The Life of Friedrich Schiller

Summary

Thomas Carlyle's Life of Friedrich Schiller first appeared in instalments in the London Magazine in 1823-24 and as a book in 1825, when Carlyle was a young Scottish tutor and translator not yet known as an author. Its full title calls it 'comprehending an examination of his works', and that is an exact description: the book is a biography of the German poet, dramatist and historian Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) interleaved with long critical accounts, plot summaries and translated scenes from his plays. Goethe admired it enough to sponsor a German translation in 1830 and write an introduction for it, which later English editions print as an appendix. Carlyle divides the life into three parts. Part I (1759-1784) follows the son of an army surgeon from a boyhood meant for the Lutheran ministry into the Duke of Wuertemberg's military academy, where he was made to study law and then medicine, and into the regimental post at Stuttgart from which he published The Robbers. When the Duke forbade him to write anything but medicine, Schiller fled to Mannheim and then lived in hiding at Bauerbach before returning as theatre-poet. Part II (1784-1790) treats his wandering years in Mannheim, Leipzig, Dresden and Weimar, Don Carlos, his turn to history in the Revolt of the Netherlands, his first, cool meeting with Goethe, his professorship at Jena and his marriage to Charlotte von Lengefeld. Part III (1790-1805) covers the Thirty Years' War history, the chest illness of 1791 that never fully left him, a Danish pension that rescued him, his engagement with Kant, his friendship with Goethe, and the great late dramas Wallenstein, Mary Stuart, The Maid of Orleans, The Bride of Messina and William Tell, ending with his death at Weimar on 9 May 1805. The 1872 Library Edition adds a supplement, translated from Saupe, on Schiller's father, mother and sisters, and appendices on the imprisoned poet Schubart, letters to Dalberg, and the Goethe friendship. The book's governing idea is stated at the opening of Part II: knowing wisdom is not practising it, and the Man of Letters is no freer from vanity, poverty and idleness than other men. Carlyle praises Schiller because he did practise it, keeping an earnest devotion to his ideal through debt, exile and disease. The closing pages call him 'the poet of truth' and praise him for having no cant. Here are the seeds of Carlyle's later lecture on the Hero as Man of Letters. Carlyle himself, in a preface of 1845, called this 'somewhat insignificant Book' imperfect and said the reader must remember it 'was written Twenty years ago'. For students the Life is a way into German literature through an English classic, and a chance to watch Carlyle form the convictions about work, sincerity and heroism that dominate his later books. It also contains, in its account of Schiller's night labours and final illness, one of the period's frank portraits of an author's body breaking under work.

Plot or Argument

• Part I: The military academy and The Robbers (1759-1784)

  Schiller's father, a former barber-surgeon and army officer, intends him for the Church; the Duke of Wuertemberg draws him into his academy instead, where he studies law and then medicine under strict discipline. He reads Shakespeare, Klopstock and Goethe in secret, writes The Robbers, and sees it staged at Mannheim in 1782. Carlyle analyses Karl and Franz von Moor at length. The Duke's ban on writing drives Schiller to flight, a hiding-place at Bauerbach, Fiesco, and Kabale und Liebe, and finally an appointment as poet to the Mannheim theatre.

• Part II: Letters as a calling (1784-1790)

  Opening with reflections on the perils of the literary life, Carlyle follows Schiller to Leipzig and Dresden in the circle of Koerner, analyses Don Carlos and the scene of King Philip with the Marquis of Posa, and compares Schiller with Alfieri. Schiller gives up drama for history, writes the Revolt of the Netherlands, meets Goethe in 1788 without warmth, is appointed professor of history at Jena, and marries.

• Part III: Illness, philosophy and the late dramas (1790-1805)

  The History of the Thirty Years' War is followed by the illness of 1791 and a Danish pension. Carlyle defends Schiller's study of Kant and summarizes the aesthetic writings, describes the night-writing at Jena, and gives long accounts with translated scenes of Wallenstein, then briefer ones of Mary Stuart, The Maid of Orleans, The Bride of Messina and William Tell. The account of Schiller's death is followed by a character sketch and a closing essay on genius and literary heroism.

• Preface of 1845 and Supplement of 1872

  The second-edition preface apologizes for the book's imperfections and directs readers to newer lives. The 1872 supplement, drawn from Saupe's study of Schiller's family, gives the domestic history of his father, mother and sisters that the 1825 text had lacked.

