Brief biography of the poet, the main facts of life and work:
FRIEDRICH SCHILLER (1759-1805)
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was born on November 10, 1759 (new style) in the small German town of Marbach on the banks of the Necker River.
The poet's ancestors were illiterate peasants and bakers. Schiller's father independently mastered the German literacy, and learned Latin from the monastery barber, whose pupil he was. This allowed him to get a job as a doctor in the army and even rise to the rank of officer. The poet's father was not only a regimental doctor, but also a recruiter of soldiers for Duke Karl-Eugene of Württemberg (1728-1793), in whose possessions the family lived. Schiller's father was later appointed steward of the duke's gardens, and towards the end of his life wrote a treatise on farming.
The poet's mother Elizabeth Dorothea was a kind, sociable and very pious woman. She wanted her only son to become a priest, and little Friedrich believed with delight what her mother was talking about.
In 1768, the Schillers moved to Ludwigsburg, where Friedrich was sent to a Latin school and became one of its best students. At the end of school, the boys took four exams, after which they chose their career. The young Schiller still hoped to become a theologian.
But fate decreed otherwise. Württemberg was a small principality, the duke knew almost every subject. Karl-Eugene took the most direct fatherly-despotic part in the fate of the Württemberg youths. When Friedrich had already passed three school exams and the last one remained for him, the duke, motivating this with his special favor for the teenager's parents, assigned him to the newly created military school for gifted children.
In 1773, Schiller began to study law at the so-called Karpov School, later renamed the Academy. Mushtra, the barracks way of life did not suit the poetically minded young man at all. The only thing that the young man managed to achieve after numerous requests was the duke's permission to transfer him from the legal department to the medical one.
It is necessary to pay tribute to the Karpov school, the humanities were taught fundamentally here. Gradually, Schiller lost his craving for theology, he was imbued with the ideas of Lessing, Voltaire and Rousseau. At the academy, under the influence of one of his mentors, Schiller joined the secret society of the Illuminati, the forerunners of the German Jacobins.
The young man also had time for personal creativity. From school, Schiller was fond of poetry. At the academy, he composed amazing poems dedicated to Laura. Biographers of the poet believe that we are talking about Laura Petrarch. Another heroine of Schiller's early poetry was Minna. Initially, a certain Wilhemina Andrea was considered the prototype of Minna, but then the researchers abandoned this version. In 1776-1777, several of Schiller's poems were published in the Swabian Journal.
In his teenage years, Schiller was influenced to some extent by Countess Franziska von Hohenheim, the maitre of Duke Charles Eugene. She possessed enchanting beauty, was graceful, sweet and so charming that over time she managed to marry Charles Eugene and became the Duchess of Württemberg. Not surprisingly, the baroness turned out to be the platonic lover of a 17-year-old youth who endowed her with all the virtues that his imagination could come up with. The power of first love is great - Schiller until the end of his days retained tenderly enthusiastic feelings for Francis.
After successfully passing the exam in 1780, the young man was appointed regimental paramedic in Stuttgart. By then, Schiller had completed his first play. In the "Swabian Journal" for 1775, the poet found Daniel Schubart's short story "On the History of the Human Heart." On the basis of this work, he created the famous "Robbers". The play was published at the expense of the author in 1781. Immediately began to receive proposals for its production. Schiller agreed to give the play to the Mannheim Theater.
But before The Robbers appeared on the scene, Friedrich published his first book of poetry in Stuttgart under the modest title An Anthology for 1782. Most of the poems in the Anthology were composed by the publisher himself.
Duke Karl-Eugene strictly followed the life of his wards. Schiller did not escape this fate. On January 13, 1782, the triumphal premiere of The Robbers took place at the Mannheim Theater, an enthusiastic audience extolled the anonymous author. Schiller secretly went to see the performance. As soon as the duke became aware that the young man was leaving the regiment without permission, he, in a rage, put Friedrich in a guardhouse under a two-week arrest and henceforth forbade him to engage in literary work.
Overwhelmed by a passion for creativity, Schiller began to write articles for a local newspaper. Then the duke allowed him to write, but only on medical topics, and demanded that everything written by Friedrich first go through the personal censorship of Karl-Eugene. It was already very dangerous. Quite recently, before the eyes of Württemberg society, a drama took place with the same ward of the duke, whom the despot kept in prison without trial for more than ten years for poetry!
