This play was the culmination early creativity Schiller and the quintessence humanistic ideas era of Enlightenment. Many critics consider it a literary revolutionary manifesto for future generations, Schiller's artistic rebellion against the orders of second Germany. half of the XVIII centuries.

Bourgeois drama is also called “bourgeois tragedy” or “sentimental play.” The birth of this genre is associated with social change, the pressure of capital on social foundations, and in literature - with an increased interest in nature human feelings. As a rule, at the center of the work are social and sentimental conflicts. In the foreground are virtue and the triumph of reason.

The plot of the play “Cunning and Love” turned out to be typical and simple-minded, although somewhat confusing. But it concentrates the main everyday problems of that era, which Schiller outlined in an extremely emotional and tragic way. The humanist writer exposed and exposed the vices of German society with his characteristic openness and sharpness. He already touched on these problems in “The Robbers,” but now he correlated the characters of the heroes and the episodes of action with real facts and prototypes.

Provincial life, treacherous intrigues and terrible crimes, luxury and debauchery of the ducal environment, as well as the hopeless poverty of the commoner - this is the situation in which love story two young people. The nobleman Ferdinand von Walter and the daughter of a simple musician, Louise Miller, represent different classes. The theme is as old as time, but is presented in a new way, with Schiller’s inherent ability to combine the comic and tragic, although the playwright himself treated this technique with a degree of irony. Just artistic methods classicism were still popular at that time.

The ardent feelings of the son of President Ferdinand for the bourgeois Louise, unfortunately, cannot be developed. They threaten to destroy all the plans of the eminent father, who intends to marry Ferdinand to the Duke's favorite Lady Milford. Therefore, the most sophisticated intrigues are used. Louise has been slandered for treason, and she must confess this to her lover. The President's plan was that Ferdinand would reject the dishonest bride. But the young man chose a different path; he could not survive the collapse of his faith in Louise’s purity and chose death for both.

Complexity of character is inherent in almost everyone acting persons dramas. In those years, Schiller already clearly understood that people’s actions are determined not only by their personal characteristics, but also by their place in society. Hence the noticeable inconsistency of the characters: the immoral behavior and generosity of Lady Milford, the love of power and glory of President von Walter does not prevent him from showing nobility in a moment of grief, the cowardly and humiliated old man Muller finds the strength to resist the insult of his daughter. Before Schiller, no one had demonstrated with such piercing power the trials that the human heart goes through.

The situation is further complicated by the conflict of classes. Ferdinand's father not only creates obstacles for his son in love, he also wants to assert himself at the expense of Louise's poor family, humiliating the girl and the old musician in every possible way. The behavior of the nobleman clearly proves the fact neglect upper class to commoners.

"Cunning and Love"

The idea of ​​creating a play about modern German reality first arose from Schiller in the guardhouse, where he was imprisoned by the Duke of Württemberg for his unauthorized absence in Mannheim for the performance of The Robbers. After escaping from Stuttgart, Schiller, wandering around Germany, worked on a play. The poet called it “a bold satire and mockery of the breed of jesters and scoundrels from the nobility” (letter to Dahlberg dated April 3, 1783). The little Duchy of Württemberg, the despotic, depraved Karl Eugene, his favorite Countess von Hohenheim, the minister Montmartin, depicted in the play under other names, retaining all their portrait resemblance, turned into grandiose generalized images, types of feudal Germany. The musty little world of a remote province, intrigue and crime, the luxury and debauchery of the ducal court and the appalling poverty of the people - this is the situation in which tragic story sublime love of two noble beings - Ferdinand and Louise.

Two social groups are contrasted in the play: on the one hand, the Duke (invisible to the viewer, but constantly invisibly present on the stage, connecting the tragic chain of events with his name); his minister von Walter, a cold, calculating careerist who killed his predecessor, capable of any crime in the name of his career; the Duke's mistress Lady Milford, a proud social beauty; the sneaky and sneaky Wurm, the president's secretary; the pompous dandy, stupid and cowardly Marshal von Kalb. On the other hand, the honest family of the musician Miller, his simple-minded wife, his sweet, intelligent, sensitive daughter Louise. To this group belongs Lady Milford's old valet, who contemptuously rejects the purse of money offered to him by his mistress.

Before us are two worlds, separated by a deep chasm. Some live in luxury, oppress others, are vicious, greedy, selfish; others are poor, persecuted, oppressed, but honest and noble. To them, to these destitute people, came Ferdinand, the son of the ducal minister, a major at twenty years old, a nobleman with a five-hundred-year-old pedigree.

