Friedrich Schiller
Also known as: Schiller
Biography
Friedrich Schiller is the other half of Weimar Classicism: the dramatist of Die Räuber, Don Karlos, Wallenstein and Wilhelm Tell, the poet of An die Freude, a professor of history at Jena, and for six years Goethe's partner on the Weimar stage. He moved to Weimar in December 1799, took the house on the Esplanade in 1802 and died in its attic study on 9 May 1805, at forty-five. The house is a museum, he stands in bronze beside Goethe in front of the theatre they ran together, and his tomb in the Fürstengruft is beside Goethe's.
From Marbach to Mannheim, 1759–1782
Born on 10 November 1759 in Marbach am Neckar, he was put into the Duke of Württemberg's military academy on the Solitude in 1773, read law and then medicine, and finished with a medical dissertation in December 1780. On 13 January 1782 the Mannheim theatre gave the premiere of Die Räuber; he had travelled to it without leave, went again in May, and the duke gave him fourteen days' arrest. In the night of 22 to 23 September 1782 he fled Stuttgart with his friend Andreas Streicher, and never went back.
An die Freude, Don Karlos, Jena, 1785–1791
In Leipzig in 1785 he met Christian Gottfried Körner, and out of that friendship, in the summer and autumn of the same year, came the ode An die Freude — the words Beethoven would set in the Ninth. Don Karlos was finished in Dresden in 1787. In 1789 he took a professorship of history at Jena; the crowd for his inaugural lecture on 26 May, on what universal history is and why one studies it, overflowed the hall. On 22 February 1790 he married Charlotte von Lengefeld; in January 1791 a severe pneumonia set in that was never cured, and he wrote everything after it as an ill man.
Goethe, 1794–1799
The friendship with Goethe began in 1794, when Goethe agreed to write for Schiller's new monthly, Die Horen, and the correspondence turned into a partnership: the Horen of 1795 to 1797, the Musen-Almanach from 1796, the Xenien they wrote together in 1796, and the ballads of 1797, the year Schiller called his Balladenjahr. The Wallenstein grew into a trilogy between 1796 and 1799 — the Neue Deutsche Biographie calls it his most important poetic work — and Das Lied von der Glocke was finished the same year.
Six years in Weimar, 1799–1805
On 3 December 1799 he moved his family to Weimar, to be near Goethe and to work in the theatre, and from then until his death the two of them ran the Weimar stage together. The plays came fast: Maria Stuart and Die Jungfrau von Orleans in 1801, Die Braut von Messina in 1803, Wilhelm Tell in 1804. On 7 September 1802, at the duke's request, the Emperor raised him to the nobility; his own century had already called him the German Shakespeare.
The house on the Esplanade, 1802–1826
In 1802 he moved his family into a roomy house built in 1777 for a merchant, on what is now the Schillerstraße, with his own rooms in the mansard under the roof. He died there on 9 May 1805, in the study, in the bed that still stands in it; Charlotte lived on in the house until her death in 1826. The museum shows the house from the servants' quarters through the family's rooms to the study, with original furnishings and pieces of the period.
Two graves, 1805–2008
He was buried in the night of 11 to 12 May 1805 in the Kassengewölbe on the Jakobskirchhof, the vault the court kept for people of rank without a grave of their own. In 1827 the grand duke had what were taken to be his remains moved to the Fürstengruft, to lie beside Goethe. In 2008 a genetic study concluded that neither of the two skulls kept as Schiller's could be his, and the coffin in the Fürstengruft has stood empty since — his resting place is unknown, and the two vaults are visited together.
Questions visitors ask
- How long did Schiller live in Weimar?
- Five and a half years: he moved his family to Weimar on 3 December 1799 and died there on 9 May 1805, at forty-five.
- Where did Schiller live in Weimar?
- From 1802 in the house on the Esplanade — today's Schillerstraße — a merchant's house of 1777 with his own rooms in the mansard. It is a museum today, shown from the servants' quarters to the study in which he died.
- Which plays did Schiller write in Weimar?
- Maria Stuart and Die Jungfrau von Orleans in 1801, Die Braut von Messina in 1803 and Wilhelm Tell in 1804. Die Räuber, Don Karlos and the Wallenstein trilogy came before Weimar; the Wallenstein was finished in Jena in 1799, the year he moved.
- Did Schiller write the Ode to Joy in Weimar?
- No — An die Freude was written in the summer and autumn of 1785 near Leipzig, out of the new friendship with Christian Gottfried Körner, fourteen years before Schiller came to Weimar.
