The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III | Page 8

decided to omit Mary's trial and to let the curtain rise on her as a
prisoner waiting for the verdict of her judges. This meant, however,
according to his conception of the tragic art, a pathetic rather than a
tragic situation; for the queen's fate would be a foregone conclusion,
and she could do nothing to avert it. To give her the semblance of a
tragic guilt he resorted to three unhistorical inventions: First, an attempt
to escape, with resulting complicity in the act of the murderous
Catholic fanatic Mortimer; second, a putative love on the part of Mary
for Leicester, who would use his great influence to bring about a
personal interview between her and Elizabeth; and, finally, the meeting
of the two queens, in which Mary's long pent-up passion would get the
better of her discretion and betray her into a mortal insult of her rival.
In reality, however, the meeting of the two queens, while theatrically
very effective, is not the true climax of the play. That comes when
Mary conquers her rebellious spirit and accepts her ignominious fate as
a divinely appointed expiation for long-past sins. The play thus
becomes a tragedy of moral self-conquest in the presence of an
undeserved death.
Next in order came The Maid of Orleans, expressly called by its author
a romantic tragedy. It is a "rescue" of the Maid's character. Shakespeare
had depicted her as a witch, Voltaire as a vulgar fraud. Schiller
conceives her as a genuine ambassadress of God, or rather of the Holy
Virgin. Not only does he accept at its face value the tradition of her
"voices," her miraculous clairvoyance, her magic influence on the
French troops; but he makes her fight in the ranks with men and gives
to her a terrible avenging sword, before which no Englishman can stand.
But she, too, had to have her tragic guilt. So Schiller makes her
supernatural power depend--by the Virgin's express command--on her
renunciation of the love of man. A fleeting passion for the English
general Lionel, conceived on the battle-field in the fury of combat, fills
her with remorse and the sense of treason to her high mission. For a
while she is deprived of her self-confidence, and with it of her
supernatural power. There follow scenes of bitter humiliation, until her
expiation is complete. At last, purified by suffering, she recovers her
divine strength, breaks her fetters, brings victory once more to the
disheartened French soldiers, and dies in glory on the field of battle.

One sees that it is not at all the real Jeanne d'Arc that Schiller depicts,
but a glorified heroine invested with divine power and called to be the
savior of her country. Here, for the first time in German drama, the
passion of patriotism plays an important part.
After the completion of The Maid of Orleans Schiller was minded to
try his hand on a tragedy "in the strictest Greek form." He had been
deeply impressed by the art of Sophocles and wished to create
something which should produce on the modern mind the effect of a
Greek tragedy, with its simple structure, its few characters, and above
all its chorus. But the choice of a subject was not easy, and for several
months he occupied himself with other matters. He made a German
version of Gozzi's Turandot and took notes for a tragedy about Perkin
Warbeck. In the summer of 1802 he decided definitely to carry out his
plan of vying with the Greeks. The Bride of Messina was finished in
February, 1803. While he was working at it there arrived one day--it
was in November, 1802--a patent of nobility from the chancelry of the
Holy Roman Empire. It may be noted in passing that several years
before he had been made an honorary citizen of the French Republic,
his name having been presented at the same time with those of
Washington, Wilberforce, and Kosciusko.
Among the later plays of Schiller The Bride of Messina is the one
which shows his stately poetic diction at its best, but has proved least
acceptable on the stage. As we have seen, it was an artistic experiment.
A medieval prince of Messina has an ominous dream which is
interpreted by an Arab astrologer to mean that a daughter to be born
will cause the death of his two sons, thus making an end of his dynasty.
When the child is born he orders it put to death. But meanwhile his
queen has had a dream of contrary import, and thereby saves the life of
her new-born daughter, but has her brought up remote from the court.
In time the two quarrelsome brothers, ignorant that they have a sister,
fall in love with the girl. One slays the other in a frenzy of jealous