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Schiller no doubt wrote his dramas in prose and then turned them into rhetorical verse; but then there are those who affirm that Schiller’s rhetorical verse is scarcely poetry.
“Tut—tut—tut—sanctimoniousness and stock phrases! Old phrases and old gestures. The old lies and formal prostrations. We know all about them. A kiss on the lips and a dagger in the heart, as in Schiller’s Robbers. I don’t like falsehood, Fathers, I want the truth. But the truth is not to be found in eating gudgeon and that I proclaim aloud! Father monks, why do you fast?
German workmen! do not the very words recall to your memory old amber-coloured engravings of sturdy men, with waving locks, grasping the arm of the printing-press, by the side of Faust, Schœffer, and Gottenberg? Or, perhaps, the words of Schiller’s “Song of the Bell” may not be unknown to you, and hum in your ears: Frisch, gesellen, seyd zur hand! Von der stirne heiss, Rinnen muss der schweiss.
William Taylor, who had returned to his native city after his wanderings in France and Germany. As is well known, the accomplished scholar and translator was an intimate friend of Southey’s, and it was to the poet he wrote: “A Norwich young man is construing with me Schiller’s ‘Wilhelm Tell,’ with the view of translating it for the press.
“Most pious and holy elder,” he cried, pointing to Ivan, “that is my son, flesh of my flesh, the dearest of my flesh! He is my most dutiful Karl Moor, so to speak, while this son who has just come in, Dmitri, against whom I am seeking justice from you, is the undutiful Franz Moor—they are both out of Schiller’s Robbers, and so I am the reigning Count von Moor! Judge and save us!
He felt that, perhaps, indeed, his work lay here. Mitya sank into thought for a moment, with his elbow on the table and his head in his hand. Both were silent. “Alyosha,” said Mitya, “you’re the only one who won’t laugh. I should like to begin—my confession—with Schiller’s Hymn to Joy, An die Freude! I don’t know German, I only know it’s called that.
Our present question is whether the world, as it is, and just because it is as it is, can be conceived of as dependent upon God. And this question can only be answered in the affirmative, and in the sense of Schiller’s oft-quoted lines: The great Creator We see not—He conceals himself within His own eternal laws.
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