to the
traditional Schillerbild, by suggesting that Schiller was a forerunner of the
radical National Socialist revolution.
A major difference between the celebrations of 1859 and those of 1934 lay in
their organisation. Although they often expressed national aspirations, the countless festivities held in 1859 tended to be organised on a local level. The Schiller
celebrations of 1934, by contrast, were to a large extent centrally co-ordinated
by either the Reichsministerium fr Volksaufklrung und Propaganda or the
National Socialist Party (NSDAP), or both. However pompous and self-regarding
6
With similar aims in mind, there were state-sponsored celebrations on the occasion of
Kleists 125th Todestag in November 1936. See Mechthild Kirsch: Das Kleist
Jubilum 1936: Die Bochumer Festwoche. In: Deutsche Klassiker im
Nationalsozialismus. Schiller Kleist Hlderlin. Ed. by Claudia Albert. Stuttgart
Weimar: Metzler 1994. Pp. 8699.
7
Siegbert Prawer: The Schiller Centenary of 1859. In: German Life and Letters N.S. 3
(194950). Pp. 212220, here p. 215.
8
Ibid. P. 216.

278
they may appear to us, the Schiller celebrations of 1859 were, on the whole, the
expression of a genuine local and individual need for national unity and selfaffirmation. The Schiller festivities of 1934, by contrast, were an expression of
the states need to bolster itself rather than a grass-roots phenomenon. Consequently, they were to a large extent imposed from above. The celebrations were
carefully stage-managed rather than spontaneously staged. The states involvement in 1934 was unprecedented; it had been involved to a much lesser extent in
the Schiller anniversaries of 1905 and 1909 or the often overlooked celebrations
of 1884 (Schillers 125th birthday) and 1930 (the 125th Todestag). Questions of
organisation aside, a precedent for the ideologically motivated National Socialist
Schillerjahr existed in the markedly political character of the Schiller celebrations of 1855 and, above all, 1859: 1859 war gezeigt worden, da sich
Schiller zur politischen Inanspruchnahme sehr gut eignet.9 In many quarters
these celebrations created or confirmed Schillers status as Germanys
Nationaldichter, and he became the focus of often incompatible visions of
national unity. In his seminal study Schiller und die deutsche Nachwelt of 1909,
Albert Ludwig characterised the two Schillerjahre of the 1850s as follows:
So in dreifacher Verklrung, als Dichter des Ideals, des Volkes und des Vaterlandes,
erschien Schiller also dem Geschlechte, das 1855 und 1859 die groen Weihefeste
beging, und ihr zweites stellt sich noch immer als die groartigste Huldigung dar,
die je dem Gedchtnis eines Dichters dargebracht wurde. [] Alles Wnschen und
Hoffen fr die nationale Zukunft schwang damals im Tone der Feier mit [], man
bekannte sich nach den Jahren der Enttuschung, des Zweifels und der
Verstimmung nun, da wieder ein frischerer Luftzug in der Politik zu wehen begann,
zu den alten Idealen, man feierte sie in Schiller, Schiller in ihnen.10

As in other areas of ideology and policy, National Socialists sought to turn

back the clock in their celebrations of Schillers 175th birthday in 1934, by
recapturing the national(ist) spirit of 1859, while at the same time imparting
what they believed to be a revolutionary, forward-looking spin to the occasion. This desire was not confined to propagandists. Hermann Schneider, for
example, who was to edit the Schiller-Nationalausgabe after the war, commented in a monograph of 1934:
Mit dem vollendeten, himmelblau bllichen Schiller haben uns fnf
Vierteljahrhunderte lang Festredner, Schulmeister und Familienbcher gelangweilt.
Schiller mu wieder interessant werden, seine Problematik mu sich dem heutigen
9

Oellers (n. 3). Vol. 2. P. xxxiv.

Albert Ludwig: Schiller und die deutsche Nachwelt. Berlin: Weidmannsche
Buchhandlung 1909. P. 399. See also Oellers (n. 3). Vol 1. Pp. 5153, 407413. Vol 2.
Pp. xxxivxli, 124126. Rainer Noltenius: Dichterfeiern in Deutschland.
Rezeptionsgeschichte als Sozialgeschichte am Beispiel der Schiller- und FreiligrathFeiern. Munich: Fink 1984. Pp. 71112.
10

279
Geschlecht erschlieen und es verwandt anmuten. So, nicht durch leere
Verhimmelung, findet man den Weg zu ihm. [] Der deutschen dramatischen
Kunst ist Schiller ein Erzieher zu hohem Stil, seinem Volk insgesamt ein Fhrer zu
Deutschtum, Heldentum, Menschentum.11

The 1934 anniversary was celebrated all over Germany in forms that would have
been familiar to witnesses of those Schillerfeiern in the mid-nineteenth century.
In other words, there were readings, concerts, lectures, wreath-laying ceremonies
and gala performances of his dramas. The political content of the celebrations had
changed since 1859, of course, but the emphasis was once again primarily political and ideological rather than aesthetic. The focus of public celebration in 1934
was once more on what Schiller could do for the nation, on his perceived qualities
as an inspirational man, rather than on the merits of his poetic and dramatic work.
State and Party officials organised thoroughly traditional celebrations in the
major German cities. Berlin, for example, staged the whole of Wallenstein in a
single day. For a week Frankfurt renamed itself the Stadt des Schillerfreundes
Goethe, during which the President of the Reichstheaterkammer, Otto
Laubinger, praised Schiller as a revolutionary in the National Socialist sense. The
authorities in Munich, who were already proud to call the city die Hauptstadt
der Bewegung, staged a special performance of Wilhelm Tell to celebrate die
zwei hohen Feiern, namely, the eleventh anniversary of the attempted putsch
on 9 November and Schillers 175th birthday on 10 November. The Reichspost
issued commemorative Schiller stamps, there was a special national lottery
draw (Schiller Jubilums-Lotterie), and the university in Jena was renamed
the Friedrich-Schiller-Universitt.12 On 10 November 1934, Schillers 175th
birthday, a two-hour Schillerfeier was held in the Liederhalle in Stuttgart. It
was an evening of music, poetry readings and speeches, which also included a
performance of the Rtli scene from Wilhelm Tell. Leading lights of Nazi stage
and screen took part, including Gustaf Grndgens and Emmy Sonnemann.13
The programme of this celebration, which was broadcast live on all German
radio stations at 8.15 p.m. that Saturday evening, was as follows:
1. Das Lied an die Freude, im Volkston
2. Ouvertre zu Iphigenie in Aulis, von Gluck Wagner
11

Hermann Schneider: Schiller. Werk und Erbe. Stuttgart Berlin: Cotta 1934. P. 84.
See Ruppelt (n. 1). Pp. 3334.
13
Largely as a result of his thinly disguised portrait in Klaus Manns novel Mephisto.
Roman einer Karriere of 1936, Grndgens is widely regarded as emblematic of artists
(and others) who sold their souls to the Nazis in exchange for career advancement. For
further details of Grndgens career in Nazi Germany, see Ernst Klee: Das
Personenlexikon zum Dritten Reich. Wer war was vor und nach 1945? Frankfurt/M.:
Fischer 2003. P. 206. In April 1935 Emmy Sonnemann became Hermann Grings second wife.
12

280
3. Vorspruch (Heynicke)
4. Dichter der Nation (Von Walter von der Vogelweide bis Schiller)
5. Der Pilgrim, von Schubert
6. An die Hoffnung, Chorsatz von Reichardt (17521814)
7. Die Worte des Wahns
8. Die Worte des Glaubens, Chorsatz von Reichardt
9. Die Teilung der Erde
10. Jupiter-Sinfonie, 4. Satz, von Mozart
11. Huldigung, von Hans Heinrich Ehrler
12. Morgenlied, vertont fr Mnnerchor, von Becker
13. Die Macht des Gesanges
14. An den Frhling, Mnnerchor von Schubert
15. Ewige Worte (Aus dem Werke Schillers)
16. Reiterlied aus Wallensteins Lager, Mnnerchor mit Feldmusik, von Zahn
17. Aus der Pastorale (Sinfonie Nr. 6), von Beethoven
18. Widmung zu Wilhelm Tell
19. Wilhelm Tell: Rtli-Szene
20. Ausklang [Ans Vaterland, Horst-Wessel-Lied, Deutschlandlied].
Mitwirkende: Gustaf Grndgens, Paul Hartmann, Friedrich Kayler, Eugen
Klpfer, Hermine Krner, Lothar Mthel, Emmy Sonnemann, Julius Patzak,
Margarete Teschemacher.14
With the arguable exception of Heynickes Vorspruch, Ehrlers Huldigung
and the closing anthems, the programme of this Schillerfeier was thoroughly
traditional in form and content.
However conventional many of these celebrations may appear, the new political and ideological emphases can scarcely be overlooked, indeed they were not
meant to be overlooked. They were perhaps best illustrated in the elaborate
Huldigung an Schiller, organised by the Reichsjugendfhrer, Baldur von
Schirach, in June 1934. It involved 15,000 Hitlerjungen from all corners of
the Reich running in relays to Marbach am Neckar. According to the Vlkischer
Beobachter, the youths came to Schillers birthplace to pay homage to one of
the Paten des 3. Reiches.15 They converged on Marbach in five columns,
from Flensburg, East Prussia, Silesia, the Rhineland and Upper Bavaria, arriving on 21 June, the summer solstice. As early as February 1933 the Nazis had
incorporated the summer solstice (Sonnwendfeier) into their revolutionary
calendar of heroes, holy days and pagan festivals. Each columns relay baton
contained a separate greeting, which was then read out at the Schiller statue
opposite the Schiller-Nationalmuseum in Marbach. Although it was by no
14

NS-Funk (1934). No. 44. 4.11.1934.

Qtd. in Ruppelt (n. 1). P. 33. Documents and photographs relating to this event are
reproduced in Zeller (n. 4). Vol. 1. Pp. 164172.
15

281
means new, the invocation in the East Prussian columns greeting of Schillers
exemplary, heroic suffering expresses an important component of National
Socialist attitudes to the poet:
Wir bekennen uns zu Schiller, weil er viel verlangt, und weil ihm ein halber Mensch
nicht gengt. Wir verehren Schiller als Vorbild fr jeden einzelnen; denn er hat sich
verzehrt im Dienst an seinen Aufgaben. Die siegende Kraft seines Glaubens an das
Hohe, Edle in uns ist dauernder Richtpunkt in unserem Werden. In all unserem Tun
und Denken wollen wir das Kleine und Niedrige berwinden unter dem heldischen
Leitwort, das er uns gab: Und setzet ihr nicht das Leben ein, / Nie wird euch das
Leben gewonnen sein.16

The symbolic centrepiece of the Marbacher Sonnwendfeier was the lighting

of a summer solstice fire with a flame which had been carried in relays by
other Hitler Youths from the Schlageter memorial in Dsseldorf. Albert Leo
Schlageter was an early Mrtyrer der Bewegung, who had been executed by
the French authorities in 1923 for attempting to sabotage their occupation of
the Ruhr. The life and death of Schlageter had since been romanticised by
Hanns Johst in an eponymous play.17 By bringing a Schlageter flame to
Marbach, the Nazis were attempting to run together myths of their own
so-called Kampfzeit with a mythologised view of Schillers own struggles.
The Marbacher Sonnwendfeier of 1934 was a remarkable visual and symbolic expression of the kind of relationship the Nazis were seeking to establish
with Schiller and other great figures of German culture. In Schillers presence,
as it were, at his birthplace in Marbach, the attempt was made to fuse the Nazis
own Creation myth (of heroic struggle against the odds) with the myth,
widespread since 1805, of Schiller as a superhuman, larger-than-death figure
who had fought heroically against circumstance and ill-health to produce
immortal works. In exchange for pilgrimage and homage, the Nazis sought the
blessing of a cultural saint for their own disreputable ends. A further motive
was the need to give the appearance at least that National Socialism belonged
to the mainstream of German social and cultural tradition, in which veneration
for Schiller still had an important place. While the Schillerhuldigung in
Marbach contained many elements borrowed from earlier Schiller celebrations, its witches brew of religiosity and shameless ideological manipulation
marked a new low in the already chequered history of Schillerverehrung.
16

The quotation at the end of the greeting is the closing couplet of Wallensteins Lager
(lines 11067). See Bernhard Zeller: Die Deutschen und ihre Klassiker 19331945. In:
Claussen and Oellers (n. 4). P. 21.
17
Hanns Johst: Schlageter. Munich: Langen & Mller 1933. The play is dedicated to
Adolf Hitler in liebender Verehrung und unwandelbarer Treue. In 1933 Johst became
the head of the Reichsschrifttumskammer, the organisation to which writers had to
belong for their work to be published in Nazi Germany.

282
The midsummer manipulation in Marbach did not, however, mark the official climax of the National Socialist Schillerjahr. This occurred in November
1934 and took place in Weimar. Goebbels designated the week leading up to
Schillers 175th birthday Reichsschillerwoche, and it was filled with traditional celebrations and ceremonies of the kind already described. The main
event was a Staatsakt in the Nationaltheater on 10 November, attended by
Hitler and other high-ranking State and Party officials. The highlight of the
evening was a speech by Goebbels, whose main purpose was to claim ownership of Schiller for the National Socialist state and its ideology. Goebbels
ownership claim is largely unargued; it is asserted, in at least four ways. The
speech opens with the bald assertion that, had he been alive today, Schiller
would undoubtedly have been the great poetic forerunner of the National
Socialist revolution: Htte Schiller in dieser Zeit gelebt, er wre zweifellos
der groe dichterische Vorkmpfer unserer Revolution geworden.18 Goebbels
second method of asserting ownership is to establish an affinity between his
interpretation of Schillers character and the essence of National Socialism.
Rather than defining character, Goebbels repeats ill-defined yet suggestive
terms such as Genie, Seele, Charakter and Pathos these four terms
are employed a total of fifteen times during this ten-minute speech in order
to suggest a common bond between the ethos of National Socialist Germany
and Schillers spirit.
Thirdly, and in line with the kind of tactic already adopted at the Marbacher
Sonnwendfeier, Goebbels address deliberately echoes some of the platitudinous rhetoric which had been a feature of Schillerfeiern for decades and
adapts it to Germanys situation in 1934. Goebbels description of Schillers death
is entirely consonant with established idolising traditions, and it is followed
immediately by an implied parallel between Schiller and Hitler: Als am 9. Mai
1805 seine starke Seele den schwachen, siechen, von Krankheit zermrbten
Leib verlie, sank damit das grte dramatische Genie dahin, das in deutscher
Sprache jemals gedichtet hat. Wie sein Leben, so war sein Werk gestaltet: einsam
in der Gre, heroisch in der Auffassung, stark im Glauben und verwurzelt und
fest im Idealismus (G 156). Schillers moral courage and powers of physical
endurance are matched, Goebbels asserts, only by National Socialists and
hence only they have a legitimate claim to his legacy: In Demut neigen wir uns
vor seinem menschlichen und knstlerischen Vermchtnis, das uns gehrt, weil
wir allein die Kraft besitzen, es mit fortzeugendem Geiste zu erfllen (G 154).
Goebbels immediately reinforces this claim in a fourteen-word sentence which,
with ingenious sleight-of-tongue, manages to combine allusions to Goethe,
18

Rede des Herrn Reichsministers Dr. Joseph Goebbels zur Schiller-Gedchtnisfeier in

Weimar am Sonnabend, dem 10. November 1934. In: Ruppelt (n. 1). Pp. 154156, here
p. 154. Subsequent references to this speech will be identified by G and the page number.

283
Schiller, the Bible, and Nazi racial ideology: Er war einer der Unseren, Blut
von unserem Blut und Fleisch von unserem Fleische (G 154).19
Finally, Goebbels attempts to establish a parallel between the way Schiller
had allegedly responded to his era and the National Socialist response to the
political aftermath of the First World War. In Goebbels view, both Schiller and
the Nazis had responded by resisting the tyranny of empty ideas: Sein Werk
ist Zeugnis dafr, da der Dichter zeitnahe sein kann, ohne in der Zeit
unterzugehen []. Seine groe tragische Dramatik ist auch heute noch der
flammende Protest eines wahren Knstlers gegen die phrasenhafte Beredsamkeit
eines Heeres von Nichtsknnern (G 154). In similar vein, although he appears
oblivious to the irony of his remarks, Goebbels says of Schillers early dramas:
Gegen die Tyrannen fhrte dieser fast noch jnglinghaft anmutende
Geisteskmpfer seine in die Glut dichterischer Besessenheit getauchte Feder [].
Fiesco, Kabale und Liebe und Don Carlos waren die Flammenzeichen seines
Weges (G 155156). Goebbels speech is clearly not an impartial assessment
of Schillers life and work, it is instead the attempt to integrate an existing
Schiller myth into a Nazi vision of national character and community. The image
of a heroic, suffering Schiller presented here is by no means new. Goebbelsinnovation is to take this image and bend it in the direction of National Socialisms
understanding of its own character and virtues. The one thousand or so words
of Goebbels imaginative text are a model of methods adopted in the alignment
(Gleichschaltung) of German culture with National Socialist precepts.
Schillers birth 175 years earlier is, however, only the pretext of Goebbels
address. More important to an understanding of the speechs content is its
immediate political context. At the beginning of his speech Goebbels suggests
that Weimar has been chosen to host the Staatsakt for the conventional reason that the town was the setting for Schillers edler Freundschaftsbund mit
Goethe (G 154). As the Festrede progresses, however, it becomes clear that
there was a far more powerful and immediate reason for choosing Weimars
Nationaltheater as the venue for this Schiller-Gedchtnisfeier, a reason which
had more to do with events in 191819 than in 1794. The Nazis had come to
gloat over the demise of the Weimar Republic, in the very theatre where that
republics National Assembly had first met in 1919 and where its constitution
had been ratified. The Reichsschillerwoche was intended to combine a celebration of Schillers birth with a symbolic laying to rest of the Weimar Republic.
The calendar had come to Goebbels assistance; Schillers 175th birthday on
19
Goebbels is alluding to the refrain Denn er war unser! in Goethes lament for
Schiller. Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Epilog zu Schillers Glocke [1805/10/15]. In:
Goethes Werke. Ed. by Erich Trunz. 14 vols. Munich: Beck 12th edn 1981. Vol. 1. Pp.
256259. A second allusion is to Adams reaction to the Lords creation of Eve: Das
ist doch Bein von meinem Bein und Fleisch von meinem Fleisch. Genesis 2.23.

284
10 November 1934 coincided with the sixteenth anniversary of the crimes of
911 November 1918, which, the Nazis believed, had spawned a shameful,
illegitimate form of government which they had now extinguished.
National Socialism defined itself to a large extent by reference to its enemies,
and the Weimar Republic occupied a privileged position in Nazi demonology.
To the republics catalogue of alleged crimes and failings, Goebbels now adds
the failure properly to honour or appreciate Schiller, which was in turn, he
claims, symptomatic of republican democracys unsuitability to represent the
German people: Das Jahrzehnt, das hinter uns liegt, besa kein Organ mehr,
mit dem es die dynamische Kraft dieses schpferischen Menschen erspren
konnte. Kann es Wunder nehmen, da in einer Zeit, in der das Wort zur Phrase
des Parlaments erniedrigt wurde, [Schillers] edle, zuchtvoll gebndigte
Sprache als Phrase abgetan wurde?! (G 155). Employing his practised mixture of eloquence and vulgarity, Goebbels lambasts the artistic and critical
establishment, which had allegedly spurned Schiller in the 1920s, as ein Heer
von Nichtsknnern (G 154), das Heer der Schwtzer (G 155), and announces
triumphantly: Was vergangene Jahre an ihm [Schiller] sndigten, das werden
wir gutzumachen haben (G 156). The conclusion of Goebbels address goes far
beyond attempts to establish a literal or metaphorical consanguinity between
Schiller and the National Socialist movement or to enlist his support against ideological enemies. With characteristic free-floating hyperbole, Hitlers propaganda minister asserts that not only is Schiller being in some sense reborn in Nazi
Germany, but Germany also owes its own rebirth in large measure to Schiller:
Die sittliche Gre und Reinheit dieses Lebens und Werkes ist vorbildlich auch fr
unsere Zeit. Die Dynamik seiner Ideen zieht aufs neue in einer Epoche, die gleich
wie die seine von schweren Erschtterungen durchbebt wird, wie in einem
Magnetstrom die Menschen an sich. Wenn nicht alle Zeichen trgen, dann erleben
wir in unserer Zeit eine neue Wiedergeburt dieses dichterischen Genies. (G 156)

Like many others before and since, Goebbels chose as the peroration of his
speech the fourth stanza of Goethes Epilog zu Schillers Glocke .20 Goebbels
hijacks the cry Denn er war unser! in order to suggest that Schiller, too, is a
Volksgenosse. However, the stanzas final couplet would appear to rebound on
Dr. Goebbels. In his mouth it acquires a delicious, unintended irony: Und hinter
ihm in wesenlosem Scheine / Lag, was uns alle bndigt, das Gemeine (G 156).

II.
It is hard to know what Hitler made of this Schiller-Gedchtnisfeier, as he sat in
the Ehrenloge in full evening dress. The Vlkischer Beobachter sycophantically
20

Goethe (n. 19). Lines 2532.

