Creativity and biography of Schiller Friedrich

The universally recognized classic of world literature is Friedrich Schiller. His biography and work reveal the personality of a rebel, a man who does not consider himself in the epoch of universal lawlessness the property of the feudal lord. His feat of life impressed even the most august person, as we will discuss later. The life of a poet and playwright itself resembles a drama drama, where Talent struggles with discrimination, poverty and wins.

Europeans have chosen the hymn of the European Union as its "Ode to Joy". Put to music by Ludwig van Beethoven, she sounded solemn, sublime.

The genius of this man manifested itself multifaceted: poet, playwright, art theorist, human rights fighter.

Born not free

When Schiller Friedrich was born, serfdom was still relevant in Germany.

Subjects of the feudal lords could not go beyond the limits of the possessions of their suzerain. And if that happened, the fugitives were returned by force. A subject could neither change his craft, to which he was "attached" by a feudal lord, nor marry without the permission of his master. In such a nightmarish legal status, resembling an iron cage, was Friedrich Schiller.

He became a classic, rather, not thanks to his modern German society, but in spite of. Friedrich, figuratively speaking, managed to enter the Temple of Art through the door, closed to him by a state with remnants of the Middle Ages.

Only in 1807 (Schiller died in 1805), Prussia abolished serfdom.

Parents

Schiller's biography begins in the Württemberg Duchy (Marbach-on-Neckar town), where he was born on 10.11.1759 in the family of an officer, regimental medical assistant Johann Caspar Schiller. The mother of the future poet was from the family of pharmacists and innkeepers. Her name was Elizabeth Dorothea Code. In the house of his parents, there was an atmosphere of pure, accurate and intelligent poverty.

Father and mother of Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (this is the full name of the classic) were very religious and in the same spirit brought up children. The pope of the future poet, who came from a peasant wine family, was fortunate enough to receive medical education. He became an official with his master, a clever man, but not free. He changed his place of residence, position, following the will of his master.

Education

When the boy was five years old, the family moved to the city of the same county of Lorch. His father was there as an official recruiter recruiter. For three years Friedrich's initial church and humanitarian education was provided by Pastor Lorch, a kind man who managed to interest the boy in Latin, German, and catechism.

When the seven-year-old Schiller moved with his family to Ludwigsburg, he was able to study in a Latin school. At the age of 23, an educated young man went through confirmation (the right to approach communion). At first he dreamed of becoming a priest, following the charisma of his teachers.

The feudal despot

Schiller's biography in his youth turned into a series of suffering due to the failure of the will of the Duke of Württemberg. He ordered his serf to study at the military academy of jurisprudence as a lawyer. Schiller could not live a strange life, he ignored the lessons. Three years later, the young man was the last in the rating in the group of peers of 18 people.

In 1776, he moved to the medical faculty, where his studies interested him. But in the teaching of medicine he was attracted by secondary subjects - philosophy, literature. In 1777, the reputable journal German Chronicles published the first composition of the young Schiller, the ode "The Conqueror", written in imitation of the beloved poet Friedrich Klopshtok.

Schiller's biography, as follows from the above, is not a "major" story. A guy who did not comply with the order to become a lawyer disliked the duke-tyrant. His will 29-year-old graduate of the Academy received only one position of regimental doctor, without officer rank. Despot thought that he managed to break the life of the disgraced young man, but Friedrich Schiller already felt the power of his talent by that time.

Talent shows itself

The 32-year-old playwright wrote the drama "The Robbers". No publisher from Stuttgart undertakes to print such a serious work of a slave, for fear of a conflict with the all-powerful Duke of Württemberg. Being persistent, declaring himself to the public, it is published by Friedrich Schiller himself. His biography as a playwright begins with this work.

The impudent subject, who published the drama "The Robbers" at his own expense, was the winner. And Fate sent him a gift. A friend of the bookseller brought him together with art connoisseur Baron von Dahlberg, the leading Mayngem theater. Drama after minor edits became the highlight of the next theatrical season in Prussia!

The author covers courage, he revels in talent. In the same period Schiller publishes his first collection of poems "Anthology for 1782". He seems to reach any height! He competes for the championship in the Swabian poetic school with Gotthald Steidlin, who previously released his "Collection of Muses." To give the image of scandal to his collection, the poet indicates the place of publication of the city of Tobolsk.

Harassment and escape

Schiller's biography at that time was marked by a banal flight to the county of Palatinate. On this risky step, he decided on 22.09.1782 together with his friend Streicher, a pianist and composer. The Duke of Württemberg was unshakable in his desire to turn the future classic into a state employee.