He came to them not only because he was captivated by the beauty of Louise; he understood the depravity of the moral principles of his class. The university, with its new educational ideas, inspired in him faith in the strength of the people, communication with which enlightens and, as it were, elevates a person (Schiller strongly emphasizes this). Ferdinand in the Miller family found that moral harmony, that spiritual clarity that he could not find in his own environment. There are two women in front of Ferdinand. They both love him. One is a brilliant secular beauty, the second is an unassuming city dweller, beautiful in her simplicity and spontaneity. And Ferdinand can only love this girl from the people, only with her is he able to find moral satisfaction and peace of mind.

Schiller's play was staged for the first time on May 9, 1784 at the Mannheim Theater. Her success was extraordinary. The audience saw modern Germany in front of them. Those glaring injustices that were happening before everyone’s eyes, but which they were afraid to talk about, now appeared vividly and convincingly stage images. The revolutionary, rebellious thought of the poet sounded from the stage of the theater in the exciting speeches of his heroes. “My ideas about greatness and happiness are markedly different from yours,” Ferdinand says to his father in the play. The actor’s speech was addressed to the chairs where representatives of the nobility of the then Germany sat: “You achieve prosperity almost always at the cost of the death of another. Envy, fear, hatred - these are the dark mirrors in which the greatness of the ruler is put to shame... Tears, curses, despair - this is the monstrous meal with which these illustrious lucky ones delight themselves.”

Composition

After five years of wandering and constant need, Schiller settled in Weimar, where Goethe lived. The friendship that soon arose between them enriched both humanly and creatively.

The pinnacle of Schiller's early work was the drama "Cunning and Love" (1783), which the author classified as a "philistine tragedy" genre. The term bourgeois tragedy, like bourgeois drama, appeared in the 18th century to designate plays of serious, conflictual content from the life of people of the so-called third estate. Previously, characters of this kind could only be portrayed in comedies. Their appearance in plays that are serious, not comic, and sometimes tragic nature testified to the democratization of art. Schiller enriched this type of drama, giving his work a high freedom-loving meaning and a new scale: the fate of his heroes, subjects of one of the dwarf German principalities, is connected with the pre-revolutionary atmosphere of the time. F. Engels called this play “the first German politically tendentious drama,” including Schiller as an ideologically active artist on a par with Aristophanes, Dante, and Cervantes.

At first glance, the drama “Cunning and Love” may seem less ambitious than “The Robbers” or “The Fiesco Conspiracy” (Schiller’s second drama, dedicated to the rebellion of the Republicans against the power of the Genoese Doge in the 16th century). The action here takes place within the borders of a German principality, in the sphere personal life: this is about tragic fate two young people who fell in love with each other - Louise Miller, the daughter of a simple music teacher, and Ferdinand von Walter, the son of the president (first minister). But behind this lie the contradictions of the social system of Germany at that time. The drama is based on a clash between antagonistic classes: the feudal aristocracy, then still all-powerful, and the petty, powerless burghers (third estate). The play is deeply realistic. She recreates paintings German life end of the 18th century The musician Miller's family is similar to the one in which Schiller grew up. He knew well the morals of the court aristocracy, and experienced the oppression of tyranny. The characters have real prototypes from Karl Eugene's circle.

In this drama, Schiller almost abandoned the rhetorical pathos that was so characteristic of his first dramatic works. The rhetoric heard in the speeches of Ferdinand, and sometimes Louise, does not determine the general tone here - it becomes a natural sign of the language of young people inspired by progressive ideas. The language of other characters has a different character. The speech of the musician Miller and his wife is very expressive: spontaneous, lively, sometimes rude.

Ferdinand and Louise dream of uniting their destinies despite class barriers. These barriers, however, are strong. The principality is ruled by the aristocracy, robbery and robbery reign, rights ordinary people are trampled upon brazenly and cynically. Young men are sold as soldiers, destined for reprisals against the American people (the North American states at that time were fighting for their independence from England). Pomp princely court paid for with the tears and blood of his subjects.

The collisions developed by Schiller go beyond those typical of “philistine drama.” “Cunning and Love” is characterized by a revolutionary pathos, which is not so characteristic of this genre. Here, as in “Robbers,” the influence of the pre-storm atmosphere on the eve is clearly felt French Revolution, but at the same time the backwardness of Germany was demonstrated in all its ugliness. The love of Ferdinand and Louise resists inhumane orders, but cannot overcome them. President Walter’s calculations do not include his son’s happiness: he sees him as the husband of Lady Milford, the Duke’s former mistress. The president's secretary Wurm, who appreciated her beauty, would not mind marrying Louise (Wurm is a “speaking” name, this word means: worm). The cunning, calculating Wurm, similar in his cold egoism to Franz Moor, willingly takes the initiative in the insidious intrigue being launched against Louise. To force the girl to abandon her lover, her parents are arrested and threatened with death; Louise's mother dies, unable to bear the experience, her father is in prison.