• Appendices: Schubart, Dalberg, Goethe

  Appendix I prints notes on Daniel Schubart, the poet-journalist imprisoned by the same Duke; Schiller's letters to the Mannheim intendant Dalberg; Goethe's account of their friendship; and a sample of Schiller's historical prose on the death of Gustavus Adolphus. Appendix II reprints Goethe's introduction to the German translation.

Characters

• Friedrich Schiller, subject

  Poet, dramatist, historian and philosopher of art, shown by Carlyle as a man of fiery sensibility who disciplined his gifts to a high ideal through poverty and long illness.

• Karl Eugen, Duke of Wuertemberg, patron and antagonist

  The ruler whose academy formed Schiller and whose order forbidding him to write drove him into exile; Carlyle presents him as meaning well and acting as a despot.

• Johann Caspar Schiller, father

  Former barber-surgeon and army officer, later superintendent of the Duke's forest plantations, a stern and devoted father, given a full portrait in the 1872 supplement.

• Wolfgang Heribert von Dalberg, Mannheim theatre intendant

  The nobleman who staged The Robbers and helped the young fugitive, and whose correspondence with Schiller forms an appendix.

• Christian Gottfried Koerner, friend

  The Leipzig and Dresden friend who received Schiller into his household during the years of Don Carlos.

• Charlotte von Lengefeld, wife

  Met at Rudolstadt in 1787-88 and married in 1790; Carlyle describes the marriage as the end of Schiller's unsettled youth.

• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, friend and fellow poet

  At first distant, later Schiller's closest literary ally at Jena and Weimar; Carlyle contrasts their temperaments, and Goethe's own introduction closes the volume.

Lessons

• To know is not to do: the Man of Letters' temptations

  Part II opens with Carlyle's warning that fame does not bring dignity or peace and that a writer must contend with idleness, vanity and want like anyone else. He then shows Schiller resisting those temptations by steady work. Students should state Carlyle's argument before judging it.

  • What dangers does Carlyle see in the literary life, and why does he think fame cannot cure them?
  • Which episodes in Schiller's life does Carlyle use as evidence that Schiller overcame them?
  • Is Carlyle's ideal of the writer as a moral hero a fair standard, or does it ask too much of art?

• The Duke and the fugitive: authority and vocation

  Schiller was educated at a ruler's expense and then forbidden to write. Carlyle sympathizes with the young poet's flight but calls the Duke a man who meant well. The episode lets students weigh obligation to a benefactor against a calling, and consider how Schiller later wrote a conciliatory letter to the Duke.

  • What did Schiller owe the Duke, and did his flight break a real obligation?
  • Why does Carlyle keep the Duke from becoming a simple villain?
  • How do The Robbers and William Tell, at either end of Schiller's career, treat rebellion differently?

• Reading a play through a life

  Carlyle reads The Robbers as 'an emblem' of its author's baffled spirit and Wallenstein as the work of a matured mind. This biographical method is illuminating and risky: it can explain a play by the author's circumstances while overlooking its art. Students can test it on one play summary in the book.

  • Where does Carlyle use Schiller's life to explain a play, and where does he judge the play on its own terms?
  • Does Carlyle's account of Karl von Moor depend on knowing that Schiller wrote it at twenty?
  • What would be lost if we read Schiller's plays with no knowledge of his life?

• Calmer and calmer: an author's death

  The chapter on Schiller's last illness records his delirium, his recovery of clarity, his farewell to family and his last words. Carlyle presents the death as the fit close of an earnest life while leaving open the 'questionings of futurity' he finds in Schiller's later poems. It is an occasion to discuss what makes a death good and what a biographer may claim about another's soul.

  • What details does Carlyle choose to record about Schiller's last day, and why?
  • What does Carlyle mean by calling Schiller's final words 'expressive of the mild heroism of the man'?
  • How does a Christian account of a good death compare with Carlyle's portrait?

Context

In the early 1820s German literature was little read in Britain, and Schiller was known mainly through The Robbers, which conservative critics associated with revolutionary enthusiasm. Carlyle, who had taught himself German and was translating Goethe's Wilhelm Meister (1824), set out to present Schiller as a serious moral artist. The book belongs to the same years as his essays on Jean Paul and German romance, and it precedes Sartor Resartus by nearly a decade.