285
characterised his trip to Weimar as follows: der deutsche Genius des 20.
Jahrhunderts beugt [sich] vor dem Genius des 18. Jahrhunderts.21 Yet photographs taken that evening show Hitler looking bored and listless.22 With the
possible exception of what he was obliged to digest at school, there is little evidence that Hitler ever engaged actively with Schillers work. As a sixteen-yearold schoolboy in Linz, he took part in the 1905 Schiller festivities and during
his time as a semi-vagrant in Vienna before the First World War he took a dim
view of Schiller, regarding his dramas as the opium of the bourgeoisie, particularly the assimilated Jewish bourgeoisie.23 What knowledge Hitler possessed
of literature and philosophy was resolutely second-hand. As Brigitte Hamann
has commented in her account of Hitlers years in Vienna from 1907 to 1913:
Dem jungen H[itler] bleibt die Literatur als Kunst fremd. Da er, wie [sein
Jugendfreund] Kubizek bewundernd schreibt, Goethe, Schiller, Dante, Lessing
und Stifter gelesen habe, ist hchst zweifelhaft und auch, da Schopenhauer
und Nietzsche in Wien stets um ihn gewesen seien.24
Hitlers isolated later remarks on Schiller tend to reinforce the impression
that the sketchiness of his knowledge was matched only by the strength of his
opinions. Part of Goebbels diary entry for 1 February 1938 reads as follows:
Mittags wieder beim Fhrer. [] Spricht sehr gut ber Shaw aus. Wie hoch seine
Hl. Johanna [Saint Joan] ber Schillers Jungfrau steht. Schiller und Goethe
lebten in einer kleinen Residenz und reagierten ihre groen Ideen in Pathos ab. Es
wurde keine Geschichte gemacht. [] Shaw dagegen ist eine groe Begabung. []
Er hat die wahren Triebkrfte dieser Zeit aufgedeckt. Schiller hatte keine blasse
Ahnung davon. Der Fhrer ist ein Genie.25

There is also a curious outburst during one of Hitlers monologues at his headquarters in Rastenburg (the so-called Wolfsschanze) in 1942, when he suddenly attacks Schiller for dramatising the wrong historical events. Rather than
a cowardly Swiss sniper, Hitler exclaims, Schiller should have chosen as his
subject-matter the history of the medieval German emperors:
Eines ist jedenfalls sicher: Wenn wir berhaupt einen Weltanspruch erheben wollen,
mssen wir uns auf deutsche Kaisergeschichte berufen. [] Die Kaisergeschichte
21

Vlkischer Beobachter. 13.11.1934.

See Ruppelt (n. 1). P. 157.
23
See Brigitte Hamann: Hitlers Wien. Lehrjahre eines Diktators. Munich Zurich:
Piper 1996. P. 470.
24
Ibid. P. 106. Kubizek is the author of a sentimental account of Hitlers youth. August
Kubizek: Adolf Hitler, mein Jugendfreund. Graz Gttingen: Stocker 1953. See also
Ian Kershaw: Hitler 18891936: Hubris. Harmondsworth: Penguin 1999. P. 41.
Joachim Fest: Hitler. Eine Biographie. Frankfurt/M. Berlin Vienna: Propylen
1973. P. 289.
25
Joseph Goebbels: Tagebcher 19241945. Ed. by Ralf Georg Reuth. Vol. 3. Munich:
Piper 1992. P. 1195.
22

286
ist das gewaltigste Epos, das neben dem alten Rom die Welt je gesehen hat [],
die Leute haben ein Format gehabt! [] Wir haben nur ein Unglck: da wir bisher
den Dramatiker nicht gefunden haben, der in diese deutsche Kaisergeschichte
hineingeht. Ausgerechnet Schiller mute diesen Schweizer Heckenschtzen verherrlichen. Die Englnder hatten ihren Shakespeare, dabei waren das aber doch nur
Wteriche oder Nullen!26

Tells words on refusing to consort with the Eidgenossen had been chosen by
Hitler in 1927 as the title of one of the chapters of Mein Kampf: Der Starke ist
am mchtigsten allein (line 437).27 Yet by 1942 he had brought about one of
the more remarkable U-turns in Nazi cultural policy by ordering a complete
ban on performances of Schillers Wilhelm Tell and the removal of the text from
the school curriculum throughout the Greater German Reich and territories
under German occupation.
Wilhelm Tell had been a staple of the German theatrical repertoire long
before 1933, of course, and in the early years of Nazi rule the drama became,
if anything, still more popular with theatre directors and audiences. In the eight
theatrical seasons between 1933 and 1941 Kabale und Liebe was the most performed Schiller drama overall, but in three of these seasons Wilhelm Tell was
the most frequently performed Schiller play in Germany. Maria Stuart was the
next most popular. A long way behind these came Wallenstein, Don Carlos and
Die Ruber.28 Schillers treatment of tyranny in Don Carlos caused some concern among those responsible for directing, in the broadest sense, National
Socialist theatre. On many, though by no means all occasions, Posas words to
the King, Geben Sie / Gedankenfreiheit (lines 38612), were greeted with
enthusiastic applause, lasting for up to two minutes. However, no attempt was
made to suppress the play, although the press was forbidden to report these
bursts of applause. Cautious theatre directors chose not to stage Don Carlos.
The Schiller plays performed least often in this period were Die Jungfrau von
Orleans and Die Braut von Messina, and while it was not expressly forbidden
to do so, only the most courageous theatre directors dared to stage productions
of Fiesco.29 While these bare statistics reveal nothing about the productions
themselves or how they were received, they nevertheless shed some light on
which Schiller plays were deemed politically correct in a centralised system of
censorship and control, directed by the Reichsdramaturg.
Wilhelm Tell remained popular throughout the pre-war years to the extent
that the patriotic soundbites from the beginning of Act II were among the most
26
Adolf Hitler: Monologe im Fhrerhauptquartier 19411944. Ed. by Werner
Jochmann. Bindlach: Gondrom 1988. Pp. 264265 (4.2.1942).
27
This line, without the emphasis, forms the title of chapter eight of the second volume.
Adolf Hitler: Mein Kampf. Vol. 2. Munich: Franz Eher Nachf. 1927. P. 568.
28
See Ruppelt (n. 1). Pp. 107111.
29
Ibid. Pp. 113115, 109.

287
commonly used geflgelte Worte in speeches and essays as well as in
anthologies for school pupils. The uplifting phrases included Attinghausens
Ans Vaterland, ans theure, schlie dich an (line 922), Stauffachers Unser
ist durch tausendjhrigen Besitz / Der Boden (lines 12701), and the first
couplet of the Rtli oath: Wir wollen seyn ein einzig Volk von Brdern, / In
keiner Noth uns trennen und Gefahr (lines 14489).30 Nevertheless, some
misgivings were being voiced about the ideological suitability of Wilhelm Tell.
The first was that Tell himself was an individualist and therefore did not conform to the National Socialist ideal of Fhrer and Volksgemeinschaft:
Gerade an Schillers Tell wird der vlkische Gehalt des Tellstoffes besonders deutlich. Sein Idealismus ebensowenig wie seine individualistische Umgestaltung der
Hauptpersonen konnte die Gegebenheit des Stoffes, den vlkischen Organismus,
ganz zur Strecke bringen. Aber die Einheit der Handlung wird freilich grndlich
gestrt, weil die drei Bestandteile zu wesensverschieden sind, um in Schillers
Schmelztiegel in einen Gu bergefhrt zu werden.31

A second objection was that, despite its German author and volkstmlich feel,
the play was quite simply not German. Finally, it was suggested that, as a
Separationsdrama depicting Switzerlands struggle for independence from the
First Reich, Wilhelm Tell was at odds with the values of unity, loyalty and German
territorial integrity being promoted in the Third: Das einzige Stck [Die Jungfrau
von Orleans], das den Kampf frs Vaterland schildert, spielt in Frankreich, das
andere Befreiungsstck [Wilhelm Tell] leitet den Verlust eines wertvollen Gebietes
fr das deutsche Reich ein und ist fr den deutschen Gedanken unfruchtbar.32
Goebbels was anxious to stamp out this kind of dissent. At a press conference
in October 1936, a journalist noted down the Propaganda Ministers impatient
reaction when asked for his view of Wilhelm Tell: Es habe keinen Sinn, der
groen deutschen Vergangenheit den Vorwurf zu machen, da sie nicht nationalsozialistisch sei. [] Das beste Beispiel dafr sei das Programm der
Thomas-Westerich-Bhne in Hellerau bei Dresden, die Schillers Tell ablehne,
weil er bestenfalls schweizerisch und nicht nationalsozialistisch sei.33
30

See Ruppelt (n. 1). Pp. 4041. Further evidence of Schillers political malleability is
that the line Wir wollen sein ein einzig Volk von Brdern was the motto of the
Schiller-Ehrung der deutschen Jugend held at the Nationaltheater in Weimar in 1955.
Schiller in unserer Zeit. Beitrge zum Schillerjahr 1955. Ed. by Schiller-Komitee 1955.
Weimar: Volksverlag 1955. P. 61.
31
Kurt Gerlach-Bernau: Drama und Nation. Ein Beitrag zur Wegbereitung des nationalsozialistischen Dramas. Breslau: Hirt 1933. Pp. 8081. See also Max Vanselow: Wilhelm
Tell heute. In: Zeitschrift fr Deutschkunde 48 (1934). Pp. 531540, esp. pp. 536537.
32
Schneider (n. 11). P. 84. See also Ruppelt (n. 1). P. 41.
33
Qtd. in Georg Ruppelt: Die Ausschaltung des Wilhelm Tell. Dokumente zum Verbot
des Schauspiels in Deutschland 1941. In: Jahrbuch der Deutschen Schillergesellschaft
20 (1976). Pp. 402419, here p. 405.

288
The popularity of Wilhelm Tell before the war and its endorsement by a figure as senior as Goebbels make the sudden ban imposed in 1941 appear all the
more surprising. On 3rd June of that year, the head of the Reich Chancellery
received the following memorandum from Martin Bormann, who was Hitlers
private secretary in all but name: Der Fhrer wnscht, da Schillers
Schauspiel Wilhelm Tell nicht mehr aufgefhrt wird und in der Schule nicht
mehr behandelt wird. Ich bitte Sie, hiervon vertraulich Herrn Reichsminister
Rust und Herrn Reichsminister Dr. Goebbels zu verstndigen.34 Bormann
also kept a private note of what Hitler had said to him about Schillers play:
Die Entscheidung des Fhrers hat zwei Grnde; einmal die unverschmte
Hetze, die seit langen Jahren fast alle schweizer [sic] Zeitungen gegen uns
betreiben; wir haben wirklich keinen Grund die Schweizer Fremdenpropaganda
zu untersttzen. Zweitens hat Wilhelm Tell bekanntlich nie gelebt; er ist im
Grund auch kein Held, sondern ein hinterlistiger Heckenschtze.35 His shortcomings as a literary critic notwithstanding, Hitler believed he had genuine
reason to fear the anti-tyrannical animus of Schillers play. He must have
woken up to, or had his attention drawn to, the parallel an audience might draw
between the tyrant Geler and himself. Hitler was already worried, if not paranoid, about his personal safety. Some attempts on his life had already been
made and others would of course follow. That comment at his headquarters
Ausgerechnet Schiller mute diesen Schweizer Heckenschtzen verherrlichen indicates that he was very aware of the Geler parallel and of threats
to his own life.36 The numerous recent attempts by a Swiss, Maurice Bavaud,
to assassinate him may well have played a part in Hitlers decision to ban
Wilhelm Tell. Bavaud had been executed on 18 May 1941.37
Broader political considerations may also have played a role. By this stage
of the war Switzerland had become an irritant to Hitler, not merely on account
of attacks on Nazi Germany in the Swiss press. Swiss neutrality was a thorn in
his side and, in the belief that performances of Wilhelm Tell were a Trojan horse
containing Swiss propagandists, he decided to deny Swiss national feeling an
outlet on the German stage; and like some of those critical voices in the 1930s,
Hitler was now persuaded (or had been persuaded) that Schillers Wilhelm Tell
was neither truly German nor sufficiently National Socialist. The character of
Hitlers decision, its odd timing (less than three weeks before the invasion of

34

Memorandum from Reichsleiter Martin Bormann, head of the Party Chancellery, to

Hans Heinrich Lammers, head of the Reich Chancellery. 3.6.1941. In: Die Rckseite
des Hakenkreuzes. Absonderliches aus den Akten des Dritten Reiches. Ed. by Beatrice
Heiber and Helmut Heiber. Munich: dtv 1993. P. 230.
35
Ibid. Pp. 230231.
36
Hitler (n. 26). P. 265.
37
See Rolf Hochhuth: Tell 38. Er wollte Hitler tten. In: Die Zeit. 17.12.1976.

289
the Soviet Union) and the way in which it was eventually implemented only
after prolonged bureaucratic wrangling among Hitlers subordinates underline the nature and extent of Nazi misrule.38

III.
The majority of the many academic articles, monographs and lecture courses
on Schiller in National Socialist Germany present a generally sorry picture of
navety, opportunism, self-censorship or genuine support for the regime. There
is space here to cite only a few examples. In 1934 Julius Petersen, professor of
German literature at the University of Berlin, who six years later would found
the Schiller-Nationalausgabe, wrote that the Third Reich was the fulfilment
of a state prophesied by, among others, Schiller. Specifically, Petersen argued
that the Third Reich was consonant with the ideal state of Elisium posited by
Schiller in his essay ber nave und sentimentalische Dichtung of 1795: Das
neue Reich ist gepflanzt. Der ersehnte und geweissagte Fhrer ist erschienen.
Seine Worte sagen, da das Dritte Reich erst ein werdendes ist, kein Traum der
Sehnsucht mehr, aber auch noch keine vollendete Tat, sondern eine Aufgabe,
die dem sich erneuernden deutschen Menschen gestellt ist.39 The words
Aufgabe and Menschen are also deliberate, if here very faint echoes of
Schillers claim in his Briefe ber die sthetische Erziehung des Menschen that
aesthetic education is eine Aufgabe fr mehr als Ein Jahrhundert (7. Brief:
NA 20. 329).
Specific claims of this nature are not typical of academic discussion of
Schiller during the Third Reich. At its worst, its discourse is characterised by
sweeping claims for apocalyptic affinities between Schillers character and that
of National Socialist Germany. Herbert Cysarz, for example, writing in the
1934 Schillerjahr, adopts this apocalyptic tone, which is a characteristic of
National Socialist rhetoric more generally:
Wenn eine Zeit die andere begrbt, dann gibt es nicht nur ein groes Versinken,
sondern auch viele Neugeburt lngstvergangener Dinge. [] Wohl keine
Gedchtnisfeier der jngsten Jahrzehnte war glhender auch in das Heute und
38

The dispute between the Minister of Education, Bernhard Rust, and Philipp Bouhler,
the head of the Reichsstelle fr das Schul- und Unterrichtsschrifttum, which was part
of a larger power struggle between the two men, is documented in Ruppelt (n. 33). Pp.
407417.
39
Julius Petersen: Die Sehnsucht nach dem Dritten Reich in deutscher Sage und
Dichtung. Stuttgart: Metzler 1934. P. 61. Petersens references to Schillers Drittes
Reich are on pp. 56 and 3336. In an article of the same year, Petersen wrote of
Schiller: Er ist unser! Er ist unser im Willen unseres Fhrers, in der Gesinnung
unserer Jugend, im Weg unserer Zukunft. Julius Petersen: Held und Volk in Schillers
Drama. In: Zeitschrift fr deutsche Bildung 10 (1934). Pp. 577591, here p. 591.

290
Morgen gekehrt als das Schiller-Fest dieser Tage. Schiller [] ist unser weltgeschichtlichster, in vielem Sinn unser strkster politischer Dichter.40

In common with the view expressed in Goebbels Festrede, Cysarz appears

to believe that Schillers character and works possess a cleansing, epochmaking quality which is of pressing relevance to the present revolution in
Germany: [W]enn [] einer der neueren Dichter uns [] auf diesem
Weltmeer zu leiten vermag, dann ist es Friedrich Schiller. Keiner wie er umfat
den ganzen Schpfungsgang unserer deutschen Geschichte []. In seinem
Zeichem wie keinem andern kann die erschtterte Sendung der deutschen
Dichtkunst erneuert werden.41 Cysarz was at this time a professor of German
literature in Prague. In 1938 he was called to a chair at Munich. He was dismissed in December 1945 on account of his activities during the Nazi period.42
Also writing on the occasion of Schillers 175th birthday, Walther Linden is
perhaps more careful than Cysarz, pointing out in the first half of his discussion that Schillers Ideenglaube, seine auf die intelligible Freiheit des Menschen
gegrndete Ideenreligion has nothing to say to a contemporary world built on
das Konkret-Existentielle.43 With the exception of Die Ruber and Kabale
und Liebe, Linden briefly discusses each of Schillers dramas and concludes
that all of them, even Wallenstein with its German setting and Wilhelm Tell
with its theme of popular uprising, are ultimately dramas of individuals.
Through these individuals Schiller exemplifies universal human struggles
rather than vlkisch themes: Schillers geschichtlich-politische Dramen
sind von vornherein nicht vlkisch, sondern allgemeinmenschlich eingestellt.44
Schillers character tells a different story, according to Linden:
Diese unbedingte, durch seine empirischen Gesichtspunkte zu hemmende
Willensentschlossenheit, diese Willenshrte gegen sich selbst, gegen die eigene
empirische, dem Sittlich-Gttlichen widerstrebende Natur das ist Schillers eigenstes Kennzeichen, das ist sein nordisches Bluterbe. [] Fr Schiller ist die Welt ein
Kampfplatz fr Willensentschlsse und sieghaft-tragische Untergnge.45
40
Herbert Cysarz: Vom Dichter- und Meistertum Friedrich Schillers. In: Dichtung und
Volkstum 35 (1934). Pp. 409422, here p. 409. The journal was the recently renamed
Euphorion.
41
Ibid. P. 422.
42
See Internationales Germanistenlexikon 18001950. Ed. by Christoph Knig. 3 vols.
Berlin New York: de Gruyter 2003. Vol. 1. P. 357. The activities and possible motivations of four Germanists in the Nazi period, including Cysarz, are assessed in Jens
Malte Fischer: Zwischen uns und Weimar liegt Buchenwald. Germanisten im Dritten
Reich. In: Merkur 41 (1987). No. 1. Pp. 1225.
43
Walther Linden: Schiller und die deutsche Gegenwart. Zum 175. Geburtstag am 10.
November 1934. In: Zeitschrift fr Deutschkunde 48 (1934). Pp. 513531, here p. 521.
44
Ibid. P. 522.
45
Ibid. P. 528.

291
Schillers heroes are viewed as expressions of their creators forceful and
unshakeable will. By the end of Lindens discussion any philological or historical scruple which may have been in evidence at the outset has vanished. All
that remains are Leerformeln der deutschen berzeugung:46
Er hat dem politischen Drama der Deutschen Willensmenschen gegeben, das aber
heit echte und kraftvolle Fhrernaturen, [] Helden nicht der Phrase, sondern der
lebendigen und darum unauslschlichen Tat. [] Das ist Schillers politische Tat,
die zur Umwandlung des deutschen Volkscharakters seit dem Beginne des 19.
Jahrhunderts unendlich viel beigetragen hat. [] Als Grnder der nordischen
Tragdie auf deutschem Boden, als Grnder des politischen Dramas der Deutschen,
als politischer Lehrer, der zur Willenshrte und Todesentschlossenheit als den die
Weltgeschichte leitenden und bezwingenden Krften ruft, bleibt Schiller [] ein
unvergnglicher Knder nordisch-germanischer Gesinnung.47

Linden, who died in 1943, was a freier wissenschaftlicher Schriftsteller. In

1934 he was a member of the NSDAP, the SA, the Reichskulturkammer, the
Reichsschrifttumskammer and the Kampfbund fr deutsche Kultur. One of
his main research interests was Literatur des 20. Jh.s, insbes. der vlkischen
und der nationalsozialistischen Bewegung.48
Perhaps the most notorious National Socialist publication on Schiller is
Hans Fabriciuss Schiller als Kampfgenosse Hitlers. It appeared even before
the Nazis came to power, and its author was not an academic.49 Nevertheless,
the methods employed in this text differ only in degree, not kind, from the
worst sort of academic writing on Schiller discussed above. The alarming title
of Fabriciuss study is an accurate reflection of its content, which is the attempt
to claim Schiller as both a Nazi avant la lettre and an enduring source of
strength and inspiration for the National Socialist movement. The table of contents indicates Fabriciuss interpretative emphases:
Geleitwort: Schiller und die Volksverderber; Sozialismus und Fhrertum (Die
Ruber); Volksstaat und Fhrerehrgeiz (Fiesco); Volk und Gesellschaft (Luise
Millerin); Staatsgewalt und Brgerfreiheit (Don Carlos); Soldatentum und Politik
46

Karl Otto Conrady: Deutsche Literaturwissenschaft und Drittes Reich. In: Eberhard
Lmmert et al. Germanistik eine deutsche Wissenschaft. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp
1967 (edition suhrkamp 204). Pp. 71109, here p. 105.
47
Linden (n. 43). Pp. 529531.
48
Knig (n. 42). Vol. 2. P. 1098.
49
Hans Fabricius: Schiller als Kampfgenosse Hitlers. Nationalsozialismus in Schillers
Dramen. Bayreuth: N.S. Kultur-Verlag 1932. It was later reprinted as a Kriegsausgabe,
with the title Schiller unser Kampfgenosse. Ein Nationalsozialist erlebt Schillers
Dramen. Berlin: Verlag Deutsche Kultur-Wacht 1940. Fabricius was a leading National
Socialist member of the Reichstag. In 1933 he was appointed a Reichs- und
Gauamtsleiter der NSDAP and Ministerialdirigent in the Ministry of the Interior.
Degeners Wer ists? Ed. by Herrmann Degener. Berlin: Degener 10th edn 1935. P. 383.

292
(Wallenstein); Terrorismus und Recht (Maria Stuart); Glaubenskraft und
Volkserlsung (Jungfrau von Orleans); Sklaventum und Herrentragik (Braut von
Messina); Volksnot und Freiheitswille (Wilhelm Tell); Volk und Herrscher
(Demetrius); Schluwort: Schiller und die Nationalsozialisten.50

The concluding chapter reaffirms the three headings which Fabricius has read
back into Schillers texts in the course of his discussion: Er war ein Kmpfer
[] Er war ein Deutscher [] Schiller als Nationalsozialist! Mit Stolz drfen
wir ihn als solchen gren.51 Fabriciuss final image is of Schiller at the head
of marching columns of SA men. Crude and absurd though it is, this image
neatly illustrates that drive to enlist and mobilise Schiller for a martial ideology
of national and racial purity, which was at the root of National Socialist
appropriations of the poet:
Der Nationalsozialismus schpft aus den gleichen, ewigen Kraftquellen deutscher
Art, aus denen auch Schiller schpfte. [] Unaufhaltsam marschieren unsere
Kampfkolonnen. [] An der Spitze aber, dem leuchtenden Hakenkreuzbanner
voran schreiten Seite an Seite mit den lebenden Fhrern die groen Geister, deren
Leiber die Erde deckt. Aufrecht und stolz ragt unter ihnen die Lichtgestalt Friedrich
Schillers hervor: den Kmpfern zum Vorbild, den Zaudernden zum Sporn, allen
Jmmerlingen zum rgernis, den Volksverderbern aber, die ihn tot glaubten, zum
Entsetzen.52

As Conrady has pointed out, it would be quite wrong to suggest that ein tumber Nationalismus infected the work of every academic and literary critic
writing in Germany during the Third Reich.53 Nevertheless, when examining
the nature of academic approaches to Schiller in this period, it is necessary to
underline the distinction between mere academic writing and scholarship. As
just illustrated, the worst academic writing about Schiller in Germany between
1933 and 1945 used the apparatus and appearance of scholarship to perform
conjuring tricks with literary and intellectual history. It was characterised in large
measure by an elastic interpretation of sources, in order to arrive at predetermined conclusions. A combination of perceived political necessity, opportunism,
misplaced loyalty and genuine conviction created the conditions for the profusion of such writing not only on Schiller during the Nazi period.54
There were, however, some significant exceptions to the generally craven line
adopted by Germanists in their approaches to Schiller. Genuine scholarship, in
50

Fabricius (n. 49). P. 3.

