The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III | Page 9

rage,
the other commits suicide in remorse. This invention can hardly be
called plausible. Indeed, so far as the mere fable is concerned, it is a
house of cards which would collapse any moment at the breath of
common sense. One must remember in reading the play that common
sense was not one of the nine muses. The dreams take the place of the
Delphic oracle, and the Greek chorus is represented by two

semi-choruses, the retainers of the quarreling brothers, who speak their
parts by the mouth of a leader, at one moment taking part in the action,
at another delivering the detached comment of the ideal spectator.
There is much splendid poetry in these pseudo-choruses, but it was
impossible that such a scheme should produce the effect of the Greek
choral dance.
Did Schiller feel that in The Bride of Messina he had wandered a little
too far away from the vital concerns of modern life? Probably, for he
next set to work on a play which should be popular in the best sense of
the word--William Tell. It is his one play with a happy ending and has
always been a prime favorite on the stage. The hero is the Swiss people,
and the action idealizes the legendary uprising of the Forest Cantons
against their Austrian governors. There are really three separate actions:
the conspiracy, the love-affair of Bertha and Rudenz, the exploits of
William Tell. All, however, contribute to the common end, which is the
triumph of the Swiss people over their oppressors. The exposition is
superb, there is rapidity of movement, variety, picturesqueness, the
glamor of romance; and the feelings evoked are such as warm and keep
warm the cockles of the heart. When the famous actor Iffland received
the manuscript of the first act, in February, 1804, he wrote:
"I have read, devoured, bent my knee; and my heart, my tears, my
rushing blood, have paid ecstatic homage to your spirit, to your heart.
Oh, more! Soon, soon more! Pages, scraps--whatever you can send. I
tender heart and hand to your genius. What a work! What wealth,
power, poetic beauty, and irresistible force! God keep you! Amen."
With Tell off his hands Schiller next threw his tireless energy on a
Russian subject--the story of Dmitri, reputed son of Ivan the Terrible.
The reading, note-taking and planning proved a long laborious task,
and there were many interruptions. In November, 1804, the hereditary
Prince of Weimar brought home a Russian bride, Maria Paulovna, and
for her reception he wrote _The Homage of the Arts_--a slight affair
which served its purpose well. The reaction from these Russophil
festivities left him in a weakened condition, and, feeling unequal to
creative effort, he translated Racine's _Phèdre_ into German verse,
finishing it in February, 1805. Then he returned with great zest to his
Russian play Demetrius, of which enough was written to indicate that it
might have become his masterpiece. But the flame had burnt itself out.

Toward the end of April he took a cold which led to a violent fever
with delirium. The end came on May 9, 1805.
[Illustration: SCHILLER AT THE COURT OF WEIMAR]
No attempt can here be made at a general estimate of Schiller's
dramatic genius. The serious poetic drama, such as he wrote in his later
years, is no longer in favor anywhere. In Germany, as in our own land,
the temper of the time is on the whole hostile to that form of art. We
demand, very properly, a drama attuned to the life of the present; one
occupied, as we say, with living issues. Yet Schiller is very popular on
the German stage. After the lapse of a century, and notwithstanding the
fact that he seems to speak to us from the clouds, he holds his own.
Why is this? It is partly because of a quality of his art that has been
called his "monumental fresco-painting"; that is, his strong and
luminous portraiture of the great historic forces that have shaped the
destiny of nations. These forces are matters of the spirit, of the inner
life; and they persist from age to age, but little affected by the changing
fashion of the theatre. The reader of Schiller soon comes to feel that he
deals with issues that are alive because they are immortal.
Another important factor in his classicity is the suggestion that goes out
from his idealized personality. German sentiment has set him on a high
pedestal and made a hero of him, so that his word is not exactly as
another man's word. Something of this was felt by those about him
even in his lifetime. Says Karoline von Wolzogen: "High seriousness
and the winsome grace of a pure and noble soul were always present in
Schiller's conversation; in listening