Charlie Rose

REMant  07/02/2009 04:58 PM Report

Schiller was a revolutionary of an anti-Herder, anti-provincial, sentimental sort, who, desiring to become a clergyman was pressed first into the study of law and then medicine by the Protestant ruler of his home state, fled and like many intellectuals was forced into a life on the run. Typically, he greeted the French Revolution with enthusiasm, but turned against the Terror. Rossini and Verdi also made his plays into operas, Puccini motivated by another. Beethoven set one of his poems in his 9th Symphony, so also Schubert and Brahms, and his writing inspired several more. This mid-career effort dating from 1800 formed the basis for Donizetti's Maria Stuarda.

Mary, however, stood not only for a return to the Inquisitional proclivities of Bloody Mary, but also absolutism, feudalism and financial ruin, in general. "Cosmopolitanism" being the predominant British view at this time, it is hard to avoid the idea that its revival is intended for propaganda. The contest was not only for the throne, but also the religion and independence of England, itself, and to a large extent the two were merely pawns in the wider scope of history. Mary's execution against Elizabeth's orders hastened the Spanish Armada. One could hardly do better to understand the forces of the time than to consult the balanced and highly readable account by Bindoff in the Pelican History of England, altho he does not do full justice to the religious intricacies.

Thomas Carlyle, in his Life of Friedrich Schiller (1824), gave us his verdict on the play:

"This tragedy will not detain us long. It is upon a subject, the incidents of which are now getting trite, and the moral of which has little that can peculiarly recommend it. To exhibit the repentance of a lovely but erring woman, to show us how her soul may be restored to its primitive nobleness, by sufferings, devotion and death, is the object of Maria Stuart. It is a tragedy of sombre and mournful feelings; with an air of melancholy and obstruction pervading it; a looking backward on objects of remorse, around on imprisonment, and forward on the grave. Its object is undoubtedly attained. We are forced to pardon and to love the heroine; she is beautiful, and miserable, and lofty-minded; and her crimes, however dark, have been expiated by long years of weeping and woe. Considering also that they were the fruit not of calculation, but of passion acting on a heart not dead, though blinded for a time, to their enormity, they seem less hateful than the cold-premeditated villany of which she is the victim. Elizabeth is selfish, heartless, envious; she violates no law, but she has no virtue, and she lives triumphant: her arid, artificial character serves by contrast to heighten our sympathy with her warmhearted, forlorn, ill-fated rival. These two Queens, particularly Mary, are well delineated: their respective qualities are vividly brought out, and the feelings they were meant to excite arise within us. There is also Mortimer, a fierce, impetuous, impassioned lover; driven onward chiefly by the heat of his blood, but still interesting by his vehemence and unbounded daring. The dialogue, moreover, has many beauties; there are scenes which have merited peculiar commendation. Of this kind is the interview between the Queens; and more especially the first entrance of Mary, when, after long seclusion, she is once more permitted to behold the cheerful sky. In the joy of a momentary freedom, she forgets that she is still a captive; she addresses the clouds, the 'sailors of the air,' who 'are not subjects of Elizabeth,' and bids them carry tidings of her to the hearts that love her in other lands. Without doubt, in all that he intended, Schiller has succeeded; Maria Stuart is a beautiful tragedy; it would have formed the glory of a meaner man, but it cannot materially alter his. Compared with Wallenstein its purpose is narrow, and its result is common. We have no manners or true historical delineation. The figure of the English court is not given; and Elizabeth is depicted more like one of the French Medici, than like our own politic, capricious, coquettish, imperious, yet on the whole truehearted, 'good Queen Bess.' With abundant proofs of genius, this tragedy produces a comparatively small effect, especially on English readers. We have already wept enough for Mary Stuart, both over prose and verse; and the persons likely to be deeply touched with the moral or the interest of her story, as it is recorded here, are rather a separate class than men in general. Madame de Staël, we observe, is her principal admirer."