Ibid. Pp. 119121.
52
Ibid. Pp. 120121.
53
Conrady (n. 46). P. 89.
54
For a detailed discussion of the often acrimonious disputes among certain
Germanists over how best to interpret Schiller in the National Socialist context, see
Claudia Albert: Schiller als Kampfgenosse? In: Albert (n. 6). Pp. 4867.
51

293
other words the careful, impartial (re)investigation of primary sources, or of
previous uses of those sources, was not extinguished entirely under Nazi rule.
Studies which cautiously resisted the pressure to conform included Reinhard
Buchwalds two-volume Schiller biography of 1937, which refuses to draw
parallels between Schiller and the present.55 In a lecture of the following year,
Buchwald implicitly rejected the instrumentalising tendencies underlying the
bulk of contemporary approaches to Schiller, by defining the task of Schiller
scholarship as follows: die Aufgabe [ist], ein neues Gesamtbild Schillers zu
zeichnen, rein um seiner selbst willen.56 Gerhard Storzs first Schiller monograph, published in 1938, also resists drawing comparisons between Schillers
plays and contemporary patterns of thought; he concentrates instead on the
form and internal coherence of the ten completed dramas. Storz states his
approach cautiously but clearly at the end of his introduction: Aus allzu eingefahrenen Geleisen einerseits, von geltungsschtigen und oft lcherlichen
Abwegen andererseits mchte dieses Buch alle Vermittler Schillers zurckrufen zu frischer, unmittelbarer Berhrung mit dem Werk.57 In a letter after
the war, Storz recalled the defiant mood in which the book had been written:
Geschrieben habe ich das Schillerbuch in Biberach 1933/34 u. gerade damals
war ich, wie ich aus meinem Tagebuch voriges Jahr sah, zum Paktieren
weniger geneigt als jemals spter.58
Benno von Wieses Schiller monograph of 1938 pursues a similar path away
from Schillers contemporary political relevance towards an interpretation of
his texts on their own terms and in their own time.59 Wieses career during the
Nazi period has been the subject of much speculation and accusation. It is true
that he was a member of various Nazi organisations, including the NSDAP
(1933), the NS-Lehrerbund (1934), the NS-Dozentenbund (1936) and
Rosenbergs Schrifttumskommission.60 Wieses claim in his autobiography
that during the Nazi period he came increasingly to be regarded as politisch
55

Reinhard Buchwald: Schiller. 2 vols. Leipzig: Insel 1937. Buchwald held a series of
relatively junior posts at the University of Heidelberg from 1932 to 1944. He was never
a member of the NSDAP. Knig (n. 42). Vol. 1. P. 287.
56
Reinhard Buchwald: Wandlungen unseres Schillerbildes. Ein Vortrag. Leipzig:
Liebisch 1938. P. 14.
57
Gerhard Storz: Das Drama Friedrich Schillers. Frankfurt/M.: Societts-Verlag 1938.
P. 22. Like Buchwald, Storz was neither a professor nor a member of the NSDAP.
Knig (n. 42). Vol. 3. P. 1823.
58
Unpublished letter to Dolf Sternberger of 20.9.1946, in which Storz also describes
the difficulties he encountered when trying to find a publisher for the book. DLA
74.10856/20. Qtd. by kind permission of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv. I am grateful to
Bill Dodd for drawing my attention to this letter.
59
Benno von Wiese: Die Dramen Schillers. Politik und Tragdie. Leipzig:
Bibliographisches Institut AG 1938.
60
See Knig (n. 42). Vol. 3. P. 2026.

294
unzuverlssig is itself less than reliable.61 While Wiese was regarded by many
during the 1960s and 1970s as the embodiment of a self-satisfied Federal
Republic which preferred to forget its Nazi past, the consensus today is that,
like the majority of his academic colleagues during the Nazi period, Wiese was
a Mitlufer rather than a committed National Socialist.62 It is nevertheless
somewhat surprising that Wieses first Schiller monograph seems not only
untainted but also quietly rebellious. Like Storz and Buchwald, he chooses to
adopt an approach that remains close to Schillers texts and their historical context, rather than seeking to draw parallels between the texts and the contemporary political situation. In National Socialist Germany, however, this apparently
neutral, werkimmanent approach was itself highly political. Wieses conclusion is both philologically impeccable and politically charged: Es war das Ziel
dieser Darstellung, vorzeitige Schemata, verengende Begriffe, theoretische
Gerste, weltanschauliche Ismen einzureien und die Schillersche Dichtung,
in der unmittelbaren Betrachtung des Werkes selber, als eine solche einmalige,
deutsche Tragdie zu ergreifen.63

IV.
The most significant engagement with Schiller, tainted or otherwise, during
the Nazi period was the founding of the Schiller-Nationalausgabe. The idea
of producing a complete, historical-critical edition of Schillers works and letters was conceived by Julius Petersen in 1937. Its national conception was
very much in line with the ruling ideology. Petersen declared that it was [ein]
dringendstes Gebot der Stunde, gerade im Neuen Reich den National-Dichter
Schiller als Knder deutscher Selbstbesinnung auf den Platz zu stellen, der
ihm gebhrt.64 The project was born at the first meeting of the editions
Verwaltungsausschu on 29 February 1940. By the end of 1940 Petersen had
secured editors for all thirty-two volumes originally envisaged. Petersen himself was to edit the poetry volumes but he died in August 1941. Gerhard Fricke
succeeded him as editor-in-chief, and Friedrich Beiner, who was already

61

This claim is made largely on the strength of a letter of admonishment Wiese

received in May 1939 from the leading Nazi Germanist, Franz Koch. Benno von Wiese:
Ich erzhle mein Leben. Erinnerungen. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 1982. Pp. 152153.
62
See Gerhard Lauer: Benno von Wiese. In: Wissenschaftsgeschichte der Germanistik
in Portrts. Ed. by Christoph Knig et al. Berlin New York: de Gruyter 2000. Pp.
224227.
63
Wiese (n. 59). P. 172.
64
Julius Petersen: Plan zu einer Nationalausgabe von Schillers Werken [1937]. Qtd. in
Henrik Ghanaat: Unser Schiller. Wie die Deutschen seit ber fnfzig Jahren ihren
Nationaldichter edieren. In: Die Zeit. 7.11.1997.

295
co-editing the Groe Stuttgarter Ausgabe of Hlderlins works, became the
poetry editor.65
The genesis of the Nationalausgabe was necessarily difficult. It was a
state-sponsored project the Vlkischer Beobachter article announcing it bore
the headline Vom Reich betreut66 and at least one of the editors was a supporter of the regime. As already noted, Petersen had written articles which
were, at best, nave. Of Gerhard Frickes support for the National Socialist
regime there can be little doubt. In 1941, for example, he agreed to represent
Germanistik in the Kriegseinsatz der Geisteswissenschaften, co-ordinated
by the Ministry of Education. Frickes contribution to this project involved
co-editing a multi-volume work that was intended to define the German language and its literature in the National Socialist context.67 Fricke was not
barred from university teaching at the end of the war. However, for personal
reasons he resigned the editorship of the Schiller-Nationalausgabe in June
1946 and was succeeded by Hermann Schneider.68 Friedrich Beiner, the editor of the only Nationalausgabe volume to appear before the end of the war,
had joined the NSDAP in 1937 and was a member of other, university-related
Nazi organisations. However, in 1949 a commission investigating the political
activities of academic staff at Tbingen during the Third Reich found that
Beiner was no Nazi: Die formelle Belastung ist geringfgig.69
The early years of work on the Nationalausgabe were an example of
Wissenschaft und Willkr im Kampfe, of an unequal struggle between
Macht and Geist. With hindsight it is probably a blessing that only one
volume of the edition was published before the end of the war. That volume
(Volume 1) was Schillers Gedichte in der Reihenfolge ihres Erscheinens
17761799, which contains only Schillers texts, with no editorial commentary.70
Reading the volume today it is hard to imagine the highly political context of
its publication in 1943. Beiner had been keen to provide a commentary.
65

See Norbert Oellers: Zur Geschichte der Schiller-Nationalausgabe. In: Friedrich

Schiller. Zur Modernitt eines Klassikers. Ed. by Michael Hofmann. Frankfurt/M.
Leipzig: Insel 1996. Pp. 349367, here p. 352.
66
Vlkischer Beobachter. 11.1.1942.
67
Von Deutscher Art in Sprache und Dichtung. Ed. by Gerhard Fricke, Franz Koch
and Klemens Lugowski. 5 vols. Stuttgart Berlin: Kohlhammer 1941. For further
discussion of this project, see Gabriele Stilla: 1941. Der Kriegseinsatz der
Geisteswissenschaften. In: Albert (n. 6). Pp. 3747.
68
See Oellers (n. 65). P. 354. From 1950 to 1957 Fricke taught at the University of
Istanbul, before being appointed to chairs at Mannheim (195761) and Cologne
(196166). Knig (n. 42). Vol. 1. P. 525.
69
Qtd. in Knig (n. 42). Vol. 1. P. 125.
70
In fact, it includes Schillers poems from 1776 to 1798. The last six poems in the volume (NA 1. 407434) are from the Musenalmanach fr das Jahr 1799, which had
appeared in 1798.

296
Fricke dissuaded him, however, largely because Beiner proposed to argue that
Schillers self-assessment as a lyric poet was correct, namely, that the lyric was
for him more of ein Exilium than eine eroberte Provinz. Fricke reasoned
that such a commentary would do a disservice not only to Schiller but also to
the nascent Nationalausgabe.71 The first printing of this volume did, however, contain an accompanying preface (Geleitwort) by the Reichsminister
fr Wissenschaft, Erziehung und Volksbildung, Bernhard Rust, which was
based on a draft provided by Fricke. This Geleitwort, dated Berlin, Dezember
1942, was bound into the volume immediately after the title page.72 Rust was
the minister responsible for implementing the ban on Wilhelm Tell two years
earlier. In a review of this first volume in Dichtung und Volkstum, Hermann
Pongs, a professor at Gttingen and a committed National Socialist, praised
both the volume itself and Rusts introduction:
Die gleichzeitig mit der Hlderlinausgabe erscheinende Nationalausgabe der
Schillerschen Werke stellt eine hnliche Groleistung deutschen Geistes im Kriege
dar. [] Das Geleitwort von Reichsminister Rust hebt die unvergleichliche Gre
Schillers gerade fr unsere Zeit in klassisch-knappen Prgungen heraus: Schillers
Dasein ist immer selbstvergessener Einsatz und Kampf fr den hchsten Auftrag
gewesen, und Leben hie fr ihn: Sterben knnen fr eine Idee!73

Rust committed suicide on 8 May 1945. Later that year, Pongs became one of the
relatively few Germanists to be dismissed on account of his Nazi past. In 1950
he was de-Nazified and his pension, though not his position, was restored.74
The Schiller-Nationalausgabe was sponsored by the National Socialist
state, but its potential as a philological contribution to a better understanding
of Schillers artistic achievement was not uppermost in the minds of its original
political patrons. They appeared more interested in using the Nationalausgabe
as a vehicle for disseminating the German language and German culture
throughout occupied Europe, in the form of reliable and accessible versions of
Schillers works. At the beginning of 1941 the Reichskultusminister decreed
that the more easily legible Antiqua typeface be used in the Nationalausgabe
71

See Norbert Oellers: Fnfzig Jahre Schiller-Nationalausgabe und kein Ende?

Marbach/N.: Deutsche Schillergesellschaft 1991. P. 19. Schillers self-assessment is in
a letter to Krner of 25.2.1789. NA 25. 211.
72
I am grateful to Norbert Oellers for this information. The Geleitwort did not appear
in postwar reprints of the volume and it has been removed from some surviving copies
of the first print-run. This is the case, for example, with the 1943 copy of volume 1 on
the open shelves at the Deutsches Literaturarchiv in Marbach.
73
Hermann Pongs: Kleine Anzeige: Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Erster Band.
Gedichte in der Reihenfolge ihres Entstehens [sic] 17761799, Herausgegeben von
Julius Petersen und Friedrich Beiner. Verlag Herm. Bhlaus Nachfolger, Weimar
1943. In: Dichtung und Volkstum 43 (1943). P. 253.
74
See Knig (n. 42). Vol. 2. P. 1421.

297
instead of the traditional Fraktur, um allen Vlkern das Studium der
deutschen Sprache und das Lesen deutscher Literatur zu ermglichen.75
Hitlers Minister of Culture appeared to regard the Schiller-Nationalausgabe
primarily as a language-learning aid. The success of this edition, which is due
to be completed in 2007, has been achieved in spite of its difficult National
Socialist origins and of other equally difficult political factors after 1945.

V.
From this discussion of approaches to Schiller during the Third Reich some
provisional conclusions have emerged concerning Nazi cultural policy and the
conduct of Germanists in Germany between 1933 and 1945. Firmer conclusions can be drawn concerning the approaches themselves. The first is the
striking continuity between the forms of public Schiller celebration in Nazi
Germany and earlier forms of Schillerverehrung. Similarly, the rhetoric
employed to honour the poet, not only by Goebbels but also by many academics, owed much to the language associated with certain Schiller myths established in the nineteenth century. This was the rhetoric of Kampf , Charakter,
Opfer and Tod, terms which lent themselves readily to Nazi invocations of
Schiller precisely because they were already an important part of National
Socialist idiom. The language of nineteenth-century Schillerverehrung, which
had often been used to express a longing for national unity, could thus easily be
borrowed and adapted to fit the Nazi desire for national and racial purity.
A second conclusion concerns the variety of often incompatible images of
Schiller that existed in Germany between 1933 and 1945. While the majority
of academic writing on Schiller makes for depressing and uncomfortable reading, the work of Buchwald, Storz and, on at least one occasion, Wiese demonstrates that the tacitly prescribed political interpretation of Schiller could be
circumvented and resisted. It has also emerged that, even within the machinery
of Nazi cultural control, there was little agreement as to how a figure like
Schiller should be handled. The varying fortunes of Wilhelm Tell under
National Socialism are but the starkest illustration of this confusion.
Returning to the metaphors of light and darkness with which the discussion
began, it is evident that every image of Schiller in Germany between 1933 and
1945 lived in the shadow of Nazism. While some, such as those peddled by a
Goebbels, a Cysarz or a Fabricius, were irredeemably opaque, the majority
inhabited a grey area, a penumbra created by the ideological climate, perceived
political pressure, misplaced conviction, opportunism, navety and, in exceptional cases, resistance. The history of engagements with Schiller in National
Socialist Germany is a valuable source of information regarding the ends of
75

Oellers (n. 65). P. 356.

298
Nazi ideology, the often confused and contradictory means employed in
attempting to promote these, and the compromises made by those making the
attempts. However, the sum of images of Schiller in National Socialist Germany
contributes little to an understanding of the poet himself or of his work. The truth
is that Schillers life and work were of little interest to most Nazi interpreters. The
established myth of Schiller as a suffering, death-defying figure was more attractive, because it lent itself more readily to the National Socialist world-view.
The morbid, quasi-religious strand of Schillerverehrung had begun on
Schillers death bed on 9 May 1805, when locks of his hair were removed as
relics, while his corpse was still warm.76 Ten days later the autopsy report
unwittingly furnished the basis for legends of Schillers heroic survival: Bey
diesen Umstnden mu man sich wundern, wie der arme Mann so lange hat
leben knnen (NA 41/II A, no. 535). In the course of the nineteenth century
Schillers death came to be viewed in some quarters as more significant than
his life. The heroic struggle of the terminally ill poet against material circumstance, which also appeared to reflect the antithesis in his theoretical writings
between Freiheit and physical Notwendigkeit, became an important component of the nineteenth-century image of Schiller as Dichter der Nation.
Schillers struggle against the odds assumed mythical proportions and came to
be viewed as an inspirational model for the nations struggle for unity. Alt
describes this process rather mildly, and also appears to perpetuate the legend,
when he states: Die Art und Weise, in der der arbeitswtige Schiller seine
schwere Krankheit zu beherrschen suchte, bot spter Stoff fr diverse Mythen
und Legenden. [] Schiller hat groe Teile seines heute als klassisch bezeichneten Werkes dem Tod abgerungen [].77 Similarly, Safranski asserts in his
recent biography that Schillers prolonged survival against the physical odds
was a triumph of the will: Idealismus ist, wenn man mit der Kraft der
Begeisterung lnger lebt, als es der Krper erlaubt. Es ist der Triumph eines
erleuchteten, eines hellen Willens.78
In far cruder guise this form of veneration, this Ver(un)klrung des
Schillerbildes, reached its grim apotheosis under National Socialism. Schiller
was exploited not only in order to lend a spurious respectability to National
Socialism but also, more sinisterly, to help strengthen its cult of struggle, sacrifice and death. With differing emphases, propagandists and many Germanists

76

See Frank Druffner and Martin Schalhorn: Gtterplne & Musegeschfte. Schiller
17591805. Marbach/N.: Deutsche Schillergesellschaft 2005 (Marbacher Kataloge
58). Pp. 243245, 259.
77
Peter-Andr Alt: Friedrich Schiller. Munich: Beck 2004 (Becksche Reihe 2357).
Pp. 1819.
78
Rdiger Safranski: Friedrich Schiller oder Die Erfindung des Deutschen Idealismus.
Munich Vienna: Hanser 2004. P. 11.

299
in the Nazi period claimed exclusive ownership of Schiller as their national
comrade and contemporary. Er war einer der Unseren, claimed Goebbels in
that speech of 1934 (G 154). The more obvious objections to this cynical
appropriation notwithstanding, Schillers own understanding of what it means
for a poet or thinker to be a contemporary places Nazi claims on him in their
proper perspective:
Wir wollen, dem Leibe nach, Brger unserer Zeit seyn und bleiben, weil es nicht
anders seyn kann; sonst aber und dem Geiste nach ist es das Vorrecht und die Pflicht
des Philosophen wie des Dichters, zu keinem Volk und zu keiner Zeit zu gehren,
sondern im eigentlichen Sinne des Worts der Zeitgenoe aller Zeiten zu seyn.
(NA 27. 129)79

79

Letter to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. 25.1.1795.

This page intentionally left blank

Paul Bishop

The Schillerbild of Werner Deubel: Schiller as

Poet of the Nation?*
The German poet and writer Werner Deubel (18941949) became acquainted with the
biocentric philosopher Ludwig Klages (18721956) in 1914, and a close friendship
developed between the two thinkers and writers in the 1920s. Although Deubel, like
Klages, tended to take Goethe as a reference point, he explored Schillers writings in
detail in his essay of 1936 entitled Umrisse eines neuen Schillerbildes. This essay
discusses the substance and validity of Deubels Auseinandersetzung with Schiller
and investigates the ways in which his reception offers a helpful approach to understanding Schillers life, his work and the concept of the tragic.

Nowadays mostly forgotten or ignored, Werner Deubel was born on 8 July

1894 and died on 12 November 1949, forging a career for himself in his lifetime as a poet, an essayist, a journalist, and a populariser of the philosophy of
Ludwig Klages.1 He studied philosophy and German literature at the universities of Bonn, Munich and, following his participation in the First World War
(during which he was wounded), Frankfurt. In 1913 Deubel met Klages in
Munich, and this encounter is described in all biographical accounts as the
*

Schillers writings are quoted from Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Ed. by Julius
Petersen, Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar: Hermann Bhlaus Nachf. 1943ff. Quotations
from verse plays are identified by line number, others by NA with volume and page
numbers. Unless otherwise stated, Nietzsches works are cited from Smtliche Werke:
Kritische Studienausgabe. Ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. 15 vols. Berlin
and New York: de Gruyter 196777, identified by KSA with volume and page numbers. Werner Deubel: Der deutsche Weg zur Tragdie. In: Die Wissenschaft am
Scheidewege von Leben und Geist: Festschrift fr Ludwig Klages zum 60. Geburtstag,
10. Dezember 1932. Ed. by Hans Prinzhorn. Leipzig: Barth 1932. Pp. 4657, is identified by DWT. Werner Deubel: Umrisse eines neuen Schillerbildes. In: Im Kampf um die
Seele: Essays und Aufstze, Aphorismen und Gedichte. Ed. by Felicitas Deubel. Bonn:
Bouvier 1997. Pp. 163198, is identified by UnS.
1
See Ulrich Hintze: Um Werner Deubel: Anmerkungen zur deutschen Geistesgeschichte
nach 1914. In: Werner Deubel: Im Kampf um die Seele: Essays und Aufstze,
Aphorismen und Gedichte. Ed. by Felicitas Deubel. Bonn: Bouvier 1997. Pp. 944, here
pp. 1517. Hintzes essay functions as an introduction to this selection of texts by Deubel,
virtually the sole, easily accessible source of his writings today. Two further useful sources
of information are Hans Eggert Schrder: Werner Deubel zum Gedchtnis [1959]. In:
Schiller Nietzsche Klages: Abhandlungen und Essays zur Geistesgeschichte der
Gegenwart. Bonn: Bouvier 1974. Pp. 254256; and Baal Mller: Kulturrevolution: Vor
50 Jahren starb der Schriftsteller Werner Deubel. In: Junge Freiheit. 46 (1999).
12.11.1999. http://www.jf_archiv.de/archiv99/469yy22.htm.