Composition

The Life was written in 1823-24 while Carlyle was tutor to the Buller family, published in three parts in the London Magazine, and issued as a book by Taylor and Hessey in 1825. A second edition in 1845 added a short preface and corrective notes; the Library Edition of 1869-72 added the Supplement of 1872 drawn from Saupe's Schiller und sein vaeterliches Haus. Goethe arranged a German translation, published in 1830 with his own introduction. The library text is Project Gutenberg #23209, from volume V of the Library Edition.

Reception

The book was received respectfully but modestly in Britain and helped establish Carlyle as an interpreter of German letters. Goethe's sponsorship gave it a standing in Germany unusual for an English critical work. Carlyle himself later disparaged it, and modern scholars read it chiefly as evidence of his early development, especially his view of the writer as a heroic moral figure later set out in On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841).

Comparisons

• On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History

  Lecture V of On Heroes, 'The Hero as Man of Letters', generalizes the argument first tried on Schiller; but there Carlyle chose Johnson, Rousseau and Burns, and Schiller is absent from the cast.

• Essay on Burns

  Carlyle's 1828 essay on Burns treats a poet who, in his telling, did not master his circumstances; the Schiller Life is its positive counterpart, a poet who suffered as much and kept his purpose.

• Sartor Resartus

  Sartor turns the German material of the Schiller years into Carlyle's own fiction and philosophy; the earnest critical voice of the Life becomes the ironic editor of Teufelsdroeckh.

• Faust, Part One

  The Life shows Goethe from Schiller's side, first as an aloof Olympian and then as a partner; reading Faust beside it shows the temperament Carlyle contrasts with Schiller's restless idealism.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• The opening of Part II on the literary life. Write down Carlyle's list of the Man of Letters' temptations and keep it beside you as Schiller's life unfolds.
• The Duke of Wuertemberg's academy and the order forbidding Schiller to write. Notice how Carlyle balances sympathy for the fugitive with fairness to the ruler.
• The first meeting with Goethe in 1788, when neither man liked the other. Carlyle explains the coolness by contrasting their temperaments.
• Carlyle's account of night study at Jena and the illness of 1791. Ask how he judges Schiller's way of working.
• The last day of Schiller's life and the closing praise of a man with 'no cant'. Compare the death scene with the ideal of the Man of Letters set out in Part II.

Key terms and names

Karlsschule

The Duke of Wuertemberg's military academy at Stuttgart (Carlyle calls it his 'Free Seminary'), where Schiller studied law and medicine under strict rules from 1773 to 1780.

Sturm und Drang

'Storm and Stress', the German literary movement of the 1770s to which The Robbers belongs, marked by passionate heroes and revolt against convention.

Weimar classicism

The partnership of Goethe and Schiller in the 1790s and 1800s, aiming at a balanced, formally disciplined art.

Die Horen

The literary journal Schiller edited from 1795 with Goethe's collaboration; Carlyle treats it as the start of their working friendship.

Cant

Carlyle's word for professed beliefs or feelings that a person does not really hold; his highest praise of Schiller is that he had none.

Critical biography

A life of a writer that pauses to examine the works; Carlyle's subtitle calls the book a Life 'comprehending an examination of his works'.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension Why did Schiller leave Stuttgart in 1782, and where did he go?
2. Comprehension How did Schiller's first meeting with Goethe go, and how did their relation change afterwards?
3. Comprehension What help did Schiller receive from Denmark after his illness of 1791?
4. Interpretation How does Carlyle use The Robbers to describe the young Schiller's state of mind?
5. Interpretation Why does Carlyle open Part II with a meditation on the Man of Letters rather than with events?
6. Interpretation In the 1845 preface Carlyle calls the book insignificant. Does the book itself bear out that judgment?
7. Big Question Should we admire a writer's life for its sincerity and labour even when we disagree with his beliefs?

Faith Connections

• James 1:22 (Scripture)

  Carlyle's opening of Part II, that to know wisdom is not to practise it, echoes James's warning against hearers who are not doers.

• Matthew 5:37 (Scripture)

  Carlyle's praise of Schiller's freedom from cant is close to Jesus' command that yes mean yes; students can ask whether sincerity alone is enough.

