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Schiller and Our Times
GA 51

18 February 1905, Berlin

V. Schiller, the Greek Drama and Nietzsche

The period at which Schiller wrote his Wallenstein, was for him a period of transition, a refining period in which he was trying to rise above his earlier “Weltanschauung” to the grasp of what he called the purely artistic. We have seen how Schiller found in the beautiful and artistic something which could raise man's forces of soul, bring them into a harmony—so that it is artistic creation which gives man freedom. Thus for him, as he wrote to Goethe à propos of his Wilhelm Meister, the artist was the only true man and the philosopher, compared to him, only a caricature. Here was a vital turning-point which reflected what Schiller had then experienced.

In Fiesco, in Kabale and Liebe, in Don Carlos some of the characters are sympathetic to him, others antipathetic. But at the height of his art he wished to get rid of such moral judgment and valuation; he wished to treat a wrong-doer with the same loving care as he did the hero; his work was no longer to be associated with what he himself felt as sympathy or antipathy. When the objection was made to Wilhelm Meister, that many of the figures offended against moral feeling, he wrote more or less like this to Goethe: “If one could show you that the non-moral originated in you and not in the characters, one might have some ground for objection.” For Schiller Wilhelm Meister is an education in aesthetic.

Schiller, having had a vision of human personality in its true autonomy, tried to raise himself to the sunlit heights of pure art. Hence comes a new form of participation of the artist in his art; we can see it already in Wallenstein. He was not going to have a personal part any more, nor judge and value morally; he was simply to be an artist.

This conception reminds us of a conversation of his with Goethe in which they were discussing architecture, and in which Goethe made a remark of deep significance, though it might sound at first somewhat of a paradox. Goethe demanded of a beautiful building that it should make an impression of harmony not only on the eye but on a man who might be led through it with bandaged eyes. When everything sensible has been abstracted, it is still possible to put oneself into it by the spirit. It is not fitness for a purpose that he demanded, but the ideal quality of the spirit. At first sight it may seem paradoxical: it was created out of the lofty view of art which Goethe and Schiller held. Round them there grew up a circle of artists whose judgments were similar: e.g., Wilhelm v. Humboldt, a fine connoisseur, whose aesthetic essays are important for the contemporary intellectual atmosphere. In this way Schiller was led into opposition to his earlier artistic views and to Kantianism, which practically only admits the supersensible where the moral is concerned. No artist could see like that; and in his return to the artistic Schiller found Kant inadequate.

Schiller's conception of the tragic conflict was that later formulated by Hebbel when he said that only that is tragic which is inevitable. That was Schiller's feeling, and that was what he tried to carry out in his Wallenstein; that was the way in which he wanted to depict the tragic. In Shakespeare's Richard III he saw fate breaking in with such inevitability; but before then he had had an earlier love for the Greek drama. In the Shakespearean drama the person of the hero takes the central place, and it is from his character that the inevitable development arises. Greek drama is quite different: there everything is predestined, and complete. Man is set in a higher spiritual order, but simultaneously, because he is a material sense-being, he is shattered by it. The decisive element is not the character or personality of the hero but the superhuman destiny and fate.

The Erinyes of Greek tragedy are not originally avenging Furies but represent the vague foreboding something which is not wholly soluble and shines dimly into human destiny. In his return to the artistic Schiller reached this conception of the tragic. If we are to feel tragedy in this sense, we must eliminate the personal and separate it from the merely human. Only then can we really understand Wallenstein.

There is something super-personal that has grown beyond the personal which hovers over Wallenstein. Man belongs to a higher order, a higher spiritual world—that is for Schiller the meaning of the stars which guide man's destiny. It is in the stars that Wallenstein is to read his destiny. Carlyle indicates this super-personal, when he points to the parallelism in the character of the separate personalities in Wallenstein's camp, which hints at the personalities of the leaders. Thus the Irish Dragoon, who puts his trust in the luck of war, points to his chief, Buttler; the first Cuirassier who reflects the finer side of life in war, to Max Piccolomini; the Trumpeter in his complete devotion, to Terczky; while the Sergeant Major, who quotes the sayings of his general, appears as a caricature of Wallenstein.

