FRIEDRICH SCHILLER: BIOGRAPHY, CONTRIBUTIONS AND WORKS - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2024

Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was a writer who came to be regarded as the first German historian. At the dawn of the 19th century, he systematized a research model for the construction of sociocultural content.

A contestant and a rebel, Schiller was a physician, philosopher, historian, poet, and playwright. He lived a very intense life in just 45 years. He was one of the builders of the foundations of the European romantic movement.

Source: Wikipedia

In just a quarter of a century, his work spread throughout Europe and beyond. He wrote 17 plays, nine ballads, and nine philosophical texts. In addition, he created and directed two magazines. Schiller developed four important historical investigations that served as models for the new generations.

Biography

The Schiller family moved to Ludwingsburg when Friedrich was 13 years old. The following year, in 1773, by decision of the Duke of Württemberg, he was sent to the Hohe Karisschule Military Academy. At that time, the aristocracy that headed each city had power over all the families that inhabited its properties.

Studies

At Hohe Karisschule, Friedrich began to study law, legal science. At that stage, the boy secretly consumed snuff, a kind of narcotic substance, very popular among the wealthy classes. He also read books banned by the authorities.

In 1774 he was transferred to the Stuttgart Center and he was forced to switch to the field of medicine. At that university he joined the Sturm und Drang Movement. It was a cultural trend that left its mark both in music and in the visual arts.

At age 20, in 1779, he presented and approved his doctoral thesis and a year later he left the Academy with the title of Military Doctor.

In 1781, while visiting the Fortress Hohenasperg Friedrich prison, he met Christian Schubart. This turned out to be a character that marked his life from then on.

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In 1782 Friedrich attended a work banned by the authorities, authored by Andrés Streicher. Then, the authorities attacked those present who were violating the regulations and Duke Carlos Eugenio of Wurtemberg imprisoned him for 14 days. He also forbade him to write "comedies and things like that."

But the punishment was not limited to the prohibition or censorship of his creation, but the duke went further. Friedrich was sent as a military medic to the Duke's worst regiment. They paid him a paltry salary and prohibited him from serving the civilian population.

The year 1782 was an eventful year in Schiller's life. He then decided to flee Stuttgar with his friend Streicher.

Work and love

In 1783 he worked as a librarian in Thuringia, with another friend, Reiwald of Meimingen. He married one of Schiller's sisters. That same year he became infected with malaria, which made his health begin to weaken from then on. He worked as a playwright and met Cahrlotte von Kalb.

At that time, he came to be in financial trouble because his contract was not renewed. But Duke Carlos Augusto, whose tenure was characterized by support for culture, saw fit to help Friedrich. After listening to some passages from the play Don Carlos, the Duke decided to appoint him as Councilor of Weimar.

At that time he met Justine Segedin, the daughter of a Blasewitz tavern keeper, on the banks of the Elbe River. She would be immortalized as Grestel in the play Wallensstein's Camp.

Marriage

At the age of 28, in 1787 he met the sisters Charlotte and Carolina von Lengefeld. Then he married Charlotte. Then he met another of his great friends, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who was 10 years older than him.

In 1790, at age 31, he married Charlotte von Lengefeld. Sadly, months later Friedrich contracted tuberculosis. Three years later, in 1793 his first son, Karl Scheiller, was born. In 1795 his father and sister Nanette died and his second son was born: Ernst.

In 1805, at the age of 45, he died of pneumonia. This was generated by the tuberculosis that haunted him for so long. Initially he was buried in a mass grave that the city had for prominent citizens.

Then his remains were transferred to another cemetery in Weimar, and Goethe himself requested to be buried next to him.

Contributions to education

In the year 1788 he published a historical work called History of the Separation of the United Provinces of the Netherlands from the Spanish Government. From that publication, in 1789 he entered as a teacher at the University of the city of Jena. There he began to teach history classes, driven by the passion to share his knowledge, since he did not receive a salary.

In the classrooms where he passed teaching, a great expectation was created and that motivated him to prepare a master class under the title of: What does universal history mean and why is it studied? That same year, he befriended Alejandro von Humboldt.

As early as 1790 Schiller had a reputation as a researcher and playwright. That is why Ernesto Enrique de Schelnmelmann and Frederick II of Augristemberg decided to assign him a pension for five years.

Friedrich Schiller is considered the first great German historiographer. He was respected by Humboldt and admired by specialists around the world. He combined historical research with dissemination through plays, poems and the so-called ballads.

Innovations in the educational field

Friedrich was one of the first representatives of German Romanticism. Romanticism was a cultural movement of the late 18th century, which reacted against the Enlightenment. He prioritized feelings over reason.

Friedrich Schiller emphasized the need to learn history, freedom of thought, and reason. He argued that this was the only way to know the reality that each human group has to live.

He taught how to do that job. The Swiss history worked from Guillermo Tell, the Italian from Fiesco, and the Spanish with Don Carlos. For the English I use María Estuardo, and for the French, La Maiden de Orleans. In the case of Germany he used Wallenstein and for China he used Turandot.

