The Rudolf Steiner Archive

20. Schiller and Goethe

[ 1 ] Today we turn to one of the most important chapters in German intellectual history: the relationship between Goethe and Schiller. The relationship between the two is unique in the world. They came from different backgrounds. Goethe came from Herder and everything connected to the unity of mind and nature; Schiller came from Kantian philosophy and dualism. Furthermore, Goethe’s and Schiller’s personalities were fundamentally different. Take Goethe’s Faust, for example: how he seeks to penetrate nature, how he feels unsatisfied with grasping something spiritual through abstractions, and how he strives to draw it directly from nature. For Schiller, nature was initially something base; the ideal was, for him, something special that had sprung from the spirit, in contradiction to the real. Both were extraordinarily profound individuals, which is why they found it so difficult to see eye to eye. Thus we see that these two great geniuses were completely unable to understand one another in the early days of their personal encounter.

[ 2 ] When Schiller arrived in Weimar, he felt more repelled than attracted by what he heard about Goethe; even a personal meeting could not change that. Thus, in 1788, Schiller was able to write a disparaging review of Egmont, the fruit of mature artistic study. He could not understand how Goethe had portrayed Egmont—not as a heroic dreamer, as Schiller would have preferred at the time, but, in his opinion, as a sort of weakling who allows himself to be dictated to by the circumstances. Schiller could not understand Iphigenia at that time either.

[ 3 ] Schiller and Goethe agreed on one point. In an essay on Bürger’s poems, Schiller had expressed the view that Bürger’s lack of idealism did not satisfy him. Goethe agreed so strongly with this essay that he said he would have liked to have written it himself. But the difference in the course of their two minds becomes even more apparent in Schiller’s essay on “Grace and Dignity.” In this essay, Schiller’s entire striving for freedom is laid bare before us. He cannot find grace in the necessary; a work of nature cannot appear graceful; only in a work of art—which is a symbol, an emblem of freedom—can we speak of “grace.” One can speak of “dignity” only in relation to the higher spiritual realm. In all this, Schiller’s long-standing tendency to conceive of the ideal as something opposed to the natural was evident.

[ 4 ] Nor should the professorship in Jena, which Goethe secured for Schiller, be viewed as a favor between friends. This event was of far-reaching significance for Schiller. Through his study of historical figures, he was able to gain a deep insight into the development of the human spirit. It also gave him the opportunity to establish a household and marry Charlotte von Lengefeld. It was precisely through the study of history that Schiller was able to mature, as his inaugural lecture topic—“What does it mean to study universal history, and to what end?”—so meaningfully expresses. In this way, Schiller became increasingly grounded in reality.

[ 5 ] Starting in 1790, after a visit to Körner—who acted as a mediator between the two—Goethe likely came to have a very different view of Schiller. Yet their friendship was not to be defined by the points on which people of ordinary disposition find common ground. This alliance was not to arise from personal interests. Given the differences in their personalities, their friendship would never have become so world-historically significant had it developed in this way.

[ 6 ] It was after a meeting of the Society for Natural Science Research in 1794—presumably in July—that Goethe and Schiller, on their way home, struck up a conversation about the lecture they had just heard. Schiller said that it had all seemed so fragmented to him, like a jumble of details, to which Goethe replied that he could well imagine a different way of observing nature. He explained to Schiller his views on the interconnectedness of all living beings, and how the entire plant kingdom should be regarded as being in a state of constant evolution. With a few characteristic strokes, Goethe sketched the primordial plant he had discovered onto a sheet of paper. “But that is not reality; that is an idea,” Schiller objected. “Well, if that is an idea,” said Goethe, “then I see my ideas with my eyes.” Thus, the clash between their two ways of thinking became apparent. Goethe saw the spirit in nature. For him, what the spirit intuitively grasped was just as real as the sensory; for him, nature encompasses the spirit. Schiller’s true greatness was now revealed in the way he strove to fathom the foundation of Goethe’s spirit. He wanted to find the right perspective. In his unselfish appreciation of what stood before him, Schiller laid the foundation for the deep friendship that would henceforth bind the two men together. The letter dated August 23, 1794, which Schiller wrote to Goethe after immersing himself in Goethe’s work, is one of the most beautiful human documents. “For a long time now, though from a considerable distance, I have been observing the course of your mind and noting the path you have charted for yourself with ever-renewed admiration. You seek the essence of nature, but you seek it by the most arduous path, one that any weaker force would surely avoid. You take all of nature as a whole in order to gain insight into the individual: in the totality of its manifestations, you seek the basis for explaining the individual.”

