Abstract
In the fall of 1788, while marriage plans were ripening in Schiller’s mind, the question of a permanent position became more and more acute. During his stay in Rudolstadt, where the Lengefeld sisters lived, plans for the future were discussed and suggestions ranged from a winter journey to Hamburg, or a return to Dresden, to a resumption of medical studies, which he disliked. The problem was solved by the unexpected offer of a professorship at Jena.
Ruhig sieht die Geschichte dem verworrenen Spiele zu; denn ihr weitreichender Blick entdeckt schon von Ferne, wo diese regellos schweifende Freiheit am Bande der Notwendigkeit geleitet wird. Schiller
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References
Scherr, op. cit. Vol. II, 160.
Reinhard Buchwald, Schiller, Leipzig, 1937, II, 112.
Dated December 9, 1788.
Schiller und seine Zeit, 1859, II, 149.
Dated July 27, 1788. Jonas, II, p. 93.
Buchwald, op. cit., II, p. 125.
Cf. Fritz Strich, Schiller sein Leben und sein Werk, Berlin, 1927, p. 190: “It was not material hardship that pushed Schiller into history, but an inner necessity. The material hardship only explains the tremendous volume of his historical studies … His idealism needed a new realism to complete and establish itself.” In 1786 already Schiller had written Körner: “History is getting dearer to me day by day … I wish I had studied nothing but history for ten years, I believe it would have made me an entirely different person.” Jonas I, p. 291.
Published first in Amsterdam, 1642. Mention should perhaps also be made of Sir Walter Raleigh, for although few would call him a historian by modern standards, Lord Acton thought highly of Raleigh’s History of the World and once remarked: “I venerate that villainous adventurer for his views on universal history.” (Quoted by Eric Ecclestone in Sir Walter Raleigh, Harmondsworth, 1941, p. 88.)
Poet. 9.
Sämtliche Werke, Leipzig, n.d., Vol. I, p. 324.
Jonas II, p. 291.
Letter of April 18, 1796. Quoted in Eberhard Kretschmar, Schiller, Sein Leben in Selbstzeugnissen Briefen und Berichten. Berlin, 1938, p. 255.
November 10, 1789. Jonas II, p. 363.
Ibid., p. 367.
Scherr, op. cit. II, 166.
Jacques Droz, L’Allemagne et la révolution française, Paris, 1949, p. 116.
Exception must be made of course of Georg Forster who in 1792 planted the tree of liberty in Mainz and remained faithful to the ideas of the revolution until his tragic death in Paris. (1794).
See Droz, Ibid., p. 337-340, and Alfred Stern, Der Einfluss der französischen Revolution auf das deutsche Geistesleben, Stuttgart, 1928, p. 120.
Quoted by Stern, op. cit., p. 109.
Goethes Werke, Berlin, Bong & Co., N.D., Vol. I, p. 161.
Johann Peter Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe, Wiesbaden, 1959, p. 415.
Ibid., p. 437.
The distinction made by Herbert Read in Existentialism, Marxism and Anarchism, London, 1949, p. 24, between liberty and freedom, respectively a doctrine of liberty and a philosophy of freedom, is debatable.
Isaiah Berlin, Two concepts of liberty, Oxford, 1958, p. 7.
Werke (HA) II, p. 13.
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© 1965 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Regin, D. (1965). Professional History. In: Freedom and Dignity. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9097-8_5
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