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Schiller's Egmont and the Beginnings of Weimar Classicism*

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Schiller's Egmont and the Beginnings of Weimar Classicism* Steffan Davies Schiller’s Egmont and the Beginnings of Weimar Classicism* This essay examines Schiller’s stage version of Goethe’s Egmont, which was performed in Weimar in April 1796 and which Schiller described as “gewissermaasen Göthens und mein gemeinschaftliches Werk”. Beginning with his review of Egmont in 1788 the essay demonstrates some of the principles on which Schiller amended the text, and then shows that these match changes in Goethe’s own writing by the mid-1790s. On this basis it evalu- ates the correspondence between Goethe and Schiller, and other biographical texts, to reconsider the view that Goethe’s misgivings about the adaptation marked a low-point in their relationship. It argues that Schiller’s work on Egmont instead deserves to be seen as a constructive experience in the development of the Weimar alliance. I. Schiller had spent three weeks in Weimar watching performances by Iffland and his visiting theatre company when he wrote a letter to Körner on 10 April 1796. His aim: to persuade Körner to join him for Iffland’s last performance, Goethe’s Egmont, which he had adapted for the stage. He sounds happy with his stay and with his work, describing the new Egmont as “gewissermaasen Göthens und mein gemeinschaftliches Werk” (NA 28. 210–211). Goethe, Schiller and Iffland – surely Körner would not want to miss experiencing such a combination of talents.1 * Schiller’s texts are quoted from Schillers Werke. Nationalausgabe. Ed. by Julius Petersen, Gerhard Fricke et al. Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf. 1943ff. Quotations are identified by NA with volume and page numbers. Quotations from Goethes Werke. Hamburger Ausgabe. Ed. by Erich Trunz. 14 vols. Munich: Beck 12th edn 1981 are identified by HA. Quotations from Goethe: Werke. Weimarer Ausgabe. Weimar: Hermann Böhlaus Nachf. 1887–1919 are identified by WA. Goethe über seine Dichtungen. Versuch einer Sammlung aller Äusserungen des Dichters über seine poe- tischen Werke. Ed. by Hans Gerhard Gräf. Frankfurt/M. 1901–14 is cited as Gräf with volume and page numbers, Publications of the English Goethe Society as PEGS. This paper was first delivered on 18 May 2005 in Weimar at the Symposium junger Goetheforscher of the Goethe-Gesellschaft; an abridged version will be submitted for publication in German in the Goethe-Jahrbuch. My thanks are due in particular to Jim Reed and Stephen Mossman for their help in reading and commenting on it. 1 Originally scheduled for performance on 20 April 1796, Egmont was eventually per- formed on 25 April and was not repeated, as Iffland was leaving Weimar the following day. See NA 13. 324. Except where indicated otherwise, this paper refers to the manu- script version of Egmont which Hans Heinrich Borcherdt reproduces in NA 13 and des- ignates there as h1. This is the only extant manuscript which can be confidently 124 The nature of Schiller’s work on Egmont in those few weeks in March and April 1796 defines some of the nature of the greater “gemeinschaftliches Werk” of Weimar Classicism. It contributed to that work in that it confirmed the two men’s cooperation thus far, it opened new avenues in their work on theatrical adaptation, and as Schiller put it in the letter to Körner, it was “of no little use” in the shaping of the Wallenstein trilogy. Despite its importance – Peter-André Alt has described the performance on 25 April as one of the “Sternstunden des Weimarer Theaters” 2 – Schiller’s Egmont, and these aspects of it in particular, have received relatively little critical attention among the mass of research on Weimar Classicism. This is not least because Schiller’s view of Goethe’s text is generally judged to have been hostile, an attitude which Goethe then recipro- cated in kind towards Schiller’s adaptation.3 Assessments of Goethe’s feelings are based largely on statements he made long after the event, and they will be discussed later on. The basis for Schiller’s opinion is his anonymous review of Goethe’s text when it was published in 1788 (NA 22. 199–209). Here Schiller was indeed largely critical of the text, but the reasons for this were understandable. Schiller’s feelings for Goethe seem to have been at low ebb (if also at high intensity) in 1788–89.4 Moreover the publication of Egmont threatened to eclipse Schiller’s own untidy Don Karlos, which had appeared in book form in 1787, and his history of the Revolt of the Netherlands, which was published only weeks after the review. Part of the reviewer’s dissatisfaction with inaccuracies in the play can be read as an historian’s tour de force to demonstrate his own superior familiarity with the same material.5 Even regardless of such jealousy, Schiller saw Egmont in the attributed to Schiller and connected with the 1796 performance without later emend- ations. NA 13. 326–334 summarises the manuscript and published versions of Schiller’s Egmont, as does David G. John: Images of Goethe through Schiller’s Egmont. Montreal – Kingston 1998. Pp. 26–32. John’s main aim is to consider the later Mannheim manu- script (Borcherdt’s h2), which he reproduces in full, and the performance of Egmont. 2 Peter-André Alt: Schiller. Leben – Werk – Zeit. 2 vols. Munich 2000. Vol. 2. P. 391. 3 Apart from John (n. 1), important studies of Schiller’s Egmont are Harold Alexander Walter: Kritische Deutung der Stellungnahme Schillers zu Goethes Egmont. Düsseldorf 1959; Lesley Sharpe: Schiller and Goethe’s “Egmont”. In: Modern Language Review 77 (1982). Pp. 629–645; and Sigrid Siedhoff: Der Dramaturg Schiller.“Egmont”. Goethes Text – Schillers Bearbeitung. Bonn 1983 (Mitteilungen zur Theatergeschichte der Goethezeit 6). See also the commentary and bibliography in Friedrich Schiller: Werke und Briefe in zwölf Bänden. Vol. 9. Ed. by Heinz Gerd Ingenkamp. Frankfurt/M. 1995. Pp. 836–849, 1260–1261. 4 On the two men’s brief encounter in 1788 and its aftermath, see (for example) Hans Pyritz: Der Bund zwischen Goethe und Schiller. Zur Klärung des Problems der soge- nannten Weimarer Klassik. In: Hans Pyritz: Goethe-Studien. Ed. by Ilse Pyritz. Cologne – Graz 1962. Pp. 34–51, esp. pp. 35–37. 5 See A. G. Blunden: Schiller’s Egmont. In: Seminar. A Journal of Germanic Studies 14 (1978). Pp. 31–44..
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