Schiller's Maria Stuart

Abstract

In 1959, his bicentenary year, Schiller attracted most attention outside Germany through his play Maria Stuart, which recently, according to Benno von Wiese, "in Paris was a greater success than any play by a living German dramatist could have been." In New York, Tyrone Guthrie produced a new prose version' which was featured in the 1959 Vancouver Festival and has since been touring the continent. In two major respects the Guthrie adaptation diverges from the original intention. First, the two queens are humanized—even sentimentalized: for instance, in Elizabeth's affectionate dependence on Leicester and in Mary's fear of facing the scaffold. Secondly, the historical element is emphasized, suggesting that the producer saw this work in the tradition of Shakespeare's historical plays. Both these emphases tend to obscure the deeper philosophical meaning. Ouly in a superficial sense is Maria Stuart an historical play, for Schiller used historical material freely to clothe his ideas. Familiarity with Elizabethan history may even be an obstacle to appreciation. As Tonnelat said of Schiller's Maid of Orleans: "A Frenchman will always have some difficulty in enjoying Schiller's drama, if he does not begin by admitting that the heroine has received the name Joan of Arc ouly by accident and that we have to do in fact with a purely imaginary being. "2 Although Elizabeth and Maria are not "purely imaginary beings" to the same degree as Schiller's Joan, the more glaring deviations from historical fact—the youthfulness of both queens,3 the meeting between them, Elizabeth's character—may irk us, whereas a German audience can readily accept Schiller's history—the more so since he held the Chair of History at Jena.