Act IV contained Act I of the present form of Wallensteins Act V

Tod.

66

Act II S

The

This second division was by no means satisfactory. Piccolomini became thereby too long for stage representation,1 while the Tod, which was the most important part of the drama, did not contain sufficient material for an effective tragedy of five acts.2 This division was besides entirely arbitrary. The Tod began after the consummation of Wallenstein's union with the Swedes, and the spectator had to recall all the previous action of the drama. The first division, however, was more natural. In it the Piccolomini contained the exposition of the drama and ended just at the crucial point, "when the knot was tied,"3 while the Tod contained the tragedy proper, representing Wallenstein's final decision to join the Swedes and the necessary consequences resulting therefrom. In 1800, when Schiller revised the drama for publication, he realized the unnaturalness of the second division and returned to the first form of the drama.

We see, thus, that purely external considerations guided Schiller in the division of his drama. He intended at first to write one drama of five acts, but finding it much too long to be represented in one evening, he divided it in the best way he could into three parts. The drama is therefore by no means a trilogy in the Greek sense of the term.4 From an artistic point of view the three parts form one inseparable whole. The

1 Cf. Schiller's letters so Iffland of Dec. 24, 28 and 31, 1798, and also his letter Goethe of Dec. 31, 1798.

2 Especially weak and scanty were Acts III and IV.

3 Cf. Schiller's letter to Körner of Sept. 30, 1798, and to Iffland of Oct. 15, 1798. 4 A Greek trilogy consists of a series of three tragedies, each complete and independent in itself, but all connected with each other by a common theme. We have but one perfect specimen of a classic trilogy, viz., the Oresteia of Eschylus, consisting of the Agamemnon, the Choephori and the Eumenides. A satiric drama of a lighter cast usually followed such a trilogy, whence the whole series was called a tetralogy.

Lager acquaints us with the character of the army upon whose attitude toward Wallenstein everything depends, and thus serves as an essential part of the exposition. The ten acts of the Piccolomini and of Wallensteins Tod may be easily divided according to the usual dramatic structure into five large acts. The first act would include Piccolomini I and II and present a full exposition of Wallenstein's tension with the court, of the secret intrigues of Octavio, of Max's relation to the general and to Thekla, and, finally, of the extraordinary demands of Questenberg which threaten an immediate rupture with the court and thus furnish the drama with the "initial impulse." The second act would contain Piccolomini III, IV and V and present the "ascending action" of the drama by showing the efforts of Illo and Terzky to induce Wallenstein to act. The unexpected capture of Sesin gives here a new force to the dramatic action. The third act would embrace Acts I and II of the Tod and mark the climax of the drama through Wallenstein's decision to join the enemy. The reaction at once asserts itself. Max feels compelled to separate himself from Wallenstein, Octavio undermines the general's power by winning the officers over to the emperor, and prepares the destruction of the hero by arousing Buttler's revenge. The fourth act would correspond to Act III of the Tod, and mark the rapid “descending action," in which the forces hostile to Wallenstein prevail, the army deserts him, Max leaves him, and he is left helpless in the hands of the enemy. The fifth act would include Acts IV and V of the Tod, and contain the tragic catastrophe involving the ruin of the hero and his family,'

HISTORICAL SOURCES USED BY SCHILLER.

Schiller's own history of the Thirty Years' War was naturally one of his chief sources in the preparation of his drama, so that this work elucidates many of the historical events introduced. In order to enter into closer sympathy with his sub

Cf. here Gustav Freytag's masterly analysis of the dramatic structure of the Wallenstein tragedy in his Technik des Dramas (6th edition) pp. 177 ff. It seems to us, however, that he ascribes too much independence to the Piccolomini. He speaks of a,,Doppeldrama" and of two distinct dramatic actions which are most skillfully united (p. 181). His argument, though very ingenious, is not convincing. The drama contains but one action and everything else is subservient to it Schiller

in his letters to Körner (Sept. 30, 1798) and to Iffland (Oct. 15, 1798) distinctly says that the Piccolomini simply contains the full exposition of the drama. Nowhere does he speak of a,,Doppeldrama," as Freytag would have it. Cf. also Bellermann Schillers Dramen, II, pp. 55 ff.

ject, he made a new and thorough study of Murr's Beyträge,1 which more than any other work contributed to his historical knowledge of the period. This book consists of four parts. The first hundred and twenty-four pages give an account of the condition of the city of Nürnberg during the Thirty Years' War. The second part (pp. 131-202), entitled Alberti Fridlandi Perduellionis Chaos, is a reprint of a pamphlet first published in 1634, and presents Wallenstein's career in a most unfavorable light. It was probably instigated by Wallenstein's bitterest foe, his uncle William Slawata. The third part of the Beyträge (pp. 203–296) contains the Ausführlicher und Gründlicher Bericht, which is a reprint of the official or semiofficial declaration of the Court of Vienna of 1635, justifying the conduct of the court toward Wallenstein. It is a decidedly partisan document, aiming to prove by the most glaring distortion of well-known facts Wallenstein's treason. The last part of Murr's book presents sundry information about various interesting phases of Wallenstein's life. Ranke and other historians have shown the many inconsistencies and the general unreliable character of the material presented by Murr. Schiller was especially influenced by the third part of Murr's Beyträge, viz., the Ausführlicher und Gründlicher Bericht.2 The direct influence of Khevenhiller's Annales Ferdinandei and Herchenhahn's Geschichte Albrechts von Wallenstein was comparatively slight, although both works were extensively used by Schiller in writing his history. Schiller also consulted Merian's Theatrum Europaeum, Chemnitz's Der schwedische, in Deutschland geführte Krieg, Engelssüss's Weimarischer Feldzug, and Pelzel's Geschichte Böhmens, but none of these works left a direct impression upon the drama. It is interesting to note that although Schiller drew his facts from sources hostile to Wallenstein, a profound and sympathetic study led him to such an interpretation of his hero's character that it agrees essentially with the Wallenstein of history as represented by the best modern writers.3

1 Beyträge zur Geschichte des 30-jährigen Krieges insonderheit des Zustandes der Reichsstadt Nürnberg während desselben, nebst Urkunden und vielen Erläuterungen zur Geschichte des kaiserl. Generalissimus A. Wallensteins.... Herausgegeben von Christoph Gottlieb von Murr, Nürnberg, 1790.

