The End.--Unfinished Plays, Translations and Adaptations
Es stürzt ihn mitten in der Bahn,
Es reiszt ihn fort vom vollen Leben.
_'William Tell'_.
Our story of Schiller's life draws to a close. After the completion of
'William Tell' his tireless energy of production found its next theme in
the story of Dmitri, the reputed son of Ivan the Terrible. Just how and
whence the suggestion came to him is unknown, but the connection of
things is patent enough in a general way. Far-reaching intrigues in high
life had always had a fascination for him, and recent studies undertaken
for 'Warbeck' had interested him in the type of the pretender whose
kingly bearing seems to betoken kingly blood. In a work upon Russia,--a
land which had been brought closer to the Schiller household by the
appointment of Wilhelm von Wolzogen as Weimarian envoy to the Czar,--he
read anew the history of the 'false Dmitri', and was struck by its
dramatic capabilities. In 'Warbeck' he had thought to portray a
pretender who knew that his claims were fraudulent; in Dmitri he found
one who believed in himself. The psychological problem, and the idea of
conquering an entirely new territory for the German drama, attracted him
strongly, and he set about the laborious task of self-orientation.
Ere long, however, there came an interruption which, for a while, seemed
to promise a momentous change in the tenor of his life. Iffland wished
to lure him to Berlin and had intimated that the Prussian government
might be disposed to offer inducements. Schiller was not entirely averse
to the idea; at least he thought it worth while to reconnoitre. So,
toward the end of April, 1804, he set out with wife and children for the
Prussian capital, where he was received with the greatest cordiality.
The king and queen of Prussia, to whom he was presented, were very
gracious, and it was all decidedly pleasant. So at least he thought and
so his wife pretended to think,--keeping down for her husband's sake the
dismay which a daughter of fair Thuringia could not help feeling at the
thought of making a home on the flat banks of the Spree. After a
fortnight Schiller returned to Weimar and was presently invited by the
Prussian minister, Beyme, to name his terms. Now came the rub; for he
did not really wish to leave Weimar. He had taken deep root there and
his affections clung to the place for the sake of Goethe and a few other
friends. On the other hand, his stipend was but four hundred thalers,
and his other sources of income were by no means such as to free him
from anxiety about the future of his family. Feeling that it was his
duty to better his position if possible, he laid his case before Karl
August, who promptly doubled his stipend. After this it was virtually
impossible for him to leave Weimar. Unwilling nevertheless to renounce
the Berlin prospects altogether, he wrote to Beyme that for a
consideration of two thousand thalers annually he would reside a few
months of each year in Berlin. To this proposition Beyme made no answer.
Possibly he thought the price too high for a fractional poet.
Pending these futile negotiations Schiller worked with great zest upon
'Demetrius ',--reading, excerpting, examining maps and pictures,
schematizing, balancing possibilities, and so forth. But again he was
interrupted; first by an unusually severe illness, which brought him to
death's door and left him for weeks in a condition of helpless languor,
and then by the distractions incident to the arrival of the hereditary
Prince of Weimar with his Russian bride, Maria Paulovna. Golden reports
had preceded this princess, who was expected to reach Weimar in
November, and preparations were made to welcome her with distinguished
honors. For some reason Goethe, in his capacity of director of the
theater, remained inactive amid the general flutter until a few days
before the great event, when he besought Schiller to come to the rescue.
The result was 'The Homage of the Arts', called by its author a
'prologue'.
We have a rustic scene in which country-folk plant an orange-tree and
invoke the blessing of pagan divinities. The Genius of Art appears, and
with him the seven goddesses: Architecture, Sculpture, Painting, Poetry,
Music, Dance and Drama. Genius asks for an explanation of the
tree-planting, and is told by the rustics that it is an act of homage to
their new queen, who has come from high imperial halls to live in their
humble valley. They wish to bind her to them by keeping her reminded of
home. On hearing this Genius assures them that the queen will not find
all things strange in her new home: old friends are there after all.
Then he leads forward his seven goddesses, who explain themselves and
say pretty things about Russia. 'The Homage of the Arts' is in no sense
a weighty production, but its graceful verse and well-turned compliments
had the desired effect. Maria Paulovna was pleased with it.
