Schiller

Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (German: [ˈjoːhan ˈkʁɪstɔf ˈfʁiːdʁɪç fɔn ˈʃɪlɐ]; 10 November 1759 – 9 May 1805) was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision.

Schiller wrote many philosophical papers on ethics and aesthetics. He synthesized the thought of Immanuel Kant with the thought of Karl Leonhard Reinhold. He elaborated Christoph Martin Wieland's concept of the Schöne Seele (beautiful soul), a human being whose emotions have been educated by reason, so that Pflicht und Neigung (duty and inclination) are no longer in conflict with one another; thus beauty, for Schiller, is not merely an aesthetic experience, but a moral one as well: the Good is the Beautiful. His philosophical work was also particularly concerned with the question of human freedom, a preoccupation which also guided his historical researches, such as the Thirty Years' War and the Dutch Revolt, and then found its way as well into his dramas.

Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright. Critics like F.J. Lamport and Eric Auerbach have noted his innovative use of dramatic structure and his creation of new forms, such as the melodrama and the bourgeois tragedy.

A pivotal work by Schiller was On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters (Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen), first published 1794, which was inspired by the great disenchantment Schiller felt about the French Revolution, its degeneration into violence and the failure of successive governments to put its ideals into practice. Schiller wrote that "a great moment has found a little people"; he wrote the Letters as a philosophical inquiry into what had gone wrong, and how to prevent such tragedies in the future. In the Letters he asserts that it is possible to elevate the moral character of a people, by first touching their souls with beauty, an idea that is also found in his poem Die Künstler (The Artists): "Only through Beauty's morning-gate, dost thou penetrate the land of knowledge."

 Mirth the halls of Troy was filling,

Ere its lofty ramparts fell;

From the golden lute so thrilling

Hymns of joy were heard to swell.

From the sad and tearful slaughter

All had laid their arms aside,

For Pelides Priam's daughter

Claimed then as his own fair bride.

Laurel branches with them bearing,

Troop on troop in bright array

To the temples were repairing,

Owning Thymbrius' sovereign sway.

Through the streets, with frantic measure,

Danced the bacchanal mad round,

And, amid the radiant pleasure,

Only one sad breast was found.

Joyless in the midst of gladness,

None to heed her, none to love,

Roamed Cassandra, plunged in sadness,

To Apollo's laurel grove.

To its dark and deep recesses

Swift the sorrowing priestess hied,

And from off her flowing tresses

Tore the sacred band, and cried:

​"All around with joy is beaming,

Ev'ry heart is happy now,

And my sire is fondly dreaming,

Wreathed with flowers my sister's brow

I alone am doomed to wailing,

That sweet vision flies from me;

In my mind, these walls assailing,

​Fierce destruction I can see."