Professor David Peimer
Friedrich Schiller: What Made him as Great as Goethe?

Professor David Peimer - Friedrich Schiller: What Made him as Great as Goethe?

- So today we are going to dive into Friedrich Schiller, one of the great poets of German history and obviously German language and regarded in his own time, and since his time, to be pretty close up there to Goethe and at the height of German romanticism and German romantic poetry and what he’s doing with the language as well. So Schiller is not that well known in the English-speaking world because I think a lot of the translations are really quite hard to do and because he’s at the height possibly of the romantic era. I mean, I guess many of us have read or studied Byron and Keats, Shelley, some of the English language romantic poets, but Schiller is right up there, in his own world really, knowing of the English writers, and, of course, completely with Goethe, a very good friend of Goethe’s. They talk a lot, they meet a lot, they incredibly close friends intellectually, artistically. Goethe is the one whose name, I think, has transcended globally because of “Faust” and just because the sheer range of Goethe’s mind and interests, ranging everything, from science to art, to literature, to politics, and that Goethe was such a high up. He was virtually a prime minister of the principality that he lived in. Schiller, and the other sad thing about Schiller was that he dies pretty young, as we can see from his dates, from tuberculosis. So his life is almost cut much shorter.

Goethe goes on to have a much longer life. The other person that is so important around this period, French Revolution, post the French Revolution, and romanticism and looking after that, is, of course, the remarkable German playwright Buchner, Georg Buchner. And Buchner died even younger of TB. He was 25, almost 25 when he died. And just given a couple of players, Danton’s death, a disillusioned reflection back on the ideals of the French Revolution, liberty, quality, fraternity, and the Danton, Robespierre, Marat clash between how much violence do you accept or not in order to foster the ideals of the French Revolution. And Danton’s death is a savage critique of the reign of terror of Robespierre, the violence, and Robespierre putting to death Danton. And then six months later, Robespierre himself was put to death, the guillotine. Anyway, Buchner is regarded as, in a way, the great-grandfather, if you like, of modern theatre because the scenes are so short and brief, and it’s such a restless energy in the writing. It translates much better, so many more of his plays are done. Schiller, and Goethe to a degree, Schiller, I think it’s much harder. The translations and the poetry is much more romantic, but the plays are not quite as romantic in the language. They are quite, they have been done quite a bit more in the English-speaking world, and I’m going to come to the reason why I think. It’s partly the language, but also it’s because his plays are primarily highly political, quite different from ideas of the Enlightenment and others, which he’s obviously part of, but his plays deal with Mary, Queen of Scots, Don Carlos.

These are some of the main plays. “The Robbers,” which I’m going to come onto, Mary Stuart of Scots, “William Tell,” Wilhelm, “The Wallenstein,” “Don Carlos.” These are the main plays that he wrote in his fairly short life, and they’re very directly political plays where he is not scared to take on Machiavellian politics, the nuance of politics, relationships, and the great ideas post-French Revolution, because, of course, French Revolution is the absolute change of this entire period, sparking Schiller, Goethe, and many others. So French Revolution of 1789, and then the disillusionment that comes afterwards, and, of course, Napoleon’s conquest, Napoleon coming after the French Revolution, conquering parts of Germany and so on. So Schiller is caught in this extraordinary historical time as is Goethe and Buchner and the others. And this extraordinary historical time imbued with the dreams or perhaps ideals of the French Revolution, dismantling the power of the church, total rethinking of the power of the state, certainly eradication of the power of divine right, divine rule of kings, and so on. So he, Schiller, they’re all part of this sweeping Europe, of course. Schiller is even more imbued with the romantic poetry movement of Goethe, which was called, of course we know, Sturm und Drang, Storm and Stress or Storm and Anxiety, the sort of very heightened emotional expression. And where it comes from is partly a reaction to the Enlightenment because the Enlightenment is pushing reason to rule over religion and reason over divine right of kings and over religion, the absolute power of these other forces, and reason to take over with the Enlightenment, as we all know.

And Schiller and Goethe and Buchner and the others are then saying, “Well, where does emotion fit in? What are we going to do about human emotion?” And for them, they try to find a way to still privilege the expression of emotion and passion and not just pure reason as called for by some of the Enlightenment philosophers. And we see them bringing this in. It brings, ironically, in Schiller and some of the others, a kind of nostalgic hearkening to some of religious or Christian mythology in the poetry and Catholic mythology more specifically. So ironically, aspects of the religion come back, but not in the absolutist sense of they are set up as the ruling power, the ruling ideology of the culture. So it’s quite complex in this way, but these are the ideas swirling around Europe, of course, and these writers, what are they going to believe in? How are they’re going to, what future do they see? And of course, the beginning stirrings of German nationalism, because with the outpouring of emotion later, which is what Goethe wanted so much, which I mentioned last week, was German unification, and with that, a rising sense of German nationalism. And I guess lastly is this celebration of the German language itself with so many hundreds of principalities, but trying to bring in, when I was talking about the Grimms, the Brothers Grimm, and Goethe trying to bring in a so-called ordinariness to the poetic language as opposed to the very heightened language.

