Schiller's best works. Friedrich Schiller - biography, information, personal life

The work of the romantic rebel, the 18th century poet Friedrich Schiller, left no one indifferent. Some considered the playwright the ruler of the thoughts of lyricists and the singer of freedom, while others called the philosopher a stronghold of bourgeois morality. Thanks to his works that evoke ambiguous emotions, the classic managed to write his name in the history of world literature.

Childhood and youth

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was born on November 10, 1759, Marbach am Neckar (Germany). The future writer was the second of six children in the family of officer Johann Kaspar, who was in the service of the Duke of Württemberg and housewife Elisabeth Dorothea Kodweis. The head of the family wanted his only son to receive an education and grow up to be a worthy man.

That is why his father raised Friedrich in strictness, punishing the boy for the slightest sins. On top of that, Johann youth accustomed the heir to hardships. So during lunch or dinner, the head of the family deliberately did not give his son what he wanted to taste.

Schiller the elder considered the highest human virtues to be love of order, neatness and strict obedience. However, there was no need for paternal strictness. Thin and sickly, Friedrich was strikingly different from his peers and friends, who thirsted for adventure and constantly found themselves in unpleasant situations.

The future playwright liked to study. The boy could pore over textbooks for days, studying certain disciplines. Teachers noted his diligence, thirst for science and incredible efficiency, which he retained until the end of his life.

It is worth noting that Elizabeth was the complete opposite of her husband, who was stingy with emotional manifestations. An intelligent, kind, pious woman tried her best to soften her husband’s Puritan strictness and often read Christian poetry to the children.

In 1764 the Schiller family moved to Lorch. In this ancient town, the father awakened his son's interest in history. This passion ultimately determined future fate poet. The future playwright's first history lessons were taught by a local priest, who had such a strong influence on the student that at one point Friedrich even seriously thought about devoting his life to worship.

In addition, for a boy from a poor family this was the only way to get out into the world, so his parents encouraged their son’s desire. In 1766, the head of the family was promoted and became the ducal gardener of a castle located in the vicinity of Stuttgart.

The castle, and most importantly, the court theater, which was visited free of charge by the personnel working in the castle, made an impression on Frederick. The best actors from all over Europe performed in the monastery of the goddess Melpomene. The play of the actors inspired the future poet, and he and his sisters often began to show their parents home performances in the evenings, in which he always got the main role. True, neither the father nor the mother took his son’s new hobby seriously. They only saw their son in the church pulpit with a Bible in his hands.

When Frederick was 14 years old, his father sent his beloved child to the military school of Duke Charles Eugene, in which the offspring of poor officers learned for free the intricacies of providing everything necessary for the ducal court and army.

Stay in this educational institution became a waking nightmare for Schiller Jr. Barracks-like discipline reigned at school, and it was forbidden to meet with parents. On top of everything else, there was a system of fines. Thus, for an unplanned purchase of food, 12 strokes of a stick were due, and for inattention and untidiness - a monetary penalty.

At that time, his new friends became a consolation for the author of the ballad “The Glove”. Friendship became a kind of elixir of life for Friedrich, which gave the writer strength to move on. It is noteworthy that the years spent in this institution did not make a slave out of Schiller; on the contrary, they turned the writer into a rebel, whose weapon - endurance and fortitude - no one could take away from him.

In October 1776, Schiller transferred to the medical department, his first poem “Evening” was published, and after that the philosophy teacher gave a talented student to read the works of William Shakespeare, and what happened, as Goethe would later say, was “the awakening of Schiller’s genius.”

Then, impressed by the works of Shakespeare, Frederick wrote his first tragedy, “The Robbers,” which became the starting point in his career as a playwright. At the same moment, the poet became eager to write a book that would deserve the fate of being burned.

In 1780, Schiller graduated from the medical faculty and left the hated military academy. Then, on the orders of Karl Eugene, the poet went as a regimental doctor to Stuttgart. True, the long-awaited freedom did not please Frederick. As a doctor he was no good, because the practical side of the profession never interested him.

Bad wine, disgusting tobacco and bad women - that’s what distracted the writer who was unable to realize himself from bad thoughts.

Literature

In 1781, the drama "The Robbers" was completed. After editing the manuscript, it turned out that not a single Stuttgart publisher wanted to publish it, and Schiller had to publish the work at his own expense. Simultaneously with the Robbers, Schiller prepared for publication a collection of poems, which was published in February 1782 under the title “Anthology for 1782”

In the fall of 1782 of the same year, Friedrich made the first draft of a version of the tragedy “Cunning and Love,” which in the draft version was called “Louise Miller.” At this time, Schiller also published the drama “The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa” for a meager fee.

In the period from 1793 to 1794, the poet completed the philosophical and aesthetic work “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man”, and in 1797 he wrote the ballads “Polycrates’ Ring”, “Ivikov’s Cranes” and “Diver”.

In 1799, Schiller completed writing the Wallenstein trilogy, which consisted of the plays Wallenstein's Camp, Piccolomini and The Death of Wallenstein, and a year later he published Mary Stuart and The Maid of Orleans. In 1804, the drama "William Tell" was released, based on the Swiss legend about a skilled marksman named William Tell.

Personal life

Like any creatively gifted person, Schiller looked for inspiration in women. The writer needed a muse that would inspire him to write new masterpieces. It is known that during his life the writer intended to marry 4 times, but his chosen ones always rejected the playwright because of his financial insolvency.

The first lady who captured the poet's thoughts was a girl named Charlotte. The young lady was the daughter of his patron Henriette von Walzogen. Despite her admiration for Schiller’s talent, the chosen one’s mother refused the playwright when he wooed her beloved child.

The second Charlotte in the writer’s life was the widow von Kalb, who was madly in love with the poet. True, in this case, Schiller himself was not eager to start a family with an extremely annoying person. After her, Friedrich briefly courted the young daughter of a bookseller, Margarita.

While the philosopher was thinking about the wedding and children, his missus was having fun in the company of other men and did not even intend to connect her life with a writer with a hole in his pocket. When Schiller invited Margarita to become his wife, the young lady, barely holding back her laughter, admitted that she was just playing with him.

The third woman for whom the writer was ready to pull a star from the sky was Charlotte von Lengefeld. This lady saw the potential in the poet and reciprocated his feelings. After Schiller got a job as a philosophy teacher at the University of Jena, the playwright managed to save enough money for a wedding. In this marriage, the writer had a son, Ernest.

It is worth noting that despite the fact that Schiller praised his wife’s intelligence, those around her noted that Charlotte was a thrifty and faithful lady, but very narrow-minded.

Death

Three years before his death, the writer was unexpectedly granted a noble title. Schiller himself was skeptical about this mercy, but accepted it so that his wife and children would be provided for after his death. Every year the playwright, suffering from tuberculosis, became worse and worse, and he literally faded away in front of his family and friends. The writer died at the age of 45 on May 9, 1805, without finishing his last play, “Dimitri.”

During his short but productive life, the author of “Ode to Joy” created 10 plays, two historical monographs, as well as a couple of philosophical works and a number of poems. However, Schiller failed to make money through literary work. That is why, after his death, the writer was buried in the Kassengevelbe crypt, organized for nobles who did not have their own family tomb.

After 20 years, it was decided to rebury the remains of the great writer. True, finding them turned out to be problematic. Then the archaeologists, pointing their finger at the sky, selected one of the skeletons they had excavated, declaring to the public that the remains found belonged to Schiller. After that, they were interred again in the princely tomb in the new cemetery, next to the grave of the philosopher’s close friend, the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

A couple of years later, biographers and literary scholars had doubts about the authenticity of the playwright’s body, and in 2008 an exhumation was carried out, which revealed interesting fact: the poet’s remains belonged to three different people. Now it is impossible to find Friedrich’s body, so the philosopher’s grave is empty.

Quotes

“Only he who controls himself is free”

“Parents least of all forgive their children for the vices that they themselves instilled in them.”

“A person grows as his goals grow”

"Better a terrible ending than endless fear"

"Great souls endure suffering in silence"

“A person is reflected in his actions”

Bibliography

• 1781 - "Robbers"
• 1783 - “The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa”
• 1784 - “Cunning and Love”
• 1787 - “Don Carlos, Infante of Spain”
• 1791 - “History of the Thirty Years' War”
• 1799 - "Wallenstein"
• 1793 - “On Grace and Dignity”
• 1795 - “Letters on the aesthetic education of man”
• 1800 - “Mary Stuart”
• 1801 - “On the Sublime”
• 1801 - “The Maid of Orleans”
• 1803 - “The Bride of Messina”
• 1804 - “William Tell”

Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich - great German poet, b. November 10, 1759 in the Swabian town of Marbach. His father, first a paramedic, then an officer, despite his abilities and energy, had insignificant earnings and, together with his wife, a kind, impressionable and religious woman, lived meagerly. Following the regiment from one place to another, it was only in 1770 that they finally settled in Ludwigsburg, where Schiller’s father received the position of head of the palace gardens of the Duke of Württemberg. The boy was sent to a local school, hoping in the future, in accordance with his inclinations, to see him as a pastor, but, at the request of the Duke, Schiller entered the newly opened military school, which in 1775, under the name of the Charles Academy, was transferred to Stuttgart. So a gentle boy from a loving family found himself in a rough soldier’s environment, and instead of giving in to his natural inclinations, he was forced to take up medicine, for which he did not feel the slightest inclination.

Portrait of Friedrich Schiller. Artist G. von Kügelgen, 1808-09

Here, under the yoke of heartless and aimless discipline, Schiller was kept until 1780, when he was released and accepted into the service as a regimental doctor with a paltry salary. But despite the increased supervision, Schiller, while still at the academy, managed to taste the forbidden fruits of the new German poetry, and there he began to write his first tragedy, which he published in 1781 under the title “Robbers” and with the inscription “In tyrannos!” (“On the tyrants!”) In January 1782, going to Mannheim secretly from the regimental authorities, the author witnessed the extraordinary success of his first-born on stage. For his unauthorized absence, the young doctor was put under arrest, advising him to give up the nonsense and take up medicine better.

