Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich von

German dramatist, poet, and historian. He wrote Sturm und Drang (‘storm and stress’) verse and plays, including the dramatic trilogy Wallenstein (1798–99). He was an idealist, and much of his work concerns the aspiration for political freedom and the avoidance of mediocrity.

After the success of his play Die Räuber/The Robbers (1781), he completed the tragedies Die Verschwörung des Fiesko zu Genua/Fiesco, or, the Genoese Conspiracy (his first historical drama) and Kabale und Liebe/Intrigue and Love (1783). In 1787 he wrote his more mature blank-verse drama Don Carlos and the hymn ‘An die Freude/Ode to Joy’, later used by Beethoven in his ninth symphony. As professor of history at Jena from 1789 he completed a history of the Thirty Years' War and developed a close friendship with Goethe, after early antagonism. His essays on aesthetics include the piece of literary criticism Über naive und sentimentalische Dichtung/Naive and Sentimental Poetry (1795–96). Schiller became the foremost German dramatist with his classic dramas Wallenstein, Maria Stuart (1800), Die Jungfrau von Orleans/The Maid of Orleans (1801), and Wilhelm Tell/William Tell (1804).