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The Robbers and Wallenstein
Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) was one of the most influential of all playwrights, the author of deeply moving dramas that explored human fears, desires and ideals. Written at the age of twenty-one, "The Robbers" was his first play. A passionate consideration of liberty, fraternity and deep betrayal, it quickly established his fame throughout Germany and wider Europe. "Wallenstein", produced nineteen years later, is regarded as Schiller's masterpiece: a deeply moving exploration of a flawed general's struggle to bring the Thirty Years War to an end against the will of his Emperor. Depicting the deep corruption caused by constant fighting between Protestants and Catholics, it is at once a meditation on the unbounded possible strength of humanity, and a tragic recognition of what can happen when men allow themselves to be weak.
472 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published November 22, 1979
About the author
Friedrich Schiller
5,615 books881 followersPeople 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...
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...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
August 23, 2007
"The bright spark of Promethian fire has gone out."
The Robbers rocks. The Wallenstein trilogy is good, too.
ps, if you've read Brothers Karamozov, the father makes reference to the Von Moors from The Robbers at some point (I forget where.)
The Robbers rocks. The Wallenstein trilogy is good, too.
ps, if you've read Brothers Karamozov, the father makes reference to the Von Moors from The Robbers at some point (I forget where.)
July 20, 2019
I've been wanting to write a review of The Robbers for months but unfortunately this wild and unruly play is packaged up in this Penguin edition with Schiller's late masterpiece about Wallenstein and the Thirty Years War, which I haven't read and probably won't read until next year.
One thing is certain. I am bound by more rules in my reading than young Schiller was in his writing.
It is easy to adopt a superior attitude to The Robbers. The characters are like the feral scrawls of a cave dweller who is haunted by recurring nightmares. Their actions make no sense. The killings are rampant and random. The violence is completely unjustified. And yet without it all the rhetoric would be hollow.
So the work seems immature. Even Schiller himself didn't know what to make of it. All these ideas just exploded out of him and he tried his best to give them shape. It appears he changed his mind a few times and probably never quite succeeded in getting down on paper exactly what it was he wanted to say.
But I loved the play's boldness. And I loved Schiller's description of it as 'a novel in dramatic form.'
It is completely appropriate to me that the plays of Schiller, of Shakespeare, Sheridan, Racine, Corneille and even the plays of Moliere, whose comic genius, we are told, was apparent in his performances as much as in his verse, should all exist now as books to be read. I can best appreciate these plays by reading them so it is very consoling to know that Schiller had no expectation of ever seeing The Robbers on stage.
And I really enjoyed reading The Robbers. The translation by F.J. Lamport is first rate. It is so good I forgot I was reading a translation. The language rolls along like a smoke billowing out of a furnace. At times it echoes Shakespeare. It burns up Corneille and Racine who are like fragile cinders in its wake.
Schiller's ambition is vaulting. Technically, he is not quite there yet but there is no doubting where he is going. He is like a fireball lighting up the end of the eighteen century and blazing a trail for generations of geniuses who will draw inspiration and sustenance from his vision.
His plays make excellent operas and there is an excellent rendering of The Robbers by Verdi in gorgeous lyrical music that tames the chaotic energy of its source. But you can't make The Robbers beautiful. It is ugly and damnable.
And youthful and immature though it is, it has the immaturity of budding genius. It has the glimmer of greatness.
Schiller is not just a writer who was great in his time. He towers above all our contemporaries and The Robbers is an astonishing piece of writing, like a comet in the dark. I loved it.
One thing is certain. I am bound by more rules in my reading than young Schiller was in his writing.
It is easy to adopt a superior attitude to The Robbers. The characters are like the feral scrawls of a cave dweller who is haunted by recurring nightmares. Their actions make no sense. The killings are rampant and random. The violence is completely unjustified. And yet without it all the rhetoric would be hollow.
So the work seems immature. Even Schiller himself didn't know what to make of it. All these ideas just exploded out of him and he tried his best to give them shape. It appears he changed his mind a few times and probably never quite succeeded in getting down on paper exactly what it was he wanted to say.
But I loved the play's boldness. And I loved Schiller's description of it as 'a novel in dramatic form.'