Then Schiller decided to break with the past, fled from Stuttgart and, with the support of some friends, began new dramatic works. In 1783, his drama “The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa” was published, the following year - the bourgeois tragedy “Cunning and Love”. All three of Schiller's youthful plays are filled with indignation against despotism and violence, from under the yoke of which the poet himself had just escaped. But at the same time, in their elevated style, exaggerations and sharp contrasts when drawing characters, in the uncertainty of ideals with a republican tint, one can feel a not quite mature youth, filled with noble courage and high impulses. Much more perfect is the tragedy “Don Carlos”, published in 1787, with the famous Marquis Posa, the bearer of the poet’s cherished ideas and aspirations, the herald of humanity and tolerance. Starting with this play, Schiller, instead of the previous prose form, began to use the poetic form, which enhances the artistic impression .

Friedrich Schiller

(Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller, 1759—1805)

The great German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller was born in Marbach (Duchy of Württemberg) in the family of a military paramedic. His mother was the daughter of an innkeeper. The family often experienced financial difficulties.

In 1773, 14-year-old Schiller, against his wishes, was assigned to a military school, which was later renamed the academy. It trained officers, doctors and lawyers,

In this “nursery of slaves,” as the academy was aptly called, drill reigned, and the students lived in barracks conditions under conditions of severe caning discipline.

Schiller first studies at the law department, and then switches to medicine, but most of all he is interested in literature, history, and philosophy. Despite the desire of his superiors to protect students from dangerous ideological influences, he is interested in the works of French and English educators, especially Rousseau. From German writers he reads Lessing, the odes of Klopstock, and a little later - the first works of Goethe, who immediately became the idol of advanced German youth. Schiller shows great interest in the dramaturgy of Shakespeare and in the Lives of Plutarch, who introduced the young man to the great heroes of antiquity.

Schiller's literary talent was formed within the walls of the academy. In 1776, his poem “Evening” (Der Abend) was published, and here, in secret, he wrote his rebellious drama “The Robbers” (Die Räuber, 1781), which was soon staged with great success on the stage of the Mannheim theater.

In 1780, Schiller graduated from the academy, where he was detained beyond his term “to curb his violent temper.” Later, remembering her, he bitterly declared: “I entered life having experienced a sad, gloomy youth and a heartless, soulless upbringing.”

After graduating from the academy, Schiller was appointed regimental doctor. He still does not have freedom and independence. At every step he felt the despotic will of Duke Karl Eugene, who did not approve of Schiller’s literary hobbies and his freedom-loving thoughts. Even in order to attend the premiere of his "Robbers", he was obliged to obtain the permission of the Duke. For an unauthorized trip to Mannheim, Schiller was put under arrest. Fleeing from the despotism of Karl Eugen, the writer fled from the Duchy of Württemberg in 1782 and hid with his friends. Thus began the difficult years of wandering and poverty, years of persistent literary work. He finishes “The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa” (Die Verschwörung Fiescos zu Genua, 1782) and “Louise Miller,” as the drama “Cunning and Love” (Kabale und Liebe, 1783) was originally called.

The aesthetic views of the early Schiller, who was primarily interested in the problems of theater and drama, were reflected in such literary critical works as “On Modern German theater"(Über gegenwärtige deutsche Theater, 1782), "The theater considered as a moral institution" (Die Schaubuhne als eine moralische Anstalt betrachtet, 1785). Both of them are imbued with the ideas and sentiments of Sturmerism, shared by the early Schiller. Their author is a supporter of topical martial art, directed against the vices of the feudal world. To successfully achieve this goal, the critic demanded simplicity, naturalness, and truth from playwrights. He was an opponent of classicism, which was being implanted in Germany following the example of France. “In Paris,” he wrote, “they love smooth, pretty dolls, in which artificiality has eradicated all bold naturalness.”

The author opposes all rules and conventions, insisting on complete freedom of artistic creativity and its national identity. The writer was a resolute opponent of empty entertaining drama, oriented towards the feudal nobility, the “idlers”. He viewed the theater as a school for the people, and not a place for the antics of “depraved sensualists.”

Schiller is a supporter of theater that educates people in the spirit of Enlightenment ideals. He calls the theater a channel through which the light of truth flows. The theater, according to the author, castigates social vices. “Thousands of vices that remain unpunished are punished by the theater, thousands of virtues that justice is silent about are glorified by the stage.”

Both articles by the young writer testify to the significant influence on him of Lessing, the author of Hamburg Drama.

Schiller's first drama, The Robbers, was created in the last months of his stay at the academy and was completed in 1781. It was written in the spirit of the ideas of Sturm and Drang and has a pronounced rebellious, anti-feudal character. Its epigraph - “Against tyrants” - quite clearly and unambiguously indicated the ideological orientation of the work. Main character hers is the brave rebel Karl Moor, who “openly declared war on the entire society” 1 . At the head of a gang of robbers, he goes into the Bohemian forests to be a threat to tyrants. He has noble intentions, and he interprets robbery as a form of struggle against social injustice. Schiller puts into the mouth of his hero angry words against the arbitrariness of the princes and their ministers.

In German literature before Schiller, there were tyrant-fighting motifs, but they were vague, non-specific and were usually developed not on the material of German reality, but on the facts of the distant past. The playwright resolved this problem using the material of modern reality, and specific people acted as bearers of tyranny and social evil, for example, “an adviser who sold honorary ranks and positions to the one who would give more,” a “vile priest” who “cryed at the decline of the Inquisition.” .

Among those whom Charles punished, the minister is also mentioned. “This ruby,” says Charles, “was taken from the finger of a minister, whom I threw dead at the feet of his sovereign while hunting. Coming from the mob, he achieved the position of first favorite through flattery; the fall of his predecessor served as a stepping stone for him to honor; he emerged on the tears of the orphans he had robbed.” In this minister, contemporaries recognized the Count of Montmartin, who had gained notoriety in the service of the Duke of Württemberg.

Karl Moor hates servility, servility and servility, so widespread in modern Germany. He rejects the hated slave world, and on its ruins he wants to create a republic: “Put me at the head of an army of young men like me, and Germany will become a republic, next to which Rome and Sparta will seem like nunneries.”

But Karl Moor does not have a clear political program; he has an extremely vague and vague idea of ​​the ways in which humanity will come to a just social order. This weakness of the hero's position was explained by the political underdevelopment of Germany, where the third estate was weak, unorganized and did not dare to fight against the feudal world, as was the case in more advanced France.

Karl soon becomes convinced of the error of his chosen path. Individual members of his gang, in violation of the noble ideals proclaimed by Charles, robbed and killed indiscriminately. This shocked Karl. He became disillusioned with banditry: “Oh, I am a fool, who dreamed of correcting the world with atrocities and upholding the laws with iniquity! I called it vengeance and entitlement.”

Having come to the conclusion that robbery is futile, Karl puts himself in the hands of the authorities. The antagonist of Charles is his brother Franz, who personifies all the evil and cruelty of the feudal world. He lacks heart and compassion for people. He has no conscience and no moral principles. In pursuit of an inheritance, he slandered his brother and buried his father alive. With the cruelty of a sadist, he mocked his subjects.

Schiller portrayed Franz as an atheist and a supporter of the philosophy of materialism, which the author mistakenly considered as an expression of noble-bourgeois egoistic aspirations. The backwardness of the socio-political development of Germany left an unfavorable imprint on the views of even such advanced people as Schiller, who did not understand the role of French materialist philosophy in the struggle against the feudal world.

"The Robbers" was enthusiastically received by the majority of German audiences. The play testified to the great talent of the young writer, although it was not difficult to detect his insufficient dramatic experience. The aspiring playwright did not succeed in everything. Karl's conflict with the outside world was revealed mainly in his monologues and remarks, and not in action, as required by the laws of drama. The abuse of rhetoric and the abstractness of the image of Amalia were striking.

While under arrest, Schiller begins work on the tragedy “Cunning and Love,” which became his best work of the Sturm und Drang period. The author observed the prototypes of his characters in the Duchy of Württemberg, where the poet spent his youth, and knew about the outrageous facts of ducal despotism. Karl Eugene did not consider it shameful to trade his subjects, selling them like cannon fodder to foreign armies. He kept Schubart in captivity for ten years. The young playwright felt the Duke’s despotism himself.

From the pages of Schiller's tragedy breathed a passionate hatred of the world of feudal tyranny. No wonder Engels called it “the first German politically tendentious drama” 2 .

The main conflict of the tragedy “Cunning and Love” had a pronounced social, class character. Two worlds are contrasted with each other - the courtier and the third-class, burgher, represented by the family of the musician Miller. The court camp includes the Duke, who is not shown on stage, but whose participation in the intrigues is clearly noticeable. It is he who, in order to satisfy his whims, sells seven thousand of his subjects to America, and when several of them try to grumble, he orders them to be shot immediately.

President von Walter, who gained power thanks to the murder of his predecessor, is a match for the Duke. For the sake of strengthening his high official position, he is ready to commit any abominations and crimes.

The courtly world of crime and low deceit is complemented by the comic figure of Marshal von Kalb, an empty and cowardly talker and gossip, as well as the image of President Wurm's secretary, a cunning and vile intriguer. The insignificance of this person is emphasized by his last name (Wurm - worm), and the surname of the marshal (Kalb - calf) is no less expressive.

The family of the musician Miller is opposed to the world of the nobility. The head of this family is an honest, decent man, filled with a sense of human dignity. He doesn't like that the president's son is courting his daughter. He does not expect anything good from this, while the pride of his narrow-minded wife is extremely flattered by Ferdinand’s attention to Louise. Miller is an opponent of servility and servility; he was not afraid to throw President Walter out the door when he tried to take charge of the musician’s house: “Do government affairs as you wish, but here I am the boss... I will throw the impudent guest out the door. Don't be angry!

Ferdinand, by his origin and upbringing, belongs to the court circle, but he managed to become convinced of the depravity and depravity of this environment. He breaks with her class prejudices: “My concepts of greatness and happiness differ markedly from yours... You achieve prosperity almost always at the cost of the death of another,” he declares to his father. He values ​​people not for the nobility of their origin, but for their moral and mental qualities. Ferdinand was not afraid to go against secular prejudices and gives preference to the modest and warm-hearted Louise, a girl from a bourgeois family. He fights for this love, although he fails to emerge victorious in this fight.

