SCHILLER, JOHANN CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH VON ( 1759-1805), German poet, dramatist and philosopher, was born at Marbach on the Neckar, on Nov. 10, 1759. His father, Johann Kaspar (1723-96), was an army-surgeon, and the vicissi tudes of his profession entailed a constant change of residence; but at Lorch and at Ludwigsburg, where the family was settled for longer periods, the child was able to receive a regular education. In 1773 the duke Karl Eugen of Wurttemberg claimed young Schiller as a pupil of his military school at the "Solitude" near Ludwigsburg, where he was obliged to devote himself to law. On the removal of the school in 1775 to Stuttgart, he was, however, allowed to take up medicine. The strict military discipline of the school lay heavily on Schiller, and intensified the spirit of rebellion, which burst out in the young poet's first tragedy. In 1776 some specimens of Schiller's lyric poetry had appeared in a magazine, and in 1777-78 he completed his drama, Die Rauber. In 1780 he left the academy qualified to practise as a surgeon, and was at once appointed by the duke as doctor to a regiment garrisoned in Stutt gart. His discontent found vent in the passionate lyrics of this period. Meanwhile Die Riiuber, which Schiller had been obliged to publish at his own expense, appeared in 1781 and made an im pression on his contemporaries hardly less deep than Goethe's Gotz von Berlichingen, eight years before. The strength of this remarkable tragedy lay, in spite of its inflated tone and exag gerated characterization, in the sure dramatic instinct with which it is constructed and the directness with which it gives voice to the most pregnant ideas of the time. In this respect, Schiller's Riiuber is one of the most vital German dramas of the 18th century. In January 1782 it was performed in the Court and National Theatre of Mannheim, Schiller himself having stolen secretly away from Stuttgart in order to be present. The success encouraged him to begin a new tragedy, Die Verschworung des Fiesco zu Genua, and he edited a lyric Anthologie auf das Jahr 1782, to which he was himself the chief contributor. A second surreptitious visit to Mannheim came, however, to the ears of the duke; he had Schiller put under a fortnight's arrest, and forbade him to write any more "comedies" or to hold intercourse with any one outside Wurttem berg. Schiller resolved on flight, and took advantage of some court
festivities in Sept. 1782 to put his plan into execution. He hoped in the first instance for material support from the theatre in Mannheim and its intendant, W. H. von Dalberg; but nothing but rebuffs and disappointments were in store for him. He did not even feel secure against extradition in Mannheim, and after several weeks spent mainly in the village of Oggersheim, where his third drama, Kabale und Liebe, was in great part written, he found a refuge at Bauerbach in Thuringia, in the house of Frau von Wolzogen, the mother of one of his former schoolmates. Here Kabale und Liebe was finished and Don Carlos begun. In July 1783 he received a definite appointment for a year as "theatre poet" in Mannheim, and here both Fiesco and Kabale und Liebe were performed in 1784. In the latter play Schiller's powers as a realistic portrayer of people and conditions familiar to him are seen to best advantage. Although Schiller failed to win an estab lished position in Mannheim, he added to his literary reputation by the publication of the beginning of Don Carlos (in blank verse) in his journal, Die rheinische Thalia (1785). He had also the opportunity of reading the first act of the new tragedy before the duke of Weimar at Darmstadt in Dec. 1784.
In April 1785 Schiller accepted the invitation of four un known friends—C. G. Korner, L. F. Huber, and their fiancées Minna and Dora Stock—with whom he had corresponded, to pay a visit to Leipzig. He spent a happy summer mainly at Gohlis, near Leipzig, his jubilant mood being reflected in the Ode an die Freude; and in September of the same year he followed his new friend KOrner to Dresden. As Korner's guest in Dresden and at Loschwitz on the Elbe, Schiller completed Don Carlos, wrote the dramatic tale, Der V erbrecher aus verlorener Elire (1786), and the unfinished novel, Der Geisterseher (1789). Korner's interest in philosophy also induced Schiller to turn his attention to such studies, the first results of which he published in the Philoso phische Brief e (1786). Don Carlos, meanwhile, appeared in 1787, and added to Schiller's reputation as a poet. It was unfortunate, however, that in seeking a model for this higher type of tragedy he turned rather to the classic theatre of France than to the English drama.