It is completely appropriate to me that the plays of Schiller, of Shakespeare, Sheridan, Racine, Corneille and even the plays of Moliere, whose comic genius, we are told, was apparent in his performances as much as in his verse, should all exist now as books to be read. I can best appreciate these plays by reading them so it is very consoling to know that Schiller had no expectation of ever seeing The Robbers on stage.
And I really enjoyed reading The Robbers. The translation by F.J. Lamport is first rate. It is so good I forgot I was reading a translation. The language rolls along like a smoke billowing out of a furnace. At times it echoes Shakespeare. It burns up Corneille and Racine who are like fragile cinders in its wake.
Schiller's ambition is vaulting. Technically, he is not quite there yet but there is no doubting where he is going. He is like a fireball lighting up the end of the eighteen century and blazing a trail for generations of geniuses who will draw inspiration and sustenance from his vision.
His plays make excellent operas and there is an excellent rendering of The Robbers by Verdi in gorgeous lyrical music that tames the chaotic energy of its source. But you can't make The Robbers beautiful. It is ugly and damnable.
And youthful and immature though it is, it has the immaturity of budding genius. It has the glimmer of greatness.
Schiller is not just a writer who was great in his time. He towers above all our contemporaries and The Robbers is an astonishing piece of writing, like a comet in the dark. I loved it.
November 20, 2010
Loved the trans of Die Räubers, The Piccolomini, and Wallenstein's Death. Wallenstein's camp was translated to rhyme and was in the exact same meter as "The Night Before Christmas" which was super-distracting. I kept expecting Count Terzky to settle down for a long winter's nap. In a kerchief and cap. But seriously, this isn't a bad translation as far as translations go.
May 23, 2011
This book contains two plays- The Robbers, and the trilogy Wallenstein.
I enjoyed The Robbers more than I thought I would. I give that one 4 stars. I think I'd describe it as the love child of the Robin Hood story and a Shakespearean tragedy. But it was very fast paced, well written (and well translated) and enjoyable to read.
Wallenstein is considered Schiller's masterpiece, but I did not enjoy it all that much. I give it two stars. This is actually three plays- Wallenstein's Camp, The Piccolomini, and Wallenstein's Death. I can sum up the three works in three words: history, politics, war. The last installment was the most enjoyable to me, probably because it was the only one with any action to it. The rest was a lot of standing around, talking about exciting things that already happened off stage.
If you have an interest in European political and military history, this might appeal to you a lot more than it did to me.
I enjoyed The Robbers more than I thought I would. I give that one 4 stars. I think I'd describe it as the love child of the Robin Hood story and a Shakespearean tragedy. But it was very fast paced, well written (and well translated) and enjoyable to read.
Wallenstein is considered Schiller's masterpiece, but I did not enjoy it all that much. I give it two stars. This is actually three plays- Wallenstein's Camp, The Piccolomini, and Wallenstein's Death. I can sum up the three works in three words: history, politics, war. The last installment was the most enjoyable to me, probably because it was the only one with any action to it. The rest was a lot of standing around, talking about exciting things that already happened off stage.
If you have an interest in European political and military history, this might appeal to you a lot more than it did to me.
June 12, 2013
Intensely meolodramatic, extremely gloomy in tone, totally lacking in humour - but as critics say, full of energy and certainly compelling.
I think if Amalia had represented the 'loving kindness and forgiveness' aspect of Christianity as against the pastor's depiction of a Deity of wrath, then it would have brought the play together more (excuse the pun, Robber Moor). Her despair and killing at the end is most unpleasant.
I was outraged that the Pastor says that there are two heinous sins - patricide and fratricide.
So matricide or soroicide are of no particular account??????!!!!!! (steam bursts from ears, runs at a tree, writhes in chair, etc)...
I think if Amalia had represented the 'loving kindness and forgiveness' aspect of Christianity as against the pastor's depiction of a Deity of wrath, then it would have brought the play together more (excuse the pun, Robber Moor). Her despair and killing at the end is most unpleasant.
I was outraged that the Pastor says that there are two heinous sins - patricide and fratricide.
So matricide or soroicide are of no particular account??????!!!!!! (steam bursts from ears, runs at a tree, writhes in chair, etc)...
October 3, 2024
Just read The Robbers and am keeping Wallenstein for later. The Robbers is great in a completely barmy early Romantic way.