Louise is also a person of modern times. She rises above class prejudices, she has a developed sense of human dignity, and she seems to have the dubious honor of being the maid of the Duke's former mistress Lady Milford, who apparently hoped to flatter Louise with this proposal. However, Louise has not yet overcome social passivity and submissiveness. She submits to the inevitable, as it seems to her, course of events and does not fight for her happiness. This reflected the backwardness and downtroddenness of the third estate of Germany, which was not yet ready to fight for its rights. Ferdinand and Louise die, but morally they win a victory over the world of court careerists and intriguers.

"Cunning and Love" became the pinnacle of realism in the dramaturgy of "Storm and Drang". For the first time in it german life depicted with such depth and authenticity. Compared to The Robbers, Schiller's artistic skill and dramatic technique have increased. The author created more complex characters, overcoming the one-sidedness and straightforwardness of Franz Moor and other characters in the first drama. More complex emotional experiences are characteristic not only of the musician Miller and Louise, but also of other characters. Even President Walter is shown not only as a court careerist and intriguer, but also to a certain extent as a loving father, shocked by the death of his son, from whom he begs forgiveness. Lady Milford is not only a morally corrupt woman, she is not without a certain kindness and pride.

Art has increased speech characteristics heroes. This is most clearly manifested in the speech of Miller, a direct and honest man, but sometimes rude in expressing his feelings.

“Of course, you godless creature! After all, it was you who was chattering about your damn little master this morning,” Miller says to his servile wife. And when she fell to her knees in front of the president, Miller bluntly says: “Kneel before God, old crybaby, and not before... scoundrels!”

Miller's speech contains many folk words and phrases, including Swabian dialectisms.

The plays “The Robbers” and “Cunning and Love” made Schiller a famous playwright not only in Germany. They were soon translated into other European languages. At the end of the 18th century. The plays gained popularity in revolutionary France.

The tragedy of “Cunning and Love” ends the early, Stürmer period in Schiller’s work. The tragedy “Don Carlos” (Don Carlos, 1787), which he began back in 1783, during the period of “Sturm and Drang,” became a transitional stage in his work. As he worked on the play, the poet's views changed, he moved away from Sturmer's ideals, and the original plan underwent significant changes. Nevertheless, the continuity of Carlos with the earlier dramas is easily felt.

“Don Carlos” was written based on the material of Spanish history of the 16th century. The reign of Philip II, when the tragedy takes place, was characterized by the strengthening of the feudal-Catholic reaction in Spain, where the Inquisition acquired decisive importance.

The bearer of the author's views, Schiller's new hero, becomes the Marquis Pose, who, according to the original version, was assigned minor role. Pose is a champion of freedom and justice. He arrives in Spain with the goal of helping the freedom-loving Dutch people, who are trying to get rid of the tyranny of Philip II. He persuades the heir to the Spanish throne, Don Carlos, in whose soul he once sowed “the seeds of humanity and heroic valor,” to go help the Netherlands. Carlos agrees with the proposal of a friend of his youth and begs his father to send him to the Netherlands. But Philip decides differently: he does not trust his son and entrusts this mission to the cruel Duke of Alba, who must mercilessly suppress the uprising.

The pose is a typical enlightener. He places his main hopes not on an uprising (although he does not exclude it), but on education and reform. In this spirit, he tries to influence Philip, persuading him to grant “people freedom of thought.” But Pose's attempts, within the existing social system, to persuade monarchs to carry out liberal reforms failed. During the preparation of the uprising against Philip, Posa dies, struck by a Jesuit bullet, and Carlos is arrested by the king on the eve of his secret escape to the Netherlands.

Schiller's departure from Sturmer ideals was accompanied by a revision of aesthetic principles. Schiller is losing interest in the world of burgher, bourgeois heroes, who now seem flat and wretched to him. He begins to be attracted to tall, bright personalities like Don Carlos, Pose, on whom he pins his hopes as possible saviors of the country, liberators of the people.

The style of drama also changes. He abandons the prose in which the original version of Don Carlos was written. The prose of early dramas with their colloquial vernacular vocabulary interspersed with vulgarisms and dialectisms is replaced by iambic pentameter.

After Don Carlos, Schiller retreated from dramatic work for almost 10 years. In the mid-80s. he writes few poems. Among them, the remarkable ode “To Joy” (An die Freude, 1785) stands out, which is a passionate hymn to friendship, joy, and love. The poet condemns enmity, anger, cruelty and war, calls on humanity to live in peace and friendship:

Hug, millions!
Join in the joy of one!
........................................................

Who saved in the storm of life
The friendship of your friend,
He was faithful to his friend,
Join us in our celebration!

(Translated by I. Mirimsky)

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony ends with a majestic chorus, set to the text of Schiller's ode to Joy.

Schiller's attitude to the events of the French bourgeois revolution of 1789-1794. was complex and contradictory. At first he welcomed her and was proud that the Legislative Assembly of France in 1792 awarded him the title of honorary citizen of the French Republic as a champion of freedom. Subsequently, Schiller, not understanding the need for revolutionary terror, became an opponent of the revolution. But great events forced him to re-evaluate a number of cardinal problems of worldview and creativity. One of these most important questions was the question of the role of the people, their influence on history and on the fate of their homeland. The image of a lone rebel disappears from Schiller’s dramaturgy, and the theme of the people gradually becomes established in it.

Schiller still remains a freedom-loving poet, but he does not imagine achieving freedom in a revolutionary way. He is looking for new non-violent methods to combat social evil.

In the early 90s. Schiller is primarily occupied with philosophical and aesthetic problems. He pays especially much attention to the philosophy of Kant, who had a significant influence on the writer.

Schiller accepted the starting points of Kant's philosophy, but in the course of further searches he more and more clearly discovered his divergence with him. These discrepancies were due to the fact that the German philosopher did not believe in the possibility of realizing freedom, humanistic ideals in reality and transferred their implementation to the other world. The meaning of all Schiller’s quests boils down to the fact that he sought to find ways to achieve freedom, ways to create conditions for the comprehensive development of the individual in real world. Disagreements on this issue predetermined other disagreements.

Schiller's most important theoretical work is “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man” (Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen, 1795). In this programmatic work, the writer touched not only on aesthetic issues, but also tried to answer the most important social problems and find ways to restructure society.

By rejecting violent ways to achieve freedom, Schiller sees the key to resolving the fundamental social problems in aesthetic education. Rough animal instincts do not allow modern people to live in freedom. Humanity needs to be re-educated. The writer considers aesthetic education, the education of people through beauty, to be the decisive means of transforming society. “...The path to freedom leads only through beauty,” here the main idea this work.

The form, beauty and grace of works of art play a large role in aesthetic education. From now on, the poet pays great attention to the finishing of his works. Prosaic youth dramas are being replaced by the poetic tragedies of the mature Schiller.

A significant step in aesthetic development Schiller's work “On Naive and Sentimental Poetry” (Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung, 1795-1796) appeared. For the first time, an attempt is made to explain the connection between aesthetic problems and the development of society. Schiller rejects ahistorical ideas about the immutability of aesthetic ideals, which was widespread in the 17th-18th centuries.

He distinguishes two types of poetry - “naive” and “sentimental”, which arose in different periods human history. The first is typical for the ancient world, the second for the modern world.

The main feature of “naive” poets is the impartial, objective nature of their work. Modern poets subjective, “sentimental”. They put into their works a personal attitude towards the world depicted.

Ancient poetry arose in the unique conditions of childhood of human society, when a person was harmoniously developed and did not feel discord with the world around him.

Modern or “sentimental” poetry develops under completely different conditions. The poet of modern times lives in discord with the world around him, and in his search for beauty, he often breaks away from modernity, which does not meet his ideals.

Schiller's sympathies were on the side of “naive”, ancient poetry.

His passion for ancient literature is reflected in many of Schiller’s works, in particular in his famous poem “The Gods of Greece” (Die Götter Griechenland, 1788), in which mournful thoughts about the death of the ancient world, idealized by the poet, sound with great force.

Yes, they are gone, and all that is inspired,
What’s wonderful, they took with them, -
All the flowers, the entirety of the universe, -
Leaving us only with an empty sound.

(Translated by M. Lozinsky)

Modern reality seems to the poet ugly, devoid of everything beautiful.

In the second half of the 90s. after a long break caused by a spiritual crisis, painful thoughts and the search for new ideals, Schiller returned to artistic creativity. He writes a number of poems devoted to the theme of art and life. In them he develops thoughts raised in his aesthetic works. His poems such as “Ideal and Life” (Das Ideal und das Leben), “The Power of Song” (Die Macht des Gesanges), “Division of the Land” (Die Teilung der Erde), “Pegasus in the Yoke” (Pegasus) became widely known. im Joche) and others.

High poetic skill and extraordinary expressiveness of language are characteristic of the poem “Ideal and Life,” which contains very contradictory tendencies. The poet also expresses thoughts about the discord between art and life and calls for sacrificing everything for the ideal:

Before the highest truth of the ideal
Reject everything that has carried away your spirit.

(Translated by V. Levik)

And at the same time, the poet cannot forget about the suffering of humanity, cannot calmly bliss in the “power of the ideal”;

If brother people groan in grief,
If there is a cry of damnation to the sky,
Writhing in agony, Laocoon sends,
Man, rise up! Let these screams
They will shake the arrogant throne of the ruler...

ABOUT tragic fate the artist in the bourgeois world, unable to understand and appreciate art, is narrated in allegorical form in the poem “Pegasus in the Yoke”. The winged horse Pegasus here finds himself yoked with a bull.

At the end of the 90s. Schiller’s brilliant ballads appear one after another - “The Cup” (the name was given by V. A. Zhukovsky, in Schiller - “The Diver” - Der Taucher), “The Glove” (Der Handschuh), “The Ibyk Cranes” (Die Kxaniche des Ibykus), “Bail” (Die Burgschaft), “Knight Togenburg” (Ritter Toggenburg), talentedly translated into Russian by V. A. Zhukovsky.

