Zwischen Intertextualität und Interpretation: Friedrich Schillers dramaturgische Arbeiten 1796-1805 by Marion Müller

Abstract

MLR, 10I.4, 2006 I I69 sentiments uttered (by characters who are frequently to be understood asmouthpieces of their creator) and the language inwhich they are expressed. Summary judgements are offered: Fiesko has been underrated, Kabale und Liebe overrated; Maria Stuart 'erreicht nicht die Qualitit anderer Dramen Schillers' (which, apart from Wallen stein?). Michael Hofmann is taken to task for not discussing DieJungfrau von Orleans or Die Braut vonMessina in his recent Schiller: Epoche - Werk - Wirkung (Munich: Beck, 2003), thereby ignoring 'diewohlbegriindete Selbsteinschatzung des Dichters' (p. 230 n.), but Oellers goes on to concede that Schiller's intentions inDie Jungfrau von Orleans are not made sufficiently clear and that inDie Braut von Messina they were effectively impossible to achieve, despite the unsurpassed stylistic virtuosity of the latter work. The prose works (only Der Verbrecher and Der Geisterseher) are presented in simi lar fashion; Oellers's concise account of Schiller's aesthetic philosophy is no more (but perhaps no less) successful than others in guiding us through its complexities and contradictions. The poetry perhaps fares best, in a chronological survey with brief but often helpful comments on individual poems, and welcome attention is drawn to Schiller's technical skill-his use of awide range of metres, his unsurpassed mastery of the elegiac distich. The much-maligned 'Lied von der Glocke' is, it is admitted, perhaps valuable only as a historical document, but it is to be regretted that its old-fashioned sentiments distract from its formal accomplishment, which includes 'schone Verse von iuf3erster Schlichtheit' (p. 380). (Evidently Schiller has not suc ceeded here in 'den Stoff durch die Form vertilgen', but when he did, inDie Braut von Messina, the results were no less problematic.) 'Nanie', one of Schiller's best poems (yes, surely!), ends 'mit einer nur schwach trostenden Versicherung [. . .] Weit also ist es mit dem Dichter der Ideale gekommen' (p. 38I); but three years later, in the preface toDie Braut, Schiller is still (or again) trying to persuade us (or himself ?)that Art can actually do more than this. The biographical chapter is illustrated with portraits, the chapter on the plays with photographs of twentieth-century stage productions. Some of these speak for themselves, others will be highly evocative for those who have seen the performances in question, but other readers might perhaps have welcomed some elucidatory com ments: Hollmann's Kabale und Liebe of I969 with its actors dwarfed by the colossal figure of the Duke, the increasingly bedraggled common soldiery of Heyme's Wal lenstein of I970, Andrea Breth's Maria Stuart of 200I with Burleigh and Leicester showing their true feelings for their royal mistress by ostentatiously smoking in her presence. WORCESTERCOLLEGE, OXFORD FRANCISLAMPORT Zwischen Intertextualitdt und Interpretation: Friedrich Schillers dramaturgische Ar beiten I796-I805. By MARION MULLER. Karlsruhe: Universitatsverlag Karls ruhe. 2004. 360 pp. E44.50. ISBN 3-937300-2I-X. Studies of Schiller's dramaturgical work, both written and practical, are compara tively rare nowadays and therefore inprinciple particularly welcome. Marion Muller's doctoral dissertation suffers from the constraints of that exercise. She tries to combine a literary-historical approach with a theoretical one. Her aim is to examine how far Schiller's stage adaptations fitwith his prevalent critical image as a dramatist who above all was writing to fulfil his own vision of high art (her conclusion being that they suggest his flexible and pragmatic approach to a difficult task). She then moves on to devote almost fifty pages to a theoretical discussion of intertextuality in order to underpin an attempt to categorize this very varied corpus of adaptations, though II70 Reviews in fact this section bears little fruit in the rest of the study, which is predominantly empirical. After outlining Schiller's dramatic theory and its possible dramaturgical implications, she sketches the historical context of the adaptations through a survey of the history of theWeimar Court Theatre. Missing from her bibliography are two essential items that would have given her amuch more informed view of the lat ter, namely C. A. H. Burkhardt's Das Repertoire desWeimarischen Hoftheaters unter Goethes Leitung, I791-I8I7 (Leipzig: Voss, I89I) and Bruno Satori-Neumann's Die Friihzeit desWeimarischen Hoftheaters unter Goethes Leitung (179i bis I798) (Berlin: Gesellschaft...