SCHILLER, Friedrich. - German lyric poet and dramatist, b. at Marbach in Württemberg on 10 Nov. 1759, d. at Weimar on 9 May 1805. His father served for a long time in the army; his mother, of humble condition, had the education and religion of the heart. Having completed his early studies with great profit, Friedrich was admitted in 1773 to the military school of Solitude, where he studied law and later medicine; but neither these studies nor the rigid discipline of the institution suited his temperament and aspirations. Intolerant of every restriction and of every specialized study, he preferred to devote himself to reading the classics and the major modern poets, thus nurturing that vocation for poetry which soon revealed itself with irresistible force.
After some lyrical and dramatic attempts, at the age of eighteen, to the astonishment and admiration of his companions, he wrote his first great tragedy: *Die Räuber*, full of undisciplined impetuosity and powerful lyrical fervor, which, despite its exaggerations and improbabilities, displays a disordered aspiration for individual freedom above and even against every moral law. This was followed by the historical tragedy *Die Verschwörung des Fiesko* and the bourgeois tragedy *Luise Millerin*, later entitled *Kabale und Liebe*, two dramatic works belonging, like the first, to the *Sturm und Drang* period, in which the reflection of the literary conditions of the time is evident.
After a few years *Don Carlos* appeared, Schiller’s most tormented work. Conceived initially as a family tragedy—the Infante’s insane passion for his stepmother, Queen Elisabeth—it had evolved into an exaltation of political faith, in which the figure of the Marquis of Posa looms large as the representative of the poet’s political-humanitarian ideal. With the publication of this work, a broad parenthesis opens in Schiller’s dramatic production until 1797. During this period, apart from many lyrics, there is a series of theoretical writings in which the principles of a moral aesthetics are expounded, and historical writings, though lacking rigorous method with regard to the research and criticism of sources.
The series of dramatic masterpieces begins with the *Wallenstein* trilogy, in which the poet gives mature affirmation of his genius, achieving, in conformity with long-meditated artistic canons, a human representation idealized by historical elements. In the two subsequent tragedies: *Maria Stuard* and *Die Jungfrau von Orléans*, the dramatic action moves even further from historical reality, while in the latter there is no lack of that marvelous and supernatural element which in Greek tragedy is represented by the *deus ex machina*. In both, the poet is chiefly concerned with portraying human characters. *Die Braut von Messina* may be defined as a *Schicksalstragödie*, but here Schiller does not transcend to the desolate conclusions contained in such dramas so as not to deny free will. His last tragedy is *Wilhelm Tell*—*Demetrius* remained unfinished—which marked a complete victory from its first performance (1804). Tell, an imaginary character, loves nothing but his family, his homeland, and his freedom, and represents the defender of natural law; only when this is offended does he rebel and kill the tyrant who denies and tramples upon that right. In this work, the two great loves of Schiller’s life are wonderfully synthesized: his love for the beauties of nature and his love for freedom.
An ethical idealism also inspires Schiller’s lyrics, from those written in his youthful *Sturm und Drang* period, in which, despite the outbursts of a fiery and rebellious temperament, there is already a sense of aspiration toward a higher ideal of humanity, culminating in the celebrated *Lied von der Glocke*. After the poet’s death, this poem received an epilogue written by Goethe, in which he affirmed that the light which had illuminated the spirit of his unforgettable lost friend had long since become the faith of thousands of men.
Schiller’s entire work sums up and expresses the aspiration of the German soul toward an ideal of life and superior humanity. His dramas and lyrics are dominated by an ethical principle, by a single moral idea. It would be difficult to deny in the poet instinctive impulses of sympathy for his heroes who transgress moral law, especially for Mary, guilty of every sin, and even for Karl Moor, driven beyond the limits of every wickedness and perversion; yet even in this dark tragedy there is the foreshadowing of the inspiring idea of his later dramas: the dream of political and human redemption of the Marquis of Posa, the inner conflict of Wallenstein, the stirrings of Maria’s moral conscience, the yearning for sacrifice and resurrection of Joan—all heroes and heroines closely bound to a single ethical reality. Man—according to Schiller, whose thought follows in Kant’s footsteps—achieves true conquest of freedom, that is, full possession of humanity and harmony of spirit, only through the complete revelation of the categorical imperative of his own conscience. But such conquest necessarily implies struggle and suffering. All Schiller’s heroes struggle and suffer thus for their own and others’ freedom, because the poet, himself thirsting for freedom, even when he often indulges the impetus of their passions, never deprives them of the flame of his faith and the sense of moral responsibility. In reality, therefore, it is always the elevation of the individual and, consequently, of humanity that is the goal to which the poet aspires, in which he believes, and which kindles his sentiment and his imagination. Hence the ideal unity of his entire work.