The poet planned an escape. He took advantage of the turmoil of magnificent celebrations that took place in the Duchy of Württemberg in connection with the arrival there of the Russian Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich, who was married to the duke's niece. On September 22, 1782, Schiller fled abroad and found refuge in Bauerbach, on the small estate of Henriette Wolzogen, the mother of the poet's three friends from the academy.
A search for the fugitive was immediately announced, and soon Schiller was found. However, Karl-Eugene could not self-govern on the territory of a foreign state. He only had to threaten Wolzogen with the persecution of her sons. As a sin, it was at this time that Schiller fell in love with Henrietta's sixteen-year-old daughter, Charlotte Wolzogen. And although the girl was completely indifferent to the young man, the alarmed mother invited Friedrich to leave her house ...
Schiller had nowhere to go. Fortunately, Henrietta soon repented of her cruel act and called Friedrich back. This time the poet behaved more cautiously and at his leisure took up writing the drama he had conceived in the guardhouse, which he originally called "Louise Miller", and later, on the advice of the famous Mannheim actor Iffland, renamed it "Deceit and Love".
In September 1783, the play was accepted for production by the Mannheim Theater and premiered in April of the following year. By that time, Schiller had already prepared a drama from the Italian history of the Renaissance, The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa.
Duke Karl-Eugene did not rage for long. In 1783, Dahlberg, the director of the Mannheim theater, appointed Schiller a "theatrical poet", concluding a contract with him to write plays for staging on the Mannheim stage. This could only mean that the Duke of Württemberg had given up on his unlucky subject.
In Mannheim, Schiller found himself in the company of ladies. He had several love affairs at once. Biographers especially note the poet's relationship with the actress who played the role of Amalia in The Robbers. A more serious relationship developed with a sweet, highly educated girl, Margarita Schwan, Friedrich even asked for her hand, but old Schwan considered the position of the poet too uncertain to agree to his daughter's marriage, and refused.
However, the most significant was the acquaintance with Charlotte Marshalk von Ostheim, Kalb's husband, with whom the poet had a mutual love. There was even talk of Charlotte's divorce from her husband. Schiller's unexpected chill prevented. The gap was not complete. For many years, the former lovers maintained a correspondence, exchanged assurances of eternal friendship.
Charlotte ended her life very sadly: she lost her entire fortune and, moreover, became blind. Nevertheless, even in extreme old age, a woman made an irresistible impression with her black eyes, majestic figure and prophetic speech. Marshalk von Ostheim died in 1843 at the age of eighty-two.
The Mannheim authorities were not going to open their wallets for the young playwright. In the end, Schiller found himself in very tight financial circumstances and in 1785 willingly accepted the invitation of Privatdozent G. Koerner, an enthusiastic admirer of the playwright's talent, and stayed with him for more than two years in Leipzig and Dresden. All these years the poet worked on the tragedy "Don Carlos".
In the winter of 1786, Schiller met Charlotte von Lengefeld, whom he had known since 1784, when she, along with her older sister, Caroline, and her mother, came to Mannheim. That meeting was short, a real acquaintance began only three years later, when the poet came to the Lengefeld family together with his friend Wolzogen, to whom Carolina was not indifferent. Schiller liked the Lengefeld family, and he immediately decided that Charlotte would be his wife. Lota's mother, that was the name of the bride at home, was against her daughter's marriage to Frederick, since the homeless poet did not have the means to support the family.
In 1789, with the assistance of J. W. Goethe, whom Schiller met and became friends with in the Lengefeld house, the poet took up the post of extraordinary professor of history at the University of Jena. The position gave him little money, and on February 20, 1790, the wedding of Schiller and Charlotte Lengefeld took place. From this marriage two sons and two daughters were born. Over time, the poet acquired his own house and made himself a small fortune. Of course, the professor's meager salary would never have been enough for such expenses. But since 1791, the Crown Prince of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg and Count von Schimmelmann together for three years (until 1794) paid a scholarship to the poet. Then Schiller was supported by the publisher I. Fr. Cotta, who invited him in 1794 to publish the monthly magazine Ory.
Schiller sympathetically received the news of the French Revolution, and in 1792 the Convention awarded him the title of "honorary citizen of the French Republic."
The year 1793 was marked by the death of the Duke of Württemberg, Karl-Eugene. After ten years of wandering, Friedrich Schiller, the famous poet and playwright, got the opportunity to visit his native places and see his loved ones.