We have here then a great law which goes beyond the merely personal. The whole composition of the poem shows us the standpoint which Schiller believed he had achieved. We have first, the camp where Wallenstein does not appear at all; second, the Piccolomini scenes where Wallenstein practically does not enter but learns what has happened from Max Piccolomini and hears from his wife what is happening in the Viennese court. He allows events to take their course so that his generals unite and sign the famous document. The action takes place round about him. In the same way the idea of treachery is only grasped lightly, and then takes possession of his soul. Thirdly, Wallenstein's death; here he is driven into events by his own thoughts which have taken on an objective life, he is forced into a super-personal destiny. A monumental language marks the situation. He is set within an iron necessity; the personal—which has nothing particular to do with the great lines—is thrust into a corner. It does, no doubt, express itself in stirring tones, as, for instance, in the conversation with Max Piccolomini:—

Wallenstein (with eyes silently fixed on him and approaching him): Max, stay with me; leave me not, Max. When they brought you to me in my winter camp at Prague, into my tent, a delicate boy, unused to German winters, your hand was frozen to the heavy standard which, like a man, you would not let go. Then I took you in, covered you with my cloak; myself was your nurse, nor was ashamed, of the smallest service; I tended you with a woman's careful thoughtfulness, till you, warmed by me, felt the young life again pouring through you. When, since then, have I changed? Thousands I have made rich, given them lands and honours—you, I have loved. I gave you my heart, myself. They were all strangers, you the child of my house. Max, you cannot leave me. It cannot be, I will not, cannot believe my Max can leave me.

But it does not specially fit into the plot. Schiller's great achievement in this drama was that he kept the tragic and the personal apart, that he has shown how Wallenstein, after letting the thoughts play freely about him, simply cannot but stride onwards to the deed. He shows us how out of freedom there grows a kind of necessity; and this whole style of thought contains ideas of the moment which have only to be fanned to life in order to become fruitful.

The next play, Maria Stuart, is conceived in the same vein. Practically everything has already happened at the beginning, and nothing occurs but what has been long prepared. It is only the character, the inner life, which unfolds itself before us, and this inner life again acts as a necessity. In his later plays Schiller tried more and more to give form to the idea of destiny. Thus in the Maid of Orleans something super-personal is expressed in the visions in which her demon-spirit appears, calls her to her mission and opposes her when she is untrue to the command, until by repentance she redeems it. In the Bride of Messina especially he almost tries to give the Greek drama once more a place in modern life. There he expresses the super-personal by introducing the chorus.

What did he want with the chorus? Schiller was looking to the origin of tragedy, which arose from religion. In the primitive drama it was shown how Dionysos, the suffering God, finds redemption in humanity. (More recent research has revealed the truth of this.) When the Greek Mystery drama was secularised, there arose the first beginnings of dramatic art. Thus in Aeschylus we still have the echo of that out of which art had arisen, of the Mystery cults within which the world-drama of world-redemption was depicted. Edouard Schuré has described these Eleusinian Mysteries in his Sanctuaires d'Orient, a first example of the religious and artistic solution of the world-riddle. The world-embracing action of this original drama could not find in speech its proper instrument; for speech is too much the expression of personal relations. When drama began to use the word, it dealt with more personal relations, as in Sophocles and Euripides. There was a passage from the representation of the typical to the personal. Hence the old drama used a super-personal speech which was akin to music, and given by the chorus which accompanied the action represented in mimicry. Thus the musical drama developed into the later speech drama. Nietzsche has developed these ideas further in his Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music.

