Carlyle was under thirty years of age, and was occupied as a
private tutor, when he wrote the "Life of Friedrich Schiller;
comprehending an examination of his works," which had been
commissioned by the "London Magazine." It was his first essay
in the study of German literature, which he did so much to
popularise in Britain. It appeared in book form in 1825, and a
second edition was published in 1845 in order to prevent
piratical reprints. In his introduction to the second edition,
Carlyle pleads for the indulgence of the reader, asking him to
remember constantly that "it was written twenty years ago." It
has indeed been superseded by more temperate studies of
Schiller, but its tone of enthusiasm gives it a great value of
its own.
_Schiller's Youth_ (1759-1784)
Distinguished alike for the splendour of his intellectual faculties, and
the elevation of his tastes and feelings, Friedrich Schiller has left
behind him in his works a noble emblem of these great qualities. Much of
his life was deformed by inquietude and disease, and it terminated at
middle age; he composed in a language then scarcely settled into form;
yet his writings are remarkable for their extent, their variety, and
their intrinsic excellence, and his own countrymen are not his only, or,
perhaps, his principal admirers.
Born on November 10, 1759, a few months later than Robert Burns, he was
a native of Marbach in Würtemberg. His father had been a surgeon in the
army, and was now in the pay of the Duke of Würtemberg; and the
benevolence, integrity and devoutness of his parents were expanded and
beautified in the character of their son. His education was irregular;
desiring at first to enter the clerical profession, he was put to the
study of law and then of medicine; but he wrenched asunder his fetters
with a force that was felt at the extremities of Europe. In his
nineteenth year he began the tragedy of the "Robbers," and its
publication forms an era in the literature of the world.
It is a work of tragic interest, bordering upon horror. A grim,
inexpiable Fate is made the ruling principle; it envelops and
overshadows the whole; and under its souring influence, the fiercest
efforts of human will appear but like flashes that illuminate the wild
scene with a brief and terrible splendour, and are lost forever in the
darkness. The unsearchable abysses of man's destiny are laid open before
us, black and profound, and appalling, as they seem to the young mind
when it first attempts to explore them.
Schiller had meanwhile become a surgeon in the Würtemberg army; and the
Duke, scandalised at the moral errors of the "Robbers," and not less at
its want of literary merit, forbade him to write more poetry. Dalberg,
superintendent of the Manheim theatre, put the play on the stage in
1781, and in October, 1782, Schiller decided his destiny by escaping
secretly from Stuttgart beyond the frontier. A generous lady, Madam von
Wollzogen, invited him to her estate of Bauerbach, near Meiningen.
Here he resumed his poetical employments, and published, within a year,
the tragedies "Verschwörung des Fiesco" and "Kabale und Liebe." This
"Conspiracy of Fiesco," the story of the political and personal
relations of the Genoese nobility, has the charm of a kind of colossal
magnitude. The chief incidents have a dazzling magnificence; the chief
characters, an aspect of majesty and force. The other play,
"Court-intriguing and Love," is a tragedy of domestic life; it shows the
conflict of cold worldly wisdom with the pure impassioned movements of
the young heart. Now, in September, 1783, Schiller went to Manheim as
poet to the theatre, a post of respectability and reasonable profit.
Here he undertook his "Thalia," a periodical work devoted to poetry and
the drama, in 1784. Naturalised by law in his new country, surrounded by
friends that honoured him, he was now exclusively a man of letters for
the rest of his days.
_From His Settlement at Manheim to His Settlement at Jena_ (1783-1790)
Schiller had his share of trials to encounter, but he was devoted with
unchanging ardour to the cause he had embarked in. Few men have been
more resolutely diligent than he, and he was warmly seconded by the
taste of the public. For the Germans consider the stage as an organ for
refining the hearts and minds of men, and the theatre of Manheim was one
of the best in Germany.
Besides composing dramatic pieces and training players, Schiller wrote
poems, the products of a mind brooding over dark and mysterious things,
and his "Philosophic Letters" unfold to us many a gloomy conflict of the
soul, surveying the dark morass of infidelity yet showing no causeway
through it. The first acts of "Don Carlos," printed in "Thalia," had
attracted the attention of the Duke of Sachsen-Weimar, who conferred on
their author the title of Counsellor. Schiller was loved and admired in
Manheim, yet he longed for a wider sphere of action, and he determined
to take up his residence at Leipzig.
Here he arrived in March, 1785, and at once made innumerable
acquaintances, but went to Dresden in the end of the summer, and here
"Don Carlos" was completed. This, the story of a royal youth condemned
to death by his father, is the first of Schiller's plays to bear the
stamp of maturity. The Spanish court in the sixteenth century; its
rigid, cold formalities; its cruel, bigoted, but proud-spirited
grandees; its inquisitors and priests; and Philip, its head, the epitome
at once of its good and bad qualities, are exhibited with wonderful
distinctness and address. Herr Schiller's genius does not thrill, but
exalts us; it is impetuous, exuberant, majestic. The tragedy was,
received with immediate and universal approbation.