But Schiller is much more on the line of more heightened poetic language and that way is different to Goethe and some of the others, and certainly Buchner. So I don’t know how much of it can be really read today, but he’s so important because of the German, the romantic poet movement. We know that from some of the English examples that I mentioned, Byron and the others. So that’s in a way, if you like, the context of Schiller, and important because he would be in touch with these other, you would know of the other writers. He’s absolutely imbued with Shakespeare, with religion, despite himself, and with the ideas of Goethe and the others, the remarkable friendship between the two. He’s a playwright, he’s a philosopher, he’s a poet. He grew up in a very religious Protestant family and spent many, many hours of his youth studying the Bible endlessly. His father wanted him to become a priest. He studied medicine, and he becomes a professor of literature and philosophy at university and so on. He suffered from many illnesses until finally dying of TB in 1805. He’s read Rousseau. He’s read the ancient Greeks. He’s read and discussed the classics and the classical writers with Goethe and many of the others. All of this is cooking and burning in Germany at the time.

At school, he wrote his first play, “The Robbers,” which I’m going to come to today, which he developed later as well. Very political play about two aristocratic brothers. And the older one is called Karl, who leads a group of rebellious students into a forest in Bohemia, and they become Robin Hood type bandits. And then he’s got the younger brother, Franz, who wants to inherit the father’s rich estate and schemes the way to get rid of the brother and anybody else, and get all the money from the father’s estate. And the play is a savage critique of corruption and money , and the, let’s put it, the unjust ways of using the money of the father. And it’s a critique of the revolutionary ideals of the revolution. The one brother becomes a Robin Hood type character, and the other one a very, a very strong schemer and obsessed with money. So republican ideals versus capitalism, really, but in the two brothers. So it’s set up as a family drama with all the politics inside it, and the two siblings almost, or they are absolutely the key characters. And he’s one of the first to take on these huge political ideas going on and put them inside two brothers. When the play was first performed, the Mannheim, the German audience was astonished, astounded, because of that combination of brothers, family, and these huge political ideas but not in political diatribe and didactic and boring, but inside the passions, the romantic passions of the two brothers. That play made him an overnight sensation in Germany. And later, because of this play, the French Republic made him an honorary member of the French Republic.

Because of this play and because when it was first done, “The Robbers,” Schiller wanted to attend, but he was doing a stint in the army at the time. He went AWOL and left his regiment to go to the opening. He was arrested, 14 days in prison, and he flees and goes to Stuttgart. So these guys are not scared to stand up for their beliefs. They go to prison, they do this, they do that, they flee. They keep moving around. They’re living the life of their beliefs really. Then he goes to Weimar, and in Weimar he has an affair with an army officer’s wife, which creates havoc there. He has to flee again . I mean, these guys are trying to live the romantic passion of the romantic movement of poets. Anyway, finally he settles in Weimar, and in 1789 he was appointed professor of history and philosophy in Weimar. That’s where he wrote only historical works, he and Goethe because Goethe was virtually the prime minister at the time of this area. They found the Weimar theatre, and Schiller becomes, which becomes one of the leading theatres in Germany, and it helped lead to a huge renaissance in German theatre and drama, Buchner, Schiller, Goethe himself, and others. Those are the three biggest names, but others are writing. Schiller becomes, he’s ennobled, as they would say, in 1802 by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, and he’s allowed to add the von in front of his name. I’ve left it out here, but he’s allowed to add it on in 1802, Friedrich von Schiller, which means, of course, he can be part of nobility. And then three years later, tragically he dies of TB.

So that’s briefly an outline, a sense. Looking at this image is so important of Schiller because it captures obviously so much, which is it was very, very stereotypically and mythologically German, but it’s also the sense of the romantic poet and the visionary and all of that, that we see in the image. This is of him much later in his life. This is fairly soon before his death, where he’s already suffering from tuberculosis and a lot of other illnesses that he had in his life. These are three statues. There are probably more statues for Schiller, or maybe together with Goethe, than any other German writer. And these are three just taken at random from Stuttgart, Weimar and Vienna, where we see, and all over we will see statues of Schiller, more for the poetry, I think, than the drama. The German-American community of New York donated a bronze sculpture of Schiller to Central Park in 1859, which was the first statue of any author or writer or poet in New York City. There’s a Schiller Park in Columbus, Ohio. There’s a Schiller statue in Detroit, Michigan. We can go on and on. In 2008, one of the main European TV channels voted Schiller as the most important playwright of Europe after Shakespeare. Whether we agree or disagree, it’s just trying to get a sense of his place in theatre and poetry, really, in European theatre and poetry. He wrote many other philosophical papers, especially on ethics and aesthetics, literature and art, and especially on poetry. The influence of Immanuel Kant is huge critique of pure reason. And what he tries to do, Schiller, is work on the idea of what is the soul and this idea of the beautiful soul in the romantic movement.