March 9, 2018
The Robbers
A well-written, incredibly depressing tragedy. The plot is familiar – loyal, beloved son betrayed by an ambition immoral younger brother who usurps the throne and the fiancé of the true son is pursued by the evil one. The telling difference is the depths of depravity practiced by the “good” son that leads inevitably to a completely miserable and pathetic conclusion.
Wallenstein
This is a series of three plays concerning a principle player in the Thirty Years War. Schiller is at his best. It is unfortunate that this series is not performed in English. The first play, Wallenstein’s Camp, concerns the musings and happenstance of a myriad of soldiers and camp-followers. How brutal war has cursed Europe from peasants to clergy, farmsteads to provinces, soldiers to mercenaries, and their shifting loyalties, has seldom been so effectively exposed on stage. The second part (a play in 5 Acts) The Piccolomini concerns Wallenstein’s scheming to promote his interests beyond those of his Emperor. The final part (again 5 Acts) The Death of Wallenstein is about how his plans come undone. Throughout, Wallenstein is painted with fine strokes, his charismatic figure is juxtaposed with his ruthless ambition. He may know each soldier under his command after meeting him but once, yet, he sacrifices everyone for his quest to command a kingdom, even his most loyal including his daughter. Rarely have I encountered so rounded a character that you can both admire and loath.
A well-written, incredibly depressing tragedy. The plot is familiar – loyal, beloved son betrayed by an ambition immoral younger brother who usurps the throne and the fiancé of the true son is pursued by the evil one. The telling difference is the depths of depravity practiced by the “good” son that leads inevitably to a completely miserable and pathetic conclusion.
Wallenstein
This is a series of three plays concerning a principle player in the Thirty Years War. Schiller is at his best. It is unfortunate that this series is not performed in English. The first play, Wallenstein’s Camp, concerns the musings and happenstance of a myriad of soldiers and camp-followers. How brutal war has cursed Europe from peasants to clergy, farmsteads to provinces, soldiers to mercenaries, and their shifting loyalties, has seldom been so effectively exposed on stage. The second part (a play in 5 Acts) The Piccolomini concerns Wallenstein’s scheming to promote his interests beyond those of his Emperor. The final part (again 5 Acts) The Death of Wallenstein is about how his plans come undone. Throughout, Wallenstein is painted with fine strokes, his charismatic figure is juxtaposed with his ruthless ambition. He may know each soldier under his command after meeting him but once, yet, he sacrifices everyone for his quest to command a kingdom, even his most loyal including his daughter. Rarely have I encountered so rounded a character that you can both admire and loath.
March 12, 2015
My God was this ever a slog to get through! Literally, it took me three months to get through these two plays. Simply tedious and overwrought writing. For the life of me I can't understand why Dostoevsky was such a fan.
October 20, 2025
The Robbers by Friedrich Schiller
Not the best work I came across, but scholars appreciate it
I do not know what to make of this work.
On the one hand it is clearly a worthy endeavor to try and read it.
It deals with values, a fight for freedom, love, both romantic and filial, it benefited from good acting and suspense.
And yet, on the other hand I did not get emotionally, or indeed in any other way involved, which happens again with Schiller.
It looks like I am getting into the wrong mindset- if it is Schiller, then I am going to miss most or all of it.
As I try and make some sense of what was going on, I recall the curse and how it comes true.
I am influenced in what I read from literature and fiction by my parallel immersion into psychology, so a curse and magic can work for me.
If you curse someone who believes in the power of magic, or has a frame of mind where doubt gives way to depression- it will come true.
The father curses the son and the latter is falling apart, under the weight of the bad omen.
In other words, he becomes negative and pessimistic.
Those who are pessimistic are exposed to illness, and live shorter lives.
And when they become depressed, the negative spiral can lead to tragedy.
The plot of the saga may also add to the pleasure of a reader who comes with an open mind and ready to enjoy Schiller.
Those who are dead at one stage, show up very much alive like we are dealing with Avengers, Terminator or other movies in the same vein.
