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XI.—Schiller and Hebbel, 1830–1840
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Considered with regard to the author's intention, nearly all of Schiller's dramas have established their right to be ranked among the most successful achievements in German literature. They were written for representation on the stage before a popular audience; and throughout the nineteenth century, in spite of the vagaries of literary fashion and the frequent hostility of literary men, the German people as such remained true to its admiration of Wallenstein, and Wilhelm Tell. No student of the drama can fail to perceive that Schiller is an indispensable presupposition to all dramatic production in Germany since his time; or can underestimate the value of his example in all that pertains to the architectonics of the drama; or ought to suppose that Schiller will not continue to speak from the stage to the twentieth century and beyond.
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References
page 309 note 1 Hebbels Werke, ed. Werner, Berl., 1901 ff., vii, 14 (1829).
page 309 note 2 Werke, vii, p. xl.
page 309 note 1 L. c., v, p. xv.
page 309 note 2 Albert Fries, Vergleichende Studien zu Hebbels Fragmenten, Berl., 1903, 7 f.
page 309 note 3 Werke, viii, 6.
page 309 note 4 Ib., ix, 9.
page 309 note 1 Werke, ix, 31.
page 309 note 2 L. c., p. 31.
page 309 note 3 L. c., p. 56.
page 309 note 4 Ib., p. 52.
page 309 note 5 Werke, xi, 208 (1848).
page 309 note 1 Describing the effect of the revelation that he owed to Uhland, Hebbel noted as the first and only rule of art, “dass sie … an der singulären Erscheinung das Unendliche veranschaulichen solle.” Tgb., 5. Jan., 1836; ed. Werner, i, p. 29. I refer to volume and page of Werner's edition.
Tgb. = Tagebücher; Br. = Briefe.
page 309 note 1 Werke, xi, 139 (1848).
page 309 note 2 Tgb., 14. Jul., 1835, i, 13; 5. Jan., 1836, i, 28.
page 309 note 3 Tgb., 1. Jan., 1837, i, 105.
page 309 note 4 An Laeiss, 14. Jun., 1836, Br., i, 65.
page 309 note 5 Tgb., 28. Jun.-1. Jul., 1836, i, 37 ff.
page 309 note 6 Anna, W., viii, 229 ff.; completed June 9, 1836.
page 309 note 7 Br., 4. Jul., 1836, i, 66.
page 309 note 1 An Voss, 14. Jul., 1836, Br., i, 74.
page 309 note 2 An Elise, 19. Dez., 1836, Br., i, 138.
page 309 note 3 An Rousseau, 30. Dez., 1836, Tgb., i, 98.
page 309 note 4 Tgb., 14. Jun., 1836, i, 36.
page 309 note 1 Tgb., 5. Jan., 1837, i, 116 f.
page 309 note 2 17. Jan., 1837, Br., i, 145.
On January 6, 1837, Schiller's Jungfrau was played in Hamburg; cf. Johannes Hoffmann, Schillers Maria Stuart und Jungfrau von Orleans auf der Hamburger Bühne in den Jahren 1801–1848, Greifswald, 1906, p. 47. Hebbel had encouraged Elise to go to the theatre (letter of Nov. 29, 1836, Br. i, 123), and it is possible that she attended this performance and wrote him about it.
page 309 note 3 15. Feb., 1837, Br., i, 170.
page 309 note 1 Biogr., Wien, 1877, i, 303; cf. Tgb., 1. Jan., 1837, i, 106.
page 309 note 2 Tgb., 5. Jan., 1837, i, 117.
page 309 note 1 Tgb., 4. Apr., 1837, i, 151.
page 309 note 2 18. Jun., 1837, Br., i, 215.
page 309 note 1 25. Mai, 1837, Br., i, 209. The word Gedicht does not, of course, exclude the idea “drama”—in a letter to Amalie Schoppe, Hebbel calls his Judith “ein Gedicht,” Br., 25. Mai, 1840, ii, 61—neither does it suggest dramatic qualities.
page 309 note 2 Cf. his letter to Elise dated 20. Sept., 1837, Br., i, 227.
page 309 note 3 Tgb., i, 191.
page 309 note 1 Ib., 3. Sept., 1837, i, 194.
page 309 note 2 Tgb., 22. Okt., 1837, i, 198.
page 309 note 3 Ib., i, 216.
page 309 note 1 Tgb., i, 221 f.
page 309 note 2 Cf. Werke, ix, 396, 417; Tgb., 8. Jan., 1847, iii, 161: “die völlige Ideenlosigkeit des Wallenstein.”
page 309 note 3 Tgb., i, 214.
page 309 note 4 On Apr. 3 Hebbel cites a sentence from the Abfall der Niederlande; Tgb., i, 231.
