What’s Up With Fritz?
By Arthur J. Diers
Presented to the Chicago Literary Club
On October 7, 2013
What’s up with Fritz? He was up to
quite a lot. He was a passionate man, with a passion for truth, for beauty, but
above all a passion for freedom. This Fritz is Johann Christoph Friedrich
Schiller who was born on the tenth of November in 1759. He harnessed his
passion to become the Shakespeare of Germany, to write plays with such vitality
that his popularity in the Eighteenth Century exceeded that of Goethe. He was the Steve Jobs of
the literary world of his day, with dizzying creative thrusts one after the
other—as a physician, a playwright, an historian, a philosopher, a poet—supreme
in every field, writing lyrics which the great composers put to music, as did
Beethoven with his “Ode to Joy”. His fable, “The Bell” was learned by heart by
every school child in Germany
for ten generations. My interest in him springs partly from the fact that my
father’s nickname in seminary was Schiller, his buddy was Gaede.
Johann Kasper Schiller, Fritz’s
father, was from a landowning family of the petty-bourgeoisie. He was described
by Thomas Carlyle as “an unassuming, intelligent and useful man.” As a youth he
had an adventurous spirit, signing up with the army of Duke Karl Eugen, ruler
of the Duchy of Wurttenburg, a Roman Catholic, who financed his state in large
part by leasing soldiers to fight his neighbor’s battles. Johann Kasper fought
on the side of the Dutch who with Austria and England fought
against France.
Later he battled with France
against Prussia.
His travels took him to Holland,
England, France, Belgium. In
between assignments he would return to live in the Inn of Marbach, where he met
and married the daughter of the innkeeper and baker, Elizabeth Dorothea
Kodweis, a warm, loving woman with little education, truly pious, a lover of
nature, music and poetry.
In the ninth year of their marriage
she gave birth to Christophine. Two years later Fritz was born. Since her
husband was off to war more often than not, she lived with her parents. So Fritz
enjoyed his first four years pampered in his maternal grandparents’ home with
his mother and sister. There Elizabeth
tenderly nourished religious feeling, fairy tales, poems, what is good and
beautiful. When Kasper returned Fritz had quite an adjustment with a strict
father (after all, he was a military man) who focused on his son’s intellect
and character, wanting his son to succeed intellectually as he felt he had been
unable to do. Mother protected Fritz from his father’s sharper edges, knowing
that Kasper, despite his bluster, had a deep affection for his son. The family moved
to Lorch, near Gmund, where Kasper was assigned a job recruiting for the
military for very little pay which for bureaucratic reasons was withheld. They lived
on savings. Lorch was a particularly
charming village, a lovely pastoral setting in which Fritz could roam with his companionable
sister and friends, exploring ruins and forests and the life of a little
village. He was lucky to befriend the Lutheran pastor’s son. Pastor Philipp
Ulrich Moser, glimpsed the boy’s potential and taught him Latin and Greek in a
fatherly manner, preparing him for Latin
School which he entered
at the age of seven. Pastor Moser inspired him to look toward a career in the
church. He loved to play, acting parts, putting
on robes, preaching on a soap box. He was serious, was offended by friends who made
fun of this posturing. His parents
encouraged him in this direction, particularly because a church job promised a
career which included regular pay, and it seemed compatible with his dramatic
nature.
When he was five he disappeared from
his home in the middle of a fierce thunderstorm. He was found high up in a tree
wanting to get a closer look at the lightning. It mirrored his curiosity, inner
intensity—his reach for higher things.
When Fritz was seven, the family
moved to Ludwigsburg,
the rural residence of the Duke. There Kasper
was given a position which suited him, in charge of the ducal gardens and
forests, cultivating them, developing them, eventually starting a forestry
school and above all, devoting himself to his first love--planting trees. Fritz
attended the public school in Ludwigsburg. The Duke favored a liberal education
including the rich French influences regarded as the most forward looking of
the day. Fritz devoured this literary feast, but the school was run in the most
dull, mechanical, strict manner. He met all the requirements toward a
ministerial career, but was bored with it all until in his ninth year his
imagination was awakened by the splendor of the Ludwigsburg Theatre.
