foudebassan (foudebassan) wrote in gedichte, @ 2008-04-11 15:57:00 |
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Entry tags: | schiller |
Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller
(1759-1805) is associated to Goethe in popular culture, and suffers from the association, as if Goethe’s shadow kept him in a relative darkness. The truth is that Schiller’s life was a lot shorter than Goethe’s (1749-1832) and that he thus did not have the time to write as much as Goethe did in his more mature years. Their “friendship” (they exchanged more than a thousand letters) also masks the fact that they interacted with each other more on the basis of mutual respect for each other’s intellectual calibre than out of any similarity of views or opinions. And where reading Goethe is a discreet intellectual pleasure, comparable to leaning back on a comfortable armchair to savour little sips of ambrosia, contact with Schiller’s works is more like diving head first into the intensity of undiluted passion without knowing when or if one will be able to catch one’s breath. This often leads readers to admire Goethe’s measure and sense of balance and sneer at Schiller’s perceived hybris. I shall leave you judge of that…
Schiller was born close to Stuttgart to a military doctor. When he was 13 he was forced (by the earl and against his parents’ wishes) to attend military school. He didn’t like it, and wikipedia informs me that, in consequence, he went on wetting his bed until he was 15, a piece of information I feel compelled to share. Its being wikipedia, I would, however, take it with a grain of salt. While still in military school, he studied medicine until graduation. He escaped to go watch the first representation of one of his (subversive) plays in Mannheim, was caught, sent to jail and sentenced to "not writing this kind of stuff again" (sic!) for it, after which he fled from Stuttgart for good.
He started writing plays very young, and his play Die Räuber (The Robbers) gave him international fame as a rebel and revolutionary against absolutism. It was as such that he was made honorary citizen of the first French republic, despite his open criticism of the burgeoning Terreur.
Many years of intense writing followed, along with material insecurity. He often had to depend on the generosity of friends to house and feed him, despite a growing fame as a writer and playwright and, eventually, an (unpaid) professorship at the university of Iena (he was hired to teach philosophy but lectured on history instead). It was as such that he stayed in Goethe’s house for two weeks, which was highly inconvenient to all parties concerned as Goethe’s son and then mistress had to hide all day (in their own house!) so as not to offend Schiller’s finer sensibilities regarding living in sin and the inappropriateness thereof.
Many of his friends were either free-masons or members of the Illuminati, another secret society, and he was invited to join both. There is no positive evidence that he ever did, and at one point in time he wrote that he hadn’t and wouldn't. There are, however, several witnesses who said he did become a mason.
In 1790, he married Charlotte von Lengefeld, who was none other than the god-daughter of Charlotte von Stein, the woman with whom Goethe was in love in his young days. Her sister Caroline was also a writer, and published her novel in one of Schiller’s literary magazines. The marriage was pretty uneventful. They had two sons and two daughters who all survived infancy. Charlotte was often portrayed as nice but dumb; Schiller’s correspondence with Goethe (who was also friends with Charlotte) seems to prove otherwise.
His finances improved markedly when he moved to Weimar and was named councillor (the charge came with a pension). He was also ennoblished in 1802, but he never changed his name to reflect that, preferring to think of himself as a citizen than as a nobleman.
Schiller’s health had been poorly for several years when he died in 1805, probably of lung inflammation. His corpse was put in a crypt; if you want the really morbid details, Goethe went there a couple of years afterwards and stole his skull, which is kept in his home for a couple of months before taking it back. Goethe also asked to be buried next to him in the cemetery where his mortal remains where moved some years afterwards.
Schiller’s best-known poem is probably Das Lied von der Glocke. I chose An die Freude instead (English translation by William F. Wertz here) for obvious reasons.
If you want a soundtrack to this, here is an interpretation of Beethoven’s 9th by Karajan - part two here.
Everything has been said over this poem, and then more. You can find Christian themes in there, and Masonic symbols, and probably some Pastafarian liturgy as well if you look hard enough. So I’ll leave it to you to dive in it in peace and shall keep the commentary to two points:-
1. It was first meant to be an Ode to Freedom (An die Freiheit). Joy was substituted for political reasons (to avoid censorship) probably because of its near homophone-ness.
2. This is not the European hymn, exactly. Beethoven’s 9th is. (The last bit of the symphony was written on the words though, only altered a bit to sound less political). It would probably have been politically incorrect to have a hymn in German (or any other language for that matter). Still, it doesn’t fool anyone, no more than “Joy” instead or “Freedom” fooled anyone at the time it was published.
I think it makes the perfect European hymn for these two reasons – and because, for all that cautious conservatism may be the wiser course of actions, sometimes we all need to believe that all men will be brothers if we just could open up to idealism a bit.