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Lecture 8 German Classicism - Schiller and Maria
Stuart

• Schillers Life
• Classicist Weimar
• The structure of the tragedy
• The conflict between the two queens
• Schillers way of dealing with history
• Das Erhabene and its impact on the
  interpretation of Maria Stuart
• Preparing the seminar class

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Schillers Life from early days at Stuttgart and
Mannheim to the Classicist period at Jena and
Weimar
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Classicist Weimar
A small town in Thüringen, duchy of Weimar
Weimar Theatre, where Goethe was director it
staged the major Classicists plays
4
From Goethe to Schiller in less than five
minutes by foot
Goethes house Am Frauenplan grandeur and luxury
of a Herzoglicher Rath
Schillers house at the Esplanade poverty of a
university teacher and playwright
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The act structure of the play (Freytags
categories)
Act I (exposition) Fotheringhay, Maria
(depressed) Act II (rising action) Westminster,
Elisabeth (triumphant) Act III (climax, turning
point) Gegend in einem Park (III,1-6), im
Hause (III,7-8) Act IV (falling action,
delay) Westminster, Elisabeth (in despair) Act V
(tagic catastrophe) Fotheringhay, Maria (V,1-10)
(triumphant) Westminster, Elisabeth (V,11-15)
(isolated)
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The conflict between the 2 queens
Maria
Elisabeth

• Scottish origin, legitimacy
• Catholic
• married several times, lovers
• impulsive, driven by senses
• not in power, kept as prisoner
• ...

• English origin, illegitimacy
• Protestant
• not married
• logically thinking
• in power, ruling Head of State
• ...

Embodiment of the Stofftrieb naiv
Embodiment of the Formtrieb sentimentalisch
The question is how to transform this clash into
a matter for the Spieltrieb how to make a piece
of art out of these conflicting parts, how to
transcend the obvious antagonism for an
experience of freedom?
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Schillers way of dealing with history is the key
for the transformation of the conflicting
elements of the sujet into the playful pleasure a
piece of art can provide

• History can be both something that sets you free
  and something that holds you kept.
• Therefore you can look at historical sujets as
  sublime (erhabene) objects.
• Schiller defines erhaben in his theoretical
  piece Vom Erhabenen (first published in 1801)
• Erhaben nennen wir ein Objekt, bey dessen
  Vorstellung unsre sinnliche Natur ihre Schranken,
  unsre vernünftige Natur aber ihre Ueberlegenheit,
  ihre Freyheit von Schranken fühlt gegen das wir
  also physisch den Kürzern ziehen, über welches
  wir uns aber moralisch d.i. durch Ideen
  erheben.
  (NA 20, p. 171.)

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Das Erhabene in history and what this means for
Maria Stuart

• Das Erhabene ist also die Wirkung dreyer auf
  einander folgender Vorstellungen 1)
  einer objektiven physischen Macht, 2)
  unsrer subjektiven physischen Ohnmacht,
  3) unsrer subjektiven moralischen
  Uebermacht.
  (Schiller, Vom Erhabenen, NA 20, p. 186.)
• A special, an arts reading of history thus
  allows you to interpret the historical accounts
  of Elizabethan England in a sublime way
• ad 1) Elisabeth acts as a factual physical
  power
• ad 2) Maria can be regarded as in a state of
  (individual) physical helplessness
  (powerlessness)
• ad 3) Marias physical powerlessness can be
  transformed into an individual moral power, thus
  freeing herself and the reflecting
  reader/viewer from apparently factual
  necessities
• Therefore Schiller interprets history in his own
  way, turning the account and the judgement
  topsy-turvy.

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Das Erhabene read into history

• As a consequence of Schillers sublime
  reading of history the reflecting reader views
  Elisabeth
• as prisoner of her own Formtrieb which turns
  into something which becomes irrational, and
  thereby close to the Stofftrieb
• as a powerful and at the same time powerless
  individual, thus unveiling the dialectics of
  reason
• where reason is restricted to be an instrument
  only (instrumentelle Vernunft)
• ? the Formtrieb transforms itself into the
  Stofftrieb
• At the same time, Maria
• gains moral freedom the moment she is facing
  execution
• the guilty (in terms of high-treason) become
  inguilty (in terms of moral values)
• ? the Stofftrieb transforms itself into the
  Formtrieb
• The experience art can deliver transcends the
  dualism of both drives.

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Summing up the mittlerer Zustand, in which the
play should leave you, Lesley Sharpe wrote
Maria is guilty in the sum total of her life, if
not particular of having actively plotted the
assassination of Elisabeth, and she is deeply
aware of it. All physical freedom is denied her
to the point that her very life is to be taken
away. In these extreme circumstances the human
spirit can still assert itself and rise above the
physical circumstances. Through the spectacle of
such moral freedom the audience is exhilarated
and this acts as a counterbalance to the dismay
provoked by the suffering which must accompany
the triumph. We still, however, have to see that
triumph in the light of the action of the whole
play. In a play that deals with the inadequacy
of simple moral principles in the world of
politics it seems something of an invalidation of
the complexity with which that world is portrayed
if Marias death is seen as a triumph over
politics. L. Sharpe, Friedrich Schiller. Drama,
Thought and Politics (Cambridge, 1991), p. 271.
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This weeks seminar
1. HOMEWORK a) Scene III,4 displays the
encounter of Elisabeth and Mary, something which
did not take place in history. What is the
function of this scene within the tragedy? b) Why
does Schiller choose female heroes to set his
aesthetic theory into practice? c) In IV,10
Elisabeth is having a monologue. What does her
speech reveal about herself? d) Why do you think
the tragedy does not end with Marias
decapitation? Discuss the way this incident is
presented on the stage. e) Do the same
comparison that we did for Maria and Elisabeth
for Mortimer and Leicester.
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The contrast of two male characters (II,8)
Mortimer
Leicester

• ...

• ...

Embodiment of the Stofftrieb naiv
Embodiment of the Formtrieb sentimentalisch
If you compare this opposition with that of the
two heroines what is the difference? Is there
any?