The all powerful Duke noticed his
promise and offered him the opportunity to enroll in his newly opened
Karlschule, a military academy. His parents refused the offer. They knew that
this direction was not congenial to their son’s nature. When ordered to
matriculate him they pled for a change of mind, but the duke insisted, so after
as much delay as possible at the age of thirteen Fritz entered the Karlschule.
It was a Spartan existence, like basic training in the military with classes in
law, strict enforcement of multiple
rules, contact with friends and family excluded, every minute regimented, cruel
punishment for minor infractions—hell on earth for a sensitive lad who had just
discovered poetry, accustomed to a loving family in a comfortable home.
Fritz conformed, but suffered
deeply. He volunteered for night duty in
the facility for emergency care because that was the only place with a light
on. There he read Plutarch and Shakespeare, Lessing, Herder, Goethe and other
awakened writing in Germany.
Before he was fourteen he wrote an epic poem, “Moses.” In this prison he had
visions of literary glory. His only life was in imagination. He made a change,
but no improvement, by moving to the study of medicine when the school moved to
Stuttgart,”accepting
a galling servitude in exchange for one more galling.” He steeped himself in
the medical literature of the day, writing a thesis which looked toward the
next steps in medical research with the assumption that knowledge was to be devoted
to the improved health of the patient, a radical view at the time. He had to
rewrite the thesis to conform to current thinking in order to graduate.
When he was nineteen he began writing “The Robbers.”, a work
expressing feelings that have been bottled up and growing ever stronger for six
years. “The Robbers” is a play about a king with two sons. The favored older
son, Charles, chooses to leave home to be on his own. A letter is sent to the
king reporting his activities, a letter which is intercepted, read and
interpreted by Charles’ brother, Francis, who gives it the worst possible
construction. Charles is wrongly accused of borrowing money he did not repay, deflowering
a lady, killing her boyfriend in a duel, evading authorities, escaping with
seven men to the forest—all distortions. His father is taken in by these lies,
and sends the police after his son. So,
abandoned by his father and hounded by the police he lives with his buddies off
the land in a Robin Hood kind of existence. He does some really bad things--a
village is burned due to a hurried departure to evade arrest. Church treasures are
stolen by taking the nun’s clothes, so that their nakedness could not be
covered until they gave access to the treasures. A huge ransom is offered to
anyone leading to his capture. His true love, Amelia, continues to plead his
case to the king, and reveal the treachery of brother Francis. With much agony
every step of the way the wrongs are righted, but Charles is guilt stricken. He
cannot forgive himself even though his father forgives him expressing deep
regret for having wronged his son. He cannot forgive himself. In a tormented
rage he kills Amelia. His passion for her is so overwhelming that if it cannot
be consummated because of his guilt, death and punishment is the only way. He gives himself up to a solid citizen who
will be generous to the poor in his stewardship of the huge reward which has
been promised upon his capture. Intense
feeling is expressed with every twisted move in this play. You’ll have to read it to properly appreciate
it.
The play hit like a bombshell. In the 1780’s revolution was
in the air, America
and France
were in turmoil. It was a little like
the Arab Spring in the Middle East today. The absolute rulers in the dukedoms of Germany were in
control, but the populace was restive. A strong middle class was evolving.
There was a vague sense of possible freedom in the air.
The reviews of his play were mind-boggling: “The theatre was
like a madhouse, rolling eyes, clenched fists, and hoarse outcries from the
audience. Strangers fell sobbing into one another’s arms. Women staggered to
the door nearly fainting. There was general confusion like a chaos out of whose
mists a new creation is about to break forth…If ever we can expect a German
Shakespeare, this is he.”
Of course, the play had to be produced in a neighboring
province. The local theatre wouldn’t touch it, so it opened in The National
Theatre at Mannheim, Germany’s second most important
theatre. Schiller took off without leave to attend the opening night. When he left
without leave a second time to view another performance, he was arrested and
sentenced to two weeks in jail, where he sketched out a second play, Intrigue
and Love. He borrowed money to have The Robbers published, but it was banned by
his duke. He was left with a debt and no way to repay it. The Duke not only
banned the play but forbade Fritz to write any further plays. This was no idle
threat. Another playwright was in prison with a long indeterminate sentence for
his disobedience.