Friendship with Goethe had a huge impact on Schiller the poet. In 1797, the “ballad” year, in competition with a friend, he wrote the outstanding ballads “Diver” (translated by V. A. Zhukovsky “The Cup”), “Glove”, “Polycrates Ring”, “Ivikov Cranes” and others.
The time has come for the great Schiller dramaturgy. Since 1791, the poet had nurtured the idea of the tragedy Wallenstein, which in the process of creation grew into a trilogy - Wallenstein's Camp (1798), Piccolomini (1799) and Wallenstein's Death (1799).
While working on the trilogy, Schiller and his family moved to Weimar to constantly be close to Goethe. Although he left teaching, the content of the poet was doubled. It was already a pension.
At the beginning of the century, Schiller worked extraordinarily fruitfully. In 1800, the tragedy "Mary Stuart" appeared, in 1801 "The Maid of Orleans" was written, in 1803 - "The Bride of Messina", in 1804 - "William Tell". Then the poet began to work on the tragedy "Demetrius" from Russian history, but a sudden death interrupted his work.
The last years of Schiller's life were overshadowed by severe protracted illnesses. After a severe cold, all the old ailments became aggravated. The poet suffered from chronic pneumonia and very often found himself on the edge of the grave.
Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805)
“... Schiller, indeed, entered the flesh and blood of Russian society, especially in the past and in the past generation. We were brought up on it, it is dear to us and in many ways affected our development,” wrote F. M. Dostoevsky in the article “Book Reading and Literacy”.
Indeed, in the 19th century, the influence of Western thinkers and poets, not only on Russian writers, but on the whole of society, was enormous. Although quite significant was the resistance to this culture on the part of some Russian thinkers and writers.
The same Dostoevsky, speaking about the originality of Russian literature, argued: “... In European literatures there were artistic geniuses of enormous magnitude - Shakespeares, Cervantes, Schillers. But point to at least one of these great geniuses who would have such a capacity for universal responsiveness as our Pushkin.
The 18th century became a golden age for German culture: Germany gave mankind Goethe and Schiller, composers Mozart and Beethoven, thinkers Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling.
By the middle of the century, Germany was divided into many small principalities. The princes imitated the luxurious life of the French Versailles, money was constantly lacking. The "sovereignty" of seemingly tiny states - which, by the way, is now threatening Russia - led to wars between the principalities.
It was in this situation that the German intelligentsia came out for a united Germany. “Let Germany be so united that German thalers and pennies have the same price throughout the state; so unified that I could carry my travel suitcase through all thirty-six states without ever opening it for inspection.
Johann Friedrich Schiller, poet, playwright and art theorist of the Enlightenment, will become one of the most striking debunkers of contemporary reality.
He was born in the possessions of Duke Karl-Eugene in the family of a regimental doctor (subsequently, this duke, known for his cruelty, became the prototype of the character in the drama "Cunning and Love")
At 23, Schiller fled the duchy with several thalers in his pocket and a manuscript in his trunk. Behind him were eight years of military school, the premiere of his first drama The Robbers (1781). “Schiller did not draw his hatred for the humiliated human dignity in contemporary society from books: he himself, as a child and youth, suffered from the diseases of society and suffered the heavy influence of its outdated forms ...” wrote V. G. Belinsky.
The hero of the play, the noble Karl Moor, distributes his booty to the poor, and if “there is an opportunity to bleed a landowner who is tearing the skin from his peasants, or to teach a lesson to a loafer in gold galloons who crookedly interprets the laws ... here, my brother, he is in his element. It's as if the devil is possessing him ... "
“Put me at the head of an army of fellows like me, and Germany will become a republic, in front of which both Rome and Sparta will seem like convents,” says Karl Moor. But having gone through a bloody experience in the finale, this robber is no longer the same, he leaves the gang and surrenders to the authorities: “Oh, I am a fool who dreamed of correcting the world with atrocities and observing the laws with lawlessness! Oh, pathetic childishness! Here I am standing at the edge of a terrible abyss and with a howl and gnashing of teeth I realize that two people like me could destroy the entire edifice of the moral world order!”
Critics and directors interpreted the drama's ending differently. Perhaps Dostoevsky's idea of "a child's tear" stems from this ending.
The clash of enlightenment ideals with reality, an interest in strong characters and social upheavals of the past determined the intense drama of his plays: The Fiesco Conspiracy in Genoa (1783), Cunning and Love (1784), Don Carlos (1783-1787), Mary Stuart", "The Maid of Orleans" (both - 1801), "William Tell" (1804).
