Volume One: The Robbers / Passion and Politics

by Friedrich Schiller, Robert David MacDonald

Includes the plays The Robbers and Passion and Politics

Two plays concerned with tyranny and freedom. Schiller's first play, The Robbers (1781), was written in great secrecy under the prison like conditions of Württenberg's Karl, the son of a count, is disinherited through the machinations of his brother Franz, and, turning his back on a social order he finds unjust and corrupt, becomes the leader of a band of robbers.

In Passion and Politics (1784), a 'bourgeoise tragedy', the love between Louise, a musician's daughter, and Ferdinand, a politician's son, crosses an unbridgeable social divide.

One of the great figures in German literature, Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was one of the most significant playwright of his day, numbering among his devotees Coleridge and Carlyle. His plays are known for their originality of form, vivid stage imagery and powerful language, faithfully rendered in Robert David MacDonald's acclaimed translations.

Genres: Drama

276 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1975

About the author

People best know long didactic poems and historical plays, such as Don Carlos (1787) and William Tell (1804), of leading romanticist German poet, dramatist, and historian Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller.

This philosopher and dramatist struck up a productive if complicated friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe during the last eighteen years of his life and encouraged Goethe to finish works that he left merely as sketches; they greatly discussed issues concerning aesthetics and thus gave way to a period, now referred to as classicism of Weimar. They also worked together on Die Xenien ( The Xenies ), a collection of short but harsh satires that verbally attacked perceived enemies of their aesthetic agenda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedri...

Reviews

[Anna Biller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review is for The Robbers, the first play in this collection. I really loved the high dramatics and extreme characters in this play. I could vividly imagine it playing out on the stage, with the evil brother Franz enacted by Jose Ferrer. Incredible monologues, villainous speeches. The parts about God interested me less, and yet it's true that even sacrilegious people used to fear God terribly, especially in terms of His punishment in the afterlife for wicked sinners. The brothers Franz and Karl are both terrible, although Karl is painted as a hero because he is aware of being a sinner. Franz is so villainous that he stands out among historical villains as being worse than most of them, in an extremely melodramatic way, which I'm sure makes him very fun to play. Spiegelberg is just as evil, or more evil. The characters seem to be based on stock characters from medieval romances, which makes it feel like it was influenced by the Gothic movement. Extreme cruelty, such as robbers gleefully raping young nuns and bragging about leaving calling cards which will "show up in nine months." (Shudder.) Everyone is constantly about to blow their brains out, or is begging someone to kill them or to kill someone else. Some of these suicides and murders are enacted. It's very Germanic, and more violent and despairing than most things I've read. Entertaining and ghastly.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember liking Die Räuber better than Kabale und Liebe. Ironically, since I generally dislike both melodrama (which it practically started) and Werther (which it is often lumped together with as seminal work of Sturm und Drang). I guess that in the case of melodrama, it's another case of people attempting to follow-up and failing. (See Tolkien and hordes of those who attempted to emulate and failed not-so-spectacularly.) I sometimes think it might be because they take one element - but ignore another without the element in question will not work that well. In this case, many would take the idea of noble outlaw, a man-against-the-world and a clash of personalities - but fail to give them further meaning. The Robbers used this to raise very serious questions of law, morals, individuality, even touching on social problems. Many melodramas will stop at emotional plane. (Not unlike those who focus on Hero's Quest and forget to build the world intricate enough we care for its fate; or, indeed, fail to recognise the world is what the book was really written for, not a few chosen individuals.)

Intrigue and Love, while good, was a pretty standard story. And yes, I'm doing it injustice, because it's probably the story those stories that made it "standard" sprung from; but I had the misfortune of reading it later, so it failed to leave an impact.