In the ballads, the poet glorifies the noble ideas of friendship, loyalty, honor, heroism, self-sacrifice, and the greatness of the human spirit. Thus, in the ballad “Bail” he glorifies friendship, for which he does not stop at any sacrifice; courage and courage are told in the ballads “Glove” and “Cup”.

Schiller's ballads are distinguished by their sharp dramatic plot. With great expressiveness and liveliness, they convey the typical features of the situation and human characters. The spirit of abstraction recedes into the background. As Franz Petrovich Schiller, one of the famous experts on the German poet in our country, rightly noted, it is not difficult to feel that “in all ballads one can feel the hand of a brilliant playwright.”

At the end of the 18th century. Schiller creates the famous poem “The Song of the Bell” (Das Lied von der Glocke, 1799), which is strikingly contradictory in its ideological content. The content of the poem is the poet’s thoughts about work, about people’s happiness, about ways to reorganize life. At the beginning, its author sings a hymn to the work that adorns a person, which is the basis of human life:

Labor is the adornment of peoples
And protection from need.

(Translated by I. Mirimsky)

The tireless hands of workers are casting a bell that will herald happiness, unity and peaceful labor:

Let it be heard louder, wider
His first call for peace.

But the poet depicts happiness in the form of a quiet burgher idyll.

In contrast, it depicts a picture of a fire breaking out, destroying everything in its path. In this rather transparent allegory, the author hinted at the French Revolution, which he interpreted as an outburst of dangerous passions and wild animal instincts. The poet speaks with alarm about the times when the bell “gives a call to violence.” He does not approve of such a situation in which

The people themselves destroy the dungeons
And the chains break into dust.

Schiller did not always show such political timidity and himself repeatedly called on the oppressed to break their chains.

Since 1787, Schiller has lived in Weimar, where, on the advice of Goethe, he was invited by the Duke of Weimar. The friendship of the two German geniuses, which left an exceptionally deep mark on the soul of each of them, did not strengthen immediately. Too much separated them from each other, they looked at many things differently. Therefore, in the first years of life in Weimar, strained and distrustful relations are established between them. Goethe had somewhat earlier moved away from the ideas of Sturm und Drang, and he did not like Schiller's Stürmer dramas. Later, he also disapproves of Schiller's passion for Kant's philosophy, the abstract and speculative nature of which, in Goethe's opinion, interfered with poetic creativity. Tete himself had a spontaneous, materialistic perception of life. In the future, these differences gradually decrease; instead of alienation, warm friendship comes, which helped the poets’ creative searches. Schiller was especially indebted to this friendship, whom Goethe tactfully and tirelessly encouraged to creativity, more closely connected with life.

Traces of this influence are noticeable in the ballads that Schiller wrote in friendly competition with Goethe, and in the renewed dramatic work, and above all in the Wallenstein trilogy. “It’s amazing how much realism this recently ended year has brought me, how much has developed in me from constant communication with Goethe and from working on the ancients,” the poet reported in 1796 in a letter to W. Humboldt.

The Wallenstein trilogy (Wallenstein, 1797-1799) is one of Schiller's most remarkable works. He worked on it much longer than on his other works. The process of hatching and thinking about the idea was very long. However, this should not be surprising if we consider that Wallenstein opened new stage in the playwright’s work, that the trilogy was written mainly in a new artistic manner.

The broad historical concept associated with the events of the Thirty Years' War required an objective depiction of characters and settings. A subjective approach to the matter could only harm the plan. Schiller's long occupation with history, his large historical works "The History of the Fall of the United Netherlands" (Die Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten Niederlande, 1788), "The History of the Thirty Years' War" (Die Geschichte des Dreissigjährigen Krieges, 1792) were quite good preparatory school to create Wallenstein. Studying history developed the habit of sticking to specific facts and giving real motivations for events.

The first part of the trilogy, Wallensteins Lager, was published in 1798. It is significant that it begins with a scene in which a peasant is taken out with his son. Schiller depicted with great sympathy the fate of the German peasant, driven to complete ruin by the war. A peasant watches the drunken revelry of the soldiers, who behaved in Germany as if they were in a conquered country. He is full of hatred for the military, who ruined the simple farmer:

Look, they're leaving! Oh my God!
At the man's expense, they probably ate their belly.

(Translated by L. Ginzburg)

This is such a problem - you're going straight into a noose,
There is nothing to eat, even gnaw at your bones.

In the first part of the trilogy, the playwright truthfully, vividly, truly in a Shakespearean manner, recreates the motley background of the war era, draws colorful images of soldiers. The hero of “Camp” is the mass of soldiers. Crowd scenes could also be found in Schiller’s early dramas, for example in “The Robbers,” but the poet lacked the ability to revive this mass, which sometimes appeared static and faceless. Things were different in the “Camp”.

The army is the basis of the power and influence of Wallenstein, a prominent commander of the Thirty Years' War. All his secret plans and projects are connected with her. Therefore, before depicting Wallenstein, the poet shows the soldiers of the camp. The commander himself does not appear in the first part of the trilogy. Brightly outlined, memorable images pass before the audience: here are seekers of easy money and adventure, and peculiar rebels.

Wallenstein gives the soldiers greater freedom of action and turns a blind eye to their misdeeds and acts of looting. He wants to keep the army behind him at all costs, since as long as the soldiers follow him, the Austrian court is powerless against him.

In “Camp” we are faced not with a faceless mass of soldiers, but with a series of aptly captured realistic images. The figure of the First Huntsman is very colorful, a young man who has seen a lot. He doesn't care who he serves. Looking for where they paid better, he visited various armies, including the Swedish one. The First Cuirassier is not like this soldier with adventurous habits. This is a broad nature; soldier’s life attracts him with its comparative freedom and will. He is rather indifferent to wealth and honors. The first cuirassier sympathizes with the common people; he himself does not commit outrages and does not loot. “I don’t rob my neighbors, I don’t expect an inheritance,” he declares with dignity. Among the soldiers, the image of the Sergeant-major is remembered, for whom war became a craft that, however, did not bring him luck. He is corrupted by the war and looks contemptuously at the common man, calling him a “stupid snout.”

Schiller is primarily a tragic poet, but in “Camp” he created a number of bright comic images. The image of Capuchin leaves an unforgettable impression, especially his famous speech, in which he denounces the reckless revelry of the soldiers in a very unique manner. Not inferior to Capuchin in liveliness and vitality is the canteen Gustel, an experienced woman, broken and at the same time calculating.

Changes in the writer's creative method, the desire to depict the era in a more objective, realistic manner were reflected in the language. “Camp” is characterized by simplicity and clarity of speech. The author finds characteristic words to recreate a variety of characters - peasants, soldiers, townspeople, canteens. Never before in any of his works has Schiller achieved such mastery in using all the riches of the national language. Nowhere else have original, fresh, expressive folk speech and folk humor been felt with such force.

It is no coincidence that Thomas Mann, in his famous “Tale of Schiller,” noted the amazing art of “Camp Wallenstein”, its “virtuoso light, playful scenes in which the historical situation is unusually clearly revealed, as if lights flashing by chance, illuminating the era, and where every word is characteristic, behind each image the whole rises to its full height” 3.

The second part of the trilogy “Piccolomini” (Piccolomini, 1799) depicts Wallenstein and his inner circle - generals, officers and members of his family.

The playwright showed great skill in unfolding the action. It develops quickly and purposefully, clearly and precisely. Despite the large number of images, complexity and richness of content, there is nothing superfluous in the trilogy. During the four days during which the action takes place, many big events occur in the trilogy. The tension of the action is achieved due to the fact that the author depicts the last climactic moment in the development of events. The crisis is ripe, and the author in the first scenes makes it clear that the denouement is approaching.

In the center of these rapidly developing events stands the image of Wallenstein, a complex and contradictory nature. He is an outstanding commander and politician, capable of soberly assessing the situation. In a short time, he was able to create a large army, ready to follow him into any battle. The army won many victories and was able to resist the strong Swedish army. Great power is concentrated in the hands of Wallenstein. He was even given the right to conclude a truce and peace.

In covering these events, Schiller diverged from contemporary historical science. Bourgeois literary scholars have long identified the playwright’s individual discrepancies with history, but they have overlooked some of the most important features of this trilogy. In it, the author showed more historical flair than contemporary science. In Wallenstein's activities he was able to grasp an important progressive trend of the era. Regardless of what motives the commander was guided by, he, according to Schiller, wanted to put an end to the national disaster. He sought to conclude peace, to create a strong centralized state that would prevent general collapse, anarchy and lawlessness.

About the common good
I'm just thinking. After all, I am not heartless;
Our people's misfortune and grief
It hurts me to see...
The war has been burning for fifteen years now
Tirelessly and everything is not coming to an end.

(Translated by K. Pavlova)

However, Schiller was far from the idea of ​​portraying Wallenstein as a noble and selfless fighter for the unification of Germany and for ending the war. In one of his letters, he speaks quite clearly on this matter: “I must belittle Wallenstein himself in your eyes as a historical figure. The historical Valleishteyi was not great, the poetic one should not become great either.”

Schiller showed Wallenstein with all his contradictions and made him a typical son of his era. His noble thoughts are mixed with ambitious, adventurous intentions. He resorted to deception and treachery, entering into secret negotiations with the Swedes, hoping with their help to become the king of Bohemia.

The tragic denouement comes in the last part, “The Death of Wallenstein” (Wallensteins Tod, 1799). With all his cunning, Wallenstein did not notice that Octavio, whom he mistakenly considered his best friend, gradually undermined his influence.

Quite a lot of space in the trilogy is devoted to Max and Tekla, but if most of the images were written in a lively, realistic manner, then the images of Max and Tekla cannot be considered among the author’s successes. Their presence in the trilogy was explained mainly by the author's subjective intentions.

In "Wallenstein" the author poses, along with socio-historical conflicts. moral and philosophical, inspired by modernity, as well as Kantian philosophy. This explains the appearance ideal images Max and Tekla, who are opposed to the world of lies, hypocrisy, cruelty and immorality.

The trilogy was clear evidence of the poet's increased artistic skill. Goethe, who read the trilogy in parts as it was written, expressed his opinion about the first acts in such expressive words: “The two acts of Wallenstein are excellent and had such an effect on me upon first reading that they left absolutely no doubts.”