There is one good son- Karl and another- Franz- who much like Cain, ready and willing to finish off his own sibling-
- To the devil with my brother
- I want to be the only master
There is talk about the failings of the time, in this dialogue for instance:
- This is a century of castrati, eunuchs
- They have no respect for the ancient values
- The poor are cheated and the rich steal from them
- I would make a republic that would make Sparta seem small and weak
The son is waiting for a letter of absolution and forgiveness from his father, but instead there is a letter from his wicked brother, Franz
- You will be sent in the cave with no food and never be forgiven
- Our father cannot forget you
- The life of a thief is better than being imprisoned in a cave
- Stones would have cried- so much I have asked for forgiveness
So the wretched son joins a band of outlaws as their captain, because he is very bitter and upset, angry with his father:
- I do not have a father, not anymore
As a consequence, Karl becomes a kind of Robin Hood.
At one point, the tragic news comes- the son that was banished is dead.
In another letter, he blames the parental curse for his death:
- I died alone, in the battlefield, because you, father did not want to forgive me
But this is not the end of the story, and you have to read more to find out.
Not the best work I came across, but scholars appreciate it
I do not know what to make of this work.
On the one hand it is clearly a worthy endeavor to try and read it.
It deals with values, a fight for freedom, love, both romantic and filial, it benefited from good acting and suspense.
And yet, on the other hand I did not get emotionally, or indeed in any other way involved, which happens again with Schiller.
It looks like I am getting into the wrong mindset- if it is Schiller, then I am going to miss most or all of it.
As I try and make some sense of what was going on, I recall the curse and how it comes true.
I am influenced in what I read from literature and fiction by my parallel immersion into psychology, so a curse and magic can work for me.
If you curse someone who believes in the power of magic, or has a frame of mind where doubt gives way to depression- it will come true.
The father curses the son and the latter is falling apart, under the weight of the bad omen.
In other words, he becomes negative and pessimistic.
Those who are pessimistic are exposed to illness, and live shorter lives.
And when they become depressed, the negative spiral can lead to tragedy.
The plot of the saga may also add to the pleasure of a reader who comes with an open mind and ready to enjoy Schiller.
Those who are dead at one stage, show up very much alive like we are dealing with Avengers, Terminator or other movies in the same vein.
There is one good son- Karl and another- Franz- who much like Cain, ready and willing to finish off his own sibling-
- To the devil with my brother
- I want to be the only master
There is talk about the failings of the time, in this dialogue for instance:
- This is a century of castrati, eunuchs
- They have no respect for the ancient values
- The poor are cheated and the rich steal from them
- I would make a republic that would make Sparta seem small and weak
The son is waiting for a letter of absolution and forgiveness from his father, but instead there is a letter from his wicked brother, Franz
- You will be sent in the cave with no food and never be forgiven
- Our father cannot forget you
- The life of a thief is better than being imprisoned in a cave
- Stones would have cried- so much I have asked for forgiveness
So the wretched son joins a band of outlaws as their captain, because he is very bitter and upset, angry with his father:
- I do not have a father, not anymore
As a consequence, Karl becomes a kind of Robin Hood.
At one point, the tragic news comes- the son that was banished is dead.
In another letter, he blames the parental curse for his death:
- I died alone, in the battlefield, because you, father did not want to forgive me
But this is not the end of the story, and you have to read more to find out.
July 8, 2026
“Admit then, that between yourself and him
There never can be talk of right and duty,
Only of power, and opportunity!”
Friedrich Schiller was an influence on Thomas Mann, Emerson, and Dostoevsky, just to name a few, but he seems largely forgotten today. Reading these two plays, it’s easy to understand why. While not impossible to stage The Robbers and Wallenstein, any modern theater to do so would be taking a substantial risk that no audience would willing watch works like this written by someone not named “Shakespeare.” It is that point of comparison that most undermines Schiller’s plays: Their content invites measuring these those two works against the works of Shakespeare, and they are unsurprisingly found wanting when considered against some of the masterpieces of the most famous playwright of all time.
