The Maid of Orleans
Die Schönheit ist für ein glückliches Geschlecht; ein unglückliches musz man erhaben zu rühren suchen.—Letter of July 26, 1800.
It was well observed by Wilhelm von Humboldt that Schiller's plays are not repetitions of the same thing, such as talent is wont to produce when it has once met with a success, but the productions of a spirit that ever kept wrestling anew with the demands of art. With each fresh attempt he essayed a really new theme, and taken as a whole his works exhibit a remarkable variety of substance. Each one has its own individuality, its own atmosphere. And he himself wished that this should be so; it was a part of his study to avoid repeating himself. 'One must not become the slave of any general concept',—so he wrote to Goethe in July, 1800,—'but have the courage to invent a new form for each new matter and keep the type-idea flexible in one's mind.'
These words were penned with direct reference to 'The Maid of Orleans', which was begun very soon after the completion of 'Mary Stuart'. Whether Schiller then had in mind all those elements which subsequently led to the sub-title, 'a romantic tragedy', is not at all certain; it would be natural to surmise that he may have thought at first of a drama within the lines of authentic tradition. However, we know very little in detail about the genesis of this particular play. The letter just quoted tells of the usual initial difficulty in concentrating the action, the interesting occurrences being so widely separated in time and place. Later letters hardly do more than occasionally to report progress; they do not discuss artistic questions, nor give any information as to books read. Three acts were finished by mid-winter, and the whole on the 15th of April, 1801. Schiller had now learned his routine; he felt confidence in himself and went ahead in his own way, with but little discussion of his plans. What he finally gave to the world is a tragedy in which he proceeds still further along the path of romantic idealization,—proceeds indeed so far that one can no longer follow him without some rather serious misgivings.
The French peasant girl becomes an ambassadress of heaven, gifted with second sight and the power of working miracles. She not only leads the French troops in battle, but she herself fights with a magic sword and kills English soldiers with the ruthlessness of a veteran in slaughter. Through it all, however, she is supposed to remain a tender-hearted and lovable maiden, such as the highest officers of France may wish to marry. By the command of the Holy Virgin, from whom her mission and power derive, she is bound to refrain from all earthly love. A momentary tenderness for the English general, Lionel, which leads her to spare his life, presents itself to her conscience as an infraction of the divine command. She is overwhelmed with remorse and loses all her power. Arm and soul are paralyzed. Taxed by her superstitious father with witchcraft, she cannot find speech to defend herself and imagines that a thunder-clap is heaven's testimony against her. Then she wanders about as a helpless and disgraced fugitive and is captured by English soldiers. With fettered hands she is compelled to witness a new battle, in which her countrymen, deprived of her aid, are about to be worsted. But through adversity she has been purged of her sin. Her self-confidence returns, and with it her miraculous power. By the efficacy of prayer she breaks her chains and rushes into the fray. Her reappearance brings victory to the French arms, but she herself is mortally wounded and dies in glory on the battle-field.
It is evident that such a conception carries us back into the dreamland of pious romance. It presupposes a world in which things did not happen as they happen now; in which the incredible is assumed to be real and the course of events is shaped by miracle. To be sure, miracle is but sparingly used in the dramatic action itself, and the totality of the play is only a little more wonderful than the Maid's actual history as given by authentic records. Johanna's vision of the Virgin is merely described retrospectively and is parallel to the Voices of the historical Joan. So too her recognition of the King, whom she has never seen before; her reading of his mind; her wonderful influence over the French army, and much more of the kind, are part of a well-authenticated tradition with which the skeptical mind must make its peace as best it can. And the feat is not altogether easy. The modern rationalist will say, and is no doubt right in saying, that if we knew all the pertinent facts accurately from first to last, the Maid's story would fit perfectly into our scheme of scientific knowledge and would appear no more mysterious than other stories of obsession, genius and devotion. Still the fact remains that upon ordinary human nature, without regard to religious prepossessions, the record of the Maid's life, as brought out at her trial, makes an impression of the marvelous. This is quite enough for the purposes of a dramatic poet. But when Schiller introduces a magic sword; when he makes his heroine talk with a ghost upon the battle-field, and break her heavy fetters by the power of prayer; and when we not merely hear these things reported, but see them,—then we are clearly in the realm of pure miracle.
Schiller's ultra-romantic treatment of the Maid's story has often been sharply criticised, even by those who are in the main friendly to his genius; while those who are not friendly have always seen in it the complete flowering of his worst tendencies. Critics have debated at great length the question whether he was 'justified' in introducing the supernatural at all. They have fallen back upon the ghost in 'Hamlet' for a precedent and have tried to illuminate the subject with the light of Lessing's famous comparison of Shakspere's ghost with Voltaire's in 'Semiramis'. Others have been shocked by Schiller's bold departure from history at the close. On a first reading of 'The Maid of Orleans', Macaulay recorded in his journal an opinion that "the last act was absurd beyond description. Schiller might just as well have made Wallenstein dethrone the emperor and reign himself over Germany—or Mary become Queen of England and cut off Elizabeth's head—as make Joan fall in the moment of victory."[123]
Now opinions of this kind have a certain interest for the student of literature, but it is best not to take them too seriously. A dramatist is 'justified' if his intention is good and he succeeds in it. The proof of the pudding is not in the cook's recipe. If any dramatist in the wide world chooses, for reasons of his own, to experiment with an imaginary reversal of the verdict of history, there is no abstract reason why he should not do so. It is just as well, as Schiller said, to 'keep the type-idea flexible in one's mind',—especially when we know that his experiment was received with ecstasy at its first performance and has ever since held its place in the affection of German play-goers. They are not troubled by its irrationalities, but receive them with pious awe, as Schiller intended. For the reader, too, 'The Maid of Orleans' has a deep and perennial fascination. Theorize about it as we may, it is a great popular classic, which has exerted an enormous educative influence and proves how thoroughly its author knew the heart of the German people.
It is perfectly safe to conjecture, even without documentary evidence, that when Schiller began to think of Joan the Maid as the possible heroine of a tragedy, his first perplexity related to the question of her 'guilt'. This was for him an indispensable ingredient of the tragic, whatever later theorists may think of it.
Although, as we have seen, he contemned the bondage of general concepts, he never came to the point of imagining a tragedy without 'tragic guilt'. But the story of Joan offers no suggestion of guilt in any sense whatever,—she was the innocent victim of groveling superstition playing into the hands of insane political hate. For modern sentiment, Catholic and Protestant alike, and quite independently of the view one may take of her claims to divine illumination, her death at the stake was simply a horrible and revolting wrong. In comparison with those who put her to death she was an angel of light. To follow the lines of history here was for Schiller unthinkable, since the end would have been a mad fatality, leaving no room for any feeling of acquiescence in the wise ordering of the world. If the story of Joan was to yield a tragedy at all, it was necessary to have recourse to some bold invention which should bring her fate into harmony with the central tightness of things.[124]