Biography

Schiller was born in Marbach, Württemberg (located at the river Neckar in South West Germany, north of Stuttgart, the former Region of Swabia), as the only son, beside five sisters, of military doctor Johann Kaspar Schiller (1733-1796), and Elisabeth Dorothea Kodweiß (1732-1802). On 22 February of 1790, he married Charlotte von Lengefeld (1766-1826). Four children were born between 1793 and 1804, the sons Karl and Ernst, and the daughters Luise and Emilie. The grandchild of Emilie, Baron Alexander of Gleichen-Rußwurm, died in 1947 at Baden-Baden, Germany, as the last living descendant of Schiller.

Writing

Schiller was at once a playwright, poet, historian and philosoper and he wrote voluminously, particularly when one considers his relatively short life-span.

Philosophical papers

The 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. What follows is a brief, chronological description of the plays.

The Aesthetic Letters

Historical Writings

Poetry

Ennoblement

Quotations

• "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." — Maid of Orleans
• "The voice of the majority is no proof of justice"
• "Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told me in my childhood than in any truth that is taught in life."
• "Eine Grenze hat die Tyrannenmacht", which literally means "A tyrant's power has a limit".

Musical settings of Schiller's poems and stage plays

Ludwig van Beethoven said that a great poem is more difficult to set to music than a merely good one, because the composer must improve upon the poem. In that regard, he said that Schiller's poems were greater than those of Goethe, and perhaps that is why there are relatively few famous musical settings of Schiller's poems. Two notable exceptions are Beethoven's setting of An die Freude (Ode to Joy) in the final movement of the Ninth Symphony, and the choral setting of Nänie by Johannes Brahms. Also, Giuseppe Verdi admired Schiller greatly and adapted several of his stage plays for his operas.

Works

Plays

• Die Räuber (The Robbers) (1781)
• Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love) (1784)
• Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien (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 (The Maid of Orleans) (1801)
• Maria Stuart (Mary Stuart) (1801)
• Turandot (1802)
• Die Braut von Messina (1803)
• Wilhelm Tell (William Tell) (1804)
• Demetrius (unfinished at his death)

Histories

• Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten Niederlande von der spanischen Regierung or The Revolt of the Netherlands
• Geschichte des dreissigjährigen Kriegs or A History of the Thirty Years' War
• Ãœber Völkerwanderung, Kreuzzüge und Mittelalter or On the Barbarian Invasions, Crusaders and Middle Ages

Translations

• Euripides, Iphigenia in Aulis
• William Shakespeare, Macbeth
• Jean Racine, Phèdre

Prose

• Der Geisterseher or The Ghost-Seer (unfinished novel) (started in 1786 and published periodically. Published as book in 1789)
• Ãœber die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen (On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a series of Letters), 1794

Poems

• An die Freude or Ode to Joy (1785) which became the basis for the fourth movement of Beethoven's ninth symphony
• The Artists
• The Cranes of Ibykus
• The Bell
• Columbus
• Hope
• Pegasus in Harness
• The Glove
• Nänie which Brahms set to music