He now contemplated no further undertaking connected with the stage, but
his mind was overflowing with the elements of poetry, and with these
smaller pieces he occupied himself at intervals through the remainder of
his life. "The Walk," the "Song of the Bell," contain exquisite
delineations of the fortunes of man; the "Cranes of Ibycus," and "Hero
and Leander," are among the most moving ballads in any language.
Schiller never wrote or thought with greater diligence than while at
Dresden. A novel, "The Ghostseer," was a great popular success, but
Schiller had begun to think of history. Very few of his projects in this
direction reached even partial execution; portions of a "History of the
Most Remarkable Conspiracies and Revolutions in the Middle and Later
Ages," and of a "History of the Revolt of the Netherlands," were
published.
A visit to Weimar, the Athens of Germany, was accomplished in 1787; to
Goethe he was not introduced, but was welcomed by Wieland and Herder.
Thence he went to see his early patroness at Bauerbach, and on this
journey, at Rudolstadt, he met the Fräulein Lengefeld, whose attractions
made him loath to leave and eager to return. The visit was repeated next
year, and this lady honoured him with a return of love. At this time,
too, he first met the illustrious Goethe, whom we may contrast with
Schiller as we should contrast Shakespeare with Milton. Goethe was now
in his thirty-ninth year, Schiller ten years younger, and each affected
the other with feelings of estrangement, almost of repugnance.
Ultimately they liked each other better, and became friends; there are
few things on which Goethe should look back with greater pleasure than
on his treatment of Schiller.
The "Revolt of the Netherlands," of which the first volume appeared in
1788, is accurate, vivid and coherent, and unites beauty to a calm
force. It happened that the professorship at the University of Jena was
about to be vacant, and through Goethe's solicitations Schiller was
appointed to it in 1789. In the February following he obtained the hand
of Fräulein Lengefeld. "Life is quite a different thing by the side of a
beloved wife," he wrote a few months later; "the world again clothes
itself around me in poetic forms."
_From His Settlement at Jena to His Death_ (1790-1805)
The duties of his new office called upon Schiller to devote himself with
double zeal to history. We have scarcely any notice of the plan or
success of his academical prelections; his delivery was not
distinguished by fluency or grace, but his matter, we suppose, would
make amends for these deficiencies of manner. His letters breathe a
spirit not only of diligence but of ardour, and he was now busied with
his "History of the Thirty-Years War." This work, published in 1791, is
considered his chief historical treatise, for the "Revolt of the
Netherlands" was never completed. In Schiller's view, the business of
the historian is not merely to record, but also to interpret; his
narrative should be moulded according to the science, and impregnated
with the liberal spirit of his time.
In one of his letters he says--"The problem is, to choose and arrange
your materials so that, to interest, they shall not need the aid of
decoration. We moderns have a source of interest at our disposal, which
no Greek or Roman was acquainted with, and which the _patriotic_
interest does not nearly equal. This last, in general, is chiefly of
importance to unripe nations, for the youth of the world. But we may
excite a very different sort of interest if we represent each remarkable
occurrence that happened to _men_ as of importance to _man_. It is a
poor and little aim to write for one nation; the most powerful nation is
but a fragment."
In 1791, Schiller was overtaken by a violent and threatening disorder in
the chest, and though nature overcame it in the present instance, the
blessing of entire health never returned to him. Total cessation from
intellectual effort was prescribed to him, and his prospect was a hard
one; but the hereditary Prince of Holstein-Augustenberg came to his
assistance with a pension of a thousand crowns for three years,
presented with a delicate politeness which touched Schiller even more
than the gift itself. He bore bodily pain with a strenuous determination
and with an unabated zeal in the great business of his life. No period
of his life displayed more heroism than the present one.
He now released his connection with the University; his weightiest
duties were discharged by proxy; and his historical studies were
forsaken. His mind was being attracted by the philosophy of Kant. This
transcendental system had filled Germany with violent contentions;
Herder and Wieland were opposing it vehemently; Goethe alone retained
his wonted composure, willing to allow this theory to "have its day, as
all things have." How far Schiller penetrated its arena we cannot say,
but he wrote several essays, imbued in its spirit, upon aesthetic
subjects; notably, "Grace and Dignity," "Naive and Sentimental Poetry,"
and "Letters on the Aesthetic Culture of Man."
The project of an epic poem brought Schiller back to his art; he first
thought of Gustavus Adolphus, then of Frederick the Great of Prussia,
for his hero, and intended to adopt the _ottave rime_, and in general
construction to follow the model of the "Iliad." He did not even begin
to execute this work, but devoted himself instead to the tragedy of
"Wallenstein," which occupied him for several years. Among other
engagements were, the editing of the "Thalia," which was relinquished at
the end of 1793; a new periodical, the "Horen," which began early in
1794; and another, the "Musen-Almanach," in which the collection of
epigrams known as the "Xenien" appeared. In these new publications
Schiller was supported by the co-operation of Goethe.