At Ludwigsburg
he read a new play by Goethe before an audience in which Goethe was present.
Fritz read it with such feeling akin to ranting, and in a peculiar Schwabian
accent which he would never be able to alter.
Goethe was offended. On another occasion Fritz read one of
his own plays, hoping to have it considered for production. His presentation
was again so outrageously intense that he was booed off the stage. Afterwards the theatre manager read it out
loud himself and found it a jewel. Our Fritz, was so full of passion with so
few vents for it that it would come out forcefully and all wrong.
Dahlberg, the man in charge of the theatre at Mannheim, encouraged him
to submit another play. Fritz found the promise of becoming the playwright for
that theatre compelling. The reaction to his first play led him to expect quick and easy greatness. His vivid imagination
again, of course, could only get him into trouble. He had graduated with honors
and had been given a position as regimental surgeon in Stuttgart, but was repelled by the thought. He requested leave from the duke several times
and was refused, so he decided to skip town with his musician friend, Andreas Streicher.
This was no small move. They escaped during a festive occasion when his
departure would not be noticed right away, without telling his father. If his
father had known he would have been liable for the tuition which had been given
as a scholarship in view of future service to the duke.
Fritz now was a vagabond, subject to arrest and life in
prison. He and Streicher spent months moving around from one place to another living
under aliases, until their money ran out. Money expected from his next play was
not forthcoming. Finally, he had to accept the offer of Henrietta von Wolzogen,
the mother of two school friends, at her rural estate of Bauerbach, near
Meiningen in central Germany
where he could safely live in comfort and write further revisions of Fiesco and
Intrigue and Love.
He risked returning to Mannheim
to get these plays produced. Feisco had to be rewritten so many times to suit
Dahlberg, who no doubt wanted to avoid political trouble, that it was a
flop. But Intrigue and Love was another
hit. It had been hatched while he was in jail. In it the Grand Duke crushes true
love time after time by enforcing political and economic marriages. He sends soldiers he has conscripted off to
hopeless wars for which he is reimbursed so that he can live lavishly, build a
grand palace, and entertain the aristocracy in an ambience of splendor. This drama was all too real in the lives of
the audience. Many relatives of those conscripted were in the audience, and who
could not be enraged by such tender love of their own sons and daughters so
brutally being squelched. Loathing of the Duke was carefully nourished. Indeed,
near the end of the play it was intimated that the Duke’s journey to the throne
had been tainted and that the facts were about to be revealed—rumors alive and
well at the time. This was incendiary
stuff, emotionally engaging the populace, like being a brilliant playwright in Saudi Arabia,
exposing the abuses of power. It certainly was a nice vent for the rage he must
have felt in jail, and he caught the discontent of the time just when there was
beginning to be room for its expression. In both these plays the passionate
love for a woman is cruelly extinguished. The wicked ruler remains in power.
The conscience of the aggrieved must submit to unjust authority. Exquisite
German suffering prevails. The play again is a hit, but it is beginning to dawn
on our Fritz that he is playing with fire.
His passionate nature, his internal conflicts, his delayed
adolescence had to have their way. Not only in his plays. He gets himself into
intense tangled love relationships in the theatre at Mannheim so much so that he lost his contract
and had to leave town. With aliases’
moving among families willing to harbor him, with passionate love for one woman
after another, asking for one hand after another in marriage rejected either by
the lady or by her parent, always continuing to write, always out of
money—finally he moves to Saxony.
Before he left Mannheim
he presented a paper to a literary society of learned men, a paper in which he
proposes that the stage is not a moral institution, but it is concerned with
“uncovering the secret workings of the human soul.” That is what he is up to.
His situation was desperate.
His creditors were after him. He considered going into military service.
But, as always, kind friends came to his rescue. Christian Gottfried Korner learned
of his plight. He writes: “At a time when art degrades itself more and more to
the status of a meretricious slave of rich and mighty libertines, it is
consoling to see a man appear ready and able to show what the human soul has in
its powers even now.” For two years,
when he was 26 and 27, Fritz lives in Leipzig
and Dresden. In
this safe, stable place he is moved by the love of his friends. His feeling life literally exploded with a
happiness he had not known. It extended to joy in the universe, the possibility
of universal joy, and found expression at that time in his “Ode to Joy.”