For him the word drama is a sort of decadence; and hence comes his reverence for Wagner who wanted to create a new religious art, born out of the world of myth. Wagner was keen, not on the personal, but the super-personal; and so he took for the foundation of his dramas not historical, but mythical action; and where he has to represent the super-personal he does not employ the usual language but a language sublimated by music.

Schiller felt what was only discovered by research after his time, and developed Greek tragedy along those lines. He wanted to introduce a lyric element, so that, as he says in the preface, he might raise art to a higher level by means of the mood. Thus there already lies in Schiller what was worked out more radically in the Nietzsche-Wagner circle—except that those men did not deal with it so clearly as Schiller had done.

In Schiller we have already the great conception of leading mankind back to the source from which the spiritual sprang, of leading art back to the original basis from which religion, art and science all grew up. To him beauty was the dawn of truth. Even today we can find in Schiller what may guide us to the best we may hope, for the present and the future. And so he may be a prophet for us of a better future.

V. Schiller, das griechische Drama und Nietzsche

Es ist die Zeit, in der Schiller den «Wallenstein» geschrieben hat, für ihn eine Zeit des Übergangs, eine Zeit der Läuterung gewesen, in der er versuchte aufzusteigen aus seiner früheren Weltanschauung zu der Erfassung dessen, was er das rein Künstlerische nannte. Wir haben gesehen, wie Schiller versuchte, im Schönen, Künstlerischen etwas zu sehen, was die menschlichen Seelenkräfte zu erheben, in Harmonie zu bringen vermag, so daß es das künstlerische Schaffen ist, was dem Menschen die Freiheit gibt. So war ihm, wie er an Goethe gelegentlich des «Wilhelm Meister» schrieb, der Künstler einzig der ganz wahre Mensch, und der Philosoph nur eine Karikatur neben ihm. Es war dies eine radikale Wendung, die wiedergab, was Schiller damals empfunden hatte.

In «Fiesco», in «Kabale und Liebe», in «Don Carlos» sind die Figuren so aufzufassen, daß ihm einige sympathisch, andere antipathisch sind. Diese moralische Beurteilung, diese moralische Wertung wollte er ablegen auf der Höhe seiner Künstlerschaft. Jetzt wollte er den Verbrecher mit derselben Liebe und Sorgfalt wie den Helden behandeln; nicht mehr sollte das Kunstwerk anknüpfen an etwas, was er selber als Sympathie oder Antipathie empfand.

Als man gegen den «Wilhelm Meister» den Vorwurf erhob, daß mehrere Figuren gegen das moralische Gefühl verstießen, schrieb er an Goethe etwa: «Könnte (man) Ihnen zeigen, daß das nicht Moralische aus Ihnen und nicht aus den Figuren stammt, so könnte man Ihnen einen Vorwurf machen.» Ihm ist der Wilhelm Meister eine Schule der Ästhetik.

Schiller, der die menschliche Persönlichkeit in ihrer Autonomie geschaut hatte, versucht sich aufzuschwingen zur Sonnenhöhe echten Künstlertums. Daher ergibt sich eine neue Art des Anteils des Künstlers an seinen Schöpfungen. Wir sehen sie schon im «Wallenstein». Nicht mehr sollte er persönlichen Anteil haben, nicht mehr wollte er moralisch urteilen und werten, sondern nur als Künstler.

Es erinnert diese Auffassung an ein Gespräch Schillers mit Goethe, in dem sie Betrachtungen über Architektur angestellt haben. In diesem hat Goethe ein tief bedeutendes Wort gesprochen, das zunächst etwas paradox klingen könnte. Goethe hat verlangt von einem schönen Gebäude, daß es nicht nur auf das Auge, sondern auch auf den, der mit verbundenen Augen hindurchgeführt würde, einen harmonischen Eindruck mache. Wenn alles Sinnliche ausgelöscht ist, kann ein Hineinversetzen mit dem Geiste möglich sein.