"Wallenstein." by far the best work he had yet produced, was given to
the world in 1799. Wallenstein is the model of a high-souled, great,
accomplished man, whose ruling passion is ambition. A shade of horror,
of fateful dreariness, hangs over the hero's death, and except in
Macbeth or Othello we know not where to match it. This tragedy is the
greatest work of its century.
Schiller now spent his winters in Weimar, and at last lived there
constantly, often staying for months with Goethe. The tragedy of "Maria
Stuart," which appeared in 1800, is a beautiful work, but compared with
"Wallenstein" its purpose is narrow and its result common. It has no
true historical delineation. The "Maid of Orleans," 1801, a tragedy on
the subject of Jeanne d'Arc, will remain one of the very finest of
modern dramas, and its reception was beyond example flattering. It was
followed, in 1803, by the "Bride of Messina," a tragedy which fails to
attain its object; there is too little action in the play and the
interest flags. But "Wilhelm Tell," 1804, exhibits some of the highest
triumphs which Schiller's genius, combined with his art, ever realised.
In Tell are combined all the attributes of a great man, without the help
of education or of great occasions to develop them. The play has a look
of nature and substantial truth, which neither of its rivals can boast
of. Its characters are a race of manly husbandmen, heroic without
ceasing to be homely, poetical without ceasing to be genuine.
This was Schiller's last work. The spring of 1805 came in cold, bleak
and stormy, and along with it the malady returned. On May 9 the end
came. Schiller died at the age of forty-five years and a few months,
leaving a widow, two sons and two daughters. The news of his death fell
cold on many a heart throughout Europe.
_Schiller's Character_
Physically, Schiller was tall and strongly boned, but unmuscular and
lean; his body wasted under the energy of a spirit too keen for it. His
face was pale, the cheeks and temples hollow, the chin projecting, the
nose aquiline, his hair inclined to auburn. Withal his countenance was
attractive, and had a certain manly beauty. To judge from his portraits,
his face expressed the features of his mind: it is mildness tempering
strength; fiery ardour shining through clouds of suffering and
disappointment; it is at once meek, tender, unpretending and heroic.
In his dress and manner, as in all things, he was plain and unaffected.
Among strangers, shy and retiring; in his own family, or among his
friends, he was kind-hearted, free and gay as a little child. His looks
as he walked were constantly bent on the ground, so that he often failed
to notice a passing acquaintance.
Schiller's mind was grand by nature, and cultivated by the assiduous
study of a life-time. It is not the predominating force of any one
faculty that impresses us, but the general force of all. His intellect
seems powerful and vast, rather than quick or keen; for he is not
notable for wit, though his fancy is ever prompt with his metaphors,
illustrations and comparisons. Perhaps his greatest faculty was a half
poetical, half philosophical imagination, a faculty teeming with
magnificence and brilliancy; now adorning a stately pyramid of
scientific speculation; now brooding over the abysses of thought and
feeling, till thoughts and feelings, else unutterable, were embodied in
expressive forms.
Combined with these intellectual faculties was that vehemence of
temperament which is necessary for their full development. Schiller's
heart was at once fiery and tender; impetuous, soft, affectionate, his
enthusiasm clothed the universe with grandeur, and sent his spirit forth
to explore its secrets and mingle warmly in its interests. Thus poetry
in Schiller was not one but many gifts. It was, what true poetry is
always, the quintessence of general mental riches, the purified result
of strong thought and conception, and of refined as well as powerful
emotion.
His works exhibit rather extraordinary strength than extraordinary
fineness or versatility. His power of dramatic imitation is perhaps
never of the highest; and in its best state, it is further limited to a
certain range of characters. It is with the grave, the earnest, the
exalted, the affectionate, the mournful that he succeeds; he is not
destitute of humour, but neither is he rich in it.
The sentiments which animated Schiller's poetry were converted into
principles of conduct; his actions were as blameless as his writings
were pure. He was unsullied by meanness, unsubdued by the difficulties
or allurements of life. With the world, in fact, he had not much to do;
without effort, he dwelt apart from it; its prizes were not the wealth
which could enrich him. Wishing not to seem, but to be, envy was a
feeling of which he knew little, even before he rose above its level. To
all men he was humane and sympathising; among his friends, open-hearted,
generous, helpful; in his family tender, kind, sportive. Schiller gives
a fine example of the German character; he has all its good qualities.
The kingdoms which Schiller conquered were not for one nation at the
expense of suffering to another; they are kingdoms conquered from the
barren realms of Darkness, to increase the happiness, and dignity, and
power, of all men; new forms of Truth, new maxims of Wisdom, new images
and scenes of Beauty, won from the "void and formless Infinite"; a
"possession for ever," to all the generations of the earth.
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