“Joy, of flame celestial fashioned, Daughters of Elysium
By that holy fire impassioned To thy sanctuary we come.
Thine the spell that reunited
Those estranged by Custom dread,
Every man a brother plighted
Where thy gentle wings are spread.
Millions in our arms we gather, To the world our kiss be sent!
Past the starry firmament, Brothers, dwells a loving Father.”
And there are seven more inspiring verses to which Beethoven
gives heartfelt expression.
During these years he completed his play “Don Carlos,” based
loosely on the period of the Inquisition in Spain—another venue suitable for
contempt of cruel authority, but with a twist. Don Carlos is the son of the
king, Phillip. Historically Don Carlos is an idiotic immature mentally
challenged fellow, but in Schiller’s play he is a promising brilliant fellow. Carlos falls in love with Elizabeth, a special woman who loves him in
return. King Phillip, however, can have what he wants. He takes the woman away
from Carlos and marries her. Carlos continues to be passionately in love with
his now stepmother and speaks to her with his strong feeling, pleading
eloquently—she must run away with him. She’s a mature lady, and insists,
despite her feelings to the contrary’ that he exert his passion in another
direction—to improving the world, making it a better place, expanding freedom.
Schiller enlarges his vision. He now seeks to enhance the
movement of freedom on an international scale. The Netherlands is the locus of a
democratic movement which represents the next step to freedom throughout the
world. It is up to the King of Spain, Phillip,
the most powerful king in the Western World, to decide whether or not or in
what way to intervene. The situation is such that his army can conquer and
dominate the situation, which all his counselors agree is the sensible thing to
do, rather than to permit any chaotic situation to unsettle authoritarian rule.
However, the king wishes to explore alternatives consulting with a nobleman in
his kingdom who has been acceptably independent within his realm--The Marquis
de Posa, a long-time friend of Carlos. The Marquis eloquently proposes that the
king will be the greatest of all kings if he is to encourage democracy by sending
his son, Carlos, who has many friends in the movement to represent the king
bringing order toward democracy. Phillip will be the greatest king in history
if he chooses to take the side of freedom for his people. People throughout
history will regard him as the father of freedom, a movement which will engulf
the world. The King is almost
persuaded. His tender talk with his son
is most touching. Schiller is good at describing ambivalence in detail, so the
audience does not know for some time what the king will do. Much palace
intrigue grips the audience. Phillip ends up, of course, sending Alva, his
general, to quell the rebellion. His wife, Elizabeth, and his son, Carlos, meet
a terrible fate. They are seen together in private; the king fears the worst.
Their fate is sealed; both are executed.
Fritz has a priest give this assessment of Don Carlos: “His
bosom glows with some new-fangled virtue, which, proud and self-sufficient,
scorns to rest for strength on any creed. He dares to think! His brain is all
on fire with wild chimeras; he reverences the people! And is this a man to be
our king?”
Fritz strove for greater profundity, a broader historical
perspective, not only by steeping himself in the Greek classics and mythology, which
he did, but also getting a grasp of German history. England and France had
their written histories. So Schiller proceeded to write the first history of Germany. It is
a very readable history of Germany,
the Netherlands
and the Thirty Years War. He thought
that historical writing might be profitable. His voluminous writing for
literary publications was not. Teaching history with students footing the bill,
however, wasn’t working very well, either.
His studies led him
to become fascinated with an international leader who was relatively
independent and who opened up the possibilities of a new political
structure—Wallerstien. Wallerstien had used his wealth to develop an army for
hire. Dukes, bishops, the pope hired him when needed to fight their battles
until he became the most powerful leader in Europe. Schiller’s plays about Wallerstien concentrate
just at the point where he has to decide if he is going to defend the old
established order in Europe by agreeing to fight for the pope and the king, or
he can choose to ally with Gustavus Adolphus the great Swedish leader who
threatens to overwhelm Europe, but is a more liberal sort who might further the
cause of democracy after shaking up the existing structures. He has to decide. The play describes the excruciating vacillation
which goes on and on and affects everyone around him in an incredible array of
emotions and actions. Of course, he collapses under the weight of his indecision
and thus makes himself vulnerable and is assassinated. It beautifully reflects
Schiller’s vacillation, feeling the need for new political structures to enable
freedom, but aware of the French Revolution and the chaos which that freedom
had engendered. It reflected the vacillation of his age.