302
turning-point in his life.2 There ensued an intensive correspondence (now
housed with the rest of Deubels Nachlass in the Deutsches Literaturarchiv,
Marbach) with Klages, and Deubel was a frequent visitor to Klagess house in
Kilchberg, just outside Zurich.
In 1927 Deubel published his first and only novel, Gtter in Wolken,3 and his
literary production, to which he dedicated himself exclusively from 1930
onwards, consists mainly of dramas Der Ritt ins Reich (1937), Die Geschwister
von Korsika (1941), Die letzte Festung (1942) and Hans und Heinrich (1943) and
novellas, some of which appeared in a collection of 1938, Das Glck von
Tukulor.4 And in a series of articles Deubel sought to expound and explicate the
system of his intellectual master, frequently clarifying and explaining the
philosophical terminology of Klages.5 In 1931 Deubel published a collection
of essays under the title Deutsche Kulturrevolution, containing contributions
by himself, the writer Hans Kern (19021945), the journalist and writer Jorg
Lampe (18971982), the graphologist Heinrich Dhmann (18931974), the
surgeon and gynaecologist Wilhelm Schppe (b. 1891), the graphologist Kurt
Seesemann (18941965), the Germanist Hans-Friedrich Rosenfeld (18991993),
and the doctor and psychiatrist Julius Deussen (19051975).6 In his introduction
to this collection, Deubel claimed he could detect in contemporary Germany
den Untergang der Seele ,7 and he also identified ein unverkennbares
Abbrckeln der alten Geist- und Willenswertwelt. Noting the existence of
einige seltene Zeichen einer wirklichen Wandlung, he looked forward to
[die gesamte] Denk- und Lebenswende he called eine Kulturrevolution.8
2
Zentralereignis in Deubels Leben mu die Begegnung mit Ludwig Klages kurz vor
Ausbruch des Ersten Weltkrieges angesehen werden. Hintze (n. 1). P. 11. Cf. Ibid.
P. 30; [I]n seinen Mnchner Studentenjahren wurde 1913 die Begegnung mit Klages
bestimmend fr seine innere Entwicklung. In: Schrder (n. 1). P. 254.
3
Werner Deubel: Gtter in Wolken: Roman. Jena: Diederichs 1927.
4
Werner Deubel: Der Ritt ins Reich: Ein Drama. Berlin-Lichterfelde: Widukind; A.
Bo 1937; Das Glck von Tukulor: Novellen. Berlin-Lichterfelde: Widukind; A. Bo
1938, reprinted as: Das Glck von Tukulor: Novellen und Erzhlungen. Ed. by Felicitas
Deubel. Dsseldorf: Lebenskunde Verlag 1984; Die Geschwister von Korsika: Schauspiel
in 4. Akten. Berlin-Lichterfelde: Widukind 1941; Die letzte Festung: Schauspiel. Berlin:
A. Bo 1942; Hans und Heinrich. Berlin: Ahn & Simrock 1943.
5
Deubel ist es oft gelungen, die Auffassungen seines philosophischen Lehrers transparenter werden zu lassen. Die Sprache Deubels ist bei aller Farbigkeit treffsicher und
przise. Hintze (n. 1). P. 41.
6
I am grateful to Holger Pfeiffer of the Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach am Neckar,
for assistance with confirming the dates of these individuals.
7
The phrase is used in Klagess 1913 address Mensch und Erde. In: Ludwig Klages:
Mensch und Erde: Elf Abhandlungen. Stuttgart: Krner 1973. Pp. 125, here p. 14.
8
Deutsche Kulturrevolution: Weltbild der Jugend. Ed. by Werner Deubel. Berlin:
Verlag fr Zeitkritik 1931. Pp. viixvi. For further discussion, see Richard Hinton
Thomas: Nietzsche in Weimar Germany and the Case of Ludwig Klages. In: The

303
Indeed, the collection as a whole has been seen by some as an exemplary statement of the values of the Conservative Revolution.9
Deubels wide-ranging essays, published in other journals, discuss the biocentric anthropology of Ludwig Klages (1934), the work of the German art historian and psychiatrist Hans Prinzhorn (18861933) (1933), the anti-nihilistic
function of art, the status of Goethe as the founder of a new world-view (1931),
the madness of Hlderlin (1919), the secret of sleep (various dates), and
the phenomenological significance of dawn (194041). In these literaryphilosophical essays, Deubel identifies two major filiations of thought: the first
runs from Goethe, via Hamann and Herder, through Jakob Bhme, Meister
Eckhart, Paracelsus and Giordano Bruno, back to the pre-Socratics; the second
culminates in Nietzsche and goes back, via Kleist and Hlderlin, to Schiller,
and thence to Shakespeare and ultimately Aeschylus. (Deubel identifies a third
tradition, for him a problematic, even pernicious one, leading from Kant back
to Newton, Descartes, St Paul and, finally, Plato.10) To put it another way, there
is the tradition of Heraclitus-Goethe-Nietzsche-Klages, and there is the tradition of Aeschylus-Shakespeare-Schiller-Nietzsche: in both cases, Nietzsche
has a central role to play, and in fact Nietzsches theory of tragedy forms the
background to those writings in which Deubel develops his own Schillerbild.
That Bild emerges from a series of essays, which restates and develops
Deubels interpretation of Schiller.11 Apart from a discussion in a paper presented by Herbert Smith to the English Goethe Society in London in 1935 on
Weimar Dilemma: Intellectuals in the Weimar Republic. Ed. by Anthony Phelan.
Manchester: Manchester University Press 1985. Pp. 7191, esp. pp. 7778.
9
On the Conservative Revolution, see Keith Bullivant: The Conservative
Revolution. In: Phelan (n. 8). Pp. 4770; Stefan Breuer: Anatomie der konservativen
Revolution. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1993; Michael Groheim:
kologie oder Technokratie? Der Konservatismus in der Moderne. Berlin: Duncker &
Humblot 1995; Armin Mohler: Die konservative Revolution in Deutschland
19181932. Ein Handbuch. Graz Stuttgart: Stocker 5th edn 1999; Karlheinz
Weimann: Die Ethik des Aufbegehrens. Friedrich Nietzsche, der Erste Weltkrieg und die
Konservative Revolution. In: Junge Freiheit 35 (2000). 25.8.2000. http://www.jfarchiv.de/online-archiv/; Martin Travers: Critics of Modernity: The Literature of the
Conservative Revolution in Germany, 18901933. New York: Lang 2001.
10
See Auswirkungen des biozentrischen Menschenbildes (1934) and Umrisse eines
neuen Schillerbildes (1934). In: Im Kampf um die Seele. Pp. 4762, esp. pp. 4849,
and pp. 163198, esp. pp. 197198.
11
See Werner Deubel: Der deutsche Weg zur Tragdie. In: Die Wissenschaft am
Scheidewege von Leben und Geist: Festschrift fr Ludwig Klages zum 60. Geburtstag,
10. Dezember 1932. Ed. by Hans Prinzhorn. Leipzig: Barth 1932. Pp. 4657; Umrisse
eines neuen Schillerbildes. In: Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft 20 (1934). Pp. 164;
Der deutsche Weg zur Tragdie. Dresden: Jess 1935; Schillers Kampf um die Tragdie:
Umrisse eines neuen Schillerbildes. Berlin-Lichterfelde: Widukind; A. Bo 1935 (Das
deutsche Leben 1).

304
present-day [!] tendencies in German Schiller reception,12 and a very recent
paper refocusing interest on Deubels conception of the tragic,13 Deubels
Schillerbild has been, it seems, almost entirely neglected.14

Nietzsche on tragedy
In a series of early lectures and essays, Nietzsche investigated the cultural function
of Greek tragedy; its relation to war and to slavery; in short, what he called its
Dionysian aspects. Nietzsche emphasised the Nacht und Grauen of the preHomeric world; the cruelty and savagery of the ancient Greeks, einen Zug von
Grausamkeit, von tigerartiger Vernichtungslust an sich in the Homeric epic we
look into die Abgrnde des Hasses, and Nietzsche tells us that he fears da wir
[die Kampfbilder der Ilias] nicht griechisch genug verstehen, ja da wir schaudern wrden, wenn wir sie einmal griechisch verstnden.15 As early as 1869, in
Homer und die klassische Philologie, Nietzsche had spoken of the das
furchtbar-schne Gorgonenhaupt des Klassichen, an idea taken up by Deubel in
his discussions of Schillers attempt to depict den Gorgonischen Zug im Antlitz
der Wirklichkeit, das Medusenantlitz der Wirklichkeit.16 Yet Nietzsches ambitions were not so much philological as existential: he is keen, less to make the
ontological point that Dasein is an ewige Wunde, than to ask how we can heal
it; concerned, less with nature as something terrible, horrific (das Ungeheure)
than with das Entsetzliche oder Absurde des Seins, with war conflict,
struggle as, so Heraclitus recognised, the father of all things, with how we can
learn from Heraclitus how to respond to the world thus understood.17 In Die
Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen (1873), Nietzsche wrote:
Das ewige und alleinige Werden, die gnzliche Unbestndigkeit alles Wirklichen,
das fortwhrend nur wirkt und wird und nicht ist, wie dies Heraklit lehrt, ist eine
12
See Herbert Smith: Present-Day Tendencies in the German Interpretation of Schiller.
In: Publications of the English Goethe Society 11 (1935). Pp. 2036, esp. pp. 3136.
13
See Baal Mller: Deubels Kampf um die Tragdie: Der Mythos und das Wesen des
Tragischen bei Ludwig Klages und Werner Deubel. In: Hestia: Jahrbuch der KlagesGesellschaft 21 (200203). Pp. 117132.
14
In this paper I concentrate mainly on the original (1932) version of Der deutsche
Weg zur Tragdie (DWT), and on the version of Umrisse eines neuen Schillerbildes
(UnS) published in Im Kampf um die Seele (Pp. 163198), which purports to be the
original form of the version published in the Jahrbuch der Goethe-Gesellschaft.
15
Homers Wettkampf. KSA 1. 785, 783, 784.
16
Nietzsche. Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Ed. by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino
Montinari. Berlin New York: de Gruyter 1967ff. Vol. II/1. P. 251; cf. Deubel (n. 1).
Pp. 184, 191; cf. was aus trunkener Seele frohlocken mchte, das erstarrt unterm
Gorgonenblick der Idee (p. 168).
17
KSA 1. 115, 52; 57; Heraclitus, DK 22 B 53. For further discussion of the existential
implications bound up in Nietzsches conception of the tragic, see Rdiger Safranski:
Nietzsche: Biographie seines Denkens. Munich Vienna: Hanser 2000. Pp. 51103.

305
furchtbare und betubende Vorstellung und in ihrem Einflusse am nchsten der
Empfindung verwandt, mit der Jemand, bei einem Erdbeben, das Zutrauen zu der
festgegrndeten Erde verliert. Es gehrte eine erstaunliche Kraft dazu, diese Wirkung
in das Entgegengesetzte, in das Erhabne und das beglckte Erstaunen zu bertragen.
(KSA 1. 824825)

Yet Nietzsche also describes Heraclituss vision of the world as an aesthetic

one, which exemplifies how, in the words of Die Geburt der Tragdie, nur als
sthetisches Phnomen [ist] das Dasein der Welt gerechtfertigt:18
So schaut nur der sthetische Mensch die Welt an, der an dem Knstler und an dem
Entstehen des Kunstwerks erfahren hat, wie der Streit der Vielheit doch in sich
Gesetz und Recht tragen kann, wie der Knstler beschaulich ber und wirkend in
dem Kunstwerk steht, wie Nothwendigkeit und Spiel, Widerstreit und Harmonie
sich zur Zeugung des Kunstwerkes paaren mssen. (KSA 1. 831)

Hence, in Nietzsches early writings, tragedy as a cipher for an aesthetic

response to ontological horror emerges as the central theme. Deubel understood this well.

Deubel on tragedy
Deubels view of Schiller is very much one of Schiller as the national poet,
in the sense of the poet of the nation. His perspective on Schiller resembles
that of Paul Ernst (18661933), the miners son turned writer and intellectual,
neo-Romantic turned neo-Classicist, militant Marxist turned fervent supporter
of National Socialism, whom Deubel at one point cites and to whom he is
indebted for his general interpretative framework. In Der Zusammenbruch des
deutschen Idealismus (1918) Ernst wrote that [v]om Karl Moor via Posa
and Philipp bis zum Groinquisitor, alle vier Gestalten sind Abbilder des
Innern Schillers.19 And Deubel was to argue that Schiller embodies the tragic
destiny of the German nation.
18

KSA 1. 17; cf. ibid. 47 and 152.

Paul Ernst: Der Zusammenbruch des deutschen Idealismus. Munich: Georg Mller
3rd edn 1931. P. 252. And, in terms of methodological approach, the following comments by Ernst reveal much of the source of Deubels inspiration: Kein Dichter kann
Anderes tun, als sein eigenes Inneres offenbaren. Wenn der unorganische Zustand der
Menschheit eingetreten ist, dann mu der Schwchere in die Sehnsucht verfallen, der
Strkere mu den Zustand der Welt, der ihm nun als der normale erscheinen mu,
notwendig als tragisch erkennen und als solchen bejahen. Diesen Zustand stellt er dar,
indem er die Tragdie dichtet. Die Tragdie ist nur eine der Formen, zu welchen die
Menschheit der anorganischen Zeit kommt, aber sie ist die vorzglichste. Die Tragdie
ist in der Dichtung so selten, wie der Aristokrat in der Menge, trotzdem nennt man in
der Geschichte der Dichtung das auf das lyrische Zeitalter folgende das tragische (p. 483). In terms of world-political outlook, Ernsts concluding paragraph gives
some sense of his direction: Die Formen der Dichtung sind ewig und unerschtterlich. Heute, mit geschrftem, geschichtlichem Blick, wo wir die Zickzackwege

19

306
The opening paragraphs of Der deutsche Weg zur Tragdie (1932), later
incorporated into Umrisse eines neuen Schillerbildes (1934), offer a historical
perspective on German tragedy by referring to Corneilles boast in his Discours sur
lart dramatique (1660) that the French were the true inheritors of the tragedy of
Greek tragedy, a claim disputed by Lessing in his Hamburgische Dramaturgie
(176768; 1769). And it is in the debate between Corneille and Lessing, the
French dramatic tradition and the German one, that there begins, according
to Deubel, the struggle for the rebirth of tragedy from the German soul
die Wiedergeburt der Tragdie aus deutscher Seele (DWT 46). For what
Deubel terms the genius of Germany (der deutsche Genius) tragedy is not
simply a form that it takes over and develops, but tragedy is the means for it
to reach what he calls, in almost Heideggerian language, the artistic fulfilment
of its inner essence (eine dichterische Erfllung seines innersten Wesens).
For Deubel, Lessing inaugurates the liberation of the soul from a Socratic
age, even if his dramas and brgerliche Trauerspiele were unequal to this
task; rather, the German search for tragedy involves a descent into the past
to discover, in Nietzsches words, a tragic culture eine tragische Kultur
(DWT 46).
What, for Deubel, is tragedy? He considers the two great exemplars between
which German art, post-Lessing, has had to choose: Aeschylus and Shakespeare.
Common to both traditions, the ancient Greek and the English, is the notion of
the omnipotence of Fate: how do we respond to the wisdom of Silenus?20
Across a number of plays Deubel points to examples of the importance in
Shakespearian drama of the dark power of magic: an echo, as he sees it, of the
dual character of ancient tragedy: the ritual invocation of the dead,21 and the
celebration of life which bestows honour on its hero even as it destroys him
der Menschen sehen knnen, vermgen wir diese Formen uns deutlicher zu machen
denn je: sie sind die Forderungen der Andern an den Dichter. Eine ganz neue Lage ist
durch die allgemeine Proletarisierung geschaffen: da der Dichter ganz nur auf sich,
auf Gott und auf die ewigen Gesetze der Form gestellt ist, da ihn Nichts mehr beirren
kann. Es wre doch Alles unbegreiflich, wenn wir nicht unmittelbar vor einer Blte der
Dichtung stnden innerhalb eines furchtbaren Verfalls der Menschheit (p. 494).
20
According to legend, the companion of Dionysos told King Midas: the best thing is not
have been born, the next best thing is to die early. Die Geburt der Tragdie 3: KSA 1. 35.
21
Alfred Baeumler explored this idea in his introduction to Manfred Schrters selection of texts from Bachofen, published as Der Mythus von Orient und Occident (1926),
and Baeumler subsequently published his introduction separately as Das mythische
Weltalter. See Totenkult und Tragdie. In: Das mythische Weltalter: Bachofens
romantische Deutung des Altertums. Munich: Beck 1965. Pp. 5083. In Der Sinn des
Groen Krieges, two lectures given in 1929 and 1930, Baeumler transferred his conclusions about the origin of Greek tragedy as developed in his introduction to Bachofen
to the dead German heroes of the First World War. See Alfred Baeumler: Mnnerbund
und Wissenschaft. Berlin: Junker und Dnnhaupt 1934. Pp. 129.

307
(DWT 48; UnS 165).22 Missing from Shakespeares dramas, but very much
present in Greek tragedy, he argues, is the religious dimension: Hier ragt die
Tragdie in das Religise hinauf (UnS 165). Deubel speaks of a sense of
surging, seething, of participating in the oceanic waves,23 which he identifies
with Nietzsches concept of the Dionysian. In Gtzen-Dmmerung Nietzsche
had explained how the psychology of the orgy as an overflowing feeling of life
and energy, within which even pain acts as a stimulus, had given him the key
to the concept of tragic feeling: Der Wille zum Leben, im Opfer seiner hchsten
Typen der eignen Unerschpflichkeit frohwerdend das nannte ich dionysisch,
das errieth ich als die Brcke zur Psychologie des tragischen Dichters.24
Deubel cites this passage, and endorses Nietzsches link between the tragic and
the Dionysian, and he finds further support for the association of life, death,
and sacrifice the renewal of life through its sacrifice in death in the final
chapter of Klagess Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele (192932).25 To this
characteristic of the tragic, its emergence into the religious in an orgiastic
fragmentation of human individuality, Deubel adds a further two: the notion of
the heroic, and the idea that Fate crushes, but thereby elevates, the great individual (UnS 166). So how does Schiller fit into Deubels theory of tragedy?

Deubels methodology
Following Goethes principle that all gttlichen Erleuchtungen are mit der
Jugend im Bunde,26 Deubel proposes to understand Schiller primarily in the
light of his writings from his youth. Comparing Schillers early poem Die
Freundschaft (1781), later included in the Philosophische Briefe (see below),
22
Deubel applies Nietzsches expression the pessimism of strength to Shakespeares
character, but argues that the hero of ancient tragedy goes further: Der Held der
antiken Tragdie aber, an den gleichen Klippen zerstubend, sprht orgiastisch aufschumend noch darber hinaus, um, ins Ungeheure verwandelt, vom weltdurchwaltenden Element selber Teil und leuchtende Rune zu werden (DWT 48).
23
Cf. Freuds discussion of the oceanic feeling, a term coined by Romain Rolland, in
Das Unbehagen in der Kultur (1930). In: Sigmund Freud, Gesammelte Werke: chronologisch geordnet. 19 vols. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer 195287. Vol. 14. Pp. 422425.
24
Gtzen-Dmmerung. Was ich den Alten verdanke 5: KSA 6. 160. Cf. Der Wille zur
Macht 1029: Nur die dionysische Lust reicht aus ich habe das Tragische erst entdeckt. KSA 11. 33 25[95].
25
See Ludwig Klages: Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele. Bonn: Bouvier 1981. Pp.
1414, 1410. Klages sees the blood-sacrifice of soldiers in the field, das Blutopfer des
Kriegers im Kampfe, as a survival of cultic practice, die bevorzugte Opferform heroischer Vlker, and in this context Deubel (see below n. 58) cites the conclusion of
Schillers famous Reiterlied from scene 11 of Wallensteins Lager: Und setzet ihr
nicht das Leben ein, / Nie wird euch das Leben gewonnen sein . DWT 49; NA 8. 54.
26
Cf. Goethes conversation with Eckermann of 11.3.1828: Jene gttliche
Erleuchtung, wodurch das Auerordentliche entsteht, werden wir immer mit der

308
with Nietzsches poem An den Mistral, one of the Lieder des Prinzen
Vogelfrei appended to the second edition of Die frhliche Wissenschaft
(1887),27 Deubel detects eine seelische Verwandtschaft between Schiller and
Nietzsche; indeed, he asserts that Schiller was a fellow Dionysiker, and that
because, as Nietzsche discovered, the Dionysian is the key to the tragic, this is
why Schiller was also a tragedian, and the great dominant theme in Schillers
life was the search for the essence of the tragic (UnS 164). Thus Deubels
Schillerbild focuses on the playwright, the tragedian, and he adds the methodological point that Schiller must be considered separately from his relation to
Kant (the systematiser of the logocentric worldview) and to Goethe (the classicist and founder of the biocentric worldview), in order to appreciate how
Schiller represents der Durchbruch des deutschen Genius zur Tragdie (UnS
164).28 However, Deubel will also argue that Schillers ultimate failure to
establish German tragedy indicates the inability of classicism, in his view, to
point the way to a true tragic culture.29
Deubels methodology is also Nietzschean in spirit. In his letter of 16
September 1882 to Lou von Salom, Nietzsche welcomed her idea of einer
Reduktion der philosophischen Systeme auf Personal-Acten ihrer Urheber as
ein Gedanke aus dem Geschwisterhirn , and claimed that this was precisely
how he had taught ancient philosophy to his students in Basle.30 And although
Schiller himself declared, in his review of Brgers Gedichte, that alles, was
der Dichter uns geben kann, ist seine Individualitt (NA 22. 246), Hans
Mayer has argued that Schiller demanded no less of himself than he did of others
in his age: Seine Vision von knftiger Menschheit gedachte er an sich selbst
Jugend und der Produktivitt im Bunde finden. In: Johann Peter Eckermann:
Gesprche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens. Ed. by Fritz Bergemann.
Frankfurt/M.: Insel 1981. P. 625.
27
For an interpretation of this poem, see Philip Grundlehner: The Poetry of Friedrich
Nietzsche. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press 1986. Pp. 175183.
28
In the introduction to the 1935 version, Schillers Kampf um die Tragdie, Deubel
assimilates Goethe to the biocentric worldview and to the deutsche Kulturrevolution:
Goethe ist einer der fr uns wichtigen neuzeitlichen Vertreter der biozentrischen
Wertwelt. Mit ihm beginnt die deutsche Kulturrevolution, die, von der Romantik, von
Nietzsche und der Lebensphilosophie weitergetragen, im Mittelpunkt der gegenwrtigen Erneuerungskmpfe steht (p. 4).
29
According to Paul Ernst, unsere klassische Zeit [ist] nicht zur Gestaltung der
Tragdie gekommen. Ernst (n. 19). P. 18.
30
Friedrich Nietzsche: Smtliche Briefe: Kritische Studienausgabe. Ed. by Giorgio
Colli and Mazzino Montinari. 8 vols. Berlin New York: de Gruyter; Munich: dtv
197584. Vol. 6. P. 259. Cf. Jenseits von Gut und Bse 6. KSA 5. 1920; and Die frhliche Wissenschaft. Vorrede zur zweiten Ausgabe 2. KSA 3. 347349. For further discussion of this approach, see Michel Onfray: Physiologie de la philosophie: Ecrire, puis
lire selon Nietzsche. In: LArchipel des comtes: Journal hdoniste III. Paris: Grasset
2001. Pp. 443460, esp. pp. 444448.