The reaction from these Russophile festivities fell heavily upon
Schiller and he became gradually weaker. Unequal to creative effort he
undertook a translation of Racine's 'Phèdre' in German pentameters and
finished it about the middle of January, 1805. After this he threw
himself with great energy upon 'Demetrius', but it was the final flicker
of a dying flame. In February came a fresh prostration, and it was then
evident that the end was near. Nevertheless he worked on for a few weeks
longer with feverish eagerness. On the evening of April 29, he went to
the theater. After the play was over, the young Voss,--a son of the
poet, who had attached himself warmly to Schiller during these latest
years,--came to him to attend him home. He found him in a violent fever,
which soon led to exhaustion and delirium. This time the strong will of
the sufferer and the eager offices of wife and physician proved
unavailing. He lingered on a few days longer, now and then in his
delirium reciting disconnected verse or scraps of Latin, until the end
came, on the afternoon of the 9th of May. Three days later, between
twelve and one o'clock at night, the body of the dead man was borne by a
little group of friends through the silent and deserted streets of
Weimar, and lowered into a vault in the churchyard of St. James. There
it remained until 1826, when the remains were exhumed and, after some
curious vicissitudes, were placed in an oaken coffin and deposited in
the ducal mausoleum, where they now rest near those of Goethe and Karl
August.[129]
The death of Schiller made many mourners. Goethe, who had himself been
very ill, wrote to a friend in Berlin: 'I thought to lose myself, and
now I lose a friend, and with him the half of my existence.' From every
hand came tokens of sympathy for the widow. Maria Paulovna asked for the
privilege of caring for the children. Queen Luise of Prussia sent a
message of heartfelt condolence. Cotta, whose business relations with
Schiller had given rise to a warm personal affection, made generous
offers of financial aid. As for the nation at large, however, it can
hardly be said that much notice was taken of the event. Schiller had led
a secluded life, had been but little in the public eye, and his
personality was known to but few. What should the passing of a single
dreamer signify in the stirring epoch of Austerlitz and Jena? Not many
knew that one of the real immortals had ceased to breathe,--one whose
figure would loom up larger and larger in receding time, like a high
mountain in the receding distance.
But leaving this subject, of Schiller's subsequent influence and
reputation, for discussion in the concluding chapter, let us now turn to
a brief survey of his unfinished plays and of his more important work as
translator and adapter.
And first, 'Demetrius', of which one may say, as Schiller said of the
Faust-fragment of 1790, that it is the torso of a Hercules. Such extant
portions as had reached something like a final form in verse tell of a
tragedy that bade fair to rank with 'Wallenstein', perhaps to surpass
'Wallenstein', in dramatic power and psychological interest. The
completed portions pertain mainly to the first two acts; for the rest we
have an immense mass of schemes, arguments, excerpts and collectanea. To
read through this material, particularly the various schemes laboriously
written out in numberless revisions, conveys at first an impression of
over-solicitude, as if erudition and logical analysis were being relied
upon to take the place of slackening inspiration. The moment one turns
to the finished scenes, however, one sees that the poetic spring was
still flowing in full measure; and one is amazed at the creative power
which could still, with death knocking at the door, so swiftly and so
surely fashion great poetry out of dull and contradictory books.
The story of the false Demetrius had been familiar to Schiller from his
youth, but there is no evidence that he ever thought of dramatizing it
until the year 1802, when we hear of an intended drama to be called 'The
Massacre at Moscow'. Just as before in the cases of Fiesco and
Wallenstein, he found here a notable conspirator whose character and
motives were the subject of dispute among the historians. The more usual
view was that Demetrius was an escaped monk who gave himself out as the
son of Ivan the Terrible, having either himself invented the fraud or
else taken upon himself a rôle that was suggested to him by some one
else. On the other hand, there were those who regarded him as the
genuine son of Ivan and thus entitled to the throne which he conquered
from the usurper, Boris Gudunoff, in the year 1605. Fraudulent
pretender, or genuine Czar of the blood of Rurik,--this was the great
question. With a fine dramatic intuition Schiller conceived a third
possibility, namely, that Demetrius, though not in reality Ivan's son,
fully believed himself to be such until he had triumphed, and then,
though undeceived, went on his calamitous way as a tyrant because he
could not turn back.
