MM 



SCHILLER 



drank deeply at the well* of Plutarch's hero-wor- 

 hip and KoosMan't overwrought sentimentalism. 

 Tin- play itoelf, however, in spile of the gravest 

 faulU (from erudition, iniproltthilities, exaggerated 

 and unreal sentiment, inflated and bombastic die 

 tion literally throblied with energy and passion, 

 and contained ninny paMigm of remarkable tragic 



force, Schiller himself wa present ;il the per- 

 formance: liut lieoause he quitted Stuttgart a 

 eeond time without liin ducal leavi- ( ,nl Kngi-n 

 had the aspiring dramatist arrentd, and on his 

 release forlwde him both to write plays ami to 

 leave Wiirteml>crg. Tlii- treatment Schiller's pride, 

 an writer nnd as num. would mil brook : -> on tin' 

 night of ;Hd Seplemlier In- Ili-d from the capital in 

 dbgniae, and under an assumed imnn- ( Dr Hitter). 

 II- lay coneeale<l at Mannheim and at Oggci-hcim, 

 and latterly on Krau von Wolzogen'a estate of 

 liauerhach near Meiningen. In that quiet retreat 

 he finished two more plays, Die Verschiroruny da 

 Fietea ttt Gentia ana Knlxilr tnul I.irbe. .The 

 structural idea of the former, Schiller's 1'nst his- 

 torical piny, printed in 1783, in that of nearly all 

 hi- historical works, a revolt against KOIIK* con- 

 stituted authority that has degenerated into 

 tyranny and Ixi-ome an enemy of freedom. The 

 latter ( I7K3) is a protest, dramatically a more sue- 

 oemful work than Fietco, again-t tin- tyrannies of 

 social convi-nii-nrc. involving an attack upon the 

 court life of the typical < !erman ruler of the epoch. 

 On 1st Septi'inher Schiller was apiiointed drama 

 ti-t to the Mannheim theatre, and thought he had 

 reached hi- poii. liut at the end of the year the 

 engagement wan not renewed ; neither intendant, 

 nor dramatist, nor actors were satisfied one with 

 another. Thus Schiller was again thrown on his 

 own resources ; and from the time he left Stuttgart 

 until IIP settled in Weimar he was always in debt 

 and alwav- struggling with narrow means. One 

 of hi* plans of self support wan the issue of a sort of 

 theatrical journal. Die Illifini.tr/if Thalia, begun in 



-niher 1784, and written almost entirely by 

 his own hand. In this journal were lirst printed 

 most of his Don Carlo*, many of his Ix-.-t poems 

 (e.g. An (lit f'reiule), and the stories Vrrlirfdirr 

 atu Verlurrner Ehre and Der Geistfrsehtr, In 1785 

 he resolved to depart from Mannheim, and to 

 accept a warm invitation from a circle of admireis 

 in Leipzig, whirh included, he found, Goschen the 

 publisher (grandfather of the English statesman) 

 and Korner, father of the poet 



Schiller had not U-eii without his love affairs : 

 he had known the iiaugs of jealousy in conn. -et ion 

 with Fran von Wol/ogcn's daughter, he had paid 

 suit t Margareta Schwatin, the publisher's daugh- 

 t-r in Mannheim, and he had IH-.-N half fascinated 

 br Charlott*- von Kalh, perha|M the most remark- 

 able woman of her generation in Germany. At 

 Dresden, wheie Korner as living, Schiller found 

 the rent he so much tiei-di-d, rest from enu>tional 



ini-nt and rest froi.i |>ecuniary worries. And 

 this rest, which he owed in great jwirt to Kflrner's 

 MMTOMty. h- turn.-.! to g.MHl ace.Mint. He finished 

 Don ObriM (17H7I, which may IN- called his first 

 mature play, in that the enthusiasm is more chast- 

 i-iM-d. tlie luii^uage more wilier and disciplined, t he 

 plot IK-MIT clalMirated, an<l the knowledge much 

 ri|M-r. Ncv.-iili,-|i-.s it (.iiU'erH artistically from its 



" 