And it comes up with this idea that emotions can be educated by reason, what I said right at the beginning, not to go for pure reason, which is the ultimate ideal or dream of the Enlightenment philosophers, but how emotion can be educated, illuminated by reason so that what you call duty and desire could have far less of a conflict. Well, the conflict between duty and desire, much less of a conflict. He’s trying to figure out ideas in the Enlightenment philosophy, linking aesthetics and poetry. So beauty for Schiller is not just an aesthetic experience, and this is the key: but it’s a moral one. Beauty is a moral experience not only an aesthetic experience for Schiller, coming out of Kant’s ideas and some of the other romantic writers, so that good is actually seen as beautiful and beautiful, good. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” We all know the great English poem, but here it would be good is beauty and beauty is good. So Schiller is trying to shift the emphasis in a very, what we might say, very idealistic way today and romantic way, but he’s trying to bring morality and aesthetics together, really. In this way, he, and Goethe also, go back to the ancient Greeks and trying to understand their sense of what is beauty. There’s the body, there’s nature, there’s other things. All of this comes into it, so how beauty can be extended into the idea of good. Of course, what is good is for another philosophical debate and times.

Okay, what he includes, “What is life without the radiance of love?” and love, of course, is good, and therefore love is beauty. Beauty in the philosophical sense of the romantics, not in the sense we might have it of today. So it’s radiant, it’s love, it’s romanticism. It’s this idea of beauty. The other thing he brings in is the idea of enchanted nature, and, of course, Christian, especially Catholic mythology, has to come in because we’re using the word good. So what is good? So he brings in some, not completely, but some ideas of Christianity in this notion what good as beauty means. So, “Live with your century, but do not be its creature.” One of the great phrases of Schiller, trying to position the writer as being linked to the ancient Greeks of Homer, the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey,” those remarkable poems. The ancient Romans and their poetry, Virgil and others, Dante, the remarkable Italian poet, et cetera. We can go on, Shakespeare. So, “Live with your century, but do not be its creature,” because he and Goethe, they harken back to ancient times to bring about a renaissance in Europe and, of course, especially Germany, of literature, of idealistic, of ideals and romanticism. And these questions of what is beauty, what is truth, what is love, what is poetry, what is literature? All of that. What is nationalism? All of these things, they’re buzzing with these questions, these guys.

Okay, these are the three main play, the four, the five main plays that he wrote. A lot of other plays, many poems, before his death at age of 45. The other thing that he’s obsessed with in his poetry and plays is, what is freedom? Because if beauty can be good, can you have goodness without freedom? So where does freedom lie, all of these very romantic notions. And one has to see through the lens of romanticism. “The Robbers,” play about Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I, “William Tell,” “The Wallenstein Trilogy,” which is about the Thirty Years’ War and the Netherlands. And then, of course, sorry, “Don Carlos,” which is the revolt of the Dutch or the Netherlands against the Spanish rule. Quite a few essays he wrote on freedom. And I’m trying to understand, as they all did at this time, the conflict between one’s own instincts, primal animal instincts, and the drive for self-preservation through that compared to self-sacrifice, self-preservation versus self-sacrifice, and how does one play out the conflict between the two? And it goes through Goethe, Schiller. It goes through “Faust” and many others. So “The Robbers,” as I mentioned, is quintessential play and part of the Sturm und Drang movement. It really puts two brothers against each other almost in alternating scenes.

One is is hungry for money and power. The other one is trying to create a revolutionary anarchy in the Bohemian Forest. So he’s playing with satirising the hypocrisy of class, religion, and, of course, the ultimate theme is economic inequality of German society, of the times that he sees it, the very title robbers. So this play probably made his name, well, it did make his name in in Europe and in Germany and globally the fastest. And then “Mary Stuart” and then “Don Carlos” are probably the three most well-known and performed plays. There’s another one which I haven’t put in here, but it’s “Intrigue and Love,” which is about an aristocrat and the daughter and the conniving father. It’s almost a, it’s a variation of a “Romeo and Juliet.” But again, he pushes inside it economic inequality and the ideals of romantic love compared to, compared to a financially-driven father. Then it’s also interesting, the one interesting thing in Act 2 of “Intrigue and Love” is just a short couple of scenes on anti-British parody because he depicts a firing squad massacre, where young Germans who refuse to join the Hessians and the British against American revolutionaries are shot in a massacre, so young Germans who are refusing to fight on the side of the American revolutionaries. So anyway, he brings that in. It’s not an amazing scene, but it’s there. Yeah, he’s so aware of what’s happening all over the world, and I think Johannes Heine loved Schiller’s work because he said he was one of the first German poets to be truly internationalist, truly global thinker, and that he loved freedom and was looking for it in his poetry. So then “Don Carlos” is an historical drama.