“Maria Stüart” (1800) is a socio-psychological tragedy. There are no broad social pictures in it; the world depicted by Schiller is limited mainly to court circles.

The tragedy begins at the moment when Mary's fate is already decided. She was given a death sentence. Maria has only a few hours left to live.

Schiller took the trial and the entire backstory of the Scottish queen beyond the tragedy. Only from words characters We learn about her brilliant but scandalous past, when she was involved in the murder of her husband, for which she lost the Scottish throne.

Maria, as depicted by Schiller, is by no means innocent. She has crimes on her conscience. But she suffered so much over the long years of imprisonment in an English prison that she largely redeemed herself. She changed her mind about a lot of things and looked back critically at her past. Maria changed for the better, suffering ennobled her. She is not without spiritual beauty. She has sincerity, sincerity, which Elizabeth so lacks.

A false accusation was brought against Maria, to confirm which false witnesses were used. As one of Maria’s jailers put it, “this inquiry was not conducted with complete decency.”

The democratism of Schiller's position was manifested primarily in his merciless denunciation of the injustice and cruelty of the absolute monarchy, which opened up unlimited possibilities for arbitrariness. This is not only an indictment of the Queen of England, but also a debunking of the very principle of monarchical rule.

With great skill and psychological depth The author depicted Mary and Elizabeth. Every step, every mental movement in the behavior of these complex characters is motivated. Schiller has never been able to convey the dialectic of the female soul so subtly and convincingly.

The image of Elizabeth is also psychologically complex. She is not just hypocritical, she has the qualities necessary for a great statesman - strong will, energy, insightful mind. The range of her internal experiences is complex: here are concerns related to her state affairs, and purely feminine feelings of envy and hostility towards a more beautiful and younger rival.

The great victory of realism in the tragedy is that in the conflict between Elizabeth and Mary, Schiller managed to reflect acute socio-political contradictions, the struggle between the forces of reformation and counter-reformation. Elizabeth and Mary represent two opposing trends of the era. Conflict between them is inevitable. Even while under the strictest guard in captivity, Mary is connected with the Vatican, with the Jesuits, seeking to free her from prison and elevate her to the English throne. In the same way, behind Elizabeth stands Protestant England, which has no sympathy for the Catholic Mary and fears

that only Stuart will reign,
Will fall under the yoke of the pope again.

(Transl. N, Vilmonta)

Although in this chamber tragedy the theme of the people is not the main one, it is outlined quite clearly. The author touches on the issue of the people at the most acute moment, when the struggle for royal power flared up in England and the rivalry between the two queens intensified.

"Mary Stuart" is one of Schiller's most perfect tragedies, written during the heyday of his dramatic genius. After its completion, the poet, not without pride, declared that he had now “mastered the craft of a playwright.”

In none of his works did he achieve such mastery in composition, in the psychological revelation of characters, nowhere did he manage to create such purposeful and intense dramatic action. The task was all the more difficult because the author did not resort to special dramatic effects, did not strive to amaze with the extraordinary intrigue and complexity of the action.

The romantic tragedy “The Maid of Orleans” (Die Jungfrau von Orleans, 1801) depicts the national liberation struggle of the French people against the foreign invaders, the British, during the Hundred Years' War. The national heroine of this war was the peasant girl Joan of Arc. Schiller showed that the salvation of France was brought not by the king and the noble nobility, but by ordinary people.

The image of Joan of Arc evoked a variety of interpretations. The clergy first burned her as a witch at the stake, and later declared her a saint. Voltaire, fighting the obscurantism and fanaticism of the clergy, went to the other extreme and portrayed Joan in deliberately frivolous tones.

Schiller set as his goal to rehabilitate Jeanne, to show all the greatness of her feat, her patriotism.

The tragedy constantly contrasts the heroism and selflessness of ordinary people with the cowardice and selfishness of the French aristocracy. The author showed the complete demoralization that gripped court circles, starting with the king himself. The weak-willed and unlucky Charles VII abandoned his army and country to the mercy of fate, deciding that further resistance was useless. He retired from business, devoting his time to gallant adventures. Following his example, the court nobility scatters, and some of its representatives, including the Duke of Burgundy, are already fighting against France, on the side of its English enemies.

At this difficult moment for France, Joanna appears. Schiller emphasizes her closeness to the people, her inextricable connection with them. Joanna considers herself a representative of the common people. The welfare of the people is above all else for her. For his sake, she is ready to make any sacrifice. “Even if I die, my people will win,” she says.

But the topic of the people, their influence on the course historical events found a contradictory expression in the tragedy. Joanna is overly elevated above the people, who are often a faceless background. The people are not shown in action. The heroine’s connection with him is weak. Joanna appears alone, as the chosen one of heaven. She completely loses the features of a real, living person. Only after going through difficult trials and suffering does Joanna become more humane.

The inconsistency in the depiction of Joanna and in the interpretation of the role of the people was explained by a number of circumstances. At the same time, one cannot fail to take into account the peculiarities of the playwright’s plan, who sought to romantically elevate the heroine, elevate her, and tear her away from everything ordinary. It would be more difficult for the author to achieve this by depicting the heroine in an ordinary setting.

But this circumstance does not explain all the features of the interpretation of the image of Joan. Schiller's ideological development was complex and contradictory, and the path to a correct understanding of the role of the people was not easy or direct, especially in the conditions of backward Germany. In addition, contemporary social and philosophical thought led the poet away from the correct solution to this issue.

A certain inconsistency in the implementation of the plan of “The Maid of Orleans” was expressed in the composition of the tragedy. It develops two conflicts, two actions: a socio-historical and moral conflict, occurring in the soul of Joanna. The decisive conflict is social-historical; it is revealed mainly in the first two acts of the tragedy, depicting the events of the national liberation war.

In the last two acts in the foreground - internal conflict between duty and personal feeling - Joanna’s love for the English military leader Lionel, resolved in the spirit of Kantian philosophy.

The parallel development of two conflicts in the tragedy damaged the ideological and artistic integrity of the work. Although the moral conflict in Joanna’s soul did not overshadow the main, socio-historical one, the latter was not revealed fully and specifically enough.

“The Maid of Orleans” appeared after “Wallenstein” and “Mary Stuart”, but it was written in a completely different artistic manner from them. In “The Maid of Orleans” the author largely departed from the realistic principles in the spirit of which the two previous tragedies were created. An explanation for this fact should be sought both in the originality of the ideological and artistic concept of the tragedy, and in the ongoing search of the playwright, in the evolution of his worldview.

Schiller himself called “The Maid of Orleans” a romantic tragedy, but the poet’s attitude towards the romantic movement, of which he was a contemporary in his mature years, was complex and contradictory. For Schiller, the very manner of the romantics, their creative method, was in many ways unacceptable. As an educator, he was a supporter of clarity, precision, and certainty. He condemned the vagueness, confusion and formlessness of the romantics. However, Schiller did not remain deaf to the romantic trends of his era; he pays a well-known tribute to them, especially in The Maid of Orleans.

There is a lot of wonderful and magical things in tragedy. To a certain extent, this corresponded to the spirit of the Middle Ages. Joanna's religiosity and her belief in miracles reflected the ideas of the people of that era. The play contains mystical scenes that defy explanation (the appearance of the Black Prince, the prophecy of Joanna, etc.).

The romantic element manifests itself not only in the mystical flavor, but also in the subjective lyrical spirit that dominates the tragedy. The poet often puts into the heroine’s mouth his thoughts and experiences that are not in harmony with the psychology of the peasant girl. But, as S.V. Turaev rightly noted, “the experience of creating a romantic tragedy undoubtedly enriched Schiller, but did not make him a romantic” 4 .

The tragedy quite clearly shows the imprint of “Weimar classicism” with its characteristic tendency to create ideal characters, devoid of everything private, everyday, and everyday.

"Wilhelm Tell" (Wilhelm Tell, 1804) - the last completed drama, a fitting conclusion creative path Schiller. In it, the writer sums up his many years of reflection on the fate of the people and homeland. The work was a kind of poetic testament of the playwright.

William Tell was conceived from the very beginning as a folk drama. The poet wrote about the nature of his plan in a letter dated August 18, 1803: “William Tell” is very interesting to me now... The topic is generally very attractive and, due to its national character, is very suitable for the theater.” The very content of the drama was folk, based on the legend of the marksman Tell, widespread among some European peoples. Tales about him were often found in Switzerland, Germany, and France.

William Tell was above all a beloved hero folk art the Swiss, who associate his name with the liberation of their homeland from Austrian rule. It was in Switzerland that all kinds of stories, legends and songs about Tell were most widespread.

The main issues posed in the drama - winning freedom for the people, national unity and independence - were of paramount importance both for modern Germany and for the future of all peoples. Its true hero is the Swiss people: farmers and shepherds, fishermen and hunters, stonemasons and laborers. Tell is one of the ordinary representatives of the common people. In the drama, he is highlighted, but not separated from the people, not opposed to them, not elevated to a pedestal, like Joanna in The Maid of Orleans. Here Schiller took a big step forward in a more correct understanding of the historical role of the people.

In "William Tell" Schiller's skill in creating crowd scenes was fully revealed. One of the central and most striking is the scene on Rütli, where representatives of three Swiss cantons gathered. The playwright with great skill managed to revive this scene and move a large number of people.

Among those gathered, the people's leaders Stauffacher, Fürst, and Melchthal stood out. These peasants took the initiative in uniting the inhabitants of the cantons to fight against the Austrian yoke. One of the founders of this movement was Stauffacher, an intelligent and quite courageous man.

The image of Tell is depicted with the greatest completeness and artistic completeness. He is a typical representative of his people. It, like a mirror, reflected strong and weak features. folk character, which can be understood based on specific social conditions.

Tell is a man of great soul, firm and courageous. Hunting, constant risk and danger strengthened his character. Exposing himself to great danger, he saves Baumgarten, who was being chased by the governor's reiters, from reprisal. Tell, without hesitation, comes to the aid of the persecuted, for, in his words, “the thought of oneself is the last thing for the brave.”

