The letters about �Don Carlos�

In these letters, Schiller presents to us some of his methods for weaving deception, sexual intrigues, love, friendship��.into the characters of the two principal heroes in order to lead them to the desired dramatic effect. It is a very insightful journey

First letter

 

You are telling me, dear friend, that the judgments expressed, until now, about Don Carlos have given you still not enough satisfaction, and are holding as reason for this situation that the greatest part of the same judgments are omitting the specific point of view of the author. It seems to you, still, really possible to save certain daring passages which critique held for untenable; you have some reserves which have been strongly expressed against the cohesion of the play and wherever such reserves are not completely answered, hence, they are suspected and criticised. In most of the comments, you found much lesser the sagacity of the people judging than their own satisfaction in expressing such judgments as great discoveries, without allowing themselves to be disturbed by the most natural thoughts, that mistakes which are obvious to the most stupid person immediately, might also have been well visible to the author who among his readers, seldom is the least educated; and that these mistakes concern, hence, lesser the matter itself than the grounds which determined him into making them.

 

These grounds can, however, be insufficient, can rely on a unilateral way of presentation: however, the concern of the person who judges, has been to show this insufficiency, this one-sidedness, in view of acquiring, differently, consideration from the same person, to whom he presses himself as a judge or offers himself as a counsel. However, dear friend, does it ultimately matter to the author, whether the person who judges him had expertise or not? Whether he has proven more or less acumen? He may make that up himself. It would be too terrible for the author and his work, if he allows the divination talent and approval of his critiques to have an effect on his work; if he made the impression of the same work dependent on qualities which fuse only in a very few minds. It is one of the most deficient conditions, in which an artwork can find itself, if it is put to the arbitrariness of the observer, what interpretation he will make of it, and when it needed further help to put it back in the right standpoint. Would you hint at me that my standpoint found itself, in this case; then, you have said something very bad about it and you leave it to me to prove it, once again, more precisely from this standpoint. What mattered, hence, so it seems to me, preferably, is to inquire whether everything that is necessary to understand the same play is included in it; and whether it is provided in such clear expressions that it was easy for the reader to recognize it. Allow it to please you, then, dear friend, that I converse for a long time about this subject.

 

The play has become estranged to me, I find myself, now, so to speak, in a middle state between the artist and his observer, through which it will, maybe, possible to me to reconcile the trusted acquaintance with his subject of the author with the impartiality of the observer. „It can happen, in general – and I find it necessary to mention this – it can happen that I have aroused in the first acts other expectations that I have fulfilled only in the last acts. The novel of St Real, maybe also my own expressions about them in the first issue of “Thalia”, may have allowed the reader to think from a standpoint, from which it can not be observed any more, now. During the time, namely, that I worked on it, which because of many interruptions lasted a rather long time, many things in my personality has changed. The different destinies, which during this time, went through my manner of thinking and feeling, must have necessarily also affected this work. What has motivated me, in the beginning, preferably, to write this same work, affected me, subsequently, already in a weaker manner and at the end, only hardly still. New ideas which, in the meantime, came onto me, chased the previous ones; Carlos himself has fallen into my favour, but maybe not on any other ground than because I was pushed too much towards him for years and for the opposite reason, Marquis Posa has taken his place.

 

Hence, it so happened that I wrote the fourth and fifth acts with a really different heart. However, the first three acts were already in the hands of the public, the disposition of the whole play was not any more to be disturbed – I had, hence, either really to weaken the play (and the smallest part of my readers would have, hence, really thanked me for that), or I must be well accommodating the second half to the first one as much as I could. If this is not happening everywhere in the play in the happiest manner, hence, it would serve somehow as a consolation to me that a more skilful hand than mine would not have succeeded it much better. The main mistake was that I have indulged a too long time with the play; a dramatic work can, however, and should only be the fruit of a unique summer. The plan was also too broad for the limits and rules of a dramatic work. This plan, for example, demanded that Marquis Posa had the most unlimited trust in Philip; however, this extraordinary effect was allowed me to be displayed, in the construction of the play, only in a unique scene. This information, maybe, will justify me with my friends, however, not with art. You would only conclude, in that aspect, hence, why the so many declamations from the critiques, from this side, have raised        a storm against me.

 

Second letter

 

The character of Marquis Posa is, almost throughout, been hold for too idealistic, in how much extent this affirmation has a ground, will arise, then, at best, when people relate the specific way of behaving of this human being to its true content. I have to deal here, as you see, with two opposed parties. To those who would have simply excluded him from the class of natural creatures, it must, hence, be proved how much he is in cohesion with human nature, how much his sentiments as well as his actions flow from very human impulses and are grounded in the concatenation of external circumstances, to the ones who give him the name of a divine human being, I need only to draw their attention on some facts about him, which are really very human.

 

The sentiments which the Marquis expressed, the philosophy which drives him, the much-loved feelings which enliven him, no matter how much they are elevated above the daily life, can not well be considered as blunt presentations of what banned him rightfully from the class of natural creatures. For, what in a human mind can not receive an existence and what creation of the mind can not mature, in a glowing heart, into passion? Also, it cannot be his actions, no matter how rarely they may happen which have found their match in History itself, for the sacrifice of the Marquis for his friend has little or nothing precursory before the heroic death of a Curtius, Regulus, and others. Unfairness and impossibility must depend, hence, either on the contradiction of these manners with those of the former era or on their powerlessness and their lack of liveliness to really burst into such actions.