309
und durch sich selbst zu verwirklichen.31 So in contrast to other approaches,
which either present Schiller in terms of the value-scheme of European Bildung
as a cultural pedagogue and aesthetic educator (thereby ignoring Schillers
breakthrough to the Germanic essence of tragedy and to tragic culture), or
present what are, in fact, real contradictions, even metaphysical opposites, as
mere polarities or tensions (UnS 197), Deubel adopts a biocentric
approach, seeking to reveal the cultural-historical developments at work in the
lives of individuals or, as he puts it, to uncover the metaphysical behind the biographical: hinter dem blo Biographischen das metaphysische Geschehen in
Schillers Leben sichtbar zu machen (UnS 180).32
As a consequence of this choice of method, Deubel seeks to reorientate our
approach in sometimes quite radical ways. For example, he reads Die Ruber
(1782), not just as a politico-moral rejection of the injustice in the prevailing
social order, but as a battle cry against the diminishment of humankind and the
loss of heroism. In Act I, scene 2 of that play, Karl Moor had railed against
diese[s] Tintengleksende Sekulum (NA 3. 20); in other words, against what
Schiller himself, in his letter to Fichte of 4 August 1795, called das allgemeine und revoltante Glck der Mittelmigkeit (NA 28. 20). Or as Schiller
wrote in his Erinnerung an das Publikum, as a preface to the first performance of Die Verschwrung des Fiesko zu Genua (1794):
Wenn es zum Unglck der Menschheit so gemein und alltglich ist, da so oft
unsere gttlichsten Triebe, da unsere besten Keime zu Grosen und Guten unter
dem Druck des brgerlichen Lebens begraben werden wenn Kleingeistelei und
Mode der Natur khnen Umri beschneiden wenn tausend lcherliche Konvenienzen
am grosen Stempel der Gottheit herumknsteln so kann dasjenige Schauspiel
nicht zwecklos seyn, das uns den Spiegel unserer ganzen Kraft vor die Augen hlt,
das den sterbenden Funken des Heldenmuths belebend wieder emporflammt das
uns aus dem engen dumpfigen Kreis unsers alltglichen Lebens in eine hhere
Sphre rckt. (NA 4. 271272)

In particular, Deubel directs our attention to the imagery of light and fire in
Die Ruber: in Act III, scene 2, Karl Moor utters the following words as he
contemplates the sight of the setting sun: So stirbt ein Held! Anbetenswrdig!
[] Da ich noch ein Bube war wars mein Lieblingsgedanke, wie sie zu
leben, zu sterben wie sie [] Da ich wiederkehren drfte in meiner Mutter
31

Hans Mayer: Das Ideal und das Leben. Eine Schiller-Rede 1955. In: Versuche ber
Schiller. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp 1987. P. 11.
32
In the 1935 version, Deubel presents his essay as a corrective to contemporary views
of Schiller: Die Schillergestalt, wie sie uns von Wissenschaft und Schule bermittelt
wird, ist bewut oder unbewut unwahr und im Grunde eine ehrfurchtlose Erdichtung.
Das Bild Schillers von solchen Entstellungen zu reinigen, ist das Hauptanliegen dieser
Schrift (p. 5).

310
Leib! (NA 3. 7880).33 For Deubel, these words are more than they may seem,
having a function outside the immediate dramatic context as an evocation of
the ancient symbol of death and renewal:
Die Sonne, die sich erneuernd im Westen stirbt, ist das heiligste Symbol fr altgermanisches Wissen um die Verjngung alles Lebens aus groen Untergngen. Es
mutet an wie ein aus Bluttiefen heraufleuchtender Erinnerungsblitz, und wie wre
ein gleich unheurer Augenblick in einem Drama Voltaires oder selbst Lessings auch
nur zu denken. (UnS 166167; cf. DWT 51).34

But if Die Ruber is able to meet Deubels criteria for the tragic, it is the only
play that does.35 He points to the contrast between Die Ruber and Don Carlos
(1787) as evidence of what he regards as Schillers decline away from the
tragic and into the moralistic (DWT 51). And Deubel detects a fundamental
split in Schillers very being, in Klagesian terms between his ego (Ich) and
his soul (Seele), between his logocentric thinking and his heroic disposition (UnS 167168), between the increasing moralism of his plays and his mission as the renewer of tragic culture in Germany. Let us examine Deubels
thesis of a fundamental split in Schiller in more detail.

Deubels intellectual-biographical portrait of Schiller

According to Deubel, the idealist in Schiller sought to combat the tragedian in
him, and this represented a lifelong tension in his career.36 What evidence is
33
As the commentary in the Nationalausgabe points out, the image of the sun, like the
images of the eagle and of flight, recurs frequently in Schillers poems (such as Der
Abend, Todenfeyer am Grabe Philipp Friedrich von Riegers, Fantasie: An Laura,
Vorwurf: An Laura, Das Geheimni der Reminiszenz), and has its source in the
emblematic tradition. NA 2/I. 95.
34
In a letter written by Schiller to his friend, the writer Ludwig Ferdinand Huber
(17641804), of 5.10.1785 (NA 24. 2528), not long after after his work on Die
Rber, Deubel finds a reprise of the three tragic motifs of the orgiastic release into the
religious, the notion of the heroic, and the power of Fate.
35
I am grateful to David Pugh for pointing out to me how Deubels criticisms are anticipated by Gerhard Fricke. See Gerhard Fricke: Die Problematik des Tragischen im
Drama Schillers. In: Jahrbuch des Freien Deutschen Hochstifts 37 (1930). Pp. 369.
36
Cf. Schillers letter to Goethe of 31.8.1797: Gewhnlich bereilte mich der Poet, wo
ich philosophieren sollte, und der philosophische Geist, wo ich dichten wollte. NA 27.
32. Both C. G. Jung and Ludwig Klages investigated Schillers psychology in terms of
their respective typological and characterological schemas. In Psychologische Typen
(1921), Jung described Schiller as an intuitive, introverted thinking type, in contrast
to Goethe as an intuitive, extraverted feeling type. C. G. Jung: Gesammelte Werke. 20
vols. Olten Freiburg i. Brsg.: Walter 196083. Vol. 6. 116 and 141, n. 33. Klages
described Schillers direction of attention (Auffassungsrichtung) as geistesabhngig,
in contrast to Goethes lebensabhngige[s] [] Erfassen und Denken. In: Die

311
there for this view? First, Deubel points to Schillers works, where the essential
core of tragedy in Deubels words, das Urerlebnis der unheilbaren
Gebrechlichkeit des Daseins, den unaufheblichen Gegensatz von elementarem Leben und Einzelleben, von Verhngnis und Mensch becomes progressively reduced to the conflict, which Deubel does not regard as tragic, but
rather as moralistic, between the idea and sensuousness (UnS 169). Even Karl
Moor is destroyed, not by Fate, but at his own hands; in Die Verschwrung des
Fiesco zu Genua (1783), Schillers attitude to his hero is notably ambivalent
(UnS 169); until, in Don Carlos (1787), the idealist in Schiller completely
overpowers the tragedian, and Schillers self-destruction, as a writer with a
vocation to restore tragedy, is complete. Across the successive drafts of Don
Carlos, Deubel claims, the original tragic theme of the play the knowledge of
the Dioscuri that the power of Eros can make invincible those it has bound
together in friendship 37 becomes progressively watered down until the
friendship between Carlos and Posa merely serves utilitarian social ends (UnS
170). And after Schiller began reading Kant, things are said to have become
even worse until, in Maria Stuart (1800) and Die Jungfrau von Orleans (1801),
the tragic hero is further reduced to nothing more than a saint (DWT 51).
Second, Deubel suggests there is a parallel between, on the one hand, the
self-destruction of Schiller the poet and, on the other, the catastrophe that, at
the same time, faced Schiller the thinker. The central text under discussion here
is the Philosophische Briefe, published in volume 1, part 3, of the Rheinische
Thalia, the periodical founded by Schiller, in 1785. There is evidence that
Schiller was working on this project much earlier, however, and the essay
Theosophie des Julius dates back to 1779.38

Grundlagen der Charakterkunde. Leipzig: Barth 1926. Pp. 8485. For a different
approach to the multifaceted character of Schillers personality, see Elizabeth M.
Wilkinson: Schiller: Poet or Philosopher? Oxford: Clarendon Press 1962; reprinted in
Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and L.A. Willoughby: Models of Wholeness: Some Attitudes to
Language, Art and Life in the Age of Goethe. Ed. by Jeremy Adler, Martin Swales and
Ann Weaver. Oxford Berne Berlin: Lang 2002. Pp. 6997.
37
Deubel calls the theme of the Dioscuri ein Herzensgeheimnis der germanischen
Seele, alluding to Annette von Droste-Hlshoffs use of the motif of the Zwillingsbrder
in her poem An Levin Schcking.
38
Apart from this theosophical essay, the work consists of a series of letters addressed by
Julius ( Schiller), a student, to Raphael ( Christian Gottfried Krner [17561831]),
his philosophical master, about the sceptical, even nihilistic conclusions to which he
feels the Enlightenment is leading him. Theosophie des Julius shows evidence of the
influence on Schiller of various philosophical sources, including neo-Platonism,
Leibnizs notion of the chain of being, Shaftesburys idea that all beauty is truth, as
well as such pansophical esoteric notions as the liber naturae and the Signatur der
Dinge, and the mystical doctrines of Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (170282).

312
This text has been read, and not just by Deubel, as reflecting the philosophical views of the young Schiller.39 Thanks to his friend, Raphael, the student
Julius has been enlightened, but as a result his mystical, pansophical, theosophical worldview has been replaced by a rational one: where there was creative love,40 now there is das denkende Wesen (NA 20. 115); now the world
is no more than a machine, and the human body an Uhrwerk (NA 20. 112);41
or, in Klagesian terms, all has fallen under the sway of the logos.42 What has
happened to Julius is summed up in his phrase: Ein khner Angriff des
Materialismus strzt meine Schpfung ein (NA 20. 115).
39
The commentary in the Nationalausgabe describes the Theosophie des Julius as
eine Spiegelung der Schillerschen Jugendphilosophie. NA 21. 160. According to
Wolfgang Riedel, it represents nicht nur die verlorenen metaphysischen Hoffnungen
des Julius, sondern Schillers eigene, auch von ihm selbst nunmehr bezweifelte
Jugendphilosophie. In: Lexikon der philosophischen Werke. Ed. by Franco Volpi and
Julian Nida-Rmelin. Stuttgart: Krner 1988. P. 556. For further discussion, see Hans
Eggert Schrder: Schiller als dramatischer Dichter. In: Schiller Nietzsche Klages:
Abhandlungen und Essays zur Geistesgeschichte der Gegenwart. Bonn: Bouvier 1974.
Pp. 106189, esp. pp. 170171; and Wolfgang Riedel: Die Anthropologie des jungen
Schiller: Zur Ideengeschichte der medizinischen Schriften und der Philosophischen
Briefe. Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann 1985.
40
In his Theosophie, Julius tells Raphael how he interpreted the world as he would a
work of art ich lese die Seele des Knstlers in seinem Apollo. NA 20. 116. He
speaks of Augenblike im Leben, wo wir aufgelegt sind, jede Blume und jedes entlegene Gestirne, jeden Wurm und jeden geahndeten hheren Geist an den Busen zu
drkken ein Umarmen der ganzen Natur gleich unsrer Geliebten. NA 20. 121. There
is an identity of subject and objekt (wir selber werden das empfundene Objekt; NA
20. 117); the world is saturated with love, das schnste Phnomen in der beseelten
Schpfung, der allmchtige Magnet in der Geisterwelt, die Quelle der Andacht und der
erhabensten Tugend. NA 20. 119. Love made the world, it creates nature, and die
Natur ist ein unendlich getheilter Gott. NA 20. 124.
41
If Julius has gained in knowledge, he nevertheless laments his loss of faith: Du hast
mir den Glauben gestohlen, der mit Frieden gab, he complains, du hast mich verachten
gelernt, wo ich anbetete. NA 20. 110. Glaube niemand als deiner eignen Vernunft,
Raphael told him, es giebt nichts heiliges als die Wahrheit. Was die Vernunft erkennt, ist
die Wahrheit. NA 20. 111. Having followed his masters advice, Julius is not happy with
the result: Raphael schnitt alle Bande der Uebereinkunft und der Meinung entzwei (NA
20. 111), and alle Dinge in Himmel und auf Erden haben keinen Werth, keine Schzung,
als soviel meine Vernunft ihnen zugesteht. NA 20. 112. Ich habe dir gehorcht, he
tells Raphael, so that meine Vernunft ist mir jetzt alles, meine einzige Gewhrleistung
fr Gottheit, Tugend, Unsterblichkeit; but now: Wehe mir von nun an, wenn ich
diesem einzigen Brgen auf einem Widerspruche begegne!. NA 20. 111. Raphael,
he writes, ich fodre meine Seele von dir. Ich bin nicht glklich. NA 20. 113.
42
Deubel follows Ludwig Klages in regarding idealism and materialism as false opposites (UnS p. 172); according to Klages, both idealism ( spirit Geist) and materialism ( matter Stoff ) are opposed to life (bios), so that the real opposition is between
logocentrism and biocentrism.

313
On Deubels account, the Philosophische Briefe are a transcription of the
first crisis with which Schiller had to come to terms; he was unable to complete
work on Don Carlos, and published extracts, the so-called Thalia-Fragmente,
with a preface asking for support, in 1785 (NA 6. 343346). This collapse of
self-confidence is reflected in Schillers correspondence: Ich bedarf einer
Krisis die Natur bereitet eine Zerstrung, um neu zu gebhren, as he put it
in his letter to Ludwig Ferdinand Huber (17641804) of 1 May 1786 (NA 24.
51).43 According to Deubel, the resolution of Schillers crisis took two forms:
the development of his collaboration with Goethe after their initial contact (in
1794), and his reading of Kant (from 1791 to 1794).44 Deubel recounts how
Schillers reviews of Egmont, Iphigenie and Brgers Gedichte offered a platform on which he and Goethe were, later, to develop a common position; how
Schiller moved away, thanks to study of history and antiquity, from his earlier
suspicion of the multiplicity of the phenomenal world and embrace of monism
(Alle Geister eine Stufe tiefer unter dem vollkommensten Geist sind meine
Mitbrder, weil wir alle einer Regel gehorchen, einem Oberherrn huldigen
[NA 20. 112], he has Julius say in the Philosophische Briefe) to the lament at
the ultimate expression of monism in the form of Judeo-Christianity (Einen
zu bereichern, unter allen, / mute diese Gtterwelt vergehn [NA 1. 194], as
Die Gtter Griechenlandes [1788] puts it).
Yet there remained, at least at first, a large ideological and personal gap
between Schiller and Goethe (UnS 174). On Deubels account, Schillers reading
of Kant should be seen in this context. Coinciding with a period of illness,
Schillers engagement with Kant was, according to Deubel, both a secondary
form of self-destruction, and a gesture directed in some way against Goethe,
who remained sceptical about Kant. In Klagesian terms, Kants philosophy is
pure logocentrism; in this philosophy in general, and in its promise to provide
an epistemological support for subjectivism in particular, Deubel sees confirmation of the Geists will to dominate over life. By contrast, Deubel argues,
Goethe had seen that the critical philosophy of Kant opened up the way to
belief and that Kant had, under the guise of philosophy, in effect smuggled theology back in. Hence Goethes rejection of Schiller as a Kantian, voiced (retrospectively) in Glckliches Ereignis (1794), in which he recalled their first
encounter in Jena, accusing Schiller of having been undankbar gegen die groe
43
Deubel cites as further evidence of this crisis Schillers letters to Krner of 7.1.1788
(NA 25. 1, 4) and of 20.8.1788 (NA 25. 95).
44
For further discussion, see Eva Schaper: Friedrich Schiller: Adventures of a Kantian.
In: British Journal of Aesthetics 4 (1964). Pp. 348362; R. D. Miller: Schiller and the
Ideal of Freedom: A Study of Schillers Philosophical Works with Chapters on Kant.
Oxford: Clarendon Press 1970; Patrick Timothy Murray: The Development of German
Aesthetic Theory from Kant to Schiller: A Philosophical Commentary on Schillers
Aesthetic Education of Man (1795). Lewiston (NY) Lampeter: Mellen 1994.

314
Mutter and remembering how, at that time, die ungeheure Kluft zwischen
unsern Denkweisen klaffte nur desto entschiedener;45 and expressed again in his
conversations with Eckermann of 14 November 1823 (Ich kann nicht umhin,
zu glauben, da Schillers philosophische Richtung seiner Poesie geschadet
hat) and of 18 January 1827 (Ich mchte fast sagen, da diese Idee [der
ideellen Freiheit] ihn gettet hat).46
Deubel is clear: the embrace of the transcendental philosophy of Kant was a
disaster personally for Schiller and more generally for the cause of German
tragedy; he calls it ein metaphysisches und damit fr die deutsche Kultur ein
schwerwiegendes Verhngnis (UnS 178).47 Why? Because, in various treatises,48 Schiller now tried to use Kantian concepts to understand the essence of
tragedy a project doomed, in Deubels eyes, to failure.49 Here we need to
remember that Deubels theory of the tragic is founded on Nietzschean premisses: on the basis that tragedy affirms the omnipotence of Fate (UnS 179). By
contrast, Kants moral notion of a freedom of the spirit founded in the will
leads Schiller into combat against this conception of the tragic. By introducing
God, in whatever form as Yahweh, world-reason, providence, or any kind of
moral world-view the idealist approach destroys tragedy and, with it, religion.
Deubel sets up a dualistic typology of culture derived from Nietzsche. First,
there is Socratic, and untragic, culture, in which the moral question is the question of the good will (DWT 50), a position anticipated in Aristotles definition
of tragedy as catharsis and which leads to Kantian philosophy (UnS 180).50
Second, there is tragic culture or tragic religion which concerns itself, not
with morality, but with heroic intensification in the face of Fate: Die tragische
45
Johann Wolfgang Goethe: Werke. Ed. by Erich Trunz. 14 vols. Hamburg: Wegner
194860. Vol. 10. Pp. 539, 540.
46
Eckermann (n. 26). Pp. 66, 200.
47
In Der Zusammenbruch des deutschen Idealismus, Paul Ernst wrote: Wenn wir denn
nun Alles zusammennehmen, so hat Schiller Nichts von Kant bekommen knnen. Aber
Schiller und Kant sind hier ja nicht zwei zufllige Menschen. In den beiden groen
Mnnern lag das Schicksal der deutschen klassischen Zeit. Die Aufgaben wurden nicht
gelst, sie wurden noch nicht einmal erkannt. Wie schon so oft in der Geschichte des
deutschen Geistes, geschah es auch hier, da die Tat nicht getan wurde, als es scheinbar ihre Zeit war. Ernst (n. 19). P. 272.
48
Deubel mentions in particular ber den Grund des Vergngens an tragischen
Gegenstnden (1792), ber die tragische Kunst (1792) and ber das Pathetische (1801).
49
Unlike Deubel, Paul Ernst does not share Nietzsches scepticism concerning Socrates,
but he shares both their scepticism about Kant: [W]as Kant von Sokrates unterscheidet,
das unterscheidet auch das klassische deutsche Drama von der antiken Tragdie. Ernst
(n. 19). P. 264.
50
Deubel cites the following dictum from Paul Ernsts Der Zusammenbruch des deutschen
Idealismus: [Die groe Dichtung] kann einen gerechten Gott nicht brauchen, sie braucht
einen ungerechten Gott. Ernst (n. 19). P. 271.

315
Religion nmlich fragt nicht nach der Verbindung von Tugend und Glck oder
Schuld und Shne, sondern sie zielt auf heroische Steigerung. Ihre Gottheit ist
nicht Gerechtigkeit, sondern Verhngnis. Und der Gegenspieler dieser Gottheit ist
nicht der gute oder bse Wille, sondern Gre, Glut und heldische Spannung der
Seele (UnS 180). Now, how could Schiller get out of this impasse, this fruitless attempt, as Deubel sees it, to erect tragedy on the foundation of idealism
(DWT 5051)?
On Deubels account, it was Goethe who provided Schiller with the necessary point of exit from Kantian philosophy.51 If there is still a strong Kantian
influence on the Briefe ber die sthetische Erziehung des Menschen (1795),
Deubel nevertheless noted the statement in the footnote to Letter 18 that, for
die sensualen Aesthetiker, das Zeugni der Empfindung constitutes a more
reliable guide that Raisonnement (NA 20. 368), and he sees evidence of a
shift towards biocentric values in ber nave und sentimentalische Dichtung
(1795) and its claims that die Dichter sind [] die Bewahrer der Natur (NA
20. 432) and that unsere Kultur soll uns, auf dem Wege der Vernunft und der
Freyheit, zur Natur zurckfhren (NA 20. 414). Schillers abandonment of
logocentric values is further reflected in the response to Goethes position
that die gesunde und schne Natur braucht keine Moral, kein Naturrecht,
keine politische Metaphysic, as expressed in Schillers letter to him of 911
July 1796: Sie htten ebensogut auch hinzusetzen knnen: sie braucht keine
Gottheit, keine Unsterblichkeit, sich zu sttzen und zu halten (NA 28.
258259). In Deubels eyes, Schiller had now gained insight into the origins of
logocentric values and the postulates of morality in the psychology of the sick
and the ugly. Rejecting them and, instead, embracing an aristocratic ethics of
Life and adopting a new perspective on Fate, Schiller now accepted, not only
that the will must be subordinated to Life, but that the concept of freedom is
derived, not from the will, but from Life: Schillers position was completely
transformed. As a result of his conversion to Goethes religion of Life, and
thanks to Goethes own encouragement, Schiller returned to his work on
Wallenstein, a work Deubel considers a true milestone on the path to German
tragedy (UnS 184).
So why did Schiller never complete the journey? According to Deubel,
Schiller remained concerned with the sacred demand to produce a dramatic
miracle, to find a container for the storm of passion in his tragic soul hidden
behind the smooth faade of classicism; yet, unaware of the decisive significance
of his Wallenstein, Schiller returned to dramas of the pseudo-tragic mechanism
of guilt and reconciliation: Maria Stuart (1800) and Die Jungfrau von Orleans
51
Deubel appears to overlook Goethes conversation with Eckermann of 11.4.1827,
where Goethe claims that he, too, had studied Kant und zwar nicht ohne Gewinn.
Eckermann (n. 26). P. 230.

