Image of Mary Stuart in Tragedies of C. H. Spiess and F. Schiller

Abstract

Features of the interpretation of events related to the life and death of the Queen of Scotland, Mary Stuart (1542-1587), in the works of the outstanding German playwright F. Schiller (1759-1805) and his contemporary, the famous writer Christian Heinrich Spiess (Spiess, 1755-1799) is considered. The originality in the image of the last days of Mary by C. H. Spiess and F. Schiller is emphasized. The question is raised about the various literary and aesthetic positions of both German writers. Attention is paid to the review of works in various genres and genres of art dedicated to Mary Stuart by Spiess and Schiller. First, an analysis of the work of the author, which is secondary in the framework of German and European literature, is presented, since Spiess wrote his tragedy many years before the great German playwright. It is shown that Schiller’s tragedy was written with a characteristic thirst for epic coverage of reality, while the stage play of Spiess is more focused on the events of the last days of Mary Stuart’s life and turns into a chamber work. The results of the study can be used when giving lecture courses on foreign literature of the XVIII-XXI centuries, special courses on the literature of Western European countries, on the problems of classical literature in Germany, as well as literature of the Western European Enlightenment and pre-romanticism.