His first thought was to begin with a scene at Sambor in Galicia,
wherein the escaped monk Grischka, tarrying at the house of Mnischek in
complete ignorance of his high birth, but given none the less to
ambitious dreaming, should be made known as Ivan's son, Demetrius,
supposed to have been murdered sixteen years before at the instigation
of Boris. Several scenes, interesting in their way but somewhat lacking
in horizon, were elaborated in accordance with this idea. Then, however,
the plan was modified and it was decided to begin directly with a
session of the Polish parliament at Cracow, at which Demetrius should
appear and triumphantly assert his claims before King Sigismund and the
assembled nobles. This scene, though left imperfect here and there, is
certainly one of the best that ever came from Schiller's pen. As usual
we have a bit of world-drama, for the element out of which the action
grows is the national antipathy of Poles and Russians. And what an
interesting figure is the young Demetrius, confronting all the pomp and
power with the easy dignity of one born to kingship, and carrying the
parliament with him by dint of his own self-confidence and royal
bearing. He is essentially a new creation, unlike any of Schiller's
other youthful heroes, though a certain family resemblance is of course
discernible. Ambition of power is the great mainspring of his character,
and he is as unscrupulous as Napoleon. Nevertheless he has his
sentimental and his ethical promptings, and the whole basis of his
conduct in this first part of the play is his perfect confidence that he
is the son of Ivan.
It is thus ever to be regretted that Schiller did not live to write the
later scenes in which Demetrius, on the eve of his triumphant entry into
Moscow, should be approached by the _fabricator doli_ and told the true
story of his vulgar birth. Here, just as in the 'Oedipus Rex', was a
stupendous tragic fate, unconnected with any conscious guilt and growing
entirely out of the circumstances. What should Demetrius do? What he was
to _say_ we know from a prose sketch which runs as follows:
You [addressed to the _fabricator doli_, who appears in the
manuscript as X] have pierced the heart of my life, you have taken
from me my faith in myself. Away, Courage and Hope! Away, joyous
self-confidence! I am caught in a lie. I am at variance with myself.
I am an enemy of mankind. I and truth are parted forever! What?
Shall I undeceive the people? Unmask myself as a deceiver?--I must
go forward. I must stand firm, and yet I can do it no longer in the
strength of inward conviction. Murder and blood must maintain me in
my position. How shall I meet the Czarina? How shall I enter Moscow
amid the plaudits of the people, with this lie in my heart?
One sees from this whither Schiller's idea was tending. From the time
that Demetrius is undeceived his character changes. The youth who, with
truth on his side, had it in him to become a great and wise ruler,
breaks with the moral law and becomes a Macbeth, or a Richard the Third.
His course from this time on is flecked with blood and dishonored by
treachery and tyranny. As Czar he excites the hatred of the Russians by
his impolitic contempt of their customs. His Poles are insolent and
trouble begins to brew about him. Finally there is an uprising against
him and he falls--the victim of his own [Greek: hubris].
Had Schiller been permitted by fate to complete 'Demetrius', we should
have had, it is safe to say, the most impressive of all his heroes, with
the possible exception of Wallenstein. And we should have had also, in
all probability, the very best of his historical tragedies; for his plan
had provided for an unusually large number of highly promising scenes.
The picturesque Polish parliament, with its tumultuous ending; the first
meeting of Demetrius with his reputed mother; the scene with the
_fabricator doli_; the triumphal entry into Moscow; Demetrius as Czar in
the Kremlin; his love intrigues with Axinia and his perfunctory marriage
to Marina; the final gathering and bursting of the storm of
indignation,--all this would have been wrought into a dramatic
masterpiece of the first order.