The Robbers, in particular, smacks of young Schiller (only 21-22 at the time when the play was written) creating a Shakespeare fan play. A hodgepodge of situations and ideas from Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, and other Shakespeare tragedies, the play tells the story of two brothers in conflict over the position of their elderly father. The younger brother Franz, an incompetent version of Iago, manipulates his father into disowning the more popular brother Karl, and is thereafter framed as the play’s villain. Karl, despite marauding with the titular gang of robbers that get their kicks raping nuns and blowing up pregnant women, is left to take the role of tragic hero. Each brother is the focus of a separate story thread that only intertwine near the end of the play, making the whole work feel strangely compartmentalized (and that would probably make it more difficult to stage). In the play’s tragic ending Schiller does his best to give his audience emotional whiplash. For a first play by a young writer it’s a respectable effort, but it does not hold a candle to the Shakespeare works that inspired it.
Wallenstein, in contrast, is a more ambitious and distinct work, seen by many as Schiller’s masterpiece. It takes the form of a trilogy of plays, though the first part titled Wallenstein’s Camp is styled as an epic poem and serves as an extended prologue. After that the next two parts form the play proper, which is one long narrative cut into two halves titled The Piccolomini and Wallenstein’s Death. Like with The Robbers, there are two main story threads in this work, but here these threads are closely intertwined from the beginning of the play, sharing characters, setting, and serving as conflicts that echo each other. The primary story thread covers the titular Wallenstein and his struggle with the Emperor who is attempting to strip him of his control of the military. The secondary story thread focuses on the romance between Wallenstein’s daughter Thekla and Max, one of Wallenstein’s military commanders.
More so than The Robbers, Wallenstein poses some interesting & thorny questions about duty, loyalty, the limits of self-interest, and the justice of the social hierarchy of the day. It does so through a very long play, but at least things are frequently happening throughout Wallenstein, in contrast with The Robbers where not much seemed to happen over the play’s many pages. Unfortunately, despite the differences between the two works in this collection, they share the same downfall: Like The Robbers, Wallenstein invites comparison to plays penned by Shakespeare that are far better. The two that particularly came to mind were Julius Caesar and Coriolanus, which explore similar ideas and themes as Wallenstein, but with significantly better execution.
The Shakespeare works on the same topic would almost certainly be better even if Wallenstein had no major flaws, but alas it does. Perhaps most importantly, Schiller makes the titular character nonsensical in a way that I can’t imagine was intentional. While the other characters universally praise Wallenstein as a brave and fierce commander that does not dither in battle, we are instead shown a character that is so indecisive that he seems moronic, the plot of the whole play kicked off by the Emperor’s agents capturing plans for Wallenstein’s revolt—plans that he wrote, sure, but he didn’t actually mean it, he merely wrote those plans on a lark. What? It’s utterly bizarre. While Schiller intentionally means for Wallenstein’s predicament to mirror that of Caesar’s, he made Wallenstein so incompetent that it renders the comparison inapposite.
Another significant flaw is the play’s ending being morally muddled, or perhaps more accurately the ending highlights how the entire play has muddled morals. Wallenstein’s death is framed in the play’s final pages as a bad thing, but the play does not make a good case for why. Throughout the play, Schiller does little to explore the idea that the Emperor might actually be in the wrong, which limits the moral complexity of the work, and makes things confused when, in the play’s final pages, carrying out the Emperor’s orders is suddenly framed as morally wrong. Schiller’s repeated assertion throughout the play that the life of a soldier somehow represents freedom and individuality rings especially false in light of the play’s ending, which emphasizes that soldiers must follow orders, except in some unclear circumstances where maybe they shouldn’t (or maybe even then they should, who knows?). There’s a thin line between being intentionally ambiguous so as to inspire discussion and being muddled, and I found Wallenstein to be on the wrong side of that line.
I expect that this review has come off as quite negative, but that was not my intention. The two plays in this collection both have points in their favor, and show me why so many famous writers took inspiration from Schiller’s work. It’s just that I’m forced to compare these two plays to some of Shakespeare’s best tragedies, which are much better. Because these are wanting by comparison, I rate both The Robbers and Wallenstein 3/5, though if you only read one I think Wallenstein is more deserving of your time.
P.S. I found F. J. Lamport’s translation to be perfectly fine.
There never can be talk of right and duty,
Only of power, and opportunity!”
Friedrich Schiller was an influence on Thomas Mann, Emerson, and Dostoevsky, just to name a few, but he seems largely forgotten today. Reading these two plays, it’s easy to understand why. While not impossible to stage The Robbers and Wallenstein, any modern theater to do so would be taking a substantial risk that no audience would willing watch works like this written by someone not named “Shakespeare.” It is that point of comparison that most undermines Schiller’s plays: Their content invites measuring these those two works against the works of Shakespeare, and they are unsurprisingly found wanting when considered against some of the masterpieces of the most famous playwright of all time.