Nicht Zweckmäßigkeit: Idealität des Geistes war, was hier gefordert wurde. Paradox erscheint diese Forderung auf den ersten Augenblick: sie war herausgeschaffen aus der hohen Kunstanschauung Goethes und Schillers. Es bildete sich um sie ein Kreis von Künstlern, die ähnlich urteilten. So Wilhelm von Humboldt, ein feiner Kenner der Kunst, dessen ästhetische Abhandlungen bedeutsam sind für das geistige Milieu. Schiller wurde dadurch geführt zu einer Kollision mit seinen früheren künstlerischen Anschauungen und mit dem Kantianismus, der im Grunde das Übersinnliche nur dort gelten lassen wollte, wo Moralisches in Frage kommt. So aber kann kein Künstler sehen; beim Zurückkehren zum Künstlerischen genügt Schillern Kant nicht mehr. Schillers Auffassung des tragischen Konflikts war diejenige, die später Hebbel formulierte, indem er sagte, nur das sei tragisch, was unabänderlich sei. So empfand Schiller; so hatte er es im «Wallenstein» auszuführen versucht, so wollte er das Tragische darstellen. In Shakespeares «Richard III.» sah er das Schicksal mit solcher Unabänderlichkeit hereinbrechen. Doch schon hatte er eine Vorliebe für das griechische Drama gefaßt. Im Shakespeare-Drama steht die Person des Helden im Mittelpunkt; aus dem Charakter des Helden ergibt sich die Notwendigkeit der Entwickelung.

Ganz anders ist es im griechischen Drama. Dorrt ist alles schon vorherbestimmt, alles fertig. Der Mensch wird hineingestellt in eine höhere geistige Ordnung, aber zugleich, weil er ein Sinnenwesen ist, wird er von ihr zermalmt. Nicht der Charakter, die Persönlichkeit, sondern das übermenschliche Schicksal ist das Bestimmende. So sind die Erinnyen der griechischen Tragödie ursprünglich nicht Rachegöttinnen, sondern bedeuten eigentlich das Dämmernde, das, was sich nicht ganz auflösen läßt, was hineindämmert in des Menschen Schicksal. Bei der Rückkehr zur Künstlerschaft kam Schiller zu dieser Auffassung des Tragischen. Wer das Tragische in solcher Weise empfinden will, muß das Persönliche eliminieren, herauslösen aus dem nur Menschlichen. Erst so wird man den «Wallenstein» recht verstehen. Hinausgewachsen über die Persönlichkeit, schwebt etwas Überpersönliches über Wallenstein. Daß der Mensch einer höheren Ordnung, einer höheren geistigen Welt angehört, das ist für Schiller die Bedeutung der Sterne, die des Menschen Schicksal lenken. Dort in den Sternen soll Wallenstein sein Schicksal lesen.

Auf diese Überpersönlichkeit deutet Carlyle hin, wenn er in Wallensteins Lager in dem Charakter der einzelnen Persönlichkeiten einen Parallelismus findet, der über sie hinaus zu den Persönlichkeiten der Führer hinspielt: so weist der irische Dragoner, der dem Spiel des Kriegsglücks vertraut, auf seinen Chef Buttler; der erste Kürassier, der die edlere Seite des Kriegslebens darstellt, auf Max Piccolomini; der Trompeter in seiner unbedingten Ergebenheit auf Terczky; während der Wachtmeister, der die Aussprüche seines Feldherrn pedantisch zitiert, als eine Karikatur des Wallenstein erscheint.