It’s loosely based on the real Don Carlos of Spain. But in Schiller, Don Carlos is a republican figure who is trying to flee from Flanders, well, from Netherlands, and from the despotic grip of his father, King Philip, Spanish king. And it’s all about freedom and democracy and human rights and get away from the tyrannical rule of the bad king, of the evil king, if you like. “The Wallenstein Trilogy” is a series of plays about a treasonous commander during the Thirty Years’ War, et cetera. All political themes. He’s one of the first to take historical political themes and turn them into human family stories almost and tell the historical story through the family, going back to the ancient Greeks and trying to bring in the politics. “Mary Stuart,” which is a fascinating play, and a fantastic production was done recently in England, which I’m going to show some images of a bit later, but “Mary Stuart” is about the history of the Scottish Queen, who was, of course, as you all know, Elizabeth I’s rival. Elizabeth I around the time of Shakespeare and before. And he shows Mary Stuart as a tragic heroine and Elizabeth as much more conniving, manipulative, and Mary Stuart is as the more romantic believer in freedom for the Scottish against the English, et cetera. So it’s remarkable how he’s taking these historical figures, is of course putting his own interpretation and his own portrayal of character and the bigger political aims. He shows that Elizabeth is really the ruthless politician, much more ruthless than Mary, and that Mary is more misunderstood, tragic, heroic figure almost in the play.

And of course, he’s playing with Scotland and England at the time, not so far from our times in terms of the ideas. And then “The Maid of New Orleans” is another play he wrote about Joan, pardon me, about Joan of Arc, which we can go on and on. This guy just didn’t stop. He wrote an essay on the aesthetics in education, which is inspired by the disenchantment of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror and how to degenerate it into violence and the failure of its ideals to be put into practise. And Schiller wrote of the French Revolution, and he wrote this in a letter to Goethe: “A great moment has found a little people.” A great moment has found a little people. And I think there was a quote about Mundella. Mundella has big shoes and then Becky has little feet, if I may say. But Schiller, “Great moment has found a little people.” We can go on. He goes on about with Immanuel Kant’s ideas, et cetera. Beethoven, Beethoven, I’m sure everybody knows, takes Schiller’s poem “Ode to Joy,” he sets it to music. It’s Beethoven’s life that goes into, that he’s taking from Schiller. And “Ode to Joy,” he uses all of Schiller’s words. And Beethoven said a great poem is much more difficult to set to music than a merely good one ‘cause a composer has got to rise to the heights of the poet. And who can do that in the case of Schiller? In this sense, Goethe is much easier. He’s playfully putting Goethe down and saying, “Mr. Schiller is the greater poet.” And Beethoven right up there.

And when I gave the talk on Goethe, there was that idea of that scene between Beethoven and Goethe because they didn’t get on at all, those two. So Beethoven saw himself as the individualist, the composer and the rise of individualism, human rights and the right of the artist. And there’s this image of them, of Beethoven and Goethe meeting outside a spa in a small town in Germany. Whether that’s legend or true, not sure, but it captures the essence, where Beethoven, there’s a group of royals who are standing outside the hotel of the, the little hotel in the spa. And the royal family is there, and Beethoven just pushes his way through. The royals part like the Red Sea so the great composer can walk through, and they bowed and doff their hats to the great artist. But Schiller stands back, and he is full of decorum, and he very gently bends. He bows to the royals. They don’t bow for him. He’s deferential and so on. Sorry, Goethe is deferential and takes off his hat. So Goethe, because he’s virtually, he’s working right at the top of government for one of the kings, the local dukes and kings in Germany, so Goethe is much more under the influence of royal patronage ultimately and needs it. Beethoven is pushing for the romantic idea of the individual and the artist who rises above royal patronage.

Anyway, whether it’s story or legend or truthful, it captures the dislike Beethoven and Goethe had for each other. Schiller is closer to Goethe in that sense because he gets so disenchanted with what has happened with the French Revolution, but he’s constantly trying to find how freedom can still be lived in a state and a society. All of these ideas are permeating, no solution, but what’s fascinating is these guys are meeting and talking and writing and sharing what’s going on in their culture so much. They’re so connected to what’s happening. They’re certainly not ivory tower writers. They are literally connected, and they’re engaged with all the different factions of power in society. Beethoven sets an “Ode to Joy,” as we know. Brahms sets the choral setting in “Nanie.” Schubert set 44 of Schiller’s poems to music. Verdi adopted, I think, four of five of his plays for opera. “The Robbers,” Verdi adapted. “The Maid of Orleans” about Joan of Arc. “Intrigue and Love,” “Wallenstein,” “Don Carlos,” great amazing version that Verdi has. So these great composers are taking Schiller’s poetry and plays and using them for the libretto in their work. Tchaikovsky in 1881 based his opera “The Maid of Orleans” on Schiller’s work. So why is it that so many of these remarkable composers take Schiller’s poetry, Schiller’s plays and use it? They find in the romantic idealism and in the sheer brilliance of the way he uses the German language an inspiration for themselves.