The Robbers, in particular, smacks of young Schiller (only 21-22 at the time when the play was written) creating a Shakespeare fan play. A hodgepodge of situations and ideas from Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, and other Shakespeare tragedies, the play tells the story of two brothers in conflict over the position of their elderly father. The younger brother Franz, an incompetent version of Iago, manipulates his father into disowning the more popular brother Karl, and is thereafter framed as the play’s villain. Karl, despite marauding with the titular gang of robbers that get their kicks raping nuns and blowing up pregnant women, is left to take the role of tragic hero. Each brother is the focus of a separate story thread that only intertwine near the end of the play, making the whole work feel strangely compartmentalized (and that would probably make it more difficult to stage). In the play’s tragic ending Schiller does his best to give his audience emotional whiplash. For a first play by a young writer it’s a respectable effort, but it does not hold a candle to the Shakespeare works that inspired it.
Wallenstein, in contrast, is a more ambitious and distinct work, seen by many as Schiller’s masterpiece. It takes the form of a trilogy of plays, though the first part titled Wallenstein’s Camp is styled as an epic poem and serves as an extended prologue. After that the next two parts form the play proper, which is one long narrative cut into two halves titled The Piccolomini and Wallenstein’s Death. Like with The Robbers, there are two main story threads in this work, but here these threads are closely intertwined from the beginning of the play, sharing characters, setting, and serving as conflicts that echo each other. The primary story thread covers the titular Wallenstein and his struggle with the Emperor who is attempting to strip him of his control of the military. The secondary story thread focuses on the romance between Wallenstein’s daughter Thekla and Max, one of Wallenstein’s military commanders.
More so than The Robbers, Wallenstein poses some interesting & thorny questions about duty, loyalty, the limits of self-interest, and the justice of the social hierarchy of the day. It does so through a very long play, but at least things are frequently happening throughout Wallenstein, in contrast with The Robbers where not much seemed to happen over the play’s many pages. Unfortunately, despite the differences between the two works in this collection, they share the same downfall: Like The Robbers, Wallenstein invites comparison to plays penned by Shakespeare that are far better. The two that particularly came to mind were Julius Caesar and Coriolanus, which explore similar ideas and themes as Wallenstein, but with significantly better execution.
The Shakespeare works on the same topic would almost certainly be better even if Wallenstein had no major flaws, but alas it does. Perhaps most importantly, Schiller makes the titular character nonsensical in a way that I can’t imagine was intentional. While the other characters universally praise Wallenstein as a brave and fierce commander that does not dither in battle, we are instead shown a character that is so indecisive that he seems moronic, the plot of the whole play kicked off by the Emperor’s agents capturing plans for Wallenstein’s revolt—plans that he wrote, sure, but he didn’t actually mean it, he merely wrote those plans on a lark. What? It’s utterly bizarre. While Schiller intentionally means for Wallenstein’s predicament to mirror that of Caesar’s, he made Wallenstein so incompetent that it renders the comparison inapposite.
Another significant flaw is the play’s ending being morally muddled, or perhaps more accurately the ending highlights how the entire play has muddled morals. Wallenstein’s death is framed in the play’s final pages as a bad thing, but the play does not make a good case for why. Throughout the play, Schiller does little to explore the idea that the Emperor might actually be in the wrong, which limits the moral complexity of the work, and makes things confused when, in the play’s final pages, carrying out the Emperor’s orders is suddenly framed as morally wrong. Schiller’s repeated assertion throughout the play that the life of a soldier somehow represents freedom and individuality rings especially false in light of the play’s ending, which emphasizes that soldiers must follow orders, except in some unclear circumstances where maybe they shouldn’t (or maybe even then they should, who knows?). There’s a thin line between being intentionally ambiguous so as to inspire discussion and being muddled, and I found Wallenstein to be on the wrong side of that line.