Ferdinand, youthfully impatient, inspired by love and the dream of social equality (Schiller endows him with the traits of a “stormy genius”), calls Louise to leave with him and promises her happiness. But Louise, faithful to Ferdinand, cannot leave her father. The daughter of poor parents, she is more bound by circumstances, her attachment to loved ones, and her sense of duty towards them. Ferdinand, brought up in a different environment, simply does not understand all this. Louise's refusal to leave with him means, as it seems to him, that she does not love him. He has no idea about other motives. Reviews of the drama wrote about Louise's timidity. But isn’t it necessary to have spiritual courage in order to sacrifice love for the sake of loved ones and not internally submit to someone else’s will?

Saving her father, Louise writes a “love letter” from dictation to one of the courtiers. Wurm is sure that Ferdinand, having found the letter, will himself abandon Louise. His calculation is partly justified: Ferdinand does not have enough faith in Louise to guess that the letter is forged. But he has enough strength not to change his love, not to give it up to desecration. He executes both himself and Louise.

“Cunning and Love” is a drama of high tragic sound. The love and death of Ferdinand and Louise make us remember the fate of Shakespeare's heroes Romeo and Juliet. It is difficult to imagine, however, that anyone, even Juliet herself, could dissuade Romeo of her love for him. Shakespeare's heroes are spiritually whole people. In Schiller, even ideal heroes do not have such integrity.

In the finale of Shakespeare's tragedy, the love of Romeo and Juliet overcomes the family feud that cost them their lives. In the finale of Schiller's drama, the dying Ferdinand extends his hand to the repentant president. But this motive is not organic to drama; it only testifies to Schiller’s enlightenment illusions. The power of love between two, as shown by the entire course of the action, cannot change the state of society. Another thing is impressive: love prevails over deceit. The images of Ferdinand and Louise are ultimately perceived as a symbolic embodiment of moral triumph high love over the base forces of evil.

The culmination of Schiller's early work is his third play - the "philistine tragedy" "Cunning and Love" (1783, original title"Louise Miller")

Schiller again turned to acutely modern issues, but this time he managed to avoid the hyperbolic conventions of the image that are inherent in The Robbers. The characters and episodes of the “philistine tragedy” are specifically related to real prototypes and facts that were well known to Schiller from his Württemberg years, but appear in his drama not in portraiture, but in a generalized form.

The political problem of despotism, the omnipotence of favorites, and the lack of rights of the burgher is closely intertwined with the moral and social problem. It's about about the barriers that class feudal society erects between lovers. Schiller's Rousseauian pathos clearly emerges here. The love of the nobleman Ferdinand von Walter, the son of an almighty dignitary - the president, for the daughter of a simple tradesman - musician Miller is not only unthinkable from the point of view of class ideas, but also threatens to violate personal plans President - the marriage of his son to the Duke's mistress Lady Milford. The instrument of intrigue, conceived by the Presidential Secretary Wurm (in German, “worm”), is the unlimited lawlessness perpetrated by the bearers of power. Under threat of her father's death or lifelong imprisonment, Louise writes from Wurm's dictation. love letter to the vulgar and insignificant noble marshal, who is planted on Ferdinand to prove to him the infidelity of his beloved. However, the outcome of the intrigue turns out to be different from what the president imagined - Ferdinand is unable to survive the collapse of his faith in Louise’s purity, he chooses death for her and himself.

The action develops intensely and economically - there is a clear sense of maturity in the play artistic skill Schiller. Only one episode has independent meaning, not related to the main development of the plot (at the first production it was removed for censorship reasons), is the valet's story about sending recruits to America: their lives paid for the jewelry donated to Lady Milford. This scene (d. 2, yavl. 2) carries a double ideological load: the reprisal of those protesting against the deportation of the brave souls is described with impressive force. What gives this story additional emphasis is that German recruits are sent to fight with the British forces against the rebel colonies.

The development of characters also indicates a deeper and more complex reflection of reality than before. The black and white colors that dominate in “Robbers” are replaced by a more diverse range. The old man Miller is especially vividly and truthfully depicted: in this humiliated poor musician, at the moment when his daughter is insulted, a sense of self-esteem awakens - he points to the door to the president, although he accompanies his speech with the usual respectful formulas and apologies. The concept of honor, which for the president and the marshal is identical to ranks, titles, royal favors, is filled with deep meaning for Miller and Louise. moral meaning, supported by their religious feeling. It is this moral consciousness that does not allow Louise to break her oath of silence and justify herself to Ferdinand. No wonder Wurm cynically reassures the president: “For people like them, the oath is everything.”