And because he’s obsessed with the ideas of freedom, beauty, love, goodness, trying to figure out religion, he’s trying to find the personal and the political altogether and doesn’t always succeed, but he’s obsessed with it from a romantic, passionate, emotional, passionate point of view, not just a reason point of view, which would be more the Enlightenment. Heine, as I mentioned, later called him the poet of freedom, the true German poet of freedom and internationalism. Between 1817 and 1957, since then, between that period, there were 60 translations of Schiller’s work, poetry, and plays into Hebrew alone, besides many other languages. There were many Yiddish parodies of Schiller’s poems. That right, the Yiddish writers took it, took them and parodied them in fantastic, fun, and satirical ways. Interestingly, many Orthodox Jewish homes around these times banned, which might have banned other non-religious literature, made an exception in the case of Schiller in the German tradition. There are echoes, of course, of the biblical style in Schiller’s poetry, “Ode to Joy” and many others. He praised the universe, what he called the universal history of the Hebrew nation. He wrote a treatise about Moses and some of the Bible he adapted, et cetera. So we can go on and on about his life. Let’s dive into some of the actual writing. This is just one poem which I wanted to touch on. These poems are, his poems, like in the tradition of the time, Goethe’s “Faust” as an example, are very, very long.

So all I’ve done is taken out a couple of sections we can share to get a sense of the language. “Crushed by iron fate, he seems to gather all life’s last strength to stagger to the bier, and hearken, do these cold lips murmur, 'Father?’ The sharp rain, drizzling through that place of fear, pierces the bones gnawed fleshless by despair, and the heart’s horror stirs the silver hair.” It’s so visceral, it’s so direct, it’s so passionate. It’s romantic, but it’s also something very, very physical, physicalized poetry, not to the chase with a physicality. It’s “the sharp rain drizzling through that place of fear,” linking emotion with nature all the time. “Pierces the bones gnawed fleshless by despair, and the heart’s horror stirs the silver hair.” The rhymes, we get as good as possible in English, but he’s rhyming a lot as well. Okay, I want to just share a little bit more of some of the poetry that he wrote as well. “Ode to Joy.” “Joy, beautiful spark of gods, we enter drunk with fire. Heavenly one, the magic binds again what custom strictly divides because custom must abide. All people become brothers, where thy gentle wing abides. All creatures drink of joy of nature’s breasts. All the good, all the evil follow her trail of roses. Kisses she gave us and grape vines. Lust was given to the worm and the cherub stands before God.

As his sons fly through heaven’s grand plan, journey on your way, joyful like a hero to victory. Do you sense the creator, the world? Seek him above the starry dark tent. Above the stars must he dwell. "Ode to Joy,” is it romantic nonsense? Is it idealistic nonsense? Beethoven takes it, puts it to, and becomes a remarkable piece of music. This is taken from another short poem of his, “Resignation.” It’s a long poem. Let’s see. “Yes, even I was in Arcadia born, and in my infant ears, a vow of rapture was by nature sworn. In my infant ears, a vow of rapture was by nature sworn. Yes, even I was in Arcadia born, and yet my short spring gave me only tears, but I was to die young. And in my infant ears, a vow of rapture was by nature sworn.” So it’s going back to the ancient Greeks, which he would’ve studied. And the ancient Greek poets, Homer and the others, were called rhapsodists because they performed their poetry live to music and song, and very few people could read, of course. So Homer, whoever else, they would go around, the writers, the poets, the performers of ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and performed their stuff, and in ancient mediaeval Europe and elsewhere, obviously, before education and the printing press. And in ancient Greece, the word comes from the ancient Greek rhapsoidos, and rhapsoidos were the performing poets and the performing singers who travelled all over.

So the rhapsode, which we know has got much more ecstatic and emotional connotation, and he’s harking back to that completely, a vow of rapture. In English, of course, rhapsody, rapture. We all know it’s a Freddie Mercury song, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” So it all comes, the idea of rapture and rhapsoidos and rhapsody, it comes from the ancient Greeks and these travelling performing poets of emotion and passion and trying to figure out how reason and instinct and desire and good and evil all fit in together. Another poem of his, “The Fight With the Dragon.” “Why does the crowd run? What means the throng that rushes fast the streets along? Amid the rabble, meets my sight, a monster fierce, a dragon with wide and crocodile-like jaw. In turns, the people are filled with awe at this wild crocodile-like jaw. And thousand voices shout with glee, ‘The fiery dragon come and see!’ Now who would Christ’s champion be? To conquer in the fight with a dragon I sought by cunning and prudent mind. And the throng of the crowds were filled with a raging grief, consumed their fire. Are none but Saracens to feel the prowess of the Christian steel to fight the dragon?” And so we go on and on. It’s a long, long poem, just a little bit taken out of it. Obviously, there’s a Christian mythology thrown in, but we get the sense of the dragon and the fighting and the relentless, the pushing energy of the romantic passion and the romanticist movement.