- How did Goethe and Schiller become friends?
- Through a magazine. In 1794 Goethe agreed to write for Schiller's new monthly, Die Horen, the letters that followed became a friendship, and from 1799 the two ran the Weimar stage together until Schiller's death.
- Where is Schiller buried?
- Nobody knows. He was buried in the night of 11 to 12 May 1805 in the Kassengewölbe on the Jakobskirchhof; in 1827 remains believed to be his were moved to the Fürstengruft beside Goethe; in 2008 genetic testing showed that neither of the skulls kept as his could be, and the coffin in the Fürstengruft has stood empty since.
Famous Quotes
“Only through Beauty's morning gate, dost thou enter the land of Knowledge.”
“The dignity of mankind is in your hands; protect it!”
“Live with your century; but do not be its creature. Work for your contemporaries; but create what they need, not what they praise.”
Notable Works & Achievements
William Tell
Ode to Joy
Mary Stuart
Intrigue and Love
The Maid of Orleans
On the Aesthetic Education of Man
The Gods of Greece
Connected Places in Weimar
Schillerstraße 12, 99423 Weimar
He bought it in 1802 and died in its top-floor study in 1805.
Theaterplatz, 99423 Weimar
He stands in bronze beside Goethe on the square outside the theatre they ran together.
Am Jakobskirchhof, 99423 Weimar
His actual burial, in the night of 11–12 May 1805, in a vault the court kept for people of rank without a grave.
Historischer Friedhof am Poseckschen Garten, 99423 Weimar
Where the town moved him in 1827 — though the remains it moved have been shown not to be his.
Anger, 99084 Erfurt
He was a guest at Haus Dacheröden on the Anger in the years when Caroline von Dacheröden kept house there.
Jenaer Straße 1, 99425 Weimar
The archive carries his name alongside Goethe's and holds material of his.
Schillerstraße 9, 99423 Weimar
One of the shop's regular customers in the classical decades.
Schillerstraße 12, 99423 Weimar
Raised for an exhibition about his life and work; that display has since moved on.
Schillerstraße 25, 07407 Rudolstadt
Schillergäßchen 2, 07745 Jena
He bought the house in March 1797 and spent three summers here with his family, writing parts of Wallenstein and Maria Stuart and the ballads for the Musenalmanach.
Historical Context
His six Weimar years, 1799 to 1805, are the period at its most concentrated.
For roughly sixty years a duchy of a few thousand people held the centre of German literature, because its ruler kept inviting writers to live there and then gave them jobs. That is the whole mechanism, and it ran from Goethe's arrival in 1775 to his death in 1832.
Read more about this period →Quick Facts
1759
1805
German
On stage
On stage
Schauspiel · Robin Ormond
After Schiller's unfinished novel — the ghost-seer rather than the dramatist, and still unmistakably him.
The other, from Marbach — and for once the evening lets him win rounds.
Kabarett
The evening is his: the house bills it as "eine wahre Ode an die Freude".
Friedrich Schiller
The whole evening is his words — the prose and the poems, with the ode everyone knows for a title.
Ulf Annel
The subject, and the evening's open question: whether the poet of these passionate scenes was a passionate man.
The other half of the partnership the evening watches from the acting side — and the author of the line about garlands it answers.
Events
Events
Fridays at 18:00 and Saturdays at 16:00, about ninety minutes
Daily at 10:00 and 14:00, about two hours
Historical figures
Historical figures
1749–1832 • writer • statesman • naturalist
They ran the Weimar stage together from 1799 until Schiller's death.
1824–1897 • grand duchess • collector • archive founder
His literary estate was given to her archive in 1889 by his von Gleichen-Rußwurm descendants, which is how the institution came to carry both poets' names.
In Weimar's history
In Weimar's history
He died in the study on the top floor of his own house, three years after buying it, and was buried in the night of 11–12 May in a vault the court kept for people of rank who had no grave of their own.
His death, in the study of the house he had bought three years earlier.
He died in the house on the Frauenplan he had rented since 1782, and on 26 March was carried into the ducal vault to lie beside Schiller.
He was laid beside Schiller, who had been carried into the vault five years earlier.
Stages and venues
Theaterplatz 2, 99423 Weimar
From 1799 until his death in 1805 he worked at this stage beside Goethe.
Around Weimar
19 km East
Schiller was a professor at the university from 1789, married in Jena in 1790 and lived in the town until 1799.