[ 7 ] In this way, Schiller paid tribute to Goethe after coming to know him. There is no deeper psychological portrayal of Goethe. This remained the case until Schiller’s death: their friendship was unassailable, even though envy and resentment sought to drive the two apart by the most despicable means. Now they worked together in such a way that the advice of one always had a stimulating effect on the other. Schiller demonstrates a greatness that has not yet been surpassed by other aestheticians, asking himself: “How does this or that concept accord with the spirit of Goethe?” a description of the various types of artistic creation, which he sets forth in his treatise on “Naive and Sentimental Art.” The artist creates naively when he is still in harmony with nature, when he himself is still nature within nature. This is how the Greeks created. The sentimental artist creates when he longs to return to nature after having been torn away from it. This is the essence of modern art.

[ 8 ] There is something profound in the way the friends perceived art. An ancient teaching, which lives on in Eastern wisdom—concerning the transience of all phenomena and the veil of Maya—finds expression here. Only the person who rises above illusion into the realm of the spirit lives in reality. The highest reality is not something external. Everything urged the two toward an inner effect. Goethe had indeed had his Faust say: “In the beginning was the deed.” But in Germany at that time, conditions had not yet progressed far enough to create external effects, as they had in France; there was only a longing for freedom. Thus, these spirits sought their deeds in the realm of beauty, in works of art. The aim was to imbue life with a reflection of the higher reality—nature within nature—through beautiful appearance.

[ 9 ] Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister is characterized by this theme. In Wilhelm Meister, the aim is to lead the protagonist beyond the illusory aspects of everyday life toward the fulfillment of his personality. Thus, Wilhelm Meister becomes the most beautiful coming-of-age novel, for which Schiller’s words could serve as a motto: “Only through the dawn of beauty do you enter the realm of knowledge.” The spirit from which we act is the highest reality. It was not possible at that time to show that the spiritual world of the spirit is born from within. Thus, Wilhelm Meister initially depicted the liberation of the world through artistic beauty.

[ 10 ] Schiller’s ongoing collaboration and advice helped bring out the personal element in Wilhelm Meister. Here we see, on the one hand, what must be regarded as the deeper cause of the human being—what a more recent spiritual science calls the “causal body”—and, on the other hand, external influences. Nothing develops that is not already present in embryonic form, but it is shaped by external influences. This interplay is evident in Schiller’s creative work. His ballads and his Wallenstein would not have been possible had Goethe’s influence not had a fertilizing effect. There was a kind of modesty with which the two regarded one another, in which lies immense greatness. They actually became a whole only through the complementarity of their two natures, through which, however, something immensely great could also come into being.

[ 11 ] It was their deep and strong friendship that caused all the philistines to rise up against them. The two were hounded by envy and resentment, for the small-minded have never been able to comprehend greatness. Today, it is hard to believe what attacks were unleashed upon these great men by the small-minded. The Annalen für Philosophie, for example, spoke of them with contempt; a certain Manso described them as “scribblers from Weimar and Jena...” They had to defend themselves against all these attacks, and what they published in the Xenien in 1796 stands as a beautiful monument to their friendship. In these couplets, in which they meted out a judgment of world-historical proportions upon all those who had offended them and good taste, it is not always possible to distinguish which lines originated with Goethe and which with Schiller. Their friendship was meant to make them appear as one person. In the example of Schiller and Goethe, we can see how greatness knows how to defend itself against the trivialities of everyday life, and how friendship, rooted in the spiritual, truly sustains and elevates.

[ 12 ] And both sought the truth: Schiller, first and foremost, in the human heart; Goethe, in all of nature.