Fritz worked feverishly, usually fourteen hours a day, on his
historical research and writing--literary criticism, philosophical treatises,
plays and always poetry--disregarding his health. He was desperately trying to
earn a living, having tapped all available resources, including the money which
his father had set aside to educate his daughters, Fritz’s sisters, whom he
dearly loved. At times he thought that he would have to quit following his
talents and return to what he had been trained for—being a physician in the
military. His health gave way. He collapsed. He tried to cure his
symptoms—fevers, chest pains, gastric disturbances—with quantities of quinine.
Frederick Unger proposes that “recent research, borne out by Schiller’s own precise
statements, (indicate that) it is probable that suppuration from a pleurisy
infection spread through the peritoneum and brought on a progressive paralysis
of the abdominal organs.”
Rumors of his death reached Denmark. A young Danish poet named
Baggesen arranged an obituary celebration in honor of Schiller. The noblemen
attending learned, much to their surprise, that he was still living but in need
of support toward recovery, so provided him with three years of financial help.
That was a big boost for him, but his affliction gradually worsened. For the
rest of his life Schiller could not sleep at night, had intermittent crippling
attacks and was only relieved by the smell of rotten apples which pervaded his
home without interruption. He was driven to write through a sea of pain.
With the help of Goethe he was employed for the first time
with a regular salary at the age of thirty-one at the University of Jena
(now named Friedrich Schiller
University). Finally, he
was in a position to marry Charlotte von Lengefeld. She is a plain, dull woman, pious, a good
mother who was fiercely loyal to him, and very proper. She refused social
interaction with Goethe, Schiller’s best and devoted friend, because he was
living with a woman without the benefit of marriage. They had three children.
Fritz was a good family man. His wife’s sister was very close to them both—a
brilliant woman who stimulated him intellectually and who later wrote his
biography.
The University
of Jena where Fritz
worked for the rest of his life was a hotbed of Kantian philosophy which for a
time impressed him. It’s high reasonable moral tone, finding a moral authority
not dependent on dogmatic confessions, the source of much immoral violent
conflict in his day, appealed to him.
But he was uncomfortable with truth being so tied to reason. Truth had to embrace the senses, the passions
which stirred in his beautiful soul.
Indeed, he insisted that the path to truth lies through beauty. Beauty moves toward what is highest in us. His beautiful writing points to a higher plane,
as all of us writers find it so. His philosophy of aesthetics which he develops
in many essays puts him in the conflictual arena of philosophy in his day.
After this foray into intellectual life, he returns to where his heart is—in
human life ignited in his plays where there is endless ambiguity.
In his play “Mary Stuart”, Mary Stuart is condemned to death
for the crime which she confesses, the murder of the king. She is shown to
possess the noblest dignity, and bearer of utmost respect, while her righteous
victor Elizabeth, queen of the realm, ends with great power but in disgrace and
alone.
In the
“Bride of Messina” two fighting brothers fall in love with a woman who turns
out to be their sister, leading to one brother killing the other and then
commiting suicide, the play concludes: “of all possessions life is not the
highest. The worst of evils is, however,
guilt.”
His later plays became more playful, imaginative, sometimes
mystical. “The Maid of Orleans” is his version of Joan of Arc. In it the
self-satisfied king of France
has no capacity to deal with an English invasion. He is a loveable fellow who
knows he deserves his position, and his people concur. He adores himself and
the people adore him. But he’s spent his money on fancy things and can no
longer afford the troops who are in it for pay. A shepherd maiden emerges, an
oddball in her family, who is sent out to attend the sheep in the mountains.
She is anointed by the Virgin Mary, called by God to marshal the troops and
lead them in victorious battle to save Orleans. As she journeys back to the castle she
encounters a lone English officer, takes a fancy to him, cannot kill him. Then
she cannot accept all the adulation and is eventually censored by the crowd.
Without her leadership the English return in strength. She is captured, but
breaks her chains and returns to lead another successful battle, only to be
killed in the fray after being welcomed by her family from which she had been
alienated.
