Friedrich Schiller

He was born in Marbach, Württemberg, the son of the military doctor, J. C. Schiller. His childhood and youth were spent in relative poverty, although he attended both village and Latin schools, and coming to the attention of Karl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg, entered the Karlsschule in 1773, where he eventually studied medicine.

While at the arduous and oppressive school, he read Rousseau and Goethe and discussed Classical ideals with his classmates. At school, he wrote his first play, The Robbers, about a group of naive revolutionaries and their tragic failure.

In 1780 he obtained a post as regimental doctor in Stuttgart.

Following the performance of Die Räuber (The Robbers) in Mannheim in 1781 he was arrested and forbidden to publish any further works. He fled Mannheim in 1783 coming via Leipzig and Dresden to Weimar in 1787. In 1789 he was appointed professor of History and Philosophy in Jena, where he wrote only historical works. He returned to Weimar in 1799, where Goethe convinced him to return to playwriting. He and Goethe founded the Weimar Theater which became the leading theater in Germany, leading to a dramatic renaissance. He remained in Weimar until his death at 45 from tuberculosis.

Family

He married Rosine Engau. His son, Johann Wilhelm Engau (not Schiller) started the line of descendants that now live in St. Louis, Missouri. Schiller's father was Johann Kaspar Schiller, and his mother was Dorothea Kodweiß. Her father was Johann Kodweiß, and her mother was Anna Maria Munz. Her father, Johannes Munz, came from a very respectible family.

Philosophical Papers

Schiller wrote many philosophical papers on ethics and aesthetics, finding that beauty must be conceived in the mind by applying reason to the senses and emotions. His philosophy glorified heroic statesmanship and helped to oppose the oligarchical duchies of his time to create the Weimar Renaissance.

Ennoblement

Because of all his playwriting, the monarch of Germany ennobled him in 1802. His name changed from Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller to Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller. People respected him much more now.

Quotations

• "Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain." — Maid of Orleans

Works

Plays

• Die Räuber or The Robbers (1781)
• Kabale und Liebe or Intrigue and Love (1784)
• An die Freude or Ode to Joy (1785) which became the basis for the fourth movement of Beethoven's ninth symphony
• Don Carlos, Infant v. Spanien or Don Carlos (1787)
• Wallenstein (1800) (translated from a manuscript copy into English as The Piccolomini and Death of Wallenstein by Coleridge in 1800)
• Die Jungfrau von Orleans or The Maid of Orleans (1801)
• Maria Stuart or Mary Stuart (1801)
• Die Braut von Messina (1803),
• Wilhelm Tell or William Tell (1804)
• Demetrius (unfinished at his death)

Histories

• The Revolt of the Netherlands
• A History of the Thirty Years' War

Translations

• Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis
• William Shakespeare, Macbeth

External Links

• Project Gutenberg e-texts of some of Friedrich Schiller's works

Referenced By