So sehen wir hier eine große Gesetzmäßigkeit, die über das bloß Persönliche hinausgeht. Die ganze Komposition des Gedichtes beweist den Standpunkt, den Schiller erklommen zu haben glaubte. Wir haben erstens das Lager, wo Wallenstein gar nicht auftritt, zweitens die Piccolomini, wo Wallenstein eigentlich gar nicht eingreift, er erfährt, was geschehen ist, durch Max Piccolomini, und von seiner Frau hört er, was am Wiener Hofe vor sich geht. Er läßt es geschehen, daß seine Generäle sich verbinden, das berühmte Dokument unterzeichnen. Um ihm herum spielt die Handlung sich ab. So wird auch der Gedanke des Verrats nur spielend von ihm gefaßt, der sich dann seiner Seele bemächtigt. Drittens Wallensteins Tod. Jetzt ist Wallenstein in die Ereignisse gedrängt durch die eigenen Gedanken, die ein objektives Leben angenommen haben, hineingedrängt in ein überpersönliches Schicksal. Eine monumentale Sprache kennzeichnet diese Situation. Hineingestellt ist er in eine eherne Notwendigkeit; das Persönliche, das mit den großen Linien nichts Besonderes zu tun hat, ist in den Winkel gedrängt. Wohl findet es auch erschütternde Töne, wie in dem Gespräch mit Max Piccolomini.

Wallenstein (hat den Blick schweigend auf ihn geheftet und nähert sich ihm jetzt):

Max, bleibe bei mir. — Geh nicht von mir, Max!
Sieh, als man dich im Prag’schen Winterlager
Ins Zelt mir brachte, einen zarten Knaben,
Des deutschen Winters ungewohnt, die Hand
War dir erstarrt an der gewichtigen Fahne,
Du wolltest männlich sie nicht lassen, damals nahm ich
Dich auf, bedeckte dich mit meinem Mantel,
Ich selbst war deine Wärterin, nicht schämt’ ich
Der kleinen Dienste mich, ich pflegte deiner
Mit weiblich sorgender Geschäftigkeit,
Bis du, von mir erwärmt, an meinem Herzen
Das junge Leben wieder freudig fühltest.
Wann hab’ ich seitdem meinen Sinn verändert?
Ich habe viele Tausend reich gemacht,
Mit Ländereien sie beschenkt, belohnt
Mit Ehrenstellen — dich hab’ ich geliebt,
Mein Herz, mich selber hab’ ich dir gegeben.
Sie alle waren Fremdlinge, du warst
Das Kind des Hauses — Max, du kannst mich nicht verlassen!
Es kann nicht sein, ich mag’s und will’s nicht glauben,
Daß mich der Max verlassen kann.

Aber es greift nicht eigentlich in die Handlung ein. Das große Tragische und das Persönliche auseinanderzuhalten, wie hier geschieht, darzustellen, wie Wallenstein gar nicht anders kann als zur Tat zu schreiten, nachdem er die Gedanken hat frei um sich her spielen lassen, das ist das Große in diesem Drama Schillers. Wie aus der Freiheit eine Art Sonne der Notwendigkeit wird, zeigt er uns hier. In dieser ganzen Gedankenrichtung liegen Gegenwartsbegriffe, die nur angefacht zu werden brauchen, um fruchtbar zu werden.

In derselben Art ist auch das nächste Drama «Maria Stuart» gedacht. Es ist im Grunde anfangs schon alles geschehen, und nichts vollzieht sich als nur das, was längst vorbereitet ist. Nur der Charakter, das innere Leben entrollt sich vor uns, und dies innere Leben wirkt wieder als Notwendigkeit.

In den späteren Dramen hat Schiller versucht, das Schicksalsmäßige immer mehr auszugestalten. So wird in der «Jungfrau von Orleans» etwas Überpersönliches zum Ausdruck gebracht, in den Visionen, wo ihr Dämonisches entgegentritt, das sie zu ihrer Sendung beruft und sich ihr entgegenstellt, als sie dem Gebot untreu geworden ist, bis sie es durch Buße versöhnt.