Like 'Demetrius' in having a royal pretender for a hero, but unlike it
in every other respect, is the play which was to have been called
'Warbeck'. To this subject Schiller's attention was drawn in the summer
of 1799, while reading English history in Rapin de Thoyras. During the
ensuing years he took it up repeatedly, but each time dropped it in
favor of some other theme. At the time of his death he left 'Warbeck'
material sufficient to make eighty-four pages of octavo print. The most
of this material consists of prose schemes, but there are also several
hundred verses, some of them complete, others with lacunae, great or
small. By a close study of these data one can make out the general
character of the proposed play and the essential lineaments of the more
important characters. The play was not to have been a tragedy, and it
would have owed to history hardly anything more than its _milieu_ and a
few names. The plan was something like this:
About the year 1492 there turns up at Brussels, at the court of
Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, a young man calling himself Warbeck. He
is ignorant of his own birth, and does not suppose himself to be of
royal blood, but he has a strong resemblance to Edward the Fourth of
England. Being herself of York blood and wishing to make trouble for the
Tudor king, Henry the Seventh, Margaret persuades the stranger to
pretend that he is the son of Edward the Fourth,--one of the two boys
supposed to have been murdered in the tower by Richard of Gloucester. He
consents to the fraud and speedily acquires a following as pretender to
the English throne. In reality Margaret despises him and merely wishes
to use him as a tool, but it soon appears that Warbeck is a man of
character who insists on playing his assumed rôle in a manner worthy of
an English sovereign. Preparations are made for an invasion of England
to assert his claim. Meanwhile Warbeck falls in love with Adelaide, a
princess of Brittany, for whom the imperious Margaret has other designs.
Presently a man named Simnel appears, asserting fraudulently that _he_
is a son of the fourth Edward. He and Warbeck fight a duel and Simnel is
killed. Then the real Edward Plantagenet appears, with a convincing
story of his own wonderful escape from the executioner in the Tower. A
murderous plot is concocted against the boy's life, but he is saved by
Warbeck, who acknowledges him as his rightful king. All this time
Warbeck has supposed himself to be acting a part of pure fraud; and as
he is really a man of honor, and in love with an amiable princess, the
rôle of deceit has become increasingly hateful to him. At last, however,
the old Earl of Kildare arrives, and from the depths of his superior
knowledge makes it plain that Warbeck is in truth a natural son of
Edward the Fourth. Thus all ends romantically and we have no adumbration
of that later scene of the year 1499, when Perkin Warbeck was drawn and
quartered at Tyburn.
From this plan it is clear that the principal stress was to fall on the
character of Warbeck, conceived as a high-minded youth entangled in an
odious lie. To quote Schiller's exact words: 'The problem of the piece
is to carry him (Warbeck) ever deeper into situations in which his
deceit brings him to despair, and to let his natural truthfulness
increase as the circumstances force him to deception.' To arouse
sympathy for such a character would have been, to say the least, a
difficult task; one cannot wonder that Schiller was perplexed by it. The
schemes indicate that his main reliance was the love-story, which would
have been very prominent. Of the other characters, the most important,
probably, was the Duchess Margaret, conceived as a selfish, overbearing,
heartless creature, in sharp contrast with the romantic Adelaide. On the
whole, judging from such imperfect data as we possess, one must regard
'Warbeck' as a far less powerful and promising design than 'Demetrius'.
Contemporaneous with 'Warbeck' and 'Demetrius', and broadly similar to
them in that it was to deal with a political adventurer and to present
an elaborate picture of intrigue in high life, is the plan of a play
which was at first called 'Count Königsmark'. The subject occupied the
thoughts of Schiller for some little time in the summer of 1804, until
it was dropped in favor of 'Demetrius'. Count Königsmark was a nobleman
who was murdered in the year 1694, at the court of Duke George I., of
Hannover, in consequence of a supposed criminal relation with the
Duchess Sophia, a princess of the house of Celle. As he mused upon the
dramatic possibilities of the story, Schiller became less interested in
Königsmark and more in the compromised duchess; so the name of the piece
was changed to 'The Princess of Celle'. From his extant notes and
sketches one can make out that the heroine was conceived, like Mary
Stuart, as a noble sufferer. She is a virtuous lady who is given in
marriage for political reasons to an unloved and licentious duke, whose
mistresses insult her. In her misery she makes a friend of the
chivalrous but inflammable Königsmark. Their relation excites suspicion,
Königsmark is murdered and the duchess sent to prison,--disgraced but
innocent. In prison she finds peace of soul, just as Mary Stuart finds
it in the presence of death.
Much older than any of these plans and entirely different from them, is
that of the 'Knights of Malta', which dates back to the year 1788. While
pursuing his studies for 'Don Carlos' Schiller had become greatly
interested in the story of La Valette's heroic defense of Malta in 1565.
It seemed to him to promise well for a tragedy in the Greek style,--with
a chorus, a simple plot and few characters. He began work upon it, but
was soon diverted by his historical studies. In subsequent years,
however, he returned to 'The Knights of Malta' from time to time, and as
late as 1803 was strongly minded to attempt the completion of the work.
