Friedrich Schiller
Drama, Thought and Politics

Lesley Sharpe assesses Schiller's development as a dramatist, poet and thinker against the background of his life.

Lesley Sharpe (Author)

9780521030649, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 November 2006

404 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.53 kg

"Sharpe's interpretation of Schiller's plays in interesting and commendable...this is a fine work of scholarship." Denny McClelland

In this important study, Lesley Sharpe assesses Schiller's development as a dramatist, poet and thinker, and provides detailed discussions of all his major works, including his essays on aesthetics. His works are viewed against the social, political and literary background of the late eighteenth century. Spanning a period from the late 1770s to 1805 they explore the insistent themes of the age - the loss of tradition and authority, the individual's claim to self-expression and the search for stability. While the early works focus on the turbulent individual, Schiller later turns to the great public concerns of the French Revolutionary era - legitimacy and power, the exercise of freedom and the relationship between morality and politics. The aesthetic essays explore the vital role of art in integrating the aesthetic, moral and political realms.

Acknowledgments
Chronology
Note on text references
Introduction
1. Württemberg and Die Räuber
2. Mannheim: Fiesco and Kabale und Liebe
3. Early philosophy and poetry
4. Don Carlos
5. Weimar and Jena 1787–1792
6. The sublime and the beautiful
7. Aesthetic education
8. On the 'naive' and the 'sentimental'
9. The later poetry
10. Wallenstein
11. Weimar: the later dramas
12. Schiller and his public
Notes
Bibliography
Index of Schiller's works
General index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: plays & playwrights [DSG]