Schiller was sentenced to two weeks in a guardhouse for having left the regiment to attend the theatrical production of The Robbers. At the same time he was forbidden to write.

Friends were not without reason feared by the intrigues of the Archduke. Schiller changed the name to Schmidt. Therefore, they settled not in the city of Mannheim, but in the tavern "Hunting Lodge" of the suburban village of Oggersheim.

Schiller hoped to earn a new written play, The Conspiracy of Fiesco in Genoa. However, the fee was miserable. While in poverty, he was forced to ask for help from Henrieta von Valcogen. She generously allowed the playwright to live in her vacant estate.

Life under a false name

From 1782 to 1783, Mr .. hid in the estate benefactor under the invented name of Dr. Ritter Friedrich Schiller. His biography in this period is a description of the life of an outcast, who chose the risk to be able to develop his talent. He studies history and writes plays "Louise Miller" and "The Conspiracy of Fiesco in Genoa". To the credit of his friend, Andrew Streicher, he made great efforts to the director of the Mannheim Theater, Baron von Dahlberg, drew attention to the work of a friend. Schiller wrote a letter to the baron about his new plays, and he agrees to put them to himself!

During this period (1983) the estate is visited by Henrieta von Valcogen and her young daughter Charlotte. Schiller falls in love with the girl and asks the mother for permission to marry her, but gets rejected because of her poverty. He moved to Mannheim to prepare his works for the production.

Gaining freedom. Getting a formal position

If the play "The Conspiracy of Fiesco in Genoa" takes place on the stage of the Mannheim Theater as an ordinary production, then "Louise Miller" (renamed "Cunning and Love") brings a great success. In 1784, Schiller joined the local German society, while receiving the right to legalize his status, becoming a Palatine subject, and finally draw a line under the persecution of the Archduke.

He, who has his own views on the development of the German theater, is respected as a famous playwright. He writes his work "Theater - the institution of the moral," which became classical.

Soon, Schiller begins a short romance with a married woman Charlotte von Kalb. A writer inclined to mysticism led a bohemian lifestyle. The young poet considered this lady as her next trophy in the succession of women's victories.

She introduced Schiller to Darmstadt with the Archduke Carl Augustus. To him, the playwright read the first act of the drama "Don Carlos". Surprised and admired by the author's talent, the grandee granted the writer the position of an adviser. This gave the playwright only a social status, no more. However, this did not change his life.

Soon, Schiller quarrels and breaks the contract with the director of the Mannheim Theater. He considers the author of his hit productions dependent on his will and money, trying to put pressure on Schiller.

Leipzig accepts a desperate poet

Still Friedrich Schiller remained unsettled in life. His biography is not the first time preparing a blow in his personal life. Because of poverty, Margarita Schwan, the daughter of a court bookseller, refuses to marry her. However, soon his life is changing for the better. In Leipzig, his work was appreciated.

The playwright has long been aggressively invited there by fans of his work, organized into a society run by Gottfried Kerner. Delivered to the extreme (he still did not pay the debt of 200 guilders taken for the publication of the "Robbers"), the writer turned to his admirers with a request for material assistance. To his delight, soon he received from Leipzig a bill worth enough to pay off his debts and move to live where he is appreciated. The friendship with Gottfried Kerner connected the classic throughout the rest of his life.

17.04.1785 Shiller arrives in a hospitable city.

At this time, the classic falls for the third time, but again unsuccessfully: Margarita Schwan denies him. The departed into black despondency of the classics is beneficially influenced by his benefactor, Gottfried Kerner. He discourages a romantic friend from suicide, first to invite Frederick to his wedding with Mina Stock.

He was warmed by friendship and survived a serious spiritual crisis, he wrote a brilliant ode "To Joy" by F. Schiller for the wedding of his friend.

Biography of the writer who settled at the invitation of the same Kerner in the village of Loshwitz, adjacent to Dresden, is marked by remarkable works: "Philosophical Letters", the drama "Misanthrope", the altered drama "Don Carlos". By creative fruitfulness this period reminds Boldinsky autumn of Pushkin.

Schiller becomes famous. The playwright rejects the proposal from the Hamburg Theater to staging his plays. Too fresh memories of the difficulties in cooperation and the break with the Mannheim Theater.

Weimar period: a departure from creativity. Tuberculosis

On 21.08.1787 he came to Weimar at the invitation of the poet Christoph Wiland. He is accompanied by a mistress, an old acquaintance, Charlotte von Kalb. Having connections in high society, she introduces Schiller to the leading German writers Johann Herder and Martin Wieland.

