Nicholas Martin & Norbert Oellers 
Who Is This Schiller Now? 
Essays on His Reception and Significance

New essays by top international Schiller scholars on the reception of the great German writer and dramatist, emphasizing his realist aspects.


The works of Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) — an innovative and resonant tragedian and an important poet, essayist, historian, and aesthetic theorist — are among the best known of German and world literature. Schiller’s explosive original artistry and feel for timely and enduring personal tragedy embedded in timeless sociohistorical conflicts remain the topic of lively academic debate. The essays in this volume address the many flashpoints and canonicalshifts in the cyclically polarized reception of Schiller and his works, in pursuit of historical and contemporary answers to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s expression of frightened admiration in 1794: ‘Who is this Schiller?’ The responses demonstrate pronounced shifts from widespread twentieth-century understandings of Schiller: the overwhelming emphasis here is on Schiller the cosmopolitan realist, and little or no trace is left of the ultimately untenable view of Schiller as an abstract idealist who turned his back on politics.


Contributors: Ehrhard Bahr, Matthew Bell, Frederick Burwick, Jennifer Driscoll Colosimo, Bernd Fischer, Gail K. Hart, Fritz Heuer, Hans H. Hiebel, Jeffrey L. High, Walter Hinderer, Paul E. Kerry, Erik B. Knoedler, Elisabeth Krimmer, Maria del Rosario Acosta López, Laura Anna Macor, Dennis F. Mahoney, Nicholas Martin, John A. Mc Carthy, Yvonne Nilges, Norbert Oellers, Peter Pabisch, David Pugh, T. J. Reed, Wolfgang Riedel, Jörg Robert, Ritchie Robertson, Jeffrey L. Sammons, Henrik Sponsel.


Jeffrey L. High is Associate Professor of German Studies at California State University Long Beach, Nicholas Martin is Reader in European Intellectual History at the University of Birmingham, and Norbert Oellers is Professor Emeritus of German Literature at the University of Bonn.

Table of Content

Introduction: Why Is This Schiller [Still] in the United States? – Jeffrey L. High

Lenz und Schiller. Die erlebnissymptomatische Dramensprache – Hans Hiebel

Melancholy in Schiller’s Dramas – Matthew Bell

Schillers Ästhetik der Trauer. Der Dichter als ‘elegischer’ Lyriker und Dramatiker – Ehrhard Bahr

Glühendes Wort zum Ideal über der versagenden Realität -zu Schillers Balladen – Peter Pabisch

Zwischen Max Piccolomini und Buttler. Wallensteins Orts- und Zeitverluste – Norbert Oellers

Die Moralphilosophie des jungen Schiller. Ein ‘Kantianerante litteram’ – Laura Anna Macor

Aesthetic Humanism and Its Foes: The Perspective from Halle – David V. Pugh

Zur kulturpolitischen Dynamik des ästhetischen Spiels in Schillers Briefen Ueber die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen – Bernd Fischer

Die Empfänglichkeit für den ästhetischen Schein ist das a priorides Schönen in Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft. Das Orientierendein Schillers Forderung der ästhetischen Erziehung des Menschen – Fritz Heuer

Energy and Schiller’s Aesthetics from the ‘Philosophical’ to the Aesthetic Letters – John A. Mc Carthy

‘Making Other People’s Feelings Our Own’: From the Aesthetic to the Political in Schiller’s Aesthetic Letters – María del Rosario Acosta

Schiller und die Demokratie – Yvonne Nilges

God’s Warriors, Mercenaries, or Freedom Fighters? Politics, Warfare, and Religion in Schiller’s Geschichte des Dreyßigjährigen Kriegs – Elisabeth Krimmer

Who Is This Black Knight? Schiller’s Maid of Orleans and (Mythological) History – Erik Knoedler

Religion and Violence in Schiller’s Late Tragedies – Wolfgang Riedel

So Who Was Naive? Schiller as Enlightenment Historian and His Successors – T. J. Reed

Schiller and the Gothic – Reception and Reality – Jennifer Driscoll Colosimo

Schiller’s Plays on the British Stage, 1797-1825 – Frederick Burwick

From Martyr to Vampire: The Figure of Mary Stuart in Drama from Vondel to Swinburne – Ritchie Robertson

A Chapter of Schiller in America: The First World War and Volume 3 of Kuno Francke’s Edition of The German Classics – Jeffrey L Sammons

The Reluctant Recruit? Schiller in the Trenches, 1914-1918 – Nicholas Martin

Schiller – Kommerell – George. Eine Konstellation der Moderne – Jörg Robert

Was sagte dieser Schiller (damals)? Schillers Antworten auf seine Kritiker nach 1945 – Henrik Sponsel

Maria Stuart Adaptations in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries: From ‘Classical’ Parodies to Contemporary Politics – Dennis Mahoney

Whose Schiller Is This? Das Fremde und das Eigene in US Auslandsgermanistik – Gail K. Hart

Schiller’s Political Ideas: Who Cares? – Paul E. Kerry

Where is This Schiller Now? – Walter Hinderer

Notes on Contributors

Index

About the author

LAURA ANNA MACOR is Associate Professor of History of Philosophy at the University of Verona.