Goethe Yearbook

The relationship Goethe forged with Schiller from 1794 is not so anomalous in light of the many intense bonds he formed with like-minded men in his youth and in Italy, all of which furthered his literary and intellectual growth. In those, however, a meeting immediately produced a meeting of the minds. Rapport was absent when Goethe, newly returned from Italy, met Schiller in 1788 at the home of the Lengefelds in Rudolstadt. The author of Die Räuber reminded him uncomfortably of past enthusiasms. For the next six years they remained distant acquaintances, even though Schiller lived most of this time in nearby Jena.

Unbeknownst to Goethe, there had been an earlier encounter, on December 14, 1779, at the Karlsschule in Stuttgart. Goethe and Carl August, on the way back to Weimar after their trip to Switzerland, stood on either side of Carl Eugen as the duke handed out awards to his students. Among them was the twenty-year-old Schiller, wearing the regulation uniform of the academy. On receipt of three silver medals and a medical diploma, Schiller, like the other students, had to kneel and kiss the hem of the duke’s coat. According to Rüdiger Safranski, Schiller “wagt es nicht, den Blick seitlich schräg nach oben zu lenken, wo Goethe über ihn hinwegblickt” (18). Fully the first third of this new book by Safranski concerns such incompatibilities, which had to be overcome before Schiller and Goethe could have a meeting of the minds, before the “glückliches Ereignis” could occur. (In this connection, see Ellwood Wiggins, “Dramas of Knowledge: The ‘Fortunate Event’ of Recognition,” Goethe Yearbook, vol. 17.)

Schiller, according to Safranski, was a man of constant calculation. From his first poetic efforts (written while he was in Stuttgart and penning obsequious letters to Carl Eugen) he measured himself against Goethe and wanted to be near him, wanted to be the star that Goethe was. His feelings toward Goethe, however, [End Page 304] were not always ones of admiration: “Dieser Mensch,” he wrote his friend Körner in 1789, “dieser Goethe ist mir einmal im Wege, und er erinnert mich so oft, daß das Schicksal mich hart behandelt hat. Wie leicht ward sein Genie von seinem Schicksal getragen, und wie muß ich bis auf diese Minute noch kämpfen!” (71–72). Family background, good health, rewards from the powerful—Goethe seemed to have it all, while Schiller had to fight for everything.

At a certain point, however, Schiller had the sense to apply all his thinking about virtue and freedom to himself. Before moving to Jena in 1789, he formulated in a letter to his fiancée what Safranski calls his “Lebensrezept für die folgenden Jahre”: “Es ist eine Sprache, die alle Menschen verstehen, diese ist, gebrauche deine Kräfte. Wenn jeder mit seiner ganzen Kraft wirkt, so kann er dem andern nicht verborgen bleiben. Dies ist mein Plan. Wenn einmal meine Lage so ist, daß ich alle meine Krafte wirken lassen kann, so wird er [Goethe] und andre mich kennen, wie ich seinen Geist jetzt kenne” (73).

By 1794 the achievement gap had narrowed. (Schiller had also moved socially upward by marrying Charlotte von Lengefeld, goddaughter of Charlotte von Stein, while Goethe, in contrast, had become somewhat déclassé through his liaison with Christiane Vulpius.) Indeed, by 1794 the balance of power had shifted decisively, and Schiller was a literary giant in his own right. That summer he had arranged with Cotta to publish the periodical Die Horen. Naturally, Goethe, whose view of Schiller was now more positive, was invited to participate in this ambitious literary undertaking. Calculation was also at work on Goethe’s side: Goethe felt that his literary powers had dried up, that others thought he was living off his reputation. Schiller, according to Safranski, would bring him back to the literary marketplace, which had changed immeasurably since the success of Werther. Schiller, for his part, did not feel inhibited by Goethe: “[A]uf Schiller wirkt Goethe anstachelnd, nicht, wie auf viele andere, einschüchternd...