In der «Braut von Messina» versucht er geradezu der griechischen Tragödie wieder Eingang ins moderne Leben zu verschaffen. Er drückt hier das Überpersönliche durch Einführung des Chores aus. Was wollte Schiller mit dem Chor? Er blickte zurück auf den Ursprung der Tragödie, die entstanden ist aus der Religion. In dem Urdrama wurde gezeigt, wie Dionysos, der leidende Gott, in der Menschheit wieder erlöst wird. — Spätere Forschungen haben zu dieser Wahrheit geführt. — Als das griechische Mysteriendrama verweltlicht wurde, entstanden die ersten Anfänge der dramatischen Kunst. So tritt uns bei Äschylos noch ein Anklang an das entgegen, aus dem die Kunst hervorgegangen war, an die Mysterienkulte, in denen das Weltendrama der Weltenerlösung dargestellt wurde. Edouard Schuré hat diese Eleusinischen Mysterien in seinen «Sanctuaires d’Orient» dargestellt, eine erste Art religiös-künstlerischer Lösung des Weltenrätsels. Die weltumspannenden Handlungen dieses Urdramas finden in der Sprache nicht das geeignete Instrument; diese ist der Ausdruck der persönlichen Beziehungen. Als das Drama zum Wort überging, behandelte es die mehr persönlichen Beziehungen, so bei Sophokles, bei Euripides. Vom Typischen war man zur Darstellung des Persönlichen gekommen. Das alte Drama verwendete daher eine überpersönliche Sprache, etwas was der Musik angeähnelt war. Sie ging von dem Chor aus, der die mimisch dargestellte Handlung begleitete. So hat sich aus dem musikalischen Drama das spätere Wortdrama entwikkelt. Friedrich Nietzsche hat diesen Gedanken weiter ausgeführt in seiner Schrift «Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik». Ihm ist das Wortdrama eine Art von Dekadenzwerk. Daher seine Verehrung für Wagner, der eine neue religiöse Kunst schaffen wollte, herausgeboren aus der mythischen Welt. Richard Wagner begeisterte sich nicht für das Persönliche, sondern für das Überpersönliche. Er nimmt daher zur Grundlage seiner Dramen nicht historische, sondern mythische Handlungen, und da, wo es gilt Überpersönliches darzustellen, verwendet er nicht die gewöhnliche Sprache, sondern die musikalisch gehobene.

Schiller hat das, was man später erforschte, vorausgefühlt, und in diesem Sinne die griechische Tragödie entwikkelt. Er wollte ein lyrisches Element einführen, um, wie er es in der Vorrede erwähnt, durch die Stimmung die Kunst auf eine besondere Höhe zu heben. So ist, was in dem Wagner- und Nietzschekreis sich in radikaler Form abgespielt hat, schon bei Schiller vorhanden; nur wird es dort nicht in so abgeklärter Weise behandelt, wie es von ihm geschieht.

Es lebt schon in Schiller der große Gedanke, die Menschheit wieder zu dem Quell zu führen, dem das Geistige entsprungen ist, die Kunst zurückzuführen auf den heimischen Urgrund, aus dem die Religion, Kunst und Wissenschaft hervorgegangen sind. Es konnte ihm die Schönheit das Morgenrot der Wahrheit sein. Auch heute noch werden wir in Schiller finden, was uns hinweist auf das Beste, was wir für die Gegenwart und Zukunft erhoffen. So kann Schiller heute als ein Prophet einer besseren Zukunft uns vorangehen.

V. Schiller, Greek Drama, and Nietzsche

This was the period when Schiller wrote Wallenstein, a time of transition and purification for him, during which he attempted to rise above his former worldview and grasp what he called the purely artistic. We have seen how Schiller attempted to see in beauty and art something that could elevate the human soul and bring it into harmony, so that it is artistic creation that gives man freedom. Thus, as he wrote to Goethe on the occasion of Wilhelm Meister, the artist was for him the only true human being, and the philosopher merely a caricature beside him. This was a radical turn that reflected what Schiller had felt at the time.

In “Fiesco,” in “Intrigue and Love,” in “Don Carlos,” the characters are to be understood in such a way that some are sympathetic to him, others antipathetic. He wanted to abandon this moral judgment, this moral evaluation, at the height of his artistry. Now he wanted to treat the criminal with the same love and care as the hero; the work of art should no longer be linked to something he himself felt sympathy or antipathy for.