page 309 note 5 An Elise, Br., i, 275.
page 309 note 6 3. Apr., 1838, Tgb., i, 232.
page 309 note 1 Cf. “Gefühl ist das unmittelbar von innen heraus wirkende Leben. Die Kraft, es zu begrenzen und darzustellen, macht den lyr. Dichter,” Tgb., 24. Okt., 1835, i, 24. “Die lyrische Poesie soll das Menschenherz seiner schönsten, edelsten und erhebendsten Gefühle teilhaftig machen. Dies ist die beste Definition,” Ib., 5. Okt., 1838, i, 274. “Uhlands Lyrik liegt durchaus zergliedernde Darstellung der Gemütsregung zum Grunde,” Ib., 10. Febr., 1838, i, 213. “Der Mensch kann nichts Gemeines tun, er kann nur gemein denken und empfinden. Seine Handlungen selbst sind nur Stoff, an welchem sein Inneres sich bewährt,” Ib., 24. Nov., 1838, i, 286. “Ein dramatisches Werk, vorgelesen, wirkt wie ein lyrisches,” Ib., 28. Okt., 1839, i, 400.
page 309 note 2 Tgb., 1. Mai, 1838, i, 246.
page 309 note 3 Tgb., 1. Dez., 1838, i, 299.
page 309 note 1 Tgb., i, 305.
page 309 note 2 Ib., 2. Feb., 1839, i, 313.
page 309 note 1 Cf. Br., i, 346.
page 309 note 2 Tgb., i, 205.
page 309 note 3 Berl., 1802; cf. Tgb., i, 432.
page 309 note 4 Tgb., i, 250.
page 309 note 5 Regensburg, 1834, 2. Aufl., 1835; cf. Tgb., i, 432.
page 309 note 1 Cf. Werke, v, 41 ff.
page 309 note 2 On Dec. 27, 1841, Hebbel wrote in his diary, “Auch das tiefste, geistreichste Wort, was der Mensch spricht, verweht und verliert …. seine Bedeutung durch ein erzeugtes zweites oder drittes, nur er selbst dauert und bleibt. Ein gemeiner Gedanke, möchte man sagen. Allerdings, aber ich wollte, er würde noch etwas gemeiner, er fände auch im Gebiete der Kunst Anwendung, dann würde man erkennen, dass im Dramatischen selbst die schönsten und gewichtigsten Reden, wie man sie bei Schiller auf jeder Seite findet, niemals für Charaktere entschädigen können.” Tgb., ii, 127. For the sake of completeness the three references to Schiller during the year 1839 may be here adduced from the diary; there are none in 1840. “Schillers Talent war so gross, dass er durch die Unnatur selbst zu wirken wusste;” 3. Apr., 1839, Tgb., i, 347. “Schillers Poesie tut immer erst einen Schritt über die Natur hinaus und sehnt sich dann nach ihr zurück;” 19. Okt., 1839, Tgb., i, 385. “Wie soll die Liebe zum Echten sich äussern, wenn nicht im Hass gegen das Schlechte? In Anlass des Gesprächs über Schiller, wodurch die Kirchenrätin sich verletzt fand;” 30. Dez., 1839, Tgb., i, 420. In this conversation Hebbel seems to have spoken with his accustomed impulsive fierceness, and the good lady, who doubtless did not understand his meaning at all, must have thought him a “Schillerhasser” indeed.
page 309 note 1 Br., 24. Jan., 1837, i, 159.
page 309 note 2 Tgb., i, 136.
page 309 note 3 Werke, ix, 35.
page 309 note 1 Tgb., 6. Dez., 1838, i, 301.
page 309 note 2 Tgb., 24. Feb., 1839, i, 338.
page 309 note 3 Werke, i, 410.
page 309 note 4 Cf. Werner, Biogr., Berl., 1905, 107. Hebbel was in the Pinakothek on Jan. 1, 1837; cf. an Elise, Br. i, 150.
page 309 note 5 Werke, vi, 250; cf. also Letter, 23. Febr., 1863, an Engländer, Br., vii, 303.
page 309 note 1 Br., i, 360 f.
page 309 note 2 Werke, vi, 172.
page 309 note 3 Werke, ix, 223 ff.
page 309 note 4 An Elise, 26. Jul., 1840, Br., ii, 90.
page 309 note 5 Cf. Werner, Werke, ix, p. xxvii ff., and Biogr., 139.
page 309 note 6 Werke, ix, 255.
page 309 note 1 L. c., p. 356.
page 309 note 2 Ibid.
page 309 note 3 P. 238.
page 309 note 4 Cf. pp. 286, 287, 311, 316, 323.
page 309 note 5 P. 313.
page 309 note 6 E. g., p. 281.
page 309 note 7 P. 247.
