1 - Prelude—Pre-occupation Bonaparte: Historical and Literary Conquerors in Schiller’s Life, Thought, and Works

Summary

For you, Conqueror, my breast swells,

To curse you with the curse of the glowing thirst for vengeance

—Schiller, “The Conqueror” (1776/1777)

We stand in defense of our land,

Of our women, our children!

—Schiller, William Tell (1804)

All the indications in Friedrich Schiller’s (1759–1805) distinctively rebellious oeuvre (1776–1804) suggest that he was the most likely German thinker to both despise Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) and still find hope in his historical function. Yet, curiously, Schiller never once mentions the French conqueror by name in any of his extant writings. Peter-André Alt describes Schiller’s avoidance of Bonaparte as an expression of his “innere Distanz” (inward distance) toward the conqueror, and Walter Müller-Seidel attributes Schiller’s “Schweigen über Napoleon” (silence regarding Napoleon) to his adherence to the “Zeitstil der Napoleongegner” (period practice of Napoleon dissidents); neither assessment should come as a surprise. As remarks in his letters indicate, Schiller was a cautious letter writer who was keenly aware of his audiences and had discovered at a young age that it was wiser to publish political and religious criticism in the allegorical register of poetry or in dramas and essays à clef—which privilege the more universal over the specific—than to trust the confidentiality of correspondence. Avoiding being arrested in Bonaparte’s police state—as were anti-Napoleonic Austrian author Heinrich Joseph von Collin (1771/72–1811) and Prussian author Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811), or arrested and executed without a trial, as was Austrian publisher Johann Philipp Palm (1768–1806)—is self-evidently a compelling motivation to leave politics out of letters, as was the case with publishing anonymously among Napoleon dissidents. As a result, the scholar needs to look beyond Schiller’s correspondence for indications of his attitude toward Bonaparte, as Müller-Seidel did in his 2009 book Friedrich Schiller und die Politik (Schiller and Politics). Whereas Müller-Seidel’s compelling register of circumstantial evidence for Schiller’s negative attitude toward Bonaparte logically focuses on the period from the beginning of Bonaparte’s rule to Schiller’s death (1799–1805), the present essay focuses first on Schiller’s decades-long pre-Napoleonic history of published expressions of hostility toward historical conquerors before dealing with Schiller’s attitude toward Bonaparte.