"Don Carlos" entered the history of the world drama as a symbol of the struggle against any manifestation of tyranny. It is no coincidence that in February 1918, at the initiative of Gorky and Blok, the Bolshoi Drama Theater opened with the play Don Carlos. The conflict of Philip II with his son Carlos is the conflict of the emerging liberation movement with the outgoing but cruel feudal world.
Schiller held a chair at the University of Jena, he wrote such works as "The History of the Fall of the United Netherlands", "The History of the Thirty Years' War", which draw the attention of the scientific world of Europe to him.
In 1794, Schiller conceived the idea of publishing the Ory magazine, on this occasion he wrote a letter to Goethe with a request to take part in the magazine. This is how the two great poets met and became friends.
Schiller wrote poetry all his life - in the first period of his work it was philosophical lyrics, and later it was ballads, including such masterpieces as "The Cup", "The Glove", "Ivikov's Cranes", "Polycrates' Ring".
Glove
Before your menagerie
With the barons, with the crown prince,
King Francis was seated;
From a high balcony he looked
In the field, waiting for the battle;
Behind the king, bewitching
blooming beauty look,
The ladies of the court were in a magnificent row.
The king signaled with his hand
The door opened with a thud.
And a formidable beast
With a huge head
shaggy lion
It turns out
Around the eyes sullenly leads;
And so, looking at everything,
He wrinkled his forehead with a proud posture,
Moved his thick mane,
And stretched and yawned,
And lay down. The king waved his hand again -
The shutter of the iron door rattled,
And the bold tiger sprang from behind the bars;
But he sees a lion, he is shy and roars,
He beats himself with his tail on the ribs,
And sneaks, squinting eyes,
And licks the face with the tongue,
And, bypassing the lion around,
He growls and lays next to him.
And for the third time the king waved his hand -
Two leopards as a friendly couple
In one jump they found themselves over the tiger;
But he gave them a blow with a heavy paw,
And the lion stood up with a roar...
They reconciled
Bared their teeth, moved away,
And they growled and lay down.
And the guests are waiting for the battle to begin.
Suddenly the woman fell from the balcony
The glove...everyone is looking after it...
She fell among the animals.
Then on the knight Delorge with a hypocritical
And looks with a sharp smile
His beauty and says:
"When me, my faithful knight,
You love the way you say
You will return the glove to me."
Delorge, without answering a word,
Goes to the animals
He boldly takes the glove
And returns to the meeting again.
Knights and ladies, with such impudence,
My heart was troubled by fear;
A young knight
Like nothing happened to him
Calmly ascends to the balcony;
He was greeted with applause;
He is greeted by beautiful looks ...
But, coldly accepting the greeting of her eyes,
In her face a glove
He threw and said: "I do not require a reward."
(Translated by V. Zhukovsky)
Schiller, like Goethe, spent the last years of his life in Weimar. He received a small pension from eminent admirers of his work.
During the days of the French Revolution, Schiller experienced a deep spiritual crisis. At first he accepted the news of her with delight, but then, when it came to the execution of King Louis XVI, Schiller volunteered to be his "lawyer". He wrote the poem "Song of the Bell", in which he condemned the idea of a revolutionary uprising, the violent overthrow of monarchs:
self-governing people
Great benefits will not be gained ...
Now the revolution seemed to him a meaningless element:
We are afraid of the lioness awakening,
Terrible tiger angry run.
But worse than all - in a frenzy,
Man in his madness.
The autumn cold of 1804 complicated the poet's illness. In these last months of his life, he studied Russian history, collected material on the topic of imposture - and now in the museum there is a sheet with Martha's unfinished monologue on the table, and next to it is the book "History of Muscovy".
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Friedrich Schiller(Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller) is an outstanding German poet and thinker, a representative of romanticism in literature. short biography Schiller is given in this article.
Friedrich Schiller biography briefly
The writer was born on November 10, 1759 in Germany in the city of Marbach am Neckar. Schiller's father was a regimental paramedic, and his mother came from a baker's family. His childhood and youth were spent in relative poverty, although he was able to study at a rural school and with Pastor Moser.
In 1773 he entered the military academy, where he first studied law and then medicine. His first works were written during his studies. So, under the influence of Leisewitz's drama, he wrote the drama Cosmus von Medici. The writing of the ode "The Conqueror" belongs to the same period.