I expect that this review has come off as quite negative, but that was not my intention. The two plays in this collection both have points in their favor, and show me why so many famous writers took inspiration from Schiller’s work. It’s just that I’m forced to compare these two plays to some of Shakespeare’s best tragedies, which are much better. Because these are wanting by comparison, I rate both The Robbers and Wallenstein 3/5, though if you only read one I think Wallenstein is more deserving of your time.
P.S. I found F. J. Lamport’s translation to be perfectly fine.
March 20, 2019
I thoroughly enjoyed the play is reminiscent of Robin Hood and the brotherly dispute reminded me of the feud between Gloucester’s sons in King Lear. What I especially like about the play is that it shows that the idea of transgression is not black and white; a good person can make poor or bad decision and still retain some morality.
June 15, 2016
It was a decent book that begs the old phrase, "Two wrongs don't make a right." Committing crimes for vindication is not the anecdote to cleanse your soul, but rather puts you in the company of those from whom you are trying to distance yourself.
October 22, 2007
راهزنان همراه با توطئه ی فیسکو توسط عبدالحسین میکده به فارسی ترجمه شده و بنگاه ترجمه و نشر کتاب آن را در 1336 منتشر کرده است
August 26, 2010
Really good. Shakespeare good (Wallenstein).
June 30, 2018
1800s German was pretty hype for sturm und drang poetry plays. I am not.
October 15, 2020
I feel that the average American spends all his or her time on Mann, Goethe, Grass, and Kafka. But is this a life? What about Schiller?!
June 15, 2009
Great era in history- just bloodshed. A modern classic about a crazy MF
July 20, 2018
The Robbers was...fine. Melodrama is a pretty appropriate label, but it's not quite as bad as Young Werther.
It was a mistake to translate Wallenstein's Camp in rhyming couplets - it just makes the play sort of silly. I'm not sure that pulling out the "low" characters into their own mini-play really works, but it's a reasonable idea.
The Piccolomini and Wallenstein's Death, on the other hand, are fantastic. Wallenstein and Octavio are complex characters that keep you guessing; there's unscrupulous schemers on both sides; and the obligatory love story that has some teeth between Max and Thekla. The plays do a great job of exploring - and leaving ambiguous - the historical questions around Wallenstein: Was he always going to be a traitor? Did Ferdinand (and Octavio) push him into rebellion? Was the rebellion fated? Did Wallenstein want peace, or to maintain his own power in the army? And in the Thirty Year's War more generally: What was the real role of religion in the war? What does a multicultural Imperial army owe an Austrian German Emperor who wants to expand his power over Germany? What is the best way to achieve peace and who was actually seeking it?
A good play leaves you thinking, and Wallenstein is quite successful on that front.
It was a mistake to translate Wallenstein's Camp in rhyming couplets - it just makes the play sort of silly. I'm not sure that pulling out the "low" characters into their own mini-play really works, but it's a reasonable idea.
The Piccolomini and Wallenstein's Death, on the other hand, are fantastic. Wallenstein and Octavio are complex characters that keep you guessing; there's unscrupulous schemers on both sides; and the obligatory love story that has some teeth between Max and Thekla. The plays do a great job of exploring - and leaving ambiguous - the historical questions around Wallenstein: Was he always going to be a traitor? Did Ferdinand (and Octavio) push him into rebellion? Was the rebellion fated? Did Wallenstein want peace, or to maintain his own power in the army? And in the Thirty Year's War more generally: What was the real role of religion in the war? What does a multicultural Imperial army owe an Austrian German Emperor who wants to expand his power over Germany? What is the best way to achieve peace and who was actually seeking it?
A good play leaves you thinking, and Wallenstein is quite successful on that front.
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November 12, 2023This book collects two of the important German playwright Friedrich Schiller's most essential plays.
The first, The Robbers was written early in his career during the proto-Romantic Sturm und Drang movement. It is melodramatic and completely over the top with a scheming villain, star-crossed lovers, patricide, betrayal, etc. etc. There are also some very good monologues in here, one specifically by the main villain, in which he says "my forehead shall be your barometer!" which I still think about regularly.
The second, written in a later, more mature stage of Schiller's career, is actually a trilogy of plays, known collectively as Wallenstein, based on events in the life of Bohemian commander Albrecht von Wallenstein during the Thirty Years' War. This one gets off to a painfully slow start, as the entire first play is just setting the scene from the perspective of the various military members in Wallenstein's camp, with none of the major players appearing until the second play. Nonetheless, by the end of the final play I was invested and really enjoyed the story.