During these fifteen years the plan underwent various changes. Although
certain aspects of the subject made it very attractive to Schiller, he
felt from the first that it lacked the 'salient point' of a good
tragedy. The extant data show him working tentatively with one idea
after another, without ever finding exactly what he wanted. This being
so, it is hardly worth while to go minutely into the history of his
plans and perplexities.
'The Knights of Malta' was to have been a poetic tragedy of heroic
devotion, friendship and self-sacrifice. The exposition, as we have it
in outline, shows,--partly by means of a chorus of 'spiritual'
knights,--the desperate plight of the besieged Christians. The crisis
requires absolute devotion to the principles of the order, but the
knights have degenerated. Two of them are quarreling over a captured
Greek girl, and so forth. La Valette, the grandmaster, institutes stern
measures of reform to restore the ancient _morale_ of the order, and
these provoke intrigue and opposition. The defenders of Fort St. Elmo
ask to be relieved, on the ground that the place cannot be held. La
Valette decides that St. Elmo must be defended to the last: it is a case
where a few must be ready to sacrifice themselves for their principles
and for the order as a whole. Among those thus sent to death is La
Valette's own son, who leaves behind a very dear friend. In the end the
defenders of St. Elmo are killed, but Malta and the order are saved. The
Turks raise the siege.
Reading this outline one has no great difficulty In seeing why
Schiller's dramatic instinct could never be satisfied with 'The Knights
of Malta'. It has no tragic climax, no point upon which the action could
be focused. As a stage-play it would have had small chance of favor, on
account of its chorus and its entire lack of female characters. Romantic
love was to be left out and friendship to take its place. But could
anything worth while have been done with the heroics of friendship after
'Don Carlos'? On the whole one must regard it as a great good fortune
for the German drama that, when Schiller was hesitating in 1796 between
'Wallenstein' and 'The Knights of Malta', the former carried the day. As
for the pseudo-antique chorus, the best that he could do with that, by
way of an experiment, was done later in 'The Bride of Messina'.
Besides those already mentioned, there are a number of other plans which
deserve a word, were it only to show the wide range of Schiller's
interest and the eagerness of his quest after variety. Thus we find him
occupied, at one time or another, with two antique themes, 'Aggripina'
and 'The Death of Themistocles'; with an Anglo-Saxon theme of the tenth
century, 'Elfride', and with a medieval romantic theme, 'The Countess of
Flanders'. Then we find two subjects that were suggested by the reading
of modern travels, 'The Ship' and 'The Filibuster'. In one the scene was
to be laid on some distant coast or island, and the plot was to
illustrate sea-life and commerce, with their characteristic types. In
the other the whole action was to take place on shipboard, bringing in a
mutiny, ship's justice, a sea-fight, trade with savages, and so forth.
Finally there are sketches of two other plays, based on the annals of
crime. In one of them, called 'The Children of the House', the hero was
to be a thorough scoundrel, whom Nemesis would impel mysteriously to a
course of conduct whereby his long hidden crimes would be discovered.
The other, entitled 'The Police', was to present a story of crime and
its discovery at Paris,--with telling realistic pictures for which
Schiller took a mass of interesting notes.
Verily, a rich collection, which shows that a good deal of Schiller
failed to find expression in the works he completed. One could wish
particularly that we had those sea-plays, and the Parisian criminal
drama. Perhaps in that case the critics who have taxed him with this or
that narrowness would have found it more difficult to make headway.
We turn now from these dramatic might-have-beens to glance at the
translations and adaptations made for the Weimar theater.[130] And first
it should be observed that in all these, without exception, Schiller's
point of view was that of a practical playwright, not that of a literary
virtuoso. His concern was to enrich the repertory of the theater with
good acting plays; plays which, when put upon the boards, would 'go',
and go with such actors and such properties as were to be had. In his
efforts to do this he was never restrained by any feeling of piety
toward his originals from making such changes as commended themselves to
his dramaturgic principles or instinct. The first work of this kind
undertaken by him at Weimar was a version of Goethe's 'Egmont', made in
1796. Iffland was starring in Weimar and wished to appear as Egmont.
Goethe was just then somewhat lukewarm toward the theater, and even if
he had not been, it was by no means hidden from him that his own
strength lay in the poetic rather than the dramatic sphere. So it was
arranged that Schiller, as a man of experience, should operate upon the
play that he had reviewed so candidly some years before. His procedure
was 'consistent but cruel', as Goethe afterward phrased it. He dropped
the rôle of Margaret of Parma entirely, rearranged here and there in
order to avoid a too frequent change of scene, and made a multitude of
little changes in the interest of stage effect. As to the propriety of
these alterations it is futile to argue on general grounds, since so
much depends on the point of view, and the point of view has changed.