 

I cannot, hence, understand otherwise the objections which will be made against the naturalness of this character, than by the fact that a human being such as the Marquis Posa could have been only thought of in the century of Philip II – that thoughts of this kind cannot so easily, as it happens here, transform themselves into willpower and act – and that an ideal enthusiasm cannot be realized with such consistency, cannot be accompanied, in the act, with such energy. What people object to this character, except the century in which I let him exist, appears to me, to speak much more for than against him. In line with all the great minds, he comes into being between obscurity and light, as an outstanding, isolated appearance. The standpoint where he forms himself, is the general effervescence of minds, the battle of prejudices with reason, the anarchy of opinions, the dawning of truth – the eternal birthplace of extraordinary human beings. The ideas of freedom and human nobility which projected a happy fortuity, maybe a convenient education in this pure, organized, receptive soul, are astonishing with their novelty and acted with all the forces of the unusual and surprise on them, even the mystery under which they would, apparently, be announced to them, must be raising the strength of their impression.

 

hey have, through a long, weary use, not yet reached the trivial which, until now, makes their impression so dull; their great mark has not scrapped off either the academic babble or the wit of the worldly people. His soul feels among these ideas, so to speak, as in a new and beautiful region which acts on it with all its blinding light and ravishes it in the loveliest dream. The opposed misery of slavery and superstition, it pulls ever steadier and steadier onto this favourite world; the most beautiful dreams of freedom will be, indeed, dreamt in prison. Do you say to yourself, my friend, the most daring ideal of human republic, general tolerance and freedom of conscience, where else could it be better and where else could it be more natural to appear in the world than in the vicinity of Philip II and his Inquisition? All the principles and favourite feelings of the Marquis revolve around the republican virtue. Even his sacrifice for his friend proves this, for the capacity for sacrifice is the inner concept of all the republican virtue. The standpoint, in which he entered into, was directly the one where human rights and freedom of conscience was, stronger than ever, the talk about.

 

The preceding Reformation has brought these ideas, first, into circulation and the Flemish unrest received them into exercise. His independence from external influence, his stand as Knight of the Maltese Order even gave him as present the most fortunate leisure to brood this speculative enthusiasm into maturity. In the century and in the state in which the Marquis gets into, and in the settings which surround him, lies, hence, not the ground why he could not be capable of this philosophy, why he could not have been giving himself into it with enthusiastic affection. If History is rich in examples where people can leave behind, for the sake of opinions, anything that is earthly, when people put so much force into the most unfounded illusion that they bring the human minds into such a degree that they will be capable of all the sacrifices; hence, it would be odd to dispute truth to this force. In a moment which is so rich in examples, as this one, that human beings risk goods and life for principles, which in themselves have so little enthusing, it should not, it seems to me, be unusual for a character who has enough courage for the most sublime ideas, to do something similar; people must be, therefore, agree that truth is lesser capable to move the human heart than illusion.

 

The Marquis is, moreover, portrayed as a hero. Already in his early youth, he has given the proof of his courage with his sword, which he, afterwards, should manifest for a more serious occasion. Enthusing truths and a soul-elevating philosophy must become, it seems to me, in a heroic soul something really different than in the mind of a scholar or in the weary heart of a tender man of the world. There are, preferably, two actions of the Marquis which have offended people, as you say to me. The first one is his conduct towards the King, in the tenth scene of the third act and the second one is the sacrifice for his friend. However, it could be that the sincerity, with which he states to the King his sentiments, came less on the account of his courage than his precise knowledge of this character and with the elimination of the danger, hence, the main objection against this scene would be also lifted up, if I will discuss with you about Philip II regarding this particular aspect, it will be in another time, for now, I have to deal only with the sacrifice of Posa for the prince, about which I will share with you, in the next letter, some thoughts.

 

Third letter

 

You would have, recently, found the proof in Don Carlos that passionate friendship can equally be a moving subject for tragedy than passionate love and when I answered that I have delayed the depiction of such a friendship for the future, this answer was strange to you. Hence, did you also take it for granted, as most of my readers, that it has been fervent friendship that I have put as a goal in the relationship between Carlos and Marquis Posa? And from this standpoint you have, consequently, appraised maybe these two characters and maybe, until now, the whole drama? What, however, dear friend, if you have insisted really too much with me with this friendship? If it appeared from the whole cohesion of the play, distinctively, that it could not have been this goal and could also not simply be it? If the character of the Marquis itself, as it appears from the sum of his actions, did not bear with such a friendship throughout and if, immediately from his most beautiful actions, which people attribute to him, the best proof of the contrary be inferred?

 

The first announcement of the relationship between these two characters could be misleading; however, this has given also only a visible and a little attention to the contrasting attitude of both, to worsen the mistake. Through the fact that the poet departs from their youthful friendship, he has acquitted nothing from his higher plans; to the contrary, this one could not be spun from any better thread. The relationship, in which both get in together, was reminiscence of their earlier academic years. A common appreciation of harmony in the feelings, an equal liking for greatness and beautifulness, an equal enthusiasm for truth, freedom and virtue have linked them, once, with one another. A character as the one of Posa, who afterwards, hence, as it happens in the play, develops itself, must have been started early on in the play to exercise this lively sentimental force on a fruitful subject: a goodness that should be stretching itself, consequently, over the whole Humanity, must be coming from a small group.

 

This creative and ardent spirit must be having almost a substance on which it acted; one could not be offering him a more beautiful one than a tender and lively feeling as substance, to his effusions one could not be offering a more receptive person than the voluntary, equivalent son of a prince? However, already in these early times, is the earnestness of this character visibly misleading some traits; already, here, is Posa the colder, the more composed friend, and his heart which, now, is already embracing widely, in order to pull itself together for a unique creature, must be stimulated through a difficult sacrifice.

 

This excerpt is 2 580 words long. The complete translation of these letters are 15 363 words. If you need to read further excerpts, please send a request to [email protected].

Author's Note

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