The first, The Robbers was written early in his career during the proto-Romantic Sturm und Drang movement. It is melodramatic and completely over the top with a scheming villain, star-crossed lovers, patricide, betrayal, etc. etc. There are also some very good monologues in here, one specifically by the main villain, in which he says "my forehead shall be your barometer!" which I still think about regularly.
The second, written in a later, more mature stage of Schiller's career, is actually a trilogy of plays, known collectively as Wallenstein, based on events in the life of Bohemian commander Albrecht von Wallenstein during the Thirty Years' War. This one gets off to a painfully slow start, as the entire first play is just setting the scene from the perspective of the various military members in Wallenstein's camp, with none of the major players appearing until the second play. Nonetheless, by the end of the final play I was invested and really enjoyed the story.
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November 14, 2025im reading coleridge s translation this good too prologue and first part
coleridge fucked up fuck u can't wait to read his marginalia and hate him more
hes like eliot in someway look at this clever preface eliot is still a better poet and translator than him
"The pleasure or disgust from his own labor will mingle with the feelings that arise from an afterview of the original. Even in the first perusal of a work in any foreign language which we understand, we are apt to attribute to it more excellence than it really possesses from our own pleasurable sense of difficulty overcome without effort. Translation of poetry into poetry is difficult, because the translator must give a brilliancy to his language without that warmth of original conception from which such brilliancy would follow of its own accord."
coleridge fucked up fuck u can't wait to read his marginalia and hate him more
hes like eliot in someway look at this clever preface eliot is still a better poet and translator than him
"The pleasure or disgust from his own labor will mingle with the feelings that arise from an afterview of the original. Even in the first perusal of a work in any foreign language which we understand, we are apt to attribute to it more excellence than it really possesses from our own pleasurable sense of difficulty overcome without effort. Translation of poetry into poetry is difficult, because the translator must give a brilliancy to his language without that warmth of original conception from which such brilliancy would follow of its own accord."
October 27, 2020
I personally prefer Schiller to Goethe in terms of playwriting, although the latter is far more well known for his "Faust" than Schiller is for any of his dramas. Schiller's characters have believable dialogue and their motives are very clear and explicit.
"Die Räuber" and the Wallenstein trilogy were pretty good in my opinion, although I do prefer his later works "Don Carlos" and "Mary Stuart", as they feel more structurally coherent to me.
If you want a clearer grasp of Schiller's mastery of language and drama, better read Carlos and Stuart; "The Robbers" and "Wallenstein" are a bit harder to read too.
"Die Räuber" and the Wallenstein trilogy were pretty good in my opinion, although I do prefer his later works "Don Carlos" and "Mary Stuart", as they feel more structurally coherent to me.
If you want a clearer grasp of Schiller's mastery of language and drama, better read Carlos and Stuart; "The Robbers" and "Wallenstein" are a bit harder to read too.
February 16, 2022
Surprisingly, I liked the melodramatic Robbers more than Wallenstein. Wallenstein was good, but it was long and it just didn't hit me like The Robbers did. The Robbers, though silly at times, had some great parts that make it very profound. Wallenstein is profound too, just more subtly so, and I didn't enjoy it as much. The Robbers was also much shorter. Still, very glad to have read both of these works, and I can say that Schiller is a good read.
February 9, 2019
Excellent translation.
February 21, 2021
The two plays couldn't be more different. I believe the Robbers is by far the more famous and it is easy to see why. Insanely violent and and emotionally charged.
April 25, 2023
[only read The Robbers]
May 16, 2023
dramatic play, i like the moral of the story.
January 15, 2024
The robbers is great - I think it should be up there with Shakespeare!
December 29, 2024
I read this in Germany, learned how to act the technique
Slow and paced is the key
So many words that probably don’t make sense in English wish I could read it in German
Slow and paced is the key
So many words that probably don’t make sense in English wish I could read it in German
February 12, 2026
The Brothers Karamazov brought me here. I only read The Robbers to see what it is like, and I can see why it created such a sensation in its time.
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April 30, 2026Read only the Robbers as of 30. April 2026
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