316
(1801) are overshadowed by the spectre of transcendental idealism, while
Wilhelm Tell (1804) is, Deubel claims, an expression of heartless selfrighteousness (DWT 53; UnS 189).52 Deubel describes Schillers life as a
continual curve between the Nietzschean categories of Socratic and tragic culture. Goethe may have spoken of a Bund der Ergnzung between himself and
Schiller,53 but there remained, Deubel maintains, significant differences
between the two Dioscuri of Weimar.54 Above all, Deubel argues, there were
significant characterological differences between the two men or, in Klagesian
terms, their respective Urbilder were incompatible.
Now, in his essay Bemerkungen ber die Schranken des Goetheschen
Menschen (1917), Klages had attempted to discuss Goethe in terms of his
52
Deubel claims that, after 1799, Goethe began to distance himself from Schiller. And
the substantial intellectual rift between them, Deubel adds, lies in the fact that the cultural programme of classicism was, in his view, alien to Schillers true nature. UnS 187.
Schillers cooperation with Goethe and their collaboration on the programme of Weimar
classicism brought Schiller into conflict with his own tragic mission. DWT 5253.
Deubels critique of classicism is harsh: Goethes conception of the human ideal cannot
create heroes; both he and Kant lack the drive for Steigerung that characterised
Schiller; and Goethe failed to appreciate tragedy as a German cultural task and so misunderstood Schillers poetic mission. DWT 53; UnS 188. Instead, the conciliatory
and unheroic Goethe regarded the idyll as the peak of classical artistic striving. DWT
51. Compare with Goethes confession of his reluctance to write a tragedy in his letter
to Schiller of 9.12.1797, and his remark in his letter to Zelter of 31.10.1831: Ich bin
nicht zum tragischen Dichter geboren, da meine Natur konziliant ist. In: Goethes
Briefe. Ed. by Karl Robert Mandelkow. 4 vols. Hamburg: Wegner 196267. Vol. 2. Pp.
317318. Vol. 4. P. 458. For Goethes theory of tragedy, see his Nachlese zu Aristoteles
Poetik (1827). Goethe (n. 45). Vol. 12. Pp. 342345.
53
Is Deubel thinking here of the phrase im Bunde des Ernstes und der Liebe in
Goethes letter to Schiller of 31.10.1798?
54
On a personal level, so Deubel argues, Schiller now began to feel abandoned by
Goethe, thus sparking Schillers second crisis. His work on ber das Erhabene (1801)
represents both a leave-taking from Goethe and a final reckoning with idealism. If his
statement that das Schne macht sich blo verdient um den Menschen, das Erhabene
um den reinen Dmon in ihm (NA 21. 52) is a rejection of the doctrines of classical
aesthetics, then with his cry Hinweg mit der falsch verstandenen Schonung und dem
schlaffen verzrtelten Geschmack, der ber das ernste Angesicht der Nothwendigkeit
einen Schleyer wirft []! (NA 21. 51). Schiller, in Deubels eyes, turned his back on
idealism. For Deubel, such sentences reveal Schillers true proximity to the tragic, as
understood by Nietzsche. Cf. Nietzsches remark in Gtzen-Dmmerung: Vor der
Tragdie feiert das Kriegerische in unserer Seele seine Saturnalien. Streifzge eines
Unzeitgemssen 24. KSA 6. 128. Shortly before his death, Schiller came closer to his
goal. For there remains the drama planned and partly written by Schiller in 180405 but
which was destined to remain a fragment, Demetrius: Statt die Wirklichkeit des
Lebens zu verflachen und sich vor ihrer tragischen Problematik in die Abstraktion der
Idee zu retten, reit Schiller hier mit letzter Kraft ihre heillosen Abgrnde auf, strzt
sich in die unentrinnbare Tiefe der Wirklichkeit. UnS 191.

317
Genius, his Urbild, his Frawaschi.55 For all his praise of Goethe as ein
vollkommener Weise and as ein Fhrer der Seelen, Klages detected a limitation the Schranken mentioned in his title in Goethes view, elicited from a
close reading of a paragraph from Dichtung und Wahrheit, that Person und All
sind feindliche Gegenstze.56 In Deubels words, in Goethes Persnlichkeit
there was eine stilisierte Schutz- und Abwehrhaltung gegen kosmische
Seelenflutungen (UnS 192), or as Klages puts it, Goethe was in some sense
insensitive to den Pulsschlag des Elementes.57 By contrast, the Urbildschau
of Schiller offered by Deubel is a flame:
die Flamme, die, ein Element des Himmels und auf die Erde blo hinabverwunschen, ihren Sternenstolz nur widerstrebend in den liebenden Reigen der
Erdenwesen beugt, gierig, alles ihrem Herrscherlicht zu unterwerfen, alles Schwere
umzuschmelzen, alles Dumpfe neu zu formen, alles Dunkle strmisch ins Helle zu
reien, immer bereit, in wildem Heimweh aufbrennend, sich der verhaten Enge des
Ichs zu entwinden und aus der Verbannung zurckzulodern in die gestirndurchbrauste, therfreie Hhe. (UnS 192)

Alluding to the poems Die Gre der Welt (1778) and Die Snger der
Vorwelt (1795/1800), Deubel elaborates his archetypal psycho-portrait of
Schiller, concluding, after a quotation from Melancholie: An Laura (1781),
that in Schillers writings we can hear the voice of an elementary soul (elementarische Seele), someone alert to the differences, in Klagesian terms,
between telluric and cosmic life, between ego-bound and ego-liberated souls,
between organic and elementary life (UnS 194).58 So the differences between
Schiller and Goethe can be understood as the difference between the telluricorganic and the ethereal-elementary kind of soul, to use the terms associated
with Klages (UnS 194195).
Deubels analysis of Schiller closes in different ways in the 1932 and 1934
versions under discussion in this paper. In the earlier essay, Der deutsche Weg
55

Ludwig Klages: Bemerkungen ber die Schranken des Goetheschen Menschen. In:
Mensch und Erde. Pp. 6275. The term fravaschi, related to Persian farohar, is an
ancient Avestan term for the divine power or spirit that enables the human being to live
and be creative, returning to the creator on the physical death of the individual but
descending again every year to assure itself of the well-being and moral uprightness of
the remaining family members.
56
Klages (n. 7). P. 72; cf. Goethe (n. 45). Vol. 9. P. 463.
57
Klages (n. 7). Pp. 64, 72, 75.
58
Referring to the Reiterlied, Deubel declares that kein Dichter hat klarer den
kriegerischen Preisgebungsberschwang des tragischen Weltgefhls aus der Spannung
zwischen zellarem und elementarem Leben gedeutet als Schiller in den Versen, aus
denen am reinsten und hinreiendsten der ganze heroische Glanz seines germanischen
Wesens hervorbricht. UnS 194. Cf. Klagess remarks on these lines in the context of
his discussion of the meaning of sacrifice. Klages (n. 25). P. 1410.

318
zur Tragdie, Demetrius is said to point the way to future developments: for
example, to Hlderlin, particularly Hyperion (179799) and his dramatic
poem Der Tod des Empedokles (1799), which Deubel describes as mehr
dionysischer Hymnus als Tragdie (DWT 55). It also points the way to Kleist,
particularly his Penthesilea (1808), der bis heute trunkenste Ruf der deutschen
Tragdie, den freilich nur zu vernehmen vermag, wer in dem Drama erlebt hat
die urbildliche Identitt von Achill und Helios (DWT 56).59 (In the early
twentieth century, there had been a renewal of interest in Kleist,60 and Hlderlin
had been rediscovered by the George-Kreis.61) It is from the perspective of
Kleist, Deubel argues, that we can best understand Schillers tragic mission and
the significance of ber das Erhabene, with its evocations of der Anblick
unbegrenzter Ferne und unabsehbarer Hhe, of der weite Ocean zu seinen
Fen, und der grere Ocean ber ihm, of Schottlands wilden Katarakten
und Nebelgebirgen (NA 21. 47).
Indeed, Wieland in his enthusiasm for the combination of ancient and
Shakespearian tragedy in the fragmentary Robert Guiskard (1802) had declared,
Deubel reminds us, that Kleist had been born to fill the dramatic gap in
German literature left open by Schiller and Goethe.62 What Deubel saw as the
ultimate failure of classicism in terms of tragedy as a German task was
something that, he suggested, other later writers, including Grabbe, Bchner,
Grillparzer, Ludwig, and Hebbel, had tried to make good. But, Deubel believed,
it was only with Nietzsche and, in the twentieth century, Ludwig Klages, that
Heraclitus, that great influence on Goethe, was beginning to make his presence
felt again. Although the way to a tragic philosophy had been uncovered, Deubel
believed the possibility of a tragic culture had been fatally compromised by
the failure of German art, which had forgotten its knowledge of the sacral
nature of tragedy. Would the primitive era of runes and Germanic myth be able to
return to the present? Would the generation of Langemarck, that knew of tragic
59

Cf. Deubels extended discussion in the 1935 version of Der deutsche Weg zur Tragdie
(pp. 4144): Der Zusammenbruch des Idealismus, der sich im Tragikertum Schillers
bereits andeutet, vollendet sich in Kleist. Auch Kleist kam von Kant her. Aber ihm
gelang, was Schiller vergebens erstrebt hatte: Kant zeitig und grndlich abzuschtteln
(p. 42).
60
See, for example, Friedrich Gundolf: Heinrich von Kleist. Berlin: Bondi 1922.
61
See Joseph Suglia: On the Nationalist Reconstruction of Hlderlin in the George
Circle. In: German Life and Letters 55 (2002). Pp. 387397.
62
Wenn die Geister des schylus, Sophokles und Shakespeare sich vereinigten, eine
Tragdie zu schaffen, so wrde das sein, was Kleists Tod Guiscards des Normanns [ist]
[] Kleist sei dazu geboren, die groe Lcke in unserer damaligen Literatur
auszufllen, die (nach meiner Meinung wenigstens) selbst von Goethe und Schiller
noch nichts ausgefllt worden ist. Wieland to Dr. Wedekind. 10.4.1804. Qtd. in Heinrich
von Kleists Lebensspuren: Dokumente und Berichte der Zeitgenossen. Ed. by Helmut
Sembdner. Bremen: Schnemann 1957. P. 59.

319
experience in war, be able to rediscover it in art? Would the sacred Reich of the
German soul remember its tragic secret, sich verlierend zu erwachen und
untergehend sich zu verjngen (DWT 56)?
In Umrisse eines neuen Schillerbildes, Deubel was more circumspect,
perhaps because of the academic context of the Jahrbuch der GoetheGesellschaft, perhaps because the kind of nationalistic rhetoric deployed two
years earlier was already beginning to ring hollow.63 He reiterated his criticism
of Schillers dramas for being too idealistic, for not taking the (tragic) reality of
life seriously enough, for what he regarded as their formal imbalance; he even
pondered the possible truth of Schlegels assertion that Schillers imagination was
sick.64 Yet his conclusion suggests that, now, Deubel saw classicism as a possible
way forward to achieve a restoration of the tragic. True, the differences between
Goethe and Schiller remained, and Deubel expressed them in terms of an
Urbild, in the Klagesian sense. Yet, in 1934, Deubel concludes by emphasising
the complementary nature of the relationship between Goethe and Schiller:
between the creator of a biocentric world-view, who revived the idea of natural religion, revitalised the conception of humankind, and liberated scientific
thought from the subjectivism of both idealist and mechanistic approaches
and the first renovator of German tragedy, who became, in Deubels view, a
noble sacrifice in the intellectual and spiritual struggle of the emergent German
cultural revolution (UnS 197). For Goethe, as the creator of biocentric order of
values, and Schiller, as the herald of a tragic-heroic view of the world, are both
embodiments of the Graeco-German ideal, and so was it possible that both of
them were, in the words of Friedrich Hebbel, Schultern vielleicht fr ein knftiges Haupt? (UnS 198).

Conclusion
I have tried to present Deubels account of Schiller against the background of
Nietzsches theory of tragedy, the biocentric metaphysics of Ludwig Klages,
63
A year later, in 1935, Deubels boldness had returned: Heroisch sterben im vollen,
schweren Sinne des Wortes! ist das Hchste, wozu der deutsche Mensch gelangen
kann. DWT 72; In dem Ringen des deutschen Genius um den Durchbruch zur
Tragdie ist Schiller das erste und edelste Opfer gewesen. [] Ein Deutschland, in
dem kein Jngling mehr unter den offenbarenden Schaudern der Tragdie den trunkenen Todesjubel als den heiesten Lebensberschwang in seiner Seele erwachen fhlte,
wre kein Deutschland mehr. Schillers Kampf um die Tragdie. P. 46.
64
Schlegel: Er hat eine von Haus aus verdorbene Phantasie. Qtd. in Ernst (n. 19). P.
234; Die einmal zerrttete Gesundheit der Einbildungskraft ist unheilbar recalls
Schlegels comment in ber das Studium der griechischen Poesie (1797): Jene frische
Blte der jugendlichen Phantasie, jene mchtige und schnelle Elastizitt, jene hhere
Gesundheit des Gefhls knne nicht erknstelt, und einmal zerrttet nie wieder geheilt
werden. (I am grateful to Sheila Dickson for locating the source of this quotation for me.)

320
and Deubels project of the deutsche Kulturrevolution, part of the broader
so-called Conservative Revolution. There may well be problems with Deubels
account in terms of specific details; certainly, we will have problems today
with Deubels choice of language, with his terminology, with his rhetoric. We
should be clear that, when talking about a German mission, Deubel was thinking largely in cultural, rather than in political, terms. Even so, in his diary on
14 April 1945 he recognised: Das Gtterbild Germanien werden wir in die
Rumpelkammer stellen mssen, wo es verstaubt und vielleicht mit der Zeit
verfllt.65 Furthermore, by insisting on Schillers status as a tragedian, Deubel
overlooks Schillers contention that comedy, not tragedy, is the highest literary
genre.66 But Deubels Nietzschean framework allows no room for such
considerations.67
The chief value, it seems to me, of Deubels Schillerbild is that it encourages us to see Schiller in a broader cultural, intellectual, artistic, historical perspective, specifically in terms of the conception of the tragic view of life as
defined by Nietzsche. As such, Deubels account may prove useful in helping
rehabilitate Schiller, as well as a sense of the tragic, in the twenty-first century.
For we do not have to share Deubels view of tragedy, derived from Paul Ernst,
nor his critique of Schiller, based on Ludwig Klages, to understand the sense
of urgency underlying Deubels attempt to refocus our attention on Schiller as
the poet of the nation.

65

Qtd. in Deubel: Im Kampf um die Seele. P. 260.

Cf. ber nave und sentimentalische Dichtung, where Schiller declares da die
Comdie einem wichtigern Ziel entgegengeht. NA 20. 446.
67
Nietzsche speaks of the unerring instinct (der sicher zugreifende Instinkt) of
Aristophanes (450-380 BCE), the main representative of Old Comedy. Die Geburt der
Tragdie 17; KSA 1. 112; but he has little good to say about New Attic Comedy,
which he sees as a consequence of the decline of tragedy under Euripides. Ibid. 11;
KSA 1. 7578.
66

Appendix

Schillerjahr 2005. Selected Events and Publications

Event/Publication

Venue

Organiser/Broadcaster

Dates

Weimar
Weimar

Theater im Gewlbe
Theater im Gewlbe

1.1.2005
2., 15.1.

Theatrical Events & Performances

Bunter Start ins Schillerjahr
War Schiller sexy? oder Wer die
Wonne nie gekannt
Merkwrdiges Beispiel einer
weiblichen Rache
Kabale und Liebe

Weimar

Theater im Gewlbe

7., 29.1.

Stuttgart

22.1., 1.3.2.

Don Carlos

Sheffield / London

Die Braut von Messina Eine

Expedition ins Erhabene
Aus den verschollenen Tagebchern des
F. Schiller von Luka S. Kranich
Maria Stuart. Kammerspiel nach F. Schiller
Demetrius

Lorch

Studiotheater /
Theaterhaus
Crucible Theatre /
Gielgud Theatre
Stadthalle, Lorch

22.9.6.11.04 /
28.1.30.4.05
29.1.

Weimar

Theater im Gewlbe

12.2.

Rottweil
Stuttgart

Zimmertheater, Rottweil
FITZ / Zentrum fr
Figurentheater
Staatstheater Stuttgart
DNT
Theater im Gewlbe
Theater tri-bhne Stuttgart

5.3., 11.3.9.4.
10.12.3.

Die Jungfrau von Orleans

Kabale und Liebe
Schillers Mnage Trois
Die Braut von Messina

Stuttgart
Weimar
Weimar
Stuttgart

19., 25.3.
19.3.25.6.
9.4.
6.5.
(contd)

Venue

Organiser/Broadcaster

Dates

Carlos 2005
Freiheit. Schiller 05. Europisches
Festival fr zeitgenssisches
Wissen und Kultur
Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre
Die Ruber
Theaterfestival Schiller 05
Internationale Schillertage
Mannheim (Wilhelm Tell)
Schiller unplugged Schiller
als junger Wilder
Don Carlos / Der Geisterseher
Die Ruber (open-air
performances)
Die Ruberinnen Theaterstck
frei nach Schiller
Mary Stuart

Erfurt (Kaisersaal)
Weimar / Jena / Meiningen

neues schauspiel erfurt

Schiller 05 e.V.

8.5.
9.5.19.6.

Vaihingen
Weimar (Hauptbahnhof)
Berlin
Mannheim
(Schauspielhaus)
Leipzig

9.5.
9.5.
14.19.5.
4.12.6.

Friedrich (Schiller Gate 05)

Marbach/N.

Die Ruber Short Circuits Vol. II

nach Texten von Friedrich Schiller
Maria Stuart
Schillers Europa Eine Auswahl aus
den Nationaldramen des Dichters
Die Ruber

Weimar

Stadtteilbcherei Vaihingen
D.A.S. Jugendtheater
Kultusministerkonferenz / ZDF
Nationaltheater
Mannheim
Schauspiel Leipzig
(Theater hinterm Eisernen)
Meininger Theater
Ludwigsburger
Schlossfestspiele
Junges Ensemble
Stuttgart
Donmar Warehouse /
Apollo Theatre
Sdlich vom Ochsen /
Theater & Kultur
DNT

Weimar
Lorch

DNT
Brgerhaus Lorch

5.11.0514.1.06
12.11.

Weimar

DNT

21.1.06

Meiningen
Hohenasperg
Stuttgart
London

13.6., 12.7.
17.25.6.
24.26.6.
17.7.
20.7.3.9. /
19.10.14.1.06
22.31.7.
4.11.

322

Event/Publication

Musical Events
Rhythm & Schiller Ein Balladen-Abend
Ewig jung ist die Phantasie Balladen
und Gedichte von Friedrich Schiller
Schiller spricht Balladenabend
Schiller und seine Zeit Liederabend
Festveranstaltung anlsslich des 200.
Todestages von Friedrich Schiller
Friedrich Schiller und Stuttgart Festlicher
Abend
Festakt des Freistaates Thringen zum 200.
Todestag von Friedrich Schiller
Schiller for one Ein musikalisches
Dramolett
Schillernde Nchte
Verdi-Schiller-Konzert
Singer pur Singing Schiller
Ode an die Freude
Das Lied von der Glocke Konzert

DNT
Stadtbcherei Weimar

11., 25.1., 22.2.

14.16.3.

Stuttgart (Theater
unterm Dach)
Stuttgart (Liederhalle)

1.4.

Erfurt (Festsaal des

Rathauses)
Stuttgart (Liederhalle)

Altes Schauspielhaus
Stuttgart
LiedKunst KunstLied
Stuttgart
Goethe-Gesellschaft /
Stadt Erfurt
Liederkranz Stuttgart

Weimar (Nationaltheater)

Thringer Staatskanzlei

9.5.

Stuttgart

Renitenztheater Stuttgart

9.5.

Erfurt (Weibach-Caf)
Berlin (Gendarmenmarkt)
Marbach/N.
(Alexanderkirche)
Bonn (Museumsplatz)
Marbach/N.
(Alexanderkirche)

Kulturprojekt KUNSTGRIFF
Anhaltinisches Theater Dessau
Ludwigsburger
Schlossfestspiele
Beethovenfest Bonn
Chorvereinigung
Liederkranz Marbach

10.6.3.9.
2.7.
30.7.

Stuttgart

Literaturhaus Stuttgart

24.4.
9.5.
9.5.

8.9.
16.10.

29.4.

(contd)

323

Readings
Das Leben des Friedrich
Schiller Lesung und Gesprch
mit Sigrid Damm

Weimar
Weimar (Kieck Theater)

Venue

Organiser/Broadcaster

Dates

Absolut Schiller! Mich hlt kein Band

Biographisches, Gedichte, Balladen
Schiller lockt Rezitation mit
Dagmar Claus
Lesenacht

Weimar (Palais Schardt)

Kulturamt Weimar

9., 15., 28.5.

Zuffenhausen

12.5.

Weimar (GoetheNationalmuseum)
Weimar

Stadtteilbcherei
Zuffenhausen
Deutsche Schillerstiftung
von 1859
Stadtbcherei Weimar

18.5.

