Friedrich Schiller


Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered to be one of Germany's most important classical playwrights.
He was born in Marbach to a devoutly Protestant family. Initially intended for the priesthood, in 1773 he entered a military academy in Stuttgart and ended up studying medicine. His first play, The Robbers, was written at this time and proved very successful. After a brief stint as a regimental doctor, he left Stuttgart and eventually wound up in Weimar. In 1789, he became professor of History and Philosophy at Jena, where he wrote historical works.
During the last seventeen years of his life, Schiller developed 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 that he had left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. Together they founded the Weimar Theater.
They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents of their philosophical vision.

Early life and career

Friedrich Schiller was born on 10 November 1759, in Marbach, Württemberg, as the only son of military doctor Johann Kaspar Schiller and Elisabetha Dorothea Schiller. They also had five daughters, including Christophine, the eldest. Schiller grew up in a very religious Protestant family and spent much of his youth studying the Bible, which would later influence his writing for the theatre. His father was away in the Seven Years' War when Friedrich was born. He was named after king Frederick the Great, but he was called Fritz by nearly everyone. Kaspar Schiller was rarely home during the war, but he did manage to visit the family once in a while. His wife and children also visited him occasionally wherever he happened to be stationed. When the war ended in 1763, Schiller's father became a recruiting officer and was stationed in Schwäbisch Gmünd. The family moved with him. Due to the high cost of living—especially the rent—the family moved to the nearby town of Lorch.
Although the family was happy in Lorch, Schiller's father found his work unsatisfying. He sometimes took his son with him. In Lorch, Schiller received his primary education. The quality of the lessons was fairly bad, and Friedrich regularly cut class with his older sister. Because his parents wanted Schiller to become a priest, they had the priest of the village instruct the boy in Latin and Greek. Father Moser was a good teacher, and later Schiller named the cleric in his first play Die Räuber after him. As a boy, Schiller was excited by the idea of becoming a cleric and often put on black robes and pretended to preach.
In 1766, the family left Lorch for the Duke of Württemberg's principal residence, Ludwigsburg. Schiller's father had not been paid for three years, and the family had been living on their savings but could no longer afford to do so. So Kaspar Schiller took an assignment to the garrison in Ludwigsburg.
There the boy Schiller came to the attention of Karl Eugen, Duke of Württemberg. He entered the Karlsschule Stuttgart, in 1773, where he initially studied law but eventually switched to medicine, graduating with a doctor of medicine in 1780. During most of his short life, he suffered from illnesses that he tried to cure himself.
While at the Karlsschule, 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 Taranto, 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. During the journey, he had an affair with Charlotte von Kalb, an army officer's wife. At the centre of an intellectual circle, she was known for her cleverness and instability. To extricate himself from a dire financial situation and attachment to a married woman, Schiller eventually sought help from family and friends.
In 1787, he settled in Weimar and in 1789, was appointed professor of History and Philosophy in Jena. His inaugural lecture, What Is, and to What End do We Study, Universal History?, delivered on 26 May 1789, outlined his philosophy of history and the moral purpose of historical study. At Jena, he wrote historical works.

Marriage and family

On 22 February 1790, Schiller married Charlotte von Lengefeld, sister of writer Caroline von Wolzogen and daughter of forest administrator of Louis Günther II, Prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt and his wife, née Wurmb.
Karl Friedrich Ludwig and Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm, Karoline Luise Henriette and Luise Henriette Emilie were born between 1793 and 1804. The last living descendant of Schiller was a grandchild of Emilie, Baron Alexander von Gleichen-Rußwurm, who died at Baden-Baden, Germany, in 1947.

Weimar and later career

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.
For his achievements, Schiller was ennobled in 1802 by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, adding the nobiliary particle "von" to his name. He remained in Weimar, Saxe-Weimar until his death at 45 from tuberculosis in 1805.

