Friedrich Schiller

Friedrich Schiller a German poet, playwright, historian and philosopher (1759-1805), one of the central figures of Weimar Classicism and, with his friend Goethe, the most important writer of the German classical age. His dramas and ballads made him a poet of liberty whose words were later set to music by Beethoven in the finale of the Ninth Symphony.

Life and Education

Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller was born at Marbach in Wurttemberg on 10 November 1759, the son of a military surgeon. The family moved to Ludwigsburg, and the young Schiller was compelled by Duke Karl Eugen to enter the military academy, where he studied first law and then medicine. He found the discipline oppressive and read forbidden literature in secret.

He was appointed a regimental doctor and wrote his first play while serving. After the sensational success of The Robbers he was forbidden to write further plays and fled the duchy, beginning years of wandering through Mannheim, Frankfurt, Leipzig and Dresden. He supported himself by journalism and translation and by the patronage of friends and admirers.

He settled in Jena in 1789 as professor of history, and there he wrote major historical studies and delivered influential lectures. His marriage to Charlotte von Lengefeld in 1790 and his deepening friendship with Goethe from 1794 marked the beginning of his great creative period. He moved to Weimar in 1799 and died there on 9 May 1805.

Dramatic Works

The Robbers, published in 1781, tells of two noble brothers, the idealistic Karl and the scheming Franz, and made its author the voice of a generation impatient with tyranny. Its rhetoric of freedom and its stormy emotion belong to the movement known as Sturm und Drang, the German literary revolt of the 1770s.

Don Carlos of 1787 marks his turn toward classical form and contains a plea for tolerance and political liberty. The great trilogy Wallenstein, completed in 1799, is a monumental study of a general who cannot decide his course and of the historical forces that destroy him, and it is often regarded as his dramatic masterpiece.

In the last years he produced Mary Stuart, The Maid of Orleans, The Bride of Messina and Wilhelm Tell. These plays unite lofty language, moral conflict and theatrical skill, and Wilhelm Tell in particular became a symbol of national resistance to oppression throughout Europe in the nineteenth century.

Poetry and Aesthetic Theory

Schiller's poems and ballads include the Ode to Joy, The Cranes of Ibycus, The Glove, The Diver and The Bell. His philosophical poems explore freedom, fate and the dignity of the human spirit, while his ballads retell classical and medieval stories with narrative force. Many were written in friendly competition with Goethe, who encouraged his return to poetry.

In his prose essays on aesthetics he developed a theory of beauty and of the moral value of art. His letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man argue that the experience of beauty can reconcile the sensuous and the rational sides of human nature and prepare the way for true moral freedom. Art, in this view, is not mere decoration but a school of humanity.

He distinguished between naive poetry, which is at one with nature, and sentimental poetry, which seeks a lost ideal, and he applied these categories in a celebrated essay. This vocabulary influenced later criticism and helped establish the philosophical seriousness with which German thought has treated the arts.

History and Intellectual Context

Schiller was a serious historian as well as a poet. His History of the Revolt of the United Netherlands and his History of the Thirty Years War were widely read and helped shape the historical consciousness of his age. As professor at Jena he gave lectures on universal history that drew large and enthusiastic audiences.

His historical writing is marked by a strong dramatic sense and by a concern with the moral meaning of events. He asked how freedom might be preserved in the face of power and how great individuals act within the currents of their time. These questions also animate his plays and give his dramas their historical depth.

Together with Goethe, Herder and Wieland he helped define Weimar Classicism, a movement that sought harmony, form and humane education in opposition to mere imitation of foreign models. His letters with Goethe record a sustained exchange about art, science and the calling of the poet, and they remain one of the great documents of literary friendship.

Influence and Legacy

Schiller's influence spread far beyond Germany. His plays entered the repertoires of theatres across Europe, and his celebration of liberty made him a hero to reformers and revolutionaries. Verdi set two of his dramas to music in operas that remain central to the repertoire, and composers of several nations turned to his verse.

In the German-speaking world his poems were long taught by heart in schools, and his phrases entered common speech. Monuments to him stand in many cities, and the Schiller year of 2005 marked the two hundredth anniversary of his death with exhibitions, performances and conferences around the world.

He is remembered as the poet of freedom and as a writer who believed that beauty and moral education could transform both the individual and society. His work continues to be studied for its ideas, performed for its drama and recited for its verse, and it holds a secure place at the summit of German literature.

See also

• Weimar Classicism
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Sturm und Drang
• Wilhelm Tell