In 1780, he received the post of regimental doctor in Stuttgart, after graduating from the academy.
In 1781, he completed the drama The Robbers, which was not accepted by any publishing house. As a result, he published it with his own money. Subsequently, the drama was duly appreciated by the director of the Mannheim Theater and, after some adjustments, was staged.
The Robbers premiered in January 1782 and was a great success with the public. After that, they started talking about Schiller as a talented playwright. For this drama, the writer was even awarded the title of honorary citizen of France. However, in his homeland, he had to serve 14 days in the guardhouse for unauthorized absence from the regiment for the performance of the Robbers. Moreover, from now on he was forbidden to write anything other than medical writings. This situation forced Schiller to leave Stuttgart in 1783. So he managed to complete two plays, begun before his flight: "Deceit and Love" and "Fiesco's Conspiracy in Genoa." These plays were subsequently staged in the same Mannheim theater.
From 1787 to 1789 he lived in Weimar, where he met with. It is believed that it was Schiller who inspired a friend to complete many of the works.
In 1790 he married Charlotte von Lengefeld, with whom they subsequently had two sons and two daughters. In Weimar, he again came in 1799 and there, with the money of patrons, he published literary magazines. At the same time, together with Goethe, he founded the Weimar Theater, which became one of the best in the country. Until the end of his days, the writer lived in this city.
In 1802, Holy Roman Emperor Franz II granted Schiller the nobility.
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was born in Marbach am Neckar, Württemberg, Holy Roman Empire. His parents were Johann Kaspar Schiller, a military paramedic, and Elisabeth Dorothea Kodweis.
In 1763, his father was appointed as a recruiter in the German city of Schwäbisch Gmünd, which caused the entire Schiller family to move to Germany, settling in the small town of Lorch.
In Lorch, Schiller visited primary school, but due to dissatisfaction with the quality of education, he often skipped classes. Since his parents wanted him to become a priest, they hired a local priest who taught Schiller Latin and Greek.
In 1766, the Schiller family returned to Ludwigsburg, where his father was transferred. In Ludwigsburg, Karl Eugene of Württemberg drew the attention of Schiller. A few years later, Schiller finished Faculty of Medicine at the academy founded by Charles of Württemberg - “ high school Carla."
His first work, the drama "Robbers", was written during his studies at the academy. It was published in 1781, and the very next year a play based on it was staged in Germany. The drama was about the conflict between two brothers.
Career
In 1780, Schiller was appointed to the post of regimental physician in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He was not happy about this appointment, and so one day he left the service without permission to watch the first production of his play The Robbers.
Since he left the location of the unit without permission, Schiller was arrested and sentenced to 14 days of arrest. He was also banned from publishing his work in the future.
In 1782, Schiller fled to Weimar via Frankfurt, Mannheim, Leipzig and Dresden. And in 1783 in Bonn, Germany, the next production of Schiller was presented with the title "The Conspiracy of Fiesco in Genoa".
In 1784, a five-part play, Cunning and Love, was presented at the Schauspiel Frankfurt. A few years later the play was translated into French and English.
In 1785, Schiller presented the play Ode to Joy.
In 1786, he presented the novel Crime for Lost Honor, which was written in the form of a crime report.
In 1787, in Hamburg, his dramatic play in five parts of Don Carlos in Hamburg. The play is about the conflict between Don Carlos and his father, the Spanish King Philip II.
In 1789, Schiller began to work as a teacher of history and philosophy in Jena. In the same place, he begins to write his historical works, one of which is “The History of the Fall of the Netherlands”.
In 1794, his work Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man was published. The work was written based on events during the French Revolution.
In 1797, Schiller wrote the ballad "Polycrates' ring", which was published the following year. In the same year, she also presented the following ballads: "Ivikov Cranes" and "The Diver".
In 1799, Schiller completed the Wallenstein trilogy, which consisted of the plays Wallenstein's Camp, Piccolomini, and Wallenstein's Death.
In 1800, Schiller presented such works as Mary Stuart and The Maid of Orleans.
In 1801, Schiller presented his translated plays Carlo Gotzi, Turandot and Turandot, Princess of China.
In 1803, Schiller presented his dramatic work The Bride of Messina, which was first shown in Weimar, Germany.
In 1804 he presented the dramatic work William Tell, based on the Swiss legend of a skilled marksman named William Tell.
Main works
Schiller's play called The Robbers is considered one of the first European melodramas. In the play, the viewer is shown a perspective on the depravity of society and offers a look at the class, religious and economic differences between people.