I love his fables. The Song of the Bell is his life stages
poem, ending with the bell ringing the beautiful reverberations celebrating
freedom from the high bell tower moving the whole community, as though in a concert.
However, my favorite fable
is “Pegasus in Harness.”:
“Once in a horse fair,--it may perhaps have been where other
things are bought and sold,--I mean at the Haymarket,--there the muses horse
and hungry poet brought – to sell of course.
The hippogriff neighed shrilly, loudly, and reared upon his
hind-legs proudly; In utter wonderment each stood and cried: “The noble regal
beast!” But, woes betide! Two hideous wings his slender form deface, the finest
team he else would not disgrace. “The breed,” said they, “is doubtless rare,
But who would travel through the air?” Not one of them would risk his gold. At
length the farmer grew more bold: “As for his wings, I of no use should find
them, But then how easy ‘tis to clip or bind them! The horse for drawing may be
useful found,--So, friend, I don’t mind giving twenty pound!” The other glad to sell his merchandise,
Cried, “Done!”—and Hans rode off upon his prize.
The noble creature was, ere long, put-to, But scarcely felt
the unaccustomed load, than, panting to soar upwards, off he flew, and, filled
with honest anger, overthrew the cart where an abyss just met the road. “Ho, ho!” thought Hans: “No cart to this mad
beast I’ll trust. Experience makes one wise at least. To drive the coach
tomorrow now my course is, and he as leader in the team shall go. The lively
fellow’ll save me full two horses; As years pass on, he’ll doubtless tamer
grow.”
All went well at first. The nimble steed his partners
roused,--like lightning was their speed. What happened next? Toward heaven was
turned his eye,--unused across the solid ground to fly, he quitted soon the
safe and beaten course, and true to nature’s strong resistless force, ran over
bog sand moor, o’er hedge and pasture tilled: An equal madness soon the other
horses filled—no reins could hold them in, no help was near, till,--only
picture the poor traveler’s fear!—the coach, well shaken, and completely
wrecked, upon a hill’s steep top at length was checked.
“If this is always sure to be the case,” Hans cried, and cut
a very sorry face, “He’ll never do to draw a coach or wagon; Let’s see if we
can’t tame the fiery dragon by means of heavy work and little food.” And so the
plan was tried.—but what ensued? The handsome beast before three days had
passed, wasted to nothing. “Stay! I see at last!” cried Hans. “Be quick, you
fellows! Yoke him now with my most sturdy ox before the plough.”
No sooner said than done. In union queer together yoked were
soon winged horse and steer. The griffen pranced with rage, and his remaining
might exerted to resume his old accustomed flight. “Twas all in vain—his
partner stepped with circumspection, And Phoebus’ haughty steed must follow his
direction; Until at last, by long resistance spent, When strength his limbs no
longer was controlling, The noble creature, with affliction bent, Fell to the
ground, and in the dust lay rolling. “Accursed beast!” at length with fury mad
Hans shouted, while he soundly plied the lash,--“Even for ploughing, then, thou
art too bad!—That fellow was as rogue to sell such trash!”
Ere yet his heavy blows had ceased to fly, A brisk and merry
youth by chance came by. A lute was tinkling in his hand, And through his light
and flowing hair Was twined with grace a golden band. “Whither, my friend, with
that strange pair?” From far he to the peasant cried. “A bird and ox to one
rope tied—Was such a team e’er heard of, pray? Thy horse’s worth I’d fain
essay; Just for one moment lend him me,--Observe, and thou shalt wonders see!”
The hippogriff was loosened from the plough, Upon his back
the smiling youth leaped now; No sooner did the creature understand That he was
guided by a master-hand, Than ‘ginst his bit he champed, and upward soared
While lightning from his flaming eyes outpoured. No longer the same being, royally A spirit,
ay, a god, ascended he, Spread in a moment to the stormy wind His noble wings,
and left the earth behind, And, ere the eye could follow him, Had vanished in
the heavens dim.
We just don’t move well in life until our own peculiar wings
are given the conditions for flying. It’s a wonderful story. We find it best to
be who we are, after pursuing any number of blind alleys.
