Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature

by August Wilhelm von Schlegel

In this state of things Schiller made his appearance, a man endowed with all the qualifications necessary to produce at once a strong effect on the multitude, and on nobler minds. He composed his earliest works while very young, and unacquainted with that world which he attempted to paint; and although a genius independent and boldly daring, he was nevertheless influenced in various ways by the models which he saw in the already mentioned pieces of Lessing, by the earlier labours of Goethe, and in Shakspeare, so far as he could understand him without an acquaintance with the original.

In this way were produced the works of his youth:—Die Raüber, Cabale und Liebe, and Fiesco. The first, wild and horrible as it was, produced so powerful an effect as even to turn the heads of youthful enthusiasts. The defective imitation here of Shakspeare is not to be mistaken: Francis Moor is a prosaical Richard III., ennobled by none of the properties which in the latter mingle admiration with aversion. Cabale und Liebe can hardly affect us by its extravagant sentimentality, but it tortures us by the most painful impressions. Fiesco is in design the most perverted, in effect the feeblest.

So noble a mind could not long persevere in such mistaken courses, though they gained him applauses which might have rendered the continuance of his blindness excusable. He had in his own case experienced the dangers of an undisciplined spirit and an ungovernable defiance of all constraining authority, and therefore, with incredible diligence and a sort of passion, he gave himself up to artistic discipline. The work which marks this new epoch is Don Carlos. In parts we observe a greater depth in the delineation of character; yet the old and tumid extravagance is not altogether lost, but merely clothed with choicer forms. In the situations there is much of pathetic power, the plot is complicated even to epigrammatic subtlety; but of such value in the eyes of the poet were his dearly purchased reflections on human nature and social institutions, that, instead of expressing them by the progress of the action, he exhibited them with circumstantial fulness, and made his characters philosophize more or less on themselves and others, and by that means swelled his work to a size quite incompatible with theatrical limits.

Historical and philosophical studies seemed now, to the ultimate profit of his art, to have seduced the poet for a time from his poetical career, to which he returned with a riper mind, enriched with varied knowledge, and truly enlightened at last with respect to his own aims and means. He now applied himself exclusively to Historical Tragedy, and endeavoured, by divesting himself of his personality, to rise to a truly objective representation. In Wallenstein he has adhered so conscientiously to historical truth, that he could not wholly master his materials, an event of no great historical extent is spun out into two plays, with prologue in some degree didactical. In form he has closely followed Shakspeare; only that he might not make too large a demand on the imagination of the spectators, he has endeavoured to confine the changes of place and time within narrower limits. He also tied himself down to a more sustained observance of tragical dignity, and has brought forward no persons of mean condition, or at least did not allow them to speak in their natural tone, and banished into the prelude the mere people, here represented by the army, though Shakspeare introduced them with such vividness and truth into the very midst of the great public events. The loves of Thekla and Max Piccolomini form, it is true, properly an episode, and bear the stamp of an age very different from that depicted in the rest of the work; but it affords an opportunity for the most affecting scenes, and is conceived with equal tenderness and dignity.

Maria Stuart is planned and executed with more artistic skill, and also with greater depth and breadth. All is wisely weighed; we may censure particular parts as offensive: the quarrel for instance, between the two Queens, the wild fury of Mortimer's passion, &c.; but it is hardly possible to take any thing away without involving the whole in confusion. The piece cannot fail of effect; the last moments of Mary are truly worthy of a queen; religious impressions are employed with becoming earnestness; only from the care, perhaps superfluous, to exercise, after Mary's death, poetical justice on Elizabeth, the spectator is dismissed rather cooled and indifferent.

With such a wonderful subject as the Maid of Orleans, Schiller thought himself entitled to take greater liberties. The plot is looser; the scene with Montgomery, an epic intermixture, is at variance with the general tone; in the singular and inconceivable appearance of the black knight, the object of the poet is ambiguous; in the character of Talbot, and many other parts, Schiller has entered into an unsuccessful competition with Shakspeare; and I know not but the colouring employed, which is not so brilliant as might be imagined, is an equivalent for the severer pathos which has been sacrificed to it. The history of the Maid of Orleans, even to its details, is generally known; her high mission was believed by herself and generally by her contemporaries, and produced the most extraordinary effects. The marvel might, therefore, have been represented by the poet, even though the sceptical spirit of his contemporaries should have deterred him from giving it out for real; and the real ignominious martyrdom of this betrayed and abandoned heroine would have agitated us more deeply than the gaudy and rose-coloured one which, in contradiction to history, Schiller has invented for her. Shakspeare's picture, though partial from national prejudice, still possesses much more historical truth and profundity. However, the German piece will ever remain as a generous attempt to vindicate the honour of a name deformed by impudent ridicule; and its dazzling effect, strengthened by the rich ornateness of the language, deservedly gained for it on the stage the most eminent success.

Least of all am I disposed to approve of the principles which Schiller followed in The Bride of Messina, and which he openly avows in his preface. The examination of them, however, would lead me too far into the province of theory. It was intended to be a tragedy, at once ancient in its form, but romantic in substance. A story altogether fictitious is kept in a costume so indefinite and so devoid of all intrinsic probability, that the picture is neither truly ideal nor truly natural, neither mythological nor historical. The romantic poetry seeks indeed to blend together the most remote objects, but it cannot admit of combining incompatible things; the way of thinking of the people represented cannot be at once Pagan and Christian. I will not complain of him for borrowing openly as he has done; the whole is principally composed of two ingredients, the story of Eteocles and Polynices, who, notwithstanding the mediation of their mother Jocaste, contend for the sole possession of the throne, and of the brothers, in the Zwillingen van Klinger, and in Julius von Tarent, impelled to fratricide by rivalry in love. In the introduction of the choruses also, though they possess much lyrical sublimity and many beauties, the spirit of the ancients has been totally mistaken; as each of the hostile brothers has a chorus attached to his, the one contending against the other, they both cease to be a true chorus; that is, the voice of human sympathy and contemplation elevated above all personal considerations.

Schiller's last work, Wilhelm Tell, is, in my opinion, also his best. Here he has returned to the poetry of history; the manner in which he has handled his subject, is true, cordial, and when we consider Schiller's ignorance of Swiss nature and manners, wonderful in point of local truth. It is true he had here a noble source to draw from in the speaking pictures of the immortal John Müller. This soul-kindling picture of old German manners, piety, and true heroism, might have merited, as a solemn celebration of Swiss freedom, five hundred years after its foundation, to have been exhibited, in view of Tell's chapel on the banks of the lake of Lucerne, in the open air, and with the Alps for a background.

Schiller was carried off by an untimely death in the fulness of mental maturity; up to the last moment his health, which had long been undermined, was made to yield to his powerful will, and completely exhausted in the pursuit of most praiseworthy objects. How much might he not have still performed had he lived to dedicate himself exclusively to the theatre, and with every work attained a higher mastery in his art! He was, in the genuine sense of the word, a virtuous artist; with parity of mind he worshipped the true and the beautiful, and to his indefatigable, efforts to attain them his own existence was the sacrifice; he was, moreover, far removed from that petty self-love and jealousy but too common even among artists of excellence.

Great original minds in Germany have always been followed by a host of imitators, and hence both Goethe and Schiller have been the occasion, without any fault of theirs, of a number of defective and degenerate productions being brought on our stage.