And yet, the imagery is so visceral and and striking for me. Another one of his. This is called the “Invincible Armada.” And this is the Armada which is attacking the English. “She comes, she comes, the burden of the deep, the ships of the Armada. Beneath her wails the universal sea. With clanking chains and a new God, she sweeps, with a thousand thunders. The ocean castles and the floating hosts, the ships on the sea. Never on there looked. Never on their like. Never on their like looked the wild, wild water. May man the monster named Invincible Armada. Over the shuddering waves, she gathers to thy coasts, the horror that she spreads, this Armada. The horror she spreads can claim the title to haughty name. The trembling Neptune quails under the silent and majestic forms, the doom of worlds in those dark sails. Near and more near they sweep and slumber all the storms. Blessed island, empress of the sea, England. The sea-born squadrons threaten thee and thy great heart, Britannia. Woe to thy people, of their freedom proud. She rests a thunder heavy in its cloud. Who in thy hand the orb and sceptre gave that thou should be the sovereign of the nations? England, the island? The coming doom the round Earth shall appal and all the hearts of freeman beat for thee. One look below the Almighty gave, "And who,” said he, “shall lay mine England low? Who shall bid England vanish from the main? To be vanished? Never.

Be this only Eden, this garden of freedom, man’s stout defence from power, to fate consigned. God the Almighty blew and the Armada went to every wind which way.” I mean, he’s imbued with, it’s such a romantic, idealistic way, but we can’t almost help being swept up. It’s a bit like the charge of the Light Brigade, and on and on, the Light Brigade, and this free and passionate spirit of freedom and men and title, of the spirit of the times, the zeitgeist, if you like. See, another poem, I mean, it’s completely obviously idealistic about the Armada conquering England and trying not to, but we feel and we can see how these composers could take this language and use it, and use it for their operas, for their poems. Another one of his, “The Gods of Greece,” because what’s so important, how they hark back to ancient Greece and ancient Rome, always. And, of course, Homer is the ultimate example, “Iliad” and “Odyssey.” “The Gods of Greece,” another poem. “Ye in the age gone by, who ruled the world of ancient Greece and guided the steps of happy, free men in the light leading strings of careless joy. Freedom should not ignore careless joy. We are all before the bed of death. We all kneel before the bed of death. Art thou, fair world, no more? Return thou virgin bloom on nature’s face. Vainly we search the earth of gods bereft, where once the warm and living shapes were rife, shadows alone at the bed of death are left. Flushed with a glow of victories that found the weeping orphan child deserted on life’s barren strand and left a prey to hazards and wild.

Only through beauty’s morning gate didst thou the land of knowledge find to merit a more glorious fate.” It’s important, for this phrase is used so many times in German literature: “Only through beauty’s morning gate didst thou the land of knowledge find to merit a more glorious fate.” That sums up for me what I was saying earlier. Beauty is good, bringing the aesthetic and the Enlightenment and the idea of beauty, the passion together, to merit a more glorious fate. “When the creator banished from his sight frail man, banished man to dark mortalities abode and granted him a late return to light. Only by treading reason’s arduous road, while soft humanity lay at rest within her tender arms extended, no flame was stirred by bigots hating bigots, murderous zest, no guiltless blood on high ascended. Freedom’s sweet birthright they shall receive again under the mystic sway of holy might. No flame was stirred by bigots’ murderous zest.” Let’s speak to our times, 20th century our times. Determination to not let flames of passion stir the bigots’ murderous zest, no guiltless blood and higher ascended. Freedom’s sweet birthright they receive again.“

It’s a birthright, freedom’s sweet birthright, and it’s only by treading reason’s arduous road. He’s trying to bring reason and passion, freedom, ‘cause in the end, what is goodness and beauty? Is to be free. Ultimately, that’s Schiller. However, he’s not only the serious and romantic idealist poet, which there’s this. There’s a poem by him, an epistle by a married man to a fellow married man sufferer. And one of the English writers of the time wrote a letter to "The Times.” “In spite of Mr. Carlyle’s assertion, Thomas Carlyle hated Schiller. In spite of Mr. Thomas Carlyle’s assertion that Mr. Schiller has a total deficiency of humour, we think the following poem suffices to show that Mr. Schiller possessed the gift of no ordinary degree of genius.” This is a letter in an English newspaper about Schiller versus Carlyle, that Schiller had no humour. And this is a little bit from the poem about the married epistle, epistle of a married man to fellow sufferers. “Poor married, poor martyr, married man. Thou weepest because the spouse has flown to the arms preferred before thy own, to the arms of another man, a faithless wife. I grant the curse, and yet, my friend, it might be worse. Thou could be cursed, and it could be worse than her just fleeing to the arms of another man. Just hear another man’s tale of sorrow, and in comparing, comfort burrow. What does thou think, thyself alone because thy rights are shared with another one? Oh, happy man, be more resigned. Thy wife belongs to all mankind. Thy wife, she’s found abroad and at home, but cross the Alps, and she’s at Rome.