The playwright also depicted the weak points of his hero’s character. Long-term subordination to despotic power did not leave its mark on such a strong character as Tell. At first, he expresses thoughts that do not fit with the appearance of a courageous man. In a conversation with Stauffacher, he declares: “Tolerate, to remain silent - the whole feat now lies in this.” Or: “Let everyone at home live in silence: whoever is peaceful himself will be left in peace.”

Schiller showed with great insight the individualistic isolation of Tell's peasant psychology. He was used to working alone, relying only on his own strength. He has a poorly developed sense of collectivism. It was no coincidence that he was absent from Rütli, where the most important decisions were made. According to Tell, “the one who is strong is the strongest.”

When solving the problem of the national liberation movement, Schiller took into account the experience of the French Revolution. It was clear to him that the times of feudalism were already over, and the nobility had to give up their privileges. It is not for nothing that Rudenz at the end of the play grants freedom to his serfs.

Accepting the anti-feudal orientation of the French Revolution, Schiller did not overcome his ambivalence towards the methods of its implementation. He still had a negative attitude towards the revolutionary practices of the Jacobins. This explains the repeated condemnation of the “extremes” of the revolution, emphasizing the bloodless liberation of the Swiss. And even in the scene on Rütli, breathing the pathos of freedom, the author noted the peaceful nature of the intentions of the Swiss, the moderation of their demands:

Our goal is to overthrow the hated oppression
And defend ancient rights,
Bequeathed by ancestors. But we
We do not unbridledly pursue the new,
Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's,
And let the vassal bear his duty as before.

(Translated by N. Slavyatinsky)

This episode revealed the poet’s inconsistency in the interpretation of the revolution, which he allows as a last resort, when “all peaceful means have been exhausted.” But the pathos of the liberation movement sounded so strongly in the drama that it drowned out many of the reservations that accompany the “permissibility” of the uprising.

Bourgeois literary scholars, trying to weaken the socio-political sound of William Tell, are trying to transfer the consideration of the drama to an ethical level. This is what, for example, the modern West German Schiller scholar Reinhard Buchwald does, considering drama in the spirit of “eternal” moral categories. For him, Schiller appears as a harmless fighter for eternal, ahistorical, “ideals obligatory for all” 5 .

In the last months of his life, Schiller worked on the tragedy from Russian history “Demetrius” (Demetrius, 1805). He managed to write the first two acts and sketch out the general plan further development plot. The tragedy was based on the story of the short-term rise and fall of False Dmitry. His tragedy was that he acts as an unwitting deceiver, who at first sincerely believes in his royal origin. Later he learns that he himself was mistaken and deceived others, becoming a tool in the hands of foreigners who came to Rus' as invaders.

The play touched upon the theme of the influence of the people on the fate of the country, the ruler of the state. Through the mouth of Sigismund the idea is expressed that

Violent ruler to the people
Don't force it if he doesn't want it.

(Translated by L. Mey)

Schiller's work quite early, during the poet's lifetime, became famous in Russia. The first translations of his works appeared at the end of the 18th century, and in the first half of the 19th century. Almost all works of art have already been translated into Russian.

Among the translators of the German writer are the greatest Russian poets Derzhavin, Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Lermontov, Fet, Tyutchev.

The poet enjoyed the greatest popularity in progressive circles of Russian society. Belinsky called him “the noble advocate of humanity” and noted his hatred of “religious and national fanaticism, prejudices, bonfires, the scourges that divide people.”

Schiller's poetry was in tune with revolutionary democratic circles with its freedom-loving pathos. “Schiller’s poetry seems to be dear to us,” wrote Chernyshevsky. The German poet, according to the critic, became “a participant in our mental development.” It is appropriate to note that interest in the works of the German writer in the past especially increased during the years of strengthening of the liberation movement of the Russian people.

The great popularity of Schiller in the first years of the existence of the Soviet state is described on the pages of K. Fedin’s novel “An Extraordinary Summer” and in A. Tolstoy’s trilogy “Walking Through Torment.”

The plays of the German writer occupy a strong place in the repertoire of Soviet theaters; “Mary Stuart” has been staged especially often in recent years.

Notes

1 See: K. Marx and F. Engels on art, vol. 1. M., 1975, p. 492.

2 See K. Marx and F. Engels on art, vol. 1, p. 9.

3. Mann T. Collection. op. in 10 volumes. M., 1961, vol. 10, p. 570.

4 History German literature, vol. 2, p. 388.

5 Buchwald R. Schiller in unserer Zeit. Weimar, 1955, S. 214.

Friedrich Schiller (1759 - 1805) - German poet, playwright, historian, art theorist. A younger contemporary of Goethe, Schiller continued to develop the ideas of the Sturm und Drang movement, actively spreading the Enlightenment in Germany and, following Goethe, laying the foundations of a new German literature. The names of Goethe and Schiller are always spoken together when talking about German culture.

Schiller was born in the city of Marbach, Duchy of Württemberg, into a family that came from the lower strata of the burghers: his father was a regimental paramedic, and his mother was the daughter of a baker-innkeeper. The low origin of the future poet could become an obstacle to receiving a decent education, but young Schiller with his abilities attracts the attention of Duke Charles of Württemberg and thanks to this he enters the Military Academy founded by the Duke. Schiller's talent for writing emerged during his apprenticeship, and after training, having received the position of paramedic, the young man completely devoted himself to his literary calling.

Schiller's first major literary achievement was the tragedy "The Robbers". The production of the play in the city of Mannheim in the neighboring Duchy of the Palatinate turned out to be a turning point in Schiller's entire life: he absented himself from the premiere without the Duke's permission to travel outside the state, was punished and soon fled from Württemberg.

So Schiller chose literary work as his field. In the 1780s, following the artistic ideas of Sturm und Drang, Schiller focused his writing interest on depicting eternal human qualities, such as the ability for love and fidelity or the manifestation of anger and hatred, entailing inevitable betrayals and crimes. The peculiarity of Schiller's approach to these topics is that the moral nature of man is shown by the writer on modern characters, in modern living conditions, on a national basis. His first drama-tragedies “The Robbers” (1781) and “Cunning and Love” (1783-1784) are about this. The last play is also a typical work of the “philistine drama” genre, in which the life and morals of ordinary burghers were presented. Using historical subjects, such as the “Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa” (1784), Schiller expressed his political and moral views through them.

In 1785, at first glance, a small but very significant event for Schiller’s entire work occurred: he composed the poem “Ode to Joy,” which, being set to Beethoven’s music, became one of the greatest works of art. In the 20th century, "Ode to Joy" was adopted by the European Union as its official anthem.

In 1788, Schiller was introduced to the already eminent writer Goethe, with whose support he received the opportunity to teach history at the University of Jena. As a history professor, Schiller collects materials, analyzes them, trying to present the objective course of history in his works. The most authoritative historical essay Schiller's "History of the Thirty Years' War" is about the first pan-European war during the Reformation. In addition, Schiller also wrote a number of philosophical articles and treatises on art and literature.

Since 1799, Schiller settled in Weimar and there, together with Goethe, was engaged in publishing activities and together with him directed the then famous Weimar Theater. There was even a period of creative rivalry between the two great poets: in 1797, they composed ballads, competing in the skill and significance of the works. Schiller’s ballads “The Cup”, “The Glove”, “Ivikov’s Cranes”, “Polycrates’ Ring” date back to this time. These works entered Russian poetry in excellent translations by Zhukovsky and Lermontov (“The Glove”).

In the last years of his life, the writer sought to find in poetic form the possibility of combining the ideal with life, which is reflected in the beauty and sublimity of Schiller's poetry, as well as the enormous influence that it had on subsequent poetry. Thus, young Lermontov learns poetic skills from Schiller, studying and translating his poems.

In 1805, Schiller became seriously ill and died suddenly at the age of forty-five.

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller. Born November 10, 1759 in Marbach am Neckar - died May 9, 1805 in Weimar. German poet, philosopher, art theorist and playwright, professor of history and military doctor, representative of the Sturm und Drang and Romanticism movements in literature, author of “Ode to Joy”, a modified version of which became the text of the anthem of the European Union. He entered the history of world literature as a defender of the human personality.

During the last seventeen years of his life (1788-1805) he was friends with Johann Goethe, whom he inspired to complete his works, which remained in draft form. This period of friendship between the two poets and their literary polemics entered German literature under the name “Weimar classicism.”

The surname Schiller has been found in Southwestern Germany since the 16th century. Friedrich Schiller's ancestors, who lived for two centuries in the Duchy of Württemberg, were winemakers, peasants and artisans.

His father - Johann Caspar Schiller (1723-1796) - was a regimental paramedic, an officer in the service of the Duke of Württemberg, his mother - Elisabeth Dorothea Kodweis (1732-1802) - from the family of a provincial baker-innkeeper. Young Schiller was brought up in a religious-pietistic atmosphere, which was echoed in his early poems. His childhood and youth were spent in relative poverty.

In 1764, Schiller's father was appointed recruiter and moved with his family to the town of Lorch. In Lorge the boy received elementary education from local pastor Moser. The training lasted three years and mainly included learning to read and write in their native language, as well as familiarity with Latin. The sincere and good-natured pastor was later immortalized in the writer’s first drama "Robbers".

When the Schiller family returned to Ludwigsburg in 1766, Friedrich was sent to the local Latin school. The curriculum at school was not difficult: Latin was studied five days a week, the native language on Fridays, and catechism on Sundays. Schiller's interest in studies increased in high school, where he studied the Latin classics -, and. After graduating from the Latin school, having passed all four exams with excellent marks, in April 1772 Schiller was presented for confirmation.

In 1770, the Schiller family moved from Ludwigsburg to Solitude Castle, where Duke Karl Eugene of Württemberg established an orphanage institute for the education of soldiers' children. In 1771, this institute was reformed into a military academy.

In 1772, looking through the list of graduates of the Latin school, the Duke drew attention to the young Schiller, and soon, in January 1773, his family received a summons, according to which they had to send their son to the military academy “Higher School of Charles Saint”, where Frederick began study law, although since childhood I dreamed of becoming a priest.