• Psalm 127:2 (Scripture)

  Schiller's nights of writing with wine and coffee contrast with the psalm's warning against rising early and sitting up late in anxious toil.

• Carlyle, On Heroes, Lecture V (Great Conversation)

  The lecture on the Hero as Man of Letters takes up the ideal first sketched in this Life.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: Carlyle argues that Schiller's greatness lay as much in his character as in his talent: he pursued an ideal of truth and beauty through the temptations of fame, poverty, exile and disease, and his works should be read as the expression of that earnest life. Britain, he implies, should learn to read German literature in that spirit.

Rhetorical device: biographical framing of criticism. Carlyle calls The Robbers 'an emblem' of its young author's baffled, struggling spirit before he analyses its characters.

Debate: Resolved: That Carlyle's Life of Schiller judges the poet's works chiefly by the poet's character.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Using the opening of Part II and the closing character sketch, explain what Carlyle means by a heroic Man of Letters, and decide whether Schiller as Carlyle presents him fits that ideal.

Comparison with Essay on Burns: Carlyle wrote about Schiller and about Burns within a few years. Compare how each poet meets poverty and temptation, and what Carlyle concludes from each life.

Medical Lens

Schiller was trained as a physician. His father had been apprenticed to a barber-surgeon and served as an army surgeon; Schiller studied medicine at the Duke's academy from 1775 and served briefly as a regimental surgeon at Stuttgart, though Carlyle says he took the study up only as 'a galling servitude' and never practised after leaving. Carlyle attributes the chest illness of 1791 to overwork and nocturnal study, describes Schiller's reliance on coffee and wine to write through the night, and narrates the final illness of 1805 with its delirium and lucid end. A footnote quotes Doering's report of the post-mortem findings in the lungs, heart, liver and gall-bladder. Later writers have proposed tuberculosis or other diagnoses for Schiller's illness; the text does not name one, and any such label is a retrospective reading.

• Part I (the military academy, 1775)

  Schiller is made to give up law for the new medical course at the Stuttgart academy, which he accepts as a lesser servitude.

  Physicians Doctors
• Part I (The Robbers)

  Carlyle reports Schiller's preface claiming that ridicule, like hellebore, had failed and that sharper medicines were needed for the age.

  Ancient Medicine
• Part III (1791 illness)

  A violent disorder of the chest attributed to toil, anxiety and night study; total rest is prescribed and health never fully returns.

  Physicians Doctors Sleep Insomnia
• Part III (mode of life at Jena)

  Night writing until three to five in the morning, with strong coffee, wine-chocolate, Rhenish or Champagne at hand, described from a contemporary account.

  Alcohol Sleep Insomnia
• Part III (death, May 1805) and footnote 41

  Final illness, delirium, lucid farewell and death; the footnote cites Doering on post-mortem findings in the lungs, heart and liver.

  Death Dying Anatomy Dissection
• Supplement of 1872 (Schiller's father)

  Johann Caspar Schiller's apprenticeship to a barber-surgeon and service as an army doctor in the Seven Years' War.

  Physicians Doctors

Creative Prompts

• Classroom

  Draw a timeline of Schiller's residences (Marbach, Lorch, Ludwigsburg, Stuttgart, Mannheim, Bauerbach, Leipzig, Dresden, Jena, Weimar) and note one work and one hardship attached to each.

• Dialogue

  Write the 1788 meeting of Schiller and Goethe at Rudolstadt as Carlyle describes it, with Goethe talking of Italy and Schiller silently judging him.

• Essay

  Carlyle says Schiller 'has no cant'. Define cant from Carlyle's own sentences, then argue whether the Life itself avoids it.

Further Reading

• The Robbers, Friedrich Schiller

  The 1781 play Carlyle analyses at length in Part I.

• Wallenstein, Friedrich Schiller, trans. S. T. Coleridge (Piccolomini and Death of Wallenstein)

  The trilogy Carlyle calls Schiller's most earnest dramatic work.

• On the Aesthetic Education of Man, Friedrich Schiller

  The letters on aesthetic culture discussed in Part III.

• Correspondence between Schiller and Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and J. W. von Goethe

  Recommended by Carlyle in the 1845 preface.

• Thomas Carlyle: A History of the First Forty Years of His Life, James Anthony Froude

  Covers the London Magazine years when the Life was written.