Bad Lauchstdt

Goethe-Theater

10.8.

Weimar (in der

Altenburg)

Lese-Zeichen /
Kulturamt Weimar /
SWKK
National Theatre
National Theatre
Stiftung Theodor
Heuss-Haus

10.9.10.12.

Denn er war unser Goethes

Trauer um Schiller
Klaus Maria Brandauer spricht
Balladen von Schiller
Springquell Schiller im Dialog.
Autoren sprechen ber ihre
Beziehungen zu Friedrich Schiller
The Robbers
William Tell
Genie? Held? Bildungsfaktor? oder
doch ein Mensch?
Events by / for Children
Helden wie wir? Schillers Wilhelm
Tell heute Seminar fr Kinder von
8 bis 12 Jahren
Schiller fr Schler Vortragsreihe
(H. Traxler, F. Hoppe, S. Damm, F. Ensslin,
J. P. Reemtsma, T. Rosenlcher, N. Oellers)
Jugendkonzert im Schillerjahr

London
London
Stuttgart

13.5.

7.10.
13.10.
15.11.

Marbach/N.

DLA

2.6.1.

Marbach/N.

DLA

16.2.28.9.

Marbach/N. (Stadthalle)

Stadtkapelle-Musikverein
Marbach

24.4.

324

Event/Publication

Die (Playmobil)Ruber
Sehr geehrter Herr Schiller:
Schreibwettbewerb fr Schler
(Preisverleihung)
Schiller auf der Strae

Stuttgart
Weimar (Schillerhaus)

Theater Rampe
Kulturamt der Stadt
Weimar

6.8.5.
9.5.

Weimar (Theaterplatz)

9.14.5.

Schler spielen Schiller

Berlin

Stadt Weimar u.
Kulturstadt GmbH
Theaterfestival
Schiller 05 / ZDF
Deutschlandradio Berlin
DLA

Kakadu: Schiller fr Kinder

Auf Schillers Versen Seminar
fr Kinder
Nachdenken ber Willy T.

Marbach/N.

Silben sprudeln Sprachlabor Schiller

Stuttgart (Jugendhaus
Machwerk)
Feuerbach

I want to be free Theaterprojekt

Marbach/N. (DLA)

Television and Radio

24 Stunden Schiller ein Thementag
3sat spielt Schiller
Schiller
George Steiner ber Friedrich Schiller
Die Jungfrau von Orleans
Thomas Mann: Schwere Stunde (reading)

Theaterinszenierungen
Spielfilm (2005)
Marbach (lecture of
23.4.05)
Hamburg (1974)

Theater-AG der
Pestalozzi-Schule
Stadtteilbcherei
Feuerbach
Friedrich-SchillerGymnasium Marbach

14.19.5.
16.5.
23.27.5., 5.9.9.
1.14.6.
4.7.
30.9.1.10.

3sat
3sat
ARD, Sdwest, MDR
ZDF

1.2.5.
1.5.3.10.
4., 8., 9.5.
6.5.

ZDF / Dtes Schauspielhaus

Hamburg / WDR5
NDRkultur

6.5.
7.5.

325

(contd)

Stichtag heute, 9. Mai 1805, Todestag Schiller

Schillernacht
Kabale und Liebe
Schiller Themenabend
Schne Schdeley oder Schiller zu
Gast bei Goethe
Friedrich Schiller: Das Abenteuer Freiheit
Schillerspecial zum 200. Todestag
Don Carlos
Ich verfalle in Melancholie:
Fiktional-dokumentarisches Hrstck
Schler spielen Schiller die fnf besten
Inszeneriungen vom Theaterfestival
Schiller 05
Wilhelm Tell (open-air performance)
Die Verschwrung des Fiesco zu Genua
Fritz Kortner probt Kabale und Liebe
24 Stunden Freiheit ein Thementag
Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre
Exhibitions
Schiller in Stuttgart
Gtterplne & Musegeschfte.
Schiller 17591805
Eine Wanderung von Marbach bis
Weimar Schillers Orte und Landschaften

Venue

Organiser/Broadcaster

Dates

Hrspiel

WDR5
MDR
MDR Figaro
ZDF Theaterkanal
SWR2

9.5.
9.5.
10.5.
11.5.
12.5.

SWR
WDR5
3sat / Burgtheater
SWR2

12.5.
13.16.5.
14.5.
6.6.

ZDF Theaterkanal

5.6.2.10.

Rtli (July 2004)

Weimar (1991)

3sat / DNT
3sat / DNT
3sat
3sat
NDR

23.7.
27.8.
24.9.
3.4.10.
11.12.

Stuttgart (Altes Schloss)

Marbach/N. (SchillerNationalmuseum)
Weimar (Schiller-Museum)
Weimar

Wrtt. Landesmuseum
DSG

12.2.24.7.
23.4.9.10.

Stadtbcherei Weimar

30.10.0517.4.06
7.5.2.7.

Hrspiel

Vienna

326

Event/Publication

Die Wahrheit hlt Gericht Schillers

Helden heute
Thomas Mann im Schillerjahr
1955 in Weimar
Fest gemauert in der Erden Schillers
Lied von der Glocke
Der Schiller-Comic
Was schillert uns da durch? eine
satirische Schillerbetrachtung
Schillers Erstbegnung mit Goethe
am 7.9.1788
SchillerZeit in Mannheim
Im Namen Friedrich Schillers
150 Jahre Deutsche Schillerstiftung
Schillerfeiern
Conferences
Friedrich Schiller: Poetry,
Drama, Ideas
Das ist nicht des Deutschen Gre/
Obzusiegen mit dem Schwert:
Buch, kulturelles Erbe und nationale
Identitt in Deutschland
Schillers Natur: Leben, Denken
und literarisches Schaffen

Weimar (Schiller-Museum)
Marbach/N. (SchillerNationalmuseum)
Weimar (Archivgebude
Marstall)
Apolda
Marbach/N. (Schillers
Geburtshaus)
Weimar
Rudolstadt

SWKK

9.5.10.10.
12.11.055.2.06

Thringisches
Hauptstaatsarchiv
Glockenmuseum Apolda

5.5.30.7.

DSG / ehapa
comic collection
Volkshochschule
Weimar
Schillerhaus Rudolstadt

22.510.7.
4.6.20.11.
22.8.0528.1.06
11.9.

Mannheim
Weimar (Stadtmuseum)

Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen
Heinrich-Heine-Institut
Dsseldorf

18.9.0529.1.06
6.11.4.12.

London (Inst. of
Germanic Studies)
Weimar (Anna
Amalia Bibliothek)

English Goethe Society

27.28.1.

SWKK

9.11.3.

Deutsches Seminar

7.10.4.

Universitt Tbingen

327

(contd)

Venue

Organiser/Broadcaster

Dates

Ist die Ethik der Wahrheit die sthetik?

Weimar

29.4.1.5.

Goethes Schiller Schillers Goethe

Schiller: National Poet Poet of Nations

Weimar
University of Birmingham

Der unterschtzte Theoretiker Schiller

Anmut Wrde Hausfrulichkeit.
Seminar fr Frauen zur Kultur- und
Literaturgeschichte
Schiller

Weimar (Schiller-Museum)
Weimar (Hedwig-PfeifferHaus)

Die schnsten Trume von Freiheit

werden im Kerker getrumt.
Friedrich Schiller
Internationales Schiller-Symposium
2005

Bergisch-Gladbach

Europische
Jugendbildungs- und
Jugendbegegnungssttte
Goethe-Gesellschaft
Department of
German Studies
SWKK
Landeszentrale fr politische
Bildung / Frauenwerk der
Ev.-Luth. Kirche
Conference of University
Teachers of German
(GB/Ireland)
Thomas-MorusAkademie Bensberg

Der ganze Schiller

Jena/Weimar

Schiller und die Musik

Weimar

Friedrich Schiller im Literaturunterricht

an Weimarer Gymnasien

Weimar (Europische
Jugendbildungs- und
Jugendbegegnungssttte)

University of Exeter

Beijing (Renmin
University)

Thyssen Stiftung /
Deutsch-ostasiatisches
Wissenschaftsforum
SWKK / Fr.-SchillerUniversitt Jena
Hochschule fr Musik
Franz Liszt
Landeszentrale fr
politische Bildung

18.21.5.
3.5.6.
23.25.6.
8.10.7.

5.7.9.

17.18.9.

21.24.9.

21.9.24.9.
24.27.9.
4.10.

328

Event/Publication

Many happy returns Die 200.

Wiederkehr von Schillers Todestag
kultur und [pathos] Themenkongress
zum Schillerjahr

Erfurt

Universitt Erfurt

6.8.10.

Weimar (congress
centrum)

14.16.10

Spieltrieb, was bringt Klassik auf

die Bhne? Internationale Konferenz
zum Schillerjahr 2005
Was bedeutet uns Schiller im 21.
Jahrhundert?

Weimar (Deutsches
Nationaltheater)

congress centrum /
Tourismusservice
GmbH / Ev. Akad.
Thringen
DNT / Bauhaus-Universitt
Weimar / Columbia
University
Weimarer Schillerverein /
Goethe- und Schiller-Archiv

3.5.11.

Weimar (GoetheNationalmuseum)

Goethe-Nationalmuseum

13.1.9.6.

Weimar (Jugendzentrum
mon ami)

Die Christengemeinschaft

25.2.4.11.

Stuttgart (Studiosaal
des SWR)
Marbach/N.

Akademie fr
gesprochenes Wort
DLA

7.3.

Stuttgart (Studiosaal
des SWR)

Akademie fr
gesprochenes Wort

25.4.

3.6.11.

21.24.4.

(contd)

329

Lectures & Discussions

Vortrge im Schiller-Jahr 2005
(N. Oellers, S. Seifert, P-A. Alt,
M. Engelhard, G. Sautermeister,
K. Mommsen, A. Reimann)
Des Menschen Wrde ist in eure
Hand gegeben. Vortragsreihe
(C. Bttcher, G. Becker, C. Heyde,
R. Megow, W. Giezendanner, W. Schad)
Geschichte in Schillers
Dramen (N. Oellers)
Schiller international Vortragsreihe
(A. Muschg, U. Frevert, G. Bevilacqua,
G. Steiner, N. Boyle)
Sind Klassiker etwa
antiquiert? Podiumsdiskussion

Weimar (Hotel Kaiserin

Augusta)

Venue

Organiser/Broadcaster

Dates

Weimarer Reden 2005

(B. Piatti, R. Willemsen,
F. Schirrmacher, H. Karasek)
Goethes Anteil an Wilhelm Tell
(K. Mommsen)
Schreibende Frauen um
Friedrich Schiller. Literarische
Vortragsreihe zum Schillerjahr
Wie hielt es Schiller mit
dem Wein? (R. Hachenberger)
Schillermedaillen im Wandel der
Zeiten (J. Klau)
Schiller lebt. Eine Hamburger
Redereihe (J. P. Reemtsma, N. Oellers)

Weimar (Deutsches
Nationaltheater)

Kulturamt Weimar

8.29.5.

Stuttgart

Wrtt. Bibliotheksgesellschaft

17.5.

Weimar

Stadtbcherei /
Kulturamt Weimar

19.5.16.6.

Marbach/N. (Rathaus)

Schillerverein Marbach/N.

11.7.

Erfurt (Augustinerkloster)

Erfurter Mnzfreunde

1.9.

Hamburg (Bucerius
Law School)

Patriotische Gesellschaft
von 1765/ZEIT-Stiftung
Ebelin u. Gerd Bucerius
DLA / Kulturstiftung
des Bundes
National Theatre
Freundeskreis GoetheNationalmuseum
Heinrich- und-ThomasMann-Zentrum
DLA

12., 29.9.

Schiller und die Gabe

des Griechenlandes (F. Kittler)
Schiller the Romantic Idealist
Schillers Balladen aus
heutiger Sicht (M. Hofmann)
Schwere Stunde. Thomas
Mann und Schiller (D. Borchmeyer)
Schiller: Vorbild, Gegenbild, Provokation?
Autorentagung (L. Harig,
M. Steeruwitz, R. Gernhardt,
G. Klein, S. Lewitscharoff)

Marbach/N.
London
Weimar (GoetheNationalmuseum)
Lbeck
(Buddenbrookhaus)
Marbach/N.

13.10.
13.10.
13.11.
19.11.

330

Event/Publication

Die Kunst, Schiller zu sprechen

Literarisches Portrait mit Norbert
Oellers u. Joachim Kalka
Miscellaneous
Schillernder Maimarkt
Jena schillert! (verschiedene
Veranstaltungen)

Marbach/N.

DLA

25.27.11.

Mannheim
(Maimarktgelnde)
Jena

Mannheimer Maimarkt

30.4.10.5.

JenaKultur (Kultur u.
Marketing Jena)

11.1.3.12.

Books on Schiller, 200405

Editions/Selections
Friedrich Schiller: Smtliche Werke. Neuausgabe. Ed. by Peter-Andr Alt, Albert Meier and Wolfgang Riedel. 5 vols. Munich:
Hanser/dtv 2004.
Friedrich von Schiller: Die seligen Augenblicke. Ed. by Sigrid Damm. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2005.
Schiller fr Zeitgenossen. Mit den Zeichnungen Schillers. Ed. by Manfred Mai. Vienna: Sanssouci 2004.
Schiller fr Gestrete. Poetisch-philosophische Gedanken. Ed. by Ursula Michels-Wenz. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2005.
Friedrich Schiller: Schne Welt, wo bist du? Ed. by Thomas Rosenlcher. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2005.
Friedrich Schiller/August Wilhelm Schlegel. Der Briefwechsel. Ed. by Norbert Oellers. Cologne: DuMont 2004.
Friedrich Schiller, Schne Briefe. Ed. by Norbert Oellers. Cologne: DuMont 2004.
Monographs
Frederick Beiser: Schiller as Philosopher. A Re-Examination. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2005.
Matthias Luserke-Jaqui: Friedrich Schiller. Tbingen Basle: Francke 2005 (UTB 2595).
Norbert Oellers: Schiller. Elend der Geschichte, Glanz der Kunst. Stuttgart Weimar: Metzler 2005.
(contd )

331

For Children
Christiana Engelmann and Claudia Kaiser: Mglichst Schiller. Ein Lesebuch. Munich: dtv 2004.
Peter Hrtling: und mich mich ruft das Flgeltier. Schiller fr Kinder. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2004.
Manfred Mai: Was macht den Mensch zum Menschen? Friedrich Schiller. Munich: Hanser 2004.
Miscellaneous
Dieter Khn: Schillers Schreibtisch in Buchenwald. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer 2005.
Klaus Lderssen: Da nicht der Nutzen des Staats Euch als Gerechtigkeit erscheine. Schiller und das Recht. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2005.
Schiller-Handbuch. Leben Werk Wirkung. Ed. by Matthias Luserke-Jaqui. Stuttgart Weimar: Metzler 2005.
Wulf Segebrecht: Was Schillers Glocke geschlagen hat. Munich: Hanser 2005.
Friedrich Schiller 17591805. Insel-Almanach auf das Jahr 2005. Ed. by Hans-Joachim Simm. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2004.
Heinz Stade: Unterwegs zu Schiller. Berlin: Aufbau 2005.
Key: DLA Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach/N.; DNT Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar; DSG Deutsche Schillergesellschaft, Marbach/N.;
SWKK Stiftung Weimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen.

332

Biographical Studies
Peter-Andr Alt: Schiller. Leben Werk Zeit. Eine Biographie. 2 vols. Munich: Beck 2nd edn 2004.
Peter-Andr Alt: Friedrich Schiller. Munich: Beck 2004 (Becksche Reihe 2357).
Jrg Aufenanger: Friedrich Schiller. Biographie. Dsseldorf: Artemis & Winkler 2004.
Jrg Aufenanger: Schiller und die zwei Schwestern. Munich: dtv 2005.
Sigrid Damm: Das Leben des Friedrich Schiller. Eine Wanderung. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2004.
Friedrich Dieckmann: Diesen Ku der ganzen Welt! Der junge Mann Schiller. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2005.
Stephan Fssel: Schiller und seine Verleger. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2005.
Schiller. Bilder und Texte aus seinem Leben. Ed. by Axel Gellhaus and Norbert Oellers. Cologne Weimar: Bhlau 2004.
Eva Gesine Baur: Mein Geschpf musst du sein. Das Leben der Charlotte Schiller. Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe 2004.
Marie Haller-Nevermann: Ich kann nicht Frstendiener sein. Friedrich Schiller eine Biografie. Berlin: Aufbau 2004.
Ursula Naumann: Schiller, Lotte und Line. Frankfurt/M.: Insel 2004.
Rdiger Safranski: Friedrich Schiller oder Die Erfindung des deutschen Idealismus. Munich: Hanser 2004.

Personenregister/Index of Names

Abel, Jakob Friedrich von (17511829)

203205, 208
Adorno, Theodor W. (19031969), 130
Aeschylus (c. 525456 BC), 219, 303,
306, 318
Alain (Emile-Auguste Chartier)
(18681951), 29
Andersen, Hans Christian (18051875),
8
Aristophanes (c. 448380 BC), 320
Aristotle (384322 BC), 108, 118, 137,
164, 168, 202, 207, 314, 316
Auerbach, Berthold (18121882), 60,
145
Balzac, Honor de (17991850), 53, 205
Baskerville, John (17061775), 75
Batteux, Charles (17131780), 118, 217
Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb
(17141762), 213, 265
Baumgarten, Hermann (18251893),
267271, 273
Becher, Johannes R. (18911958), 13
Beck, Heinrich Christian (17601803),
43
Beethoven, Ludwig van (17701827), 8,
14, 157, 280
Begas, Reinhold (18311911), 53
Beiner, Friedrich (19051977),
294296
Bellomo, Joseph (17541833), 43
Berlin, Isaiah (19091997) 260261,
265266
Bernhard Herzog von Sachsen-Weimar
(16041639), 68
Bismarck, Otto von (18151898), 17,
267, 269, 271
Blanckenburg, Friedrich von
(17441796), 209210, 213
Bode, Joachim Christoph (17301793),
198199

Bodmer, Johann Jakob (16981783), 74

Bodoni, Giambattista (17401813), 75
Bhme, Jakob (15751624), 303
Bormann, Martin (19001945), 288
Bourbon-Conti, Stphanie-Louise de
(17561825), 172173
Brandt, Willy (19131992), 53
Brecht, Bertolt (18981956), 110, 276
Breitinger, Johann Jakob (17011776),
74
Bretschneider, Heinrich von
(17391810), 196
Bruno, Giordano (15481600), 303
Buchwald, Reinhard (18841983),
293294, 297
Bchner, Georg (18131837), 206,
318
Brger, Gottfried August (17471794),
79, 308, 313
Burckhardt, Carl J. (18911974), 12
Burke, Edmund (17291797), 206, 266
Caesar, Gaius Julius (10044 BC), 187,
220, 262
Caldern de la Barca, Pedro
(16001681), 52
Calvin, John (15091564), 262
Canetti, Elias (19051994), 8
Carl August Herzog von SachsenWeimar (17571828), 29, 43, 46,
51, 54, 136, 144, 149
Carl Eugen Herzog von Wrttemberg
(17281793), 24, 42, 57, 69, 191,
232
Cato (9546 BC), 262
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (17721834),
99, 102, 104
Corneille, Pierre (16061684), 18, 306
Cotta, Johann Friedrich (17641832),
82, 8788, 107, 232, 242
Clement VIII, Pope (15361605), 183

334
Clement XIV, Pope (17051774), 183,
191
Cromwell, Oliver (15991658), 224, 231
Crusius, Siegfried Lebrecht
(17381824), 77, 8387, 224, 228
Cysarz, Herbert (18961985), 126,
289290, 297
Dalberg, Karl Theodor Freiherr von
(Erzbischof und Kurfrst von
Mainz) (17441817), 236
Dalberg, Wolfgang Heribert Freiherr
von (Intendant des Mannheimer
Nationaltheaters) (17501806), 24,
3642, 44, 188
DAlembert, Jean (17171783), 179,
183, 195196
Dannecker, Johann Heinrich von
(17581841), 5354, 57, 60, 232
Descartes, Ren (15961650), 259, 262,
303
Deubel, Werner (18941949), 301320
Diderot, Denis (17131784), 37, 39,
4142
Didot, Firmin (17641836), 75
Didot, Franois-Ambroise (17301804),
75
Dilthey, Wilhelm (18331911), 11
Donne, John (15721631), 183184
Droste-Hlshoff, Annette von
(17971848), 311
Dhring, Eugen (18331921), 11
Dumouriez, Charles-Franois
(17391823), 233
Eckermann, Johann Peter (17921854),
26, 33, 5859, 134135, 173, 220,
307308, 314315
Eckhart, Meister (c. 12601327), 303
Einstein, Albert (18791955), 8
Ekhof, Konrad (17201778), 3738, 41
Engel, Johann Jakob (17411802),
210211
Ernst, Paul (18661933), 305, 308, 314,
320

Ersch, Johann Samuel (17661828),

198
Euripides (c. 480406 BC), 84, 131,
153, 320
Fabricius, Hans (b. 1891), 291292, 297
Ferguson, Adam (17231816), 262
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (17621814),
241, 243, 250254, 309
Fontane, Theodor (18191898), 145
Forster, Georg (17541794), 231233,
235
Fouqu, Friedrich de la Motte
(17771843), 135
Francisci, Erasmus (16271694), 202
Franklin, Benjamin (17061790), 230
Frederick II (Frederick the Great), King
of Prussia (17121786), 266, 268
Freud, Sigmund (18561939), 307
Fricke, Gerhard (19011980), 17, 19,
294296, 310
Frisch, Max (19111991), 174
Garnett, Henry (c. 15551606),
184185
Garve, Christian (17421798),
208209, 214
Gebler, Tobias Philipp Freiherr von
(17261786), 196
Gemmingen, Otto Freiherr von
(17551836), 39, 41
Genast, Anton (17651831), 35, 44, 49
Gluck, Christoph Willibald
(17141787), 279
Goebbels, Joseph (18971945),
275277, 282285, 287288, 290,
297, 299
Gschen, Georg Joachim (17521828),
7576, 80, 82, 86, 164, 224,
230231, 242
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von
(17491832), 7, 1011, 16, 1820,
23, 2534, 35, 3839, 4349,
5152, 5556, 5860, 64, 6667,
7172, 7577, 81, 8485, 92, 94,