To-day people who go to the theater to see 'Egmont' prefer to see the
play, for better or worse, as Goethe wrote it. Piety toward the author
counts more than abstract principles. For a while Schiller's version of
'Egmont' had a certain vogue in the German theaters, but it soon gave
way to an increasing preference for the original. Goethe himself was
pleased when this tendency manifested itself.
Similar considerations apply to the version of Lessing's 'Nathan',
which was made in 1801. Strangely enough, as it seems to us now,
Lessing's masterpiece had up to that time met with no favor on the
German stage. It was not so much that people objected to its
philosophic drift as that something seemed to be lacking in its
dramatic quality. Very naturally Goethe and Schiller, who were strongly
in sympathy with Lessing's tendency, were desirous of domesticating
'Nathan' on the Weimar boards. So Schiller undertook an adaptation,
taking the task very seriously. Years before, while following up the
theory of the drama in his strict and strenuous fashion, he had
convinced himself that 'Nathan' was a monstrosity; it was neither
tragedy nor comedy nor tragi-comedy, and he was opposed to a mixture of
types. In tragedy, so he had reasoned in his essay upon 'Naïve and
Sentimental Poetry', _raisonnement_ is out of place; in comedy, pathos.
Lessing had yielded to the 'whim' of mixing the two. If, therefore, it
was desired to make an acceptable stage-play out of 'Nathan' it would
be advisable to modify it in the direction of tragedy by reducing its
_raisonnement_, or else to make it more like comedy by reducing its
pathos. In other words, theory had given Schiller a point of view which
is not the modern point of view. To-day no one, unless it were a
pedant, would be disposed to criticize Lessing, because, toward the end
of his days, out of the fullness of his heart and following the impulse
that was in him, he for once threw his own theories to the winds and
wrote a dramatic masterpiece of its own peculiar kind. The very fact
that it is unique is for us a part of its merit.
But now, as was pointed out in a preceding chapter, the effect of
Schiller's occupation with the drama at Weimar was to weaken his
reverence for theory and to convince him of the importance of 'keeping
the type-idea flexible in one's mind'. So when he came to adapt 'Nathan'
for the stage he proceeded much less radically than one might expect
from his previous utterances. The tendency of the play was left intact,
but many changes were made in the interest of brevity, simplicity and
rapidity of movement. To these no one can seriously object, since
Lessing's text is too long for an evening in the theater, as the matter
was regarded in those pre-Wagnerian days. Not so readily to be approved
are certain other changes which amount to a retouching of some of the
portraits with which Schiller was dissatisfied,--notably that of the
Sultan Saladin.
Of much greater interest than either of these adaptations is that of
'Macbeth', which was made in January and February, 1800. This particular
tragedy of Shakspere had always been a favorite with Schiller, and its
influence is discernible in some of his plays, especially in
'Wallenstein'. It was only natural, therefore, at a time when Goethe and
Schiller were reaching out in every direction for the enrichment of
their theatrical repertory, that the staging of 'Macbeth' should appear
as a consummation devoutly to be wished. There were already German
versions which had been used at various theaters, but they were wretched
travesties of Shakspere. In setting out to make a new and better one,
Schiller took as the basis of his operations the translations of Wieland
and of Eschenburg, following now the one and now the other. When he was
half through with his labor he procured the English text and used it
thereafter as a corrective. He added, subtracted and rearranged at will,
and converted Shakspere's prose into verse. The result is a decidedly
Schilleresque 'Macbeth', the merit of which has been debated to this
day. The Romanticists, with A. W. Schlegel at their head, were disgusted
with it and did not hide their emotions. Others have defended it through
thick and thin. The questions involved are too far-reaching to be
discussed here, but it may at least be remarked that there is no ground
for a severely unfavorable judgment of Schiller's work. It is in no
sense a translation and is not to be judged as a literary performance at
all, but as a stage-play. As such it served its purpose very well; it
made Shakspere acceptable at Weimar in the only way then possible under
the circumstances. And it helped bring Shakspere into favor elsewhere.