2 Cf. Schweizer, Die Wallensteinfrage, pp. 10-29, and Boxberger Zur Quellen forschung über Schillers Wallenstein. Gosche's Archiv für Litteraturgeschichte, II, pp. 159-178.

3 Cf. Von Lilienkron: Der Wallenstein der Schiller'schen Tragödie im Licht der neuesten Geschichtsforschung. Deutsche Rundschau, 1895, pp. 267 ff.

RELATION OF THE WALLENSTEIN DRAMA TO

HISTORY.

The most difficult part of Schiller's task was the arrangement of his vast and complicated material, in a clear and simple dramatic action. No dramatic poet ever had to contend with a more stubborn and unpromising material, and nowhere can we better study and admire the consummate art of Schiller than in his mastery of his theme.' Schiller never felt any scruples in changing the order and significance of events for artistic effect. Whatever limitations critics may have sought to place upon the poet in his use of historical facts, it is true that the greatest poets such as Shakspeare, Goethe and Schiller have frequently treated historical events with the greatest freedom. In the present drama it is important to determine what reasons induced Schiller to make his numerous deviations from history.

The necessities of the drama required a great reduction in the number of the persons who stood in relation to Wallenstein, and a clearer differentiation of their character and importance than was always indicated in the scources. There were the two great groups, one, of the friends and personal adherents of Wallenstein, and one, of his enemies. As Octavio was the only one of the leading conspirators present during Wallenstein's last days in Pilsen, he was given a more important rôle than he plays in history. It was probably for this reason that he was made the chief of the party of opposition, and the provisional successor of Wallenstein in the command of the army, although, as Schiller well knew, that position was held by Gallas. Octavio was in reality thirty-five years old at the time of Wallenstein's murder, but, as the head of the imperial party and as the father of Max, he had to be represented as an elderly man and as a long-tried servant of the emperor.3

Special importance attaches to the part assigned to Buttler. The historical Buttler, the scion of an ancient and noble Irish family, the husband of the Countess Phondana, could not be used for the rôle which he was to play in the drama. Schiller therefore represented him as an ambitious man, a typical plebeian, proud of his achievements and easily roused to feelings of revenge when his honor was assailed. The poet, deviating

1 Cf. Schiller's letters to Goethe of Nov. 28, 1796, May 5, 1797, and Oct. 2, 1797. 2 See Lessing's Hamburgische Dramaturgie, Nos. 19, 23 and 33. Also Eckermann's Gespräche mit Goethe of Jan. 31, 1827.

3 Cf. notes to Piccol., 11. 298 and 1983.

from his source, made him and not Illo the victim of Wallenstein's duplicity. Wallenstein was thus made indirectly responsible for his own ruin. If Wallenstein's murder was to appear as the necessary result of the dramatic situation, Schiller had to represent Buttler as a member of Wallenstein's immediate circle of adherents, and not as meeting him accidentally on his march from Pilsen to Eger. In the murder itself, Buttler, the personal foe of Wallenstein, and not Lesley, was made to play the principal part, although according to history Lesley had the more prominent rôle in the catastrophe of Eger.

The historical Countess Terzky was not suited to Schiller's dramatic purpose. She was a gentle, quiet lady and indifferent to Wallenstein's political intrigues. At the time of the murder of her husband she was in Eger and awakened Wallenstein by her lamentations. She did not die by poison, but later contracted a second marriage. Needing a woman of high ambition and courage, who had understanding and sympathy for Wallenstein's far-reaching plans, Schiller endowed Countess Terzky with characteristics which were preeminent in her mother-inlaw, the Countess Maria Magdalena Terzky, and in her sister-inlaw, the Countess Elizabeth Kinsky.

The Duchess of Friedland and her daughter were at the time of Wallenstein's murder at Bruck on the Leitha, 3 and yet Schiller represented them as present in Pilsen and Eger, in order to lend a touch of human interest to Wallenstein's character and make the love-scenes between Max and Thekla possible.

Max and Thekla are entirely fictitious characters.4 Wallenstein's daughter, Maria Elizabeth, at the time of the catastrophe nine years old, and later on married to Count Kaunitz,5 could not be used by the poet. Schiller probably knew nothing of the fact that Octavio Piccolomini actually had a nephew Joseph Silvio, also called Max Piccolomini, whom he adopted, and who was slain in battle with the Swedes in 1645. Schiller's youthful hero derived his name from Maximilian von Waldstein, nephew and heir to the Duke of Friedland.

The battle of Neustadt, in which Max fell, is fictitious, although the battle of Jankau, in 1645, may have suggested to the poet a few features in the description. Schiller describes this

Cf. Murr, p. 172, and Schiller, Werke, XI, p. 308.

2 Cf. Murr, p. 340.

3 Murr, p. 338.

4 See Index under Piccolomini and Thekla.

5 Schiller must have known of her name and marriage from Murr, p. 358. 6 Cf. Tod, 3018 ff.