335
107108, 119, 123138, 140, 143,
155, 157, 162, 167, 170, 172176,
214, 220, 231234, 251, 256,
258259, 271, 276, 279, 282285,
301, 303, 307308, 310, 313319
Gotter, Friedrich Wilhelm (17461797),
38, 40
Gottsched, Johann Christoph
(17001766), 48
Grabbe, Christian Dietrich
(18011836), 318
Grillparzer, Franz (17911872), 9, 52, 318
Gruber, Johann Gottfried (17741851),
198
Grndgens, Gustaf (18991963),
279280
Gundolf, Friedrich (18801931), 276
Gustav II Adolf, King of Sweden
(15941632), 68, 137, 181, 186
Gutzkow, Karl (18111878), 61
Hamann, Johann Georg (17301788),
303
Hauptmann, Gerhart (18621946),
6465
Hebbel, Friedrich (18131863), 318,
319
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich
(17701831), 71, 140, 252
Heine, Heinrich (17971856), 56, 92, 263
Hellen, Eduard von der (18631927), 9,
87, 145
Henri III, King of Poland then of France
(15511589), 183, 187
Henri IV, King of France (15531610),
183185, 187, 195
Heraclitus (c. 535475 BC), 303305,
318
Herder, Johann Gottfried (17441803),
90, 92, 94, 113, 183, 213, 303
Heuss, Theodor (18841963), 12
Heyse, Paul (18301914), 6465
Hitler, Adolf (18891945), 12, 238,
28182, 284285, 288289, 291,
297

Hlderlin, Friedrich (17701843), 11,

276277, 295, 303, 318
Hofmannsthal, Hugo von (18741929),
205
Hoffmann, E. T. A. (17761822), 203
Home, Henry (16961782),
204205
Homer (c. 800 BC), 145, 147, 304
Horace (658 BC), 204, 213
Huber, Ludwig Ferdinand (17641804),
198, 223224, 258, 310, 313
Hufeland, Christoph Wilhelm
(17621836), 30
Humboldt, Wilhelm von (17671835),
32, 6667, 93, 161, 231, 268
Iffland, August Wilhelm (17591814), 35,
4042, 4452, 123, 125, 136, 138
Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich (17431819),
67, 299
Jefferson, Thomas (17431826), 230
Joan of Arc (14121431), 168169,
180, 222, 236
Johst, Hanns (18901978), 281
Jonas, Fritz (18451920), 9
Jos I, King of Portugal (17141777),
183
Kstner, Erich (18991974), 20
Kafka, Franz (18831924), 91
Kalb, Charlotte von (17611843), 136
Kalb, Heinrich von (17521806), 229
Kant, Immanuel (17241804), 23, 29,
5758, 120121, 161, 260, 270,
303, 308, 311, 313316, 318
Karl August see Carl August
Karl Eugen see Carl Eugen
Karl IV Theodor, Elector Palatine and
Elector of Bavaria (17241799),
36, 38
Keats, John (17951821), 9899
Kirms, Franz (17501826), 43, 49
Klages, Ludwig (18721956), 301304,
307, 310, 312313, 316320

336
Kleist, Heinrich von (17771811), 52,
110, 172, 211, 214, 252, 276277,
303, 318
Klinger, Friedrich Maximilian
(17521831), 108
Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb
(17241803), 86, 252
Krner, Christian Gottfried
(17561831), 7, 16, 26, 43, 45, 51,
77, 8184, 8788, 93, 123125,
131, 137, 145, 173174, 188189,
198, 213214, 224, 226, 231232,
254, 266, 296, 311, 313
Kstlin, Christian Reinhold
(18131856), 5960
Kotzebue, August Friedrich Ferdinand
von (17611819), 35, 46, 4849, 51
Kubizek, August (18881956), 285
Khnemann, Eugen (18681946), 272
Lamormain, Wilhelm (Guillaume
Lamormaini) (15701648),
179180, 185188
Lampedusa, Giovanni Tomasi di
(18961957), 176
Laubinger, Otto (18921935), 279
Lavater, Johann Kaspar (17411801),
143
Leisewitz, Johann Anton (17521806),
108, 119
Lengefeld, Louise von (17431823), 232
Lenz, Jakob Michael Reinhold
(17511792), 39, 107109,
111116, 118121, 164
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim
(17291781), 11, 3538, 41,
5152, 110, 166168, 174, 213,
224, 285, 306, 310
Linden, Walther (18951943), 290291
Linn, Carl von (17071778), 210
Locke, John (16321704), 90
Louis XIV, King of France
(16381715), 266
Louis XV, King of France (17101774),
183

Louis XVI, King of France

(17541793), 230, 237
Loyola, Ignatius of (14911556), 182,
195
Ludwig, Otto (18131865), 318
Luther, Martin (14831546), 92, 186, 259
Mann, Thomas (18751955), 8, 10, 12,
16, 1819, 29, 6364, 66, 145
Maximilian I, Elector and Duke of
Bavaria (15731651), 187
Mayer, Hans (19072001), 910, 12,
135, 308309
Meinecke, Friedrich (18621954), 255
Meiner, August Gottlieb (17531807),
208210, 214
Meyer, Richard Moritz (18601914), 65
Milton, John (16081674), 76
Mirabeau, Honor Gabriel de Riqueti,
Comte de (17491791), 260
Molire (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin)
(16221673), 52
Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat,
Baron de la Brde et de
(16891755), 188, 262
Moritz, Karl Philipp (17561793),
208209
Mller, Johann Gotthard von
(17471830), 240
Napoleon I, Emperor of France
(17691821), 48, 233234, 236,
254, 258
Naubert, Benedikte (17561819), 159
Newton, Isaac (16431727), 303
Nicolai, Friedrich (17331811), 179,
195199
Niethammer, Friedrich Immanuel
(17661848), 203
Nietzsche, Friedrich (18441900), 10,
285, 303308, 314, 316, 318,
319320
Novalis (Georg Friedrich Philipp
Freiherr von Hardenberg)
(17721801), 11

337
Oetinger, Friedrich Christoph
(17021782), 311
Orwell, George (19031950), 17
Otway, Thomas (16521685), 223
Paracelsus (14931541), 303
Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich
(17461827), 230
Petersen, Julius (18781941), 145, 289,
294296
Pfizer, Gustav (18071890), 61
Pitaval, Franois Gayot de (16731743),
201208, 210, 213215
Pius VI, Pope (17171799), 197
Plato (427347 BC), 265, 303
Plutarch (c. AD 46120), 130, 262
Pombal, Sebastio Jos de Carvalho e
Mello, Marquis of (16991782),
183, 192, 197
Pongs, Hermann (18891979), 296
Pope, Alexander (16881744), 76
Powell, Anthony (19052000), 8
Prillwitz, Johann Carl Ludwig
(17591810), 75
Racine, Jean (16391699), 18
Ratschky, Joseph Franz von
(17571810), 196
Ravaillac, Franois (15781610), 184,
187, 190, 195, 220
Recke, Elisa von der (17541833), 191
Reinhold, Karl Leonhard (17571823), 76
Reinwald, Wilhelm (17371815), 198,
224225, 232
Richelieu, Cardinal et Duc de (ArmandJean du Plessis) (15851642), 181
Robertson, John G. (18671933), 10,
13, 17, 140
Rochau, Ludwig August von
(18101873), 267, 269
Rodin, Auguste (18401917), 53
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (17121778),
220
Rust, Bernhard (18831945), 66,
288289, 296

St Paul (AD 367), 159, 189, 303

St Ral, Csar Vichard, Abb de
(16391692), 223224
St Thecla of Iconium (1st century AD),
159, 169
Sade, Marquis de (17401814), 205
Sancta Clara, Abraham a (16441709),
181
Sartre, Jean-Paul (19051980), 8
Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph
(17751854), 252
Schiller, Emilie (18041872), 51
Schiller, Charlotte von, ne von
Lengefeld (17661826), 48, 5152,
63, 87, 88, 93, 136, 173
Schiller, Christophine (17571847), 232
Schiller, Johann Caspar (17231796),
69, 232
Schiller, Karl (17931857), 59
Schirach, Baldur von (19071974), 280
Schlegel, August Wilhelm (17671845),
51, 251
Schlegel, Friedrich (17721829), 244,
319
Schmidt, Erich (18531913), 1011
Schneider, Hermann (18861961),
278279, 287, 295
Schrder, Friedrich (17441816), 36,
3941, 43, 45
Schubart, Christian Daniel Friedrich
(17391791), 229
Schwan, Christian Friedrich
(17331815), 36
Schwan, Johann Friedrich (17291760),
203, 216
Schweitzer, Anton (17351787), 38
Seyler, Abel (17301801), 3738
Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper,
Earl of (16711713), 311
Shakespeare, William (15641616),
1415, 17, 34, 39, 43, 48, 52, 84,
109, 119, 125, 140, 145146, 149,
168, 219, 286, 303, 306307, 318
Shaw, George Bernard (18561950),
285

338
Socrates (c. 469399 BC), 220221, 314
Spie, Christian Heinrich (17551799),
214
Studlin, Gotthold Friedrich
(17581796), 81
Staiger, Emil (19081987), 67, 164
Storz, Gerhard (18981983), 164, 173,
293294, 297
Sulzer, Johann Georg (17201779),
210211
Suphan, Bernhard (18451911), 241, 242
Szondi, Peter (19291971), 140, 246
Thorwaldsen, Bartel (17701844), 53, 59
Tieck, Ludwig (17731853), 142
Treitschke, Heinrich von (18341896),
269
Unger, Johann Friedrich Gottlieb
(17531804), 4748, 75, 80, 84
Unzelmann, Friederike Auguste
Konradine (17681815), 135136
Verdi, Giuseppe (18131901), 13, 18,
145, 167
Voigt, Amalie von (18041837), 140
Voltaire (Franois-Marie Arouet)
(16941778), 39, 41, 51, 76, 97,
168, 179, 183, 192196, 199
Wagner, Richard (18131883), 10, 145,
147, 279
Walbaum, Justus Erich (17681839), 75

Waldberg, Max von (18581938), 276

Wallenstein, Albrecht von (Herzog von
Friedland) (15831634), 68,
186188
Weber, Max (18641920), 171
Weie, Christian Felix (17261804),
39
Weienthurn, Johanna von
(17721847), 52
Weitbrecht, Carl (18471904), 271272
Weltrich, Richard (18441913), 66
Wieland, Christoph Martin
(17331813), 38, 7577, 86, 214,
318
Wiese, Benno von (19031987), 137,
293294, 297
Wildenbruch, Ernst von (18451909), 65
Wilkinson, Elizabeth M. (19092001),
131, 311
William the Silent, Prince of Orange
(15331584), 183184
Winckelmann, Johann Joachim
(17171768), 244
Wolzogen, Caroline von, ne von
Lengefeld, formerly von Beulwitz
(17631847), 7, 57, 144, 219, 224
Wolzogen, Henriette von (17451788),
229
Wolzogen, Wilhelm von (17621809),
54, 82, 163
Zelter, Carl Friedrich (17581832), 55,
316

Register der Werke Schillers/Index of Schillers Works

sthetische Briefe see ber die

sthetische Erziehung des
Menschen in einer Reihe von
Briefen
Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782, 81, 84
Briefe ber Don Karlos, 70, 77, 125,
188, 199, 221, 227
Das Wirttembergische Repertorium, 24,
38
Demetrius, 19, 81, 100, 159, 162, 177,
200, 292, 316, 318
Der Geisterseher, 18, 25, 79, 179180,
190192, 198, 200
Der Menschenfeind, 80
Der Verbrecher aus verlorener Ehre
see Verbrecher aus Infamie
Des Grafen Lamoral von Egmont Leben
und Tod, 227
Die Braut von Messina, 4950, 97, 145,
149156, 159, 164, 169, 172,
173177, 234, 237, 239240, 286,
292
Die Gesetzgebung des Lykurgus und
Solon, 255, 262263, 276
Die Horen, 24, 43, 82, 84, 107, 135, 214
Die Huldigung der Knste, 80
Die Jungfrau von Orleans, 49, 6869,
80, 118, 139, 141, 144149, 157,
159, 163172, 175176, 219,
235237, 239, 285287, 292, 311,
315316
Die Kinder des Hauses, 205
Die Polizey, 205
Die Ruber, 24, 26, 36, 3943, 69, 71,
77, 80, 89, 9697, 107108, 114,
116119, 130, 141, 176, 180181,
189, 199, 201, 203209, 211, 215,
221222, 227, 237, 264, 286,
290291, 305, 309311

Die Verschwrung des Fiesko zu Genua,

24, 37, 4041, 43, 57, 6970, 100,
108109, 114, 117, 119, 179, 190,
199, 220, 225227, 229, 283, 286,
291, 309, 311
Don Karlos, 14, 18, 24, 2829, 37,
4344, 6970, 80, 86, 89, 97, 100,
124126, 132, 137, 139140, 143,
167, 180181, 188189, 199, 205,
219222, 226, 228230, 234, 239,
263264, 268, 271, 273, 283, 286,
291, 305, 310311, 313
Friderich Imhof, 198
Gedanken ber den Gebrauch des
Gemeinen und Niedrigen in der
Kunst, 80
Gedichte
Abschied vom Leser, 84
Am Antritt des neuen Jahrhunderts,
63
An die Freude, 14, 84, 269, 279
An Gthe, 97
Breite und Tiefe, 88
Das Geheimni der Reminiszenz, 310
Das Ideal und das Leben, 31, 58, 61,
270
Das Lied von der Glocke, 55, 267
Das Mdchen aus der Fremde, 84, 87
Das Reich der Schatten, 82
Der Abend, 310
Der Kampf, 84
Der Kampf mit dem Drachen, 68
Deutsche Gre, 12, 232, 238,
241245, 250251, 256
Die Blumen, 84
Die Brgschaft, 104
Die Gtter Griechenlandes, 71, 77,
84, 97, 103, 313
Die Gre der Welt, 317

340
Die Gunst des Augenblicks, 88
Die Ideale, 23, 31
Die Kraniche des Ibycus, 11, 89,
100105
Die Knstler, 71, 84, 87
Die Macht des Gesanges, 5758, 280
Die Snger der Vorwelt, 317
Elegie, 82
Fantasie: An Laura, 310
Hektors Abschied, 84
Hoffnung, 88
Licht und Wrme, 88
Melancholie: An Laura, 317
Natur und Schule, 82
Poesie des Lebens, 88
Reiterlied, 280, 307, 317
Resignation, 84
Sngers Abschied [Abschied vom
Leser], 8788
Spruch des Konfuzius, 88
Todenfeyer am Grabe Philipp
Friedrich von Riegers, 310
Vorwurf: An Laura, 310
Gehrt allzuviel Gte, Leutseeligkeit und
groe Freygebigkeit im engsten
Verstande zur Tugend?, 220
Geschichte der merkwrdigsten
Rebellionen und Verschwrungen
aus den mittlern und neuern
Zeiten, 223
Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten
Niederlande von der spanischen
Regierung, 222, 227229, 236238
Geschichte des Dreyigjhrigen Kriegs,
25, 68, 163, 181, 185186
Kabale und Liebe, 18, 24, 37, 4143, 57,
107108, 111, 114115, 117119,
141, 199, 229, 283, 286, 290
Kalliasbriefe, 93, 98100, 104, 262, 266
Kleinere prosaische Schriften, 7779,
83, 86
Maria Stuart, 14, 50, 141144, 146,
159, 161164, 168, 179181,

189191, 200, 205, 221, 226, 234,

286, 292, 311, 315
Merkwrdige Rechtsflle als ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte der Menschheit, 203
Musenalmanache, 84, 295
Philosophie der Physiologie, 31, 229
Philosophische Briefe, 95, 98, 307, 311,
313
Rheinische Thalia, 24, 37, 82, 126, 210,
311
Thalia, 24, 82, 190, 268, 313
ber Anmut und Wrde, 78, 95, 99100,
261262, 264, 266
ber das Erhabene, 78, 144, 220221,
266, 316, 318
ber das gegenwrtige teutsche
Theater, 3738, 110, 119120
ber das Pathetische, 58, 78, 224, 314
ber den Grund des Vergngens an
tragischen Gegenstnden, 314
ber die sthetische Erziehung des
Menschen in einer Reihe von
Briefen, 70, 78, 98, 100, 141142,
173, 176, 211, 241, 244, 248,
251254, 257, 260262, 264, 266,
289, 315
ber die notwendigen Grenzen beim
Gebrauch schner Formen, 78,
9495, 100
ber die tragische Kunst, 125, 206, 314
ber naive und sentimentalische
Dichtung, 32, 70, 78, 241,
244246, 268, 289, 315, 320
Verbrecher aus Infamie, 201, 203206,
209210, 212, 214215
Versuch ber den Zusammenhang der
tierischen Natur des Menschen mit
seiner geistigen, 209210,
212213
Votivtafeln [Tabulae votivae], 87

341
Wallenstein, 10, 14, 29, 35, 4447, 49,
57, 63, 6971, 80, 82, 97, 100, 124,
136138, 159161, 163164, 168,
170172, 179181, 186188, 190,
200, 221, 225227, 233234, 239,
268273, 279, 286, 290, 292, 315
Wallensteins Lager, 46, 137, 140,
179, 181, 234, 280281, 307, 317
Die Piccolomini, 46, 70, 100, 158,
160, 179180, 188
Wallensteins Tod, 31, 46, 70, 100,
160161, 170171, 181, 186, 190,
270271, 273

Was heit und zu welchem Ende studiert

man Universalgeschichte?, 126
Was kann eine gute stehende
Schaubhne eigentlich wirken?,
3738, 41, 80, 97, 120, 201
Wilhelm Tell, 18, 5051, 57, 69, 141,
156158, 159, 163165, 167171,
173, 175, 177, 205, 222, 226227,
235240, 264, 279280, 286288,
290, 292, 296297, 316
Xenien, 82, 84, 92, 133, 232233,
242

This page intentionally left blank

Vom Wissen zur Weisheit.

Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre 1811.
Matteo Vincenzo dAlfonso
Amsterdam/New York, NY 2005. XI, 311 pp.
(Fichte-Studien-Supplementa 20)
ISBN: 90-420-1847-X

64,-/ US $ 80.-

Die 38 im Jahre 1811 vorgetragen Vorlesungen ber die Wissenschaftslehre sind eine
vollkommene und besonders gut artikulierte Darstellung Fichtes Systems in der Zeit seiner
Ttigkeit an der neu gegrndeten Universitt zu Berlin. Der ffentlichkeit sind sie erst
1999 bekannt geworden, als sie in der J. G. Fichte Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften aufgenommen wurden, denn bis dahin wurden sie von den
jeweiligen Editoren des Fichte-Nachlasses nie erwhnt.
Fichte nimmt in dieser Darstellung seines Systems gegen beide Formen des Nihilismus
Stellung - den theoretischen sowie den mit diesem zusammenhngenden praktischen. Um
seine systematische Position formulieren und vertreten zu knnen, setzt er sich vor allem
mit Spinoza und Kant nochmals auseinander. Spinoza stellt nmlich nach Fichte die
Grundfrage der Philosophie, wie neben dem Sein auch ein Dasein denkbar sein kann,
whrend Kant ihm im Begriff der Erscheinung den Weg zu ihrer Lsung aufzeigt. Aber
zwei weitere Probleme ergeben sich fr Fichte aus der kritischen Philosophie Kants: wie
kann man das Bewutsein beschreiben, wenn man sich nicht aus seinem Zirkel bewegen
kann, und wie kann man die in dieser Beschreibung faktisch entdeckte Ursprnglichkeit
der Synthesis rechtfertigen? Fr Fichte hatte der Begrnder der Transzendentalphilosophie die grundlegende synthetische Ttigkeit des Bewutseins nur noch als ein Faktum des
Bewutseins angenommen. Der Beweis ihrer Mglichkeit ist nach Fichte letztlich nur zu
fhren, indem man sie auf eine Erscheinungsform der Freiheit als Inbegriff Gottes
zurckfhrt. Diesen Beweisgang versteht nun Fichte als Vervollstndigung des
transzendentalphilosophischen Programms und zugleich als Mittel, um aus dem Wissen in
die Weisheit berzugehen.

USA/Canada: 906 Madison Avenue, UNION, NJ 07083, USA.

Call toll-free (USA only)1-800-225-3998, Tel. 908 206 1166, Fax 908-206-0820
All other countries: Tijnmuiden 7, 1046 AK Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Tel. ++ 31 (0)20 611 48 21, Fax ++ 31 (0)20 447 29 79
Orders-queries@rodopi.nl
www.rodopi.nl
Please note that the exchange rate is subject to fluctuations

Writing and Seeing

Essays on Word and Image

Edited by Rui Carvalho Homem and Maria de Ftima Lambert

Amsterdam/New York, NY 2006. 403 pp.

(Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen
und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft 95)
ISBN: 90-420-1698-1

Bound 85,-/$ 106.-

The essays in this volume are informed by a variety of theoretical assumptions

and of critical methodologies, but they all share an interest in the intersections of
word and image in a variety of media. This unifying rationale secures the present
collections central position in the current critical context, defined as it
predominantly is by ways of reading that are based on a relational nexus. The
intertextual, the intermedial, the intersemiotic are indeed foregrounded and
combined in these essays, conceptually as much as in the critical practices
favoured by the various contributions.
Studies of literature in its relation to pictorial genres enjoy a relative prominence
in the volume but the range of media and of approaches considered is broad
enough to include photography, film, video, t television, comic strips, animated
film, public art, material culture.
The backgrounds of contributors are likewise diverse culturally, academically,
linguistically.
The volume combines contributions by prominent scholars and critics with essays
by younger scholars, from a variety of backgrounds. The resulting plurality of
perspective is indeed a source of new insigh s into the relations between writing
and seeing, and it contributes to making this collection an exciting new
contribution to word and image studies.

USA/Canada: 295 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 1B, KENILWORTH, NJ 07033, USA
Call toll-free (USA only)1-800-225-3998, Tel. 908 298 9071, Fax 908-298-9075
All other countries: Tijnmuiden 7, 1046 AK Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel. ++ 31 (0)20 611 48 21, Fax ++ 31 (0)20 447 29 79
orders-queries@rodopi.nl
www.rodopi.nl
Please note that the exchange rate is subject to fluctuations