Legacy and honors

The first authoritative biography of Schiller was by his sister-in-law Caroline von Wolzogen in 1830, Schillers Leben.
The coffin containing what was purportedly Schiller's skeleton was brought in 1827 into the Weimarer Fürstengruft, the burial place of the house of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in the Historical Cemetery of Weimar and later also Goethe's resting place. On 3 May 2008, scientists announced that DNA tests have shown that the skull of this skeleton is not Schiller's, and his tomb is now vacant. The physical resemblance between this skull and the extant death mask as well as to portraits of Schiller, had led many experts to believe that the skull was Schiller's.
The city of Stuttgart erected in 1839 a statue in his memory on a square renamed Schillerplatz. A Schiller monument was unveiled on Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt in 1871.
The German-American community of New York City donated a bronze sculpture of Schiller to Central Park in 1859. It was Central Park's first installed sculpture.
Chicago dedicated a statue to Schiller in its Lincoln Park.
Schiller Park in Columbus, Ohio is named for Schiller, and has been centered on a statue of his likeness since it was donated in 1891. During the First World War, the name of the park was changed to Washington Park in response to anti-German sentiment, but was changed back several years later. It is the primary park for the South Side neighborhood of German Village.
There is a Friedrich Schiller statue on Belle Isle in Detroit, Michigan. This statue of the German playwright was commissioned by Detroit's German-American community in 1908 at a cost of $12,000; the designer was Herman Matzen.
An Ignatium Taschner bronze of Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller stands in Como Park - Saint Paul, MN. It was dedicated in 1907. The sculpture was donated by U.S. German Societies of Saint Paul and private citizens of German descent to commemorate the renowned Johann von Schiller.
Schiller is an unofficial mascot of Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. Since 1957, a plaster bust of Schiller has made regular appearances at large campus events, and has featured on The Colbert Report in March 2010, Desperate Housewives in May 2012, and MSNBC with Jonathan Capehart in March 2025.
His image has appeared on several coins and banknotes in Germany, including the 1964 German Democratic Republic 10 Mark banknotes, 1972 German Democratic Republic 20 Mark commemorative coins, and 1934 German Reich 5 Reichsmark commemorative coins.
In September 2008, the German-French TV channel Arte conducted a poll among its viewers to determine the greatest European playwright. Schiller was voted in second place after William Shakespeare.

Siblings

Friedrich Schiller had five sisters, two of whom died in childhood and three of whom lived to adulthood:
  • Elizabeth Christophine Friederike Schiller – painter, was married librarian , no children.
  • Louisa Dorothea Catharina Schiller – married the pastor Johann Gottlieb Franckh.
  • Marie Charlotte Schiller
  • Beata Friederike Schiller
  • Caroline Christiane Schiller

    Writing

Philosophical papers

Schiller wrote many philosophical papers on ethics and aesthetics. He synthesized the thought of Immanuel Kant with the thought of the German idealist philosopher, Karl Leonhard Reinhold. He elaborated upon Christoph Martin Wieland's concept of die schöne Seele, a human being whose emotions have been educated by reason, so that Pflicht und Neigung 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. The link between morality and aesthetics also occurs in Schiller's controversial poem, "Die Götter Griechenlandes". The "gods" in Schiller's poem are thought by modern scholars to represent moral and aesthetic values, which Schiller tied to Paganism and an idea of enchanted nature. In this respect, Schiller's aesthetic doctrine shows the influence of Christian theosophy.
There is general consensus among scholars that it makes sense to think of Schiller as a liberal, and he is frequently cited as a cosmopolitan thinker. Schiller's philosophical work was particularly concerned with the question of human freedom, a preoccupation which also guided his historical research, such as on the Thirty Years' War and the Dutch Revolt, and then found its way as well into his dramas: the Wallenstein trilogy concerns the Thirty Years' War, while Don Carlos addresses the revolt of the Netherlands against Spain. Schiller wrote two important essays on the question of the sublime, 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.