The poet begins to publish the magazine "Thalia", printed in "German Mercury". Here, for almost a decade, he departs from creativity, taking up self-education in the field of history. His knowledge is highly appreciated, and in 1788 he became a professor at the University of Jena.

He lectures on world history and poetry, translates the "Aeneid" Virgil. Schiller receives a salary of 200 talers a year. This is a fairly small income, but it allows him to plan his future.

The poet decides to equip his life and marries Charlotte von Lengefeld. But four years later, fate is preparing a new test for him: speaking in cold audiences and contracting from his student, he suffers from tuberculosis Friedrich Schiller. Interesting facts in his biography indicate charisma, integrity of personality. Disease crosses out his teaching career, rivets to bed, but fate often wins quiet human courage.

A new stage of fate

As if by a wave of higher forces, friends help him in a difficult hour. Even now, when Schiller's illness led to the impossibility of working, the Danish writer Jens Baggens persuaded Prince Holstein and Count Schimmelmann to appoint a classics to treat a subsidy of a thousand thalers.

The iron will and financial help lifted the reclining patient to his feet. He could not teach, and his friend, publisher Johann Kott provided an opportunity to earn. Soon Schiller moves on to a new stage of creativity. He, ironically, begins with a tragic event: the poet was summoned by a dying father, who at that time resided in Ludwigsburg.

This event was expected: the father had been ill for a long time and was seriously ill. Classics, apart from filial duty - to say goodbye to his father, also attracted the opportunity to embrace and comfort his three sisters and mother, whom he had not seen for eighteen years!

Perhaps that's why he went not himself, but together with his wife, who is in the situation.

Staying in his native land, the poet receives a powerful spiritual stimulus - to develop creativity.

A month and a half after the funeral of his father, he visited his alma mater, the military academy. He was pleasantly surprised that he was an idol for students. They met him enthusiastically: before them stood a legend - Schiller Friedrich, poet number 1 in Prussia. A touched classic after this visit wrote his famous work "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man".

In Ludwigsburg his first-born was born. He is finally happy. But he has only seven years to live ...

The poet returned to the city of Yen, staying in a state of creative enthusiasm. His faceted talent shines with renewed vigor! Schiller, after a ten-year in-depth study of history, the theory of literature, aesthetics, again returns to poetry.

He managed to attract all the best poets of Prussia to participate in the magazine "Ory." In 1795, out of his pen, philosophical poems were published: "Dance", "Poetry of Life", "Hope", "Genius", "Separation of the Earth."

Cooperation with Goethe

Among the poets invited by Schiller to the magazine "Ory" were Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Their creative souls entered into the resonance that stimulated the creation of many priceless pearls from the necklace of German classical literature of the 18th century.

They had a common vision of the civilizational significance of the Great French Revolution, ways of developing German literature, rethinking ancient art. Goethe and Schiller criticized the treatment of contemporary religious literature, political, aesthetic and philosophical issues. In their letters sounded a moral and civil pathos. Two brilliant poet, who chose the literary direction for themselves, competed among themselves in its development:

• From December 1795 - writing epigrams;
• In 1797 - in the writing of ballads.

The friendly correspondence between Goethe and Schiller is a wonderful example of epistolary art.

The last stage of creativity. Weimar

In 1799 Friedrich Schiller returned to Weimar. The works written by him and Goethe served the development of the German theater. They became a dramatic base for the creation of the best German theater - Weimar.

However, Schiller's forces are running out. In 1800 he completed the writing of his swan song - the tragedy "Maria Stewart", a composition of a deep, successful and wide resonance in society.

In 1802, the emperor of Prussia favored the poet nobility. However Schiller ironically reacted to this. His young and best mature years were full of hardships, and now the newly-made nobleman felt he was dying. He wanted humanly to reject a title useless for himself, but he accepted it, thinking only of his children.

He was often sick, suffered from chronic pneumonia. Against this background, the tuberculosis that led him to an untimely death in the prime of his talent and at the age of 45 years was aggravated.

Conclusion

Without exaggeration, we can say that the favorite poets of the Germans at all times were and will be Johann Goethe and Friedrich Schiller. Photo of the monument, forever displaying two friends living in Weimar, is familiar to every German. Their contribution to literature is priceless: the classics brought it to the path of a new humanism, generalizing the ideas of the Enlightenment, Romanticism and Classicism.