Sail to the Baltic, there you’ll find her. You’ll find your lady up for sale, and now you may think, 'What have I lost?’ Instead of all the Eden lost of hearth and hail,” and it goes on and on. So it’s just a bit of comic fun that Schiller wrote as well. It’s a bit of intentional comic fun, quickly thrown out probably before breakfast of the poem. So we have, sorry, the output is quite extraordinary of this guy. Okay, I want you to show a couple of images now. Oh, this is from a very contemporary production done some years ago in London of “The Robbers.” Obviously, you can see it’s all set. I mentioned the two brothers. One goes into the forest, becomes a Robinhood character. The other one stays at home. And one ruthlessly makes sure that he inherits the father’s money. It’s in essence a conflict between a liberal, between lawless anarchy, on the one hand, but doing so good in a way of the Robinhood idea, and the other of a more tyrannical rule and the role of money. Okay, this is from an extraordinary production on Mary Queen of Scots by two fantastic British actresses, Lia Williams and Juliet Stevenson, on Mary Queen of Scots. An amazing production. And in essence, it’s the story written in 1800 done in the Almeida Theatre not so long ago. Yeah, in London. So it centres on an imaginary meeting between Mary and Elizabeth I. And the two actresses went on stage each night not knowing who was going to act Mary and who was going to act Elizabeth, and they would literally toss a coin front of the audience, and that would make them decide who would play Mary and who would play Elizabeth I. And it’s not just a theatrical gimmick.

To me, it’s an insight by the directors and the actresses that there’s nothing logical or inevitable about who would end up in power. The questions are two sides of the same coin: Catholic and Protestant, between Mary and Elizabeth, lover and virgin. Mary is in prison, but the crown, as in Schiller’s words, the crown is also “a prison cell with jewels.” A prison bed decked with jewels. It takes free will away from Elizabeth, who wears the crown. Riveting how close they are and how they’re two sides of the same coin. They show us uneasy command and composure. They deliver political arguments but with a passionate fluency of almost Churchillian nature, of how passion and language fit, can go into politics. They are alike and yet different. They both wear velvet trouser suits and white blouses. They’re lie down, hands reaching out to each other. There could almost be a version of one person. So Schiller’s ideas taken in this fantastic production, played with by the two fantastic actresses. And one of the critics said, “Its perpetual, intricate, passionate debate made political.” A strong case is made for Catholicism. A strong case made for Protestant. It goes on and on, all the different themes. Beautiful song at the end as Mary prepares for her execution ‘cause, of course, Elizabeth sentence her to be executed, and we get the intimacy of her spoken thoughts in a beautiful song. There’s the idea of the division of Scotland and England, how dextrous the powerful are in shifting responsibility and power and blame. And how a leader can say, “Well, the public has spoken.”

Have they, haven’t they? It’s all ideas almost of contemporary politics and almost celebrity and media inside the play that they teased out of the original. And it’s Mary’s physical confinement mirrors Elizabeth’s metaphysical imprisonment. They are both played by their past, Elizabeth’s dubious ancestry and Mary’s complicity in murder, and they’re each also obsessed with each other. Elizabeth shows an imperious, lonely quality. She’s tough on everyone. She’s tough on the men who try to force her into her diplomatic marriage. As Schiller writes, “The condition of monarchy is captivity in the play.” It’s almost Shakespearean 'cause obviously he’s influenced by Shakespearean, his obsession. Power is lonely, power is captive in its own way. Mary has a contrasting temperament but a comparable predicament. She’s sharp witted, quick. She forensically analyses the floor of the trough, and Mary’s haunted by her cousin who wears the crown. And she says, “My only equal is Elizabeth.” So in mind and in conflict and in battle, there are two titans of English political history or that Schiller is using to play out his own times. Let’s go back to his phrase: do not be of creature of one’s own times, but a creature of eternity, of human nature. In the end, Schiller, for me, is much more a writer of rail politic. He’s not just imbued with mythology. And where it’s fascinating with romanticism is that he’s not so full of the romantic ideals that he has in the poetry in the plays, because I think theatre has to have conflict. Without it, there’s no theatre.

See, and he has to get into the nuance and the subtlety of political machinations, Machiavellian. And the best scene is where Elizabeth is beset by contradictory arguments whether Mary should be sentenced to be executed or not. Some argue for execution. Some of the other characters argue for clemency. And one character, Lester, interestingly, argues… I’m just going to go on here and you will see the scene. It comes from here where Leicester tries to argue ingeniously that Mary should, and I’m quoting Schiller, “Should live in the shadow of the axe 'cause this is power in action.” And it shows a technical acumen in a way. Let her live, but in the shadow of the axe, always under the threat. So Schiller is trying to show how you can manipulate in all different ways politics and how you can take your enemy, yeah, it’s easier to kill it, but there are many other ways. But if they are living under the shadow of the axe, goes into the debate, will they become a martyr? And then what do you do? So all of these rail politic, philosophical discussions are held interestingly for me.