The Schillerized 'Macbeth' may be regarded as a sort of necessary
transition-stage between the gross travesties of an earlier time and the
more faithful presentations that were to come.
With respect to 'Turandot' a few words must suffice. This again grew out
of the laudable desire of the duumvirs to acclimate in Weimar dramatic
productions that had pleased the public in other climes. Gozzi's
so-called _fiabe_ belonged to this class. They had had a great though
short-lived vogue at Venice, and this had led to a German translation in
prose by a man named Werthes. What Schiller did was to turn the prose of
Werthes into pentameters of the style that he had made peculiarly his
own. He seems not to have looked at the Italian text at all, and indeed
it could have been of little use to him. As one would expect, he made an
attempt to give some poetic weight to the fantastic trifle, but it was a
thankless undertaking, albeit good Italian critics have praised his
'Turandot' as far superior to the original. The comic-opera subject, for
such it really is, was not adapted to Schiller's vein. His 'Turandot' is
distinctly stiff and operose. It had a short run at two or three
theaters, where, as at Weimar, it excited a small interest on account of
the riddles and the Chinese 'business', and then it was quietly
consigned to the limbo of things that were.
The remaining adaptations made by Schiller were from the French, a
language which he knew better than any other except his own. The Duke of
Weimar, and with him a considerable portion of the Weimar public, had
retained from early education a strong predilection for the French
drama, both in comedy and in the _haute tragédie_. It was thus a cause
of joy in court circles when it became known, in the autumn of 1799,
that Goethe had so far overcome his early anti-Gallic prejudices as to
have undertaken a translation for the stage of Voltaire's 'Mahomet'. To
this enterprise, however, he was moved not so much by any change of
heart, or by poetic sympathy, as by a desire to improve the style of the
Weimar actors,--to teach them ideality and self-abnegation. With this
purpose Schiller was in hearty accord, as can be seen from his verses
'To Goethe', written in January, 1800, in which he set forth his
dramatic confession of faith. The Frenchman, he declared with unction,
could by no means serve them as a model; there must be no bringing back
of the old fetters. The Germans had advanced to a new era, and demanded
now a faithful picture of nature. Nevertheless their histrionic art was
in a backward condition, lacking in ideality and distinction. Wherefore
the French tragedy was to be welcomed as a 'guide to the better'. It was
to come 'like a departed spirit and purify the desecrated stage into a
worthy seat of the ancient Melpomene'.
The result of this new _rapprochement_ was that Schiller began to take a
more lively interest in the French drama, and out of this interest grew
presently his translations of two of Picard's comedies, 'Médiocre et
Rampant' and 'Encore des Ménechmes'. In both he took his task very
lightly. Picard's alexandrines, in 'Médiocre et Rampant', were converted
into German prose, and the play was christened 'The Parasite'. In the
case of the other, renamed 'The Nephew as Uncle', the original was in
prose and Schiller merely made a free translation. These enterprises
were little more than hackwork, which had its suitable reward of brief
popularity. Of an entirely different character is the version of
Racine's 'Phèdre', which, as we have seen, was finished a few weeks
before Schiller's death. Here we have for the first time what can
properly be called a poetic translation. To a large extent Schiller's
version is a line-for-line rendering of the French alexandrines into
German pentameters,--a thing by no means easy to do. 'Phedra' is by far
the best specimen we have of Schiller's powers as a translator.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 129: In the year 1805 it was still usual at Weimar to have the
bodies of the dead borne to the grave in the night by hired workmen. On
the death of Schiller the burgomaster gave orders in accordance with the
custom, and it was with some difficulty that friends of the dead man
succeeded in displacing the guild on which the lot had fallen and
securing for themselves the privilege of acting as bearers. While lying
in the old churchyard the bones of Schiller became commingled with
others in the vault, so that the proper reassembling of his mortal
framework, in the year 1826, was a matter of some perplexity. For a
while the skull was exhibited in the court library, where it called
forth Goethe's well-known poem.]
[Footnote 130: For an excellent discussion of Schiller's more important
adaptations the reader is referred to A. Köster, "Schiller als
Dramaturg", Berlin, 1891.]