Upon entering the academy, Schiller was enrolled in the burgher department of the Faculty of Law. Due to a hostile attitude towards jurisprudence, at the end of 1774 the future writer found himself one of the last, and at the end of the 1775 academic year - the very last of eighteen students in his department.

In 1775, the academy was moved to Stuttgart and the course of study was extended.

In 1776, Schiller transferred to the medical faculty. Here he attends lectures by talented teachers, in particular, a course of lectures on philosophy by Professor Abel, a favorite teacher of academic youth. During this period, Schiller finally decides to devote himself to poetic art.

From the first years of study at the Academy, Friedrich became interested in the poetic works of Friedrich Klopstock and the poets "Sturm and Drang", began to write short poetic works. Several times he was even offered to write congratulatory odes in honor of the Duke and his mistress, Countess Franziska von Hohenhey.

In 1779, Schiller's dissertation "Philosophy of Physiology" was rejected by the leadership of the academy, and he was forced to stay for a second year. Duke Karl Eugene imposes his resolution: “I must agree that the dissertation of Schiller’s student is not without merit, that there is a lot of fire in it. But it is precisely this last circumstance that forces me not to publish his dissertation and to hold on for another year at the Academy so that his heat will cool down. If he is just as diligent, then by the end of this time he will probably turn out to be a great man.”.

While studying at the Academy, Schiller wrote his first works. Influenced by the drama "Julius of Tarentum" (1776) by Johann Anton Leisewitz, Friedrich writes "Cosmus von Medici"- a drama in which he tried to develop a favorite theme of the literary movement "Sturm und Drang": hatred between brothers and the love of a father. At the same time, his enormous interest in the work and style of writing of Friedrich Klopstock prompted Schiller to write the ode “The Conqueror,” published in March 1777 in the journal “German Chronicle” (Das schwebige Magazin) and which was an imitation of his idol.

Friedrich Schiller - Triumph of Genius

Finally, in 1780, he graduated from the Academy course and received a position as a regimental doctor in Stuttgart, without being awarded an officer rank and without the right to wear civilian dress - evidence of the duke's disfavor.

In 1781 he completed the drama "Robbers"(Die Räuber), written by him during his stay at the Academy. After editing the manuscript of the Robbers, it turned out that not a single Stuttgart publisher wanted to publish it, and Schiller had to publish the drama at his own expense.

The bookseller Schwan in Mannheim, to whom Schiller also sent the manuscript, introduced him to the director of the Mannheim Theater, Baron von Dahlberg. He was delighted with the drama and decided to stage it in his theater. But Dahlberg asks to make some adjustments - to remove some scenes and the most revolutionary phrases, the time of action is transferred from modern times, from the era Seven Years' War in the 17th century.

Schiller opposed such changes; in a letter to Dahlberg dated December 12, 1781, he wrote: “Many tirades, features, both large and small, even characters are taken from our time; transferred to the age of Maximilian, they will cost absolutely nothing... To correct the mistake against the era of Frederick II, I would have to commit a crime against the era of Maximilian,” but nevertheless, he made concessions, and “The Robbers” was first staged in Mannheim January 13, 1782. This production was a huge success with the public.

After the premiere in Mannheim on January 13, 1782, it became clear that a talented playwright had come to literature. The central conflict of "The Robbers" is the conflict between two brothers: the elder, Karl Moor, who, at the head of a gang of robbers, goes into the Bohemian forests to punish tyrants, and the younger, Franz Moor, who at this time seeks to take possession of his father's estate.

Karl Moor personifies the best, brave, free principles, while Franz Moor is an example of meanness, deceit and treachery. In “The Robbers,” like no other work of the German Enlightenment, the ideal of republicanism and democracy extolled by Rousseau is shown. It is no coincidence that it was for this drama that Schiller was awarded the honorary title of citizen of the French Republic during the French Revolution.

At the same time as The Robbers, Schiller prepared for publication a collection of poems, which was published in February 1782 under the title "Anthology for 1782"(Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782). The creation of this anthology is based on Schiller’s conflict with the young Stuttgart poet Gotthald Steidlin, who, claiming to be the head of the Swabian school, published "Swabian Almanac of the Muses for 1782".

Schiller sent Steidlin several poems for this edition, but he agreed to publish only one of them, and then in an abridged form. Then Schiller collected the poems rejected by Gotthald, wrote a number of new ones, and thus created the “Anthology for 1782,” contrasting it with the “almanac of the muses” of his literary opponent. For the sake of greater mystification and raising interest in the collection, the city of Tobolsk in Siberia was indicated as the place of publication of the anthology.

For his unauthorized absence from the regiment in Mannheim for a performance of The Robbers, Schiller was put in a guardhouse for 14 days and was prohibited from writing anything other than medical essays, which forced him, along with his friend, the musician Streicher, to flee from the Duke’s possessions on September 22, 1782 years in the Margraviate of the Palatinate.

Having crossed the border of Württemberg, Schiller headed to the Mannheim theater with the prepared manuscript of his play "The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa"(German: Die Verschwörung des Fiesco zu Genua), which he dedicated to his philosophy teacher at the Academy, Jacob Abel.

The theater management, fearing the displeasure of the Duke of Württemberg, was in no hurry to begin negotiations on staging the play. Schiller was advised not to stay in Mannheim, but to go to the nearby village of Oggersheim. There, together with his friend Streicher, the playwright lived under the false name Schmidt in the village tavern "Hunting Yard". It was here in the autumn of 1782 that Friedrich Schiller made the first sketch of a version of the tragedy "Cunning and Love"(German: Kabale und Liebe), which is still called “Louise Miller”.

At this time Schiller is typing "The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa" for a meager fee, which he spent instantly. Finding himself in a hopeless situation, the playwright wrote a letter to his old acquaintance Henriette von Walzogen, who soon offered the writer her empty estate in Bauerbach.

He lived in Bauerbach under the name "Dr. Ritter" from December 8, 1782. Here Schiller began finishing the drama “Cunning and Love,” which he completed in February 1783. He immediately made a sketch of a new historical drama "Don Carlos"(German: Don Karlos). He studied the history of the Spanish infanta from books from the library of the Mannheim ducal court, which were supplied to him by a librarian he knew. Along with the history of “Don Carlos,” Schiller then began to study the history of the Scottish queen Mary Stuart. For some time he hesitated which of them he should choose, but the choice was made in favor of “Don Carlos”.

January 1783 became a significant date in the private life of Friedrich Schiller. The mistress of the estate came to Bauerbach to visit the hermit with her sixteen-year-old daughter Charlotte. Friedrich fell in love with the girl at first sight and asked her mother for permission to marry, but she did not give consent, since the aspiring writer did not have a penny in his pocket.

At this time, his friend Andrei Streicher did everything possible to arouse the favor of the administration of the Mannheim Theater in favor of Schiller. The director of the theater, Baron von Dahlberg, knowing that Duke Karl Eugene has already given up the search for his missing regimental medic, writes a letter to Schiller in which he is interested in literary activity playwright.

Schiller responded rather coldly and only briefly recounted the content of the drama “Louise Miller.” Dahlberg agreed to stage both dramas - “The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa” and “Louise Miller” - after which Friedrich returned to Mannheim in July 1783 to participate in the preparation of the plays for production.

Despite the excellent acting, The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa was overall not a great success. The Mannheim theater audience found this play too abstruse. Schiller took on the reworking of his third drama, Louise Miller. During one rehearsal, theater actor August Iffland suggested changing the title of the drama to “Cunning and Love.” Under this title, the play was staged on April 15, 1784 and was a huge success. “Cunning and Love,” no less than “The Robbers,” glorified the author’s name as the first playwright in Germany.

In February 1784 he joined "Kurpfalz German Society", led by the director of the Mannheim theater Wolfgang von Dahlberg, which gave him the rights of a Palatinate subject and legalized his stay in Mannheim. During the poet’s official admission into society on July 20, 1784, he read a report entitled “The Theater as a Moral Institution.” The moral significance of theater, designed to expose vices and approve of virtue, was diligently promoted by Schiller in the magazine he founded "Rhine Waist"(German: Rheinische Thalia), the first issue of which was published in 1785.

In Mannheim, Friedrich Schiller met Charlotte von Kalb, a young woman with outstanding mental abilities, whose admiration brought the writer much suffering. She introduced Schiller to the Weimar Duke Karl August when he was visiting Darmstadt. The playwright read to a select circle, in the presence of the Duke, the first act of his new drama Don Carlos. The drama had a great impact on those present.

Karl August granted the author the position of Weimar adviser, which, however, did not alleviate the disastrous state in which Schiller was. The writer had to repay a debt of two hundred guilders, which he borrowed from a friend to publish The Robbers, but he did not have the money. In addition, his relationship with the director of the Mannheim Theater deteriorated, as a result of which Schiller broke his contract with him.

At the same time, Schiller became interested in the 17-year-old daughter of a court bookseller, Margarita Schwan, but the young coquette did not show clear favor to the aspiring poet, and her father hardly wanted to see his daughter married to a man without money and influence in society. In the fall of 1784, the poet remembered a letter that he had received six months before from the Leipzig community of fans of his work, led by Gottfried Körner.

On February 22, 1785, Schiller sent them a letter in which he frankly described his plight and asked to be received in Leipzig. Already on March 30, a friendly response came from Körner. At the same time, he sent the poet a promissory note for a significant amount of money so that the playwright could pay off his debts. Thus began a close friendship between Gottfried Körner and Friedrich Schiller, which lasted until the poet’s death.

When Schiller arrived in Leipzig on April 17, 1785, he was greeted by Ferdinand Huber and sisters Dora and Minna Stock. Körner was in Dresden on official business at that time. From the first days in Leipzig, Schiller yearned for Margaret Schwan, who remained in Mannheim. He addressed her parents with a letter in which he asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Publisher Schwan gave Margarita the opportunity to resolve this issue herself, but she refused Schiller, who was grieving this new loss. Soon Gottfried Körner arrived from Dresden and decided to celebrate his marriage to Minna Stock. Warmed by the friendship of Körner, Huber and their friends, Schiller recovered. It was at this time that he created his anthem "Ode to Joy" (Ode An die Freude).

