Journal Éveillé is an informal exploration of awakened mind in the art of poetry....
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"Friedrich Schiller (German: 1759 – 1805) ......poet, philosopher, physician, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with the already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision."
"During most of his short life, he suffered from illnesses that he tried to cure himself........Schiller read Rousseau and Goethe and discussed Classical ideals with his classmates. At school, he wrote his first play, The Robbers, which dramatizes the conflict between two aristocratic brothers: the elder, Karl Moor, leads a group of rebellious students into the Bohemian forest where they become Robin Hood-like bandits, while Franz Moor, the younger brother, schemes to inherit his father's considerable estate. The play's critique of social corruption and its affirmation of proto-revolutionary republican ideals astounded its original audience. Schiller became an overnight sensation. Later, Schiller would be made an honorary member of the French Republic because of this play. The play was inspired by Leisewitz' earlier play Julius of Tarent, a favourite of the young Schiller.....In 1780, he obtained a post as regimental doctor in Stuttgart, a job he disliked. In order to attend the first performance of The Robbers in Mannheim, Schiller left his regiment without permission. As a result, he was arrested, sentenced to 14 days of imprisonment, and forbidden by Karl Eugen from publishing any further works........He fled Stuttgart in 1782, going via Frankfurt, Mannheim, Leipzig, and Dresden to Weimar. Along this journey he had an affair with an army officer's wife Charlotte von Kalb. She was at the centre of an intellectual circle, and she was known for her cleverness and instability. Schiller needed help to extricate himself from his family and friends.....Schiller settled in Weimar in 1787. In 1789, he was appointed professor of History and Philosophy in Jena, where he wrote only historical works."
"In 1790, Schiller married Charlotte von Lengefeld (1766–1826). ....Schiller returned with his family to Weimar from Jena in 1799. Goethe convinced him to return to playwriting. He and Goethe founded the Weimar Theater, which became the leading theater in Germany. Their collaboration helped lead to a renaissance of drama in Germany.....The first significant biography of Schiller was by his sister-in-law Caroline von Wolzogen in 1830.....In 2008, Schiller was voted as the second most important playwright in Europe after William Shakespeare."
"Schiller wrote many philosophical papers on ethics and aesthetics. He elaborated Christoph Martin Wieland's concept of die schöne Seele (the beautiful soul), a human being whose emotions have been educated by reason, so that Pflicht und Neigung (duty and inclination) are no longer in conflict with one another; thus beauty, for Schiller, is not merely an aesthetic experience, but a moral one as well: the Good is the Beautiful. His philosophical work was also particularly concerned with the question of human freedom....... Schiller wrote two important essays on the question of the sublime (das Erhabene), entitled "Vom Erhabenen" and "Über das Erhabene"; these essays address one aspect of human freedom—the ability to defy one's animal instincts, such as the drive for self-preservation, when, for example, someone willingly sacrifices themselves for conceptual ideals."
Dramas:
The Robbers (Die Räuber): The play strongly criticises the hypocrisies of class and religion, and the economic inequities of German society; it also conducts a complicated inquiry into the nature of evil.
Intrigue and Love (Kabale und Liebe): Reminiscent of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Schiller develops his criticisms of absolutism and bourgeois hypocrisy in this bourgeois tragedy.
Don Carlos: This play marks Schiller's entrée into historical drama. The Marquis Posa's famous speech to the king proclaims Schiller's belief in personal freedom and democracy.
The Wallenstein Trilogy: These plays follow the fortunes of the treacherous commander Albrecht von Wallenstein during the Thirty Years' War.
Mary Stuart (Maria Stuart): This history of the Scottish queen, who was Elizabeth I's rival, portrays Mary Stuart as a tragic heroine, misunderstood and used by ruthless politicians, including and especially, Elizabeth.
The Maid of Orleans (Die Jungfrau von Orleans): about Joan of Arc
The Bride of Messina (Die Braut von Messina)
William Tell (Wilhelm Tell)
Demetrius (unfinished)
"A pivotal work by Schiller was On the Aesthetic Education of Man in a Series of Letters (Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen), first published 1794, which was inspired by the great disenchantment Schiller felt about the French Revolution, its degeneration into violence and the failure of successive governments to put its ideals into practice..... Schiller wrote that "a great moment has found a little people"; he wrote the Letters as a philosophical inquiry into what had gone wrong, and how to prevent such tragedies in the future. In the Letters he asserts that it is possible to elevate the moral character of a people, by first touching their souls with beauty, an idea that is also found in his poem Die Künstler (The Artists): "Only through Beauty's morning-gate, dost thou penetrate the land of knowledge."
Spieltrieb ....."On the basis of Spieltrieb, Schiller sketches in Letters a future ideal state (a eutopia), where everyone will be content, and everything will be beautiful, thanks to the free play of Spieltrieb. ....Schiller's Letters ... aim at remaking of civilization by virtue of the liberating force of the aesthetic function: it is envisaged as containing the possibility of a new reality principle....Letters put forth the notion of der sinnliche Trieb / Sinnestrieb ("the sensuous drive") and Formtrieb ("the formal drive").....Schiller transcends the dualism between Formtrieb and Sinnestrieb with the notion of Spieltrieb ("the play drive")."
"Ludwig van Beethoven said that a great poem is more difficult to set to music than a merely good one because the composer must rise higher than the poet – "who can do that in the case of Schiller? In this respect Goethe is much easier," wrote Beethoven."
"A few famous musical settings of Schiller's poems.....Beethoven's setting of "An die Freude" (Ode to Joy) in the final movement of his Ninth Symphony....... Johannes Brahms' choral setting of "Nänie" ......and "Des Mädchens Klage" by Franz Schubert, who set 44 of Schiller's poems."
Quotations.....
"Respect the dreams of thy youth." (Posa, in: Don Carlos)
"Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens", which means "Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain" (Talbot, in: The Maid of Orleans)
"Deeper meaning resides in the fairy tales told to me in my childhood than in any truth that is taught in life." (Max in The Piccolomini, act 3, scene 4)
"Eine Grenze hat die Tyrannenmacht", which means "A tyrant's power has a limit" (a Swiss freedom fighter, in: Wilhelm Tell)
"The voice of the majority is no proof of justice." (Talbot, in: Maria Stuart)
"It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons." (Franz in The Robbers)
"Live with your century but do not be its creature." (From On the Aesthetic Education of Man)
"Mary Stuart (German: Maria Stuart) is a verse play by Friedrich Schiller that depicts the last days of Mary, Queen of Scots. The play consists of five acts, each divided into several scenes. The play had its première in Weimar, Germany on 14 June 1800. The play formed the basis for Donizetti's opera Maria Stuarda (1835).....On 23 September 2012, BBC Radio 3 broadcast a production translated by David Harrower, adapted for radio by Robin Brooks and produced/directed by Gaynor Macfarlane. The cast included Meg Fraser as Mary, Alexandra Mathie as Elizabeth, Matthew Pidgeon as Mortimer, Robin Laing as Leicester, Richard Greenwood as Burleigh and Paul Young as Shrewsbury.....The Stratford Shakespeare Festival ran a production in 2013."
Email....wijijiarts@gmail.com
November 2016
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