Intrigue and Love

Schiller's third play is another prose tragedy, but this time it's a love-story across the class divide in a contemporary setting on the fringes of the court of an unnamed small German state. This is the play that Verdi adapted as Luisa Miller.

The young nobleman Ferdinand von Walter has fallen in love with sixteen-year-old Luise, daughter of the humble musician Miller. Ferdinand's father, an important minister in the Duke's court, tries to frustrate the affair, first by arranging a marriage of convenience between Ferdinand and the Duke's current mistress, the exiled English noblewoman Lady Milford, and then by abusing his judicial powers to put the Miller family under pressure. Needless to say, it all ends badly, with the most famous show more lemonade scene in literary history...

Schiller is settling some personal scores here: of bourgeois origins himself, he had recently been involved in a love-affair with an aristocratic married woman, and he was also satirising the misrule and abuses of power of his former employer the Duke of Württemberg (in particular the way he financed an extravagant lifestyle by hiring out conscript soldiers to fight against liberty in America). But the play also makes a powerful general statement against the arbitrary power and unaccountability of monarchies and the rigidity of the class system, very much in the spirit of the revolutionary 1780s.

Interesting — particularly when we know that Don Carlos is next — is the way Schiller ignores the usual conventions governing father-son relationships. Präsident von Walter is an amoral, self-interested scoundrel, without a hint of honour or nobility. He's obtained his judicial office by having his predecessor murdered, and he is completely cynical about his son's erotic adventures, and only intervenes when his secretary, Wurm (who's also pursuing the lovely Luise), threatens him with blackmail. Yet he has a son who is the very picture of the noble romantic hero, honourable in every fibre of his being, and — absurdly, in the circumstances — proud of his centuries of noble heritage. Normally, the rules say that a hero like that should have a parent who is honourable but misguided in some way, but Schiller clearly doesn't go in for playing by the book. show less

Schiller is, of course, one of the greatest German poets and writers. In this book, too, there are a lot of beautiful, beautiful metaphors and dramatic outcries by the protagonists. His use of language is as good as Goethe's. The storyline did, however, not appeal a lot to me. It is on a tragic misunderstanding between lovers from different social classes, caused by overly concerned fathers. There is a lot of asking forgiveness from God, getting on one's knees to pray and repenting for Sins which were not that sinful in my opinion. Whereas Goethe knows how to get the reader involved with the faith of his protagonists, Schiller keeps a littke more distance in this play - which makes it an intellectual treat more than an emotional one.

Verwirrend zu Lesen. Vllt besser als Theaterstück

An enjoyable German classic from Schiller

5

Schiller is maybe Germany's most important classical playwright. Critics have noted his innovative use of dramatic structure and his creation of new forms, such as the melodrama and the bourgeois tragedy. Amongst his famous works are Love and Intrigue (1784), Don Carlos (1787), The Minister (1796), The Death of Wallenstein (1799), The Piccolomini (1800) and Mary Stuart (1800).