When “Wilhelm Meister” was criticized for having several characters who violated moral sensibilities, he wrote to Goethe: “If one could show you that the immorality comes from you and not from the characters, then one could reproach you.” For him, Wilhelm Meister is a school of aesthetics.

Schiller, who had seen the human personality in its autonomy, tried to rise to the heights of true artistry. This resulted in a new kind of involvement of the artist in his creations. We already see this in Wallenstein. He no longer wanted to be personally involved, no longer wanted to make moral judgments and evaluations, but only as an artist.

This view is reminiscent of a conversation between Schiller and Goethe in which they discussed architecture. In this conversation, Goethe uttered a profoundly significant statement that might sound somewhat paradoxical at first. Goethe demanded that a beautiful building should make a harmonious impression not only on the eye, but also on someone who was led through it blindfolded. When all sensuality is eliminated, it is possible to enter into it with the mind.

Not practicality: what was required here was the idealism of the mind. This requirement seems paradoxical at first glance: it was created from the high artistic views of Goethe and Schiller. A circle of artists who shared similar views formed around them. One such artist was Wilhelm von Humboldt, a fine connoisseur of art whose aesthetic treatises are significant for the intellectual milieu. This led Schiller to a collision with his earlier artistic views and with Kantianism, which basically only wanted to accept the supernatural where morality was at stake. But no artist can see things that way; when returning to the artistic, Kant is no longer enough for Schiller. Schiller's view of tragic conflict was the one later formulated by Hebbel, who said that only what is unchangeable is tragic. That was how Schiller felt; that was how he had tried to express it in “Wallenstein”; that was how he wanted to portray the tragic. In Shakespeare's Richard III, he saw fate descending with such inevitability. But he had already developed a preference for Greek drama. In Shakespeare's drama, the hero is the central figure; the hero's character determines the necessity of his development.

It is quite different in Greek drama. There, everything is predetermined, everything is already finished. Man is placed in a higher spiritual order, but at the same time, because he is a sensual being, he is crushed by it. It is not character or personality that is decisive, but superhuman fate. Thus, the Erinyes of Greek tragedy are not originally goddesses of vengeance, but actually signify the twilight, that which cannot be completely dissolved, that which dawns into human destiny. Upon returning to artistry, Schiller came to this understanding of the tragic. Anyone who wants to experience the tragic in this way must eliminate the personal, detach it from the merely human. Only then can one truly understand “Wallenstein.” Transcending personality, something supra-personal hovers over Wallenstein. For Schiller, the fact that humans belong to a higher order, a higher spiritual world, is the meaning of the stars that guide human destiny. There, in the stars, Wallenstein is to read his fate.

Carlyle alludes to this super-personality when he finds a parallelism in Wallenstein's camp between the characters of the individual personalities and the personalities of the leaders: the Irish dragoon, who trusts in the game of war's fortune, points to his boss Buttler; the first cuirassier, who represents the nobler side of military life, points to Max Piccolomini; the trumpeter, in his unconditional devotion, points to Terczky; while the sergeant, who pedantically quotes his commander's sayings, appears as a caricature of Wallenstein.

Thus, we see here a great lawfulness that goes beyond the merely personal. The entire composition of the poem proves the standpoint that Schiller believed he had attained. First, we have the camp, where Wallenstein does not appear at all; second, we have Piccolomini, where Wallenstein does not actually intervene; he learns what has happened from Max Piccolomini, and he hears from his wife what is going on at the Viennese court. He allows his generals to join forces and sign the famous document. The action takes place around him. Thus, the idea of betrayal is only playfully conceived by him, but then takes hold of his soul. Thirdly, Wallenstein's death. Now Wallenstein is thrust into events by his own thoughts, which have taken on an objective life, thrust into a supra-personal destiny. Monumental language characterizes this situation. He is placed in an iron necessity; the personal, which has nothing special to do with the big picture, is pushed into the corner. It also finds poignant tones, as in the conversation with Max Piccolomini.

