The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Iii Part 80

LITERALLY.

I shall _grieve down_ this blow, of that I'm conscious: What does not man grieve down?]

INTRODUCTION TO WILLIAM TELL

BY WILLIAM H. CARRUTH, PH.D.

Professor of Comparative Literature, Leland Stanford University

William Tell is the last complete drama written by Schiller, finished February 18, 1804, in the author's forty-fifth year and something over a year before his death. After this he completed only a pageant, _The Homage of the Arts_, although he was occupied with many plans for other plays, including _Demetrius_, founded on the career of the Russian pretender of this name, of which he left the first act.

_William Tell_ is the last of Schiller's five great dramas, a series beginning with _Wallenstein_, written within nine years, const.i.tuting, along with his ballads and many other poems, the work of what is called his "third period." This period was preceded by Schiller's chief prose works and the historical and philosophical studies preparatory thereto, together with considerable reading of Greek and English cla.s.sics, notably Homer and Shakespeare. The influence of his historical and critical studies and of this reading is evident in the dramas: _Wallenstein, Maria Stuart, The Maid of Orleans, The Bride of Messina, William Tell_. But of these, _William Tell_ stands apart in several ways.

For all of them Schiller made careful preliminary studies, but for none in such detail as for _Tell_. He had not only a remote historical material to deal with, but also a land and customs which he had never seen and which nevertheless he wished to present with great fidelity.

His chief source was the Swiss chronicler Tschudi, of the sixteenth century, from whom he took not only the main features of his action, but many touches of scenery and much actual phraseology. In addition he studied the Swiss historian Johannes von Mueller, maps and natural histories of Switzerland, and received also some oral notes from Goethe, to whom, in fact, he owed the original suggestion of dramatizing the story of William Tell.

Unlike the other dramas of Schiller's last period, _William Tell_ has no plot in the technical dramatic sense. There is no snare of circ.u.mstances laid which forces a hero, after vain attempts to elude or unloose it, to tear his way out at the cost of more or less innocent lives. We see the representatives of three small, freedom-loving democracies pushed beyond endurance by the outrages of tyranny, pledging mutual support in resisting these encroachments upon their liberties, and carrying out a successful resistance, aided by the wholly fortuitous a.s.sa.s.sination of the tyrannical emperor. We see, as a single instance of these oppressions, the arrogant caprice of the bailiff Gessler in demanding homage to the Austrian hat, his jealousy of the freeman Tell expressed in imposing as a penalty for neglected obeisance the shooting of an apple from his little son's head, the successful meeting of this test, and in turn Tell's vengeance through the exercise of this same prowess in shooting Gessler as he rides home through the Hohle Ga.s.se. Mingled with these elements we see the patriotic support of the common people by a native n.o.blewoman, Bertha von Brunneck, and her successful effort to win to this cause, through his love for her, the young Baron von Rudenz, whose uncle Attinghausen, always loyal to his people, hears in dying the news of his nephew's conversion, while with his last breath he prophesies the triumph of liberty. These three threads are woven into a single pattern through the element of the common cause. This is the unity of the action, which many critics have found wanting in the play.

Moreover these three plans of action cooperate, if not by deliberate foresight, yet by coincidence of time and purpose, and in some measure by common personages.

The theme of _William Tell_ had been used as early as the sixteenth century in one of the early popular pageants with which the modern German drama begins. These pageants occupied the whole of several days in presentation and employed, including all supernumeraries, as high as three hundred people. Schiller knew the old Tell Play and imbibed something of its spirit. He uses ma.s.ses of populace in _William Tell_ as in no other of his plays except the _Camp_ of the _Wallenstein_ trilogy. It may be that the influence of the old popular play together with the nature of his material led him to dispense here with the unity of action, the plot, and the expression of tragic guilt, which may be found in all his other later plays.

Along with keen appreciation, such as A.W. Schlegel's comment: "Imbued with the poetry of history, with a treatment true to nature and genuine, and, considering the poet's unfamiliarity with the country, astonishingly correct in local color," _William Tell_ met from the first much adverse criticism. This applied first of all to the looseness of connection already cited between the various elements of the action, and further, to the supposed superfluousness of the Parricide episode in the Fifth Act, to the alleged unnaturalness of Tell's long speeches and to the ign.o.ble nature of his a.s.sault upon Gessler from ambush. The last was given the poet in the legend of Tell, which in general he took over with pious reverence as authentic history. The Parricide episode was introduced, partly because it was actually there in history and helped to complete the victory of the peasants' cause, partly in order to give a better color to Tell's own act, as being less prompted by selfish considerations. The criticism of Tell's speeches, whether his pithy, epigrammatic sentences in Act I, Scenes 1 and 3, and elsewhere, or his long monologue in Act IV, Scene 3, applies to the whole const.i.tution of the conventional stage with just as much validity against Shakespeare's _Julius Caesar_ and _Hamlet_ as against _William Tell_. True, it is not plausible that Tell recited 100 lines of beautiful poetry while lying in wait for Gessler; neither is it likely that Prince Hamlet talked to himself in pentameters.

In general this play is more objective than Schiller's other plays, and this was a quality which he admired in Goethe's work and strove for in his own. Despite the technical criticisms, we find that the play is filled with beautiful descriptions and n.o.ble sentiments n.o.bly expressed. On the stage most of the scenes are exceedingly fascinating and effective. These beauties are quite sufficient to hide the lack of unity, and the total effect with the majority of the people is a high esthetic and ethical gratification. The play has remained one of the most popular pieces on the German stage and has had an incalculable effect in the cultivation of national feeling.

WILLIAM TELL

DRAMATIS PERSONae

HERMANN GESSLER, _Governor of Schwytz and Uri_.

WERNER, _Baron of Attinghausen, free n.o.ble of Switzerland_.

ULRICH VON RUDENZ, _his Nephew_.

WERNER STAUFFACHER, } CONRAD HUNN, } HANS AUF DER MAUER, } JORG IM HOFE, } _People of Schwytz_.

ULRICH DER SCHMIDT, } JOST VON WEILER, } ITEL REDING, }

WALTER FuRST, WILLIAM TELL, } RoSSELMANN, _the Priest_,} PETERMANN, _Sacristan_, } _of Uri_.

KUONI, _Herdsman_, } WERNI, _Huntsman_, } RUODI, _Fisherman_, }

ARNOLD OF MELCHTHAL, CONRAD BAUMGARTEN, } MEYER VON SARNEN, } STRUTH VON WINKELRIED, } _of Unterwald_.

KLAUS VON DER FLUE, } BURKHART AM BUHEL, } ARNOLD VON SEWA, }

PFEIFFER OF LUCERNE.

KUNZ OF GERSAU.

JENNI, _Fisherman's son_.

SEPPI, _Herdsman's son_.

GERTRUDE, _Stauffacher's wife_.

HEDWIG, _wife of Tell, daughter of Furst_.

BERTHA OF BRUNECK, _a rich heiress_.

ARMGART, } MECHTHILD, } ELSBETH, } _Peasant women_.

HILDEGARD, }

WALTER, } _Tell's Sons_.

WILLIAM, }

FRIESSHARDT, } _Soldiers_.

LEUTHOLD, }

RUDOLPH DER HARRAS, _Gessler's master of the horse_.

JOHANNES PARRICIDA, _Duke of Suabia_.

STUSSI, _Overseer_.

THE MAYOR OF URI.

A COURIER.

MASTER STONEMASON, COMPANION AND WORKMEN.

TASKMASTER.

A CRIER.

MONKS OF THE ORDER OF CHARITY.

HORs.e.m.e.n OF GESSLER AND LANDENDERG.