On September 11, 1785, at the invitation of Gottfried Körner, Schiller moved to the village of Loschwitz near Dresden. Here “Don Carlos” was completely reworked and completed, a new drama “The Misanthrope” was begun, a plan was drawn up and the first chapters of the novel “The Spiritualist” were written. This is where his "Philosophical Letters"(German: Philosophische Briefe) is the most significant philosophical essay of the young Schiller, written in epistolary form.

In 1786-87, through Gottfried Körner, Friedrich Schiller was introduced to Dresden secular society. At the same time, he received an offer from the famous German actor and theater director Friedrich Schröder to stage Don Carlos at the Hamburg National Theater.

Schröder's proposal was quite good, but Schiller, remembering the past unsuccessful experience of cooperation with the Mannheim Theater, refuses the invitation and goes to Weimar - the center of German literature, where Christoph Martin Wieland earnestly invites him to collaborate in his literary magazine "German Mercury" (German. Der Deutsche Merkur).

Schiller arrived in Weimar on August 21, 1787. The playwright's companion on a series of official visits was Charlotte von Kalb, with whose assistance Schiller quickly met the greatest writers of the time - Martin Wieland and Johann Gottfried Herder. Wieland highly appreciated Schiller's talent and especially admired his last drama, Don Carlos. From the first acquaintance, the two poets established close friendly relations that lasted for many years. Friedrich Schiller went to the university town of Jena for several days, where he was warmly welcomed in the literary circles there.

In 1787-88, Schiller published the magazine "Thalia" (German: Thalia) and at the same time collaborated in Wieland's "German Mercury". Some works of these years were begun in Leipzig and Dresden. In the fourth issue of “Talia” his novel was published chapter by chapter. "Spirit Seer".

With the move to Weimar and after meeting major poets and scientists, Schiller became even more critical of his abilities. Realizing the lack of knowledge, the playwright withdrew from artistic creativity for almost a whole decade in order to thoroughly study history, philosophy and aesthetics.

Publication of the first volume of the work "The History of the Fall of the Netherlands" in the summer of 1788 brought Schiller fame as an outstanding researcher of history. The poet's friends in Jena and Weimar (including J. W. Goethe, whom Schiller met in 1788) used all their connections to help him obtain the position of extraordinary professor of history and philosophy at the University of Jena, which during the poet's stay in that city was experiencing period of prosperity.

Friedrich Schiller moved to Jena on May 11, 1789. When he began lecturing, the university had about 800 students. The introductory lecture entitled “What is world history and for what purpose is it studied” (German: Was heißt und zu welchem ​​Ende studiert man Universalgeschichte?) was a great success. Schiller's listeners gave him a standing ovation.

Despite the fact that his job as a university teacher did not provide him with sufficient financial resources, Schiller decided to end his single life. Having learned about this, Duke Karl August assigned him a modest salary of two hundred thalers a year in December 1789, after which Schiller made an official proposal to Charlotte von Lengefeld, and in February 1790 a marriage took place in a village church near Rudolstadt.

After the engagement, Schiller began work on his new book "History of the Thirty Years' War", began working on a number of articles on world history and again began publishing the magazine “Rhenish Waist”, in which he published his translations of the third and fourth books of Virgil’s Aeneid. Later, his articles on history and aesthetics were published in this magazine.

In May 1790, Schiller continued his lectures at the university: in this academic year he publicly lectured on tragic poetry, and privately on world history.

At the beginning of 1791, Schiller fell ill with pulmonary tuberculosis. Now he only occasionally had intervals of several months or weeks when the poet would be able to work calmly. The first attacks of the disease in the winter of 1792 were especially severe, because of which he was forced to suspend teaching at the university. This forced rest was used by Schiller to become more familiar with philosophical works.

Unable to work, the playwright was in an extremely bad financial situation - there was no money even for a cheap lunch and the necessary medicine. At this difficult moment, on the initiative of the Danish writer Jens Baggesen, Crown Prince Friedrich Christian of Schleswig-Holstein and Count Ernst von Schimmelmann assigned Schiller an annual subsidy of a thousand thalers so that the poet could restore his health. Danish subsidies continued from 1792-94. Schiller was then supported by the publisher Johann Friedrich Cotta, who invited him in 1794 to publish the monthly magazine Ory.

In the summer of 1793, Schiller received a letter from his parents' home in Ludwigsburg, informing him of his father's illness. Schiller decided to go with his wife to his homeland to see his father before his death, to visit his mother and three sisters, with whom he separated eleven years ago.

With the tacit permission of the Duke of Württemberg, Karl Eugen, Schiller came to Ludwigsburg, where his parents lived not far from the ducal residence. Here, on September 14, 1793, the poet’s first son was born. In Ludwigsburg and Stuttgart, Schiller met with old teachers and past friends from the Academy. After the death of Duke Karl Eugene, Schiller visited the military academy of the deceased, where he was enthusiastically greeted by the younger generation of students.

During his stay in his homeland in 1793-94, Schiller completed his most significant philosophical and aesthetic work “Letters on the aesthetic education of man”(German: Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen).

Soon after returning to Jena, the poet energetically set to work and invited all the most outstanding writers and thinkers of the then Germany to collaborate in the new magazine “Ory” (German: Die Horen). Schiller planned to unite the best German writers into a literary society.

In 1795, Schiller wrote a cycle of poems in philosophical topics, close in meaning to his articles on aesthetics: “The Poetry of Life”, “Dance”, “Division of the Earth”, “Genius”, “Hope”, etc. The leitmotif through these poems is the thought of the death of everything beautiful and truthful in a dirty, prosaic world . According to the poet, the fulfillment of virtuous aspirations is possible only in an ideal world. The cycle of philosophical poems became Schiller's first poetic experience after almost a ten-year creative break.

The rapprochement of the two poets was facilitated by Schiller's unity in his views on the French Revolution and the socio-political situation in Germany. When Schiller, after a trip to his homeland and return to Jena in 1794, outlined his political program in the journal Ory and invited Goethe to participate in the literary society, he agreed.

A closer acquaintance between the writers occurred in July 1794 in Jena. At the end of the meeting of natural scientists, going out into the street, the poets began to discuss the contents of the report they had heard, and while talking, they reached Schiller’s apartment. Goethe was invited to the house. There he began to expound with great enthusiasm his theory of plant metamorphosis. After this conversation, a friendly correspondence began between Schiller and Goethe, which was not interrupted until Schiller’s death and constituted one of the best epistolary monuments of world literature.

The joint creative activity of Goethe and Schiller was, first of all, aimed at theoretical understanding and practical solution of the problems that arose for literature in the new, post-revolutionary period. In search of an ideal form, poets turned to ancient art. In him they saw the highest example of human beauty.

When new works by Goethe and Schiller appeared in the “Ors” and “Almanac of the Muses,” which reflected their cult of antiquity, high civic and moral pathos, and religious indifference, a campaign began against them from a number of newspapers and magazines. Critics condemned the interpretation of issues of religion, politics, philosophy, and aesthetics.

Goethe and Schiller decided to give a sharp rebuff to their opponents, subjecting to merciless flagellation all the vulgarity and mediocrity of contemporary German literature in the form suggested to Schiller by Goethe - in the form of couplets, like Martial’s “Xenias”.

Beginning in December 1795, for eight months, both poets competed in creating epigrams: each answer from Jena and Weimar was accompanied by "Ksenia" for viewing, review and addition. Thus, through joint efforts, between December 1795 and August 1796, about eight hundred epigrams were created, of which four hundred and fourteen were selected as the most successful and published in the Almanac of the Muses for 1797. The theme of “Xenia” was very diverse. It included issues of politics, philosophy, history, religion, literature and art.

They covered over two hundred writers and literary works. “Xenia” is the most militant of the works created by both classics.

In 1799 he returned to Weimar, where he began publishing several literary magazines with money from patrons. Having become a close friend of Goethe, Schiller together with him founded the Weimar Theater, which became the leading theater in Germany. The poet remained in Weimar until his death.

In 1799-1800 Schiller finally writes a play "Mary Stuart", the plot of which occupied him for almost two decades. He gave the most vivid political tragedy, capturing the image of a distant era, torn apart by the strongest political contradictions. The play was a great success among its contemporaries. Schiller finished it with the feeling that he had now “mastered the craft of a playwright.”

In 1802, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II granted Schiller nobility. But he himself was skeptical about this, in his letter dated February 17, 1803, writing to Humboldt: “You probably laughed when you heard about our elevation to a higher rank. It was our Duke’s idea, and since everything has already been accomplished, I agree to accept this title because of Lolo and the children. Lolo is now in her element as she twirls her train at court.”

Last years Schiller's life was overshadowed by serious, protracted illnesses. After a severe cold, all the old ailments worsened. The poet suffered from chronic pneumonia. He died on May 9, 1805 at the age of 45 from tuberculosis.

Schiller's main works:

Schiller's plays:

1781 - "Robbers"
1783 - “The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa”
1784 - “Cunning and Love”
1787 - “Don Carlos, Infante of Spain”
1799 - dramatic trilogy “Wallenstein”
1800 - “Mary Stuart”
1801 - “The Maid of Orleans”
1803 - “The Bride of Messina”
1804 - “William Tell”
"Dimitri" (was not finished due to the death of the playwright)

Schiller's prose:

Article "Criminal for Lost Honor" (1786)
"The Spirit Seer" (unfinished novel)
Eine großmütige Handlung

Philosophical works of Schiller:

Philosophie der Physiologie (1779)
On the relationship between man's animal nature and his spiritual nature / Über den Zusammenhang der tierischen Natur des Menschen mit seiner geistigen (1780)
Die Schaubühne als eine moralische Anstalt betrachtet (1784)
Über den Grund des Vergnügens an tragischen Gegenständen (1792)
Augustenburger Briefe (1793)
On grace and dignity / Über Anmut und Würde (1793)
Kallias-Briefe (1793)
Letters on the aesthetic education of man / Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen (1795)
On naive and sentimental poetry / Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung (1795)
On amateurism / Über den Dilettantismus (1799; co-authored with Goethe)
On the sublime / Über das Erhabene (1801)

Historical works of Schiller:

History of the Fall of the United Netherlands from Spanish Rule (1788)
History of the Thirty Years' War (1791)