One of Fritz’s last plays was William Tell, which with Don
Carlos is produced from time to time in our day. It is the story of a farmer, Tell, with
leadership talent living in the Alps. It
starts with Tell agreeing to take a man hounded by the Duke across the stormy
waters to safety at great risk to his own life. The Austrian duke wishes to
exert his control over this farm community, claiming it as his own. He spies a
pair of oxen belonging to Tell’s neighbor and sends men to confiscate the
beasts for his personal use. The farmer
chases them away, whereupon the Duke has him arrested and pokes both eyes out
with a spear. This enrages the populace. They conspire to overthrow the Duke after
much discussion pro and con. One of the farmer’s sons is in love with a
princess in the court. He tries to convince his father and neighbors that the
centralized government of the Duke has advantages for them all in the broader
scheme of things. But he is overruled
and the plan to rebel is put in place--but for Christmas a few months off. In
the intervening time the Duke posts his cap on a pole in a public place, ordering
that everyone who passes must bow down to it to show their allegiance to the
Duke. Tell doesn’t notice it as he
travels on his way to town with his son and is confronted with his disobedience
and is threatened with arrest. Finally, he is told that if he can with his bow
and arrow hit the apple on his son’s head from a hundred yards he will be let
go. Much discussion about the unfairness
of this goes on among those present, but Tell proceeds to calmly string his bow
and split the apple on his son’s head.
He is arrested, anyway, and this unfairness leads to an update of
revolutionary plans. The rebellion is successful and Tell escapes his captors
in a storm at sea. After he gets home he waits for his victorious friends to
come to his home to celebrate the victory. He’s regarded as the leader hero
even though he wasn’t around for the fight. While he’s waiting a big, rugged
stranger, distraught, drops in for food and drink. The stranger is filled with
guilt about having murdered the Emperor. The Emperor is the overarching
authority over Germany
and Italy
(above the Duke), and Tell has always been loyal to the Emperor whom he regards
as a necessary protector from invading armies and the arbiter of disputes
within the larger domain. He carries on a long dialogue with himself about what
to do with this fellow. The stranger is guilty of a terrible crime, but he,
Tell, cannot be the judge. The victim, the Emporer, is the source of
justice—now dead. Finally, he sends him to Rome where it is said the Pope has a direct
line to God who can settle this matter.
But he outlines a route for his travels which is fraught with dangers,
will test him and perhaps offer justice on the way. Then Tell celebrates with utmost abandon with
his spirited fellows who have won the day.
Finally, we have a happy ending.
As life went on Fritz began to think of poetry as the highest
art form. He wrote much poetry early and late.
His last collection of poems is introduced with one of his early
poems—“The Girl from Afar.”
“In a vale among poor shepherds, as soon as in the year’s
youth the first larks rose, a girl, fair and wondrous, would appear.
She was not born in the valley; no one knew whence she came.
Quickly her trace disappeared when she took her leave.
Her proximity made everyone glad, and all hearts opened to
her. But certain dignity and elevation discouraged familiarity.
She brought flowers and fruit with her, ripened in a
different clime, under a different sun, in a more fortunate nature.
And to each she brought a gift, fruit for the one flowers for
the other. The youth and the old man leaning on his stick went home with a
present.
All guests were welcome; but if a loving couple approached,
she gave them the best gift of all, the most beautiful flower.”
Yes, Fritz has given us many gifts, and since his death on May 9, 1805, his gifts have
been celebrated throughout the world. We are reminded of him here in Chicago each time we view
his statue in Lincoln Park
near the entrance to the zoo, erected in honor of his two hundredth birthday. .
Sources
Collected Works of Friedrich Schiller on Kindle from
Amazon.com
Carlyle, Thomas, Life of Friedrich Schiller, Facsimile
Edition (1825)
Camden House, Columbia, S.C.,
1992
Carus, Paul, Friedrich Schiller, Open Court, Chicago,
1905
Kerry, Paul (ed.), Friedrich Schiller, Peter Lang, NY and Bern, 2007
Passage, Charles E., Friedrich Schiller, Ungar, NY, 1975
Ungar, Friedrich, Friedrich Schiller, and Anthology for our
Time, Ungar,
NY, 1959