Schiller established that achieving a State and humanity of high moral values ​​required a rational education. This is how he put it in the 27 letters of his book About the aesthetic education of man. For him rationality and emotionality had to be perfectly balanced. Schiller started from Kant's thought, questioned it, and overcame it.

It marked that the game is necessary as therapy of the culture. He raised respect for human creation as the only way and utopia. All this marked by absolute freedom of thought.

For some time his vision has been persecuted mainly by those who oppose the respect for human rights. Some sectors have even tried to lose it in the oblivion of time.

Plays

Childhood

At the age of 13, while living in the city of Ludwingsburg, the then young Friedrich wrote two plays. The first was Absalom and then he created one called Los Cristianos. Neither of them is preserved any vestige, only have references from third parties.

Adolescence

At the age of 16, in 1775, he wrote a third play, The Nassau Student, of which there is also no evidence for being lost.

The following year, he published his first poem under the title The Sunset. Friedrich furiously studied writers such as Plutarch, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Rousseau, Kant, and Goethe. He started his first draft of Los Bandidos.

Youth and adulthood

In 1781 he also finished Der Räuber (The Thieves) and published it anonymously. This work is a drama where reason and feeling confront each other, reason against freedom. The protagonists of the play are the members of a band of thieves commanded by Karl, one of the sons of a count.

The work was not totally fictitious, since Friedrich collected part of the reality of the society of that time. At that time, many rebellious youths began to found gangs of robbers in southern Germany. The objective: to oppose the prevailing political and economic structure.

The play was premiered as a play at the Mannhein National Theater and by then it caused a shudder among the youth in attendance.

1782

In 1782 he began to write The Conspiracy of Fiesco. At the end of that same year, he published Anthology of the year 1782, with 83 poems.

1783

In 1783, Friedrich finished his work Intrigue and Love. At age 25, he premiered the play La conspiración de Fiesco.

1786

In 1786, he wrote The Ode to Joy. This, set to music years later by Ludwig van Beethoven, would become the Ninth Symphony.

1787

In 1787 he published the work that had begun to produce good results before its completion: Dos Carlos. That year he also finished his first historical research book. At the same time he titled it History of the Separation of the United Provinces of the Netherlands from the Spanish Government.

His play The Thieves (Der Räuber) was not only successful and caused a stir during its premiere. It also earned him recognition in the Gallic nation. In 1792, he was named an Honorary Citizen of the French Republic.

This recognition was also awarded to the Italian Enrique Pestalozzi, the American George Washington and the Polish Andrzej Tadeusz Kosciwszko.

1792

In 1792, despite his lung weakness, he managed to complete the book History of the Thirty Years' War. With this publication he came to be considered the number one historiographer in Germany. That same year he published his work On Tragic Art.

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In 1793, the work About grace and dignity was published. In the midst of his health ups and downs, in 1795, he edited a very important literary and social magazine for Germany, called Die Horen (The Listeners).

His book On Naive and Sentimental Poetry was also printed. In 1796, he became the editor of the publication The Almanac of the Muses.

The last years of Friedrich Schiller were as fruitful as they were painful. Numerous books came out of his hand, plays and historical analyzes.

Among the dramas he wrote in the last five years of his life are María Estuardo, written in 180; The Virgin of Orleans based on the life of Joan of Arc, published the following year; Messina and William Tell's girlfriend in 1803 and 1804; Turandot and The homage of the arts in 1804; and the unfinished Demetrius in the year of his death.

Balads

Ballads are literary constructions that tell a life or a historical event as an epic and highly dramatic feat. Sometimes you can even make use of humor or humor.

Those created by Friedrich throughout his life totaled 9, in 1797 it became the year of ballads: The Diver, The Glove, The Ring of Polycrates, The March of the Iron Hammer and The Hibiscus Crane. These works were supplemented in 1798 with The Endorsement and The Fight with the Dragon.

References

1. Weddings Fernández, Lucía (2013). Friedrich Schiller today. Autonomous University of Madrid. Doctoral Thesis. Recovered in: repositorio.uam.es
2. (2005). Friedrich Schiller and the biography. Eighteenth-century notebooks, University of Barcelona. Spain. Recovered at: dialnet.unirioja.es
3. Martínez, GA (2012). The heroic nature in the work of Friedrich Schiller. Eikasia: philosophy magazine, (44).Barcelona. Spain. Recovered in: revistadefilosofia.com
4. Murcia Serrano, Inmaculada (2012) Sublime beauty Contributions for a categorical synthesis (from the aesthetics of Friedrich Schiller) Endoxa Magazine. N ° 29. University of Seville. Recovered at: search.ebscohost.com
5. Schiller, Friedrich (1990) Letters on the aesthetic education of man. Trad. Jaime Feijó and Jorge Seca. Anthropos. Barcelona. Spain. cliff.is
6. Schiller, Friedrich (1991) Events of Philosophy of History (Vol. 1) University of Murcia. Publications Secretariat.