Awards and achievements
In 1802, Schiller was granted the noble status of the Duke of Weimar, who added the prefix "von" to his name, indicating his noble status.
Personal life and legacy
In 1790, Schiller married Charlotte von Lengefeld. The couple had four children.
At the age of 45, Schiller died of tuberculosis.
In 1839, a monument was erected in Stuttgart in his honor. The area on which it was installed was named after Schiller.
There is an opinion that Friedrich Schiller was a Freemason.
In 2008, scientists conducted a DNA test, which showed that the skull in the coffin of Friedrich Schiller did not belong to him, and therefore his grave is now empty.
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The work of Friedrich Schiller fell on the so-called era of "Storm and Onslaught" - a trend in German literature, which was characterized by the rejection of classicism and the transition to romanticism. This time covers approximately two decades: 1760-1780. It was marked by the publication of works by such famous authors as Johann Goethe, Christian Schubart and others.
Brief biography of the writer
The Duchy of Württemberg, where the poet was located on the territory, was born in 1759 in a family of immigrants from the lower classes. His father was a regimental paramedic, and his mother was the daughter of a baker. However, the young man a good education: he studied at the military academy, where he studied law and jurisprudence, and then, after transferring the school to Stuttgart, he took up medicine.
After staging his first sensational play, The Robbers, the young writer was expelled from his native duchy and spent most of his life in Weimar. Friedrich Schiller was a friend of Goethe and even competed with him in writing ballads. The writer was fond of philosophy, history, poetry. He was a professor world history at the University of Jena, under the influence of I. Kant, he wrote philosophical works, was engaged in publishing activities, publishing the magazines Ory, Almanac of Muses. The playwright died in Weimar in 1805.
The play "Robbers" and the first success
In the era under consideration, romantic moods were very popular among young people, which Friedrich Schiller also became interested in. The main ideas that briefly characterize his work boil down to the following: the pathos of freedom, criticism of the tops of society, the aristocracy, the nobility and sympathy for those who, for whatever reason, were rejected by this society.
The writer gained fame after staging his drama The Robbers in 1781. This play is notable for its naive and somewhat pompous romantic pathos, but the viewer fell in love with the sharp, dynamic plot and intensity of passions. was the theme of the conflict between two brothers: Karl and Franz Moor. The insidious Franz seeks to take away his brother's estate, inheritance, as well as his beloved - cousin Amalia.
Such injustice prompts Charles to become a robber, but at the same time he manages to maintain his nobility and his noble honor. The work was a great success, but brought trouble to the author: due to unauthorized absence, he was punished, and subsequently expelled from his native duchy.
Dramas of the 1780s
The success of The Robbers prompted the young playwright to create a series of famous works, which became In 1783, he wrote the play "Cunning and Love", "The Conspiracy of Fiesco in Genoa", in 1785 - "Ode to Joy". In this series, the work “Deceit and Love”, which is called the first “petty-bourgeois tragedy”, should be singled out separately, since in it for the first time the writer made the object of the artistic depiction not the problems of noble nobles, but the suffering of a simple girl of humble origin. "Ode to Joy" is considered one of the the best works the author, who proved himself not only a great prose writer, but also a brilliant poet.
Plays from the 1790s
Friedrich Schiller was fond of history, on the plots of which he wrote a number of his dramas. In 1796, he created the play "Wallenstein", dedicated to the commander Thirty Years' War(1618-1648). In 1800, he wrote the drama "Mary Stuart", in which he significantly departed from historical realities, making the conflict between two female rivals the object of an artistic depiction. The latter circumstance, however, in no way detracts from the literary merits of the drama.
In 1804, Friedrich Schiller wrote the play "William Tell", dedicated to the struggle of the Swiss people against Austrian domination. This work is imbued with the pathos of freedom and independence, which was so characteristic of the work of the representatives of "Storm and Onslaught". In 1805, the writer began working on the drama Demetrius, dedicated to the events of Russian history, but this play remained unfinished.
The value of Schiller's work in art
The writer's plays had a great influence on world culture. What Friedrich Schiller wrote became a subject of interest for Russian poets V. Zhukovsky, M. Lermontov, who translated his ballads. The plays of the playwright served as the basis for the creation of wonderful operas by the leading Italian composers of the 19th century. L. Beethoven put the final part of his famous ninth symphony on Schiller's "Ode to Joy". In 1829, D. Rossini created the opera "William Tell" based on his drama; this work is considered one of the best works of the composer.
