Man, I said to myself, with November in mind and lost in Schiller, you can't stand in front of the people and give a lecture in a sedate tone, you can't talk about anything clever about freeze-dried on this occasion? Didn't you read Schiller at all? Has he left you indifferent, or have you gone through the fire of his thoughts and dramatic imaginations? Did you remain numb like a rotten beam, or did you, at least sometimes, get vibrations? Look at this smooth, bleached paper, look at those black, rigid letters on it - hey, you little angular ink fellows, slept long enough, here comes Schiller, get moving, who is leading the dance?
Of course there are people who only smile tiredly when they hear the name Schiller. Those who feign an academic interest or allow themselves to be carried away into condescending half-praise, perhaps as a protest against an unpopular Schiller cult, of which, however, not much has been left lately. But how can you muster up so much detachment and reserve when it comes to Schiller? Anyone who reads it, who primarily reads his dramas and is not carried away, who does not feel this concentrated power, who does not see this tense arc tremble, can probably not be helped by me.
But at least as a trial he should step out of his high vantage point or from his stomped standpoint and take a look at the Mannheim theater, where the premiere of “The Robbers” took place on January 13, 1782: “The theater was like a madhouse, rolling eyes, Clenched fists, stamping feet, hoarse screams in the auditorium!
Strangers fell sobbing into each other's arms, women staggered to the door, on the verge of fainting. "
I grind my teeth while reading
A strange smile appears on the faces of today's distant Schiller skeptics. They are used to the fact that in the theater it is not the auditorium but the stage that resembles a madhouse, while they themselves sit in the audience, yawning. In the past two centuries the earth's atmosphere has warmed; However, the cultural mood in Europe has cooled down considerably for reasons that we can guess: Nobody has fainted while going to the theater for a long time.
It seems to be true what Schiller, who at first was perhaps a little envious and still hostile to Goethe, wrote to him, namely, "that the excellent is a power, that it can only act as a power on selfish minds, that it can act against the excellent can give no freedom but love ”.
And so it is now: I sometimes grind my teeth while reading, especially after Schiller his disregard for Christiane Vulpius and otherwise: Je l'aime et je m'incline.