German Literature Month V opens with Schiller reading week. But who was this Schiller? He is the playwright voted the most influential after Shakespeare by the audience of the TV channel Arte in 2008; an accolade proving this 18th century wordsmith still has things to say to us in 2015.
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (Fritz to his family) was born (without the von) on 10 November 1759 in Marbach to an army recruitment officer. His parents, intending him to become a pastor, ensured he was taught Latin and Greek. Later, his intelligence caught the eye of Carl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg, who decided to educate him at the Karlsschule, his elite military academy. Schiller eventually studied medicine there.
He married Charlotte von Lengefeld in 1790, but there were many C’s in his life: her sister Caroline von Wolzogen (who wrote the first biography of Schiller in 1830), his early love and the woman who never really stopped loving him, the married Charlotte von Kalb. Also Carl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg, who educated him and Carl August, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who elevated him to the realms of immortality.
10 years prior to his marriage, he was working as a regimental doctor in Stuttgart, which he hated. Having completed his debut play, The Robbers, he took out a loan to publish 250 copies. (Yes, even Schiller had to self-publish!) In 1782, he went absent without leave to attend the opening of The Robbers in Mannheim. The play, a stormy and stressful affair, caused a sensation, and not only amongst the audiences. Carl Eugen was not amused and he banned Schiller from ever publishing anything ever again! This ultimately led to a complete break, with Schiller fleeing the Duchy of Württemberg in September 1792.
The loans taken to publish The Robbers were the first in a series that were to plague Schiller’s early career. It wasn’t until he arrived in Weimar in 1787, with the patronage of Carl August, Duke of Weimar, that life began to settle. There he was ennobled, becoming Friedrich von Schiller in 1802.
Perhaps the most influential friendship in German literary history was formed in Weimar, Schiller’s friendship with Goethe. Though it’s fair to say that, at first, the older man, who wasn’t at all keen and actively avoided meeting the young upstart.
Ich vermied Schillern, der, sich in Weimar aufhaltend, in meiner Nachbarschaft wohnte.
I avoided Schiller, who, while in Weimar, lived in my neighbourhood.
Goethe couldn’t avoid him forever and made his acquaintance in 1794. A friendship developed and following the publication of The Fall of the Low Countries (1788) and The 30 Years War (1791-2) Schiller was, with Goethe’s support, appointed Professor of History and Philosophy at the University of Jena.
Not that his academic career interfered with his imagination in any way. In his two classical dramas, The Maid of Orleans and Mary Stuart – both published 1800/1801 – historical fact does not impinge on dramatic requirement. In the first Joan of Arc dies in battle (not burnt at the stake as a witch) and in the second, the emotional, political and dramatic climax is a meeting between the two queens, Mary and Elizabeth, a meeting that never took place.
Jena was Schiller’s home for 10 years. (1789-1799).
Without Christian Gottfried Körner Schiller may have sunk into debt-ridden obscurity. Schiller and Körner became friends in 1784, and, when Schiller’s debts threatened to overwhelm him, he fled to Körner spending some time on his estates in Loschwitz in Dresden. Körner bankrolled Schiller on may occasions thereafter, never ceasing to encourage and discuss Schiller’s literary and philosophical concepts.
Many of those discussions have been preserved in their correspondence. Schiller was an inveterate letter writer, particularly adept at writing begging letters. (More on these later in the week.)
This skill was a matter of survival. Schiller’s early career was a hand to mouth affair, particularly when in 1784 his one year contract as director of the Mannheim National Theatre was not extended.
Schiller’s only novel, The Man Who Sees Ghosts, remained unfinished. Unlike his ballads and plays, many of which were adapted and turned into opera. The most famous musical piece has to be this section of Beethoven’s 9th symphony which incorporates Schiller’s Ode to Joy, which he dedicated to the aforementioned Körner.
Professor Schiller (as he would have been known to his students in Jena) taught history and philosophy. Amongst the philosophical concepts important to him were Wieland’s Die Schöne Seele (the beautiful soul), human freedom and das Erhabene (the sublime) or the ability for human to put aside their instinct for self-preservation and sacrifice themselves for higher ideals.
All of which is extremely laudable, and yet Schiller’s actions were sometimes questionable. He didn’t always repay his debts, he had an affair with a married woman, and there may or may not have been a ménage à trois with his then future wife and her sister! An assured fact is that he was less than pleasant towards Goethe’s partner, Christiane Vulpius. The story goes that while staying with Goethe for two weeks in 1799, Schiller never spoke to Christiane, nor sent a word of thanks when he left.
Not that Weimar society would have criticised him for that – the Goethes didn’t marry until long after Schiller’s death. Nevertheless Schiller wasn’t without his contemporary critics. The German Romantics were less than impressed with Schiller’s idealism. Caroline Schelling (another C!) once noted: Last night we almost fell off our seats laughing at Schiller’s poem Song of the Bell.
Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress) was all the rage when Schiller began writing, so he was a latecomer to the movement. Yet his early dramas – The Robbers, Fiesco, Passion and Politics and Don Carlos are now recognised as prime examples.
The Thalia (1784-1791) was the first cultural magazine edited by Schiller. In 1795 he set up a monthly periodical – Die Horen – which published pieces from all the great names in German literary circles of the time (including those pesky Romantics.) Another less known string on Schiller’s bow was his translation work. Do you recognise this piece from Shakespeare’s Macbeth?
Ist dies ein Dolch, was ich da vor mir sehe, Den Griff mir zugewendet? Komm! Laß mich dich fassen, Ich hab’ dich nicht und sehe dich doch immer. Furchtbares Bild! Bist du so fühlbar nicht der Hand, Als du dem Auge sichtbar bist? Bist du Nur ein Gedankendolch, ein Wahngebilde Des fieberhaft entzündeten Gehirns? Ich seh’ dich immer, so leibhaftig wie Den Dolch, den ich in meiner Hand hier zücke. Du weisest mir den Weg, den ich will gehn; Entweder ist mein Auge nur der Narr Der andern Sinne oder mehr werth, als sie alle. –Noch immer seh’ ich dich und Tropfen Bluts Auf deiner Klinge, die erst nicht da waren. – Es ist nichts Wirkliches. Mein blutiger Gedanke ist’s, der so heraustritt vor das Auge!
Demetrius was Schiller’s final play – it was unfinished at time of his death from tuberculosis on 9th May 1805. A page remains on his desk in Weimar to this day.
The emotional pitch of Schiller’s text may be hard to swallow these days, but he couldn’t half write a good villain! Franz from the Robbers, The Duke of Alba from Don Carlos spring immediately to mind.
Following his decade in Jena, Schiller returned in 1799 to Weimar, where that friendship and collaboration with Goethe grew ever closer resulting in the golden age of Weimar Classicism and the founding of the Weimar National Theatre, where the two of them preside to this day.
Before that, however, they penned The Xenien, a series of wicked satirical epigrams designed to answer their literary and philosophical foes and critics. They didn’t hold back!
If you had imagination, and wit, and sensitivity and judgment
Really you would not lack much for being like Wieland and Lessing.
When Schiller died, he was a relatively young man of 45, at the zenith of his career. Goethe was grief-stricken and penned an Epilogue to Schiller’s Song of the Bell. (I doubt Caroline Schelling fell off her chair laughing at this.)
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Source materials:
My own photographs / 3 trips to Weimar / Gnädigster Herr, Ich Habe Familie: Edited Christiana Engelmann ISBN 978-3-8353-0159-6 / Schillers Frauen – Joseph Kiermeier-Debre ISBN: 978-3-423-13769-0 / Schillers Kritiker – Torsten Unger ISBN 978-3-95400-300-6
© Lizzy’s Literary Life 2015
So very interesting. I think of Schiller solely with respect to my now distant degree in Philosophy and did not know about his novel and plays. I think you made him sound a lot more interesting than whatever professor would have covered his philosophical works. I mean, I would have remembered a rumoured ménage à trois!
i suppose I should caveat my sensational statement – a C18th ménage á trois probably wasn’t as racy as a C21st ….
…’cos this is Schilllllerrrrrr, Schiller night, and no-one’s gonna save ya from…
I knew I should have opened with The Man Who Sees Ghosts. 😉
A very interesting blog post and great introduction to Schiller. Many of his plays and poems were on our reading list at school, but I started to read him seriously only after I worked for some time in Weimar – by chance my office was just next to Schiller’s house and I could peek into his living room from my desk.
Weimar is totally inspiring, Thomas. One thing’s for sure, Schiller Reading Week wouldn’t be happening if I hadn’t visited for myself.
Very interesting…I confess that my own introduction to Schiller was through a curious custom at my college, which you can read about here (scroll nearly to the bottom of the post): http://emeraldcitybookreview.com/2015/10/witch-week-2015-guide-to-blackstock.html … an odd posthumous existence for a great writer.
I’m actually reading The Ghost seer by Schiller at this moment
I`m planning to read a non-fiction work by Schiller, his ` On the Aesthetic Education of Man `.
Parrish, Jody
I won’t be covering either of those, so I look forward to hearing how you get on.
Wonderful post, Lizzy! Which is your favourite Schiller play? I read ‘The Robbers’ last year and I am thinking of which one to read this year. Which one would you recommend? I read an extract from Schiller’s novel – the extract was called ‘The Sport of Destiny’. Hoping to read the whole novel one of these days.
I didn’t know that Schiller had a tough start to his literary career. Some things don’t change – great writers always have it hard. It is sad that he died so young. He had some much more to offer.
Can’t wait to read my first Schiller book this year. Thanks for hosting Schiller week!
Vishy, I unreservedly recommend Maria Stuart (and not simply because I’m in Scotland).
Thanks Lizzy! I can’t wait to get started! Will start reading today evening. So excited!