Wallenstein (has fixed his gaze on him silently and now approaches him):

Max, stay with me. — Don't leave me, Max!
See, when they brought you to me in the Prague winter camp
Into the tent, a delicate boy,
Unaccustomed to the German winter, your hand
Was frozen to the heavy flag,
You didn't want to let go of it like a man, so I took you
In, covered you with my coat,
I myself was your guardian, I was not ashamed
Of the small services I rendered you, I cared for you
With feminine solicitude,
Until, warmed by me, you felt
The joy of young life again in my heart.
When have I changed my mind since then?
I have made many thousands rich,
Gifted them with lands, rewarded them
With positions of honor — I loved you,
My heart, I gave myself to you.
They were all strangers, you were
The child of the house — Max, you cannot leave me!
It cannot be, I cannot and will not believe it,
That Max could leave me.

But it does not actually interfere with the plot. Distinguishing between the great tragedy and the personal, as happens here, showing how Wallenstein has no choice but to take action after letting his thoughts run free, that is the greatness of Schiller's drama. He shows us here how freedom becomes a kind of sun of necessity. This whole line of thought contains contemporary concepts that only need to be ignited in order to become fruitful.

The next drama, “Maria Stuart,” is conceived in the same way. Basically, everything has already happened at the beginning, and nothing takes place except what has long been prepared. Only the character, the inner life, unfolds before us, and this inner life again acts as necessity.

In his later dramas, Schiller attempted to develop the fateful aspect more and more. Thus, in The Maid of Orleans, something supra-personal is expressed in the visions where her demonic side confronts her, calling her to her mission and opposing her when she has become unfaithful to the commandment, until she is reconciled through penance.

In “The Bride of Messina,” he attempts to reintroduce Greek tragedy into modern life. Here he expresses the superpersonal by introducing the chorus. What did Schiller want to achieve with the chorus? He looked back to the origins of tragedy, which arose from religion. The original drama showed how Dionysus, the suffering god, is redeemed in humanity. Later research has led to this truth. When Greek mystery drama became secularized, the first beginnings of dramatic art emerged. Thus, in Aeschylus, we still encounter an echo of that from which art emerged, the mystery cults in which the world drama of world redemption was depicted. Edouard Schuré described these Eleusinian mysteries in his “Sanctuaires d'Orient,” a first kind of religious-artistic solution to the mystery of the world. The global actions of this primal drama do not find a suitable instrument in language, which is the expression of personal relationships. When drama turned to words, it dealt with more personal relationships, as in Sophocles and Euripides. From the typical, one had come to the representation of the personal. Ancient drama therefore used a supra-personal language, something resembling music. It originated from the chorus, which accompanied the mimically depicted action. Thus, musical drama developed into the later word drama. Friedrich Nietzsche elaborated on this idea in his work “The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music.” For him, word drama is a kind of decadent work. Hence his admiration for Wagner, who wanted to create a new religious art, born out of the mythical world. Richard Wagner was not enthusiastic about the personal, but about the supra-personal. He therefore based his dramas not on historical but on mythical plots, and where it was necessary to portray the supra-personal, he used not ordinary language but elevated musical language.

Schiller anticipated what was later researched and developed Greek tragedy in this sense. He wanted to introduce a lyrical element in order, as he mentions in the preface, to raise art to a special height through mood. Thus, what took place in a radical form in the Wagner and Nietzsche circle is already present in Schiller; only it is not treated there in such a serene manner as it is by him.

The great idea of leading humanity back to the source from which the spiritual sprang, of returning art to its native origin from which religion, art, and science emerged, already lives in Schiller. For him, beauty could be the dawn of truth. Even today, we can still find in Schiller what points us to the best we can hope for in the present and the future. Thus, Schiller can lead us today as a prophet of a better future.