Okay, and, of course, what he’s doing is he’s taking historical situation and gives us a human drama, a very compelling human drama. Okay, this is one image there, that’s the main image I was showing, and this is another image from the play just showing these two fascinating idea that they mirror each other and yet are sworn enemies for the crown, the English crown. The last piece I want to go onto, and then we’re going to show a clip if we can, Lauren, thank you, is Nicholas Hytner, fantastic director in England. Did an amazing version of Verdi’s “Don Carlo,” and, of course, Verdi taking Schiller’s “Don Carlo” as his libretto and story for his opera at the Royal Opera House. And Verdi used Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Schiller, especially Schiller a lot. And the play deals with a Spanish ear to Philip, who according to this idea, he’s an idealistic ally of the Flemish freedom fighters who were victims of Spanish colonial oppression. He’s interrogated and used and assassinated finally by the Spanish Inquisition. And Schiller took this Enlightenment melodrama. He turned it into a play on so many ideas on the Enlightenment, French Revolution that I’ve mentioned, and, of course, freedom.

And towards the end of Don Carlos’ life, he says, “I am a citizen of times to come,” going back to Schiller’s obsession, I’m not only part of romantic movement, and even the Enlightenment or Germany. I want to be a citizen of the world. As Heinrich Heine said, he was the first German writer to be truly internationalist and obsessed with freedom. Who dares to preach freedom of thought under the rule of the tyrant is the ultimate question in the play. And that these ideas will sweep Europe to come or humans to come. So these ideas, I think we can get the echoes today and why he is still so powerful in Germany and other parts of the world. Okay, if we could show the one clip, and this is just a clip from the trailer of Verdi’s opera of “Don Carlo” based on Schiller’s play. Just to get a visual idea of how we can make things so contemporary even though this is written more than 200 years ago. Okay, let’s hold it there and if there’s any questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Okay, thank you.

Keith. “In Chicago’s upscale Gold Coast area, there are streets named for both Goethe and Schiller.” Thanks. Somehow those two streets are named after them. Statues, parks, centres in towns. Ita, “I wonder how much of his work inspired operas.” Yeah, which we’ve spoken.

Keith, “Verdi discarded ‘Wallenstein’ as not appropriate to be set to an opera. ‘The Robbers,’” okay, great. Thank you, Keith.

Q: Neville, “Great to hear from you. Hope you’re well. Don’t you think Goethe outlive Schiller by close to 30 years, he was able to continue creating and even using Schiller’s inputs and ideas to produce more potent works? One was probably the realist than rather more idealist.”

A: Yup, but I think both in the end are quite more nuanced than only in the realist and idealist, as I’ve tried to show you, yeah.

Q: “Would you agree the roles actually become interchangeable? They learn so much from each other.”

A: Yes, absolutely. I think that Schiller’s romantic poetry becomes, it certainly changes in the plays because you have to have conflict in theatre for it to work and you have to have, if it’s going to last, you can’t say goody and baddy, boring. Nuance, machinations, political intrigue, all of that going on, which Schiller brings in, absolutely.

Susan, thank you. Okay, it’s quite complicated doing Schiller because we can go from Goethe, this huge name, and we can say, “Right, we’re just going to focus on ‘Faust.’” That’s enough for one talk, plenty, because there’s so much in it, which we did. But with Schiller, I think he almost captured so many of the nuances of the zeitgeist of his period, that he’s not just national or local, he’s global as well, but the zeitgeist is all the ideas we’ve spoken about.

Q: “Why could Schiller change historical facts? ‘Cause Mary and Elizabeth never met.”

A: Yeah, well we have poetic licence. He’s creating a piece of theatrical fiction, and he’s using the story of Mary Stuart and Elizabeth because he’s trying try and fill it with the zeitgeist or the themes of his times really and using that ancient story, as Shakespeare, so many of the other writers have all done, because they’re not doing documentaries, which would need an allegiance to historical fact. They are doing poetic licence, theatrical adaptations inspired by an historical drama. So many players about the French Revolution, Danton, Robespierre, so many others, “Marat/Sade,” et cetera. They’re inspired, as poets and writers do.

Rita, “Thank you.” Barbara, “Such a spine-chilling production of 'Don Carlos’ in Berlin. The pilgrims from Flanders were hoisted up by their ankles,” fascinating, “doused with gasoline and set on fire with cigarette lighters.” Fantastic, Barbara. I think that Schiller’s plays, I think, for me, more than the poetry, lend themselves to contemporary interpretations. One can see themes and ideas in them and one can create fantastic visceral and visual versions, like Nicholas Hytner did in the Verdi one here, on “Don Carlo,” and just in a play of the Mary, Elizabeth, Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Conflict.

Okay, so thank you very much everybody. Let’s hold it there. That’s it for now, and thanks so much to everybody. Take care.