(1759 – 1805) entered into world literature as a participant in the Sturm and Drang movement. It was a protest of progressive burgher youth against the canons of classicism, a call for a vivid depiction of reality, a manifestation of passions.

Schiller is rightfully considered one of the most consistent supporters of lofty ideals: spiritual, moral, political and aesthetic. His tragedies, ballads, poems, and philosophical treatises are very diverse, and therefore always relevant. To this day, Schiller's plays have not left the stage of theaters all over the world. His bourgeois tragedy brought particular fame to the author. "Cunning and Love". It was painted in 1783 and was originally titled "Louise Miller".

This play became the culmination of Schiller's early work and the quintessence of the humanistic ideas of the Enlightenment. Many critics consider it a literary revolutionary manifesto for future generations, Schiller's artistic rebellion against the order of Germany in the second half of the 18th century.

Bourgeois drama is also called “bourgeois tragedy” or “sentimental play.” The birth of this genre is associated with social changes, the pressure of capital on social foundations, and in literature with an increased interest in the nature of human feelings. As a rule, at the center of the work are social and sentimental conflicts. In the foreground are virtue and the triumph of reason.

The plot of the play “Cunning and Love” turned out to be typical and simple-minded, although somewhat confusing. But it concentrates the main everyday problems of that era, which Schiller outlined in an extremely emotional and tragic way. The humanist writer exposed and exposed the vices of German society with his characteristic openness and sharpness. He already touched on these problems in “The Robbers,” but now he correlated the characters and action sequences with real facts and prototypes.

Provincial life, treacherous intrigues and terrible crimes, luxury and debauchery of the ducal environment, as well as the hopeless poverty of the commoner - this is the setting in which the love story of two young people unfolds. The nobleman Ferdinand von Walter and the daughter of a simple musician, Louise Miller, represent different classes. The theme is as old as time, but is presented in a new way, with Schiller’s inherent ability to combine the comic and tragic, although the playwright himself treated this technique with a degree of irony. It’s just that the artistic methods of classicism were still popular at that time.

The ardent feelings of the son of President Ferdinand for the bourgeois Louise, unfortunately, cannot be developed. They threaten to destroy all the plans of the eminent father, who intends to marry Ferdinand to the Duke's favorite Lady Milford. Therefore, the most sophisticated intrigues are used. Louise has been slandered for treason, and she must confess this to her lover. The President's plan was that Ferdinand would reject the dishonest bride. But the young man chose a different path; he could not survive the collapse of his faith in Louise’s purity and chose death for both.

Complexity of character is inherent in almost all the characters in the drama. In those years, Schiller already clearly understood that people’s actions are determined not only by their personal characteristics, but also by their place in society. Hence the noticeable inconsistency of the characters: the immoral behavior and generosity of Lady Milford, the love of power and glory of President von Walter does not prevent him from showing nobility in a moment of grief, the cowardly and humiliated old man Muller finds the strength to resist the insult of his daughter. Before Schiller, no one had demonstrated with such piercing power the trials that the human heart goes through.

The situation is further complicated by the conflict of classes. Ferdinand's father not only creates obstacles for his son in love, he also wants to assert himself at the expense of Louise's poor family, humiliating the girl and the old musician in every possible way. The behavior of the nobleman clearly proves the fact of the disdainful attitude of the upper class towards commoners.

Critics call “Cunning and Love” the pinnacle of Schiller’s Stürmer drama. In this play, the lover Ferdinand rebels against his fate and insurmountable circumstances. He suffers defeat, but only physically, not morally. The young man triumphs over his opponent, demonstrating fortitude. This image and the struggle for human rights are very characteristic of Germany in the 18th century. The situation of the burghers, class relations, family and everyday troubles were socially and politically interesting, so the play immediately grew from an everyday play into a bourgeois tragedy.

In the drama “Cunning and Love,” Schiller managed to quite deeply reveal the psychology of the characters, their complex relationships with each other and their place in society. But the main thing here is not the little details of real life using the example of specific characters, but a realistic depiction of “typical” circumstances: the treachery of the strong and the lack of rights of the weak. But the strong and the weak are not in spirit, but because of the social structure of Germany at that time.

It is very important for the author to find out the rights of the people and their ability to resist strong of the world this. The action of the play develops intensely; in this work the maturity of Schiller's artistic skill is already noticeable. The characters are described quite vividly and succinctly, in them you can easily read the author’s attitude towards his characters. In moments of special spiritual struggle and moral tension, Schiller chooses the most complex speech patterns. The characters in the play are often expressed in the language of the most sublime and inspired treatises.