length, frtim it inherent lack" of unity, 

 and more es|M>cially from the shifting of the interest 

 ft. mi CsrliH. to tin- Mar.|iiis J'.ma. The play was 

 writU-n in blank verse, ax iM-ing more appropriate 

 dignity of the uhje<-t ; and besides einlMidy 

 ing Schiller's ideas of a |>erfwt political society, 

 it presents a moot nolile tyi>e of the true MMM 

 of man in Posa. Knun the .lav he lirst wiw Kotner 

 In- shared with him nearly ail lii thoughts, anil 

 oonlinii'sl to do MI after he left Dresden and be- 



iutimate with Wilhelm von Hnmboldt and 

 (ioetiie. Amongst the finest fmits of hi- di-cu* 

 sinus with Komer and his circle are the p-i-ms 

 An die f'rewte and !> K mistier. Under the 

 -t iiiiiilu- of the same society he went hack to his 

 old lo\e philosophy, and at the same time liegan 

 to study history in a serious and systematic 



, way. After two years in Dresden something of 

 the old restlessness took possession of him again, 



i caused in part by another unhappy love atlair 

 (with Hennette von Arnim), and tie thought to 

 allay it by a visit to Weimar and elsewhere. But 

 of \\Yimai- and its court circles the truth loving 

 poet socin grew tired ( ioethe and Duke ( 'ail August 

 weie both alient at the time. Nevertheless he 

 stayed on awhile, finding society in Charlotte yon 

 Kalb, in Herder, and certain of the professors at 

 Jena near by. One of these, Reinhold (Wichmd's 

 son-in-law), brought Kant to his notice; and 

 Schiller steeped himself in the thoughts fti the 

 Kiinigsberg recluse with his usual ardour, though 

 he greatly modified Kant's system ere he adapted 

 it for his own use. Alwut the same time he met 

 his future wife, Charlotte von Lengefeld ; and, 

 getting some hints of a possible chair at Jena, he 

 resolutely bent his mind to the writing of a work 

 of more practical value, and began his history of 

 the revolt of the Netherlands. In the end of 1788 

 he was apitointed to a professorship at Jena, and, 

 !>eing further granted a small pension liy the Duke 

 of Saxe- Weimar, he married Lotto von Leiigcfehl. 

 In order to meet the responsibilities entailed Uy 

 these changes Schiller worked terribly hard, so hard 

 in fact that he eventually broke down his health. 

 Besides lecturing, he wrote a luimlier of minor papers 

 and the greater work, the history of the Thirty 

 Years' War. These productions are not of course 

 the outcome of a prolonged or exhaustive course of 

 special studies; but they rank high amongst (ier- 

 man historical writings by virtue of their great 

 merits of style, the warm human interest the 

 writer bos breathed into them, ami the broad philo- 

 sophic ideas that form their life and substance. 



Towards the end of the year 1792 Schiller was 

 agreeably surprised by the offer, brought about 

 chiefly by his admirer, the Danish poet Baggescn, 

 of a free gift of 3000 gulden from the Duke of 

 Aiigiistcnlniig and his friend Count Schimnielinann. 

 The lirst use the now invalid poet made of his 

 freedom was to finish the Thirty Years' War, 

 and his next to pav a visit to his old father ami 

 mother, whom he fiad not seen for eleven years. 

 In the year of this visit (1793) he began the 

 Itrirfe iiber die tiesthflische Erziehuny lies Mm- 

 lichen, letters of noble and weighty import con- 

 cerning the function of art as the supreme educa- 

 tive agent. At this period, in the irony of cir- 

 cumstances, it came into the heads of the l-'retich 

 revolutionists to nominate Schiller (M. Gille) an 

 honorary mcmlicr of the republic, a distinction 

 which, although himself a mini of democratic 

 sentiments, he spurned with horror on learning of 

 the execution of the king. The diploma of citizen- 

 ship took five years t<i reach him (1798). 



The year 1794 i- in some respecte the most 

 ini|Mirtant in the whole course of Schiller's life: 

 he made the acquaintance of Fichte, he formed an 

 intimacy with Wilhelm von HumlHildt, and liegan 

 his wonderful friendship with (Joethe. He was in- 

 troduced to the great poet at his future mother- 

 in-law's house in the summer of 1788 ; but for 

 a while they were both distant and reserved, and 

 it was only in the course of a chance conversa- 

 tion at Jena in the summer of 1794 that they 

 discovered common ground of sympathy. The 

 ice once broken, however, they soon drew to- 

 gether; the dreamer and idcali-t and the man of 

 universal human interests had lioth worked their 