In 1835, G. Donizetti wrote the opera "Mary Stuart", which was included in the cycle of his musical compositions dedicated to the history of England in the 16th century. In 1849, D. Verdi created the opera "Louise Miller" based on the drama "Cunning and Love". The opera did not receive great popularity, but it has undoubted musical merits. So, Schiller's influence on world culture is enormous, and this explains the interest in his work today.
Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (German: Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller; November 10, 1759, Marbach am Neckar - May 9, 1805, Weimar) - German poet, philosopher, art theorist and playwright, professor of history and military doctor, representative of the Storm and the onslaught of romanticism in literature, the author of "Ode to Joy", a modified version of which became the text of the anthem of the European Union. Entered the history of world literature as a fiery defender human personality. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788-1805) he was friends with Johann Goethe, whom he inspired to complete his works, which remained in draft form. This period of friendship between the two poets and their literary controversy entered German literature under the name "Weimar classicism".
Johann Christoph Friedrich was born in Marbach an der Neckar on November 10, 1759 in the family of an officer, regimental paramedic. The family did not live well; the boy was brought up in an atmosphere of religiosity. He received his primary education thanks to the pastor of the town of Lorch, where their family moved in 1764, and later studied at the Latin school in Ludwigsburg. In 1772, Schiller was among the students of the military academy: he was assigned there by order of the Duke of Württemberg. And if from childhood he dreamed of serving as a priest, then here he began to study jurisprudence, and from 1776, after transferring to the appropriate faculty, medicine. Even in the first years of being in this educational institution Schiller was seriously carried away by the poets of "Storm and Onslaught" and began to write a little himself, deciding to devote himself to poetry. His first work - the ode "The Conqueror" - appeared in the magazine "German Chronicles" in the spring of 1777.
The grief that comes is easier than expected: there is an end to the coming grief, but the fear of the coming grief knows no bounds.
Schiller Friedrich
After receiving a diploma in 1780, he was appointed a military doctor and sent to Stuttgart. Here his first book was published - a collection of poems "Anthology for 1782". In 1781, he published the drama The Robbers for his own money. In order to get to the performance staged according to it, Schiller left for Mannheim in 1783, for which he was subsequently arrested and banned from writing literary works. First staged in January 1782, the drama The Robbers enjoyed great success and marked the arrival of a new talented author in dramaturgy. Subsequently, for this work in the revolutionary years, Schiller will be given the title of honorary citizen of the French Republic.
Severe punishment forced Schiller to leave Württemberg and settle in the small village of Oggerseim. From December 1782 to July 1783, Schiller lived in Bauerbach under a false name on the estate of an old acquaintance. In the summer of 1783, Friedrich returned to Mannheim to prepare the staging of his plays, and already on April 15, 1784, his "Deceit and Love" brought him fame as the first German playwright. Soon his stay in Mannheim was legalized, but in subsequent years Schiller lived in Leipzig, and then from the beginning of the autumn of 1785 to the summer of 1787 - in the village of Loschwitz, located near Dresden.
August 21, 1787 marked a new milestone in the biography of Schiller, associated with his move to the center of national literature - Weimar. He arrived there at the invitation of K. M. Vilond in order to collaborate with the literary magazine German Mercury. In parallel, in 1787-1788. Schiller was the publisher of the Thalia magazine.
Acquaintance with major figures from the world of literature and science made the playwright overestimate his abilities and achievements, look at them more critically, and feel a lack of knowledge. This led to the fact that for almost a decade he abandoned his own literary creativity in favor of an in-depth study of philosophy, history, aesthetics. In the summer of 1788, the first volume of The History of the Fall of the Netherlands was published, thanks to which Schiller earned a reputation as a brilliant researcher.
Through the troubles of friends, he received the title of extraordinary professor of philosophy and history at the University of Jena, in connection with which, on May 11, 1789, he moved to Jena. In 1799, in February, Schiller married and in parallel worked on the "History of the Thirty Years' War", published in 1793.
Tuberculosis discovered in 1791 prevented Schiller from working at full strength. In connection with his illness, he had to give up lecturing for some time - this greatly shook his financial situation, and if it were not for the timely efforts of his friends, he would have found himself in poverty. During this difficult period for himself, he was imbued with the philosophy of And Kant and, under the influence of his ideas, wrote a number of works devoted to aesthetics.