page 309 note 1 P. 314.
page 309 note 2 P. 298.
page 309 note 3 P. 282.
page 309 note 4 P. 329.
page 309 note 5 Tgb., ii, 34.
page 309 note 6 Tgb., ii, 58.
page 309 note 7 Tgb., 27. Jul., 1840, ii, 55.
page 309 note 1 Geschichte, Werke, ix, 267.
page 309 note 2 Grillparzer und das neue Drama, München, 1905, p. 154.
page 309 note 1 Cf. Eugen Kühnemann, Schiller, München, 1905, 527 ff.
page 309 note 1 Tgb., 13. Feb., 1850, iii, 353.
page 309 note 2 Werke, xi, 283 ff. (1849).
page 309 note 1 Cf. “Einen Menschen zum blossen Mittel herabzuwürdigen: ärgste Sünde.” Tgb., Sommer, 1839, i, 363.
page 309 note 1 P. 309.
page 309 note 1 Tgb., i, 216; cf. supra, p. 321.
page 309 note 1 Tgb., 24. Feb., 1839, i, 338; cf. supra, p. 328.
page 309 note 2 Tgb., 24. Nov., 1839, i, 404: “In der Judith zeichne ich die Tat eines Weibes, also den ärgsten Kontrast, dies Wollen und Nicht-Können, dies Tun, was doch kein Handeln ist.”
page 309 note 3 Schiller's unconditional apologist, L. Bellermann, writes in Schillers Dramen, Berlin, 2d ed., 1898, ii, p. 284: “Dem Verfasser [Vilmar] ist also keine Ahnung davon aufgegangen, dass ohne Johannas Liebe zu Lionel für Schiller schlechthin kein Motiv gewesen wäre, sein Stück über-haupt zu schreiben.” And again (p. 288), “Wohl jeder Leser hat die unmittelbare Empfindung, dass der Punkt, der diesen hier veranschaulichten Schicksalsgang zu einem tragischen macht, in der Lionelscene liegt.”
In my opinion, Bellermann here goes too far. Schiller appreciated the tragic content of the situation in which a woman is also an instrument of prophecy. Cf. in his poem Kassandra (1802) these lines of the prayer to Apollo:
“Nimm, o nimm die traur'ge Klarheit,
Mir vom Aug’ den blut'gen Schein!
Schrecklich ist es, deiner Wahrheit
Sterbliches Gefäss zu sein.”
For dramatic purposes, indeed, Schiller does seem to have needed the motif of love for Lionel; but we may distinguish between the idea as such and the particular terms in which Schiller expressed it in this play, between the tragic content of the situation and the motif of the action.
M. Evers, in his pamphlet, Die Tragik in Schillers Jungfrau von Orleans in neuer Auffassung, Lpz., 1898, maintains that the cardinal point of the action is to be found in the scene with Montgomery; that Johanna's guilt consists in exceeding from personal motives the limits of her commission, first by taking active part in the slaughter of the English, and then further by falling in love with Lionel. This idea, the inability of Johanna the person to make of herself an impersonal instrument, is closely allied to Hebbel's; but it can scarcely have been Schiller's.
In Percy MacKaye's Jeanne d'Arc, New York, 1906, the tragic motif is a doubt in the divine commission, which temporarily disconcerts the heroine. Jeanne is restored to faith when she sees that d'Alençon, a sceptic and lover, has been converted to belief in her sanctity. Such a motif involves a conflict more to Hebbel's mind than the conflict in Schiller's Jungfrau.
page 309 note 1 Tgb., 23. Apr., 1840, ii, 38.
page 309 note 2 Cf. Tgb., 6. März, 1838, i, 216, supra, p. 321.
page 309 note 3 Cf. “Weil von Frankreich die Revolution ausgehen sollte,” Tgb., 27. Jul., 1840, ii, 55, supra, p. 331.
page 309 note 1 Tgb., 3. Apr., 1840, ii, 26.
page 309 note 1 Werke, i, p. ix ff., and Biogr., 125 ff.
page 309 note 2 Tgb., 26. Okt., 1849, ii, 73.
page 309 note 1 Vorwort zur Maria Magdalene (1844), Werke, xi, 45.
page 309 note 2 Das deutsche Drama d. 19. Jahrh., Lpz. [1904], p. 52.
page 309 note 1 Cf. E. O. Eckelmann, Schillers Einfluss auf die Jugenddramen Hebbels [Ottendorfer Memorial Series of Germanic Monographs, i, New York, 1906], and my review of this work in Modern Language Notes, June, 1907.
The latest monograph on Hebbel, a study by Arthur Kutscher entitled Friedrich Hebbel als Kritiker des Dramas, Berl., 1907, contributes nothing to the discussion of the relations between Schiller and Hebbel.